The Swiss are unable to concentrate for longer than 45 minutes!

For the first time in yonks, I went to the cinema yesterday.
I was sitting there engrossed in the film when all of a sudden, with no prior warning, the screen went blank and the lights came on.
Unperturbed, people got up and stretched, went for a pee, or a smoke, or went to get a drink, or whatever...

They do it every time and every time it takes me by surprise!

I remember, when I was young, cinemas the whole world over had the same problem. Films were on two reels. When the first came to an end, it had to be changed before the film could continue.
A sign would appear on the screen 'Intermission'.
This was a welcome sign for children, because it meant that an usherette would appear from nowhere, to sell ice-cream.
Better cinemas worked around the problem by setting up two projectors - when the first reel neared its end, it tripped a switch and automatically started the second projector. The break often went unnoticed - the film could be watched in its entirety.

In this age of digital technology, there is no need to interrupt a film at all.
Unless, that is, your audience starts to fidget and loose interest.
I suppose that is what happens in Switzerland.

Whatever - be prepared if you ever think of visiting a Swiss cinema.
After approximately 45 minutes the lights will suddenly be flicked on and you will be forced to sit around for ten minutes wondering what to do with yourself...

Switzerland is among the 191 nations that met in Bonn, Germany, last week to discuss what can be done to stem the "unprecedented" loss of the world's biodiversity.

United Nations experts have warned that human activity, including global warming and the shooting of 'problem bears', threatens to cause the worst spate of extinctions since the dinosaurs died out 65 million years ago.

Thomas Kolly, head of the Swiss delegation to Bonn, told swissinfo:
"Unfortunately, I have to say that it is quite obvious that we will not meet the goal of lowering flora and fauna loss by 2010".

While he was talking, there were more illegal immigrants on their way from Italy...
... the bears have obviously heard about the bear-proof bins that have been dispersed throughout Grisons (Graubünden) and want to try them for size - we are to expect more arrivals this year.

At least the authorities have stated that they may have to 'rethink' their approach to bears and might even have to redefine what actually constitutes a 'problem bear'.

Whitsun slipped by with some people not even noticing it...

We had glorious weather here - ideal because, as I mentioned, I had visitors from Germany.
They had a whole week of sunshine, sunburn and all.
We went sight-seeing a couple of times and, of course, I had my camera with me.



The Hohe Kasten - the mountain you've already seen on one or two of my pics -
has a new, rotating restaurant on it's summit.
We breakfasted up there on the Friday after Whitsun.
The resulting panoramas took a little longer to process.
Shooting directly into the sun causes over-exposure. To compensate, I took all of the pictures with three different exposures and combined the results to HDR (High Dynamic Range) images - that means three separate panorama images combined to display the details in both the clouds and the dark parts of the scene.





The new restaurant is well worth a visit, by the way.
It completes a revolution every hour - giving you plenty of time to eat and enjoy the view...

It is hard to believe that I was first this year!

The houses round here all have flowers hanging below their windows between Spring and Autumn.
I have to admit, it does make them look nice. So, so as not to be different, I participate in this tradition - after all, the window boxes are a fixture and they look strange when they are empty.

Last Wednesday was ‘Kalte Sophie’ the last of the  Eis-Heiligen - the Ice-Saints. These are four days named after the Saints Pankratius, Servatius, Bonifatius and Sophie (the Catholic church has determined a saint for each calendar day) that can begin with a frost. Wednesday evening my flowers were in their window boxes - the first in the whole of the neighbourhood!

Sadly I am unable to take credit for the fact.
I had visitors last week and they took it upon themselves (boredom?) to attend to my empty flower boxes.

Now I have a problem.
Over the years, I have discovered that the whole affair of flowers and plants is rather complicated...
... apparently they need things like water and ¿fertilizer? at regular intervals.

I was never particularly good at maths - especially algebra and equations with unknown denominations - X * Y = ?.
Apparently the important part of this equation is ‘interval’.
Twice every six months, so I have been informed, may be regular, but I seem to have interpreted Y wrongly.
The result: X * Y = †

Somehow, I can’t get rid of the feeling that part of the equation is missing. Didn’t they always give us some sort of a clue at school? Something like X * Y = 6 ?

I shall try very hard, this year, not to disappoint my friends...



There are three of these...
... while downstairs we still have last year's weeds.