This seems to be a thread for anarchic oldies, so what the hell. Perhaps we'll get back to competitions later. There's no rush at our age!
As Thal said earlier, England is a strange place, but then so is Switzerland. One has an impression of the Swiss being terribly polite and rather formal. I got a very small scholarship to study for three months at the Paul Sacher Foundation, in order to look at all Stravinsky's papers relating to the pianola. Stravinsky worked with pianolas for fifteen years of his life, and re-wrote many of his major ballets for the instrument. It's the least known part of his life's work, and people still underestimate it.
The sort of scholarships that Sacher gives are really intended to add to the existing salaries of foreign music professors, so that they can afford to travel to Basel and perhaps rent a room or two for their period of study. But I had no basic salary, so my scholarship had to pay everything, and I ended up living in my trailer tent on a campsite in Reinach, about five or six miles outside the centre.
During the day, we researchers were on our very best behaviour, taking our coffee break together, and drinking from the finest cups and saucers, with marble floors and super-attentive staff. It was the Switzerland I thought I knew. But then, in the evening, I made friends with a very different type of Swiss on the campsite. Many people in Basel live in apartments, and so have no gardens, and some of them move to caravans in Reinach for the summer. There we drank ourselves into oblivion every night, counted the satellites that passed overhead, sang the very bawdiest of songs, and generally behaved as human beings should. I came away with an impression of two Switzerlands, one for the bosses, and one for the workers.
One amusing relic of my trip is that while there, I sent Conlon Nancarrow a letter, telling him how I was getting on, and giving him all the gory details of Paul Sacher and all his mistresses. I wasn't particularly discreet about it. When Conlon died, the Sacher Stiftung acquired all his correspondence, including my letter, which is now apparently preserved for all eternity in their nuclear-proof cellars!
Topic: Competitions w/o age limit