Friday, June 28

Its a story I would have expected to have come from the shore of Japan. However its closer to home. Over the summer H&M's will be selling paper panties, one size fits all g-strings in red black or green. At the moment they are only available to females and cross dressers. The designer believes they would appear to men as well, "Many guys don't change their underpants every day. It
would be perfect to sell paper underpants at petrol stations," The newspaper Aftonbladet tested the paper thongs said they are strong but uncomfortable.

They named their daughter Ikea!



Being an Ipswich Town supporter I have grown up with stories of the activities of our friends from Norwich, and heres another one from the evening news. A couple have named their baby daughter Ikea after the Swedish furniture store. Linda Dagless, from Norwich, came up with the idea after spotting an Ikea advert in a magazine when she was pregnant. Dad, Brad Wheeler, wasn't convinced at first but is now intending to have Ikea tattooed on his arm. Ms Dagless, a 26-year-old mother-of-four told the Evening News: "I was pregnant, sitting on the sofa with my boyfriend and trying to think of a name for the little girl I was going to have when I noticed the Ikea advert. "I saw the name Ikea and thought it would make a nice name for my baby. "I have seen the Ikea adverts on the telly and in magazines and thought they always had nice furniture, but I've never been to the shop. I'm now planning to go there with my mum."

Mr Wheeler, 36, said: "At first I was a bit wary about it. Now I love the name, Ikea. I initially agreed on the condition I could choose her middle name, which is Jasmine." An Ikea spokesman said: "As far as we're aware, this is the first time anyone has named their child after us and it is a great honour. A good idea may have been to have given Ikea the middle name of another successful Swedish export to the UK, Sven." The name Ikea is made up from the initials of its Swedish founder, Ingvar Kamprad, plus the first letter of Elmtaryd and Agunnaryd, the farm and village where he grew up.

There is nothing as strange as folk! I think I should recieve credit for posting this without suggesting that the new baby isnt quite all there, or might have a screw loose...

Thursday, June 27

The following occurred to me in one of our ”fika breaks” and I will agree with if you suggest I need a job more demanding on the brain cells, but the thought appeared all the same. Isabellas teddy has become quite a jetsetter, visiting places such as Ohio, Singapore and er Grimsby. For those of you who don’t know this teddy belongs to the 2 year old daughter of a postal worker and is currently travelling the world with the help of other postal workers. Anyway during this time inquires have been made by the public as to the current whereabouts and activities of the cuddly furball. A jetsetter + public interest = X. There can only be one answer to this equation, X equals paparazzi. I therefore suggest that a second teddy be released by a group of photographers or media types equipped with a camera and reporters notepad. We the public deserve the true story and not just the squeaky clean image put out by Isabellas teddys PR machine. Perhaps they could also do an in-depth investigation into the effects of being deserted by their teddys bears on 2 year old children.

I think I need to get more sleep.

Tuesday, June 25

You know you have been in Sweden too long part two

You associate pea soup with Thursday.
You associate Friday afternoon with a trip to system bolaget.
You think nothing of paying £30 for a bottle of 'cheap' spirits at system bolaget..
You stay home on Saturday night to watch Bingolotto.
It seems sensible that the age limit at Stockholm night clubs is 23 or 25.
It no longer seems excessive to spend £100 on alcohol in a single night.
You care who wins 'Expedition: Robinson'.
You are no longer scared of Volvos and Volvo drivers.
You enjoy the taste of surströmming.
You use mmmm as a conversation filler.
You eat jam with savoury dishes.
You have only two facial expressions, smiling or blank.
You take every opportunity to raise an enormous flag in your garden.
You think it entirely reasonable to pay 10 pounds for a five minute chat with the doctor.
You think it is normal EVERYTHING is regulated and you obey the rules voluntarily.
You think smoking is criminal and started to use snus instead.
You stop explaining to people what Christmas Crackers are and accept that they aren't - at least in Sweden.
It feels natural to have every floor in the apartment consist of wood and no carpet
You think the UK is wrong to drive on the left hand side....
You stay in watching Swedish TV even though you cannot understand a word they are saying.
It feels right to call crisps, chips...
Even you can hear your own accent..
.When someone asks you for "sex" you assume they mean half-a-dozen.

Sunday, June 23

Now that both England and Sweden are both out of the World Cup I had considered following South Korea. The surpise package that have been doing so well. After all isnt it an english thing to want the under dogs to come out on top? But then the trouble is they are just too good. It would be just like choosing to support Manchester United, well Charlton Athletic at least. Nope thats far too easy. Thanks to Gert for pointing out the other final. A game to be played between Bhutan and Montserrat, the two bottom teams on the FIFA world ranking (no's 202 and 203 respectively) I have decided to give my supprt to Bhutan for no more complex a reason than Gert is cheering for Montserrat. And who knows maybe with a bit of luck and some hard work either England or Sweden could win this one in a few years time.

Saturday, June 22

My alarm clock began ringing at 4.45am on Friday as it normally does when I am working the morning shift. Before I got up I could already hear that it was poring down outside. My humour didnt improve when I realised my waterproof trousers where neatly folded away in my locker at work. Oh well, just have to bite the bullet, get a move on and cycle to work. Better not to think that it was the day of mid summers evening and that most people would be staying home that day despite it not being an offical bank holiday. After all it is an afternoon/evening celebration and as such doesnt really deserve a morning off. 20 minuites later as I arrived in what can best be described as a soggy state I noticed the car park was slightly empty. But not all the machines start as early as the printing presses so what wasnt that strange. The darkness on the factory floor however was. Now they could be waiting for me in the dark with a big cake and were about to jump out shouting surpise and happy birthday. Being a capricorn however this seemed to be a slim chance.

To say I was pissed off would be an understatment. I had asked the machine boss what the state of play was and from his answer i gathered we were working. Now it could have been the way I phrased the question as my swedish is less than perfect but it feels like I was someones little play thing. If i set any alarms off blundering into the factory like that then i apoligise to the poor sod that had to come and see what was going on. Report me to the boss if you like, would be good if some who could abuse him fully in swedish in a manner that it deserves. Even incompetent fool didnt show up, so where does that put me in the peaking order of things ? Well actaully he might have just been late it wouldnt have been the first time. The only upside was that i was able to see the England match in full colour in comfort at home and we know how that one went...

Thursday, June 20

”We would like to apologise for any inconvenience but due to staff holidays Sweden will be closed until winter.” I had to walk home from work today. I had chosen to run there while it was cool and therefore didn’t have my bike to get home as usual. I didn’t think it would be a problem though as the bus service runs every 20 minutes. That is it does while the winter timetable is in operation. As from this week we have the joys of the summer timetable, reducing the busses to every hour. Of course I finish work just after a bus has left.

Its not just the busses that disappear. The local cinema has closed for 2 weeks. Isn’t the school holidays a peek period for going to the movies? Its like a restaurant putting a sign up saying ”Be back later – closed for lunch”. Luckily it hasn’t gone that far here but you sometimes wonder if it will. Swedes seem to get 5 weeks holiday entitlement each year. 5 weeks to spread across the working year. Expect they don’t, its seems to be traditional to take your 5 weeks in a block in the middle of summer, at the same time as everyone else. I guess in some ways it makes sense for all the business’s to have a low period at the same time, but generally to me its seems a bizarre way to run a business.

The book factory where I work is running as normal during the summer period despite the regular staff taking holidays. This is being covered by temporary staff coming in to cover. We have had a new trainee working with us week. I started off being amused by his apparent lack of common sense. For example, the paper we print on comes in rolls. Imagine a metre high toilet roll and you get the idea. Obviously these weigh slightly more than your average toilet roll so we have trolleys to move them around the factory floor. Forementioned fool spent quite a while trying to pick one of these rolls up but kept on trying to pick up from the long side instead of the end. This ramming caused the paper to roll across to the other end of the factory before being followed by incompetent idiot who then proceed to repeat the process in the opposite direction. I tried point out the error of his ways but this only seemed to have a time limited effect.

Today amusement had changed into growing annoyance. If I were training for a new job I don’t think I would be sitting around reading and wandering off from time to time. Wouldn’t mater so much if what he actually did a good job but we have had several cases of the paper snapping and causing the presses to crash. Its idiots like these that make it harder for the rest of us immigrants. A bad attitude against foreigners is easier to create than shake off. Hopefully he wont last long, or maybe just maybe he will improve, but I expect they will take him on anyway. As long as he is on someone else’s shift.

Monday, June 17

We caught a fish. We caught a little fish. Well I say we, but I mean Maria. However I was there at the time so that has to count for something doesn’t it? Having not ever fished before in my case or for 10 years in Marias you could say we were novices: it would however be closer to the truth to say we didn’t have a clue what we were doing. Having purchased a rod that would have looked more at home in the toy rather than the fishing department we were keen to have a try.

It was a case of the blind leading the blind. After several attempts the closest thing I had come to catching was my left ear. I would like to blame Maria for showing me the wrong technique, but the truth is I was still hopeless after we had worked out what we were meant to be doing. Without saying anything we came to the decision that it was safer if I were to sit on the bank and watch. There were little fishes to be seen but they didn’t seem to be interested in our bait. To be honest I cant blame them. If someone were to serve me a meat pie with a hook sticking out the side, I would, well, pardon the pun, expect there was something fishing going on.

And then just as we were thinking about going home without any success maria felt her hook get stuck on some weeds. Except this weeds were moving. The weeds were swimming! It was a fish! A 10cm little perch, or so maria told me. Okay so it wasn’t a huge fish but you should have seen the one that got away

I know I promised not to mention my running here since I started a new blog for those posts. However I ran a personel best for this year at 5km distance. 23mins 23seconds. Thats a huge 44 seconds faster than before! Wooohoo for me !

Saturday, June 15

Sorry its been a while since my last post but I have been busy pulling my hair out trying to make a new template. It occured to me that most of you are not in the slightess interested in my training. Not that I have been posting anything about my training for the last couple of weeks but thats not the point ! Anyway from now on those of you who are interested can read my training blog and the rest of you can carry on as normal.

As a one off, a kind of applogy for the delay, I will try this post into a request spot regarding the comments on my previous post. I am not sure who Paul wishes to impress with his knowledge of jokes in swedish but who am I to stand in this way. "Vad kallas du en franksman i andra rund av VM? Domare". Thats my best guess anyway, look for corrections in the comment box from "proper swedes" As for the DIY for Lynn, If only you hadnt already finished I might have been able to help you. To my mum, the reason you live at home is so you dont have to do the DIY. Normal service will resume shortly.

Thursday, June 13

I have managed to avoid most DIY jobs up to now. The trouble is I am generally a bit on the clumsy side. Coupled with a tendency to rush in without always thinking this tends to bring a botched end product. However with the summer temperatures increasing and our apartment topping the scale with an extra 5 degrees on whatever it was outside there was one job that needed doing. A window frame to let the cool breeze in but to stop any bugs and beasties from flying into our air space. Hardly the largest of projects, just 4 lengths of wood nailed together and covered in mesh. Indeed probably one that would have Handy Andy telling the presenters to do it themselves, but still for me, a challenge. Admittedly the frame is just slightly of square and I had to go back to the store to purchase the goods I had forgotten. However we now have a cooler bug free environment, result. Maybe I did it a little bit too well, Maria has ordered another 2 now. Time to go back to my clumsy old self again maybe…

Monday, June 10

Working the nightshift, subtitle The art of procrastination.

For the second week in three I find myself working the graveyard shift. 11.30 at night to 6.15 the next morning. Delightful. Being awake at such unearthly hours combined with the slow progress of the work on this shift (while the management fat cats sleep, the mice well ... er, don’t do much at all really) causes the mind to wander in some interesting directions. Last night I found myself pondering if my subconscious voice, the thoughts in my head would remain to be English. When, if ever will I start to have thoughts in Swedish? I know the little rascal swears in Swedish as I have caught him, but other than that no other changes have taken place. And another thing to consider if I do start thinking in Swedish, will I be able to understand myself...

Sunday, June 9

After Pauls comments about the world heritage mine being "a hole" comments have been added to my photo page. You wouldnt call the pryamids a "pile of olds stones" now would you ? So be nice to our mine. to be fair to paul though, it does just look like a hole :)

Saturday, June 8

With the wonderful weather continuing I decided to go of into the woods and do a spot of orienteering. I had purchased a map from the local sports shop and was keen to give it a go. I could tell on the other hand that Maria wasn’t quite so sure. It was the "tell me which control points you are starting with so I know where to look if you don’t come home" comment that kind of gave it away. But I know how to orienteer I thought remembering the days about 12 years ago when I used to do the sport with my dad, it was hardly very supportive to suggest I would get lost now was it? So off I cycled to the woods where the course is set out, mumbling "as if I would get lost" quietly to myself.

10 minutes later I was starting my jog into the woods. 10 minutes after that I realised I was lost. The nature reserve just wasn’t doing what the map said it should be. Crossroads of two main junctions, but that’s a t-junction, and surely it should be bending to the left by now. A small portion of the little voices in my head were suggesting that now might be a good time to give up. But I couldn’t admit defeat that easily. It would have been terrible to return home and admit that although I had found 2 control points neither of them were the 25 that I was looking for.

After a better look at the map I realised I had totally misread the scale of the map and had unknowingly run passed one control point at least twice. With my new found knowledge the hunt was on. The sense of achievement of finding the first control point started to push away the feeling of stupidity of not being able to read a map. The second and third just feel into place. The fourth was easy to find but getting to it proved a bit harder. Pushing throw the trees to get to the marker only to find that there was a reasonably path leading to it just a stone throw away. Okay so that was stupid but I didn’t care about that anymore I was having fun.

On the way to the 5th a small deer ran across the path in front of me before taking cover into the undergrowth. We spent a few minutes observing each other before he became bored with my and went on his way. I tried to track him for a while but with the dry undergrowth and my clumsiness I didn’t stand a chance. But that didn’t matter I had a good day out in the countryside and had started to run again after my bout of the flu. And I still have 20 more control points to find but that can wait for another day, just as long as no one suggest I might get lost. Related photos

Friday, June 7

Just a quick post to point you in the direction of a photo page I have been working on today. See link to the right or here. Descriptions and new photos will be added later but for now, just enjoy the views.

Maria has purchased a world cup t-shirt for me and very nice it is as well. The only trouble is there appears to be a couple of errors on it. St George's flag for example has totally the wrong colours on it, and why it says Sverige instead of England I have no idea. With both teams winning today there is a chance that it will be Argentina that gets knocked out. I can then happily support both countries happy in the knowledge that at least one of them will be knocked out before the nightmere of England verus Sweden happens again. Fingers crossed.

Thursday, June 6

Today is Swedens national day. It doesn’t seem to mean much other than Swedish flags are run up every flagpole available and mini flags are placed on the top of the local buses. But then it seems Swedes will fly the flag are any given chance.

“Creepy man” is back outside. He was there all of last summer and it seems he is back camped outside the entrance to our apartments again this year. Standing with his shirt of, just leaning against the fence. I know the Swedes tend to worship the sun when it appears but this guy takes it to the limits. Generally when the sun starts to appear you will start to spot the natural phenomenon which is the vertical sunbathing Swede. When the casual observer first spots a small gathering of this species they could be forgiven for thinking they were just lined up waiting for a bus. That is until the bus arrives and the line gets longer. But even the keenest of these sun catchers moves on after a while. Not creepy guy he is there, I guess day in day out, smirking to himself.

Monday, June 3

Finally I am showing signs of kicking the cold that has been bugging me into touch. It has been frustrating being left with sparse energy to do little more than go to work. To make it worse it has been beautiful weather mostly and would have suited an early morning or later evening run. Now my energy is coming back in leaps and bounds but I still have to be careful. There is no point restarting the training too soon and earning myself another visit to the doctors.

Hopefully by the start of next week I should be back out on the roads again. In the mean time I have become obsessive over my intake of fruit and water. Myself and fruit have never been the closest of friends. Indeed we were usually only on speaking terms when said fruit had been battered to death into a jam or hidden under the custard of a trifle. That was then. Now I have improved so that I at least eat one or two kiwis a day and perhaps a small apple. I can cope with the kiwi fruit, after all with a vivid green like they are, that has to come from an E number doesn’t it? My new craze may not last long, but at least it's a start.

Sunday, June 2

Today was my last day of delievering leaflets. After a year of doing this poor excuse for a job every weekend it feels great to finally kick it into touch. No longer have to deliever in the rain snow ice or whatever. No longer have to put up with people complaining about anything and everything. Or the ink coming off in my hands. It was alright for a while, served its purpose, providing a little income while I studied Swedish, but the pay was worse than peanuts.

If I had a trumpet I think now would be a good time to blow it. Didnt I tell you the football between England and Sweden would end 1-1. No I didnt bet on the results, I dont usually listen to myself...

Saturday, June 1

The King came, he wave, and returned back inside. I ate a doughnut. It was nice.

Other than that the market was much the same as you come to expect from a Swedish funfair style market. Stalls offering you the chance to win giant sized cuddly toys versions of Winnie the pooh and friends. At least we think that’s whom they are meant to be of, sometimes they are so badly designed you can only make an educated guess. This time however they had be joined by cuddly toy versions of condoms. Don’t ask me why.

Surprisingly there were no socks for sale. Usually at the local bi-annual Swedish market every other stall will either be selling sweets or socks. Rows and rows of socks, with offers of buy 10 pairs and get a pair free. But not this time, how will we cope?