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.
Category: Rant
Travel Broadens the Mind. Getting Home Tests It.
A magnificent wedding in Albania was followed by a journey home seemingly designed to test patience, infrastructure, border control, traffic planning and basic faith in humanity. From Tirana queue warfare to Zürich bureaucracy, cancelled Ubers and supermarket inspections, the day became an escalating comedy of inconvenience, until someone else’s travel disaster made mine look almost civilised.
At FIFA, Criticism Has Become a Coup
FIFA now treats criticism of Gianni Infantino as an attack on FIFA itself. Behind the rhetoric lies a political machine built on money, loyalty and 211 votes. The intriguing question is whether UEFA, having finally discovered that it can hurt FIFA where it matters, is prepared to use that power again.
Phishing Has Discovered Swiss German, and It Is Glorious
Phishing has discovered Swiss German, with predictably glorious results. Armed with AI, scammers are now localising their emails into synthetic dialect, apparently unaware that Swiss German is spoken everywhere but written very selectively. The result is less sophisticated social engineering than a cultural misunderstanding with a malicious link attached.
Zurich’s Quiet War on the Car
Zurich’s Rämistrasse and Universitätstrasse have become a lesson in how to discourage cars without formally banning them. Poorly coordinated lights, repeated zebra crossings, permanent stop-and-go traffic and cyclists treating tram tracks as an overtaking lane turn a major route into a daily exercise in frustration, all while motorists face the strictest enforcement.
Dear Google, Make It Turn Before You Make It Glow
Google’s next Pixel may arrive with more artificial intelligence, more clever tricks and perhaps even Pixel Glow. Wonderful. Meanwhile, the phone still struggles with the primitive task of rotating its screen when turned. After years of Pixels, stuck apps, failed auto-rotation and dubious water resistance, the basics remain embarrassingly unfinished.
FIFA Wants to Sell Football. Infantino Wants to Keep the Keys.
FIFA insists that football is not for sale while preparing to place the World Cup inside a $20 billion company and invite private investors to buy in. The proposal is more than another commercial excess. It reveals how completely Gianni Infantino has personalised FIFA, weakened its internal restraints and blurred the line between public office, private influence and his own future. UEFA has finally threatened resistance. This time, it must go further.
Billions Watching, Nobody Reading the Rules
Billions watch the World Cup, billions are earned from it, and few things matter more to a country’s sporting pride than the fate of its national team. Football has analysts for throw-ins, consultants for sleep patterns and enough data to…
The Right Winner of a World Cup that came at Football’s Expense
Spain were worthy champions, but the World Cup they won was harder to admire. Bloated beyond sporting necessity, interrupted for commercial convenience and damaged by inconsistent refereeing, weak VAR decisions and a group stage stripped of urgency, the tournament often seemed designed around inventory rather than football. Argentina’s cynical run nearly supplied the perfect ending. Spain prevented that. Their victory saved the result, but it could not repair the competition surrounding it.
Argentina’s World Cup has acquired an Asterisk
Argentina's path to the 2026 World Cup semi-finals has become inseparable from a growing refereeing controversy. From Messi's escaped red card to the VAR decisions against Egypt and Switzerland, the debate is no longer about isolated incidents but about consistency. This article examines why journalists, former players and national associations are increasingly questioning whether football's biggest tournament is still being officiated by the same standard for everyone.
alexreusch 