The Pursuit of Coffee

“I write this sitting in the kitchen sink.” Thus Cassandra, narrator of Dodie Smith’s I Capture the Castle, begins her story.

I am not sitting in the kitchen sink, but my location is strange enough. And strangely inspiring. I am sitting on a bench in the middle of St Giles. The sun is shining, the autumn leaves are falling and Sunday afternoon traffic is swooshing by me like the deadlines my journal editors like to ignore. I am drinking an enormous latte, which is part and parcel of how I like to enjoy my weekends. The pursuit of good coffee is fast becoming a hobby – not to mention a necessity.

The coffee culture in Sweden is, famously, strong. Not only do we like to drink a lot of it, we like it strong. The “latte” culture which has emerged in the last decade has added a new dimension to coffee drinking, and increased the milk consumption considerably. As a teenager growing into café culture at the same time as the latte culture gained a foothold, I have become a fervent drinker of the stuff. And have been puzzled and dismayed at the dully weak stuff that is served over here. At work I am given the choice between instant coffee (a cheap kind with a distinct aftertaste of soy sauce) and the concoction offered by our coffee machine: a weak brew the same colour as tea. (In an Arthur Dent-like fashion I have tried to persuade it to make coffee; my failure, however, did not result in the mother ship breaking down.) As I don’t drink coffee in the evening (after work), I have two days a week of proper coffee. And yesterday I had an epiphany. I ordered a latte and was able to see the milk carton used by the sweet girl who made it. It was semi-skimmed milk. Aha!

Now, in Sweden clever marketing people have managed to create a new “brand” of milk – “barista-milk” – which is, and this is its sole purpose of existence, to go into lattes and cappuccinos. There is nothing special about this milk, except that it contains a little more fat than the normal whole milk, thus lending the finished coffee product a bit more flavour and creaminess. Not only, then, do the English make the actual coffee weaker – the milk is (due to dieting culture?) weaker too. End result? Weak and watery coffee. But, and this is the point, some places use whole milk and can be persuaded to make the coffee nice and strong. And I am in the process of making a map. The name of this blog may gain another layer of meaning.

Tea culture is, predictably, a lot more sophisticated. When my friend G was here, we treated ourselves to a proper traditional afternoon tea at the Randolph. Not only were the tea, scones and fruitcake and cream great. Essentially it is all about procedure and the right fittings. I decided a while ago that I should really get a tea pot, in order to be able to drink a whole pot of the stuff while reading a Sunday paper. This proved comically difficult. I went to a variety of shops, some specialising in tea and coffee, and simply did not find anything that I liked. At least not in a price range that I deemed reasonable. Finally, I found a little iron monger’s on a side street close to home – an old fashioned one, run by father (mid to late 80s, shaky hands but good at doing sums) and his son and containing everything. Missing a screw? It may have crawled over to this shop to be with its tribe. And there I finally bought a tea pot. It’s not great, but at least it was not expensive. And it is a pleasant and relaxing shade of brown.

The best tea pots I have seen so far were the silver ones at N College, which were specially designed to be fitted onto a device in order to keep their content hot. No expenses saved, apparently. Again, it’s all about the fittings. I had been invited to a board meeting, which was accompanied by tea (in beautiful cups) and marvellous fruit cake. After debating future journal issues for a few hours, we moved to an even nicer room (oak panelling, naturally) where we were served dinner. And what a dinner. This, I realised, is where the money is in Oxford, in the cellars of colleges. There it lies, snuggled up next to the best port you could ever wish for. I tried to stay sober enough to talk intelligently with the professor next to me about things I only have a vague notion of and simultaneously attempted to do justice to, and fully enjoy the flavours of, the food. Predictably, I only half managed any of it. Professor J will not have been entirely convinced by my accounts of the Swedish education system, I never managed to finish everything on my plate before it was taken away to make way for the next dish (I lost count of them) and by the time a different professor had filled my port glass for the second time I was not quite sober anymore. I suppose the many dishes necessitated a certain swiftness, but it seemed sacrilegious to race through it. I was also surprised at the lack of toasting ceremonies. Professor H, a well travelled man, was aware of our Swedish traditions and demanded that I teach at least our side of the table of it was done. I readily complied. Professor J seemed delighted about being lectured on table manners by a Swede; I didn’t have the heart to tell him that, at least in Sweden, he really should have moved my chair for me as we sat down to dinner. That might have taken the lecturing too far.

Throughout the dinner, in the candle lit room with its fine table covered in the finest of plates, glasses and silver, I had to suppress a mischievous giggle. It was like a fairy tale, but one with a comedy element straight out of “Yes, Minister”. You know the episode when Sir Humphrey invites the minister to Balliol College in order to get him drunk (on port among other things) and agree to something? Not sure what I agreed to in the end, but it transpired that one of the gentlemen present was, in fact, a latter-day Sir Humphrey. Sort of.

Oh, and the after-dinner coffee was great.

Sandals of a certain quality

My sandals, of solid Ecco quality, did actually, to my great astonishment, survive the mud excursion and have been on new adventures since. They have even been punting. On a glorious Saturday afternoon I boarded my first ever punt. And despite proving myself to be a spectacularly incompetent driver (is that even the term?) of the punt, my strength lying more in the general area of decoratively sitting in it and singing songs, I was not the one who went head first into the river Cherwell. No, my long-suffering sandals were spared river water this time.

Oxford by day (especially Saturday) is a bustling city, some streets nearly impossible to walk along at anything resembling efficient pace, and the hordes of tourists along with the plethora of shops suggest a big city. That, of course, in conjunction with the comparatively heavy traffic which has had me cursing on more than one occasion – daily during the floods. One Friday night the bus, which had had to take an interesting detour to even get into the city, took two hours. As we entered Oxford, we not only found that all traffic, from three directions, was diverted onto the narrow High Street, but that two buses had broken down at the worst possible strategic points, hence necessitating police officers who diverted the already slow moving traffic around them. I got out among the fumes and walked. Straight to the pub. There are times when nothing but whisky will do.

However, whereas big cities tend to never sleep, and to have a fairly steady flow of traffic – be it of cars or humans – Oxford demonstrably is a small city after all. Oxford by night is practically devoid of traffic, pleasant to cycle in and smells of summer sun and, in places, of chipper vans – the politics of which my housemate S is trying to introduce me to. On a particularly late cycle home, in the wee hours of the morning, I only met one living creature on the Iffley road. The fox was probably as surprised as I was at our brief encounter and rapidly disappeared down Stockmore street, heading for Cowley Road – possibly in search of something exotic in what must be the most varied collections of bins in town.

I noted before that city and country collide and converge in Oxford; my new home is, furthermore, at equal distance from the various kinds of city and country on offer. A ten-minute walk in either direction takes us to completely different places, a fact that my housemates and I made full use of on a Friday night outing. We started with an evening stroll along the river, which took us to the village and a pleasant country pub. The sun was setting and all we could see were fields (no longer flooded) and trees. Realising that crisps do not actually constitute dinner, we went back home, collected our bikes and went to Cowley Road. The distance is negligible, but bikes are more fun. Considering, however, that we had had more beer than dinner, were better at laughing than steering and that we only had two sets of lights and one helmet between us, it is, in some ways, a small miracle that we survived and were able to debate whether to eat Indian, Bangladeshi, Thai, Japanese, Italian or simply have a kebab. Japanese was finally settled on – those in the know proclaimed the superiority of the restaurant in question, which served its food in boxes. After having sufficiently “done” Cowley road we went into town, swishing past the old colleges, making full use of the broadness (and, at night, emptiness) of Broad street and ended up sampling the nightlife on “that” side of town. An interesting sociological experiment if ever there was one. Hot pants. I shall say no more.

Life in Oxford is full of joy. There is also the mundane to be dealt with, however, and my adventures have not only taken me to exotic places like rooms in Lincoln college (Descartes in the loo, I expected nothing less), but also into close encounters of the ninth degree with the National Health Service. My first attempts at registering with a GP led me straight into the clutches of what must surely be one of the worst incarnations of the NHS. The woman so utterly devoid of people skills that someone, for reasons beyond human comprehension, had put in the reception, had a personality capable of sending people made of sterner stuff than me into rehab. I kept wondering (hoping, in fact) whether I was on a hidden camera show; as time and the filling out of forms continued it seemed less and less likely. My exasperation must have been visible, because the kind doctor who came into the reception to collect a paper smiled, slightly concerned, and asked me whether he could help. I wanted to throw myself into his arms and beg him to take me far, far away … but the woman replied in my place and said, in her slow drawl, “we are just filling out some registration forms”. He nodded and left. I was on my own. Being used to the concept of standardised institutions in Sweden I was now convinced that this was it, this was what the NHS was like. I also realised that the only way forward was to just not get sick. Ever. Thankfully, a friend suggested that I simply go somewhere else. I did, and ended up in a sunny office, where a lovely woman provided me with information, helped me with my forms, gave me an appointment with an even more lovely nurse and in general took me in with open arms. Needless to say, I called the other practice and told them to burn my forms…

I have been subjected to watching rugby, been cautioned by a police officer on a bike about cycling on the sidewalk, visited IKEA ... and today I found a whole new park, very close to the house. But I already have a favourite reading tree.

The flood in pictures

The moment at which I realised that we were indeed experiencing a flood...

The drive home

A typical countryside pub

The Thames spilling into Christ Church college gounds

The Thames spilling over in general

...and again

The river Cherwell spilling over

This is not a lake. It is a flood meadow pretending to be a lake.

Floods, festivals and friends

There is a scene in the first episode of “Life on Mars”, in which Sam truly discovers the bustling street around him, full of people and life, and says to Annie that he finds it hard to believe that his own mind would make up so much detail. All this is done to “Baba O’Reilly” by The Who, a song which perfectly reflects the giddiness of exploration. To this tune I embarked on my own wanders in Oxford, happy and only too aware of the fact that this is reality at its loveliest.

My walks took me along the canal, from Canal Street in Jericho up north and back. The water provided in taps for the people who live in boats seemed to taste better than the water coming out of taps in the city. Tap water, so far, is the only thing about Oxford that does not seem to agree with me...

I arrived in Jericho, and left a part of my heart there that I will now have to go and visit from time to time. It truly is a wonderful place, crammed in around Oxford University Press and demarcated by the canal, full of little shops and pubs and small houses that hide the affluence inside behind an unassuming exterior. My circle of acquaintances has steadily grown; from the staff and regulars of the Jude and the Raddy, to the nice guy in the organic shop who I like to talk to and who gave me a leftover croissant on Friday – he thought I might need one after surviving the floods. I did.

My hair dresser, whose telephone number I found in the yellow pages and whose salon I nearly didn’t, is in a posh “health club” in the equally posh part of north Oxford. After having failed utterly to locate the number of the street I cycled down a path, asked a police officer and some builders if they had a clue what might have happened to number 69 (I had found 67 and 71). They suggested asking in the club and to my great astonishment that was where it was. I went in confused and came out with a nice hair cut. So I will be back.

By the time I was looking for my hair dresser I had already acquired what, in the life of me, is an absolute must. A bike. I bought it second hand from a nice man who delivered it to my door and adjusted it for me. It is “mechanically sound”, as he put it, and can go as fast as I want it too. A perfect exploring bike, really. It is, however, lilac. And surely the ugliest bike in Oxfordshire. But it gets me around and opened up the city even further. I had restricted myself to Jericho and the University Parks; now I am exploring streets everywhere. When I finally I get around to actually buying a map of cycle paths (it’s on the list of stuff to do) I will probably know them all. My general map serves me well, so far, and besides, I love getting lost. Getting lost can be entertaining.

On Thursday I went for an evening cycle, managed to get subtly lost in east Oxford and then headed home via the University Parks. Or rather, I was going to. As I got to the Marston entrance I noticed a little irresistible path. The bike and I got on it. After a while it got narrower. There were nettles. And some mud. I had to walk and at times negotiate the bike across puddles. By the time I realised that it wasn’t looking very good it was too late to turn back; 1) I don’t like turning back, something which will forever get me into trouble, 2) how much further could it be? And then, there it was – a cattle fence and the mother of all muddy puddles. I tried, feebly, to get the bike over the fence while standing on a branch but predictably failed. The bike and I went in and I waded out, mud to the knees (it was glorious mud, of the perfect gooey texture for mud baths) and carrying the rather dirty bike. We soldiered on. Finally, I found a little bridge which took me over the river and away from the muddy path. The only problem was that it also took me straight into Wolfson College! I had strayed into college grounds somewhere. Oops. But there was nothing for it – I had had it with mud. So I walked over the bridge, entered the college and walked through it and out – legs and bike covered in mud but head held high. I then giggled rather irresponsibly while cycling home – and had to spend half an hour demuddifying myself, the bike and my poor shoes, who may never fully recover…

Nature is always close at hand here, be it in the parks or in the fields around the city. (Mud lovers never have to go far.) One minute you are in the city, the next you are in the country. And sometimes you are in Wonderland, or in a poem: N. showed me the treacle well and the poplars in Binsey. Port Meadow isn’t just pretty, however, it is also a flood meadow, and one that has now faced a difficult test. On Friday came the flood. Actually it was just rain, lots of it, but due to lack of serviceable draining, lots of rain equals flooding. My colleague A and I spent a good three hours in a caravan of cars trying to drive on the flooded roads, in disbelief at how a few hours of heavy rain could cause such havoc. The motorway was closed, the villages were under water. It was almost an anti-climax to arrive in Oxford where everything was business as usual. Well, we survived, didn’t get stuck and A’s car, hardly built for such adventures, held up. Port Meadow has been transformed into a lake.

My new housemate T and his friends, who were going to the festival, have set up camp here and, refusing to acknowledge defeat, are having a barbeque and play music in the garden. In the rain. So my first night here, in the enormous house that will be my home from now, has been accompanied by the scent of frying vegetarian sausages, laughter and Cohen songs played on a green guitar. At one point we were all wearing silly hats.

Jericho in pictures

Mileage

On this, my most recent job interview, I found myself less worried about the impression I made on the world, than the impression the job and its surroundings made on me. Having been to the London Middlesex suburb once before, and left unimpressed, I felt the need to explore. It is a village cum suburb which neither aspires to, nor achieves, a sense of quaintness. Here, the high street comprises establishments of three categories: home improvement, feeding and drinking. You live here, you have to eat (though just how this small community can conceivably consume that much junk food is a mystery) and you drink to forget about it all. Perhaps it is an indication of this pragmatism that Tesco Metro and the Methodist church share a building (and a bell tower) in the middle of the street.

Having done the high street in 4,3 minutes, I had ample time to explore the residential areas. And was immediately struck by a realisation: the people who live here don’t use the village centre. Ever. The comfortable, pleasant and at times very pretty homes suggested an affluence not present on the high street. No, this was the perfect sleeper town. Any needs beyond the four walls of home can be fulfilled elsewhere. By car.

My walk finally ended with me ending up at my destination. I look for work along three parameters: relevance, location and salary. And this job scored quite low on them all. Living in a place which most people can’t get out of fast enough? Or having to live somewhere else and commute to a place which most people can’t get out of fast enough? Commuting, by the way, strikes me as unhealthy. At least in big cities. My day took me from Woking, via north London city, to Middlesex. And back. I’d love to know just how far I travelled, and at what average speed. Maybe humans should come with mileage counters?

Strawberries, Wormwood and St John’s Wort…

…all important ingredients for a Swedish midsummer. The first you eat, as they are or with cream or sugar or both, the second you put in your schnapps, to make it taste like medicine and therefore providing you with an even better excuse to drink it, and the third you, if you are a young girl, collect during the night. Yes, girls who want to dream about their future husband only have to collect seven different flowers, climb over seven fences and not utter a word in the process and their dreams will reveal all. I have never managed it; the flowers and the being silent is not a problem, finding adequate fences in a city, however, is.

We had been invited by friends who had courageously set the table outside (under a roof), in bold defiance of the dark skies. It was the coldest day for a long time, which in a way is traditional. Heat will undoubtedly set in on Monday. These friends deal in art, and have it everywhere: on the walls of the patio and in the shed. In the house you can’t find the walls for paintings.

The host, a dominating presence at the best of times, greeted us with flowers on the head and a bottle of homemade schnapps, looking less like a hippie and more like the second coming of Puck or a faun in a suit. The guests were a mixed bunch, several generations, nationalities and languages. As the evening, and indeed the schnapps distribution, progressed, the three languages became more and more intertwined. We had the traditional food, but did not indulge in traditional dancing around a flower-clad pole. As no midsummer celebrations are complete without the handling of some phallic object, however, the men decided that the flagpole had to come down to be fixed. And that a hay fork might be useful in the process. The women immediately started talking about how lovely it is to put dried lavender in the linen cupboard and just like that we had restored the gender conventions of society. It may have been the wormwood.

By that time, the sun had decided to make an appearance after all and in the end, the most important thing about midsummer (and, indeed, summer) is strawberries. Of which there were plenty. Our American guest wondered if Swedish parties always comprise several eating sessions, and that was before the final session – coffee and raisin scones, baked by the Dutch guest. (At some point I will have to tell her that we even have traditions and terminology for the food you give the guests in the middle of the night, if the party goes on for that long.)

I had a few drops of cognac and with it an epiphany. (This blog is fast becoming Proustian.) Whisky is an acquired taste, one I spent some time acquiring and now have a profound love for. Cognac is also an acquired taste, and one that, until last summer, I simply hadn’t acquired. In many situations where cognac is an option, whisky is too. So I go for the whisky. Anyway. Last summer I happened to be given a bottle of cognac, and around the same time I had been persuaded it was imperative that I see The Office. The pain and squirming which previous attempts at watching The Office had generated had to be overcome and I suddenly came up with an incredibly cunning plan: I would combine the two projects. So I drank copious amounts of cognac and watched The Office with a marathon-like dedication until I liked them both. So far, so good. But because I haven’t had many other occasions to drink it since, the taste (even if this was a different, and for me new, kind) now immediately conjures up images of a certain workplace in Slough. My nose and its memory. What have I done?

I haven’t picked any flowers (even if I did come home with my bag full of lavender for some reason), but I certainly hope all this does not mean that I will dream about Ricky Gervais.

Space and place

Since my dear physiotherapist J accepted the challenge of turning my surprisingly battered limbs into a fully functioning body, I have experienced something of an exercise revival. Mainly because I can now run. And this I do, happily, as often as I can. Last week in England I didn't; essentially because there was very little time, but also because I felt as though there was no space for it. I like open space, a consequence of being Swedish in general and southern Swedish in particular, perhaps. My friend I often speaks of how southern Sweden is too starkly lacking in trees for her taste (she is from the north where there is little but trees), and how this makes her feel exposed with nowhere to hide. I, on the other hand, feel somewhat claustrophobic in the dense forest where she lives - and experience the opposite threat: I can hide, but so can whatever might be pursuing me. Getting lost is also more of an issue in a forest than in the open field landscape I have grown up in, probably a contributing factor to the naive navigation approach which led my friend M and I so astray in a Norwegian wood once. I still don't know how we managed to find the way back to the cabin and will forever remember the valuable lesson it taught me: when in Norway do not take the road less travelled by. Take the main one. And bring a compass.

Anyway. The wonders of modern technology (represented by my phone/mp-player/radio/camera) allow me to take pictures of my beloved fields while running and listening to music – and to then put them on this page for further nostalgic reminiscing. Yes, I haven’t even left yet but am already acutely aware of the fact that I will have to find new fields to run on soon. This is perhaps the best way to explain why a move to central London won’t happen if I can help it. Too many people, not enough fields.

I had an epiphany to the effect while I was in London, on the tube. That is in itself extraordinary (not the content, I’m sure many people on the Bakerloo line wish they were somewhere else), as there wasn’t really room to have anything, not even a small epiphany. Events conspired and I found myself needlessly in rush hour twice that day, crammed into the confined space of a train carriage with hundreds of strangers. An inferno on rails, scorching heat, people frantically trying to ignore the temperature and each other – as well as forgetting the report in the paper that an accident in the underground had been narrowly avoided that morning (a driver having got in at the wrong end of the train and set of in the wrong direction). Very Danteesque. Yes, standing in an underground train somewhere between Piccadilly circus and Waterloo, trying not to tread on more than one person’s toes at any one time, is the antithesis of my running path. There may be people who love it, or at least are untroubled by it, but most of my fellow sufferers last Thursday looked like they would have been happier elsewhere. Apart from being an, admittedly, effective way to get around London, the tube is also a marvellous place for exploring humanity. The hordes of people around me resembled mistreated cattle more than human beings, but every time I smiled at someone they smiled back. We're all just trying to cope with the lack of space.

Wherever I end up in the near future I hope there is open space, but also a place with people. They are quite nice, really.

Gaffeltruck

Some men should come equipped with this sign...

I found it in St James' Park, in central London, and confused innocent bystanders with my frantic giggles. Those of you who know me well enough to get the reference are hereby invited to share in the giggling - those of you who don't... use your imagination.

Sand between my toes

I suppose summer only really begins for me when I have gone for a swim in the sea. Spring with its lovely warmth and increasingly active life is transformed into summer, and life somehow slows down a bit. Too warm to walk quickly; now we saunter. Clothes, hairdo, make-up - none of it matters much when the skin begins to tan and the sun forces us to be outside, to enjoy and to take every opportunity to cool off by hiding under water.

What though the hair be a mess? Great are the rewards of swimming in salt water, for body and soul alike. Besides, on the beach everybody has a little sand in their ears. And there is no better make-up than a happy summer smile.

In the world of me, then, now it is summer proper. I have taken the plunge and it was so nice that I contemplated giving up this earthly life and become a mermaid. As is the case with most Swedes I love the Swedish summer more than any other, at least when it is as we want it to be: sunshine, a little breeze and blue skies over the blue sea. If I were a poet I would write a poem about the pangs of happiness a summer day inflicts on me. And the pangs about leaving it soon...

Nationalism and noses

The 6^th of June was the day that saw Sweden break out in allergies.

I don’t think it has very much to do with the National Day – even if we still haven’t figured out what to do with it. I mean, it’s not like this is the day Sweden won its freedom from oppression by means of, say, a revolution. Back in the day Sweden was the big superpower that, it anything, oppressed others. By the time we had world wars in more recent history, Sweden had retreated into a corner, tried to be neutral and consolidated the status of has-been with the national anthem, which states our determination to remember the days of past glory rather than seek new ones. Nationalism in Sweden can neither take it’s impulse from being a superpower nor from being gloriously rid of a superpower. We’re just quite well off, basically, and that fails to serve as an impulse for carnivals or Guinness-infused mayhem.

I had something of an epiphany to the effect a couple of weeks ago. Having visited my father’s grave, and reflected on the loveliness of the little country cemetery as well as the fact that our dead are better off than the living in many countries, my mum and I went to Helsingborg for lunch. Walking on the coast, among the beautiful new houses and the trendy cafés and seeing the boats, the dogs and the beautiful people sauntering around, looking happy, healthy and content in the glorious sunshine of a Sunday in May, I realised just how well off we are. I always know this, of course, but that afternoon really served to hammer the point in. Can’t remember complaining much about anything since.

Except allergies. I believe in the theory that allergies are something we have brought upon ourselves and my runny nose, then, becomes just another galling reminder of my “being well off complex”. Grass, apparently, is my trigger and today the grass must be in full bloom because my nose (along with eyes and ears) is not happy at all. Nor are those of other people. Seeing as the National Day is a bank holiday, there is only one open pharmacy in my home town. And it, according to the lovely girl I spoke to, ran out of allergy medicine early in the morning. Annoying. But hardly a catastrophe in global terms.

So, I’m sure many other Swedes with hay fever spent the National Day sneezing and rubbing their sore eyes while being nationalistic in the only way we are really good at: happily supporting our national football team. They even managed to win.

Mothers, Milk, and Malmö FF

Yesterday was mothers’ day in Sweden and mum and I went on a little ‘close to home’ tourism trip. It is a curious fact of life that interesting things located too close to one’s life and home are usually the ones neglected – just as it is much harder to notice dust that sits on one’s own furniture... Some sort of partial blindness and peculiar selection. A further embarrassing example is that on my travels in Europe I have visited many of the great and famous art galleries – yet somehow, during the years in Dublin I never went to the National Gallery. Never. I worked just around the corner from it. Too close.

We attempted the Art Gallery of Malmö, a place which we have of course visited many times before but which, as a small museum, almost only houses temporary exhibitions. Something new every time. It was, to our great chagrin, closed, and propelled us in the direction of the parks. Rain lurked in the dark sky (a fact that had caused us to abandon early plans involving the outdoors) but we decided to look up the newly created ‘Linnaeus garden’ in Kungsparken, only one of the masses of initiatives marking the tercentenary of the great man’s birth. This anniversary has largely passed me by; my acquaintance with Linnaeus being limited to reading some of his travel narratives. They, on the other hand, are a pretty good read – the man could concoct a cracking metaphor for things he observed in nature. The garden was nice, if small, an sandwiched in between a rose garden and a school garden: an initiative which has allocated a little square for the pupils of various schools to cultivate stuff in.

The fresh air of the park was eventually substituted for the stuffiness of the Castle museum, which welcomes its visitors with an enormous giraffe in the reception. This is partly to confuse tourists, of course, but mainly to introduce the lower floor animal exhibition of living as well as stuffed creatures. We only visited one exhibition in the building before succumbing to the stuffiness (how did those animals die? I have a theory) and seeking fresh air and food. The exhibition was all about coffee, and very interesting. It explored everything from the actual coffee beans and the working conditions of those who provide us with our beloved morning (and lunch and afternoon and evening) drink, to the role coffee has played in revolutions and recipe for a Swedish ‘Kaffegök’: Put a penny in the bottom of a cup, fill it with coffee until you can no longer see the coin, then fill it with aquavit until the coin reappears… There was also a lovely collection of paraphernalia surrounding coffee culture throughout the ages.

Fortified by a little walk and some lunch (pizza) we went to a fairly new coffee shop, one which only uses fair trade coffee. After the exhibition it was the only option, really – we really wanted coffee, and we really wanted it to be fair trade… The café is a trendy one; long gone are days when fair trade and organic food was for hippies only – now it’s chic. It sells. And as long as the produce used is genuine that is a very good thing, at the end of the day perhaps the only way to change people’s habits into sustainable ones is to make the sustainable ones…trendy. We live in a rich country, after all, and if it becomes trendy to pay a little more for organic/fair trade produce it may actually boost long-term change. Maybe.

By the time we had finished our lovely lattes (a phenomenon which has palpably increased the milk consumption in the country – hmm…) and had tired of the somewhat psychedelic décor, we decided it was time for a new project. And went to a football game. By that time the weather had improved well past immediate rain threat, so we made our way to Malmö Stadium to watch our boys in blue take on Gefle. The sun shone a little over the first half, but disappeared again for the second – and that goes for the game as well. Bright start, Malmö controlled most of the game and got an early goal, only to lose momentum and finally end with a 1-1 draw. I love the hardcore Malmö support, singing their little blue hearts out non-stop for 90 minutes and managing to mask the fact that the 26000 capacity stadium only had 9500 people in it… Marvellous way to spend a Sunday evening, despite the draw.

The Balkan Ascendancy

Well, I did write about the Swedish ESC qualifiers, so I might as well write something about the main event as well. Because I am a traditionalist, or perhaps because the “semi-final” was contested at the same time as my dear Spurs played their penultimate league game, I only watched the actual final – just as I only watched the actual final of the Swedish event. I have still to figure out just how on earth we managed to turn this quaint little competition into a two-month long carnival of television programmes. Anyway.

Probably realising that they could have to wait another 40 years or so before staging the event again – by which time it may very well comprise 60 countries (I can see it now, Wales and Kazakhstan) – the Finns had put a lot of effort in. Understated and quirky little film clips, adorable presenters, monsters, Santa Claus and, best of all, heavy cello rock with head-banging. Yes, this has redefined coolness for me. Big guys head-banging while playing rock music on cellos. Wow. And it had to be in Finland, somehow.

Before making my own, highly subjective and opinionated, assessment of the actual songs, I almost feel obliged to address the topic of voting and the Balkan mafia, concepts which have sparked controversy in countries which feel that they should get votes simply because they always used to in the past. The Eastern block countries all voted for each other, basically. Ireland came last. Therefore there is a conspiracy. But there has always been some “neighbourly voting”, in the Mediterranean, in Scandinavia, among the German speaking countries, among the English speaking countries – and this was before we had the people’s vote. Thus it proved again, Ireland incomprehensibly gave 12 points to the UK, Sweden awarded theirs to Finland and so on. But the main factor behind the Eastern block countries getting the most points was the simple little fact that they had the best songs! Regional radio exposure of songs will continue to be a factor – people in Scandinavia have been listening to The Ark for weeks now, the Irish have probably been plagued by Scooch and in the Balkans… catch my drift? Whoever wins will have a song so strong that it gets votes from outside its region.

This really is of no significance in the greater scheme of things but I happened to watch the event on a German channel – the Germans, predictably, were disgruntled to find that in a Europe where everyone votes for their friends (if we accept that that is the case), Germany has no friends. Poor them. The Swedes, similarly, felt hard done by – Finland actually gave their 12 to Serbia! There is a case to be made for reorganising the event somehow, it is a bit unwieldy, but at the end of the day it is just a song contest. You know, a bit of fun.

I downloaded the songs on the night before and listened to them, which meant that I had heard them all but not seen the performers or their performances. It wasn’t an intentional strategy, but it ended up being very interesting – some songs rose considerably in my estimation upon seeing them performed, others… I have also watched the videos on the Swedish Television website for ESC, the size and ambition of which almost exceeds the official website of the competition. The end result according to my ever so carefully considered evaluation:

1. Serbia: Molitva
The right song rightly won. Brought tears to my eyes the first time I heard it, still sends shivers down my spine every time. Powerful, moving, fabulous song, sung in the native language of its country. I liked the performance as well, but I don’t think any performance could have added or detracted from the song. It stands, a worthy winner – too good for this competition, even.

2. FYR Macedonia: Mojot Svet
Lovely Balkan-pop song, catchy and vigorous. Makes me happy and bouncy, even if the superfluous dancing and the peculiar outfit nearly dragged the points down.

3. Bosnia-Herzegovina: Rijeka bez imena
Wonderful power-ballad about the river of pain that is heartache. More Balkan shivers down my spine – I suppose I have to confess my soft spot for these languages (when sung) somewhere. Beautiful performance (green) but one which almost detracted from the song. Might have been more effective with Maria just standing still and letting, as it were, the music speak.

4. Sweden: The worrying kind
Yes, I did like the silly boys, even if their performance on the night was very shaky – but then I had heard the song on the radio so much that I knew what it was supposed to sound like. (See?) Abba rhythm, glam rock costume, Bowie lyrics… so un-unoriginal that it became fun. And it is a very catchy tune.

5. Bulgaria: Water
Water-themed ethno-techno with voice and drums – a song which I had initially written off but became impressed with as I saw the performance. You can always sell me drums. (And, some people would argue, Bulgarians.) I like it more and more.

6. France: L’amour a la francaise
Ah, the French. Not a great song, but nicely upbeat – and, more importantly, a great performance. This song has single-handedly confirmed a nagging suspicion of mine: there are French people with a sense of humour. These lads (who, let us not forget, were chosen to represent their country) have it in abundance, sporting pink suits and a text in Franglais. It still brings a smile to my face every time…

7. Georgia: Visionary Dream
A Georgian Björk, interesting tune and very accomplished singing. For sheer quality it merits a higher place, but I’m not crazy about Björk…

8. Ukraine: Dancing lasha tumbai
Verka Serduchka is not only a tinfoil transvestite, he is also a comedian. And this was fun.

9. Moldavia: Fight
Minus points for singing in English, but powerful rhythm and guitars. And a fiddle. We like fiddles.

10. Slovenia: Cvet z juga
I like the girl, the sound, the performance, the country. Something missing from the actual song, though. Points for singing in native language.

11. Finland: Leave me alone
I like the girl, the sound, the performance, the country… but the song was just not good enough. Too much teenage angst in the lyrics. Not enough punch. Hanna needed more punch.

12. Belarus: Work your magic
Had chemist-turned-pop-star Koldun sung in his native tongue, two things would have been achieved: more points from me and less pronunciation embarrassment. As it was his “willing” became, irrevocably, “wheeling”, conjured up all kinds of weird images in my head and sank the song. Having seen the video it really was a case of nice video, shame about the song. Also shame about the orange make-up they put the poor man in, it severely undermined his bid for “hunk of the competition” (as the commentator put it).

13. Hungary: Unsubstantial blues
Another case of great professional performance which deserved a lot more points but good as this song was it had precious little to do with the competition – or Hungary, for that matter. Sung in Hungarian I might have fallen for it.

14. Spain: I love you mi vida
Cheerful and bouncy. Not sure what the mixture of the languages did for anyone.

15. Russia: Song #1
TATU with more attitude? Heard and seen it before. Often.

16. Germany: Frauen regier’n die Welt
Points to the Germans for sending a professional singing in German and not a clown. But somehow this little swing number did a Finland and fell between all chairs. Also not helped by the fact that I understand the language and don’t like the lyrics…

17. Lithuania: Love or leave
I’ve already forgotten this song. That was its chief problem.

18. Ireland: They can’t stop the spring
Sweet little song and usually Irish pipes send me over the hills but it just went all wrong – if Ireland start sending people who can’t sing in key we are on a slippery slope.

19. Greece: Yassou Maria
Pale Ricky Martin wannabe with silly song – again a song which could have sounded marginally better in a language which is, well, Greek to the rest of Europe. The tedium would have been alleviated if Sarbel had gotten entangled in his scantily clad dancers. But the rope trick was pulled off and we fell asleep.

20. Latvia: Questa Notte
A bunch of Latvian men in hats singing Italian mock-opera. Badly. If there had been an element of humour in this it might have been saved.

21. Romania: Liubi, liubi, I love you
The Ukrainians sing (well count) in German, Latvians sing in Italian, the French play with English, most just use it – but this conglomeration of languages in a steadily accelerating song just made my head spin. And when you thought it couldn’t get any worse they allowed it to turn into something which sounded like syrtaki on speed.

22. Armenia: Anytime you need
Sentimental rubbish. I only woke up when the Moldavian rhythms woke me up.

23. Turkey: Shake it up shekerim
The commentator had the audacity to compare this with Sertab’s 2003 winner. He should be shot. This was an utter embarrassment, on all levels. How this ended up on fourth place is anybody’s guess.

24. UK: Flying the flag (for you)
Everyone involved should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves.

So, there we have it. Some songs shouldn’t have been allowed to enter, others should really have made it from the semi-final – I missed Montenegro’s rock tune, Iceland’s ballad and Norway’s dance act (which was written by the Swedish pop factory and, had it been sung in Norwegian, would have been quite good). The Swiss vampires would have been less dull than the Armenian bloke… But in general I’m happy. You need some crappy tunes. It’s part of the fun. But I do think we should go back to singing in our native languages. How else am I going to be guaranteed my annual dose of Serbian?

Chaos theory

It's raining cats, dogs and an assortment of other furry animals but I needed a walk. Partly because I actually needed a walk, and partly because one of the more sensible options available to me had I not gone out was one of the many house cleansing projects lurking in the hinterland of my mind. They were on a list, then submitted to memory and finally pushed back, by a strangely effortless process of denial into the dark and dusty area of the subconscious usually reserved for guilt, dead bunnies and lost mental property. The fact that the idea even arose was because my friend S wrote on her blog about the chaos of her parent’s garage, a chaos in every way matched by the chaos in my mothers house where, for a little while at least, I reside.

In a fashion similar to that of my friend’s parents befuddlement regarding their Christmas decorations, we barely found ours this year. Easter decorations even less so, I let Easter pass me by wilfully. The mother was in Germany. The internet was down. I went to the pub to watch football with F and didn’t even eat an egg until internet and mum were both restored to me. So, wherever the Easter decorations are (and honestly, Easter decorations are just scary anyway) they are probably not located in the “cupboard under the stairs”, a place so crammed with… well, nobody knows… that it couldn’t even house a small wizard. Regardless of whether his trunk was a magic one or not. Chaos prevails in the nether regions of this house, and despite some honest efforts at reducing the… stuff!... that occupies most of the space, the cupboard under the stairs remains unmapped territory.

I am not the only one bothered and bewildered by this mysterious place: mum also has no idea. Its contents have not been exposed to daylight for a couple of decades and the man who knew, who in fact put the stuff there to be stored in the first place, has passed away. Without leaving a map. It is thought to contain toys, but even by the most liberal of estimations that would only account for half of the space. A lost treasure? Junk? Jimmy Hoffa? Clues to a childhood I have forgotten about? I will have to deal with it at some point, but until then I will continue to come up with creative excuses – right now I’m working on one which takes its point of departure in an anthropological stance. Quite simply: if we leave it there for long enough it stops being junk and becomes history. And I wouldn’t have to touch it for 200 years.

Now, the reason I needed a walk in the first place was the fact that I had spent an entire day in eager pursuit of employment. For eager read ambivalent and for pursuit read… surfing? It’s an employer’s market out there at the moment and the need to come up with ever more creative ways of selling myself to whoever might be persuaded to give me the honour of working for them makes me feel increasingly prostitutionalised. It’s a new word. I just made it up. And compared with looking for work the notion of clearing out the cellar seems positively uplifting.

Obsessions, Noses and the Wisdom of Roy Keane

I realised recently that I have been watching far too much football, been thinking far too much about football and certainly been writing too much about football. My other blogs have been neglected – an indication that life has been somewhat narrow lately…

Just before Easter I handed in my “gorilla” (code in certain circles for dissertation) for supervision; soon it will be groomed and put in a cage. While struggling with it, hiding from the world and basically just going for walks and smelling the world in my spare time, football, as ever, nicely filled up what remained of the days. I suppose it is an obsessive compulsive disorder, but a nice one. When I have had time for nothing else I’ve always kept in touch with the news and the progression of “my boys”, as I always will. It’s about a special brand of love.

But when, as of late, “spare time” is filled with little else proportions start getting muddled. I am a football fan of the nerdy, analytical variety – I love my team and I will analyse what happens, regardless of result. I can feel pride and joy about a display of nice football, even when the team is defeated. A win makes me deliriously happy while a defeat usually just brings out the analytical mind. Some sadness, never anger. On Thursday, however, the defeat really did get me down. As ever, I felt sorry for the lads rather than angry with them for not winning, but it made me genuinely sad. And I realised that I needed my proportions back, just as I realised, again, that people who live only for this can’t do that. They will grieve the loss of the UEFA cup longer than I will.

The sun is shining, and Friday was a great day – I cycled around for an hour before meeting a dear friend. We sat in outside in the sun, drank copious amounts of orange juice and talked about life; life as in all the rest of it. She has no interest in sport and I love that. Spring, we came to realise, is a state of mind as well as a season – and what a nice one it is. Sitting as we did on the main square of this little city, we observed people in a spring state of
mind, milling around and happily taking in the blessing that is a Friday afternoon in sunny April. Where did all these beautiful people come from? wondered she; I suppose we are all more beautiful in the spring. Because we smile more?

Later on I indulged in another favourite pastime with some other dear friends: whisky and beer tasting. Yes, it is quite possible to be very nerdy about alcohol as well. And my nose, one of the main characters in this blog, is of course delighted with the worlds that a glass of whisky has on offer. One will smell like a beach on a windy day, another like a stable full of old leather – my unfettered nose can find a narrative in the glass, along with the taste notes.

So in the end, I got my proportions right back. Still a bit sad, but hardly devastated. After all, if the result in a football game is the only thing that makes you sad you’re doing quite well. And if Roy Keane can say “It’s just a game of football”, then so can I. And of course mean it every bit as much as he does.

History

Yesterday was a day of new history being written, in a momentous kind of way. I must confess that I cried a tear or two, moved by the enormous step in the right direction that was taken for Northern Ireland, the troubled place I hold so dear. Don't even know if I have thought it possible, despite the developments over the past years. And there is so much still to be done. But nevertheless, it has to be said, as first steps go - this is a big one. Ian Paisley and Gerry Adams. At the same table.

(Paisley and Adams: Image from www.guardianunlimited.co.uk)

Violet Day

In bold defiance of my "mid body ailment" I went for a walk in the lovely sun today. I realise that this blog is fast turning into a weather rant, but then again, the weather, the changes in temperature and the coming and going of the seasons is something that we never can, never should become blasé about. The reason we tend to "talk of the weather" is because it affects us, deeply. At least it affects me. And I would like to state for the record that this was the first day of 2007 I saw violets, in my usual violet spot. Violets. That's all, and yet so much, for today.

Red Nose Day

Friday was red nose day in England, a day of comedy for charity, instigated by Comic Relief and with the purpose of raising money by cheering people up. And what a great idea that is. Sir Jonathan Sacks, chief rabbi, addressed the topic in his Thought for the Day on BBC Radio Four’s Today programme. He pointed out that there is something spiritual about humour, our ability to laugh at something meaning that we are less intimidated by it: “humour is the opening of freedom in the prison wall of fate; it’s a close relative of hope”. Humour heightens humanity and creates bonds. How true.

For me it was a red nose day simply because I was out in the sun again, as much as possible, and the sun kindly put a little colour on my face. Hopefully my silly reddish nose cheered someone up a little.

http://www.comicrelief.com

http://www.rednoseday.com

My dear football players in Tottenham of course joined the cause; below Dimitar Berbatov, handsome even with a silly red nose. (Image courtesy of www.tottenhamhotspur.com )

Budding

Today really was the first day of spring. And I want to put it on record. There, it is done.

Budding trees and bushes, budding green colour of the grass... and budding smiles in the awakening faces of all the people out there greeting the sun. The jacket came off, I put my pale nose in the direction of the sun with the fervour of a sunflower, and the sun rewarded me with turning it just a little red. April may be the cruellest month, but this year March is doing pretty well.

Cycling in the sun is happiness. And I went for a tour of my city - deciding to cycle all around it on the outskirts. I found entirely new areas (it's obviously been a while) and even old roads that I cannot recall having been on before, and was left with the contented satisfaction of an explorer on a mission. The whole thing only took a couple of hours. Lund is of a managable size in a way that Dublin is not. Of course, the smaller size severely limits the potential for getting lost - something I love doing. Most importantly, however, was the sense of community with everyone I cycled past who smiled back at me; a sense of community between people out there greeting the March sun...

Music and postmodernism

Postmodernism or post-modernism, a concept - or two - so hard to define that it is barely a concept. The fact that it is impossible to define with any degree of satisfaction or success is perhaps in itself the epitome of the post-modern condition. Whatever that is. You see?

Nick Hornby, in "Fever Pitch" described the Dutch invention Total Football as the footballing version of postmodernism; people playing out of their expected positions in order to surprise and attack better. Of course, it only works up to a point. But the idea of playing out of position is an instructive one. Because perhaps postmodernism is simply that - changing positions, revealing the norms of society by breaking them, inverting them. Expose master narratives as being discourse. Question everything and see where you end up. So you are a defender? Who decided that you can't make a run and score a goal? The manager - or tradition? Why listen to authority at all? And who decided that the pitch should be rectangular - and covered with grass? And then we have to take a step back and realise that some things are required if we want to keep the game intact. And a theory of rejecting theories (Tony Cliff) is, of course, a theory.

So what does this have to do with music? Well, I first started thinking about postmodernism in conjunction with music on Wednesday when a student brass band where entertaining bemused innocent bystanders in the very modern university building which houses, among other things, my department. A new glass contrivance has been placed among three existing buildings, connecting them and making them one big centre for humanistic research. Outside walls became inside walls, inside walls became inner balconies - in fact, the whole thing is rather postmodern. So, in the former courtyard, now the cafeteria, we were entertained by a group of people who, as the gig proceeded started moving out of position - walking around with trumpets among people trying to eat lunch and availing themselves of the inner balconies and stairs to create a feeling of omnipresence rather than a stage act. Audience became participants, musicians hid behind chairs… and so on. Changing positions, basically.

Now, what really brought on these thoughts and indeed the need to write about it was the Swedish Eurovision Song Contest competition. Deciding upon which song to send to wherever the ESC is held used to be, historically, a fairly straightforward affair. One night, 10 or so songs, a well-dressed presenter or two. There was a formula which was followed in some way or another. Today it has evolved into a venue for postmodern irony. To begin with, it is no longer one event, but 6 – a month and a half of competitions which are held all over the country, in increasingly obscure venues.

The starting line-up for all the competitions comprised 32 songs and contained some old-timers doing their usual stuff, some utterly forgettable washed down pop songs, a euro-disco tune sung completely in Italian (!), oriental disco sung mainly in English, one sweet but dull singer-songwriter and the yearly comedy contribution: a song which through puns and innuendo was all about masturbation. (Funny or vulgar? Clever or moronic? Postmodern or just silly? Can’t make up my mind.) The most interesting tune, which predictably did not make it to the final, was a propitious fusion of Swedish and Iranian folk music, sung in three languages by the band Sheida. Mixtures of cultures and their music can yield wonderful results and the apparent ease of the process is exciting and encouraging. See also:

http://www.sheida.se/

http://www.salsaceltica.com/

http://www.afrocelts.org/

http://www.stockholmlisboa.com/

I must confess to not watching all the programmes – by way of boycott and sheer lack of interest in an event that just cannot merit quite this much attention. Due to a rigorous selection policy, the songs that finally made it to the main final were all variations of the bestselling concept that is a Swedish ESC winner. Three ballad efforts and the singer-songwriter number made it seem a little more varied than it really was. The songs which brought the ESC to Sweden were all similar – as were these songs. Needless to say it works quite well, catchy, happy tunes which stick in your head like a persistent migraine. I liked most of them and am still cheerfully humming. And am quite impressed by that the fact that I have for the first time in my life been seduced by something approximating a latino lover act – and what finally did it was a local lad, 20 years of age. How postmodern of me. Some songs were in Swedish, most were in English – and contained quaint little grammatical errors and faulty pronunciation which made the artists appear not only conventional but also mildly illiterate.

Ultimately, this conventionality of the songs undermined the postmodern efforts to make the actual competition a little different. Again. The presenter did his best to do the unexpected, make meta-jokes and turn the whole thing a bit queer. But essentially, having two men sing a love song and do a romantic dance towards the end seemed just as formulaic as everything else. The postmodernism that is the Swedish song competition has just done a full circle. By now the revolutionary thing might be to bring back the actual traditional concept. The song which in the end won (quite as expected) epitomised the fact that the queer postmodern irony of this competition is just gloss – even if it is entertaining when the skimpiest little outfit of the whole evening covers (or un-covers) a man. While the stage performance differed from all the others, the song itself is a conglomeration of all the songs this country has won the competition with. And the outfits, while marvellously silly, just don’t reach the silliness standard of 1974. But the refrain sums up the whole discussion of postmodernism quite well:

Words, I like to break ‘em
Words, I’d like to shake ‘em
Shake them from my troublesome mind
And you turn up your nose
It’s a joke you suppose
But baby, I’m the worrying kind

Don’t even know if the double meaning is intentional, but very few people would be deeply worried at this stage. Because in the end what can be more conventionally postmodern than a modern-retro glam rock band from southern Sweden that almost, but not quite, takes itself seriously? Yet, more importantly, what could be more old school? An updated rendition of Waterloo sung by a group of lads who look and sound like The Sweet. Europe, we proudly give you - The Ark.

http://www.thearkworld.com/