F

There's none so queer as ....... I live in Europe; about 15,000 years of tribal borders. While the Swiss may fancy their design skills, the Germans their engineering, and the French their technology, the tribal fundamentals of this lot means they'e lousy communicators. Across the forty or so languages, one might expect to see a consensus that this EU conglomeration should attend to more effective communication. Forget it. The biggest inefficiency here is the time one spends circling roundabouts looking for a further direction to the sign on the previous roundabout. Add to that the majority of motorists in the roundabout not indicating where they're going, (possibly for the same reason you're not indicating,) and there's the formula for everything that's wrong with modern life. I was trained as a graphic designer to look up to Swiss Typography. Some twenty years later I regularly cross Geneva, (the name of the 'clearest' typeface) to the airport. The intersections are such that it is essential to position one's car in the correct lane a half a kilometer before the intersection, as lane changing is not recommended anywhere else, but try finding an indication of which lane for the airport? Impossible, and the signs, when you do spot them, halfway through the intersection, tacked on a power pole, about the size of a magazine, mean you have a huge detour to find a successful U turn place for the retry. I know the way now, but I always look to see if they have gotten the idea yet, and no, they haven't. But they have gotten a fee at the border for touching their motorway system of forty francs, about twenty five euros, and for that priviledge, you are faced with NO TOILETS for the duration of your trip in Switzerland. Oh, you might get a shit splattered cubicle in a converted freight container at the side of a petrol stop, but I get instant constipation at the thought of even going near such an edifice. I think it explains the pained look on Roger Federer's face, and it certainly explains the anally retentive attitude of the swiss police, who will hold you to a group conference for no reason at all, but I think; 'what a great place this would be if they'd only step back and take a look at themselves'....... and no; there's an industry writing in praise of themselves but nothing else. I actually prefer the French's 'fuck you' attitude; if you can't handle the language and the quirkiness, get lost.... They have a troupe of tourist assistants and training staff in Paris trying to improve the attitude to American Tourists, to no avail. I worked in a gang in the alps, renovating old farm buildings for wealthy British buyers, and never was there an attempt to communicate; if a command could be made more obscure, the language was chosen to make that order as obscure as possible; only a native would understand. I cringe to this day for the stupid fool they made out of me. But here I am in Slovenia. The language is unique; sure it is Balkan, but it has three genders, and verbs conjugated accordingly, and I can listen for an hour to the TV and not comprehend a word; this is a rich treasure; the history goes back thousands of years, Jason and the Golden Fleece was a Slovenian event, to some extent, and is regularly celebrated. But share the treasure? Yesterday was EU language day; I asked several people if they could bring me a couple of copies of the brochures that were being distributed in the cities; no such luck, and every day when I think I have something right, I find, later, that it is 20% wrong, and a return trip is necessary to start the process over again. (Like; buying insulation, fabric, plumbing materials, foodstuffs, posting a letter, ordering timber, painting materials, you name it.) So my solution for saving this environment can only be for these races to extinct themselves as soon as possible, (which is what I see them doing) and to re-evolve over the ensuing millennia and maybe they'll be wiser for their mistakes. Nuff said.