How to inform (and form) citizens about energy policies?

The regional elections weekend in Germany highlighted the importance of energy policy choices. Yesterday evening’s prime time news on ZDF showed real journalists doing their job, asking to the Green party’s politicians if they will be able to govern after having been very effective in the protests and asking to the CDU politicians which factors, apart from Japan events, structurally reduced consensus. Journalists doing their job, something quite rare in Italy since a number of years.

Talking about energy it is interesting to see how the theme is commented in dedicated TV features. Have a look to the Umwelt programme. Probably you didn’t have the chance of watching on Italian TVs such a detailed account of the bad track record in security of Japanese power stations, TEPCO’s in particular.

Also, an interesting feature on a Kombikraftwerk, a combined power station enabling the storage of excess solar and wind energy is explained with an educational angle.

Heute: Stuttgart und Mainz!

Watching the latest Heute Show on ZDF while checking the exit polls of the local elections in Baden Württemberg is fantastic! Hippy Stuttgart and stiff upper lip Mainz! Because Stuttgart is rich but sexy…

Stabilo boss yellow

Geneva airport. Nice because bathed in natural light. However, quite disappointing lately in terms of logistics. It’s not nice to man the check in counters only with supervised (and very bavard) stagiaires. It’s not practical to have only 3 x-ray machines working. And not useful to have a public address system which can’t be heard properly from those areas where the long queues cumulate. Sometimes even in Switzerland things are not perfect…

Forsythia yellow

Crossing Switzerland on SBB trains always delivers a good customer experience. Spring is emerging from winter and the yellow forsythia shrubs match the bright egg yolk hues of the Swiss trains.

A different idea of luxury

Welcome back to reality! Emerging from the Maori wonderland and the luscious ships there’s the normal world, and no, I am not a Tzarina. I am rushing to Basle SBB station with my Rimowa and have only 5 minutes to spare. There is one store which drives me crazy in Basle each time I pass by its windows. And I can’t resist, I must enter, browse, dream and salivate. The Single Speed store is a dream. Bikes, bikes and bikes!

The edge of reason

…on my fabulous ship on the Nile – and well beyond the boundaries of rationality – in the evening I would wear my Vionnet dress barefoot, with this incredible snake…

…the Bulgari Serpenti Seven Coils. In perfect Lawrence of Arabia mood, I would oppose these Seven Pillars of Irrationality to his Seven Pillars of Wisdom…and I would win!

V comme Vuitton, V comme voyage

Even in frantic and ticking Basle Louis Vuitton managed to plunge the visitor in a magic voyage imaginaire. Where at Messeplatz everybody moves and shakes in frantic speed, at the Vuitton ship moored at the Hotel des Trois Rois river bank everything was about all calme, luxe et volupté.

Damier hues and quintessentially french paquebot style in the lounge space welcome the visitor after a mesmerizing dive in the boat’s best kept secrets, the Tambour collection, photographed here under natural light by two very discreet Japanese journalists.

Squaring the circle…Monaco

I don’t drive. Yet for some obscure reason I love racing watches.

It must be the dials. They fuel the idea of speed and engines. So when I popped up at the Tag Heuer stand my eyes were all for the Monaco models. I love the square shape in watches but I find it enormously intriguing when the square contains a circle. Gone the Art déco fascination echoing city halls bell towers of the 1920s and mantelpiece watches, enter the vitruvian imaginaire, where arms and legs signal hours and minutes. And I also love that racing over the top graphic, the stripes and the tonic surpiqures.

Values and valuables

If Bulgari draw inspiration and admiration from the rugby values for its Endurer, at Hublot the values of the Japanese as seen by a European where the first thing attracting me closer to the stand.

Maori am Rhein

Things you can only see in Basle. The Bulgari space transformed in an Austral forest, a Maori-inspired watch, the All Blacks Endurer watch, echoes of the Haka war dance...