IF ONLY WALLS COULD SPEAK - Blancpain

1. Strong-willed effective politicians, with the
mettle and backbone to change the course
of a nation or history itself must be MEN.
Ooops. Don’t say that to Margaret
Thatcher. She was strong-willed enough
to be nicknamed “La Dame de Fer”, by
the French press. Strong enough to go
toe to toe, eyeball to eyeball with burly,
brutish, scowling coal mine union leaders
and make them be the first to blink.
She had enough mettle systematically to
yank the economy of her nation forward
transforming it from morbidity to the
most powerful engine in Europe at the
time.
2. Muscle men may “pump you up” but beyond
their pecs, abs, delts and lats have no
other abilities, much less a brain.
Well, not exactly. Arnold may have flexed
at the start of his career, but since then
it has been his intellect that has made
him not only a successful actor, but a
hugely successful business man. Now in
his fourth career (muscle man, actor,
businessman, and politician), he has
shown himself to be mentally nimble
enough to outmaneuver and beat back
a pack of hostile legislators as governor
of the sixth-largest economy in the
world.
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3. Great chefs are all fat, out of shape, rolly
polly men.
Again not quite. Does Philippe Rochat look
fat and rolly polly to you? (See page 24)
Philippe is one of only two Michelin three star
chefs in Switzerland and is widely esteemed to
be in that incredibly select group of the ten
best chefs in the world. By the way, don’t even
try and keep up with him skating up hills or
climbing them on a bike. On a good day, Lance
Armstrong can outclimb him. But you can’t!
One more thing. Don’t intone the other
part of this stereotype, the part that insists
that great chefs be male, in front of Alice