I’m not sure why the discovery that the ice cream here in England plays a distorted version of a Swedish Rhapsody by Hugo Alfvén made me so incensed. Possibly because that very day I had struggled to name a Swedish composer of international renown, vaguely come up with Alfvén as a candidate, AND made disparaging comments about the ice cream van, it’s appearance, contents, frequency of appearance, and, most vociferously, it’s irritating tune.
Sweden, it turns out, is difficult to explain to non-Swedes of a British variety. Like why a pop-opera (popera?), sung by a scary blond mezzo in English and French at the Eurovision song contest is incredibly Swedish. Or why the “Swedish Chef” isn’t. As I am slowly forgetting all but the lovelier aspects of summer evenings on the beach in Malmö, and my nation, at this distance, appears as a vision of little red cottages and strawberries, I am bemusedly resigned to being a small part of a grand misunderstanding. Take some German words, mix them with a hefty dose of gobbledygook, pronounce them with Norwegian intonation, add slapstick, a moose and some chocolate, and you get Swedish. Accuracy is of no consequence; we have a sense of humour, and don’t really care.
Thus I, unperturbed, sit in my room, listen to the road outside and dream of my open fields, the silence of a Tuesday evening in Lund and the salty taste of sea-bathed skin, entirely unbothered by even a hint of a nuanced approach to my desires, which would take into account how dull those Tuesdays can be, and instead wallow in a delicious melancholy brought on by the feeling that it should somehow be cleaner, warmer and more summer-like right now. And write sentences that are too long.
