Scrapbook for August

13.08.2025 – Peening

The scythe is still a useful tool on alpine farms, where sloping meadows have corners and edges and steep banks. The habit still persists of mowing every little bit of a meadow, no matter how precarious it is or insignificant it seems – 'waste not, want not': winters can be long and animals must be fed.

During reaping the blade of the scythe has to be sharpened with the stone every few minutes, so that it continues to cut without effort. Only a very sharp blade will cut grass cleanly rather than just knocking it over.

Every now and again the cutting edge of the blade must also be hammered – 'peened' in English, 'gedengelt' in German.

I used to think that this was done to improve the properties of the steel, a bit like tempering – well, perhaps, but the explanation is probably much simpler. As the blade wears, the cutting edge gradually shifts into the thicker metal behind it. Peening hammers out the steel on the cutting edge of the blade, making it thinner and allowing it to be sharpened easily.

The 'anvil' is designed to be stuck in the ground, so that peening can be done in the field; the hammer is also a special design with two slightly convex faces. The hammer must never be used for anything but peening, knocking nails in with it will ruin the smooth face, which in turn will wreck the cutting edge.

By the way: the scythe in the photos is around forty years old and the anvil about one hundred and fifty. It was the sort of thing that at that time every self-respecting blacksmith could be expected to produce.

01.08.2025 – Swiss delusion

No sooner had I published my gloomy thoughts on Switzerland and its place in the world on the occasion of Federal Day 2025, than I came across a perfect example of Swiss delusion in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ), the posh end of Swiss media.

This is a piece by young (in my accounting) Marc Tribelhorn, a safe pair of NZZ hands who this year drew the short straw of writing something suitable for the Federal Day. He should be able to scratch something together: he is a reporter on the Home desk with particular responsibility for 'historical analyses and national politics'.

The young man has done his promotion prospects no harm by basing his article on the thoughts of Konrad Hummler, a private banker who is now President of the NZZ. Hummler's view of the future of Switzerland is summed up as: 'Switzerland as Singapore in the Alps'.

Right. My first thought when I read that was 'Tony Blair' – for that is just the kind of thing he would come out with. I surprise myself sometimes (not often enough though) with my perspicacity, for a few lines later Hummler presents us with a fine example of a Blairite 'triangulation', a 'third way':

[Hummler's essay in the NZZ in 2005] was an attempt at breaking free, the sketch of a third way – neither creeping EU membership nor SVP isolationism, neither 'dissolving' into the EU nor returning to [Jeremias] Gotthelf's national idyll. Instead of that: an independent Switzerland, integrated worldwide with trade agreements, regulated as little as one can justify, highly competitive, with a globally oriented immigration policy. A 'City state Switzerland' – or as a slogan – 'Global Switzerland'. That also means for Hummler: 'As much Europe as necessary, as little as possible'.

Es war der Versuch eines Befreiungsschlags, die Skizze eines dritten Wegs – weder schleichender EU-Beitritt noch SVP-Isolationismus, weder «Selbstaufgabe» in der EU noch Rückkehr zu Gotthelfs Heimatidylle. Stattdessen: eine eigenständige, weltweit mit Handelsverträgen vernetzte Schweiz, so wenig reguliert, wie man es gerade noch verantworten kann, hochkompetitiv, mit einer global ausgerichteten Einwanderungspolitik. Ein «City-State Schweiz» oder – wie es bald als Slogan hiess – «Global Switzerland». Das bedeutete für Hummler auch: «So viel Europa wie nötig, so wenig wie möglich.»

'Nurse! Take this gentleman to the asylum block, would you? IV Amobarbital, quick.'

Tribelhorn's sneer at the Swiss People's Party (SVP, the largest party in Switzerland) for their 'Gotthelfs Heimatidylle' tells us exactly where he is coming from. Furthermore, we who have studied the EU and its ways know that the last thing the Marxists running this rule-based monolith want is an unregulated Singapore cuckoo in their nest. The EU is not a pick'n mix sweetshop – it's all or nothing, take it or leave it.

Scribbler Tribelhorn now earns his crust with nearly 1'200 words of 'on the one hand, on the other hand, only time will tell' reasoning. His concluding paragraph is the sort of high-sounding twaddle that only well-educated people can come out with.

And so the EU remains not only the most important trading partner of Switzerland, but also geopolitically its natural ally. The new agreements have the effect of a closer approach to Brussels. They have the commitment to taking over EU law and a consequent loss of sovereignty. But they are not a preliminary step for an EU membership, just the usual Swiss special status within Europe. A solo journey. We call it bilateralism.

Und so bleibt die EU nicht nur die wichtigste Handelspartnerin der Schweiz, sondern auch geopolitisch ihre natürliche Verbündete. Die neuen Verträge bewirken eine weitere Annäherung an Brüssel. Sie haben die verpflichtende Übernahme von EU-Recht und einen Souveränitätsverlust zur Folge. Aber sie sind kein Präjudiz für einen EU-Beitritt. Sondern immer noch der Schweizer Sonderzug innerhalb Europas. Ein Alleingang. Wir nennen ihn Bilateralismus.

'Geopolitically its natural ally' is a euphemism for 'it is a little country surrrounded by big countries and would do well to stay in with them' – see map below.

We know he is deluded when he writes of 'the EU as a peace project possibly being the greatest achievement of the twentieth century'. [Die EU ist als Friedensprojekt die vielleicht grösste Errungenschaft des 20. Jahrhunderts]. A view which overlooks the megalomania of the true goals of its foundation, its intolerance of dissent and its desire for an ever greater 'acquis'. The true situation for Switzerland: the EU doesn't love you, it is not merely a trading partner, it sees Switzerland as a nuisance, so the sooner you join the better.

Mark my words, young man, if the new agreements finally get over the line, the EU will come calling the very next day with further integration demands. They won't stop until Switzerland has been swallowed up.

01.08.2025 – Swiss National Day

Today is the Swiss Federal Holiday. In recent years August 1st has been a cause for gloom on this website, despite my deep-seated affection for the Swiss nation. The gloom is particularly deep this year.

The European Union: surrounded

Switzerland has to sort out its relationship with the European Union. Look at a map of Europe and you will see this little patch surrounded by nations of the EU. Most EU member states have at least a bit of border that counts as their own; Switzerland only has borders with other EU countries – the real borders are in the airports.

Before the EU was created, Switzerland used to rub along nicely with the other nations of Europe. The EU, however, seems to be offended by this little patch in the middle of its administrative homogeneity, this pothole in the smooth European road. It takes a masochistic pleasure in cracking the whip on whatever displeases it, be it the Swiss financial system, the Swiss restrictions on freedom of movement, the Swiss attempts to limit EU traffic along its roads and through its tunnels. As Britain found out, the EU is no one's friend. It covets and takes what it will and never gives back.

Yet another attempt at a cohabitation 'framework' has been hammered out and will be voted upon soon. Some Swiss patriots still dream of an independent, self-governing neutral Switzerland. Dream on – neutrality got thrown out of the window PDQ when Switzerland had to follow the EU and US directives over sanctions for Russia in the Ukraine conflict. What choice did they have?

Other Swiss patriots think the Swiss government should get the whole thing over with and just join the EU. Both administrations are expert-infested, woke consensus machines, so there really isn't that much difference between them. There is plenty of scope in the EU for horse trading and special pleading. What is certain, though, is that the orders will come down from Brussels whatever happens. Switzerland will always be a rule-taker, not a rule maker.

Swiss 'direct democracy' (a.k.a. referendums) is overrated – after a while no one will miss it. Politics is a process, but a referendum decision, however trifling the majority was – and they are often are very trifling – shuts down all further discussion on that subject for decades.

Switzerland alone

Now that Donald Trump has knocked over the NATO/EU chessboard, military defence has become a topic again after decades of slumber under the peace dividend.

From its inception in 1848 Switzerland has been rightly proud of the militia army behind its armed neutrality. But that was then. This is now and things have changed: Switzerland cannot possibly defend itself in a modern conflict. It can buy a few fighter aircraft (the which process has turned into an omnishambles, by the way), but it is simply too small to respond to the broad threat profile of a future conflict – missiles of all sorts, drone squadrons, stealth fighters and bombers, advanced tanks and artillery.

Deploying the army in various holes in the mountains as the Swiss did in WWII won't work anymore.

As already noted above, most other NATO/EU countries have an external border or a coastline. Switzerland is stuck between France, Germany, Austria and Italy. By the time the Russian tanks have rolled over the EU/NATO countries, what can plucky little Switzerland do? Perhaps it is time to dump neutrality and join NATO. In which case, the Swiss won't have to wait for the moment the enemy crosses their border.

Bring back government

The government of Switzerland has to send the expert-class – a.k.a. the lanyard-class – packing. The lack of strong personalities and serious thinkers in the Bundesrat, the Federal Council, has allowed the country to be taken over by fetishists and crazed activists. Because of this, Switzerland will be one of the last countries to give up the nonsensical and ruinous climate change orthodoxy. A lot of damage will be done before that happens.

The expertocracy that has nested in the back-offices behind the government is insidious and almost impregnable. Politicians who have made their careers climbing the greasy pole of political advancement are unfit to counter the expert class in their back-offices. No Federal Counsellor can withstand the back-office tyrants that keep them in line. The greatest praise that a Federal Counsellor can receive is that they are 'good with documents', that is, they signed promptly everything that was put before them and caused no trouble.

As in most western countries, conventional politics is the art of dancing ritual gavottes around the subjects of the day. What really matters, however, is what is happening in the back-offices. For example, in a very few years, you may find it difficult to buy meat and meat products in shops. The change is being introduced gradually by the fanatics in the back-offices who have learned the nudge techniques of the COVID panic. Major food retailers are being taken quietly aside and told to give preference within the space of a few years to non-meat products. Or else. Nota bene: no one voted for this, no one initiated a referendum about this and unless you are paying very careful attention you won't even know about this.

Well, let's hope the Swiss have a nice day today despite everything. Where I live the storm clouds will be unloading their rain and discharging their surplus electricity from the afternoon onwards. Which may be a metaphor, an omen, a warning, or some other figure of speech – or perhaps it's just weather. We shall see.