Article for The Independent - Zurich becomes new financial capital of Europe

SWatch out: Zurich beyond the chocolate and watches

Zurich close to becoming the new European financial capital

One of the most important cities of Switzerland, Zurich, is to become the financial centre of Europe as traders from all over the world move to the city in times of recession.

This true exodus of traders and investors has occurred in an increasing rate over the last two years. Attracted by the minuscule taxes and other incentives, many people have decided to move to Zurich as a way to usufruct from the benefits and savings that the city might give them. The result of such movement can be seen in the constant increase in the city’s importance and power over the financial sector. At the same time that this growing power should work as an example for other countries, there must be some caution as this might cause worse situations for other cities in times of recuperation from a crisis.

The sudden rise in the number of traders going to Zurich may harm other financial centers as money is taken away from the cities. Due to the transference of money to the Swiss city, metropolises such as London, Frankfurt and Brussels may end up having less attention given to them. This lack of interest causes fewer investments, which then generate weaker and more fragile economies. Consequently, new difficulties surge and another contraction might be knocking at our door.

For the Swiss financial capital, on the other hand, everything is going fine. The movement of traders and investors represent higher government income, more jobs and better infrastructure for the people. Furthermore, as it already happened to Switzerland and other European countries in general, boosts in welfare are almost undeniable.

The existence of such incredibly low taxes has been part of Switzerland’s economic policy for quite a long time. With the clear focus towards the services’ sector (64.5% of GDP) the country has always tried to keep money flowing within its borders. As a result of the present economic crisis, the country’s (and most specifically the city’s ) efforts were rewarded as people are doing everything they can to save money.

As it was said by the Swiss finance minister Hans-Rudolf Merz “As Zurich gains the attention of more traders, our economy gets stronger, steadier, and the city’s influence increases amongst the rest of the world.”

From now on, we should try to use Zurich’s and Switzerland’s example as ways to improve our own problems. Even though there were not any problems until the moment, we should be prepared for future troubles with the high number of traders and investors leaving cities such as London and Manchester. At the present moment, all we can do is just hope that some of the traders get sick of the chocolate

The piece was chosen as an article that would appear in the Independent because it is the type of story that is common for black banner tabloids. The people that read the independent are people that want to know more about national and international news without much influence of politics and biases. The structure of the article follows the inverted triangle and there is some contrast between subsequent paragraphs, which is a characteristic that was observed in the article analysis exercises. The lengths of the paragraphs also correspond to the usual lengths from black banner newspapers and the language of is sophisticated up to a certain extent. There is some level of sophistication, but not excess of it. In relation to the influences, the entire article was written from a British point of view. Even though, there are some elements of right wing, I attempted to balance the political views the maximum that I could. The British point of view is not something to worry about, since it is exactly what is would please the newspaper’s main readers (tacit agreement).

HHGG commentary

“In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.” The radio serial The Hitch-hiker’s guide to the Galaxy illustrates a series of themes in many different ways. The excerpt exposes the themes “The importance of humanity”, “42”, the probability of the improbable, and aliens rule. Throughout the entire passage, there are recurring references to such themes, which is done with the use of motifs and literary devices. In this commentary, we will consider how motifs such as ‘Earth’, Ape man, the answer, Zaphod, and mice are employed together with irony, juxtaposition, absurdity and diminishment to express the themes and ideas in the passage.

The theme that is most expressed throughout the fragment is ‘ the importance of humanity’. Two examples that demonstrate how this theme is shown in the passage can be the ways that the characters relate to the earth and to the humans. Firstly, by observing how the author portraits the humans, it is possible to see that there is a tentative to diminish our image. With expressions such as ‘strange ape like beings’ and ‘nothing that as ever happened on earth could possibly make sense’, we can perceive that the passage clearly wants the audience to think that the humans are insignificant and primitive. The motifs ‘ape like beings’ and ‘the earth’ are used in this context, which reinforces the thoughts of the audience and makes the humans seem even more ridiculous and simplistic. In this fragment, the author makes use of literary devices such as irony, diminishment and absurdity with the objective of surprising an shocking the audience. Since we do not expect to be regarded and treated as an inferior race, we pay even more attention to what is being said. The literary devices work together with the motifs as ways to emphasize what the theme expresses and the audiences ends up actually paying more attention to our ridiculousness and weirdness.

HHGG commentary excerpt

This excerpt occurs at the beginning of the episode, where the main characters are delivered by an explosion to the restaurant at the end of the universe. As with the beginning of each episode of this or any serial program, there is a review of previous events in order to bring the audience back into the story as well as the reintroduction of the cliffhanger moment with which the previous episode ended. Unlike most serials however the HHGG also uses its introduction to tell strange ironic and usually absurd tales intended to amuse its audience.

There is a reminder within this introduction that the earth was in fact a giant computer run by mice and created solely for the purpose of determining the question to the answer 42. This answer to the question of the meaning of life, the universe and everything and the idea of earth as a program is highlighted by the use of a biblical reference and an absurd creation story from ‘another’ intelligent species . Thus the recurring themes of the importance of humanity, mostly harmless, aliens rule, 42 and the probability of the improbable are all reintroduced before returning to the narrative itself.

These themes are of course all intertwined as 42, the all important answer cannot now be properly questioned due to the untimely destruction of earth, raising the importance of the seemingly (until now) unimportant ape like creatures, who populated its surface. The double irony is that they are unimportant, but may now prove to be of great importance (and will later again prove to be of no importance of course). Their unimportance is emphasized by the use of jargon and hyperbole, ‘hyper-intelligent pan-dimensional beings, gigantic supercomputer,’ juxtaposed against the description of mankind as ‘strange ape like beings’ and ‘totally unaware’. All of this is of course both wildly improbable and totally absurd which is of course the fundamental driving force and intention of this work.

The discussion of creation by means of the biblical allusion, its antithetical response and the absurdist creation story which follows, all serve the absurdist intent of the author which sets the tone for the episode as well as leading nicely into the reintroduction of the creation story of the earth….

Homework - Article Analysis

Homework - Make headline for Broadsheet [that meeting]

New cleanup measure is received with anger and complaints

The school’s environment is threatened by unjust cleaning system

The ZIS principal Mr. McLeod established a new cleaning system for all students at this Tuesday’s assembly.

The proclamation of the new measure was made by the principal himself, who believes the idea will result in a cleaner school. The new system made many of the older students frustrated, and created a feeling of injustice around the school.At the present moment, there is plenty of discussion and rumors going on about the future of the school and the absurd involving the new decision.

Homework - Make Headline for the meeting

The Dirty Decision

ZIS students are unfairly forced to clean hallways

Mr. McCloud established a new cleaning system for all ZIS students. The new tentative to reach cleanliness will start in the beginning of next week.

The ‘supposedly innovative’ idea involves every advisory group to clean up the hallways after lunch for one week. The new proposition was received with anger by the older students since the 9^th graders are the only causes of the mess.

Newspapers Analysis

The Sun

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/2872962/Yorkshire-Rippers-bid-for-freedom.html

Headline: Ripper in court bid for freedom

The headline uses elements such as brevity, intertextuality and loaded language. There is intertextuality because it is necessary to know that Ripper refers to the name of a hard criminal that went to jail during the 1980’s. The loaded language appears in the name of the person (if we know who he is) and in the expression bid for freedom, which makes the people think of prisoners and evil people.

Deck: THE Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe is seeking a High Court ruling which could see him freed, it can be revealed.

The deck works as a way to complement the headline. It provides information about the criminal and lets the people understand that the article is really about evil people and prisoners. In addition, this deck also helps to increase the fear of the people and makes the story more attractive for this same reason.

Serial killer Sutcliffe, who was given 20 life sentences in 1981, is asking the High Court to grant him a "finite minimum sentence".

The first paragraph is extremely short (similarly to all the others) and it gives a brief description of what the article is about. The content of the paragraph is almost the same as what is said in the deck and the only difference is that there is bit more detail in this case. The fear of the people is increased even more and the curiosity increases.

What explains the brevity of the paragraphs is that it becomes much easier to read the article, and it allows the readers to not use their brains at all. We can just read it, without thinking much.

He was convicted of murdering 13 women and attacking seven others in Yorkshire and Lancashire during a five-year killing spree which ended in late 1980.

This paragraph further explains the case and works in the same way as the first one (making the people more curious).