Still talking about knives...

I cannot deny I always wanted one, they are really useful! But right now I will show you guys some really different Swiss Army knives. Some of them I don't really know if they exist and are quite absurd. By the end you can see my preferred.

I don't really think this telephone exists. Why? Imagine you are talking on the phone and you press the wrong button? You can have an instant brain surgery!


This one can come really handy! You don't even need your tool box anymore. Maybe if it had a laptop in one of the compartiments it would be more useful.


Eheheheh this is the Swiss Army knives for woman! Handy no? But hair dryer? That was a little bit too much!


Candy colors! But these little hearts killed them!

And, now, my prefered! Wait for it!







For sure delicious with a nougat praline for fill in. For sure not so useful. But who knows if you go hiking, loose your way, and have nothing to eat??? For sure you won't eat a stainless steel knife!

At www.victorinox.ch there is a nice catalog if you are thinking about buying one or some of them...

Is there something more Swiss than this?

I believe one of the "Swissest" things today is a little (not always little I know) tool that all kids want to have, both boys and girls, specially the ones that like to go camping. It is but a Swiss Army Knife.

Evolution?

Completing 125 years in 2009, Victorinox, their official producer, has reserved some nice exhibitions for this year in Switzerland. Created by Karl Elsener in 1884, he started his own cutlery himself and in 1891 he already supplied the Swiss Army with soldiers' knives.

In 1909, the founder baptized its company Victoria, after his mother who passed away that year. The company's name changed last in 1921 after the invention of stainless steel (also known as inox), by mixing Victoria and Inox together thus they named it Victoriinox, the same up to today.

In 1945, after the Second World War, when the US Army started selling the Swiss Officer's Knife in large quantity for their officers and soldiers who called the knives as "Swiss Army knives" for short.

With time, it developed and become more and more famous. Spreading to all continents. It produces not only to the knives but also house supplies, watches, and even parfums (what is their smell like?stainless steel?). Who used already a Victorinox knife knows how good quality it is. If you have any problem with your pocket knife you can send it back to be fixed to the factory in Switzerland and in its site you can find many histories of how it was useful many times to many people even saving their lives sometimes.

From the very simple...
...to the ones with flash drive and light spot or...



... for stylish people, made of gold and diamonds to ...

... the most useful ever!

In November of 2006, it was created by FieldCom a field advertisement picturing a Gigantic Swiss knife measuring 190 by 177 metres in the field of Erdinger Moos near Munich airport, one of the busiest airports in Europe. The subject of the piece was mapped out on the field using GPS technology and over 700 fixed points define the outline of the VICTORINOX logo and the giant pocket knife.

THE field adverstisement!

However, as well as being the largest field advertisement created by FieldCom, it is also the first ever field advertisement to be completed using plants and, to a large extent, entirely natural, milk-based colourings. These colourings were a completely natural product and contained no preservatives or any other artificial additives. Following its completion, the 33,650 m2 large "billboard" also required regular upkeep work on the ground. The grass needed to be carefully mown on a regular basis and the colouring touched up as and when necessary.

In February 2009, Victorinox produced a brand new soldier's pocket knife model for the Swiss Army as their requirements increased during the last century.
The old Swiss Army model in use since 1961 ...


... and the new one from 2009.

Also this year till October a Swiss Army Knife exhibition will take place in Schwyz, where you even have the chance to make your own knife! The exhibition will be on shown at the Swiss National Museum - Château de Prangins (www.chateaudeprangins.ch) from 20 November 2009 to 25 April 2010.

So, enjoy your knife if you have one, and sure, take care when you fly with it, because after 2006-2007 new traveling policies for airplane safety they are not allowed on board anymore. Since then, several knives have been seen in the trashes right besides the security check in airports.

sources: www.victorinox.ch, wikipedia

this time it is not about Switzerland but...

...about a Swiss dog when he fell in love.

Another day I was walking my landlord's dog since she was in a retired people meeting over some castle around here. The dog brought me (yes indeed he did that, I never walked a dog and I didn't know they could do that) to the house of another person I completely didn't know. Just for you to have an idea he is a Tibetan Spaniel , a breed of assertive, small, intelligent dogs, originating in the Himalayan mountains of Tibet and he shouts a lot when sg is not Ok. They are kind og guard dogs. He is nice!
I really couldn't move or remove him, he became a stone sitting there on the floor and not leaving the place. I said in all the languages I could: KAKUI, (nice name, no?) come now! And he would't move his little buttocks from there.

After some minutes the owner of the house, a very sympathetic old lady came to see what is this "fight" right in front of her gate.
I tried to tell her in my not-yet developed French that this is the first time I was walking the dog and I don't understand, he doesn't want to move on. And she said she had never seen him and went back inside her nice house.

After this, I swear I thought of acquiring a dog. After 10 min of fighting a nice female dog came from the garden, they started playing with the gate between them. Again the owner appeared. She said how nice my little dog he is, asked if I live around here and what's up with him... So I managed to explain her this is the first time I walk that dog, that I just moved to this nice "little" commune and that Kakui won't leave the place until they talked.

Then she explained that her poor female dog happens to be veeeery old and is almost blind. She even mentioned that she just finished having her last fertility bleed (heat?) 3 weeks ago and that she might die this week since she is really old. I was amazed, old Kakui remembered his lover (the lady said he has never been there) by the smell and came to pay his respects. Aren't animals amazing sometimes?
I tried to tell his owner that her dog is amoureux but I think she didn't really care...poor little dog...his girl won't survive to produce the seed of their love...

Film sessions...

This is the result of two films we watched this last month.

One was "The boy in the striped pajamas (or pyjamas)".
THis is about the vision a little boy has of things that happens around him in his "home" during World War II. Based on the homonymous book by John Boyne, this little boy happens to move from Berlin (shot in Budapest, one of the reasons I also watched the film) to a small house in the countryside of Poland (do they mention the country?) and close to a big concentration camp (they don't really mention its name, but you can guess it...) where he discovers a little friend. And the story takes ist course with the two kids discovering their differences and finding their equals, ending in what kids like to do: to play. It is really nice, though some historians say young kids that went to the camp didn't really stay alive there from the begining. Plus the presence of eletric fences. The ending is even more amazing.
A really good film.


THe other was "The curious case of Benjamin Button"
Also based on a short story with the same name and written by F. Scott Fitzgerald and first published in 1921, it tells the story of a baby that was born old and grew younger as he "ages" backwards. Really nice story and the film was readapted to the Hollywood style, but still surpreending those of us who think how nice would it be if instead of growing old we would grow young. How many times I listened to that... In the book he has childhood and stays with his father, in the film his father gives him to adoption right after almost succeeding getting rid of him. One of those films that also makes us think about life. And how make up can really make you younger.


So, if you have the chance to watch them, do it. They will surely surprise.

Port-Noir

On June 1st, Geneva celebrated the 195th anniversary of the arrival of the confederated troops to Port-Noir.

Monument at Port-Noir.

Coming from confederated cantons like Fribourg, Soleure and Bern, their arrival helped putting an end to the Napoleonic occupation of the canton of Geneva and started the negotiation for their entrance in the Confederation Helvetica which happened in September of that year, when 13 cantons out of 19 accepted their entrance.

Celebrated arrival! Is the mountain recognizable in the back?

So, it became the 22nd canton. It is one of the most important cities of the country in the field of economics and demographic. It gave and has been giving important historic people like: Charles Pictet-de Rochemont who got to Switzerland its neutrality in the Congress of Vienna, Henry Dunant who founded the Red Cross, or Jean Jacques Rousseau, born in Geneva, but passed most of his life in France.

See you at Port-Noir next June dressed like a confederated arriving by boat!
Enjoy the weekend everybody!

Bitten by a viper...

If we read a tittle like this we imagine. Well, probably it was in Africa, America or Asia. But in Bern? The capital of Switzerland?

A hiker and his family went for a walk on a park in bern Oberland. Close to the Engstlensee shore they stopped to prepare their lunch and this is where he was bitten. He fell close to where two 55cm-long vipers were. Since they were preparing to copulate they didn't really enjoy being disturbed and bit his index finger.


A helicopter was sent, of course, this is Switzerland! And he didn't die, though it could had been very dangerous if he were a young child. The doctor that saw him said he was saved because he kept calm and like this the poison didn't spread.

Viper bites are extremely rare here. The last death due to it happened in 1961. It still exists thousand of Swiss vipers, but at an altitude between 1500 and 2300m. Generally they "listen" to the vibration of intruders and run...but in this case...poor hiker, maybe he thought it was a sausage for his lunch.

Source: wikipedia, 20min.