THE BALLOON MAN

I was going to go to an art gallery today, but again the sun was far too bright, so I took a walk by the lake again. Of course, half the city had had the same idea. I get the sense that it's a weekly ritual. Anyway, it wasn't bad to be in the crowd. I heard a busker who was a bit different from normal. Dylan-ish, and peddling some light lyrics drawn from from the Perennial Philosophy that were perfect for this hazy cusp-of-Spring day: the simple things in life are what's going to get you through and they don't cost money; look forward to tomorrow and don't pore over a yesterday that's gone; happiness may be very close by. And as he went into the choruses, his two puppets (Jean-Paul & Mohammed) started clopping their wooden feet on a box-top in time. The light shone off the lake and I felt that, yes, everything was all right with life.

Between songs, Greg (his name was on his CDs) was exhorting people to smile: "never underestimate the power of a smile", "Every smile is beautiful. Some of the best smiles I've seen had no teeth at all." "Even if you've had trouble in your life, you can still smile." He was twisting up balloons for kids and he'd say "that's a great smile. That's worth a balloon. I know you're gonna get married with a smile like that!"

The marriage thing was just a joke, but of course set me off reflecting. It struck me how heavy my ponderous thoughts have become, and how melanchlolic my songwriting style is! (Five out of the two hundred-plus I've written are what you'd call happy. Hm, wonder why everyone always preferred the cover versions when I used to do gigs?) I'm good with friends and I seem to make friends for life - but still pretty hopeless at parties. I've always seen a new face as a potential challenge, and if someone (perhaps a girl) smiles at me, I think it's for the person behind me and miss the moment. I don't smile at women on the street or in bars in case they think I'm leering. (Why on earth should I feel guilty about just smiling?) Once, seeing me walking along the pavement to meet him, my best friend told me I looked as if I was about to murder someone. The funny thing is, despite feeling slightly lost (first and only time in Stoke Newington) I was feeling just fine. Maybe it was the Stoke Newington effect.

I don't know how it came to be this way! Hitting adulthood as the no-future ecological crisis exploded over me didn't help. But other students didn't seem to bother so much that their world was ending. This has a longer history; one primary teacher wrote in my report "Neil takes life far too seriously." I don't feel down. I'm pretty upbeat. But I'd give a lot to (re)discover levity, an easy smile and to write more happy songs! Greg remarked (lightly, with a smile) to the audience that sometimes to be able to do that is a lifetime's achievement.

FASNACHT IN LUZERN

I took the train to Lucerne yesterday - it's only 50 minutes away. Yes, that's 50 minutes exactly - both ways. It really is true about everything here running like clockwork. Normally, I just treat bus timetables as some kind of approximation - but the other night, after an Irish folk session, we turned up for the last bus at midnight, and there it was. It even waited till 12.02, the exact scheduled departure time.

Anyway, Lucerne - surrounded by mountains, and on a beautiful wide lake. I can't get bored of this. I've seen lots of mountains in Scotland, but they're not jagged and snow-capped. So first off, I got myself a Glühwein and just gazed for a bit. It's another very charming picture postcard town with a Middle Ages feel: all twisty lanes and embellished facades. Just to top it off, yesterday was part of the Fasnacht festival, the local Mardi Gras, so the streets were full of marching bands, each composed of around twenty people wearing themed heads with a slightly different expression. There were horned devils, green men, and other assorted bogeys, even a procession of white-caped nightmare Elvises. All of these creatures were beating drums or playing the kind of horns where the tube curls round your body and culminates in a huge funnel (?) above your rubbery head. Next to the band trundled a small truck, from which they dispensed goodies like overly-sweet Punsch. The effect of this, and the strange organ music from the trucks - not in time with the drums, but didn't need to be - was disorientating, like being in a kind of dream - half-in half-out of the jollity and mocking masks rearing up at every turn.

IMPRESSIONS FROM A HALF DAY OFF

On Friday, I had no input to do on the course so I found myself with a few hours free. I took the tram to town, thinking I'd go looking for some boots, but the sun was too bright in the sky and I ended up walking past the spires and clocks to the shore of the Zurich See...

It's the first real spring day and it feels as if the world has paused just here. People are basking on the benches and the wall at the water's edge.There are a lot of couples, but I'm not going to feel jealous - today, anyway. One teenage girl is bouncing a plastic bottle off her boyfriend's knees - she looks enraptured. There's an old couple, in their 70s, still arm in arm.


The water is very clean. A cormorant goes under, and I can watch its whole dive until it re-emerges half a minute later. It never seems to catch anything, though. There are hooting coots, a line of four swans, and lots of ducks, one with a big copper-coloured head and bright red beak. On the far shore, I can hear the engine of some kind of paddle-steamer hammering, slightly muffled. In the distance, behind a net curtain of mist, there are the mountains.

The sky is clear, with only a few wispy clouds and vapour trails. When I close my eyes, I feel the sun like an expert masseur relaxing all the muscles on my face. I must have been so tensed up before, and never knew. I have to take off my pullover because of the heat. I realise I've actually managed to turn off my thoughts for a few minutes, and just watch ducks.

LOST IN TRANSLATION

This is not a fake. I am typing this verbatim from the side of a Chinese box of battery-operated vibrating condoms. You might wonder how I came into possession of these. Well, they're not mine and I reckon the best thing about them is the box. Here goes.

In sex life deficient fervor? Is because had not discovered! The reproduction healthy expert intimate bird newly promotes the appeal toy vibration life jacket, crisply crisply itches, direct excited G. The comprehensive promotion sex life quality, lets you feel the unprecedented pleasant sensation with to satisfy!

Operating instructions:
1. Takes out the product in the packing box.
2. The wrap enters the life jacket wrap to enter the vibrator first (also to be possible again to wrap directly enters vibrator use)
3. Will vibrate the link wrap to enter to the male genitals root (vibration salient point forward)
4. Presses down the switch, vibrates 15-30 minute (to be possible sustainably to open, to close)
5. This product may the men and women use in common or voluntarily the DIY use.

(Not sure I'd trust it somehow, even for DIY use.)

ALLES IN ORDNUNG (Laundry room fun)

There's a washing machine in our small block, and you have to book time on it. That's the system in Switzerland, apparently. I signed up for a specfic time and, when I arrived, was mildly irritated to find that my name had been neatly crossed off - our neighbours wanted to reserve the thing for the entire weekend!

I'd seen their name there, but it hadn't seemed possible they wanted all days both days. Were they running an orphanage? Turns out they are both international tax and social security consultants for big business (I wonder what they actually *do*?) so work a 7-day week. Anyway, I negotiated my slot, and the guy was careful to point out that I also needed to reserve space to hang the clothes up to dry - and that I should inform my co-tutor not to hang his (black) socks on the same line as my neighbour's (white) laundry. Not because they'd be hard to distinguish from each other, obviously. Some control-freakery lurking?

POST-SCRIPT
Today, a week later, this same annoying neighbour has instructed me how to clean the powder drawer and dry the inside of the window to the machine. Oh, and the lint thing needs to be done, of course. I told him that, after nearly 40 years on the planet, it is the first time I have ever been told there's a need to clean the powder drawer, which gets a regular good soaking anyway! I told him - restraining myself - that it was "a little crazy".

FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF ZURICH

I'd only been to Switzerland once before - memorable because of driving through the mountains from France in an intense lightning storm. This time, I'm here for work, so I haven't had a lot of time to admire the scenery. It helps that, on a sunny day like today, there's a great view down the street that the school is on. Framed by buildings, the road descends towards the spires at the bottom. Behind these, dwarfing them, not sky but a backdrop of slightly hazy deep blue mountains, still snow-capped even though we haven't had anything like a winter. It's all very postcard-photogenic, but I have forgotten my camera lead so I won't be posting any till later.

The buildings are unformly pretty - neat houses (Play School design) with bright coloured shutters. No high-rise buildings in our part of town, but a forest of spires, some thin like rapiers. Everything is extremely clean, and ordered. I haven't seen any homeless people on the streets - are there any? Cars actually stop for you as soon as you approach a zebra crossing. Of course, the trams run like clockwork. On my first day, taking a funicular (?) up into the hills, I travelled ticketless and inevitably ran into a whole team of inspectors. (I argued, as much for the opportunity to use my German as anything, and wrung a compromise from them.)

I can't get the idea of this perfectly ordered state like Castalia (The Glass Bead Game) out of my head.