Loreen at Melodifestivalen

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 favourites this year were Loreen and Afro-Dite.

Last year, Loreen had the grammatically confusing, “My Heart Is Refusing Me”. As with ABBA’s “since many years” in Fernando, it’s a phrase which probably makes sense in Swedish, but which we would never say in English. The lyrics for this year’s song, “Euphoria” weren’t much better. But she sang it with passion, interest, and a sense of mystery, and I think that’s why she made it through. I would like to link to some Youtube clips for the performance, but SVT seems to have challenged every iteration. Luckily, Loreen made it through, unlike Afro-Dite.

Afro-Dite previously represented Sweden at the Eurovision Song Contest in 2002 with “Never Let It Go”, and this year, their song and performance had shades of their previous entry, as well as Boney M. And no, I’m not being racially generalist because they’re three black women from Europe, it’s because their outfits, choice of song, and vocal harmonies are totally reminiscent of the once-great 70s German band.

The Boy Can Dance – Afro-Dite

I kind of understand why they didn’t make it through to the finals, or even “Andra Chansen” (the song was just a little old-fashioned), though I was nonetheless disappointed.

Marie Seneholt’s song, “Salt And Pepper” was also good. She performed it well, and had a stunning outfit. But in the end, disappointingly it wasn’t exceptional, and so she also missed out from either the final or Andra Chansen 1 or 2 (yes, there are two second chances this year).

Just when I thought I understood the Swedes, I realised I didn’t after all. They voted strongly for Sean Banan’s “Sean den förste banan” and Thorsten Flinck’s “Jag reser mig igen” which started off interesting, kinda like a poor man’s Nick Cave, but which never went anywhere in my opinion. Obviously they both have domestic appeal for the Swedes which I don’t understand.

Oddly enough, I actually quite liked the heavier-rock song, “Mystery” by “Dead By April”, as I thought it was sung with passion and enthusiasm.

In the end, this is how I voted…

1 Sean Banan – “Sean den förste Banan”
2 Abalone Dots – “På väg” (On my way)
3 The Moniker – “I Want To Be Chris Isaak
4 Afro-Dite – “The Boy Can Dance”
5 Dead by April – “Mystery”
6 Marie Serneholt – “Salt & Pepper”
7 Thorsten Flinck & Revolutionsorkestern – “Jag reser mig igen”
8 Loreen – “Euphoria”

Of the songs which have made it through the voting system, I really only like Loreen. Although, I’m not sure if she and her song have what it takes to win Eurovision, I think it’s a pretty good effort.

You can watch Final #1 via the SVT Website.

In particular, take a look at the half-time song by the program’s hosts which declare Melodifestivalen is for all Swedes, “not just the gays” :).

Without doubt, watching Melodifestivalen was the highlight in my day. I’m still recovering from surgery on Thursday which means I’m sleeping a fair bit and trying to find ways around the dailies of life. Trying to have a shower or bath with a wound/bandage in the middle of your back is quite difficult.

Add to that I spent a few hours at a surgery today waiting to get my bandage changed. It was a Sunday. They only had a couple of doctors/nurses on. And there was a dill-brain in front of all of us who had countless numbers of barnacles in his feet, which took hours and hours to remove. So yeah, it wasn’t all that productive today.

Recovering from surgery at the Myall Lakes in 2001

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. A few hours later, even after breakfast I was still “hungry”. By mid-morning the “hunger pains” were still there and getting worse. The complication by now was that I was actually on radio, presenting “Riverland Today” on ABC Radio 5MV, as it was called back then. At about ten-thirty, during a song, I left the studio and told my manager he would have to take over as I thought I needed to go to the hospital.

Several hours later my appendix have been removed. As I suffer with keloid scarring http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keloid, I still have a rather prominent scar from the emergency appendectomy. The nice thing about it all was that I got to stay at home for a week or so, enjoy the sunshine, enjoy the garden, and even painted a series of Frida Kahlo-inspired self-portraits of my experience. Yes, seriously.

My Wound

Ten years later, aged 36, my recovery from surgery was at the Myall Lakes property of a friend’s family. Having been through three bouts of surgery for the same condition – a fistula – we didn’t hesitate to say yes when the offer was made.

That was a difficult time for me. I had a problem that just wouldn’t go away. The first operation seemed to work okay, but a month later the problem re-occured. The second operation also seemed to work okay, but exactly two days after returning to work, and I was in agony again, and back on the operating table. Thankfully, the third operation seemd to fix the problem once and for all. I have also never felt so much pain in my life, both in anticipation of the operations (the morphine they gave me “wore off”) and with the subsequent need for a drainage tube in a sensitive spot, and an inability to go to “empty my bowels” for ten days. I still remember the joy of the Saturday afternoon when finally I could go to the toilet. I rang Damien, who was working at the time, with tears of joy. “I’ve gone to the toilet”, I told him.

Still wearing the paper nickers and shoes, but have ditched the hat.

By comparison, this latest bout of surgery, earlier today, was a breeze. Although I’ve been in pain for a few days – thank goodness for Voltaren Rapid – it was a reasonably simple and straightforward operation to remove a sebaceous cyst on my back which had become infected. Unlike the previous occasions, it was just day surgery.

In contrast to the formality of Renmark Base and St Vincents, there were four of us waiting for operations in a small suburban day surgery today. I’m not sure about the first woman and why she was in, but the bloke sitting next to me, close to eighty, was there for a lump on his lip. The only other person waiting was a woman who told us she was there for something “self inflicted”. “I’m having plastic surgery”, she told us. Later she revealed she was there for a boob job. “I only had nipples and I was sick of wearing two bras and having to pad them”, she told us. Also last year, she revealed her boyfriend left her “for a younger model, an eighteen year old with big boobs”. She was twenty-four she told us.

The staff at the surgery were all very lovely, and things went swimmingly. No sooner had I taken a few deep breaths of gas and I was soon awake and feeling good in recovery. I don’t even remember counting backwards. After a cup of tea and a biscuit, The Best Judge picked me up from the surgery and brought me home (to make sure all was okay post-operation). As I was expecting to feel pretty groggy after going under for a general, I was surprised at how good I was feeling after it all. Minutes after he left the house, however, I was comatose on the lounge with the television blasting away, but that’s how I spend most nights anyway.

I’m off work until half way through next week, and so I’m looking forward to a few days of recovery, and daily visits to get “my wound” properly dressed.

Afternoon Tea at Cafe Sicilia

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 bunch of “how are you feeling?” comments, it was soon followed up with some “it looks like you’re leaking” observations.

And indeed I was. There was gunk coming out of back and the pain relief was wearing off. I came home took some more pain relief and went back to bed for most of the day.

By mid-late afternoon I was starting to feel okay again, wandered off to purchase some bandages to deal with the the gunk, and then wandered down the road to Cafe Sicilia for coffee and cake.

I swear the coffee and cake did more for me than all of the drugs combined. Or maybe it was their hotter than hot waiters? :) Ok, that’s an exaggeration. But I have to say the coffee and cake tasted a hell of a lot better than Cephalexin, the anti-biotic treatment program I’m on. Seriously, I have never tasted or smelled anything quite as disgusting in my life.

A few hours later, I’m bandaged up, and I’m feeling quite good, so will head into work for a few hours tomorrow (there’s stuff I have to get done) ahead of tomorrow afternoon’s visit to the surgeon.

Voltaren - The Wonder Drug

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 on my back. Well, I’ve had it for several years actually. A white lump of puss or something gross, wrapped up in a little sack is how it’s generally described on the internet.

The advice from doctors throughout the years has always been, “you could get it removed if you want, or not worry about it, unless, of course it becomes infected”. Well, guess what? In the last week or so, it has become infected, and I’ve been in a state of discomfort since about last Wednesday, and in quite serious pain since last Friday.

On Saturday morning I went to my local doctor whose reaction was simple and straightforward. “Shit”, he said, “we’ll have to get you to a surgeon”. It gets complicated, apparently, because it’s close to my spine. He quickly booked me in to see a surgeon on Wednesday for an initial consultation, ahead of surgery. He also prescribed a dose of antibiotics.

I woke this morning still in a fair bit of pain, but decided to head into work anyway. About half way to work I decided I would stop trying to be a martyr, and so went back to the doctor who prescribed some serious pain relief.

I slept most of the day, which is understandable given the standard of daytime television. Oh my goodness, how bad is it? Thank goodness for Joe O’Brien and the team from ABC News 24 who kept me entertained and informed.

By late afternoon the drugs had well and truly kicked in, and so I decided to go ahead with my plan to meet Colin to see the movie, “Weekend” showing at The Chauvel.

Scene from Weekend

In short, it’s a film about two blokes who meet at a club, come home, have sex, and spend a really intimate weekend together. By intimate, I don’t just mean in a sexual manner. I mean they really start to get to know each other, and maybe even fall a little bit in love.

One of them, however, declares emphatically he doesn’t want a relationship (possibly due to a broken heart, though he won’t admit it), while the other probably finds falling in love difficult, because he doesn’t really feel all that comfortable in his skin about being gay. (I’m guy #1).

It’s an English film, so it doesn’t get caught up in the sentimentality you might expect from a film from the United States for example. It’s also genuinely funny in parts and a few of the lines from the film genuinely gave me a few laughs. The two actors who play the lead characters are both believable. They’re also both very cute, with one bearing a resemblance to Marcus Graham. I think I’d like to see it again when it comes out on DVD.

Meanwhile, I’m back at home in a drug-induced haze :)

Danny Saucedo in Ondskan

“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 into the film, portrays ritualistic bullying in a Swedish private school in the 1950s.

At the heart of the film is the character of Erik Ponti, who lives with violence both at school and at home, where he is also beaten by his step-father.

Erik och Pierre på Ondskan

Arriving at the private school at the age of fourteen or fifteen, he refuses to abide by the hierarchical way in which the school is run. Even though you realise many of the school staff are opposed to the system, the older students, by virtue of rich parents, are able to control the younger students through the detention system, and through systematic and ritualistic bullying.

Erik’s academically-inclined room-mate, Pierre is also the subject of bullying. But unlike Pierre and many young boys who are bullied at school, Erik is good at sports, and more than physically able to defend himself. Erik fights back, both physically and mentally, against the older students. He is a very powerful character. In the end, Pierre decides it’s almost too much to continue with, and Erik also comes undone when he develops a forbidden relationship with one of the school cooks. His mental focus, however, allows him to continue.

The Best Judge meets Danny Saucedo

It’s a film I enjoyed very much, and in doing a bit of additional research, I discovered it’s based on a very well known Swedish novel, and received an Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Language Film in 2003.

Oh, and of course, it features Danny who went on to become a Swedish pop star, and likely Eurovision Song Contest entrant for Sweden this year. And, who I got to meet a few months ago at Stockholm Pride, when I went up to him and asked if he would be happy to have a photograph with my friend, The Best Judge.

The only unfortunate thing about the film was that I had to watch it in two parts. I’d set the film to record last night, as I was at a party, and because it had begun late the last 20 minutes, yes 20 minutes, of the film was chopped. Thank goodness there’s plenty of copies of the film on file-sharing sites both in the original Swedish, and with English language sub-titles.

There were lots of good things about this. Mostly, though because I got to work with a great team from ABC Local Radio, ABC Multi-platform and Radio Australia who were so incredibly passionate about doing this. The slideshow below features the program co-presenters, David and Andrea who are featured “over the moon”, as you would be with Lunar New Year, with happiness and excitement. David got to meet Canto-pop superstar, Frances Yip, who sang the song “Shanghai Beach” which was the theme music for an iconic Hong Kong 80s soap opera, and who sells out stadiums when she performs in Asia. Back in Australia, where she mostly lives now, she is happy to perform at the equally iconic Rooty Hill RSL. In another photograph, you’ll see Andrea eating some yummy food (Yee Sang which is a terrific dish) and who I think really, really enjoyed working on the program on so many levels, and who I also, personally, enjoyed working with again.

At the end of it all, I was tired, elated, and well and truly informed about so many things I had only a cursory knowledge of before. Oh, and totally in love with Frances Yip. “Hubba hubba”, as David commented on the radio yesterday.

And here’s the audio from the program.

http://dagbladet.se/nyheter/sundsvall/1.3802811-dagsfarska-tidningar-fran-hela-varlden-tryckta-i-sundsvall

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 Day in Sweden in the midst of a cold and dark winter.

I knew there was an active expat community because I met a bloke called Rob Manuell a couple of years ago in Stockholm. He’s married to a Swede, and lives there, but maintains his Australia connections through involvement in a wine import company, the Swedish Aussie Rules competition, and through an annual Anzac Day race competition held in Stockholm.

Even though I had Rob’s contact details, I thought it would be faster and easier just to Google him, and that’s when I discovered the Australian expat, James O’Brien who is living and working in Stockholm.

“I swear this is not me with a business on the side”, I told my colleagues when I found this entry…

Did you know that you can receive today’s edition of almost every major Australian newspaper delivered to your door each morning in Stockholm? NewspaperDirect Sweden, managed by Aussie expat James O’Brien has been helping Aussies in Stockholm stay in touch with home since the start of 2009. Check out their website www.newspaperdirect.se for more information and to trial a free copy delivered to your door. Also feel free to contact James directly on 08 5511 3131 and he’ll be happy to chat with you.”

“Oh my goodness, this man is living my dream life and he has my name”, I thought to myself. At the risk of appearing like an internet stalker, I decide to Google him for a while and discovered a photograph and that he’s launching a new business, a coffee shop in Stockholm where you can read newspapers from around the world.

“When he’s ready to return home”, I joked with colleagues, “we can just do a life-swap. No one will notice.” “Ah yeah, he’s a bit younger than you”, noted one of my colleagues who also just happens to be half-Swedish.

In all honesty, James O’Brien is an extraordinarily common name, and so it shouldn’t be too much of a surprise to discover one living in Stockholm. Still, it was an interesting and fun distraction in an otherwise busy day.

Män som hatar kvinnor

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 the name change (which was also adopted for the English subtitled release of the Swedish books and films), I thought they’ve done a pretty good job of turning the Swedish crime page-turner into a Hollywood blockbuster.

“There’s nothing to worry about”, I told my friend Grant on the phone as I left the cinema. Like me, he’s a big Swedophile, and we’ve both approached the release of the English language translation of these films with some trepidation. I’ve read the books in English, a third of the first book in Swedish, and I’ve seen the original films made for Swedish TV a couple of times. In fact, the first, “Män som hatar kvinnor”, Grant and I have both watched in Swedish without subtitles. That was really hard-going. Grant has also been on the Millenium Tour in Stockholm.

The second of the three Swedish films, The Girl Who Played With Fire is probably my favourite. It pumps along at a cracking pace.

Stieg Larsson exhibition at Stadsmuseet in Stockholm

The pace of this first Hollywood adaption of the Millenium series is similar. Even though it’s close to three hours in duration I never once found myself distracted or bored. Significantly, only one person left the cinema during the showing for only a brief toilet break, and the friend I went with, who normally needs to take at least one toilet break during a long movie, and who usually complains “most films are twenty minutes too long” also never once found himself bored or distracted.

The plot for this film differs in a few areas from the original film, though not distractingly so. It’s still very much the story of Mikael Blomkvist and his relationship with Lisbeth Salander, as they deal with their own dramas/demons and try to resolve the mystery of the death of Harriet Vanger. On a slightly parochial and disappointing note, Harriet Vanger doesn’t end up living in Australia, as in the original. Instead, she’s in London.

As much as I love the characters created by the Swedish actors, Noomi Rapace and Mikael Nyqvist, I thought Rooney Mara and Daniel Craig were also very good in their roles. And of course, Daniel Craig has the advantage of being even more sexy than Mikael Nyqvist, while still carrying off some of the “foppishness” of the original character found in the Swedish films and books.

About the only part of the film that I didn’t like were the opening credits. Set over a Trent Reznor composed soundtrack, and with high-tech animation graphics, I thought it seemed a little “try hard”. A little hipster. A little too groovy. A little too contrived, to be honest.

Not the best BBQ Pork in Perth

I am not entirely sure why, but I’ve struggled to find BBQ Pork in Perth. I’ve been to quite a few Asian eateries and have looked through the menu without any sign of BBQ pork. Lots of seafood. But no pork. I have specifically asked at a couple of places, only to be told, “No, we don’t do BBQ Pork”. Maybe it’s a Northern vs Southern China thing?

This is in stark contrast to the year in which I lived in Perth – 2004 – when I enjoyed possibly the world’s best BBQ Pork. Every Sunday night I would go to Han Palace on Bennett Street, just around the corner from where I was living on Wellington Street. Having enjoyed the delights of their BBQ Pork, I used to go there every Sunday night, and purchase some take-away. I didn’t want rice. I didn’t want vegetables. I just wanted the pork. And from there I would head out for a drink or two at The Court (when they still had a lively Sunday night scene) and then often to Connections. It was a great routine.

After a few months, the woman at Han Palace said to me, “How come you only eat pork? You should have rice and vegetables too!”, to which I replied, “Because you have such great pork”. In honesty, she was probably correct, but I figured since I ate a reasonably well balanced diet, it was okay to have a Sunday night “pig out” (pun intended) on BBQ pork, while watching “Big Brother” was a reasonable indulgence.

When I told some people in Perth about this, they joked, “I’ll bet she calls you pork boy”. The name has stuck ever since.

So in heading back to Perth, one of the things I’ve really been anticipating has been to go to Han Palace on a Sunday night for some BBQ Pork. Imagine then, my disappointment to discover last night, it was closed for Christmas. They were planning to re-open in late January in a new venue, according to the sign on the door.

I consoled myself with some pork tonight at Old Shanghai which is nowhere near as good.