Investment banking is definitely a young man’s game, consisting of long working days in a high pressure environment. A very very long time ago, I used to work as a trader for a firm of Swiss private bankers and one if its investment management companies and thus experienced this lifestyle to some extent myself before […]
Having your cake and eat it
Well, it doesn’t work like that, does it, having your cake and eat it too. It doesn‘t work for us mere mortals, and the proverb applies just as much to royalty, as the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have found out. In a statement released on the evening of 18 January, her Majesty the Queen […]
Swiss diplomacy
That the USA and Iran are not exactly on best terms is a well known fact, and the events of the last few weeks certainly have not helped deescalate the situation. What is less well known, however, is that since the Islamic Revolution in 1979, the US and Iran use a secret back channel through […]
Greta v Roger
Greta Thunberg, the young Swedish climate activist has an axe to grind with Roger Federer, our Swiss tennis champion! And to be honest not only her, but many other young activists from around the world have been criticising Roger Federer for jetting around the world (some 80’000 kilometers apparently since the ATP tournament in Shanghai […]
Cars of the future
I am clearly getting old since I don’t understand this world anymore! Many years ago, the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), an annual event taking place each January in Las Vegas, used to be about the latest trends in computer technology and – as the name says – consumer electronics. They are still there this year, […]
Family trouble
I am sure she wasn’t best pleased, her Majesty the Queen, when the Duke and Duchess of Sussex announced that they would be stepping down from or at least much reducing the royal duties and sharing their time now between the U.K. and North America. Apparently no member of the royal family was consulted over […]
The Bitcoin Mystery
Actually these are mysteries, more than one, and definitely more than anyone right in their mind could count. To name only two: Rumours surrounding the identity of the creator (or creators) of Bitcoin, who hide(s) behind the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto, tales of fraud and collapsed cryptocurrency exchanges such as Quadriga, once Canada’s largest following the […]
Weirdos and misfits
As if the Brexit saga wasn’t already strange enough, it just got a bit more absurd of late when Dominic Cummings, adviser to the British Prime Minister Boris Johnson invited in his blog ‘weirdos and misfits’ to apply to join the British civil service. And so Uri Geller of spoon bending fame has announced that […]
Theatre etiquette
When I was a kid, my parents used to take me once or twice a year to the theatre, to see a musical or a play. And it always was something special: we would dress up to the eyeballs and then mingle and sit among other well-dressed and -behaved individuals. During the performance there would […]
Awards (continued)
It was a good night not only for the British at the Golden Globes in Beverly Hills last night! Olivia Colman, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Taron Egerton and Sir Sam Mendez among the big winners. And for the fifth time (not in a row) the Golden Globes were hosted by Ricky Gervais, another Brit, albeit with a […]
The grumpy older man 