This month I've a mixed bag of observations for you, just little things which
strike me as odd. I hope they amuse you too.
Why do so many Swiss men have a fascination with facial hair? Walking round the streets of Switzerland it is almost impossible to avoid facial hair. This can range from the goatee beards that the young men in this country find so fashionable; through Prussian style, moustaches waxed and curled with military precision and discipline; massive mutton chop whiskers which can only be described as monumental, some brushed to be broader that the owners face; beards that only follow the line of the jaw and look like a dirty mark from a distance, these tend to come without a moustache but not always; a beard and moustache in the Edwardian style, what the Royal Navy calls a Full Set; all the way to the sort of growth that would make Mosses look almost clean shaven.
I recently witnessed all these styles in a two hour visit to the local Herbst Messe (an Autumn Fair cum Market). The latter belonged to a gentleman selling Alp Cheeses and I suspect it was part of his marketing ploy. He seemed to be implying that he had spent all year in the High Alps making this cheese and had now come down to sell his wares. A sort of "Heidi's grandfather visits the Big City" image. What ever the reason he certainly stood out from the crowd. The "Prussian" gentlemen I came face to face with at a wine tasting stall. He was slightly taller than me (this doesn't take much), slightly balding with a polished pate (talk about a cliché) and this moustache gave him a most stern countenance. He was a friendly chap whose appearance belied his personality, but I never worked up the courage to ask him why that choice of facial adornment. The others were just faces in the crowd but facinating never the less.
