Last week I walked past the entrance of the ‘Veloparking’ in Basel and decided to have a look inside. I was amazed to find a huge underground parking, filled to the brim with bicycles (the facility holds more than 1600).

Seeing this reminded me of my childhood in China, when bicycles were the unquestioned main form of transportation.

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2009 was a turbulent year for the Swiss print media. Several newspapers restructured their editorial, merged operation with others, or even closed down.

The economic crisis wasn’t the real reason, but it was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

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In the 90s, the famous Taiwanese writer Lung Ying-tai wrote the following about the Swiss and their zero-tolerance attitude towards naughtiness in public:

“On the buses, I often see old ladies shake their heads at young mothers: ‘please tell your child to take his feet down from the seat!’

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Across the river from where we live, the city of Bern is building a new flood prevention barrier - and has been for over a year.

It seems the work will go on forever.

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I just heard on the news that Britain is having its coldest few days in almost 30 years.  The children will be having fun building snowmen, but the world of the grownups has ground to a standstill.  Closed roads, no schools, no flights and no trains.

Although it’s an exceptionally cold winter over there, it all sounds too familiar. 

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It’s the Holiday season. Although I don’t really believe in present buying I find myself wandering into one of the several ‘retro’ gift shops in Berne.

Judging from the hordes of black-clad customers thronging its aisles it seems to be doing extremely well - although for me, the shop is mainly a cabinet of curiosities.