In a Swiss valley

I missed out today it seems. Our local internet auction site ricardo.ch is brilliant normally, and far more popular and successful here than ebay. Today I opended my emails to be informed that the Saturday bargain, to be available from 10am was the following "must have"

The description is as follows:

Lav Nav - Lavatory Navigator

Da ist sie endlich, die Lösung für eines der alltäglichen Probleme: Lav Nav
(kurz für „Lavatory Navigator“ oder auch zu Deutsch „Wegweiser für die Toilette“).
Das Lav Nav schaltet sich von selbst ein, wenn man im Dunkeln die Toilette aufsucht und schaltet sich ebenso von selbst wieder aus, sobald man sie verlässt.

CHF 19.90 (inkl. Lieferung) UVP CHF 39.90

Which translates for those of you who are not so hot on German, as:
Finally here for you, the solution to one of those daily problems. Lav Nav (short for lavatory navigator). The Lav Nav turns on by itself when you are looking for toilet in the dark, and turns itself off when you leave it:

Okay, a question, how does the Lav know you are looking for it, if it is dark?
Do we whistle? or is it noise activated?

Unfortunately I will never find out, for this bargain of a lifetime, only Fr 19.90 incl delivery, was in limited numbers, and as I opened the mail at 11:20, they were already all sold out.
Maybe I will find one later on ricardo itself - only slightly used

great word isn't it? Huggermugger. It is English apparently.

and who knows what it means without going off and checking?

I discovered it today on the Leo German/English dictionary site. I went to look up the word vertuschen, as it had come up on the news.

Vertuschen means:
to camouflage
to cover something up
to gloss over
to huggermugger
to hush up
to suppress

so now you know. Huggermugger apparently means to cover something up, but can also mean a mess, which according to the forum there, is the most common use of the word, especially in cooking.

So my word of the week is huggermugger, and I will try and use it everyday this week
Mind you, no one will understand what I mean, whatever their nationality

Today we took our photos to the Gemeinde as the last stage in getting our Swoiss citizenships. Wihin a week, we will have our Swiss ID, and on 1 October we are invited to receive our papers officially at their office
I am very happy about this, and have already changed my CV to say dual nationality.

But maybe we will not be Swiss for long if Colonel Gadaffi gets his wish. He has seriously fallen out with Switzerland, and has now put a motion to the UN in New York for thier meeting this month that Switzerland should be divided up and given to neighbour countries. Apparently we are a rogue state, and sponsoring terrorism. Well he should know.
Libya is opening the conference apparently, so he can actually bring the motion forward.

Totally incredible. What is even more incredible to me is that while a 2 year old child is not allowed to fly to the US with Visa carrying parents ( my joy of flying post), a despot like Gadaffi is allowed in.

The row with Gadaffi started when one of his sons was arrested in Geneva for abusing a maid servant. Probably totally normal back home. The Geneva police did go over the top apparently, and sent in 21 armed police, which was rather overdoing it. In retaliation Gadaffi took 2 Swiss men hostage who were working for ABB in Libya. They have been held months now, and it is coming to a head. President Merz went over recently trying to get them out. The son of course has all charges dropped, there has been an official apology, and who knows what else going on behind the scenes. Unfortunately the Colonel has not stuck to his word, and although he promised to release the hostages, only their luggage has come home so far. They are still there, and now Gadaffi wants money to let them leave. President Merz is coming in for a lot of critiscm for believing Gadaffi would stick to his word, although at least he tried, and I am not sure what else he could have done.

Gadaffi must be laughing at us all. First he gets his Lockerbie bomber back, and now he can make the Swiss wait, and even threaten the country with being broken up.

Apparently Tamoil is owned 40% by Libya, so I won't be filling up there anymore, and I think not many Swiss will now either.