A Grisly Hello To Summer

Yesterday, in an abysmal display of apathy and hopelessness, I failed to go to Zürich to watch a snowman be set on fire.

Yes, it's sechseläuten time of year, which means that Zürich goes on holiday, there is much parading and dressing up, and then a snowman effigy is set alight and watched eagerly until his head explodes. This snowman bit is the focal point of it all, and it involves a huge bonfire, a pretend snowman (called the böögg, and described in Wikipedia as a "rag doll", but it seems a lot more slow-burning than that) perched atop the bonfire and stuffed full of explosives, and a stopwatch. The idea is that the time from when the böögg's pyre is lit and when his head explodes is taken as some indication of what the coming summer will be like (a quick time means a long, hot, dry summer, a long time means a rainy short summer).

Happily, for slackers such as myself, it's all shown on telly. It took 12 minutes or so for the böögg's head to explode, which apparently bodes an average sort of summer (although Reto tells me that he read something recently which said that research shows there is no correlation between the time taken for the head to explode and the quality of the summer, which is too bad, because I like a nice ordinary, non-hot summer).

My impression of it all, possibly because I was in a bad sort of mood while I was watching it, is that it was a bit much like some sort of public burning-at-the-stake for my liking (although apparently a fairly historically inaccurate attempt). The crowd of people gathered around, the smoke and flames creeping ever higher, the enthusiasm with which we all watched and waited for the grisly end. If only I had brought some knitting.