Corporate Responsibility

OK, ok, I know that most of you are going to think – now there’s an oxymoron, but yesterday in the local Sunday paper I happened across a full-page ad taken out by Volkswagen in which they apologize for deceiving their customers! Imagine.

"We have destroyed the most essential piece of our cars: your confidence.

We committed a huge gaff.

We have undermined your confidence,

A confidence built throughout 60 years.

Every time that you bought one of our vehicles,

You believed in us.

And now, today, we have disappointed you.

So now we are going to start with one thing:

transforming our words into acts. And we will find 

a solution for each client involved.

We are going to work with ceasing to regain

your confidence.

For more information:

www.volkswagen.ch"

99% of us are going to write it off as a great marketing ploy – and that it is.

However, do you know anyone else of the worst environmental polluters who have even bothered to acknowledge the damage they have done?

Deep water Horizon spill (BP) in the Gulf of Mexico

Amoco Cadiz oil spill

Love Canal (now Occidental Petroleum Corporation)

Not to mention Bhopal, Chernobyl and many in China, Japan, India and other countries that we hear less about, but that are just as deadly to man and animal. One for example is the e-waste graveyard in Guiyu, China where 88% (and yes that is eighty-eight percent!) of the children in the area suffer from lead poisoning!

Some have been fined – it’s all part of the business plan these days - but most have had their “dirty messes” cleaned up by public, read us the taxpayers, funds.

So even if it is a marketing ploy, they are at least doing something other than just laying the blame and passing the buck. Hopefully they will continue and follow through.

Seasons, walks and pastures

Yesterday I was bemoaning the fact that when the local forestry department decided to cut down some trees they didn’t bother to check and see what had happened to the paths in the woods below said trees. I only was able to continue my normal way as I had known that part of the woods and was able to climb under, over and around the obstacles.

Today I simply took another path.

It is to my way of thinking the best time of the year to be out and about: the fall colors are gorgeous thanks to all that awful heat and dry that we had this summer (glad to see that there was at least something positive to come out of all the days and nights that we could hardly move or even rest well).

The cows are back from the high pastures and one of my favorite fields is full of a mixture of yaks and various-colored cows – all still with their bells ringing at every movement.

part of the group at Planajeur

Imagine a yak that looks like a skunk!

Yes?

I'll keep one eye on you

Pose? Me?

even a couple of more classical cows inhabit the field

Then there is the local specialty – the “Brisolée”: roasted chestnuts, various cheeses, mountain ham, the compact dark rye bread and for dessert squares of apple tart – the entire thing washed down with cider. One continues to enjoy it in one’s dreams thereafter (and believe me after that meal I defy anyone not to need a nap!).

Lunch in Zermatt or…

Day tripping.

Now there’s an expression that I haven’t used nor heard in a long time: it harks back to my childhood when literally about all the vacation we could afford were day trips (these tended to be more fun and more expensive than the couple of weeks camping that were the norm).

In my present life I have grown quite fond of “day cards” on the Swiss train system. Our community sells these for a price that isn’t to be believed and although the weekends can disappear quickly if one is flexible one can usually get one or two throughout the week without having to plan too far in advance. I did this recently when I dropped into the Mayor’s office for something else and the day before yesterday was the day.

As the weather wasn’t 100% wonderful anywhere in Switzerland I decided to stick with my original plan of finally getting back to Zermatt. As I am currently leaving house and cats to the housemate I already had an hour’s head start.

First step: catching the local train, which is cute enough in itself, being as it is a tourist train connecting Martigny in the Valais of Switzerland to Chamonix in France, at 8:12. 

Les Marécottes train station

Totally new

 

rather gray everywhere - Vernayaz

This meant though that I hadn’t yet had breakfast so when the train was only a couple of minutes in arriving headed further up the valley I hopped on it then stopped in Sion for breakfast (a city I know quite well as it is usually where I head with company or simply to see something else when I am in the mountains: it has a lot to offer both in scenery, history and culturally). Having enjoyed coffee and a roll it was back to the station where I whiled away about 20 minutes amusing myself trying to take photos of the fighter jets that were practicing landing.   

 

jet fighter coming in for a landing

fall colors

Then on to Zermatt – changing train in Visp – boy what changes there have been to that train station. It has been obviously a long time since I last enjoyed the privilege of going to Zermatt as not much recognizable either there nor along the way.  The weather was improving in that there was the odd patch of sun and no rain. The fall colors this year are stupendous and I can only encourage anyone who is in Switzerland to get out and see the valleys and mountains the next 10 days or so before they are all gone. We even have a decent share of reds, which is very unusual.

through the train window along the way

Train to Zermatt

Along the way several water falls

Fog and rock make for a pretty combination

Fall colors are gorgeous this year

Having visited my favorite spots (including the church and the two cemeteries) it was time for a bite. Being as how I was in Zermatt I had to go to the oldest known restaurant and was also “obligated” to take the rösti and cheese (hash browns with raclette cheese on the top – the whole thing then grilled in the oven like lasagna: not good for the cholesterol nor the waist, but oh the taste buds will live in ecstasy!).

typical decoration

Ibex and marmots are indigenous

very fitting for a mountain grave

even cuter than the cows!

 

Oldest business in Zermatt according to them.

Sinfully good: hash browns smothered in cheese then put under the grill

The sun had come out, but THE Mountain remained in the clouds – never mind I could see it from my village today and I’ll surely go back to Zermatt another time.
 

Even some reds

Then the reverse train ride: since I was on one heading for Brig and points beyond I decided to at least go to Brig where I took a stroll around town, discovering the Old Town and an Abbey that I never knew existed – will have to return for a visit of the church.

First snows on the mountains leading to the Simplon Pass

Brig - well worth another trip

 Then as there was a train due to leave in just 20 minutes grabbed coffee and a cookie to go.  

 

 

Back “home” pleasantly tired: day tripping is fun!

Detours or…

Discovering Marconi

This morning whilst the weather was still decent I headed down the road to go to Salvan as I had a question and the mayor’s office is only open on Tuesday mornings and Friday afternoons.  Although unable to settle my particular request it did lead to my taking a walk.

One that I should have done years ago, but somehow never got around to doing.

Salvan is where Guglielmo Marconi achieved his first experiments in the wireless transmission of sound.

There is a walk that one can take to the various rocks and sites used for this purpose and if it hadn’t been for the parcoursvita (a sort of path that combines various exercise elements for strength, endurance and flexibility) that was halfway around, it truly would have taken only 30 to 40 minutes, as advertised.

Imagine the longest distance he achieved was in between Salvan and the small village where I rent in the summers Les Marécottes. The fall colors are going to be much better than in “normal” years, thanks to the extreme heat and lack of rain this past summer – there are even some reds!

All goes to show that even the tiniest of villages or spots also have their own interest or claim to fame. The church also has a wooden plaque honoring the Swiss chef that went down with the Titanic.

View from the "Bergère" rock

View from the "Bergère" rock

towards the mountains from the Age d'Or

Detail from the top right corner of the preceding photo

Plaque from the ITU attesting to Marconi's work here in 1895

Another plaque from the IEEE about Marconi's experiments

through one of the telescopes

through one of the telescopes

Just some of the fall colors to be enjoyed this morning

Just another reason

I love Switzerland.

Anyone who knows me well, and even most of the people with whom I only have a passing acquaintance, knows how attached I am to my computer! And by my computer I mean any one of the three that I currently possess: the old one that I need to sort and finally transfer to the new one and my travel one.

I do tend to arrive in the mountains without one part or the other – and one famous year when I was planning on being here over a week actually had to go purchase another mouse. Usually it’s the separate keyboard, but I can actually manage without that for a few days (it allows me to put the computer on top of the mini toaster so that the screen is at eye level but still type properly at elbow level (those of us who took typing lessons will know what I am talking about).

Yesterday though was the biggest of disasters when I realized that I had managed to get up here without the battery pack! For an old computer where the battery maybe holds an hour this was not going to be good – all the photo work that I needed to do, the e-mails, the blogs, etc. for perhaps a week.  E-mails I could eventually pick up if I installed all my programs into the new computer, which I have brought along for the second time in hopes of starting that famous transfer. However as all the passwords are on the old computer it would have meant a lot of boot it up for 5 minutes, find a password, turn off, transfer to new, etc. with no hopes of actually getting it all done.  I love walking, but there is a limit to the number of walks that one can take in any given day. My reading materials are meant to be supplementary for a week so even they were going to run out. What to do? Go buy yet another battery pack – that is if I could find one?

Then I remembered: I live in Switzerland!

Call home, spoke to my housemate and R, had them locate the one that I had lent to younger son when he lost his, and send it express mail yesterday in the hopes that it would at least get here tomorrow whilst I was out taking my train ride so that come Thursday I could “work” again.

Bless my housemates, bless the mostly-efficient Swiss postal service – by express sent last night around 18:00 it arrived here in the mountains at 9:00!

Yes I’ll still go take a walk, but my life as I know it has just been immeasurably improved by this seemingly small proof of a system that on the whole works and works well.

Coming out of the mountains…

The cows that is.

Part of fall in the mountains of Switzerland is the return of the cows from their high summer pastures to the valley. Many of these have become popular tourist attractions, so much so in fact that sometimes one forgets the original purpose of bringing the cows down to safer climes.

In the smaller villages there is not much – it is simply as it was since ancient times.

The family that pastures the cows at Emaney, Valais brought their troop down a few days ago: there are still traces on the street of their passage.