thomas m wilson

This is the view I see looking out of my friend Ben’s apartment window. That area of buildings in the back is Old Geneva. The other day I was sitting in the park around the corner and I kept hearing people speaking different languages, often English. This city may only have the population as Hobart, Tasmania (around 200 thousand), but it is much more cosmopolitan, and feels much larger because of the more densely spaced living quarters.

Today I walked, through extensive security checks, into the Palais des Nations, a central building of the United Nations here in Geneva. The big HQ of the UN is in New York City, but the second largest centre for the UN is here in Geneva.

The 192 states which have membership in the UN each get a vote in the General Assembly, the most important forum in the UN (this bit is actually in New York). But it doesn’t sound very democratic to me. I was in Samoa a while ago and there are only about 200 thousand of them. Why should they get the same vote as China with over a billion people? As our tour guide continued to talk about the comprehensive membership coverage in the UN I found myself wondering if Tibet or West Papua are two of the 192 nations that get a voice in this international talk shop. Get real Tom: of course they don’t.

The view from the softly padded diplomat’s chair… I have to admit that the idea of day long sittings in such places, arguing fine points of language in shared declarations, would send this citoyen running screaming into Lac Leman. But they do good stuff. To use an example you might not expect, a committee of the UNESCO World Heritage program is currently looking into the evils of logging practices on the edge of a world heritage area in south-west Tasmania. I hope they shame Australia on the international stage on that point.

In a week or so I’ll be in France, and not too long after that, back in Western Australia.

I arrived in this country last Wednesday evening.  The approach from England and from the west emphasised the space and rolling patchwork of forests around here.  26% of this country is forested, a big contrast after England, and it really showed as I looked down out of my plane window.  People and their settlements were being almost shrugged off by the massive geology, the ridges and the hills, and large areas of trees stood all around.  Ah, what a relief.

As soon as I arrived at the airport I could see that this was a rich country.  One thinks that once one is in the first world that is it, first world means first world.  But no, think again.  This place is even richer than England.  The public transport is excellent.  The dirt of Bethnel Green Road seems a distant memory.  The country has very little crime and almost zero unemployment.  They have hydro and nuclear energy which means their electricity produces no CO2 pollution, and recycling is very, very advanced here.   They also have direct democracy, and referenda are held a few times each year on different topics.   Good place eh?  On Thursday I was swimming with my friend Ben in Lake Geneva in warm water, with the French-looking hotel fronts of the six story stone buildings that surround the lake edge in the background.  I thought it was a pretty nice place.

But what of the opaque banking system here?  In this country a corrupt, third world dictator or mafioso crime boss from eastern Europe, can have an account with a number on.   Some of the wealth in this very wealthy place comes from rich banks who operate in shonky ways.  And did I mention the price of a sandwhich?!  Think $10 Australian.  I honestly don’t know how tourists manage to come here without leaving all their savings in the hands of the Swiss.Today I walked in the centre of the country, in Grindelwald.  Walking up the Alps I heard a strange disembodied tinkling sound, as though metallic wind chimes were ringing out there in the grey space before me. What could it be I thought? On the other side of the steep ravine was another slope, and so it wasn’t coming from mid air at two thousand metres, this much I knew. From the preternatural to the prosaic, in a few steps, bovine reality loomed out of the mist.

The mist wraps the mountains like swaddling. The cauldron is a space of obscurity…

The Eiger, a well known mountain, has a glacier on one of its sides.

Last night I dreamt of a valley whose sides only could be seen. In the morning I saw one such outline.

As beautiful as the Alps can be, I do realise now why Australians flock to London, despite its flawed nature. It is the shared cultural background of the place for English speakers of the Commonwealth. We are able to speak a common language, allowing utter transparency of communication. And we know much of English literature, with its consequent common points of reference. Going through German speaking Switzerland I sometimes remembered walking through London with my friend Danny…

Despite Switzerland being a good society, I don’t want to live here. But what of Geneva, a city where 45% of people are from elsewhere and where English is heard on the streets often? More in my next blog entry.

I spied a London mood…

Europe is the most densely populated continent. Only 1/100 of Britain has its original forest cover. London air pollution can be seen on the black grime on the buildings of the capital. These are the stones of the Fitzroy Hotel.  Imagine what your lungs would look like after fifty years of living in this city.

Martin Amis was right in London Fields to portray this city as a grey and gritty. But enough criticism. I’m staying on Bethnel Green Road with my friend Danny and this part of East London is pretty close to being on the Indian subcontinent. It is a mark of the multiculturalism of this city that I thought I was engaged in very London experiences when I relaxed in the apartment yesterday listening to a Ravi Shankar record, and when I then strolled down the street past the West Indian guys listening to reggae circa 1974 on my headphones.

They have damn good hats in this town. I bought a straw hat with a green top in Brick Lane market today from a stylish black guy.  You can see some of Alva’s other hat work on his site. Below is Brick Lane market. The fashion here is far more quirky than any  other European cities can manage.

They also have great bookshops in this city. Foyles on Charing Cross Rd., the road most famous for its bookshops, is excellent. As is the London Review Bookshop in Bloomsbury (that is the British Museum you see in the background on the left).

Browsing in these bookshops on the weekend I discovered a few titles I plan to get hold of and leaf through. They are:

The World Without Us by Alan Weisman; The Earth Only Endures by Jules Pretty; and the apparently quite gimacky but actually very intriguing Extreme Nature by Mark Carwardine.

One book I did buy was Wildwood by Roger Deakin.  The author of Waterlogged, a book about one man’s attempt to swim his way across Britain, died last year.  This book details his travels through trees around the world.  I happen to think the jacket design is superb.

I said that the British Museum was in the background of a previous photo. Walking around the Japan section of the place I discovered an ancient bell. Apparently bells such as this one have been found buried on the edge of agricultural land, suggesting that they were involved with some kind of fertility ritual. In Zen Buddhism the bell is used as symbol of enlightenment, a moment of clarity or satori. If you can, get your hands on an album simply called ‘Japanese Temple Bells. It is a recording of different bells, many from the 7th century, and is well worth hearing.

Tomorrow I’m leaving London for Geneva. This weekend I’ll either be in the Alps of Switzerland or the Black Forest of Germany.