Many moons ago (exactly 4 years to be precise) I jumped over my shadow and did yet another thing I really thought I would never ever do: I purchased a diesel-powered car.

Once you’ve overcome initial misgivings (noise, maintenance costs) which are largely historical, diesel offers a lot of advantages over petrol engines:

• More reliable
• More efficient
• Less maintenance costs (a service interval of 50’000km for mine)

And the most important factor for me at that time:

• Lower fuel consumption

On the day I collected my brand-new car, the price of a liter of diesel was approx. CHF 1.40 (those were the days). At an average consumption of 6.5 liters/100km for 40’000km/year I was then spending CHF 3’640 per year for the advantage of being mobile. For statistical purposes, with the liter of Diesel costing approx CHF 2.30 today, the yearly cost of my mobility has now risen to CHF 6’240!!!

As a grand total of 31’200 km are spent driving to and from the office, I thought I’d work out exactly how much I pay to go to work; and I was gob smacked!

• 2004: CHF 11.83/day

• 2008: CHF 20.28/day

My company promotes Work@Home; somehow I believe I’ll be taking an increased advantage of this offer in the near future…

Click on Read more for a full comparison

Three weeks to go until kick-off!

Thought I’d get into the spirit by going off and purchasing two nifty car flags, a Swiss one for the left-hand side and an Italian one for the right (and an English one to leave symbolically in the boot, maybe?)

I shouldn’t have voiced my project to DBW, though who instantly vetoed it with a

Are you out of your mind? I’m *CENSORED* years old for Christ sake!!

Ah, right: so no flags, then…

We visited our local book shop today, looking for a travel guide to the Ostsee (somehow DBW has these weird dreams of long walks along the beach while ice-cold gales delicately brush through our hair, before retreating to a lonesome lighthouse where we cuddle up below a large duvet and spend an awfully long time attempting to warm each other up.. ;-)).

Anyway, they had one so we were more than delighted to fork out the CHF 18.60, until we attempted to pay by EC-Card (i.e. direct-debit, NOT credit):

Errm: do you mind paying cash? We only accept card payments for amounts over CHF 20.00.

I really had to make an effort not to issue a long “tirade” about Amazon, and how they would actually deliver my book, to my doorstep, for free (maybe I shouldn’t have, but it was Monday and I was feeling mellow.).

And being an investigating B*stard, I checked out the vendor conditions for handling a so-called Maestro card. Apart from the obvious leasing fee for the reader (which can also be used for credit cards), advantages include:

1. You can count on 4.4 million cardholders as customers, alone in Switzerland, all who wish to pay conveniently and easily without cash.
2. You enable over 582 million cardholders from around the world to pay without cash at your business or in your online shop.
3. Your customers feel secure because they always have sufficient funds on hand when they can pay with Maestro at your business.
4. It is proven that your customers make more spontaneous purchases daily.
5. Your turnover is in your bank account in no time at all.
6. You have less cash in the cash register and thus bear less risk.
7. You incur no expenses for billing and collections.
8. You can process payments quickly and easily at the terminal.
9. Your administrative expenses are clearly reduced.

So, next time: if I actually take the bother to visit your premises, don’t force me to empty my pockets, ok?

You get over 1’000 Kb/s download rates, right?

And you’re pretty damn proud about it, right?

Think again…

That’s 674 Mb in 84 seconds..

A quick call to the Nespresso service desk basically warranted the following answer:

Oh, I don’t know: maybe you should call Koenig (our machine’s manufacturer).

DBW’s reply?

I prefer NOT to publish it here.

But to cut a long story short: faxing the guarantee finally did the trick….

What else?

Our Nespresso machine arrived back today by the same way it had originally departed.

Cum a CHF. 170.00 invoice!

DBW hit the roof…