There is a particular kind of German motorist who finds Switzerland terribly amusing. Our motorways are too slow, our speed limits too restrictive, and our approach to driving evidently designed for people who consider arriving somewhere a rather vulgar ambition.…
Blog
Since When Is a Decade a Musical Genre?
I grew up with the eighties and nineties, but apparently failed to notice that my musical taste was supposed to stop there. Radio has decades of extraordinary music at its disposal, from soul and funk to pop and rock. Yet choosing the next record often seems to involve checking its birth certificate before anybody bothers to listen.
The Time Capsule Has a Repeat Button
Radio around Zürich offers plenty of stations and remarkably little escape. Radio Zürisee tried something different by retreating into the 80s and 90s. A good idea, until the same safe classics start circling endlessly. The charts may be repetitive, but at least they change. Nostalgia on permanent rotation is simply repetition with better hair.
Dear Packers, I’m Running Out of Next Years
The Packers have spent the money, traded the picks and extended the people in charge. I had assumed protecting the quarterback might also feature in the plan. As injuries expose the cracks, Titletown’s championship ambitions are testing even my capacity for denial. Naturally, I still believe we’re going to the Super Bowl next season.
The Melody Is Borrowed. The Chatter Is All Yours.
Pop has discovered a shortcut: borrow a tune people already love, then talk over it until nothing is left to enjoy. Bebe Rexha's “New Religion” does it to Faithless's “Insomnia”, one of the greatest club records ever made. Somebody else wrote the melody. The chatter is all hers.
Dress for the Life You Intend to Post
On Zürich’s Bahnhofstrasse, success requires neither money nor achievement, just a suit, a photographer and somebody else’s luxury car. A Saturday shopping trip becomes a front-row seat at Generation Instagram’s auditions for a life considerably more impressive than the afternoon spent manufacturing it.
Zürich Needs a Traffic Plan, Not Another Coat of Paint
A new study finds Swiss cyclists crash at roughly twice the Dutch rate, with tram tracks, junctions and public transport stops among the trouble spots. Zürich can build a cycle tunnel beneath its main station, then leave everyone competing for the same contested metres above. The city needs better behaviour, better junctions and rather more ambition.
All That Intelligence, and Still the Wrong Rectangle
Smartphone cameras can reconstruct faces, combine exposures and insert the photographer into the picture. Yet my Pixel cannot let me choose the familiar 3:2 format when shooting. While reviewers inspect brickwork for evidence of photographic genius, I spend my evenings cropping every single image. Apparently, artificial intelligence still requires considerable manual labour.
Tesla Can Plan a Charge. It Should Learn to Plan a Journey.
Tesla’s Supercharger network makes long-distance electric travel remarkably easy. Its Trip Planner is less convincing. By optimising relentlessly for charging speed, it can turn a journey into a sequence of brief, inconvenient stops while burying better options in a confusing interface. Tesla understands batteries brilliantly. It should spend a little more time understanding travellers.
Zürich Has Started Shouting at Drivers in Yellow Paint
Zürich’s streets increasingly resemble a planning department’s art-school phase: green bands, giant bicycles, cheerful colours and enough visual guidance to leave ordinary road users more confused than informed. When every marking wants attention, clarity is inevitably the first casualty.
