Scrapbook for January

16.01.2026 – Website changes: Categories

The catagory listings mentioned here a short while ago have now been implemented. There is now an entry 'Categories' in the pulldown menus on all the pages in the website. Clicking on this entry will send you to a category home page.

This innovation should make the articles on this website more accessible. NB: If you have visited Figures of Speech recently your browser may have stored the stylesheet, resulting in the new pages not displaying correctly. The solution is simple: on most browsers pressing the Ctrl-Shift-Delete keys together will do the job.

01.01.2026 – A tough year ahead for Switzerland

At least this year, possibly inspired by the glitter-loving President Trump, the King over the Water, our Swiss Solons have opted for a relatively sober presentation in the Salon de la Présidence in the Federal Parliament in Berne. In recent years, their attempts to get down with the kidz have just made them look foolish.

Still, even here, they just cannot help themselves. We proles (and D.J.T too) wonder why a youth is still fiddling with the curtains, two more youngsters appear in the mirror and in the dim room beyond, a young lady is looking at this selfsame photograph on her computer monitor. The two female Councillors are in the corner at the back – presumably where they belong – as though they have just arrived from making the sandwiches. The scene reminds your author of the classic L'Année dernière à Marienbad, or something dreamed up by René Magritte.

The only thing going for this staging is that the lanky ones are sitting down, Cassis, vertically challenged, is humiliatingly perched on the arm of a chair and everyone is still observing COVID-era separations.

Clarification: The photo was produced by photography apprentices or students (in consultation with their teachers), who inserted themselves into it in order to represent 'youth'.

2026 is going to be a hard year for the poor lambs (and even harder for the rest of us, I fear). President Trump is whupping poor little Switzerland with tariff 'deals'; the EU is whacking poor little Switzerland with existential threats they call a 'bilateral framework'; no one has any idea – least of all this group – how plucky little Switzerland will defend itself – with what and against whom; or what to do when the sun doesn't shine and your toaster doesn't work.

01.01.2026 – Website changes

Some small tweaks to the website for the New Year, most of which readers would not notice:

• The homepage menu has been decluttered; the dropdown menu at the top of all the other pages has been adapted to suit; the contents list has been given some TLC.
• I have had some requests to provide category listings. One of the main aims of the design of this website was simplicity. There are currently around 800 articles on this website, most of them still have some relevance or use. Grouping them into subject categories might help readers find pieces of interest more efficiently than scrolling through years. If I can think of a good, simple interface for category listings then 'if it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well it were done quickly'.