A Nazi salute is not illegal racial discrimination provided it’s intended as a personal statement, Switzerland’s top court has ruled.

Such is the Disneyesque look and feel of the Swiss lakeside city of Lucerne that one almost expects to encounter Beauty and the Beast’s Belle sauntering through its medieval streets with her nose stuck in a book, studiously avoiding the overbearing advances of the otherwise curiously attractive Gaston.

HEAVY breathing phone calls have been par for the course for estate agent Christy Ryan these past few weeks – they’ve been mobile calls, made to him, by walkers doing the promenade around Cork’s Lough.