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To the hills, to the hills - the Vikings are coming. Ish.

Tuesday, October 27, 2009
From that perennial source of interesting things, English language Swedish daily, The Local (Thanks folks):

Sweden should consider joining its Nordic neighbours in forming a five-country federation in order to increase the region’s weight on the international stage, a Swedish historian proposes.

A union between the five Nordic countries – Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, and Iceland – would give them a seat at big international gatherings, writes social scientist, historian, and author Gunnar Wetterberg...

In proposing the creation of a Nordic 'bloc of ice', Wetterberg suggests that Denmark’s Queen Margrethe II would be the union’s obvious leader, drawing parallels between the Kalmar Union, which united Sweden, Denmark, and Norway from 1397 to 1523 and was governed by the Danish Queen Margareta. 
The Union of Kalmar looked rather like this:



Note that our Scandiwegian friends held both the Orkneys and the Shetlands at the time, so that would stuff Scotland's oil-based dreams in a fairly big way. 

Were I Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden, or come to that, Harald V of Norway, I'd be a bit miffed that the Danes get the catbird seat.  However, if memory serves, Queen Margareta has the distinction of having translated Camus into Danish, which makes her rather more of an intellectual than the average crowned head.

Our doughty social historian has spotted a few holes in his plan, however:

"He admits, however, that language might be a problem. “One solution would be to have all students learn another Nordic language from the start, in addition to their mother tongue,” he proposes. He believes that a unified Nordic region is completely realistic, “not least because of Swedish arrogance has subsided in recent decades”.

Erm, can't say I was aware of that.

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posted by Croydonian

Scandinavian spat o' the day

Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Norway and Sweden are in the middle of a bit of a falling out:

"A retired Norwegian linguistics professor has described Swedes as "stupid" for not being able to understand Norwegian. Norwegians have no problem with Swedish, the professor points out. Finn-Erik Vinje has caused an escalation in what is promising to become an all out language war, by publishing a post on his blog last week asking, "Why are Swedes so stupid?"....The basis of Vinje's assertion is that Swedish viewers of Himmelbå, a Norwegian television series based on the British production "Two Thousand Acres of Sky", have complained that the language is too difficult to understand and would prefer to see a series in Swedish, with Swedish actors, in a Swedish setting".

The comments thread at the tale's original home (local.se) is in English and is quite lively. I had always been under the impression that Norwegians and Swedes were - armed with functioning brains and a bit of good will - at the very least mutually intelligible. I've got a handful of words and phrases in both, derived either from songs or a pal at university who specialised in the Scandinavian languages, but don't suppose knowing the Norwegian for 'hedgehog' or the Swedish for 'milk' would be much use if I was dying of exposure half way up a mountain.


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posted by Croydonian

How hetero are your tweets?

Monday, July 20, 2009
I am indebted to those lovely people at Swedish daily The Local for writing about an initiative by Stockholm Pride whereby "Visitors to the website are asked to input their Twitter microblog user names and the test then surveys their 200 latest "tweets" searching for words that conform to perceived sexual stereotypes such as "fishing", "schlager" and "fashion"....Stockholm Pride makes no claims as to the scientific nature of the test however".

The nice SP people offer the option of English as well as Swedish. My score was 72% hetero: "Found words - chaps, rent, blessing, shopping, monster". "You're boomerang hetero. It doesn't matter how hard you try to gain new experiences, magically you always return to your starting point". I have tried a few of the usual suspects, but I am not going to show the results.

Take the test here.

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posted by Croydonian

Coming soon to a bookshop near you

Saturday, June 13, 2009
From that regular source of curious tales, Swedish English language daily The Local:

"A big part of Metal Sanctuary’s mission is to spread the Metal bible to secular metal heads, something which they did at the recent Sweden Rock Festival in Sölvesborg in southern Sweden, and plan to repeat at other similar festivals and metal shows. The Metal Bible is a special edition of the Bible for metal fans which contains the New Testament and testimonials from metal heads in which they discuss the importance of God and the Bible in their lives. According to the Metal Bible’s website...which has sold around 40,000 copies in Swedish. An English version of the Metal Bible has been completed and is due to be released in the autumn of 2009".


Way back lost in the mists of time a particularly lame master at my old school attempted to impress school assembly by telling us there was a motorcycle in the bible - after David slew Goliath, ''all you could hear was the roar of David's Triumph". Cue much groaning and embarassment by proxy.

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posted by Croydonian

Best rationale for a ministerial resignation yet

Thursday, June 11, 2009
All hail Swedish minister for higher education, Lars Leijonborg. Not for him the Estelle Morris - I'm not up to the job, nor the usual favourite - I want to spend more time with my family, nor even the Flint - the boss is a sexist pig.

He's throwing in the towel because, 'I feel like doing something different'.

I recommend that line to any ministerial resignees this week.

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posted by Croydonian

The bearded one from Abba - a gender traitor, or a wily marketeer?

Sunday, June 07, 2009
I ask, because of the following, lifted from those nice people at Swedish daily The Local:

"Composer Benny Andersson of Abba fame has contributed one million kronor ($128,000) to ensure that Swedish voters have a chance to vote for Gudrun Schyman’s Feminist Initiative (Feministiskt initiative - FI) political party in Sunday's EU parliamentary elections".

I cannot lay hands on an English language version of its platform, but they do not sound very sisterly:

"On the 23 August 2005 one of the key, high-profile founders, Ebba Witt-Brattström, announced that she was leaving the party's executive committee, citing teamwork problems as the reason, but also stating that Fi was primarily pursuing a far left political agenda, and therefore not representing all women. ...On 13 September 2005 another of the 15 founding members of the Executive Committee, Susanne Linde, resigned from the party. Linde was the only member of the founding group who had previously been active in a centre-right political party, the Liberal People's Party. She gave as her principal reason the treatment she had received from another committee member Tiina Rosenberg, who, among other claims, had criticised her for being a heterosexual, and calling her a "middle class hag". Linde was unhappy with Rosenberg's "reverse homophobia". Witt-Brattström claimed Rosenberg had called her a "gender traitor" for having sex with men.Tiina Rosenberg herself later left the Executive Committee, but not Fi, after death threats to herself and her children, and perceived harassment from the media". Source

One does really associate frothy pop with hard core feminism, but maybe K.D.Lang and so on either could not, or would not, stump up the blue folding stuff.

Wonder if they'll use Dancing Queen as a party anthem.

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posted by Croydonian

Might the Swedish military be about to come out of retirement?

Wednesday, May 27, 2009
While our Swedish chums are reknowned for sitting out conflict opportunities, in geological terms it is not so long since Gustav Adolphus and Charles XII were campaigning enthusiastically in and around the Baltic.

Anyway, the Swedish Försvarsmakten do not appear to have engaged in combat since 1814, bar a bit of peacekeeping under the aegis of the UN, I imagine.

However, there is some sabre rattling going on over yonder:

"The head of the Moderate Party’s youth wing has proposed that the military be called in to free Swedish journalist Dawit Isaak, who has sat in prison in Eritrea for more than seven years. "Eritrea and the regime there have chosen to kidnap a Swedish citizen; that is unacceptable. Therefore I think that we should consider a military strike to free Dawit,” Moderate Party youth head Niklas Wykman told the TT news agency.

Its a long way even from Malmö to Asmara, and one does have to doubt the capability of the Swedes to project force that far. Still, if the Swedes rediscover their viking tendencies, maybe the Finns should get nervous.

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posted by Croydonian

Quote o' the day

Monday, May 11, 2009
From Swedish EU Commissar, Margot Wallström:

"If you tried to market the EU as an aphrodisiac, it would rate up there with a nice pair of socks".

Woah, slow down - a nice pair of socks?

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posted by Croydonian

Terminator IV?

Tuesday, April 28, 2009
From Swedish daily, The Local:

"A Swedish company has been fined 25,000 kronor ($3,000) after a malfunctioning robot attacked and almost killed one of its workers at a factory north of Stockholm. Public prosecutor Leif Johansson mulled pressing charges against the firm but eventually opted to settle for a fine. "I've never heard of a robot attacking somebody like this," he told news agency TT". The incident took place in June 2007 at a factory in Bålsta, north of Stockholm, when the industrial worker was trying to carry out maintenance on a defective machine generally used to lift heavy rocks. Thinking he had cut off the power supply, the man approached the robot with no sense of trepidation. But the robot suddenly came to life and grabbed a tight hold of the victim's head. The man succeeded in defending himself but not before suffering serious injuries".

Its them or us, folks.


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posted by Croydonian

The World's most thrilling museum exhibit?

Friday, April 17, 2009
The Rosetta Stone? Pah. Magna Carta? Pah. Moon rock? Pah. Etc etc.

Stockholm's Tekniska Museet has this:

Yup, it is a rack server, as viewable in any number of corporate IT departments. OK, there is a tale behind it in that it was used by file sharing operation Pirate Bay, and was seized by the Swedish plod last year. Doubtless the queues to press one's nose to the glass stretch round the block.

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posted by Croydonian

The loneliness of the long distance parliamentary blogger

Monday, April 13, 2009
Swedish ones, anyway. C/O those nice people at The Local:

"Swedish members of parliament are diligent bloggers. But there is very little interest in what most have to say, according to a new survey by Dagens Nyheter. More than one third of the parliamentary blogs have received no comments on published posts at all, according to the survey. With the European elections approaching in June and the general election round the corner in 2010, almost 25 percent of Swedish members of parliament, 83 of 349, kept a blog in March 2009. 51 of the bloggers had less than ten comments the entire month and 31 of them had none at all".

OK, so maybe there are lots of readers but they are just a bit shy. Given how busy some of parliamentary bloggers are with the green ink brigade, perhaps the Riksdag's finest are fortunate.

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posted by Croydonian

Unexpected poll finding o' the day

Monday, March 23, 2009
Now suppose you were a Swede, and you were asked about keeping universal male conscription or replacing it with an all volunteer force. Which demographic would you expect to be keenest on conscription? Men over 65, maybe? And least enthused? Young men, perhaps?

Nope:

"The greatest support for mandatory service comes among young men, 74 percent of whom want to maintain it. The corresponding figure for the entire population is 63 percent, according to the Svenska Dagbladet (SvD) newspaper. Overall, a slightly higher number of women want to continue with mandatory military conscription, 65 percent, versus 61 percent for men. Among young women, however, support is somewhat lower – 61 percent – than among women in general".

Who'd a thunk it.

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posted by Croydonian

Headline o' the day

Tuesday, January 13, 2009
This is good:

"Swedish cows make lousy earthquake detectors: study"

More here, but the pay off line is a winner:

"One can probably say that, as a species, cows are not the world’s most earthquake-sensitive animals”.

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posted by Croydonian

Would you entrust a quango with your tastebuds?

Wednesday, September 10, 2008
No, nor would I. One of the many, many things that our Swedish chums do differently is having a state monopoly in alcohol off sales, in the form of Systembolaget. And they put tasting notes on wine bottles. Yes, really.

A google image search shows some SBs to look rather like a Post Office fitted out by Ikea, so no cutesy displays involving half barrels and the like.

Anyway, the Swedish papers are agog at a leak that suggests that the noses at SB are not all they could be:

"What, for example, does Systembolaget really mean with the pithy couplet "discreet and earthy", or the fruity phrase "a taste of mature apples"?

"Run in the opposite direction because this is a really [expletive deleted] wine," a source at the chain told trade union newspaper Dagens Arbete".

*Shocking*.

Meanwhile, the EU, that bastion of free trade in goods and services, does not have a problem with the Swedes having to put up with this monopoly.

Also, SB attempts to justify its existence here. In English.

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posted by Croydonian

Businessmen against business

Friday, September 05, 2008
Or only in Sweden:

"Tattoo artists in Sweden are calling for a law to prohibit minors from getting a tattoo".

Having checked, the age of consent for getting inked in these parts is 18. There is no age bar on the other side of the North Sea, which is a tad surprising.

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posted by Croydonian

Keeping sense of proportion, Swedish-style

Friday, August 29, 2008
I am yet again indebted to those lovely people at The Local, this time for a bizarre tale of Scandinavian humour failure:

"One of Sweden's largest teachers unions has expressed its dismay at Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt's decision to burst into song at the Polar Music Prize ceremony in Stockholm on Wednesday".

Pink Floyd (named for two pre-war blues singers, Floyd Council and Pink Anderson - true story) were being awarded a lifetime achievement award or somesuch by our Swedish chums, and for some reason Reinfeldt dedided that he just had to sing 'we don't need no education - yeah!' while on stage for gong dishing duties. All pretty rock 'n' roll, eh people?

There is a clip of Reinfeldt bursting into song here, but it may well involve downloading plug-ins and the like. I could not get it to work with Firefox and had to use -shudder - Internet Explorer. Still, worth it for the reaction shot of Roger Waters - you can practically hear his toes curling. Floyd have never really been my thing, so I am at a loss to suggest a more amusing / less painfully predictable lyric for Reinfeldt to seranade the nation with. Answers on a postcard please.

Meanwhile, back at our po-faced Swedish syndicalist Lärarnas Riksförbund: "the Prime Minister should try to make up for his anti-educational crooning by singing something positive about a profession he calls the most important in the country".

Ohfuhgodssake.

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posted by Croydonian

Those who can't teach

Thursday, August 21, 2008
Would appear to be making a living as history teachers in Sweden.

Those lovely people at The Local have a report on a survey on Shoah awareness among Swedish teachers by the Living History Forum, and 7/10 of surveyed teachers failed the test, with only 2 out of 5081 getting 100%.

I have not been able to find the quiz, and so it is difficult to know whether the questions were basic or were asking questions like the name of the wife of the commandant at Majdanek. Perhaps the Forum will include the details at some point, but thus far I cannot track down the details.

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posted by Croydonian

Great lawsuits of our time

Tuesday, June 03, 2008
"A patriotic Uzbek refugee is seeking seeking 1 million kronor ($166,000) in damages from a shopping mall in southern Swedish for degrading the name of his hometown.... The man, who resides in Vaxjö, filed the suit because he feels the Samarkand mall in Vaxjö disrespects his hometown... “Those who decided to use the holy city’s name for their shopping centre showed no respect for the city of Samarkand". Source


I am sure the prospect of free money - doubtless he is also on legal aid or somesuch - from the country that gave him refuge because he no longer wished to live in the country he loves so much that he will litigate for it did not begin to enter into his thoughts.

Presumably adherents of the religion of peace have already tried it on over a certain chain of bingo halls.

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posted by Croydonian

Way back lost in the mists of time...

Wednesday, May 21, 2008
..., or rather just under 26 years ago, the Swedes complained about Soviet submarines dodging around in Stockholm harbour and generally violating territorial waters, Sweden's neutrality (1) etc etc. Being interested in this sort of thing, I remember the original spat, which caused a degree of hilarity in these parts.

Anyway, a tape of submarine-like sounds was Olof Palme's exhibit A when complaining to the USSR, but "the Swedish Defence Research Agency (FOI) has now been able to determine that the sound in all likelihood originated from the passing charter boat Amalia".

Whoops. Carl Bildt, former PM, member of the '80s submarine commission (it's ok, they had aqualungs) and current foreign minister has tried to remove the egg clinging to his face by downplaying the FOI findings.

I would think that if this had happened in these parts such finding would never have been made public. Were I Bildt, I would have kept schtumm, or if absolutely necessary, pointed out that I was a mere boy of 33 at the time.


(1) As I believe I have noted before, at the height of the cold war a senior Swedish figure noted that while on paper Sweden might be neutral, they knew which side they were on. The USSR complained, NATO did not.

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posted by Croydonian

Hell freezes over

Tuesday, May 20, 2008
(If not in the Dante Alighieri version)


"UN torture committee criticizes Sweden".

Yes, I think that is up there with Elvis being alive, pigs flying and Dunwoody fille winning in Crewe.

However, the remainder of the news story makes clear that Swedish gaolers are not making free with crocodile clips, but rather that "The Swedish military waited four years before looking into allegations that Swedish troops had remained passive while a Congolese militia member was tortured by French troops".

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posted by Croydonian