At a marketing meeting in a Swiss restaurant, somewhen, somewhere:
“Right, guys, we’re in some serious financial schtuck here. Basically, we need to up
our profit margin to about 1000% or we’re going under. Any ideas?”
“Yes...erm... Toblerone.”
“I think we could get away with charging British tourists the equivalent of about ten pounds for serving them
“Yeah. Yeah, if we don’t actually even bother putting the cheese on the toast ourselves. Or, better still, if we
don’t toast the bread at all!”
“Er...”
“Let’s just put some bread on a plate in front of them, with a pot of cheese boiling at temperatures close to nuclear meltdown – maybe with a splash of something alcoholic in it...”
“Like what?”
“Well, it doesn’t matter what; it’s not like they’ll be able to taste it with their tongues burnt to a crisp. But the beauty of it is, these doe-eyed suckers will think they’re being all cosmopolitan by sampling a local tradition, when all they’re really doing is forking out ten times too much for the novelty of actually having to make their own meal at a table in a restaurant.”
“My god! It’s so fucking ridiculous it might just work. What should we call it?”
“Hmmm...well, the gimmick needs to be that the fun is in doing it yourself. Something fun to do. Fun to do. How
“No, now you’re just taking the piss. No one’s going to buy that.”
“We could rearrange the letters, make it look all foreign? Fondue?”
“Done. Yodel-ay-hee-ho!”
So welcome to Geneva! Which, despite my above jocular ribbing of the Swiss national dish, is a beautiful, beautiful city ...
... which I almost didn’t get to see any of whatsoever. Let me explain.
The first venue you behold across the street as you leave Cornavin Station is a sizeable bar called Les
Brasseurs (The Brewers). This is, of course, the obvious first rest stop for the weary traveller. You soon
discover, though, that their speciality is a three-foot tower of beer called a colonnade, with its own little
dispensing tap at the base. Oh yes. I’ve died and gone to Switzerland.
These miracles of the modern world come in five-litre or ten-litre measures, and the Swiss clearly never
thought they’d be enjoyed by a lone traveller. Oh ye of little faith. The first potential pitfall, oddly enough, comes before any beer has passed your lips. Even if you’re accustomed to bar work, you’re not prepared for the sheer pressure of the spray when there’s a three-foot shaft of liquid pressing down on the exit hole.
Hard though it is to believe, that genuinely isn’t a euphemism.
So you’ll forgive me if I don’t describe my first night in Geneva with crystal-clear accuracy. Suffice it to say
that I was wasted enough to have blurred memories of being in a bar with two six-foot drag queens dancing
around me, but not wasted enough to wake up with either of them the next morning.
And so to the next morning, where I definitely needed a calm, quiet, shock-free stroll, taking in Geneva’s
more sedate sights. So I went to the red-light district.
Now, I don’t want you to think that I’m making the following comment as though it’s a bad thing – it’s just a thing. There were prostitutes working the streets at 10 in the morning. On a Sunday. 10AM?! Is there really a target market for prostitution at that hour? Randy dustmen just knocking off their shift? Very, very lapsed Catholics? Alcohol-orientated travel writers?
No, seriously; not my cup of tea. I ducked into the far more normal surroundings of a sex shop. Which, in Geneva, seem to be utterly fixated on one item above all others.
DVDs? No, try again.
Magazines? Don’t even get a look in.
Dildos? No – although I am quite intrigued about who the two-foot tall, black dildo is aimed at. Please tell me
it’s meant to be purely ornamental. Although now I think about it, I knew this girl once who ... actually, I’m
digressing here.
No, the choice merchandise in Geneva’s equivalent of Soho is: shoes! Holy mama, is my finger not on the
pulse. Fair go, they are the high-heeled, provocative shoes which a lady definitely wouldn’t need to take off
during sex, but is it really too much to hope for to see some good, old-fashioned porn? Sometimes I worry
about the moral decline of the world...
I strolled the few blocks down to the banks of Lake Geneva, the largest alpine lake. Its main claim to fame
is that it boasts the highest fountain in the world, a water jet reaching 140m. Utterly spectacular!
Although if you’re the sort of person for whom the spray of water can make you need the loo, this does
make Geneva a city best avoided. The fountain is joined this year by a 15-metre diameter helium-filled
football floating over the lake, to mark Switzerland’s co-hosting of Euro 2008. I feel, on behalf of
Englishman everywhere, that I should just say:
BOLLOCKSBOLLOCKSBOLLOCKSBOLLOCKSBOLLOCKS!!!!!
In well-established tourist fashion, I took myself on a Lake Geneva boat trip. And oh god bless the Swiss! A tiny,
sight-seeing boat that takes you on a circular tour, and what do they install on board? A beer-vending machine! I
love this country. So after spending a blissful hour re-intoxicating myself while gawping at the white-capped
mountainous scenery, I returned to the lake’s south bank for some food.
To be honest, I didn’t have a great deal of luck with Geneva’s non-liquid sustenance. After my previously iterated
problems with fondue (Ten pounds for bread and cheese?! Ten fucking pounds?!?! And then I’ve still got to
prepare it myself? ... What’s that you say? I can leave the premises now or you’ll call the police...?), I plumped
for a completely different local speciality at the next restaurant: 'Weird French Stuff'. I’m paraphrasing the menu
Geneva is right on Switzerland’s border with France, and so has a lot of shared cuisine. Thus, in chronological order, here are my problems with the Gallic culinary Holy Trinity:
1) Snails. Throw aside all preconceptions; the meat is quite delicious. It’s just that if they’re served in their shells, it’s really difficult to get the bastards out.
2) Frogs’ legs. Again, a lot tastier than you might think, but I swear there are more bones per cubic inch in frogs’ legs than anything I’ve ever eaten. It’s way too much work to get at your food. Again.
3) Red wine. Who am I kidding? Wine is fine, and don’t ever let anyone tell you otherwise.
When I got to the final restaurant of the weekend, I had to check my phrasebook to decipher their chef’s
special: Pied de Cochon. Pig’s trotter!
Two words:
Fuck.
That.
I’ll have the steak thankyou.
Thus, after lining my stomach with wine before a heavy intake of food, I had a fantastic French-style
steak to round off my Geneva visit. Which neatly leads me into wrapping up with my favourite French
What do you call a Frenchman who wears sandals?
Au revoir!
