Outdoor swimming reminded me how different the UK mentality especially about rules is to say, Switzerland, which in terms of personal freedom and your own leisure time I found refreshingly non-interventionist. Switzerland by the way is regularly considered one of the top places to live, the happiest, the best though it ceded the number one spot this year to Denmark. I guess it attracts a lot of smart people to work there, who earn well. Maybe I'm making a big leap here, but just perhaps the Swiss government thinks it shouldn't patronise their citizens and visitors so it lets them make more of their own decisions even about simple things like where to swim and how to swim.
I had a libertarian friend who lived in Geneva for years and said it was dull and conservative but he loves London. I was impressed when I went to Switzerland twice a few years ago. I took the children when they were perhaps pre-school to Geneva for a few days when my husband worked there for six months. Once I went to see a friend in Zürich. I found the country pretty, efficient, well-cared for, the mountains were astonishingly beautiful, the weather was great, people seemed relaxed, well-off and happy. It was gaspingly expensive.
We might think of Switzerland as being a controlled, rule-bound, efficient place, especially the German side but in 2013 I saw teenagers throw themselves off posts with abandon into Lake Zürich. They would use anything handy of some height. And what a joy the ?bäder were: open air places, cordoned off parts of rivers or of the lake for swimmers. They were natural swimming pools with places to sunbathe and usually including a cafe or bar. A fair, if unspectacular swimmer I could barely hold my own against the natural river current at Unterer Letten. You end up flung against metal bars at the end if you don't haul yourself out at various steps beforehand. I can hardly imagine such pleasures would be allowed in the UK.
The bäder on the lake had floating pontoons one could swim out to, and sprawl deliciously, on the warm wood, like basking seals, the sky azure, the sun high. Too simple and decadent for Britain. Too much enjoyment and all at your own risk. This kind of summer living makes nearly everyone walking around slim and brown and fit - like an advert for Switzerland in fact. I think of them as Milka girls though I doubt they touch chocolate and I don't think Switzerland has produced Milka for years. Milka was actually named eponymously after an opera singer, but she was Croatian.
Bäder living and Milka girls to represent Britain? Wouldn't our version look more not unlike Therersa May, perhaps a younger more brunette version, say a tough business-woman sensibly well up on her rights, smiling confidently into the camera. Or perhaps an overweight bloke grinning at you over the paper of his fish supper - all beer and rain and British good humour. The kind of guy you can supposedly depend on in a Henry-V-at-Agincourt situation. You what?
I had a libertarian friend who lived in Geneva for years and said it was dull and conservative but he loves London. I was impressed when I went to Switzerland twice a few years ago. I took the children when they were perhaps pre-school to Geneva for a few days when my husband worked there for six months. Once I went to see a friend in Zürich. I found the country pretty, efficient, well-cared for, the mountains were astonishingly beautiful, the weather was great, people seemed relaxed, well-off and happy. It was gaspingly expensive.
We might think of Switzerland as being a controlled, rule-bound, efficient place, especially the German side but in 2013 I saw teenagers throw themselves off posts with abandon into Lake Zürich. They would use anything handy of some height. And what a joy the ?bäder were: open air places, cordoned off parts of rivers or of the lake for swimmers. They were natural swimming pools with places to sunbathe and usually including a cafe or bar. A fair, if unspectacular swimmer I could barely hold my own against the natural river current at Unterer Letten. You end up flung against metal bars at the end if you don't haul yourself out at various steps beforehand. I can hardly imagine such pleasures would be allowed in the UK.
The bäder on the lake had floating pontoons one could swim out to, and sprawl deliciously, on the warm wood, like basking seals, the sky azure, the sun high. Too simple and decadent for Britain. Too much enjoyment and all at your own risk. This kind of summer living makes nearly everyone walking around slim and brown and fit - like an advert for Switzerland in fact. I think of them as Milka girls though I doubt they touch chocolate and I don't think Switzerland has produced Milka for years. Milka was actually named eponymously after an opera singer, but she was Croatian.
Bäder living and Milka girls to represent Britain? Wouldn't our version look more not unlike Therersa May, perhaps a younger more brunette version, say a tough business-woman sensibly well up on her rights, smiling confidently into the camera. Or perhaps an overweight bloke grinning at you over the paper of his fish supper - all beer and rain and British good humour. The kind of guy you can supposedly depend on in a Henry-V-at-Agincourt situation. You what?
I want to avoid a misunderstanding about soldiers. Real soldiers. I have been let in to a military barracks or 'patch' by cheerful, courteous, squaddies on hour after hour of guard duty at the barrier on freezing winter nights hundreds of times. They are trained, professional, competent, reliable, resilient and invariably good humoured.
No comments:
Post a Comment