There Is No Swiss Word For "Stubble".

Canadians often think they are too polite, that they are boring, that they have no exciting culture to speak of. We are here to tell you that on all those counts, the Swiss have us beat by a million miles.

Culture? People are almost universally too busy working hard and keeping themselves well groomed to take up artistic pursuits. A well-placed source in the Swiss music industry has described most Swiss bands as, quote, "total balls". Swiss media is dominated by Italian, German and French content, and the Swiss seem happy with this. Why not let foreigners take care of that mundane stuff while we do the really important stuff like building more tunnels?

Boring? The "Xenophobe's Comprehensive Guide to Switzerland" contains the following passage: "The Swiss have an almost universal suspicion that everyone else in the world spends too much time trying to 'have fun'. They happily see themselves as taking up the slack for the rest of the world." Oy.

Polite? We had a van-party after our Basel gig, with fiddle music, drinking and singing well into the night. The next morning, an extremely-well groomed Swiss man (note the redundancy there) tapped on the passenger window and handed me a piece of paper with the words "Polizei Stadhof" written on it. He politely asked if we had been in the van the previous night, and then politely asked us to drive down to the nearest Police station and pay a 150 Franc fine. No police-person talked to us. We didn't even get a ticket. The fine, it was clear, was more of a request than a requirement, and if we were too busy to actually go down to the station, then it was clear that that was perfectly alright.

"Have a nice day," said the Swiss fellow. Christ.

(note stubble)

In other news, "Samovar" was played on BBC1 radio the other day, thanks to the promo work of ADAM PEE DUB SMITH.

In other other news, the Tour Sieg Heil Count (TSHC) is up to 2. The first came from a 12 year-old in Cowansville, Quebec, and the second came from a stubby looking fellow in Basel. While utterly distubring, the Sieg Heils are also extremely hilarious, because these retards think we're playing their music, when in fact our stuff is almost exclusively Gypsy- and Jewish-influenced. Now, I may have spent most of Grade 11 history class trying to get a look down Sara Bougen's cleavage, but I'm fairly certain that Hitler wasn't overly fond of Gypsies or Jews.

(note lip-stubble)