This time twelve months ago I was a little obsessed with the lack of Swedish language performances in Melodifestivalen, the Swedish competition which leads to the Eurovision Song Contest. Despite my concern there weren’t enough Swedish language songs in last year’s competition, it was actually the English language songs which I preferred this year. My … Continue reading »
The first time I had surgery I was 26 years old. I was living and working in Renmark, South Australia, and it all began with what I thought were late night “hunger pains”. If you’re hungry at midnight, of course, you go to the kitchen and eat a little something and hope they’ll go away. … Continue reading »
I don’t know if it was the antibiotics, the pain relief, or the afternoon sweets and coffee at Cafe Sicilia, but I’m feeling much better tonight. Stupidly, I thought I could go to work this morning. I think it was the Voltaren Rapid that made me think I was invincible. Although initially greeted with a … Continue reading »
I had a long weekend. I took some seriously good drugs and I didn’t go to work. The drugs were, in order, Cephalexin, Panadol and, best of all, Voltaren Rapid. Oh my goodness, that has got to be the best drug ever. The pain relief was necessary to deal with the sebaceous cyst I have … Continue reading »
“Oh my god, I’m sure that’s Danny Saucedo”, I thought to myself as I watched the SBS-2 screening of the Swedish film “Ondskan” (“Evil”). A bit of Googling and the IMDB indeed confirmed he was an uncredited “bully” in the film. The scene in which he appears, which is about a third of the way … Continue reading »
“Kung Hei Fat Choi” is a Cantonese phrase which means “Happy New Year”. It’s just one of the phrases and things I’ve learned over the last few days working on a radio program to celebrate “Lunar New Year”. And I use the phrase “Lunar New Year” in preference to Chinese New Year (most commonly used … Continue reading »
Earlier today at work we were discussing Australia Day, and the fact there are currently 1-million Australian expats. “How do they celebrate Australia Day?”, asked one of the producers I work with. It’s then that I mentioned there’s quite an active Australian expat community in Sweden, and how interesting to think of Australians celebrating Australia … Continue reading »
Hollywood couldn’t possibly release a film called “Men Who Hate Women”, could they? Even though this was the original Swedish language title of the book by Stieg Larsson and movie, it just wouldn’t work for Hollywood, would it? “The Girl With The Dragon Tatoo” sounds far more reasonable, far more exotic, doesn’t it? Aside from … Continue reading »
