Commute

The road back into Sion ville from the Institut Universitaire Kurt Bösch, where I was due to give my second lecture in 24 hours, first thing Friday morning. When we arrived, I realised I had left a bag containing my lecture notes in the hotel dining room, so the driver had to take me back. Not a great hardship with such a stupendous view. Sion, in the Canton of Valais, nestles between two major Alpine ridges. The sense of place and the importance of locality is very strong here. In some ways that can be a positive, but it can easily turn into insularity and exclusion. My host Roberta is Italian, and she told me that her experience of nepotism in Italy had not really prepared her for Switzerland, where it's always about who you know and where you live; if you come from the right canton but the wrong valley, you will likely lose out to someone less qualified.

Still, it's very beautiful...