Morning News

Sometimes the morning news is just too good to keep to myself.

In addition to the sad and the bad there is the odd occasion where there are entertaining, thoughtful, downright humorous bits sprinkled throughout.

Today’s edition was rich in snippets of trivia (in no particular order either chronologically nor in importance):

·      Yesterday morning an Ethiopian co-pilot high jacked an airplane headed for Rome, to Geneva where, after having to circle due to said airport’s not being open, he landed, crawled out of the side window with a rope and easily gave himself up, requesting asylum: unfortunately for him, Switzerland doesn’t grant asylum to anyone having committed a crime. Oops

·      Same theme: the plane was accompanied when they entered Italian territory, first by Italian jet fighters, later by French jet fighters: Switzerland’s jet fighters are only operative from 8 a.m. until noon then again from 13:30 until 17:00.   And in a few months we will be voting as to whether or not to acquire new jet fighter planes…

·      ABBA – the much beloved Swedish group wore very colorful (not to say outlandish) costumes: why? Turns out that they could deduct the cost of said costumes, but only if they could not be worn as everyday wear. What we won’t do to get a tax deduction.

·      After the vote against “massive immigration” passed by a narrow margin (50,3% for), others are emulating it: a recent initiative was deposited in the canton of Ticino: 5’500 signatures to put to the vote taking Switzerland back out of Schengen.

·      A street had it’s name change from the “route of the students” to “burnt farms” (rough translations) because 9 barns have burnt in the sector – a mystery that has yet to be solved: perhaps the name change will see them all burn down, then we can change it back to something like “path of agriculture” or “no deposits”.

·      Switzerland has too much salt as winter has not been as cold as usual, solution: send 24 tons of it to Sotchi where it can be used to keep the snow on the ground.

·      And, last, but not least: there is too much arsenic in rice crackers!

Almost looking forward to tomorrow’s news.