**!!LONDON date!!** , 'THE TOURING SOCIETY OF ELEUTHERA' Every Wednes ...
The Playlist Sessions // July 2010 , Dear All, William has been compiling some playl ...
**!! LONDON date !!** , Dear All, After the success of William's last g ...
Water Taxi up on CD Baby for the US fans , Dear All, We're up and running with Water Taxi ...
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The cloud of smoke in the Bierhalle hangs a foot above the crinkled faces of the clientele. Outside in the streets of old Turicum, snow falls silently and slowly in huge fat flakes. Like in Holland in the old days, the sensation of enjoying a cigarette inside a warm cafe with a book and a beer makes one feel furtive, illegal and ashamed.
The cheerful old landlady jostles up with her huge purse of small denomination CH francs, not a word of English (another refreshing aspect of this part of Europe) and I'm straight back with Burton and Eastwood in 'Zum Wilden Hirsch' looking forward to meeting up with Mary Ure up at the Schloss Adler. The only trouble is my landlady looks more like the Granny with the machine gun in Goldfinger than Mary Ure and I look more like Goldfinger than Richard Burton. Oh Well.
Anyway it's true, you can still puff inside in some pubs in Switzerland. Surely an excellent recommendation for independence and cantonal democracy (In truth a depressing and retrogressive development was explained to me at Bio Top in Konradstrasse, it's as if the deliberately sew up any funky local legal loopholes the day before I arrive!).
The cobalt boomerang of the Zurichsee reflects dancing light on the Cathedral tower and I am pleased to see a sign above a small boat bearing the legend 'Wassertaxi'. Alas even all this progressive liberalism cannot stretch to a smoking carriage on the SSB, so whilst one enjoys the stunning scenery of this UNESCO world heritage site and a soothing glass of Fendant.
Rauchen, as they say, is pretty much Verboten. Two furniculae and a serious seilbahn later, and I'm standing besides an enormous bronze goat at 3057m, outside an intimate bistro, barely able to breath. Piz Nair, the top of Europe, probably no more than a hillock compared to the Rockies but nevertheless, a little short on the old 02, for your wizened correspondent, so its back in the seilbahn and down one level to the Corviglia club 2486m, the inspiration for, if not the film location of, Fleming's Piz Gloria.
The legend of St Moritz began in 1864 with Johannes Badruut's boast to some English visitors that one could sit in one's shirtsleeves on Christmas day, well it was a bit nippy for that but the mountains are still as amazing. Truly extreme nature, which, as it does in Jamaica, demands more from one's eyes, than they can give.
Record this forever, you think to yourself, and yet like the colors on a fishes scale, the images fade as you turn away. Too beautiful to sustain disbelief.
"How demanding these lakes and mountains are, the moments they provide are far from simple" - Rainer Maria Rilke 1919.
I stayed in a hikers lodge on the Suvrettahang and enjoyed fondue, wine and live local music. Three ladies with accordians and a man with a double bass (Bull fiddle!) singing mountain tunes and their manager, who in the break, assembled his own ten foot long 3-sectioned Alpen Horn and gave us all a tune. Take note PC!
I've been in love with Switzerland since I got stuck in lift in Geneva, with my cousins in 1972 and I am already scheming of ways to get back.
Yours with a Kaffee Grischas in the Alpina,
1. A la recherche du temps perdus...
2. US tour dates
3. March 2010
4. New material - a note from William...
5. 10.30 pm Zurich old Town...
6. Christmas greetings...
7. London gig in December...
8. A tour diary by William...
9. William Topley and the Sea Gypsies present WATER TAXI. Out now!!
10. 20.04.2009
11. 11.03.09
12. 26.01.09
13. Happy New Year!
14. The leaves are turning red upon the cherry trees and the beech woods are going golden in the clear autumn sun...
15. UK and US tour dates...
16. 09.06.08
17. 14.04.08
18. 21.01.08
19. 01.12.2007
20. September in Perugia
21. 15.08.07
22. 06.07.2007
23. 07.06.2007
24. 23.04.07
25. 22/03/2007
26. 05-02-07
27. A Message From William:
US Tour 2005, photo courtesy of Barry Scovel
