Tommy says…

Travel tip #13: Three scams to be avoided at all costs:
- the Gypsy woman/girl who asks “do you speak English”?
- the Gypsy woman/girl who hangs around the station ticket machine
- the String Man

Continental Europe can be a pretty crap place if you get caught up by a scammer. These are three of my pet peeves.

“Do you speak English?” – This is almost definitely a bad sign on the streets of continental Europe, especially when asked by females dressed in colourful rags. Don’t respond. I did, once, back when I was a naive little Aussie on his first trip to Europe. The lady in question quickly clutched my arm and shoved a postcard in my face: it read “I’m a poor widowed mother of eight pitiful orphaned girls from Bosnia, all the men in the family were brutally disembowelled before my very eyes. I have been diagnosed with cancer of the ovulus and need a lump of money just to buy my daily bread…” or something along those lines. The truth is, these people are Gypsies, not war refugees. They are well organised and they are very, very good at what they do. The best response is simply to feign deafness – easier to pull off when you are Asian. Answering “no” – in English – is probably the dumbest response.

Ticket machine scam – The more industrious Gypsy drifter works in one of two ways. Some loiter around station ticket booths and ticket machines, and offer to help you buy your ticket for you. They will then ask for a few Euros for their troubles. Not a good deal for the traveller, since all ticket machines in Western Europe have an English language option, and in any case the station staff (at least in the cities) are highly trained, very helpful, and speak English. The second, more resourceful variety, we saw in Geneva, and features an old lady who holds a stored-value ticket at a ticket machine, and offers to buy a ticket for you. I don’t know where she got her where she got the stored-value ticket from, but this is an even worse deal for the traveller, because Geneva has a scheme where all hotel/hostel guests receive free public transport. It is a little sad that these people are “working” in these trades, when they are obviously quite bright and speak English quite well. Perhaps if there weren’t such prejudice against Gypsies, they’d be able to make a living in a job that doesn’t depend on fraud.

The String Man – If the “I’m Bosnian rescue me” scam is just annoying, and the ticket machine scam is at least a fee for a service, then the String Man is downright dangerous. The scam works like this. The African man (they are usually black) approaches you, offers to tie a string around your wrist “for good luck” – then demands 5 euros to take it off. “Just walk away”, you are thinking, right? The reason the String Man is dangerous, is because he is not reluctant to use force – first grabbing your arm or bag if you try to ignore him, then blocking your way if you try to walk away. The antidote? I saw it firsthand in Milan. A group of String Men were pestering tourists on the square before the Duomo (cathedral), when a bunch of young mafia bloods spotted them and approached them. The String Men dropped everything and fled – ran – out of the square. It’s great. After the Carabinieri (national military-police) and the Polizia (provincial and specialist police), the Mafia is pretty much the third police force for maintaining public order.

Until next time,

Tommy

P.S. my bear does not appear in this post because I thoughtlessly left him in Florence during this leg of the trip. He will return for the next leg of the journey.

Events, Random thoughts, Travels

Travel tip #12: When visiting a foreign country, all the vocabulary you need to survive is the numbers 1-3, the characteristic food item of the place, yes, (no is a valuable bonus) and thank you.

Venice is truly the promised land. It’s been my life-long dream ever since this time last year to eat spaghetti with squid in ink in Italy. We dined last night at a restaurant in Venice recommended by Lonely Planet. It had an English menu, was fully of American tourists, and surly waiters. Have you noticed how tourist traps always have surly waiters? It’s as if they view you with contempt because you fell for their tourist trap. The meal costed €35 each (about $70). I couldn’t stop thinking about how many lobsters I could buy at home for that much money (okay, about one), or how many Armani ties I could get at the Harrods sale back in London.

So it was with some despondency that we took the boat out to Murano, an island in the suburbs of Venice renowned for glass-blowing. Venice, by the way, is a collection of marshy islands connected by bridges and separated by canals. There is just one road that fits a car – running alongside the railway line to the mainland. Whereas in any other city you see a cab rank when you come out of the train station, in Venice you see a line of wharves, with boat-busses, boat-taxis and gondolas waiting to take you downtown. We took one of the boat-busses out to Murano, and after getting lost down a tiny alley-way, saw a tiny restaurant across the church square. We decided to chance it, and the place was simply awesome! It had no signs indicating its name; it had a squat toilet; it was full of serious Italian men (no women) who looked like they worked down on the docks and were ducking in for their lunch. The menu was in Italian, and I had to fall back on the Italian I picked up from half a year of proper study back in year 7 and then randomly over the years. Between my broken Italian and the waiter’s broken English (“polpo, is a kind of…” [indicates many wavy arms] (it means octopus)), we managed to piece together the menu, whence comes my tip #10 above. Instead of a multi-label winelist as favoured by the pretentious arseholes at Lonely Planet, this place had just two – bianco o rosso – white or red. I’m probably sounding a bit like those spoof travel guides Molvania/Phaic Tan – The bits that go “Twenty years ago this place had no chair lifts. It took me 20 days of hard hiking and hacking through the jungle to advance 200 metres, and I was infected by malaria. Twice. But it was priceless…”

The wine came in a clear glass jug and was probably better than 80% of wines I’ve tasted in Australia. But the best part was the food. I had sardin a saor, sardines marinated in vinegar and other condiments, a Venetian delicacy, and spaghetti seppie, i.e. with squid in ink. The food was delicious, no-nonsense, not overly rich as Italian meals sometimes can be. In a word, it was perfect. And the price? €15 including the wine and water. Brilliant.

My second life-long dream, ever since the calzone shop on Norton Street closed down like 10 years ago, has been to eat a cheap calzone in Italy. I managed that tonight. Having gotten to Venice station for the train to Florence with an hour to spare, I decided to find a cheap calzone shop (which in some ways is the Italian equivalent to our kebab shop), so I struck off in a random direction, and two canals later – voila. I march in and, with my broken Italian, ask for “due calzoni tradizionale, per favore”. Dude doesn’t even blink, and replies in perfect American English “Mushroom and ham? Won’t be a moment”. I’m happy though. I may have been outted as a fobber, but he understood me.

So, language lesson of the day, your essential first aid kit of Italian:

one – uno
two – due
three – tre
essential food item – calzone
yes – si
thank you – grazie

Until next time, from the land of good beer and good wine,

Tommy

Events, Random facts, Travels

On 1 October 2009, a Supreme Court of the United Kingdom will replace the House of Lords as the court of final instance in most matters in the United Kingdom. This is a significant moment for the UK’s legal system. Constitutionally, it will mark the formal separation of the judicial arm of government from the executive and legislative (though functionally the separation has been in place for more than a century). The Law Lords will transfer to the new Supreme Court and become the justices of the Supreme Court. The first fresh appointment to the new court will be a replacement for Lord Neuberger, who is stepping down to become Master of the Rolls (to replace Lord Clarke, who is leaving the MR post to replace Lord Scott, who is retiring). New appointees will no longer be created life peers by reason only of their appointment to the Supreme Court – for lawyers around the Commonwealth, this marks the end of an era as they will stop talking about their Lordships in reference to new cases. The Supreme Court will be housed in the Middlesex Guildhall, which sits on Parliament Square, across from the Palace of Westminster and close to Westminster Abbey.

The Supreme Court’s website has been launched: http://www.supremecourt.gov.uk/index.html

Update: Read up on the workings of the UKSC at this (non-affiliated) blog: http://www.ukscblog.com/

Events, Law, Random facts

Ted Kennedy, the Lion of the Senate, the conscience of the Capitol

A life in video

The Kennedy Brothers’ greatest speeches

Events

Travel tip #10: Swiss efficiency extends only as far west as the last German-speaking town.

French-speaking Geneva feels like an entirely different country. Street signs are in the familiar blue metal of Paris. Road directions are the same fat, black-on-white light boxes as those found in France. We’ve seen the last of our hauptbahnhofs – here it’s a gare. At the centre of the city stands – not a rathaus, but l’hotel de ville. On the square is the Notre Dame, and further down, the Opera (“deisgned by the same architect who built the Palais Garnier opera house in Paris!” enthused the young man at the tourist information centre). In a word, this is France.

With it comes the laissez-faire attitude of the French. In Zurich, jaywalkers are mown down like broken clocks. In Geneva, motorists and pedestrians go about their own ways, seemingly oblivious to each other, in an elegantly chaotic dance.

Geneva railway station is organised mayhem. Here, I saw my first late train since stepping on the Continent. Stations announcements went like this: “The 4:24 train to Prague is delayed by approximately 20 minutes. We apologise for any inconvenience caused.” “Attention passengers on Platform 15 waiting for the 4:36 train to Milan. This train will now be departing from Platform 18. Please make your way to platform 18″. Sound familiar? It was just like Strathfield station on a bad day. I’ll be honest – they did make me a little homesick.

When the delayed train finally arrived, the train was further delayed by people getting on and off the train – there were still people jumping on and off even as the train began moving away from the platform.

Old Geneva is a little hill-top town, combining French bon-vivre with Alpine charm. Just across the lake, however, it feels much less like a little mountain town, and much more like the alternative capital of the world it is. Charmless concrete apartment blocks flank an avenue leading to the Palais des Nations – which houses many of the UN’s instrumentalities.

After the initial impact of the giant three-legged chair standing on the square (a monument to victims of land mines – and not, as I thought, a monument to the death of the USSR set up by the other three powers) – I realised that on the other corners of the square were WIPO – the World Intellectual Property Organisation – and the UN High Commission for Refugees. Suddenly, I felt like I’d come face to face with the world that I’d only seen through text books.

The other international organisation that makes Geneva one of the most significant corners of the Earth is most famous for a giant hole that runs beneath it. The hole is the Large Hadron Collider, and the organisation is CERN, the European Centre for Nuclear Research. It turns out that a visit to the LHC – and a guided tour of CERN – had to be arranged months in advance. Nevertheless, the visitor’s centre was fascinating, and I got an inordinate amount of pleasure from just being near greatness.

Geneva’s Frenchness does carry with it one boon – French food. I had a duck dish and snails at a little restaurant in the old city. It also gave us a chance to enjoy a breackfast of pastries and coffee. From Geneva, we officially switched our evening meal beverage from beer to wine – we will soon be out of the Alps, and tomorrow we will be in Italy.

Written at Geneva station, en route to Milan.

P.S. The train tracks are bumpy, just like CityRail.

Until next time,

Tommy

Events, Random facts, Reviews, The Sydney Grind, Travels

Tip #8:Going up a mountain while afflicted with a severe cold leads to long lasting eardrum damage!*

The lady at the ticket booth assured us that “up-there” it would be nice and bright, even if it was hard to believe standing here on the ground.

It wasn’t until our cablecar had ascended halfway up Mount Pilatus (2120 m), near Lucerne in central Switzerland, that my last scepticism burned away. At ground level, it was a wet, gloomy day. Dark clouds sealed the horizons. An icy drizzle slowly but steadily turned the ground into slush.
It seemed at first that the cablecar would enter the grey clouds and never emerge – in places, visibility was just a few metres. Then suddenly, it burst through the clouds, and we were bathed in brilliant sunlight. Fluffy cumulous clouds dotted a blue sky, against which stood the granite bulk of the mountain. The ticket lady was right.

Though grey clouds sometimes seem to cover the sky, the sun is still out there. All it takes is the will to climb through and find it.

Written by the shore of Lake Lucerne, 15 Jan 2009

____________________

* I caught a cold while standing around on Pariserplatz in Berlin at the beginning of the trip, and the cold – with associated hiccups – was still with me when I went up a few thousand metres of mountains in Lucerne. The air pressure change popped my ears – and my hearing didn’t recover until … well, I’ll save the story for another post.

Events, Random thoughts, Travels

Travel tip #7: Exchanging money in Switzerland attracts a SFr 6 admin fee – easily avoided if you are a UBS or Credit Suisse employee or client.

Switzerland is a clockwork country. This was apparent as soon as we crossed the border from Germany. The timetable showed that we had 2 minutes to make a connection between the international train and an intercity express to Zurich – and 2 minutes were exactly what we got. Everything runs exactly on the dot – trains, ferries and buses.

The flip-side of this, though, is that every person is expected to operate like clockwork. The pedestrian crossing light is timed precisely for the amount of time it takes to cross the street. Dally a little, or cross on an amber light, and you are likely – if you are lucky – to be stuck in the middle of the road. Jay walking is as good as any other form of suicide. You see, in a less precise country like ours, drivers and pedestrians allow for the other to not always follow the rules of the road, that some people act like idiots – that people are human. Not so in the clockwork country – here, every person is expected to follow the rules with precision. Anyone who doesn’t won’t do so for long. When I foolishly walked onto a road, the oncoming car did not slow at all – it honked and – I kid you not – actually sped up. I have it on reliable authority that Swiss driver training teaches them to mow down jay walkers, for the good of the nation.

If Switzerland is a giant set of clockwork, then the Swiss banks are the grease that keep the machine happily humming away. I wanted to find the main UBS building on Bahnhofstrasse – “Station Street” – the main street of Zurich – and noticed a curious thing: everywhere there was a UBS branch, there would also be a Credit Suisse within sight. Though there are a variety of other banks, such as the cantonal banks, the two banking giants control the system in Switzerland. I’m not sure whether it is a result of their concrete power in Switzerland, or simply another symptom of this being the clockwork country — but the bank counters were not sealed off behind glass like every other country, but instead simply a free standing white table, looking more like a demonstration area in an Apple store than a cashier’s window.

One result of their virtual duopoly is that foreign exchange transactions here attracted a SFr 6 exchange fee. The first time I needed to change money, the man at the counter asked me whether I was one of their clients. “No,” I replied truthfully. The second time around, I figured I’ll try my luck: “no, but I’m an employee back in Australia. Does that help?” The cashier fiddled a little with his computer, and told me, “yes, it does this time” — the fee was waived, though the exchange rate I got was quite a bit worse than the first time.

Somewhat paradoxically, the mechanical efficiency of Switzerland also results in the preservation of both history and the environment. Zurich is at once quiet and efficient, and the town centre is an eclectic mixture of modern office buildings, 19th century neo-classical edifices, and winding medieval passages.

The river teams with wildlife. Next to the busy offices where vast sums are moved across the globe, pristine white swans glide under medieval stone bridges free from grafitti. From the shore, one can counter every pebble on the bottom of the river. As might be expected, littering is unknown here. Presumably, in this perfect land litterers are packed off to the forest to be fed to the bears.

The only downside, though, is that the mechanical efficiency seems to have robbed the city of its soul, like a perfectly proportioned marble sculpture but devoid of expression. The saving grace in that regard, for me, was the discovery of Sprüngli.

That name is probably best known as the other half of Lindt. Both trace their origins to the chocolate business founded in 1845. When the founder, Rudolf Sprüngli-Ammann, retired in 1892, one son received the chocolate factory, which grew to become the global industrial production line that is Lindt today (with its products found in supermarkets throughout Europe and the world), while the other son received the two stores that have stayed true to their roots – and remain, today, boutiques in central Zurich specialising in chocolates and candied fruits. The Paradeplatz store features a charming cafe, a format which seems to have inspired Lindt’s cafe ventures downunder.

So it was with the satisfaction of having discovered the sweet side of Zurich – and gingerly carrying a stack of its tin-boxed products – that we hopped on the train (running precisely on time, of course) westwards, and upwards.

Events, Random facts, Reviews, Travels

Tiananmen remembered: 20 years on

In pics: then and now

Events, Random thoughts, The Sydney Grind anniversary, china, democracy, government

Travel Tip #6: Navigating a foreign city without a map? All you need is a camera – and the ability to take photos of local area maps posted at bus stops.

Munich is a city of many contrasts. The industrial brutalism of its main station leads across a tree-lined, bustling and jumbled avenue to the simple lines of the Selingor Tor, one of the city’s several gates, and narrow, winding streets filled with medieval houses and baroque churches. A blue-and-white striped maypole makes it seem like a small Bavarian town, yet just down the road, the sprawling Gothic New Town Hall and the disproportionately lofty towers of the cathedral reminds the visitor that this was the capital of one of the great German kingdoms. A short subway ride away are reminders of Munich’s modern claim to fame: the stately curves of the BMW headquarters, and the more fluid shape of the BMW museum, sit snug against the graceful web-like canopies of the Olympic Park. Then there’s the curious mixtures of the old and new. The Residenz, the Munich palace of the Bavarian kings, is all Italiante splendour on the outside; but closer inspection reveals that that facades are painted on. Much of the palace burned down during the war, and reconstruction efforts have tried their best to connect surviving parts of the original, with mixed success. For me though, Munich stood out for its food, food, food, and drink. One of the city’s key attractions is the Hofbrauhaus, a temple to beer. The Ratskeller, a beer hall underneath the town hall, is one of my all time, worldwide favourites. Here are sausages like you’ve never had them before. For a carnivore like me, it was heaven.

And now, for my photos…

Munich’s Town Hall, built from 1867 to 1908, houses council offices, shops, and a restaurant in the cellars. In the main tower is the Glockenspiel – “story clock”

The working parts of the Town Hall are just like any other government office building, but quite suddenly the drab corridor would break into a little landing, framed by Gothic fireplaces and arched windows.

Munich has a habit of keeping its modern institutions of government in great buildings from the past – the Palace of Justice is another example (this time, in Baroque)

Whereas the town centre feels very Germanic with a dash of Baroque, the area around the Residenz is firmly Italianate, from the Feldherrnhalle modelled after Florence’s Loggia dei Lanzi, through the Italian high Baroque Theatine Church, to the neo-classical concert hall.

Read more…

Events, Reviews, The Sydney Grind, Travels beer, food, germany, munich, photography, royal palace

The New York Times getting it wrong? Preposterous notion, right? And so I thought also – until reading this story recently.

The story is by now so well known that it’s featured on Wikipedia. A Chinese woman called Ma Cheng has a given name which uses an unusual character, which is visually composed of three repetitions of the character for “horse”. This character was recorded in a 1710 AD character dictionary as a variant form of a character meaning “gallop”. This variant form has fallen out of use over the last 300 years, and today is only found in comprehensive character dictionaries, with the 1710 publication being the most recent source. For a rough analogy, imagine having a þ in your name.

As might be expected, having an obsolete character in her name has caused Ms Ma some difficulty over the years. For one thing, modern type sets and computer character sets rarely feature the character. In earlier years, authorities would write-in the character “”cheng”” by hand on documents such as ID cards. However, with the conversion towards full digitisation, it is becoming more and more difficult to solve the problem.

A quirky story so far, but not too far out of the ordinary. The NY Times report takes a turn torwards the dark alley of dystopia, however, when it turns towards what it claimed was an 8,000 list of permissible characters. The Chinese government, it said, citing a Chinese newspaper report, had been developing this list in recent years, not just for standardising naming use, but for ordinary usage as well.  A Chinese linguistics official was quoted, via the state mouthpiece Xinhua, as saying that 8,000 characters (compared to the 85,000 in existence, and the roughly 30,000 in ordinary or literary usage) was ‘enough to convey most concepts’. Disturbing whiffs of doublespeak, newspeak, and the Thought Police?

I certainly thought it sounded just a little too shockingly Orwellian. So I went digging a little. The NY Times referenced two other sources for the statements about the 8,000-character “permissible word list”: a Xinhua news piece which it linked to, and a report from “another Chinese newspaper”.

First up, the Xinhua report. Headline? “Official refutes report that China will limit number of characters for new names“. Quite the opposite to the “limiting language to 8,000 characters” claim, it seems.

So how did this all come about? The Xinhua article cites – and refutes – a report by the Guangzhou-based Yangcheng Evening News that claimed that baby names would be limited to an 8,000 character list. It also offers another clue: an 8,000-character list of simplified characters, which a government official says “in combination, could convey almost any concept in any field”. So is it true? Is the Communist government embarking on a campaign to control thought by limiting the tools of thought?

Read more…

Events, Random facts, Reviews, Technology, The Sydney Grind Chinese characters, Chinese language, journalism, names, New York Times