Are artists abandoning Switzerland?

Yesterday, I had two conversations which made me aware that artists are abandoning Switzerland.

The first was with a woman who is a singer and songwriter, who said that the space for creativity was being shrunk in Switzerland. When I asked in what way, she replied that Switzerland was too uniformly expensive. In other countries, even the most expensive cities, such as New York, have areas which are run down and where artists can live. But, as artists gather there, they gradually made the area attractive because small theatres and galleries come up there, though of course then gentrifictaion starts, making it necessary for artists to eventually move to other areas. So where was this woman artist moving to? Berlin.

The second was with a man whose wife is a prominent artist. The couple is based in Switzerland, but the wife goes for work-related travel to Berlin, and he unwittingly confirmed that Berlin is becoming the mecca for artists at least in the German-speaking world.

Great for Berlin. Bad for Switzerland.

While Switzerland has financial policies that attract the most succesful artists in the world to Switzerland for financial reasons, does it not seem very short-sighted to have a complete absence of thinking about a cultural policy that helps to to keep young Swiss artists here?

Das Wellness-Prinzip: Gesund leben, Glücklich sein

i have just received a stunningly beautiful brochure for a fascinating book, DAS WELLNESS-PRINZIP by the Swiss-Austrian couple who are Olympic athletes, Jacqueline Walcher-Schneider and Jörg Walcher. I see that their very impressive biographies are available at: http://wellbeing24-7.com/biographie/jacqueline_walcher_schneider/index.html and http://wellbeing24-7.com/biographie/joerg_walcher/index.html

Published by Draksal Fachverlag in Leipzig, the brochure publcises chapters titled "WellBody", "WellThink", "WellFamily", "WellJob", and "WellMoney".

That seems pretty comprehensive to me, and I am looking forward to reading it.

Situation on the road between Zurich and Basel

My son told me yesterday that someone driving from Basel to Zurich to see him was delayed by an hour for the appointment only because of how busy the road (there is one principal road) has become!

I don't think that road was ever particularly efficient but now seems to be impossible.

Even though I oftn draw attention to the deterioration of public transport in Switzerland, it is still one of the best in the world: boats, buses and trains are more or less regular and reliable - and the scheduled travel time is only 53 minutes between Basel and Zurich.

Driving in Switzerland is increasingly unjustifiable except in the more remote areas which may not be so well served by public transport. But even there, one must value travel time very low to be able to justify driving, or value mere convenience more than overall efficiency and productivity.