I heard this today from a friend. If it doesn't reinformce what our sterotype of the Swiss, i odnt know what will. Funny as hell if you ask me.

So this friend has finally built his house - mush hassle there, but's a different story. He's now working on the garden. he asked his Swiss neighbour if it's ok to plant a cherry tree 2m from the border. He also invited the neighbour to help himself to the cherries etc. The regulation apparently, requires such trees to be planted a minimum of 2.5m from the border.

That the neighbour knew this was strange enough. That the neighbour refused permission was perhaps somewhat expected. The funny thing was his reaction when my friend told him that his [the neighbour's] trees were within this holy distance. The neigbour, somewhat annoyed proceded to cut down his beautiful trees in order to make sure aformentioned cheery tree was not planted

cheery tail

That's brilliant. I wish I could know what was going through his head when he was playing lumber jack!

What an arse.
No surrender, no compromise, no common sense.
And did he burn the chopped down wood in his wood burning stove...?

That has got to be one of the most hilarious/stupendously dumb things I have heard here yet! Well, in Switzerland you're either meticulously law abiding, or you're meticulously law abiding, but you certainly make sure you do everything by the book, whichever one you are!

I just keep getting the lumberjack song from Monty Python going through my head every time I read this post...