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Here is an image that sums something up for me. In the background is St Gallen Cathedral, religious centre and main tourist attraction of the canton. In the foreground is, right next to, even precariously close to the buildings is a basketball/five-a-side court. Religion and youth sports go hand in hand, not in a pernicious attempt to encourage youth into attending church but simply because activities for the youth are considered important and worthy of investment.
Unemployment here is around 3%. That's right 3%. In the UK it is around 8%. Youth unemployment is around 5% here. It is around 30% in the UK. Now I don't wish to get into any economic arguments I don't fully understand but comparing where each country stands the biggest problem for the UK is a combination of cultural difference - the lack of investment in youth - and the massive public debt held by the UK, around double that of Switzerland.
Big news at the moment in the UK is the work experience/slavery recruitment initiative between large companies and the Government - see Ian Duncan Smith's irritating and poorly written article: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2104022/The-delusions-X-Factor-sneering-job-snobs-betray-young.html
Here he outlines his vision of work in the 21st century - that stacking shelves in Tesco's in order to keep your benefits should be regarded as not demeaning but a positive way to be an active member of society. What this misses is that most, if not all young people on benefits are not there through choice, but are in fact actively looking for work that they have studied for, only to find that those jobs either don't exist or no longer exist due to the current government's mismanagement of the economy (allowing the banks to dictate policy, failing to invest in growth, allowing small businesses to fold, supporting big businesses as they expand and fill gaps left by failing small businesses, cutting NHS funding while looking to privatise, etc.). His idea that young people are workshy X-factor wannabe yobs is at least generalising at worst derogatory. Looking at some of the comments from right wing Daily Mail readers it seems even they balk at IDS's summary of the situation. It is amazing for him to comment, 'it’s small wonder that businesses have hired so many foreign nationals in the past decade or so. The fact is that they can’t find the employees of quality that they need from the available British workforce.' It's is not quality that is lacking (although how much quality do Tesco's need to stack shelves?), though the statement answers itself - more investment in education and training for from infants to uni would surely help this, it is that foreign nationals will generally work for less pay, and if they lack some ability to fully understand English they can often be blagged into working in poorer conditions - I am not saying foreign workers are stupid in any way, it is just large companies know what they are looking for in an employee - hence them signing up to this great deal to get their shelves stacked practically for free. The youth eventually become all to aware that success is not based on luck after buying the tenth scratch card in Tesco's Metro.
What is needed in the UK is a holistic approach to investment in youth - from parks, youth clubs, schools to opportunities for apprenticeships, FE courses, access to University and quality internships and work experience placements that do not teach young people that a life of work is the drudgery of shelf stacking or order picking - you may reduce idleness but you'll raise the suicide rate. Regarding X-Factor why is this show such a hit? Kids do nothing but watch TV because sports clubs are too expensive, parks are being bulldozed, youth club funding withdrawn, the streets are unsafe to play in, libraries are closing, and parents & schools fail to teach that books are important. Make life for the next generation more pleasant, and instill some respect and discipline now or they will never forgive you in the future.
When Youth unemployment rose in Switzerland in 2009 (to 6%) here is their approach - http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/politics/internal_affairs/Economy_unites_to_fight_youth_unemployment.html?cid=67688
" We can't afford as a society to have a lost generation or a group falling out of the labour market. That's a social problem. "
Thomas Daum, director of Swiss Employers' Association
They have some cool stuff here. This photo is taken from the mini-shuttle at Zurich airport. You ride in it for three minutes to get to one of the terminals and it rocks. Feels like something out of Akira crossed with Heidi. I say Heidi because contrasting with the ultra high-tech is the piped in traditional sounds of Switzerland, replete with mooing cows, yodeling and birdsong. Neat.
Anyway having been here for more than three months I feel a sense of guilt for not having learned even the most basic German phrases. I know hello, bye, yes, no and some numbers and that's it. My excuse? You can get by without it. I've done okay up to now and I've really been too busy to give it the study time it deserves. That all said the guilt has started to set in, and I start hearing immigration ministers from the UK rattling on about immigrants being deported if they don't learn English - and wondering whether I'd deport myself. So here is the deal - I'll try and learn a basic phrase like 'please can I have ...' by the time I write my next post.
On top of the guilt, and despite most people here knowing a little English I am feeling a little isolated, or alienated, in that I cannot just go anywhere and necessarily make myself understood (not that I would in the UK - it's just the fact the possibility is no longer there). It's not such a bad feeling, and not having so many people to talk to seems to make the written word a bit sharper. I guess it's like Paul Bowles said, ‘I can think of no greater delight than to be a foreigner, among those who are not of my kind.'
Which leads neatly into my seemingly ongoing attack on a writer who's work I used to admire greatly, particularly his "TV GO HOME" parodies, his TV guide rants in the Guardian guide (collected in Screenburn) and their TV counterparts Screenwipe and Newswipe, his massively underrated collaboration with Chris Morris Nathan Barley and his Big Brother/Dawn of the Dead parody Dead Set. However he seems intent on becoming something of a king of the 'lazy left,' becoming embroiled in a pointless debate over whether David Cameron is a lizard. essentially writing a bunch of faintly funny, nihilistic, verbose hot air. Frankly I couldn't care less about whether Cameron is a lizard, he could be a three breasted shoggoth with mugwump offspring for all I care - the problem I have is with Brooker taking up all this column space with pointless discussion about the PM, turning Cameron into a harmless figure of comedy rather than the man who is helping to (continue to) sell the UK up the river. You see it is okay slagging off TV shows in his comedy rant style, but when you get political you have to back it up with facts and intelligent satire that makes a serious point. Not pointless caricature.
The main issue I have with the former computer game reviewer this week is with his taking a gig to 'write some travel pieces' for the Guardian. So they are moving him away from politics then. Good. Ah wait hang on, what is this about green kit-kats and robo-toilets in Japan, hasn't everyone from Clive James to Jonathan Ross done the whole 'woah aren't the Japanese like totally weird, it's like their country is like totally foreign man' thing. He starts with the usual point of entry - commercially available foodstuff, something familiar, yet in Japan strangely unfamiliar to the foreigner, like a green kit-kat (which he feels the need to inform us, despite a close up picture, that it is, 'not the wrapper – I'm not that easily impressed – I mean the chocolate itself is green.' Anyone who has been into any sweet shop in the world can find equivalent unusual treats, I used to frequent Cybercandy in London who stock far more interesting and unusual titbits. Come on Charlie is that your opening gambit? What next, the high-tech toilet angle? Surely that's too obvious? Oh...Apparently not. Brooker sees fit to stick down some more lazy journalism about the state of Japan's toilets, he writes that, 'It's disconcerting, defecating into a robot's mouth.' Ha. Hilarious. I have to say I still miss the advanced sense of hygiene and comfort you get from a Japanese toilet, and the fact that as a culture they think it is actually important to spend time and money on developing such things is admirable, and unlike the 'British' tendency to stick our noses up at such things, or say how weird or quaint it all is, the Japanese proudly and unprudishly forge ahead. I wish all toilets were heated, had a built in bidet function and performed a health check while playing traditional music. But these two initial observations of his aside, I am appalled by what he had to say next, 'every now and then when, the sheer sensory overload gets too much, I retire to the hotel room to stare at the television.' The guy is in Japan, presumably Tokyo, the most vibrant and advanced city in the world. He decides to stay in and watch TV. Could his wife not have recommended a few things for him to do (former Blue Peter presented must have been to Japan - though I can't be arsed to find out). And what does this connoisseur of visual media make of it. Well it's crap of course, but then TV is crap the world over, apart from HBO, which is just Hollywood TV anyway. Thanks Charlie for your pearls of wisdom. How much is the Guardian paying you? On top of expenses? Great. To end the piece he goes about reinforcing a stereotype about how Japanese people are incredibly polite and that if you ask someone in the street for directions they will do everything possible to help. Well firstly I doubt very much whether Mr Brooker was out in the street asking passers-by for directions in English, because if he was he would have found many would not have understood what he was saying. Asking for a Mos Burger too? Given all the culinary delights on offer is that the best you could ask for? Why not ask for Macdonalds?
In my experience Japanese people are on the whole very helpful and polite yes, but so are the Swiss, the German, the Chinese and even, on the whole, the British. This smells like lazy writing Brooker and I don't like it one bit. BROOKER GO HOME TO TV or video games where you belong. Grr. Hopefully I'll be going to Japan in a few weeks and I'll write a travel piece for free.
One last thing to mention is the apparent clampdown on filesharing by the FBI and US Justice Department. I don't have much of a problem with filesharing, particularly if the music is rare and hard to obtain, and much as I dislike musicians and artists not getting a fair-deal and their work being pirated, unless you are Lady Gaga or Spielberg this is not much of an issue, and even then while you roll around in your bath of money, eating gold leaf, driving gold cars sticking diamonds up your arse I'm not sure you'd care. Which leads us to the real issue. Money. It seems Kim Dotcom (hilariously changed his name from Schmidt) owner of Megaupload was arrested in New Zealand after electronically locking himself in his mansion, then in a panicroom with a sawn off shotgun. I love how loaded this guy had got in just five years, he had, '18 luxury vehicles, including a Rolls Royce Phantom Drophead Coupe and a 1959 pink Cadillac. The vehicles are valued at NZ$6 million ($4.9 million). Police said as much as NZ$11 million in cash was restrained in various accounts.' I guess this is from people subscribing to his site and advertising revenue, and to be fair, if people are dumb enough to sign up then fair play to the guy. Regarding the issue of copyright well if the copyright holders have a problem then shouldn't it be with those people uploading their material rather than the hosting site itself? Anyway in all probability the Feds won't do this kind of think again for a while as, firstly they went for Megaupload as they had servers based in the US so the Feds could legally indict, and secondly it seems to have had the desired effect of sending a shockwave through other hosting sites, and making bloggers who post links to files think about what they are doing. Though, along with SOPA, this seems to be part of a combined effort from the US govt. Hollywood and the major labels to scrape back some revenues. And perhaps it is a sign of some desperation as all these entities are under some considerable financial pressure. Expecting a war anytime soon anybody?
Here is an image that sums something up for me. In the background is St Gallen Cathedral, religious centre and main tourist attraction of the canton. In the foreground is, right next to, even precariously close to the buildings is a basketball/five-a-side court. Religion and youth sports go hand in hand, not in a pernicious attempt to encourage youth into attending church but simply because activities for the youth are considered important and worthy of investment. 
