Bruno Giussani is a writer, the European Director of the 
So the city of Zurich has just enthusiastically introduced a new "official souvenir": a design aluminium bottle that holds 0.4 liters, has a smooth mechanical lid, is light yet long-lasting ("made of high-quality, robust stainless steel"), is "hygienic and easy to clean", and it's even socially responsible because 1 of the 25 Swiss Francs of each bottle's price goes to a Tanzanian water aid project.
The Zurich tourism office hopes that visitors will buy it and fill it with the "delicious drinking water" that flows from the 1200 fountains of the city - that's the message of the ZH2O printed on the bottle (where ZH is the official Zurich acronym and H2O the molecular structure of water: one oxygen atom and two hydrogen atoms).
Yet I can't really buy (into) it. Not only because I find the object totally dull. But also because, for an "official souvenir" from the biggest Swiss city, it has a fatal flaw (which is not mentioned on the website nor on the bottle): it's made in China.
UPDATE 26 April - The sale of the "souvenir bottle" has been suspended yesterday because, "due to a production flaw", the objects were rusting. In the press release (PDF in German) the Zurich tourism office acknowledges that the thing was made in China and says that its contractor is looking for a new supplier "in Switzerland or abroad". (thanx to reader M. for the link).
According to Zurich's daily newspaper Tages-Anzeiger, the bottles tend to rust, probably due to production flaws in China (see URL provided, text in German)... :->
Posted by: M. | April 26, 2006 at 06:52 AM
Media release by "Zurich Downtown Switzerland": http://www.zh2o.ch/MM_ZH2O_250406.pdf
Posted by: M. | April 26, 2006 at 08:19 AM