thoughts from my desk or from the road
“Your blog suggests you died in mid March…”, said Rachel. Inevitably the initial desire to share my views with the world waned fairly fast – correlating closely with my workload going up. But I’m back. I’m writing this from the Hotel des Tourelles in Geneva. This has to be the best value hotel in a… Read more Geneva: Omegamania
The Lonely Planet suggested that a trip to the Mercato Communale was a good idea. The thought of an Italian food market in a large city was too good to turn down. Equipped with images of vaulted ceilings, hordes of animated Milanese discussing the best way to cook veal, and appealing racks of salamis dangling… Read more Expectation Management
Greetings all from the fashion capital of the world (no, not Düsseldorf, whatever it would have you believe). This week, I am mostly being in Milan. First impressions are favourable (helped by a hotel that exceeded expectations). The Central Station is an astonishing edifice – I really feel the word “building” doesn’t do it justice.… Read more Buongiorno
Time for a good old-fashioned spleen vent.Heathrow Express is frighteningly expensive. A return nowadays sets you back £29, which is almost £1 a minute. At peak times there’s substantial demand for the service which whisks you from Heathrow into central London in 15 minutes every 15 minutes. The trouble is when that “whisking” is more… Read more Heathrow
I caught the latter part of Kill It, Cook It, Eat It last night on BBC3. Nice idea – follow an animal from field to plate; but presenter Richard Johnson seemed hell bent on making this “controversial”. The problem is that the average person who chooses to watch in the first place has probably already… Read more Kill It, Cook It, Eat it
So much for the idea of letting the train take the strain, and missing out on those irksome flight delays. Still, better than schlepping out to the airport even if we were stuck traveling at a “vitesse reduit” for most of the journey and arrived about 45 minutes late. Paris tip: don’t think that no-one… Read more Eurostar, you’re a star
Haussmann certainly knew a thing or two about boulevards. We’ll forget the military undertones of rapid troop movements and easily barricadable side-streets, the man knew width and indeed length. Why, Baron, you are spoiling us with your enormous streets. Why would someone – in fact a lot of people – walk round the Picasso Museum… Read more Click art
Well, early March. Drove through the centre at midday – everyone tucking into their plats du jour. This is the most productive country in Europe at the moment. Incroyable.
Is it depressing or reassuring that “most naturally talented [insert field of expertise] of his/her generation” usually equals “underachiever”? Swiss fact of the day: Catching some ZsZurich (pop: 366,000) had 2.4m overnight stays in 2006. Zermatt (pop: 5,500) had 1.2 million.
I’ve succumbed. I hate myself.