5 on the fifth - Recycled

This month's 5 on the fifth theme is Recycled.

I did a cheap one by just snapping what was being recycled this week.

Glass bottles To be disposed at the glass bottle banks in public places; sorted by colours; blue and red glass in green glass bottle bank; picture glass, window glass, crystal glass, safety glass, mirrors have to be brought to the recycling yards



Garden refuse collection In green containers or in handy bundles before 7 a.m. on the curb; weekly pickups for subscribers from March to December;



Paper collection Every fortnight bundled and tied before 7 a.m. on the curb; no collection boxes or paper bags!



PET bottles To be disposed at the 5000 PET bottle banks in the shops; squeeze the air out of the bottle to reduce space and put lid on; bottles for oil, vinegar, sauces, detergent and beauty products are not to be recycled



5 on the fifth pictures Change every 2 seconds

5 on the fifth - Round

This month's 5 on the fifth theme is Round.

On my way to work I cycle through the Oerliker Park, which features a 35 m high round tower:



Twelve years ago this was an industrial area and the tower should keep up the memory of the funnels that used to blacken the sky here. I though for 5 on the fifth I could - despite my fear of heights - climb the tower and take a round of pictures.

North



East



South



West

RENNEN

This year we managed only to see one show at Zürich's Theater Spektakel. It was Rennen by Belgian youth theatre project Kopergietery.



I wanted to go to three dance performances but only started to buy tickets two days into the pre-sale, which was far too late. Nevertheless, we enjoyed the one show very much.

Underground

This week, I went underground with some mates from work to see the newest train tunnel being built underneath Zürich.



We entered the tunnel through a big hole.



The rear end of the front of the drilling machine. It is currently in "wet mode" drilling through gravel surrounded by groundwater. This picture is taken underneath Niederdorf.



The rear end of the drilling machine.



The patroness of the tunneller happens to be also the one of my business.

Where adds start to really fail

I generally like to live in Zürich*. However, there are evil forces at work, trying to malign its reputation wherever and whenever they can. The most villainous of them is Zürich Tourism, which produces adds like this:



*It has an exceptional opportunities to size ratio.

Going Into Hibernation

Our outdoor pool just closed for 8 far too longs months.



Around four o'clock the sun decided to shove the clouds away and give the pool a fair farewell. I decided to be a bad buddy and did not go with Toño & Gerardo for a film and pizza and headed instead to the pool for a last 2k outdoor swim.

If I had not been in the water, I would had to wipe away a tear drop, when the duck that came all summer with her ducklings joined me in my lane for a while for bit of farewell swimming.

For the next 8 months it's back to crowded indoor swimming. But the next summer is supposed to come. I think this year it was on a Wednesday. I wonder, which day it will choose next year?

Stay passionate and Godspeed!
Mr. Urs

Leisured

I've taken the decision*, to take things slowly today. I.e. I will not participate in the Limmatschwimmen**.



* euphemism for not doing anything
** a swim down the river Limmat along the skyline of Zürich, which is sold out anyway.

rundfunk.fm again

From tomorrow on, Zürich will be again the far better place to be. Rundfunk.fm will be back again! woot!! :) :) :)



You're not in Zürich? Book now to get the vibes (or stream it)!

Being A Good Patriot

For a Swiss, 1^st of August is about being a good patriot. But how, when there is not a single Swiss flag in the house? I thought being super clever when solving the problem by turning the Birchermüesli into a Swiss flag and almost failed...



... but corrected it before we dug into it =S



I tried to make up for this slip up by dragging Toño to the Swiss National Museum where the new permanent exhibitions «History of Switzerland» opened today.



Since it was free today, it was heavily crowded. The most impressive exhibit was the wheel* of Swiss myths, which was big enough that we could see it despite all the people.



And I (accidentally) trample égalité under my feet. But that is a French thing anyway.



* I have no idea why it is a wheel. Nobody claims that Switzerland invented the wheel. Though, I could start a rumour here.

Guerilla Hollyhocks or Your City Needs You!

For some years, Zürich has been flooded with hollyhocks during summer.

Picture by Tina Fassbind, nicked from www.tagesanzeiger.ch

They had been clandestinely sowed by Maurice Maggi and contribute to making this town the most liveable on this planet. By this, Maurice Maggi was spearheading an international urban trend called Guerilla Gardening. Here is a portrait of Maurice Maggi by Swiss Television (in German):



As I read on the Agenda page of the WoZ, another setter of this trend, Richard Reynolds will have a reading tomorrow at Sphères in Zürich at 7 pm. Time to bring your hoes and shovels into action. Your city needs you!

Dinner @ Sternen Grill

You cannot always eat healthy, can you?



So tonight it was St. Galler Bratwurst and Servelat at the Sternen Grill.

How To Escape The Heat By Being A Good Lemming

Like 5876 others, the lovely Ms.Mac, Toño & I spent late yesterday afternoon swimming across the lake of Zürich (1450 m).

Ms.Mac & Toño were already veterans but for me it was a first time event. Earlier attempts were brought down by the flu, thunderstorms or being abroad. Inexplicably, it finally worked this year, although a nasty downpour bugged us while queuing for bathing cap with number, associated bag tag and food voucher (pure Swiss clockwork-like organisation). As soon as we were in speedos, the rain stopped (wtf).

After our 400 number block had been called for the start, we walked like lemmings along the jetty, were showered with icy water, before we walked down the steps into the floods. While ploughing through the massive waves, we built a sandwich with Toño & I being the bread and Ms.Mac the good part. At the other end we were greeted by Mr.Mac and James, who vowed that next year, they will also participate. That would then be a fancy club sandwich.



After the Mac clan left to feed the other kids, we went with our swim buddies who also participated to the sailing boat of our master shark Katalin to have some wine. Nearby some young lads were swinging with a rope from a 9 m high crane into the marina. They were completely mad but entertaining.

Unfortunately I had a little bit too much wine for some nightswimming before heading home. Nevertheless, I was humming this song:

Amazing School Building

In my neighbourhood the authorities of most liveable city in the world are building a new school. I hated PE but I reckon in that PE hall on top of the building even I might have kind of liked it:



If you want to know more about the building and how it is made, read this.

The Most Liveable City

Strange, it was in Ankara where I learned that Monocle has ranked Zürich the most liveable city in world based on quality of life. Zürich moved into top spot thanks to "outstanding and still improving public transport...ample leisure activities...environmental activism in setting new emission targets; good business culture"

I'm already back enjoying the most liveable life in the most liveable city. Nevertheless, here is the view I enjoyed from my hotel room in Ankara:

Lake Crossing

Just checked the dates for this year's lake crossing here in Zürich:

Wednesday, July 1, 2009
In case of bad conditions it will be postponed to July 8 or August 19.

See you there.

Small print diclaimer: This is not a picture is of the lake crossing.

It's About Love

schwulengeschichte.ch, a webpagew covering about 170 years of gay history in Switzerland went on-line. I especially like it's tag line "it's about love".

1 Downer & Uppers for Pentecost

The downer of the day was that it was sunny and I had a) to go to work & b) dress up for it, though I did not have to show up before the afternoon, which allowed some quality time with Toño and a swim.



And there were more uppers.



Like there are rainbow flags all over the town. The have been there for weeks, but today I saw the first on a public bus (picture above). In a week, the EuroPride 2009 will be held in town and Zürich is really showing its colours. If you haven't done it yet, it's time to book your trip.

Toño did loads of things while I was at work. He bought the groceries and loads of flowers, and got himself a pedicure and a haircut (I so swoon over short hair). And as I type, Toño is in the kitchen preparing entrecôte double with white port wine sauce. Pentecost can begin.

News Addiction Top 10

I'm addicted to news. If I enter a hotel room, I first switch on the telly and tune it to CNN. And at least the first hour of the day is dedicated to reading newspapers (with a mug of coffee Toño brought me to the bed).

I'm subscripted to quite some newspapers and magazines. Here I tried to put some of them into an order. The main criteria was whether I would miss them, if they would not be delivered any more (1: I would jump off a cliff - 10: hums the Great Song of Indifference)



That was easy. Toño works for Vinum (Europe's Wine Magazine), hence it helped to pay the bills if you would also subscribe to it (available in German, French & Spanish). Occasionally, Toño models also for the magazine. It would also help to pay the bills if you ordered a warship. In that case, you would have to send the email too me.



BUTT is a pocket-size, quarterly magazine for and about homosexuals, founded in 2001, published and printed in The Netherlands, available world-wide. I have never read anything alike. It is packed with interviews with the broadest range of homosexuals. They questions don't stop at the waistline. Despite of that it is full of adds of luxury brands.



The Economist does not precisely coincides with my point of view, but at least it has one (which I prefer to the so called nutral). It's an authoritative weekly newspaper focusing on international politics and business news and opinion. The paper is excellently written and covers the world we live on. The leader of the pack!



Monocle is a global briefing covering international affairs, business, culture and design. This basically covers all my interest. And the editor-in-chief is a good looking, dressed and groomed homosexual who used to live in Zürich.



FANTASTIC MAN is the gentlemen's style journal from the editors of BUTT. According to this bi-annual fashion magazine life begins at 30. Targeted at a more mature group of readers, FM's aim is to re-invent the 'gentleman's style journal'. The magazine contains, as the name implies, interviews and fashion features with inspiring men and interesting personalities. It features men in clothes rather than models in fashion.



Yes, I'm one of this frigging pinkos who read this lefty WoZ. It has the only sport section I actually flip through.



The Zürich daily NZZ is brilliant when it comes to foreign affairs, science (Wednesday's) and Feuilleton (which is a rich mine for electronic music). However, the others sections are complete bollocks.



Le Menu is a cooking magazine published by the Swiss dairy farmers, which explains that there are few recipes without any dairy products. We mainly subscribed to it for its well assorted internet data base with almost 5000 recipes. We can search the data base at work for what we would like to have for dinner, print the recipe and pick up the ingredients on the way home. Very convenient indeed.



The Tagi is the other of Zürich's dailies. I mainly read it for the gossip and to be able to keep up with the small talk at the coffee machine. Though its supplementary magazine on Saturday is usually quite entertaining and Constantin Seibt, Switerland's best quill-driver, writes for them.



Is there any good Sunday newspaper in the world?

If we run out of trees and oil-based ink, I'm to blame.

Only 4 Hours & 21 Minutes

to go until spring is supposed to break this year and - yes - it just started to snow again.

zürich-transit-maritim

Zürich is embarking on an amazing art project. In two years, a dock crane will be mounted in the city centre. It will remain there for a year.


In addition to the cran, big bollards will be mounted and a horn will announce ships that never will arrive.

Seaside town have theirs special atmosphere. I hope we will get some of it for the period of this art project. A swimmer town Zürich is by now. There might be even more.