Posts from the category Life (and how to live it)
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A rare article in which I express how I feel on the subject of national referendum and the political process in Switzerland. This article has been inspired by a prominent national campaign on the subject of the proposed national ban on the construction of Islamic minarets.
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Jo and I take a walk through a misty Sunday afternoon to Faulensee.
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A greengrocer selling her wares at the side of the road starts throwing cabbages at a father and son standing at her stall without bicycles but wearing cycling helmets. A carriage full of train passengers passed out in their seats at the severe smell of rotten eggs pervading from the toilet. A glazier, attending to…
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You know how the saying goes: behind every good man stands a great woman.
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A year ago today, I left my previous employer after seven and a half years to start a new working life in Bern.
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A personal history of computer desktop wallpaper, a Microsoft Switzerland competition in which you can take part, and some free landscape photos for you to download.
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I’ve recently joined Jo in a drive towards more fitness and have rescinded the use of tram transport in and around Bern in favour of foot power.
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2008 has been a great year for getting out and doing things. Jo and I are off to England and Wales later this week for our Christmas and New Year holiday, the fourth international trip this year, so I thought I’d post my end of year review ahead of schedule.
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I’m not that good at small talk. I’ve spent much of my life being the quiet one in the room, in a group, in the office or at a party.
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The story of our Cablecom episode began when we looked into the possibilities of additional English cable channels at home in the Bernese Oberland. After several years of having just the most basic and outdated BBC Prime, which runs episodes of shows like Keeping Up Appearances and Dalziel and Pascoe as repeats several times per…
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Jo and I bumped into a couple on the train home from Milan a few weeks ago: a British guy working for the British Embassy in Bern, and his Russian fiancée. After talking about all sorts of stuff, including life as Brits abroad, we were invited to this year’s St. Andrew‘s Dinner to celebrate the…
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As office workers and shop girls sway home from the city on the dusty local train, the sun reaches out orange tendrils of light. Plucking ineffectually at the clouds, trying desperately to gain purchase, it sinks inexorably in the rolling landscape before the clouds catch fire and shadow overwhelms its realm. The death is ferocious:…
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As the sky prepares itself for evening, darkening through shades of blue and colouring more and more from the day’s greyness, the cloud in the distance becomes more dense; a threatening presence trapped on the far side of the open doorway to a narrow alpine valley. Gusts of wind twirl the outer reaches, bringing the…
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I began my new job with Burson Marsteller Switzerland today. This is how it went.
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So this is what it feels like to be on a last day at work. Not much different from any day over the past few weeks, as I began winding down some time ago and I completed all the clearing out of desks, drawers and files last week. Today, it’s just finishing up bits and…
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I’ve decided to blog about our wedding and honeymoon trip from Switzerland to Scotland and back again and this is the first entry.
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A visit to the ruined city of Pompeii is primarily about history, destruction and death. But there is a great deal of life there too; not just the tourists in abundance, but also a wide range of gardens and plants which have flourished amongst the dusty courtyards and cobbled streets. Beautiful hedges, flowers and trees…
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In a day less than two weeks, I shall be leaving this office for the last time.
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A man, tired, carries his daughter onto the train as she rests her head on his shoulder and sucks her thumb. The train picks up speed and the man stands, resting from the waist on a suitably padded bench, with the girl half asleep and his back to the adjacent window. With each sideways rocking…
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Photos of the desk at which I developed most of the websites produced by Mountain Multi Media in Brienz.