Zürich Weekend Guide

As a friend of mine, Ursula is moving there soon, I had occasion to dig out my old Zürich guide from the old days, when I would try to pop over and visit Sel and Hendrich, and Jake and Natsuko, as often as possible. Those carefree carbon-heavy days are long-gone for me! Anyway, in the hope it may be useful to people, I present:

Sam's Weekend Guide to Zürich

1. If nice day, you can take the train from the Hbf (Haupt Bahnhof, i.e. main station) up to Uetliberg. It's a special train that goes up there, then you walk up the last bit and have a lovely view over Zurich.

2. If you have a whole (nice) afternoon or morning free - perhaps Sunday morning, you can train to Schaffhausen where it's a 40-minute walk (or quicker cycle - hire a bike there) to Europe's biggest waterfall, the Rhinefall. It is spectacular.

3. Buy a 24hr pass at the airport when you arrive for zones 10,21. It should be SFr 11.60. Then you can use it around the whole city. The ticket machines are a bit confusing, there is an explanation of how they work here.

4. I haven't been to the chocolate factory but it's probably worth going if the weather is less-than-perfect. Update: chocolate factory closed, but I think you can visit Lindt and Sprüngli's substantial outlets in town.

5. When you go out, wander around and try a few different bars. There are lots of nice places, but sometimes when you walk about you begin to think that the whole place is empty!! Keep looking! Or go up to the Jules Verne Panoramabar for great views.

6. The most popular area for going out is Niederdorfstrasse, basically along the left-hand side of the lake from the Hbf. Lots of cafes, bars, etc. There is also LimmatBar around there, where you have to go at the end of the evening! Rote Fabrik is also interesting.

7. In terms of tourism, wander round the old town area to the right of the lake from the station. The main shopping area is from the Hbf along BahnhofStrasse towards ParadePlatz. See the big three church clocks, go to a traditional Swiss-German restaurant and eat sausages and apple strudel! Perhaps try some or one of these restaurants.

8. Boats on the ZurichSee (the big lake), or swimming when the weather is nice. Take your costume! You could take a boat to the other end of the lake to Rapperswill, which I haven't been to, but it's supposed to be nice and there's a pretty castle.

9. Try the imposing castle-like Swiss National Museum (I ate in a cafe outside it!) or try the waterside terraces for a coffee or drink.

10. The main art gallery, the KunstHaus, is very nice - a manageable size with a good spread of art of all ages and styles.

11. There's a nice forest above the University - take the funicular up then carry on walking.

12. On the way home, buy all your chocolate from the airport - after you're checked in, before security, there is a Migros supermarket in the corner somewhere, it's a reasonable size and good place for stocking up on goodies!

Rise of sea levels is 'the greatest lie ever told'

Flooding in Whitstable in 1953

This is the headline from the Booker's column in the Telegraph on Sunday, covering the findings of Swedish geologist and physicist Dr Nils-Axel Mörner, formerly chairman of the INQUA International Commission on Sea Level Change, with 35 years experience studying global sea levels, that rising sea levels is a myth.

Despite all the hype:

* The UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) only predicts a sea level rise of 59cm (17 inches) by 2100.

* According to Dr Mörner, "The sea is not rising," he says. "It hasn't risen in 50 years." If there is any rise this century it will "not be more than 10cm (four inches), with an uncertainty of plus or minus 10cm".

* Studies of the Maldives confirm that the sea has not risen for half a century.

* Similarly in Tuvalu the sea has dropped in recent decades.

* Venice has been sinking rather than the Adriatic rising.

And the source of all these dire predictions on which so much panic and public spend is based upon? Flawed computer models rather than actual measurements. Until 2003, the IPCC's own satellite-based evidence showed no upward trend. Suddenly the graph tilted upwards because the IPCC's favoured experts had drawn on the finding of a *single tide-gauge* in Hong Kong harbour showing a 2.3mm rise. The entire global sea-level projection was then adjusted upwards by a "corrective factor" of 2.3mm, because, as the IPCC scientists admitted, they "needed to show a trend".

Disgraceful. What we need is another Without the Hot Air for Climate Change predictions, i.e. honest factual analysis without all the waffle and self-interest. For more information about Dr Mörner, read his report "Claim that sea level is rising is a total fraud" here, or look him up on Youtube.

Darius Brubeck and Junior

Darius Brubeck is the son of Dave Brubeck, the famous American Jazz pianist, but has carved out his own career, living in South Africa for a few years and adsorbing musically from the music there, including locals like Abdul Ibrahim. Anyway, Jess is over from Australia, and arranged a meet up in the old PizzaExpress venue to see him.


Introducing..

In attendance.. Jess and her two sisters, Samantha and Liz, Niran, Nidhi and myself. Any hopes that Paolo would come so I'd have a chap to talk to were swiftly dashed!



Musically, they worked their way through a variety of styles and influences. I was slightly worried when mid-set they slipped into what I would describe as "elevator jazz", but they didn't remain there long, lifting the mood with catchy numbers, and Brubeck himself delighting in the Steinway piano, which for one tune he explained he would have a play with to see what he could produce, before letting the band join in later.


Mother and son

Niran apparently is not very keen on the sax, which was a shame as the first song was rather heavy on the wind (fine by me), so he enjoyed a snooze. The talented Paul Greenwood switched between a variety of woodwind instruments during the evening, and more discretely (quite literally, we couldn't really see either of them behind a pillar!) Matt Ridley and Wesley Gibbens supported on bass and drums.


Flute

The warm-up act beforehand (this seems to be the way they do things now) was a surprisingly good offering of ‘progressive medieval Spanish blues’ by Claude Bourbon.


Niran enjoys

All in all a marvellous show, and I'm glad I went. Pizza was good too, though I didn't realise at the time just how spicy it was.. After feeling rather warm all evening, later on it occurred to me that the whole thing was stuffed full of chopped chillis! Should blast this cold away, eh?!



Afterwards I insisted we waited around to get the obligatory photo:


Darius Brubeck with Jess and Niran

I'd recommend people check out Darius' new CD, Lydia and the Lion (though I decided I couldn't justify buying it.. see below!!)

Röyksopp - Junior


Happy Birthday Röyksopp

Hot on the heels of their tenth birthday (download their home-made birthday track here) as a band, the Norwegian electronic duo from Bergen have released their third album, Junior. I have a rule about not buying cds in the current economic climate, but there are exceptions, and this one arrived in the post this morning.

The album is available to listen to on their website, so there are no surprises, but playing through my lovely B&Ws, the whole disc is manna on my ears.. Torbjørn Brundtland and Svein Berge have created something beautiful yet again.. it's not Melody AM, it's not The Understanding, but in between, with a host of fantastic Scandanavian guest singers, catchy melodies, and warm pumping dance rhythms. The only track I don't particularly like (and there's one on each Royksopp album!) is True to Life, which is a bit over-percussioned for my tastes (each to their own of course).


Röyksopp's Junior

Factoid: Eple means Apple in Norwegian!

The Devalued Prime Minister of a Devalued Government

A short clip from a marvellous and refreshing straight-talking European Parliament speech on 26/03/09 by Daniel Hannan, MEP for the South East of England and author of The Plan: Twelve Months to Renew Britain. Watch and enjoy as he tells it like it is to Gordon Brown:



Why is the BBC not featuring this damning indictment of Brown more strongly? One has to delve into the politics section to notice a link to the video. Surely this should be front page news?! Spread the word!

Transcript of Speech
Prime Minister, I see you’ve already mastered the essential craft of the European politician, namely the ability to say one thing in this chamber and a very different thing to your home electorate. You’ve spoken here about free trade, and amen to that. Who would have guessed, listening to you just now, that you were the author of the phrase ‘British jobs for British workers’ and that you have subsidised, where you have not nationalised outright, swathes of our economy, including the car industry and many of the banks? Perhaps you would have more moral authority in this house if your actions matched your words? Perhaps you would have more legitimacy in the councils of the world if the United Kingdom were not going into this recession in the worst condition of any G20 country?

The truth, Prime Minister, is that you have run out of our money. The country as a whole is now in negative equity. Every British child is born owing around £20,000. Servicing the interest on that debt is going to cost more than educating the child. Now, once again today you try to spread the blame around; you spoke about an international recession, international crisis. Well, it is true that we are all sailing together into the squalls. But not every vessel in the convoy is in the same dilapidated condition. Other ships used the good years to caulk their hulls and clear their rigging; in other words – to pay off debt. But you used the good years to raise borrowing yet further. As a consequence, under your captaincy, our hull is pressed deep into the water line under the accumulated weight of your debt We are now running a deficit that touches 10% of GDP, an almost unbelievable figure. More than Pakistan, more than Hungary; countries where the IMF have already been called in. Now, it’s not that you’re not apologising; like everyone else I have long accepted that you’re pathologically incapable of accepting responsibility for these things. It’s that you’re carrying on, wilfully worsening our situation, wantonly spending what little we have left. Last year - in the last twelve months – a hundred thousand private sector jobs have been lost and yet you created thirty thousand public sector jobs.

Prime Minister, you cannot carry on for ever squeezing the productive bit of the economy in order to fund an unprecedented engorgement of the unproductive bit. You cannot spend your way out of recession or borrow your way out of debt. And when you repeat, in that wooden and perfunctory way, that our situation is better than others, that we’re ‘well-placed to weather the storm’, I have to tell you that you sound like a Brezhnev-era apparatchik giving the party line. You know, and we know, and you know that we know that it’s nonsense! Everyone knows that Britain is worse off than any other country as we go into these hard times. The IMF has said so; the European Commission has said so; the markets have said so – which is why our currency has devalued by thirty percent. And soon the voters too will get their chance to say so. They can see what the markets have already seen: that you are the devalued Prime Minister of a devalued government.