My Landlady, it would seem, never had the pleasure of living in an Appenzeller farmhouse.
If she had, she would understand why they were built the way they were ...

Remember those romantic pictures you saw, of those Swiss chalets with their shutters?
The Appenzeller were very clever, when they designed their houses – the shutters were designed to be retractable.
They can be lowered or raised, as needed.
The solid wooden blinds can be pulled up to keep out the heat or the cold and can be set to just a slit, to let in fresh air while keeping burglars at bay. They protect the windows against the numerous hail storms we have and, for housewives, there is the interesting fact, that they prevent them from getting dirty when it rains.



As I mentioned, the north side of this house is being renovated. When the old window frames were ripped out, the blinds disappeared with them. I asked why this was the case and was informed that the new windows supply enough insulation to hold the heat during winter ...
When I asked about the fresh air during the summer, I could actually hear the blank stare on the other end of the telephone line!
So now I have windows that keep in the heat, all the year round!



I don't know, but I thought you'd give some thought to a properties construction before starting to renovate, I know I would ...

I've mentioned before that the house I live in was built in seventeen-something.
Obviously it doesn't conform to any ISO Standards regarding insulation.
The northern side of the house was last insulated in 1924.
The insulation in those days consisted of sheets of tar-paper and a coat of shingles.
How do I know it was 1924?
Speculation really. I found a newspaper from that year that had been used to fill in a gap between two beams.

Last November, a chap knocked on the door, saying he'd been sent along to check the insulation.
He looked at the windows, tapped on walls, hmm'd and hah'd, took some notes and some infra-red photographs – both from inside and out.

Eight weeks ago scaffolding appeared on the north side of the house and next day, at six in the morning, I was rudely awoken by banging and tearing sounds and the smell of cigar smoke. There was a guy outside my bathroom window ripping the shingles off the outside wall. He came along at the same time every day for a fortnight and, regardless of the time, hacked away at the wall.
Surprisingly — when he noticed that I had guests staying — he found some quieter pastime until around 09:00. Each time he finished a floor, it was clad in pastic sheeting and, by the end of the fortnight, the whole of the house-front was coated in plastic.

It just so happened that it was the warmest time of this year, so far. The stench of the plastic was terrible and, of course, no air could get in to, or out of the house. It was suffocating!
It took a fortnight for the next team of workers to arrive. They put up a wooden framework and, when they were finished, obviously took measurements for the new window encasements. That was just over six weeks ago. The house has been clad in plastic again ever since.

On Friday the new windows arrived and I had proof of the fact that some form of co-ordination must secretly be taking place. Workers from two different companies climbed the house – one from the inside, one from outside. Those outside ripped out the old window encasements. The one inside ripped out the windows, sawed away at the walls around the windows and began fitting new windows.
I got the shock of my life when I arrived at the scene. Everything within three meters of the window frames was coated in sawdust and wood chippings.



After seeing me, open-mouthed, studying the chaos, the carpenter put down his circular saw and, realising what my problem was, explained — the guys outside had ripped out the window frames without bothering to cover anything up and, seeing the mess, he'd decided it was no longer worth going to the trouble either ...

Pine sawdust is slightly oily. I now have pine sawdust all over the crockery that was stored on shelves next to the windows, in the sugar bowl, the bread bin, in and all over my coffee machine — just everywhere.
When I got up yesterday, even more sawdust had settled and I was at a loss where to start cleaning.
I eventually started with the ceilings and slowly worked my way down. I'm almost finished in the kitchen now; only another six windows to go ...

I told you about our Apprentices practical examination?
Well, she went on to do a couple of days of theoretical exams and all the hard work she put in over the last five years payed off — she passed.
I was proud to accompany her to her Diploma Celebration and more than willing to arrange the traditional initiation ceremony for her.
Since very early years, Printers in Germany, Austria and Switzerland have been initiated after becoming a journeyman. The initiation may be carried through in other countries too – in German the ceremony is called 'Gautschen'. Over the years, the ceremony has been extended to take in not just printers but most pre-press apprentices too. We had our Gautschfest last Friday.

There were two young ladies to be initiated, this time round. One because she just passed her exams, the other because she passed her exams twelve months ago, but was not initiated by the company she did her apprenticeship at. Now we can't have that, can we?

So what happens at a Gautschfest?
At a prearranged time both ladies were supposed to be bound, hands and feet and carried or frog-marched downstairs, where two barrows were waiting to cart them off to the village fountain.
Two of our men were clever enough to creep up on their (almost) unsuspecting victim and close her office door to prevent her escape, before successfully overpowering her.
The other two weren't so lucky they were spotted and the young lady defended herself with a water pistol, of all things, before taking off .
I chased her down two flights of stairs before loosing my footing – luckily without serious injury.
The other guys caught up with her on the car-park. She put up a fight and I was forced to stop photographing and take hold of her so that the ceremony could commence!

Both ladies were bundled into carts and transported to the village fountain a kilometer away. There the ceremony master was waiting for them. His speech called for them to be sat upon wet sponges until their nether regions were well and truly wet. He then called for their christening – with buckets of water.
After the christening the ladies were freed from their bonds (well, they were supposed to be) and dropped into the fountain. As the fountain had specially been cleaned and refilled just the day before, the water was freezing – I can assure you.

The delinquents then had to pull their carts back to work, where a barbeque had been prepared in their absence.

They were lucky they only got wet.
Until two-hundred years ago the fresh journeyman was set under the influence for a week. During this period, a tooth was extracted, his hair was shorn (as badly as possible) and his colleagues all got as drunk as possible too. The initiation was banned after getting out of hand.
Not to be done out of a celebration, this modern form of initiation soon reappeared soon after the ban.
I quite enjoyed it.
I hope you enjoy the pictures ...

I'm just watching something called America's got Talent, on the box ...
An elderly gentleman just left the stage after doing an impersonation of Frank Sinatra.
I was surprised that neither the jury nor the audience seemed to notice that he didn't hit his notes a number of times.



The thing that shocked me, though, was the fact that he gave his audience the two-fingers* on four separate occasions, while leaving the stage.

Try that in England and you wouldn't be very welcome on stage again – he, however, gets a chance to travel to Las Vegas!

*For those of you, who have no idea at all, what I am talking about:
Pictures of Sir Winston Churchill often show him giving the 'V' sign - V for victory.
Displaying the 'V' sign the other way round (in my day also known as 'the two fingers') is just about the strongest insult you can make in GB.
Worse, I would say, than the raised middle finger, I learned in Germany.