The driver stares hard at the dashboard, he holds no truck with their intentions, as he chugs the cold engine to a start. Has he seen too much disrespect of the mountains to find them humorous?
âThatâs their funeral,â he almost spits his disapproval.
G ET N ATURAL , the swish Swiss tourist board strap line beams from an illuminated billboard as we exit the car park. Our first mile is in heavy traffic, giving us the dubious opportunity to view the brutal architecture that shot up worldwide in the 60s and 70s.
Shunned by the disapproving driver and physically excluded from my stag group for an hour, I have the chance to fulfil my promise to my family. I wince at remembering the developing eye wound I suffered at the hands of the insistent Bepe. I am scrolling furiously through the alphabet but nothing is up to scratch. Through to the letter E and still no second track, on to letter G and nothing stands the test of time. I am getting concerned about the whole process and the inability of songwriters to produce decent songs starting with the first half of the alphabet when at last another great track appears.
Number 2. âHumanâ by The Human League
Released in 1986 on Virgin Records I think, great track in a bad year. My fellow Sheffielder Phil Oakey drones his excuses that being flesh and blood excuses his bad behaviour. The Human League had betrayed their avant-garde roots to become mainstream pop idols about six years previously. It felt a very serious and personal betrayal at the time, but I now realise they were just finding a new way. I hated the fact I actually loved this as I had resisted their pop onslaught for so long. I remember this track especially as I was still feeling a void from Julietâs disappearance. I suspected she had been âHumanâ with someone else, but she says not. I lost all trace of her when I moved to Manchester to find work. It was an unsettling time, one I wanted to move past. I regret not being able to enjoy the sheer unpredictability of where my life was going. Todayâs near accident dialled up a similar feeling of raw exposure to lifeâs fate.
Looking back into the mini-van, Juliet catches my eye as she chats with Johnny. I feel a mini victory in starting to deliver and smile confidently back at her. If you didnât leave me for Tristan then who was it? Did you just leave me?
The journey speeds up and Switzerland starts to deliver on some of its tourist promise. The inviting lights of still villages climb up the hills, highlighting their little lives. Soaring pine forests seem to hold them in place. I just make out a man walking stiffly into a clutch of houses. I create a life for him: seventy-seven-year-old Jean-Baptiste Clermont, a lonely lately reformed opportunist kiddie-fiddler, the internal pain of his perversion hampers every step.
I was just warming to Switzerland when we say goodbye at the French border. My brother Chris looks nervously for his passport. Robert sneers at him and makes his Dan-has-the-cocaine joke again, but with no external audience its potency for embarrassment falls flat. However, it adds to the derision I feel from my driving companion.
The driver physically disengages even more at the prospect of us having drugs. He waves at two border guards, who donât acknowledge him. When do they stop people? Why donât you take some of these men away? What are they there for? The contrast with airport security is stark.
And now we are really climbing. The darkening hillsides are backlit by the sun which is somewhere over the next mountain range refusing to lie down. The mountains start to close their arms around us, the road zigzagging into their chest. Everything is asking us to look up.
The first sighting of a piste-basher brings me mentally back onto the snow. It clings on to a forty-five-degree snow face, pushing and rolling, producing its corduroy for us to ride tomorrow. Its headlights give it the appearance
âThatâs their funeral,â he almost spits his disapproval.
G ET N ATURAL , the swish Swiss tourist board strap line beams from an illuminated billboard as we exit the car park. Our first mile is in heavy traffic, giving us the dubious opportunity to view the brutal architecture that shot up worldwide in the 60s and 70s.
Shunned by the disapproving driver and physically excluded from my stag group for an hour, I have the chance to fulfil my promise to my family. I wince at remembering the developing eye wound I suffered at the hands of the insistent Bepe. I am scrolling furiously through the alphabet but nothing is up to scratch. Through to the letter E and still no second track, on to letter G and nothing stands the test of time. I am getting concerned about the whole process and the inability of songwriters to produce decent songs starting with the first half of the alphabet when at last another great track appears.
Number 2. âHumanâ by The Human League
Released in 1986 on Virgin Records I think, great track in a bad year. My fellow Sheffielder Phil Oakey drones his excuses that being flesh and blood excuses his bad behaviour. The Human League had betrayed their avant-garde roots to become mainstream pop idols about six years previously. It felt a very serious and personal betrayal at the time, but I now realise they were just finding a new way. I hated the fact I actually loved this as I had resisted their pop onslaught for so long. I remember this track especially as I was still feeling a void from Julietâs disappearance. I suspected she had been âHumanâ with someone else, but she says not. I lost all trace of her when I moved to Manchester to find work. It was an unsettling time, one I wanted to move past. I regret not being able to enjoy the sheer unpredictability of where my life was going. Todayâs near accident dialled up a similar feeling of raw exposure to lifeâs fate.
Looking back into the mini-van, Juliet catches my eye as she chats with Johnny. I feel a mini victory in starting to deliver and smile confidently back at her. If you didnât leave me for Tristan then who was it? Did you just leave me?
The journey speeds up and Switzerland starts to deliver on some of its tourist promise. The inviting lights of still villages climb up the hills, highlighting their little lives. Soaring pine forests seem to hold them in place. I just make out a man walking stiffly into a clutch of houses. I create a life for him: seventy-seven-year-old Jean-Baptiste Clermont, a lonely lately reformed opportunist kiddie-fiddler, the internal pain of his perversion hampers every step.
I was just warming to Switzerland when we say goodbye at the French border. My brother Chris looks nervously for his passport. Robert sneers at him and makes his Dan-has-the-cocaine joke again, but with no external audience its potency for embarrassment falls flat. However, it adds to the derision I feel from my driving companion.
The driver physically disengages even more at the prospect of us having drugs. He waves at two border guards, who donât acknowledge him. When do they stop people? Why donât you take some of these men away? What are they there for? The contrast with airport security is stark.
And now we are really climbing. The darkening hillsides are backlit by the sun which is somewhere over the next mountain range refusing to lie down. The mountains start to close their arms around us, the road zigzagging into their chest. Everything is asking us to look up.
The first sighting of a piste-basher brings me mentally back onto the snow. It clings on to a forty-five-degree snow face, pushing and rolling, producing its corduroy for us to ride tomorrow. Its headlights give it the appearance
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