The EM Football championship is over, Alex’s passing away has been over 4 months ago and yet the Financial Times newspaper continues to be delivered daily to his desk at work as if the Financial Times hasn’t yet heard the tragic news of Alex’s death. 

You must be wondering why on earth would Alex have subscribed to an English language magazine and newspaper. 

The reason is that Alex was always concerned with the educational development and welfare of his work colleagues. I being someone who never read the newspaper other than the sports section, it took a lot of effort from Alex to convince me to share in the subscription costs to an esteemed business and economics newspaper. (Not that Alex was not willing to cover the costs himself; he knew too well that I was motivated by money and that if I had a made a financial investment, I would be more inclined to read the paper. I actually wanted to subscribe to the International Herald Tribune but Alex also knew that I would only be reading the sports section).

For Alex co-subscribing to an English language newspaper was a major compromise in his language ethics: Alex was always fighting against the non-stop invasion of English in the corporate world at UBS. Whenever one of us used an English expression (be it in a written presentation/document, in a meeting or during a break) he immediately objected. He was the language watchdog and the equivalent of l’office québécois de la langue française. He was also always correcting our language. German not being our native language for some of us, Alex was regularly highlighting our mistakes so that we would learn and improve. For me this was not only limited to German. There were numerous occasions where Alex would even correct my (sloppy) English (and mother tongue). 

Alex had a high standard in any foreign language he mastered. When he chose to speak English he spoke with a high level regardless of the situation and audience. For example Alex recounted the time that he was in the United States where he once went to the hotel office to ask if he and Brigitte could spend another night. If you have been to the United States and experienced the substandard education of some service staff, you can relate to the puzzlement on the hotel concierge’s face as Alex requested „We would like to prolong our sojourn“.

  Cette photo a été croquée la soirée de la sortie de mon roman en librairie. Alex était plus excité et fier que moi.  Il tenait mon livre bien en évidence dans toutes les photos prises ce soir là; même une couchée dans la neige à la sortie du restaurant étendu sur la place Jacques Cartier près de minuit!  

   Il a voulu vendre une copie au serveur, aux chauffeurs de taxi, et au concierge de l'hôtel.

   Le lendemain il a insité pour demander, et acheter, mon roman dans la première librairie que nous avons visité, probablement mon premier vendu. Ensuite, il a fallu aller aux archives du Québec à la grande bibliothèque et vérifier s'ils s'étaient bien procuré un examplaire tel que prescrit par la loi. Encore une fois, il a contre-interrogé la libraire en poste pour être certain que toute serait fait selon les règles de l'art alors que moi je restai en arrière toute gênée.
 
  Alex avait un amour pour le livre qui était difficile à contenir.
   

I was 10 when I met Evelyne and her 'curious' brother at the Swiss School of Barcelona. Eve and I were classmates and we became good friends. She told that they would return to Switzerland by Christmas.

A couple of years later she was still living in Barcelona and my mother passed away.

We spent a lot of evenings and weekends together, sometimes at my home and sometimes at hers and we became close friends.

While Eve and I played or chatted, Alex was always focused on different subjects, normally incomprehensible to me: studying, reading books (voluntarily) that I would only read if it was mandatory to approve a subject or just playing tricks on us.

I still remember Evelyne saying: Ignore him, do not listen to him, he is annoying… “es un pesado”.

A couple of summers we spent 3 weeks in a summer camp in Switzerland and then we all grew up, the school ended and we went separate ways.

I’ve never lost contact with Evelyne so I heard from Alex from time to time. As adults we also met again a couple of times: in Eve’s wedding and other dinners and events. He was really fun and conversations with him were great.

I was shocked when I heard the news.

After the impressive funeral I have a strange feeling of having lost the opportunity of tighten our friendship. I heard many times that he was a real good friend. I think a lot of him and somehow I miss him too.