Politics, Passion, Pessimism, & Pneumonia

Basel has always been an exhilarating mixture of POP - Passion, Optimism and Pessimism. But this year, to accompany the new show title of Baselworld, we have had the additional pleasure of the Swiss Government throwing a political spanner into the works by making the totally illogical decision to not allow the Hong Kong exhibitors to work in the Basel annexe of Zurich. 24 hours and some frenzied discussions later, the decision was reversed, with the addendum that they could begin to show their products as of Sunday, the fourth day of the Basel show. The Hong Kong delegation immediately packed their bags and at a rough guesstimate have lost about 1.5 billion Swiss francs in business and perhaps another 50 million or so in travel and stand construction expenses.
All these political shenanigans were brought about by yet another P - pneumonia. So I decided to telephone my old friend U. Hueng Loe, the Chinese acupuncturist I often use to alleviate the pain of my ingrowing toenail. U. is an astute and cultured man and although his name suggests a Chinese connection, I'm fairly sure its origins are more a mixture of Irish and Russian. Educated at Eton, Harrow and Lichtenstein University, I assumed he would be able to enlighten me on the symptoms of this unusual strain of pneumonia that is being referred to as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS).
“Hello U,” I screamed into my mobile.
“Hello you too,” U. squeaked back in his dulcet, high-pitched voice.
“U. I'm having difficulty understanding why exhibitors arriving from Hong Kong are allowed into the country, permitted to roam around the Fair, eat in the restaurants and sneeze abundantly in the reception area of their hotels, but not allowed to work on their booths.”
“Ah, you come light place, I know velly much on ploblem.” he said in his Etonian accent.
“That's great U. So tell me.”
“Sevee Acute Lespilatoly Syndlome is special sickness. It work only when you work. If you not work, there no ploblem, no sick. That why fever oliginate in China and Hong Kong, people do much work. Swiss Government unstand ploblem.”
“Come on U. don't give me that.”
“Is true. You no work, you no get sick,”
“I haven't heard anything so silly since you screamed `I dlowning' when you walked across the fish pond on the Swatch Group's stand last year. What the hell has work got to do with SARS?”
“Well, you no got sickness?” U. all too eagerly asked.
“No I haven't,” I exclaimed adamantly.
“So you see, you no work, you no get it. You lazy man, you no get sick.”
What I could see was that I wasn't going to get far with U. Hueng Loe, so I told him what to do with his SARS and hung up.
As to the other P I mentioned earlier, the P is for Passion - the passion of discovering new and exciting timepieces. Just one of them is Universal Genève's new Aero Tri-Compax. But more about the real reason we are here soon!

D. Malcolm Lakin
Managing Editor, Europa Star

April 2003