Kill Broadleaf Dock

I grew up on farm. Once I told Toño that I wasted spent a significant part of my precious youth there shooting Broadleaf Dock. I did my best to explain the tedious procedure to him, but I failed completely. Last weekend, when we dropped by at my clan's residence, I took Toño into shed to show him the Broadleaf Dock Gun, I'd used to kill this rampant weed.



The Broadleaf Dock Gun consists of a bottle of herbicide, a barrel and a trigger. Hunting Broadleaf Dock requires roaming the fields for hours. If you detect a Broadleaf Dock, hold the barrel straight into the heart of the plant and pull the trigger 2 to 3 times, to release some herbicide granulate. With the next rain, the herbicide will be absorbed by the plant's roots and inhibit the cellulose synthesis, which subsequently, will lead to the death of the Broadleaf Dock.

This procedure burned deep traces into my subconscious. When ever a Broadleaf Dock comes into my field of view, my brain raises an alarm and my index finger starts to bend. It also severely affected my moral frame set. I regard farmers, who do not consequently annihilate Broadleaf Dock, only slightly higher than child molesters.

Retail Therapy

On my path to full recovery, I've also dedicated some time to retail therapy. After shopping groceries at Migros and booze at Denner we went downtown for the more serious part of the therapy. Here are the sections we went through:



Undies are essential for well being. Toño demanded a tight fit. We chose baby blue, royal blue, sliver, lemon and purple.



You can never have enough hats, gloves and shoes, as Patsy said in Absolutely Fabulous. In addition, although in Switzerland the thermometer went up to 22°C/72°F, we still belief in winter and bought cap & gloves.



My lube of choice was only available in cruising size packages. In my preferred size, the product was replaced by an organic version that passed an environmental test with best marks. From now on we will shag even more in full harmony with nature.



With Christmas only a month away, a visit at Scharzenbach was unavoidable. We got dates from Tunisia (for my Dad), figs from Izmir (for my Mom), tea from Morocco (for Toño), grapes from Malaga (for me), almonds in all variants, and grounded walnuts and hazelnuts (for the cookies).



Finally in Christmas mood we went for a traditionally wood carved Josef, Maria and Baby Jesus from Brienz, and a mouth-blown tree-top star from Hergiswil.



Everything came to an end with a fat baroque angel made of concrete and a bottle of Calvados. Cheers to my recovery.

Slick Treadly Flat

This afternoon I was supposed to give a workshop on motivation. But ironically, I just could not motivate myself to go for it and I had to cancel.

The last month was just too demanding. I'm dragging an only half cured gastric flu around, and I'm totally exhausted. Yesterday, I even went to bed at 10pm. Imaging me, getting pre-midnight sleep.

So this weekend is totally dedicated to recovery. I just started with a bit of retail therapy by ordering a Recycled Slick Tread Tyre Belt from howies^®:



It's absolutely useless, nevertheless I reckon, it perfectly matches me right now.

Fatwa on Unia

I'm not a hater. It's a waste of energy and time I could spend with Toño. However, sometimes I just can't turn the other cheek and have to go Old Testament. This is the case with Unia, my not so former trade union.

I've sent Unia a letter of retirement, because they gave the impression that they were more than happy when I and my colleagues will loose our jobs (background), which is not quite correlating with my reasons to be a member of a trade union.

Whatever reasons I have, getting rid of them is far more difficult than I'd ever expected. Membership with Unia is an adherence contract of the worst kind. As I've been informed that according to the fine print, the notice period can last up to 548 days. Apart from gutlessly neglecting their duties, Unia are also shamelessly impudent. Totally ironic, if it were not related to my job and my money, which is both at stake in this case (I'm Swiss after all).

Unia do not try to protect the jobs in Switzerland's defence industry, nonetheless they have no problem whatsoever to take my hard earned money which is funded to 100% by international weapon trade.

Until I received their response, I was only disappointed due to their cowardice, but now I officially hate them. Beware Unia! Beware those hypocrites!

Thrilled By No Frills

I travel a lot, but really, so far I've never used one of those No Frills carriers. That is, until today, when I flew to a meeting to northern Germany and back with Air Berlin. They are known for preferring to hire Polish hair dressers, because they are punctual and disciplined.

Not a bad business practice at all. It did the job on the two flights I was on. Those ladies know how to deliver a proper service with charm and a upright backbone. I will be thrilled to be their guest again.

Up The Gravity Well

Today, reading Neuromancer, while being driven to work in Bangalore, while listening to Bollywood tunes over the radio, while my mind was actually making love with Toño.



When we arrived at the premises, my colleague claimed that there are only girl schools on our way to work (he's a breeder). We have been here far too long. On Saturday evening we are going to leave. It's about time.

So let's relax to a bit of Bollywood - with Bole Chudiyan to precise:



Not yet enough? Here is the Who Let The Dogs Out Mix!

Elevate My Car

Hinduism is a complex religion. I understand hardly anything of it and I'm not even trying to go into it here. Nevertheless, one of the most popular clichés is that - as a side-effect of the path of meditation - the true believer is able to elevate things and let it hover through space.

Yes, I'm only conjecturing when I say that this car dealer has a highly talented yogi among his staff:

Bougainvilleas

There is nothing that makes me think even more of my deriously beloved Toño than to look at a Bougainvillea. Luckily, its the first thing I see across the street when I leave hotel in the morning. Here are only some of those I saw today:





And this was a 120 m long arcade of Bougainvilleas in various colours:

Safari

Here in India, we are on a six days working week and for once, I've decided to give business a complete miss one the seventh. It helped that Mr. Ellamathy wanted to show us a bit around.

In the morning, he picked us up in one of these Hindustan Ambassadors.



I just love to get driven around in one of those. Looking at the traffic here, it's kind of a relief to be protected by Ganesha idol on the dash board.



Our aim was the Bannerghatta National Park, where we went on a jungle safari. It was not one of those things on an elephant in a khaki suit with a .465 Holland and Holland India Royal rifle. No, we were in a fenced bus. Nevertheless, we could see quite a lot of wild animals.



This is a bear. He was utterly unimpressed and behaved like one of those Indian cows, which can stand in the middle of the heaviest traffic and are as calm as if they were be on a meadow in the highlands. Nevertheless, I was very please to see my brothers in name*

The tigers were even more relaxed.





At least the white fellow paraded a bit for us.



The pack of lions definitely made us feels like in the Jungle Book**.





Mogwli was nowhere to be seen. However, I saw felidae and bears, which is somehow like the names that my deriously beloved Toño and I like to refer to each other.

We rounded our trip up by paying the zoo a visit. They had loads of snakes. Definitely not my cup of tea.



However, the chicks in the cobra pit gave us an inspiration and we headed for lunch.

* My given name is Urs, which is derived from the Latin word for bear.
** I know, it was a pack of wolves...

A Friday Night on Earth

Yesterday, while I could enjoy the vegetarian delights of Southern India*...



...my swimming buddies had a dinner party at my place.



Thanks to the unbridled evolution of technology, we can at least share the pictures.

* See, me, a lefty, eating with his right hand! Call me cultural competent.

Multi-Core On The Pillion

Bangalore sees itself as India's IT hub*. Computers are driving this town - and driven too.



*Hyderabad claims the same.

Practicing Patience

An association we have with India are the Hindu ascetics performing feats of endurance. Last Friday evening, I could practice too in emphasizing calmness, self-control, and the willingness or ability to tolerate delay.

We were invited to an important business dinner at the Hotel Windsor Manor here in Bengalooru*. We are staying at the Meridian, which is not far away from the Windsor Manor. We ordered our driver to pick us up 15 minutes prior to the dinner. It was heavily raining, traffic was dense and the driver did barely understand English (or at least my interpretation of it). Things turned soon from bad to worse and we reached the Windsor Manor with 40 minutes delay - that is, it took us 55 minutes to get there. After the dinner we decided to return to our hotel by foot. It took 7 minutes.

However, sometimes forbearance is amply rewarded. The dinner place was spectacular and the quests at the table were charming and witty.



Talking about India and its culture - Thanks to British trade relations with India and then nearly two centuries of British rule, several hundred Hindi words have come into the English language, including familiar ones like guru (1800), bungalow (1676), veranda (1711), jungle (1776), juggernaut (1841), loot (1788), thug (1810), shampoo (1762) and pajamas (1800). However, patience is of Latin origin.

* On November 1, Karnataka's state chief minister H.D. Kumaraswamy announced that the name of India's silicon hub Bangalore will be changed to Bengalooru from January 2007.

Practicing Patience

An association we have with India are the Hindu ascetics performing feats of endurance. Last Friday evening, I could practice too in emphasizing calmness, self-control, and the willingness or ability to tolerate delay.

We were invited to an important business dinner at the Hotel Windsor Manor here in Bengalooru*. We are staying at the Meridian, which is not far away from the Windsor Manor. We ordered our driver to pick us up 15 minutes prior to the dinner. It was heavily raining, traffic was dense and the driver did barely understand English (or at least my interpretation of it). Things turned soon from bad to worse and we reached the Windsor Manor with 40 minutes delay - that is, it took us 55 minutes to get there. After the dinner we decided to return to our hotel by foot. It took 7 minutes.

However, sometimes forbearance is amply rewarded. The dinner place was spectacular and the quests at the table were charming and witty.



Talking about India and its culture - Thanks to British trade relations with India and then nearly two centuries of British rule, several hundred Hindi words have come into the English language, including familiar ones like guru (1800), bungalow (1676), veranda (1711), jungle (1776), juggernaut (1841), loot (1788), thug (1810), shampoo (1762) and pajamas (1800). However, patience is of Latin origin.

* On November 1, Karnataka's state chief minister H.D. Kumaraswamy announced that the name of India's silicon hub Bangalore will be changed to Bengalooru from January 2007.

Indian Blogging

I've arrived in India. On my way, we had free internet on the plane. Bugger, I left my WLAN card in the checked-in luggage. So you were spared the post of me about how it is to blog on 33000 feet.

Another surprise was that the blogspot URL is still banned in India. Now I've again to read your witty writing via the pkblogs proxy.

• ms.mac's meanderings


• mr.mac's go crazy


• Expatraveler


• Boys Are Ugly But So Cute


• The World According to ROB Damnit


• Michael's WhatsABoyToDo