Confessions of a Wino

Which came first?  The unlikely family name of Christophe Bonvin, or the bon vin he produces?

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I am in Switzerland for a couple of days mountain air which coincides with the deer shooting season, so Edith tells me, anyway.  Edith is the patron of Chez Edith, a charming chalet style restaurant in Nendaz.

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We Will Rock You was a decent show, albeit mostly performed by under-studies on the wet Saturday afternoon we were in the audience.  Fortunately it was dry inside the theatre and, whilst the programme (£4) did not reveal the storyline, the show turned out to be set in the long distant future and was a McLeanesque retrospective on the day the music died…or didn’t…yawn!

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What has happened to all the casinos around Lac Léman?  Have the richesse deserted the area like diamond encrusted lemmings making a leap of faith towards more trendy holiday locations?  When we arrived in Lausanne, we followed a sign to the casino only to find it has been converted into some nouveau public amenity.  Taking a train to Morges, the Casino had also been converted to another use.

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Being in Geneva, on the Swiss/France border, we called Alban, our mate from Grenoble for a recommendation.  Alban has business contacts in Geneva so he would know a decent restaurant.  Better than that, he came over to meet.

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I am thinking of nominating Lausanne as the most boring city in Europe.  Before you ask, yes, I have been to Brussels, but I think Lausanne is to European city life, what Accrington Stanley is to the English Premier League.  Lausanne was so boring that our two night stay necessitated a lot of public transport – a train to Morges for the afternoon, a day trip on the ferry to Evian, an evening train to Montreux before waking on the final day and taking the early train to Geneva.

So why stay in Lausanne then?  It’s a fair question, thanks for asking.  On a previous holiday we had stayed in Evian and done the ferry trip the other way.  In doing so, we found a resto in Lausanne which did the most fabulous rosti ever tasted.  As I was not running this blog in those days, I had no record of the name or location of this establishment.

So we asked around for the best rosti shop in town and a random camera retailer recommended Brasserie Bavaria.

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Our last day in Haute-Nendaz involved a lot of walking.  After a lot of walking, refreshment is essential.  On the way back to Le Déserteur hotel, I wanted to put in a lost property report at the Police Municipale.  Richard had lost a camera and, whilst he didn’t care too much for the money, he was sweating lead bullets over the contents of the digital flash card.  For a man who has recently given up biathlons, still goes bull fighting barefoot, and is rumoured to be The Stig you will understand that he doesn’t sweat – ever.

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Some people claim to learn something new every day.  Poor them!  I make it my point to learn at least 5 new facts every day.  Fact two on September 29th 2007 proved to be a stunna for me.  I can’t count the number of times I have been to Switzerland and drunk Dôle thinking that it was a local grape.  D’Oh!  Marie-Bernard Gillioz Praz was the evil person who gate-crashed my ignorance.

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I’ve got a question for you.  Should one review an establishment when invited there to a party?  When one’s hosts settled the bill?  When the resto had to cope with 36 covers contemporaneously?

The answer is that it’s perfectly acceptable, as long as you have more cheek than a side of pork.

And so, we find ourselves in the 4 Vallées resort of Haute-Nendaz on the occasion of Alan’s 50th birthday party, where the great and the good (and for all I know, the not so great, and the not so good) assembled.  You see, Alan’s friends fall into a number of categories:  business; rugby; golf; parenting; Cobham neighbours; bob sleighing; paragliding; shark bating; interplanetary exploration; and the most fearsome Scottish walkers.  For the record, I fall into the first category, and aspire to be fit enough one day to be measured alongside the latter group.

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By the time you read this, I hope to have made it to Switzerland.  I am making a secret trip to raid my Swiss bank account, buy a big, brash Breitling watch, an army knife, a cuckoo clock and some rosti.

If you are still reading, you must be new to this blog, or you would have laughed out loud and moved onto your favourite sports website.  Just in case any of my investors are reading this, I would just like to clarify that I am indeed taking a humble sojourn, walking around Swiss mountains in nought but sackcloth shoes whilst taking the time out to think through our next business plan.  I will probably take a refreshing dip in mountain lakes, perambulate vigorously and get pissed a lot on the local wine.

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