The easy way out
Wolf Scott1
'Illustration of an Alpenhorn for those of the readers who, like the author until
recently, cannot tell an Alpenhorn from a cor anglais'
The story goes back to last year when
Kirsten first suggested that we give David
an Alpenhorn for his birthday. I thought
she was joking.
‘He is sentimental,’ she said, ‘it will remind
him of Switzerland and the Kleine Scheidegg.
He once blew one.’
‘I am sentimental too,’ I said, ‘how about a
cheese fondu. You can get them packaged, complete
with kirsch and pre-baked bread. And you
can eat it. What would you do with an Alpenhorn,
for God’s sake?’
‘David must have an Alpenhorn,’ said Kirsten, ‘why should he not have an Alpenhorn. He never
gets what he really wants. Always what you like.
Don’t take the easy way out.’
I let it go at that, although I could think of
about five different reasons for not sending my
son an Alpenhorn. For one thing, a Swiss
Alpenhorn is five metres long and not collapsible.
Clearly, I needed Authority on my side. I
went to the post office, hoping for an immediate
refusal.
‘You want to send an Alpenhorn?’ said the assistant, ‘registered or normal?’
I said I hadn’t thought about it. Was an Alpenhorn
likely to get lost in the mail?
The assistant said she thought it was always better
to send any article registered, particularly to
England, implying that the Swiss had different
standards of honesty, as of football fans. ‘Surface
or airmail?’ she continued.
‘But surely,’ I countered, hope beginning to fade, ‘one can’t send an Alpenhorn, all five metres of it,
by mail?’
‘No regulations against it, but I’ll check if you
like.’ She checked. There weren’t any.
‘But can anything be sent by mail,’ I asked, ‘supposing I wish to send a crocodile.’
‘You wish to send a crocodile?’
‘I was only asking hypothetically ...’
‘I’ll check.’ It appeared you could send a crocodile,
but it required an export permit, a certificate
of health and several vaccinations. ‘Do you wish to
register it?’
‘What precisely?’
‘The crocodile.’
‘I don’t want to send a crocodile. I want to send
an Alpenhorn.’
‘Ah yes,’ she said, a slight note of doubt creeping
into her voice. The customer is always right is the
motto in Swiss post offices. But the Swiss have
their looney bins too.
‘You would save on the postage if you send them
together, in a single parcel, I mean the Alpenhorn
and the crocodile, though I daresay the horn
would stick out a bit. ‘Anyhow,’ she concluded, ‘when you come, use the back entrance. Ring three
times and ask for Bertha.’
‘What’s a Bertha?’
‘Me,’ she said levelly.
The parting shot came as I was about to leave.
‘Don’t forget to wrap it, and no sticky tape. String,
with a single bow, and no knots. Au revoir.’
Foiled, but not defeated, I went to an expensive
shop in town where they sold musical instruments,
but surely no Alpenhorns. Suppliers to the Conservatoire
of Geneva, it said on the door.
‘May I have an Alpenhorn, please,’ I said to the
slightly supercilious, moustachioed young assistant.
‘It’s for a birthday present. Please wrap it up
as a gift, single bow, no sticky tape.’
‘Monsieur means a French horn, a cor anglais?’
‘I mean a Swiss Alpenhorn, five metres long,
painted red and white, with knobs on.’
‘It’s not much in demand here,’ he said, slightly
abashed.
‘You supply the Conservatoire. Don’t they have
a course in Alpenhorn music? Are there no symphonies written for Alpenhorn and full
orchestra in four movements of which the first is
an Allegro Vivace?’ In fact, it takes about ten minutes
to get a tone from one end of the Alpenhorn
to the other. You blow, then you go away, have a
cup of coffee and perhaps, when you return, the
note is ready to emerge. Not counting the echos, of
course. Goats have been known to fall off the
Eiger north face, a respectable two kilometres
away, when they blow the horns at Kleine Scheidegg.
‘It’s not much in demand,’ repeated the
assistant, ‘but I think we might manage one.’
Astonishing people the Swiss. When I
was a student, a professor in applied
economics explained what was meant by
economies of scale. I still don’t quite
understand it, but I remember the story.
The Argentineans, or someone, needed an
unusual ship’s anchor, used only on the
high seas and of abnormal strength and
lightness. They went to one after the other
of the great sea-faring nations of the world:
the United States, Norway, Britain, but
each explained that, sorry, but the demand
was very limited, and they couldn’t manufacture
one. It wouldn’t pay. There wasn’t
the call any more. So the Argentineans
finally went to that other great maritime
nation, the Swiss, with a couple of lakes at
their command across which you could spit
on a windy day (except that spitting, like
being late, is illegal in Switzerland). The
Swiss delivered the anchor within months.
And so it was with the music shop. They
promised one within a week, from Oberstocklialp
in the Canton of Nidwald. It was
only a half-canton, but the Alpenhorn
would be whole, ha, ha, ha. Not a bad joke,
as they go in Geneva shops.
I came back a week later, with a rented van.
There was the Alpenhorn, nicely wrapped in
chocolate-coloured gift paper with an orange
pattern, one bow per metre, in gold foil.
Of course, the van was too small. Back to
the hire company who, after some headscratching,
gave me a trailer of the kind
they use for yachts. But how to tie an
Alpenhorn to the trailer? Some twentyfour
hours and a few aspirins later I
arrived at the post office with my Alpenhorn,
which looked in all the world like the
Loch Ness monster, which is where it was
going, near enough. Bertha of the post
office made no trouble. She stuck a green
label on it, after some hesitation about a
good location.
Just then, Kirsten walked into the post
office. ‘Good heavens,’ she said, ‘are you
mad and what are you doing with that
thing? Did I say an Alpenhorn?’ she went
on, ‘but surely you know David plays nothing
but the recorder. And why should you
not buy a recorder. You always take the
easy way out.’
P.S. This article has absolutely nothing to do with the usual concerns of UN Special except perhaps that it describes a trivial, but fairly typical event in the life of an average United Nations official.
1 The author is a former Deputy Director of
UNRISD, after retirement worked for many years for
UNECE and UNICEF.
© 2006 UN Special |