I know…I know.. Working at a place like Starbucks, it is normal for there to be a lot of personnel change. People move away for personal reasons. People get transferred. People leave for better opportunities elsewhere. But there is something uniquely special about working in an environment like a restaurant or a cafe as opposed… Continue reading Smells like team spirit
Category: Psychology
The cards we’re dealt
The Swiss, especially the German-speaking Swiss, always have to be different. Consider playing cards. The Swiss German speaking part of Switzerland has its own deck of playing cards. They are mostly used for Jass, the “national card game” of Switzerland. The deck is related to the various German playing cards. Within Switzerland, these decks are… Continue reading The cards we’re dealt
Five schillings’ worth of wood
A witch-hunt is a search for people labelled “witches” or evidence of witchcraft, often involving moral panic or mass hysteria. The classical period of witchhunts in Europe and North America falls into the Early Modern period or about 1450 to 1750, spanning the upheavals of the Reformation and the Thirty Years’ War, resulting in an… Continue reading Five schillings’ worth of wood
History: Wash, rinse, repeat?
I picked up a copy of this week’s (17 July 2015) Newsweek at the local Kiosk in the St. Gallen Hauptbahnhof. Two articles caught my attention: “A 58-year-old Austrian man has been given a 10-month suspended sentence after appearing in a documentary that revealed his basement to be full of Nazi memorablia. He was found… Continue reading History: Wash, rinse, repeat?
The dark side of the red light
It is called the world’s oldest profession and it can be found everywhere in the world. It tends to be an industry of women serving male clients, but of course variations on this theme also exist – males servicing males, males servicing females, females catering to females. When one looks at sex in history, we… Continue reading The dark side of the red light
Rooster in the Henhouse
There are situations in life when you know you shouldn’t look, but you can’t help yourself. Scenes of disaster, like a car crash or a fire, find people gawking and staring, knowing they should either help or stop staring but the impulse to simply look is irresistible. A man is walking with his wife and… Continue reading Rooster in the Henhouse
S(ch)witzerland: Land of Sweat
Normally, I get little intellectual stimulation from the Swiss national free papers, 20 Minuten and Blick, but this evening’s Blick headline “Schwitzerland: Jetzt kommt der ewige Sommer” (sweat-land: here comes perpetual summer) does capture my mood perfectly. The temperature this evening is 28 degrees Celsius / 82 degrees Fahrenheit. Daytime temperature was 32 degrees Celsius… Continue reading S(ch)witzerland: Land of Sweat
Alex Supertramp and Canada Slim
“What´s in a name? That which we call a rose A rose by any other name would smell as sweet…” (William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet) “Each thing is the same with itself and different from another.” (Plato, Theaetetus) “Like the pine trees linin’ the windin’ road I’ve got a name. I’ve got a name. Like… Continue reading Alex Supertramp and Canada Slim
The curious incident of the blog in the night-time
A deliberately quiet lazy day recharging my batteries both mental as well as physical, distracting myself with Alpha Centuri, a video game with no redeeming virtue whatsoever, and watching DVDs (In the Name of the King/Dungeon Siege, Dune and Exodus: Gods and Kings). The overcast morning began a lethargy that lasted well into a beautiful… Continue reading The curious incident of the blog in the night-time
No fool like an old fool
Outside our apartment door, hanging on the mantle beside at eye level, is a magnet that reads: “A lovely lady and a grumpy old man live here”. As I type these words, I am reminded of an old TV series I watched as a youth growing up in the isolated village of St. Philippe d’Argenteuil.… Continue reading No fool like an old fool