The Val d'Anniviers is home to a number of small resorts with very high percentages of second homes
BERN, SWITZERLAND – Canton Valais was the one holdout in a recent federal vote where the Swiss agreed to limit the number of second homes, and resort-rich Valais is the canton the most affected by the decision.
Angry cantonal groups and politicians found some comfort Monday 21 May when Doris Leuthard, minister for the environment, told 70 commune leaders meeting in Sierre that the new rules, currently under development, will not apply to existing homes.
The hot question is whether or not communes can approve building permits between now and the end of the year, when the new ordinance is expected to be published and come into effect.
Franz Weber, ecologist who was behind the popular initiative that passed by less than 51 percent 11 March 2012, has said the law should be respected from the day of the vote, while many communes, with building permits pending, have argued that they should be given time to fall in line.
Building permits: issue them at your own risk
The new law calls for no more than 20 percent of a commune to be second homes. Some communes, such as Saint-Luc in the Val d’Anniviers, have well over 70 percent.
Leuthard told the local leaders that while they could go ahead with issuing building permits, they do so at the risk of their decisions being overturned later by a court.
Three storey brick building is largest ever moved in Europe
ZURICH, SWITZERLAND – It’s only a 60-metre ride, but the passenger is unusually large. Oerlikon railway station is being enlarged and the three-storey brick building must be moved to make room for the expansion. The building’s new owner, Swiss Prime Site, says this is the largest building ever moved in Europe: 80 metres long, 12 m wide and 6,200 tons.
The removal is a CHF12 million job, but when the CFF said it would have to tear down the 123-yer-old building that has housed, since the start, Machines-Outils Oerlikon (MFO), locals objected and rallied to save the building. It will take 20 hours to slide it down the rails to its new home.
Swiss German television’s web site is carrying the move live, which at 3kph makes for a relatively slow-moving news story. Or you can look at the animated version the new owner has created.
Riddes fire Sunday night, village centre lumberyard destroyed, no injuries
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – A lumberyard in the centre of the small town of Riddes, between Martigny and Sion in canton Valais, went up in flames around 22:00 Sunday night 20 May, causing heavy damage but no injuries.
Police say an investigation has been opened, with no clear cause for the fire at the moment.
The lumberyard was destroyed and wood that was stored nearby was calcified.
Police closed the A9 autoroute until shortly after midnight because of heavy smoke and high winds.
Twelve homes near the fire were evacuated and the commune put up close to 100 people for the night.
Villagers are being told to keep their windows closed Monday because of smoke in the air.
100 neighbours evacuated from Riddes fire as a precaution, with high winds blowing
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Northeastern Italy had a 6.0 earthquake at 04:00 Sunday 20 May, and six people have been found dead, Italian media are reporting. Ferrare and Modena appear to have been hardest hit, with four night workers killed in three separate locations by falling buildings or materials.
A 100-year-old woman and a 37-year-old German woman who was in Italy for her work died from shock-related injuries.
At least 12 people appear to have been injured by the tremors, unusually strong for Italy. The 6.3 earthquake that hit the town of L’Aquila in 2009 killed nearly 300 people.
Local newspaper Il Resto Del Carlino is publishing a series of photos showing the damage in towns and villages in the region.
Reuters reports that the epicentre appears to have been “in the plains near Modena in the Emilia-Romagna region of the Po river valley, and the tremor was felt as far west as Liguria, bordering France, and the Friuli region bordering Slovenia,” adding that several historic buildings have been badly damaged, including the roof of the cathedral in Mirandola, which collapsed just hours before the town’s children were to receive their First Communion there.
The 2011 Chasselas, near Chamoson, Valais, recently bottled and waiting for your this weekend during the wineries open house days
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Much of Switzerland, including the Lake Geneva area, will be taking a four-day Ascension weekend starting Thursday 17 May. Some areas, for example most of canton Valais, are open for business Friday.
The weather forecast is not a springtime ideal, with rain and sun and wind wrapped around chilly temperatures, highs of 20C Friday, 25C Sunday, then dropping back to a high of 17C Monday.
Early Thursday, snow line down to 1,000 metres altitude and danger of frost on the plains.
You’ll need to keep plenty of options handy for entertainent this weekend; be sure to check our popular events page.
Big events this weekend include the winery open house days, Thursday to Saturday, throughout canton Valais, the country’s largest wine-producing region.
The bulk of the vineyards are in the villages that fan out from the Rhone river, nestled below snowy Alpine peaks, so visiting the area is always a beautiful trip.
A couple other suggestions (check the events page for details) are roasted sausages at the Chillon castle, one of Switzerland’s top tourist attractions, Saturday evening, and a stroll along Geneva’s boardwalk to see the exhibit of international cartoons.
Valais wineries open house days, suggestions
- your first step should be to visit the Vins du Valais web site, in English; the practical information page is in French, however
- they published a brochure in 2010, including an English version, which provides very good background material on the canton’s vineyards, wineries, grape varieties and more – available in print in a lot of wineries, but also online, for advance reading
- the same group, which represents wineries in the canton, publishes a useful printed booklet for the Caves Ouvertes days; I picked up mine at a wonderful little boutique and wine bar, Fol’terre, at the western entrance to Fully
- if you have an iPhone, Vins du Valais has an app that will prove useful
- follow our wine tasting tips, for all the cantons, and please make an effort to use public transport rather than driving
Remember that you can always order the wine and have it shipped, a quick and easy solution that virtually all Swiss wineries offer.
Ed. note: I’m also a wine writer and I’ll be writing tasting notes from several of the wineries in Valais over the next three days. You can follow me on my GenevaLunch blog, Among the vines, and on my Swiss wines Facebook page, Ellen’s Wine World.
FRIBOURG, SWITZERLAND – A fight that broke out at the Fribourg train station at 20.20 Tuesday 15 May has left one man, a 26-year-old Tunisian asylum seeker, in critical condition, say Fribourg police. Five men, all African asylum seekers, were arrested, but a sixth man fled the scene. Police are trying to identify the missing person and to piece together details of the incident. The cause of the fight has not been made public.
Two police officers were injured slightly by one of the men, who attacked them with a broken bottle before he was brought under control.
Earlier in the day the canton issued a statement saying Fribourg police had successfully drawn to a close a sting operation code-named Eden, that identified 66 North Africans living in refugee centres in the canton, who were implicated in the “flagrant” increase in a series of crimes, from robberies to car and home break-ins (up 410 percent in the first quarter of 2012 compared to the previous two years), violence and drugs, mainly in the city of Fribourg. All were either told to leave without the right to re-enter Switzerland or in the case of those applying for refugee status they were turned down.
Police insist, in their statement, that it would be wrong to generalize: most North Africans who have applied for asylum are not involved in crime.
Swiss unveil first part of programme to better integrate foreigners through language skills
Becoming Swiss citizens: you'll need to show you speak the local language
BERN, SWITZERLAND – Switzerland’s commitment with a law that went into effect in 2008 to ensure that foreigners are better integrated into daily life in the country are taking form. The first view of the new “fide” programme was provided by Federal Councilor Simonetta Sommaruga Tuesday 15 May at the programme’s initial conference in Bern.
It is aimed at foreigners whose stay in Switzerland is “legal and long-term” says the Immigration Office, without spelling out precisely what this means, for example, if it will apply to all B and/or C permit holders. The federal and cantonal governments are budgeting funds for the new programme starting in 2014.
Longer term, the programme aims to provide immigrants with practical, daily life language skills as well as helping them obtain certification for work in a number of areas.
The practical implications for foreigners, whether long-stay permit holders or those seeking Swiss citizenship, may not yet be clear, but the programme itself is taking form. Traditionally
Fide is designed to provide a standard framework to help immigrants develop language skills in German, French and Italian. It will also offer standardized tests at different levels and for foreigners with a variety of educational backgrounds. Traditionally, the tasks of ensuring integration and testing applicants for citizenship have been left up to communes, with enormous variety in how these were handled.
Language specialists with special skills in teaching to foreigners, from throughout Switzerland’s language regions, have worked to develop the programme in line with similar efforts in the European Union. The work was coordinated by the Institute of Plurilingualism in Fribourg and pilot programmes were run by three cantons in 2011, Solothurn, Aargau and Vaud.
The courses and exams are still being designed, but will be available to language schools and teachers starting in the summer of 2012, at www.fide-info.ch.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The A2 autoroute near Bellinzona was closed for several hours early Tuesday 15 May after 300,000 m3 of rock fell when a cliff collapsed near Preonzo, close to Bellinzona. Another 500,000m3 remains unstable, according to local authorities. The industrial zone was closed over the weekend as concerns about the rock grew, but the rock fall did not cause any damage, reports news agency ats.
RIEHEN, SWITZERLAND – A retrospective of the controversial American artist Jeff Koons opened to the public Sunday 13 May at the Fondation Beyeler in Riehen, near Basel, and the artist encourages viewers to engage in a dialogue with his work.
Koons’ work, presented here for the first time in Switzerland, includes “hybrids”, as he calls them, of some of his most renowned pieces such as the shiny “Hanging Heart”. It gained notoriety in 2007 for being, at $23.6 million, the most expensive piece sold at auction of any living artist.
“Michael Jackson and Bubbles” a porcelain sculpture of the pop singer and his pet monkey, is also present, reflecting, as co-curator Theodora Vischer explains, Michelangelo’s Pietà by its layout.
Hanging Heart 1994-2006
The artist, born in 1955, was present at the show’s opening. He told journalists at a press conference that his art is the result of a “process of acceptance and discovery of the world around oneself”.
Part of that process is to break the taboo amongst artists, who would not admit to want to manipulate viewers through their art. “The objects are transponders, the art is in the viewer”, he says.
The viewer is reminded of his existence through his reflection in glittering oversized glossy metallic objects such as “Balloon Dog”,
Koons’ marriage to Italian porn star, Cicciolina and his subsequent custody battle for their son led the artist to destroy much of the explicit pornographic pieces of Koons and his ex-wife. “They were beautiful”, he says, but “they could have affected the custody rulings”.
The presence of the sexual is evident throughout the repertory on display at the Beyeler. “Balloon Swan”, another glossy sculpture, “is at the same time masculine and feminine,” says Koons, ” It calls out what it means to be human, offering a male perspective of sexual harmony.”
Jeff Koons, Balloon Swan (2004-11)
Even the multiple neon-lit displays of pristine-new Hoovers filling one of the gallery’s rooms does not escape Koons’s “trail of thought”, according to Vischer, who points to the “androgenous sexual nature of the objects, with their orifices and sucking power”.
In the museum’s garden, visitors will find Split-Rocker, a half pony-half dinosaur monument made of thousands of blooming flowers, which had only previously been displayed in Avignon in 2000 and Versailles in 2006.
Split-Rocker, 2000, at the Beyeler
Beyeler director Sam Keller defends the artist, who has been lambasted by critics for commissioning the production of his pieces to others, saying that Koons resembles the “conductor of a symphony orchestra … responsible for an industrial renaissance” among qualified artisans.
The exhibit regroups the artist’s work into three phases, called The New, Banality and Celebration.
It is showing at the Beyeler in Riehen, 13 May – 2 September 2012.
Scene of drowning Monday in canton Valais
SION, SWITZERLAND – A 42-year-old Dutch man who lives in Valais died Monday morning 14 May when he fell into the fast-moving Rhone river in the Goms Valley, near Reckingham.
Police say that while doing maintenance work at the Augenstern campground he began emptying a wheelbarrow into the river at 11:30. For reasons that are not clear, he fell into the water.
His body was found 800 metres downstream by workers at the Gommerkraftswerke electric power station.
Swiss police dog at a recent training camp (not Krak)
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – A 24-year-old Swiss border guard suffered serious injuries Sunday morning 13 May when a passenger attempted to flee from a car that was pulled over by guards. The young guard sustained two compound (open) fractures to his leg and was operated on successfully Sunday night; he will need several months to recover, according to customs authorities.
The passengers of a blue Renaut Clio with French plates were stopped at the Moillesulaz (Thônex) border area, at route de Genève 148 at 09:20 Sunday as they were leaving Switzerland. A 21-year-old Algerian jumped out of the car and tried to run back towards Switzerland.
Two guards immediately gave chase and as they caught him, one of them fell hard against a curb, breaking his leg badly. While his colleague stopped to give him first aid, the suspect ran off again and another border guard, in charge of a police dog, ordered the man to stop. When the order was ignored he called on the dog to give chase.
Krak, a 4-year-old German Shepherd, caught the man after 50 metres, biting him on the calf. The man suffered light injuries.
The car’s occupants were arrested by guards on suspicion of having committed a number of crimes in the Geneva region. They were turned over to Geneva police.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The death toll was unusually high for motorcyclsts in western Switzerland over the weekend: 1 person died in Geneva and 2 in Valais. A car accident Saturday at 17:40 took the lives of two men in Geneva.
The two men in the car crash were on the road from Peney to Bernex, in Aire-la-Ville, when their car crashed “violently” into a tree, say police. The 52-year-old passenger, a Portuguese man, died at the scene. Emergency workers gave the driver, a 75-year-old Geneva man, a long cardiac massage but were unable to save him.
Police are asking for anyone with information to contact them at +41 22 427 64 50.
Geneva, two fatal crashes in 12 hours
A 22-year-old Geneva man on a scooter died Sunday in Geneva, the canton’s sixth road death this year. The accident occurred on the viaduc de l’Ecu, say police, at 05:40 Sunday morning, when his scooter had a head-on crash with a car driven by a 62-year-old man from Togo. The circumstances of the accident are not yet clear and police are asking anyone with information to phone them at +41 22 427 64 50.
Valais, two motorcyclists killed in separate accidents
A 32-year-old Frenchman lost his life Sunday 13 May when the front of his motorcycle collided with a car that was stopped in a line of traffic, between Martigny and Fully. He was heading towards Fully at 15:40 when the accident occurred, about 200 metres short of the Branson bridge. Anyone with information is asked to phone police at the 117 emergency phone number.
Also in Valais, a 66-year-old man died Friday night on the A9 autoroute. He was pushing his motorcycle, which had broken down, through the Champsec tunnel in Sion, in the driving lane at 21:10, when a 32-year-old driver caught him with the front right edge of the car. The motorcyclist died at the scene of the accident.
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – The score this week: Valais and Vaud police 10, robbers 0.
The flashy robberies, masked men with little but deadly guns and cash registers being emptied, usually get our attention, but many of the thefts in the Lake Geneva region, particularly of businesses, is the result of break-ins. Police work often takes time to pay off and is usually less dramatic but DNA left at the site of crimes is increasingly being used to identify robbers. This week Vaud police announced they have arrested seven people for a string of more than 50 break-ins, mostly of area businesses, and thefts amounting to over CHF100,000 plus rings, jewels, cell phones and electronic equipment.
Canton Valais police say they caught three men on the autoroute shortly after they robbed a business in Martigny 30 April. The loot, for an unspecified amount was recovered from the men’s car.
The Vaud arrests came after three months of investigation into 57 robberies. The main culprit is a 29-year-old Kosovar man who took part in at least 52 of the crimes, DNA left at the scenes showed, a series of crimes committed from July 2010 to 2012. The others under arrest are also all Kosovar nationals, aged 29 to 48.
The three men, all from Georgia, who were arrested in Valais are residents of asylum centres: in Visp, Valais and Pully and Gland in canton Vaud.
BERN, SWITZERLAND – Swiss Post 9 May put its new spring stamps on the market. This year’s batch of philately delights includes two William Tell stamps, for fans of Swiss history. The fabled apple-shooter has been commemorated in stamps for more than 100 years, with the first in 2007, by Swiss artist Albert Welti. This year the stamps commemorate the 500th anniversary of the Tell plays in Altdorf and the 100th anniversary of the Tell outdoor theatre in Interlaken.
Other new special issue stamps, all with a face value of CHF1.00 are:
- Zurich comedian Ursus Wehrli “tidies up” a stamp for Swiss Post
- Bernese cartoonist Max Spring designs a “visits” theme stamp, a theme picked up in 2012 by other European post offices
- a tribute to Swiss Red Cross blood donation service for its untiring efforts to obtain blood for hospitals
- the Stanserhorn: the only two-storey aerial railway in the world with an open top deck
In addition, says Swiss Post, “The new Pro Patria surcharge stamps are making a big thing out of small buildings. Since 1996, the foundation has been committed to the preservation and restoration of small buildings in Switzerland. Wherever there are buildings, there are measurements. For 100 years the “Cadastral Surveying” has been keeping a check on plots of land, buildings, courses of water and forest boundaries. As of 9 May 2012, it will be leaving its mark on a special stamp for the first time ever.”
The stamps are available from any post office or from Swiss Post’s online shop.
Foreigners bring a wealth of business to Geneva, but the tourists are also part of the attraction for much of the city's petty crimes
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The daily police reports from Geneva police tend to confirm what too many citizens suspect, that petty crimes such as theft and drug-dealing are committed mainly by foreigners.
The latest is almost typical: police Wednesday arrested seven people for crimes ranging from shoplifting to breaking and entering to being in Switzerland without legal entry papers or a means of survival, and all were foreigners.
But there was one unusual twist, a 24-year-old American citizen who lives in Carouge was picked up for shoplifting CHF500 worth of electronic goods near Rive. He admitted to the crime and said he was getting the five items as a birthday present for his brother.
He joined, on the daily report, a Mongolian and a Tunisian who were without papers and no visible means of support, an Algerian who was picked up for theft and no papers, a Frenchman without papers who admitted to a drug habit when police traced an April incident (breaking and entering a car) to him thanks to DNA from blood, a Frenchman for breaking and entering and an Albanian without papers who turned out to have been ordered out of the country without the right to return, by canton Valais.
Max the stork with her two remaining young. Max is the world's longest banded bird, tracked since 5 July 1999
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – Max the stork, for those of you who follow the details of Switzerland’s most famous migratory bird, has lost one of three young born in April.
The other two, now three weeks old, appear to be thriving, says the Fribourg Natural History Museum 9 May, without providing details about what may have happened to little stork number 3.
Looking north from Cornavin station in Geneva, area of planned extension
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Swiss travelers increased their use of trains by 27 percent from 2005 to 2010 and one of the fastest-growing train routes, in terms of passenger numbers, is the Lausanne-Geneva line. The CFF and Geneva have begun studying its options for the next stage after its current renovations: extending the station to handle traffic that will double on the line by 2030.
The CFF rail company announced 1 May that it has concluded that the best solution is to extend the station north of the existing rail tracks.
An alternative proposed by a group called Collectif 500 is for an underground extension of the station, but the CFF says that after five meetings with the group it has become apparent that growing north of the station is the best alternative.
Collectif 500 is holding its next meeting Monday 14 May to fight the decision, which appears to have the backing of the Cantonal Council.
The extension would involve demolishing 350 buildings, most of them owned by the canton, of which about 300 would be rebuilt, says the CFF. But for Collectif 500 the project, labeled “absurd and incoherent”, would force 1,000 tenants out of their homes in three neighbourhoods, Grottes, Malatrex, Ilôt 13.
Switzerland's Val d'Herens cows fight in the spring, when left to themselves
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – It was push and shove all the way, but in the end Schakira from Toerbel in the Goms Valley in canton Valais, put her head down, locked her horns and pushed her way to the Swiss championship.
Just short of 800 kg, Schakira is the new queen of the cows among Switzerland’s famous fighting cows after the final match in Aproz Sunday 6 May.
RTS television estimates the crowd at 12-13000 spectators.
The event culminates the springtime rounds of fighting in several places throughout canton Valais, among Val d’Herens race cows, who fight naturally when in the field, to find the leader of the herd.
The short-legged black cows are agile and powerful, with generally gentle dispositions, but in the spring the pregnant cows fight to determine which cow which lead them during the summer spent high in the Alps. Once a fight is finished they start grazing again, showing little aggression.
Schakira fought her final battle with Ronja after last year’s winner, Manathon, lost her bid for victory in an earlier fight.
Earlier report, GenevaLunch, on fight in Mollens, Valais, with video
RTS video: “Schakira” sacrée reine des reines 2012 – rts.ch – info – régions – valais.
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – Two youths are dead following a car crash at 21:50 Saturday 5 May on the edge of Granges-près-Marnand. Their overturned car was found just off the road in front of a business. The passenger was dead and the driver, age 20, was taken by helicopter to the Chuv university hospitals in critical condition.
He died at 07:00 Sunday morning. Police are investigating the cause of the accident and asking for witnesses to contact them at +41 21 644 4444.
The car was travelling on the road that links Villeneuve in Fribourg and Granges-près-Marnand.
In this photograph provided by the Breitling, Yves Rossy, known as the Jetman, flies past Christ the Redeemer statue on Corcovado Mountain during a successfull flight over Rio de Janiero, Brazil, Wednesday, May 2, 2012.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Yves Rossy, popularly known as Jetman, 2 May circled Rio’s famed Corcovado flying with a jet on his back, before landing on Copacabana Beach in Brazil.
He was launched from a helicopter at 10:45 Wednesday and headed towards the Corcovado, then circled its famous giant Christ the Redeemer statue.
“Face to face with this symbol of peace filled me with emotion,” said the pilot, who flies at 200-300kph.
He circled the Ipanema and Copacabana beaches as well as the Pain de sucre before opening his parachute to land on Copacabana.
Video coming soon!
New recruits: Swiss army checking more carefully that soldiers are not at risk for abusing use of their arms
BERN, SWITZERLAND – Some 27,000 former soldiers in the Swiss Army, the national militia, were sent letters in March, the army said 2 May, as part of tougher measures to ensure that guns are not used abusively during or after military service. Incidents that have included high-profile suicides and murders using military weapons have been behind a long-running debate over the Swiss militia practice of soldiers keeping their weapons at home.
The Swiss voted in early 2011 to keep weapons at home, but to store live ammunition at army depots. The army had already toughened its stance on weapons in 2009, but after a police officer was murdered in Bern in 2011 it began a two-phase effort to ensure its information about soldiers and weapons is accurate and up to date.
Cantons used to hold information about their soldiers and weapons, these databases were pooled in 2007 to create a single federal database.
The new two-phase programme began checking new recruits more thoroughly and dismissing from the army soldiers involved in “incidents” linked to their weapons.
The second phase, involving the 27,000 letters sent in March, is designed to clear up any discrepancies in the database, which crept in when the information was moved. It called in 415 personal weapons and nearly 6,000 on loan as a result. Weapons are loaned out for target practice. Every citizen-soldier is required to put in a specified number of hours of target practice annually.
Some of the discrepancies have involved the right of Swiss soldiers to buy their weapons for personal use, at the end of their service, but they must obtain a civilian gun permit.
UK comic Eddie Izzard: major stops in Geneva, Zurich for 2013 "Force Majeure" tour
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Eddie Izzard is a man of many hats and few shoes who loves to run. He is bringing his Force Majeure comedy tour to Switzerland in 2013 to give people here a firsthand look at the funny part of the Izzard phenomenon.
The show will be performed in English 25-26 April 2013 at the Geneva Arena and 27 April at the Hallenstadion in Zurch, both major venues a first for comedy in English.
He’s arguably best known to the British world as a stand-up comic but he’s also a film and theatre actor who is greatly in demand. He’s made a name for himself as a political activist and he has raised £1.86 million for charity by running marathons.
Izzard told GenevaLunch in an interview this week that he created the new show, Force Majeure, because after four years of world tours doing his previous show, Stripped, including a stint in Paris doing the show in French, “it was just time to do a new show.”
It will be the most expensive tour any comedian has done, says Izzard, with 20 countries lined up: three months of touring in 2013 and three in 2014, with the second tour to include Australia, Canada and New Zealand. Stripped was a huge hit, taking Izzard to 34 US cities, on a vast European tour and in 2010 he performed at Madison Square Garden in New York, the latter a feat accomplished by only three other comedians.
He would have liked to have done the tour in one go, but his busy film, TV and theatre schedule doesn’t permit it. He’s starred alongside a wealth of big names in the film industry, including Bob Hoskins and Robin Williams in “Secret Agent”, Sean Connery in “The Avengers”, Uma Thurman in “My Super X Girlfriend”, George Clooney and Brad Pitt in “Oceans Twelve”, Judi Dench and Jude Law in “Rage” and Tom Cruise in “Valkyrie”. His stage appearances make an equally impressive list.
Izzard’s more immediate passion is running, notably barefoot. He caught the public eye in August 2009 when he ran 43 marathons in 51 days for the charity Sport Relief.
(Story continues below)
For someone who moves so frenetically, onstage and off, he is remarkably low key in person. He told GenevaLunch he’s not on-stage or jokey all the time, as some performers are, and it’s not really an issue for those around him. He likes to watch movies to relax.
“I think I have a natural comedy instinct. So does my brother, my father, so I guess it’s genetic. I just like laughing.”
The running dates back to 2002, when ancient Greek notions of being fit in mind and spirit and body began to appeal. “I thought, that’s a good place to be. I had this idea I was designed for running. We all have this ability.” He meets people through running, enjoys the fact it is healthy and that he can raise money through it.
Barefoot running is new for him and he loves it. “It seems more hardcore, but it’s actually easier. The more you do the easier it gets. It feels strangely powerful.” We were moving without shoes for at least 2,000 years, he points out.
“The past is in your future. Running with shoes is like writing with gloves.”
By 2020 he intend to be doing another kind of running, for office, possibly as a member of Parliament. He’s been an active member of the Labour party since the 1990s and was most recently out stumping in March for Labour Mayor of London candidate Ken Livingstone.
Meanwhile, Izzard, who is good at getting down to the bare bones of matters, has a show to plan.
Ed. note: tickets go on sale Friday 4 May at TicketCorner. Details, International Comedy Club, run by Guy Stevens of Jackanapes Productions who, with Mike Perrin Productions in the UK is bringing Izzard to Switzerland.
Max and mate are keeping three little ones snug and warm and fed
ZURICH, SWITZERLAND – Max the stork now has three little ones in the family nest on the Swiss-German border.
This is Max’s 11th time around as mother, and she and her mate have managed to keep all three young birds alive during their first week, despite high winds and unseasonably cold temperatures.
CFF train, St Prex, Sunday 29 April: only partial service during the afternoon due to an accident
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Trains between Geneva and Lausanne have been operating only partially Sunday due to a “person accident” between Saint-Prex and Morges, the CFF says.
The partial service was put into effect at 11:00 and continues until 16:45.
Details are generally not provided in the case of “persons accident”, which can mean anything from attempted suicide to someone falling on the tracks to various other accidents.
Bodies not yet clearly identified after birthday flight crash
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – A Piper crashed at 15:30 Saturday 28 April in Tatroz, canton Fribourg, not far from Lausanne in the commune of Attalens, killing six people. The police have not yet been able to give positive identifications to the bodies, but local media say it was a well-known family who lived in the area. They were reportedly celebrating the 60th birthday of a man, reports RTS. Le Matin reports that the son-in-law, L.E., is well known in the construction business in the region.
The man’s son and his companion, the man’s daughter and her husband who runs the construction business, were reportedly in the plane, in addition to a Vaud man who was the pilot.
L.E. and his wife leave three school-age children without parents; they were told late in the afternoon, according to Le Matin.
The plane had left La Blecherette airport in Lausanne at 14:30, and was seen circling the village of Tatroz twice before it crashed.
The forest fire was near the autoroute, next to the 114m Pisse-de-Vache waterfall
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The high winds that have been blowing in canton Valais for the past four days provoked a forest fire in Vernayaz/Miéville Saturday 28 April at 14:40.
Police in Valais say the fire is under control and no homes were touched by it. It started when high winds pushed over a tree and it fell onto an electric power line. Several neighbours noticed the flames and contacted the fire department.
The area, known as Le Bra, was too difficult to reach with vehicles so two helicopters were called in to douse the flames.
About 1,000m2 were burned.
100,000 tulips in Morges’s Independence Park
MORGES, SWITZERLAND – There are shows with larger collections of tulips but Morges is hard to beat for elegance when it comes to tulip festivals, and the 2012 month-long display is now at its finest, the last day of April.
Some of the early blooming varieties are fading, but new ones are starting to come out, and the multi-hued tulip beds woven among the 200 to 300-year-old trees provide one of the most elegant walking paths in the Lake Geneva region at the moment. New varieties and old favourites are on display in the park that is edged on one side by Lake Geneva and on another by a canal that is popular with local birds and ducks.
Go early in the day for magical light that filters through the trees and plays with the flowers. The crowds haven’t arrived yet and the park belongs to the birds and their songs and the tulips.
Video – short and sweet, but listen for the birds!
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – A 78-year-old cyclist died Friday afternoon when he slipped under a heavy farm vehicle and was run over. The Vaud man died at the scene of the accident.
He was standing with a group of 8 cyclists at the edge of a farm road near Chavorney, to let the machine pass as it came out of a field, when he suddenly slipped under the wheels, according to witnesses. Police noted that everyone in the group, including the deceased man, was wearing safety equipment.
High wind forced back the bulk of racers, continues to roar through Alps
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Weather is playing the tough guy for the Glacier Patrol, arguably the world’s toughest high mountain trail race, as it stops most of the skiers before they can even make tracks. Late Wednesday 25 April, as the starting gun went for the race, which has more than 1,500 teams of three skiers, the wind picked up and then it quickly began to roar. In Alpine valleys the warm air foehn wind from the Iberian peninsula has been blowing hard and is expected to continue.
Higher up, where the race is being run, the strong southwest current has provoked very strong gusting winds. The organizers stopped the race from Zermatt Wednesday evening, obliging 850 skiers to head back down to Zermatt not long after they started at 21:00.
Forecast
Sunrise on the north side of the Rhone Valley Friday 27 April, with clouds that bode better for the Glacier Patrol
The forecast Thursday night was for continuing gusting winds at altitude and the foehn to continue in Alpine valleys until Sunday. Temperatures will rise with highs in Zermatt, the main race starting point, and Verbier, the finishing point, of 17C. Zero will be at 3,300 metres altitude during the night and 3,300m during the day and racers will definitely feel the heat, say the organizers in their Glacier Patrol weather report.
Ed. note: a new weather bulletin is issued at 08:00 daily but appears on the PDG news site slightly later.
The high winds won’t keep the Patrouille Suisse acrobatic airplane teams from performing. They are scheduled to put on a show in Verbier Saturday from 17:00 to 17:30.
The next group of skiers is scheduled to leave Zermatt at 21:00 Friday.
Tip – if you’ve taken advantage of the very good app created by Swisscom for the race, you can use your cowbell to cheer on the skiers by shaking your phone at them!
Sunset photos of mountains just to the east of the race Thursday night show typical foehn clouds (and one image of sunrise Friday).
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – The good thing about being a police dog is that your job is to play, all the time. And you spend hours learning how to do it well, with your buddy, whom others call your “handler”.
“They don’t work, they play. That’s what dogs do, and police dogs are no different,” Jean-Christophe Sauteral, press officer for Vaud Police told GenevaLunch during a demonstration of police dog training Wednesday 25 April high in the Jura hills near Sainte-Croix.
Police from four countries come together once a year in this area for a week of intensive specialty training for dog handlers and their animals.
The dogs play hard, and their level of discipline is striking.
Each country’s police dog teams have particular skills that they share with the others, says Sauterel. They also simply get to know each other and work together, useful because the police forces call on each other when highly specialized teams are needed.
The Austrian police dog teams are particularly known for their searches for bodies and tracing human blood, says Sauterel. “And the Belgians are the best at working with fires,” he adds. Paris teams have drug-search expertise.
Swiss pioneered Sokks method for training dogs with pure molecules
The Swiss are known for their dogs’ work searching pure molecules, a relatively new field called the Sokks method, where dogs are trained to search for pure molecules, for example those in drug odours, rather than the less reliable training in specific odours. With cocaine, for example, it can become contaminated with other odours and as it degrades, the odours shift. But the underlying molecules remain the same. Switzerland adopted the Sokks method in 2004. Dogs trained with it have shown a 28 percent increase in successful detection, according to Vaud Police.
Canton Vaud has 13 dog handlers, with 5 of them and their dogs on rotating duty, 24 hours a day. The dog teams are used in Vaud on average 5-6 times a day and throughout Switzerland about 40 times a day. The handlers use down time to continue their dogs’ training.
Once a week the dogs and their trainers meet for a day of joint exercises and continuing education for the handlers.
The dogs belong to the police force, but the handlers pick out their own dogs at the kennels when they are two and a half months old, and the dogs are then assigned to the families where they spend the rest of their lives. They train until they are two years old before they are put on duty with their handlers, but they join the police patrols as early as possible, to get them used to unusual situations and noise, for example in stations, markets, restaurants.
Vaud Police’s dog unit (K9) has one Labrador, but the rest are German or Belgian shepherds (Malinois). They are all trained to perform all police dog tasks: tracking, looking for lost objects, defending their masters, searching for explosives, and looking for drugs, for example. One dog has been trained specially to work with special intervention forces, learning to remain completely calm, quiet and still for hours, but ready to instantly move into attack mode.
