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.

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.

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.

Miss Maud Swedish Hotel in Perth, Western Australia

It’s mid-afternoon in Perth, and I’m back in my room with the fan on maximum rotation trying to cool down after an interesting and busy day.

I started the day off with a coffee, a smoked salmon baguette, and an apple strudel at a Swedish cafe.

Even in Perth, there’s a little bit of Sweden, it seems. Well, more than a little bit; quite a lot actually, as there are fifteen locations across Perth where you’ll find a “Miss Maud” eating house. There are sandwich shops, pastry shops, coffee shops, and even a “Swedish Hotel” on the corner of Pier and Murray Streets.

According to the Miss Maud website, Miss Maud came to Australian in 1971 where she…

fell in love with the sunny disposition of the people, the long golden beaches, not to mention the wonderful weather.

But, she then goes on to say…

But how I missed the warm, inviting restaurants and quaint little sidewalk cafés of Sweden. And never more, than when my mother arrived from Stockholm for a visit.Where could I take her for a nice lunch or a splendid afternoon tea? I yearned for rich Swedish coffee and traditional open-faced Swedish sandwiches like the Shrimp Boat and Gangplank. Back then my mother and I had to settle for a counter meal at the local pub. Not quite where a couple of ladies would go to enjoy each other’s company. I decided it was time to bring a little taste of Sweden to Perth.In 1971 “Miss Maud” was born.

Forty years later and I’m not sure Miss Maud’s remains a “little bit of Sweden” in Perth. At the coffee shop this morning I noticed a Princesstorta and even a Queen Silvia Cake, and there were smoked salmon and prawn baguettes, but pretty much everything else seemed pretty “mod oz” to me.

But the business remains very successful. In fact, a colleague argued to me yesterday the case Miss Maud was the reason why there isn’t a Starbucks in Perth. He told me Starbucks did the maths and decided Miss Maud and Dome and a few others pretty much had the coffee market in Perth sewn up, and so haven’t bothered to open an outlet here. Praise The Lord!

After breakfast I wandered around for a while, and then listened to my favourite tech podcast, TWIG, before catching the ferry down to Fremantle. I had some lunch, I bought a shirt, looked in some shop windows, I looked around the Maritime Museum, a replica of The Endeavour, went to the beach, checked out a few tourist information places, and generally had a very pleasant time.

Even though this visit for Perth is for work, today felt very much like a holiday, I must admit. Happy New Year!

Katarinahissen view of Stockholm

“Three days is not enough time to spend in Stockholm”, I told them. But I promised to offer some recommendations for good things to do, and places to stay, on a low budget. I’ve drawn mostly on my experiences from March last year when it was still quite cold, rather than my summer experiences from 2008 and this year.

If you have any further recommendations/ideas, please comment below.

Stockholm winter tour - the group comes up from downstairs

I’ve also stayed at The Clarion at Skanstull if you can afford a little bit of luxury.

SKY APARTMENTS
I stayed at Sky Apartments this year for three weeks and absolutely loved it.

BEST PRICES I’VE FOUND FOR ACCOMMODATION
http://www.booking.com/ is my favourite place to book. I’m not sure why, but it just works for me.

Upplev mer - Stockholm rooftop tour

Eat loads in the morning and then have a dagens lunch and you’ll be pretty much right for meals.

There’s loads of stands around the streets where they sell kebabs (korv med brod) and grillad (sausages on buns) for just a few dollars.

If you’re looking for beer, go to the supermarket and buy lite-beer, which is about 3% so fine and pretty cheap.

http://www.jensens.se/ is also quite good/cheap in a “Sizzle” kind of way.

Grand Hotel at Saltsjobaden

Schlager band, Hallå Hela Pressen plays at Victoria Restaurang

MONDAY NIGHTS AT VICTORIA’S (KUNGSTRADGADEN)
You must do this. It’s very Swedish.

TICNET.SE
This is the major ticketing site in Sweden. The only show I can see co-inciding with your time there is Anna Ternheim is fantastic, but it looks like it’s sold out.

http://www.ticnet.se/event/Anna-Ternheim-biljetter/RIUS0130

THIS IS THE FREE EVENTS SITE FOR STOCKHOLM
Although it’s mostly in Swedish, there’s lots in English also.

GENERALLY

Current exchange rate is about 6.5 to 7 SEK to AUD.

And remember – THREE DAYS IN STOCKHOLM IS NOT ENOUGH

As you’ll have noted from my right column on this blog, I’ve become quite an enthusiastic user of Google+ I’m a bit of a Google fan boy to start with, and I’ve had a bit of a bee in my bonnet about Facebook for quite some time. Instead, I’ve found Google+ to be a useful tool both personally and professionally. Even though there’s a circle for my close friends, none of them are using it really. To quote one friend…

Oh I just signed in to Google Plus after eons. And having to reset my password yet again cos I keep forgetting it cos I never sign in. James, you are the only one who posts!

Instead, I’ve been following interesting people from around the world I’ve never met before, especially with radio, tech, photography, and genealogy interests, to name but a few.

The thing I’ve learned quickly is “it’s not Facebook”. It’s more like Twitter (with more characters) or Tumblr. You don’t have know the people to enjoy the posts. I am on Facebook in a limited way, and that’s purely to interact with some close friends who live interstate. I would hate the thought of following 600 people and getting their “I had breakfast” updates. The culture on Google+ is quite different. It’s around interest circles. So I’m following a bunch of people who like stuff that I like. It’s more like a “filter system” for the web than Facebook. It seems a whole lot self-obsessed also. You’re more likely to find someone saying, “I found this great link” rather than “I did amazing things” (or at least in my experience).

Anyway, I’ve stumbled upon a photographer who lives in Sweden who posts interesting stuff. A couple of days ago on Google+ I responded to his photograph of Helsingborg (which was a sunny, happy scene of the deckhairs,with this photograph of the same deckchairs but on a very grey day. I was somewhat amazed at the response it sparked, and then again today, a colleague mentioned today how much he liked the pic. So I felt inspired to post a few other photographs from my grey day in Helsingborg.

Despite the inclement weather I had when I visited, it’s a great little city which I enjoyed very much thanks to my friend (and tour guide) Tony. Nonetheless, I think you could almost name a whole new colour as “Helsingborg Grey”.

Korv and Senap at IKEA

As you arrive at the new IKEA at Tempe in Sydney, one of the first things you notice are the flags out the front. There’s a NSW flag, an Australian flag, and a Swedish flag all flying high. When it comes to “Swedishness”, however, that’s pretty much where it ends.

One of the things I used to love about IKEA was the food section. I loved the way you could go to IKEA and purchase some iconic Swedish brands. By that I mean things like Marabou Chocolate, Bilar (another popular Swedish sweet), Kopparbergs Cider and Kalles Kaviar, amongst many other items.

In some respects, Kalles Kaviar is to the Swedes what Vegemite is to Australians. Australians know exactly how much vegemite to put on a sandwich, where people from other countries always put on too little or too much. The same is true of Swedes when it comes to Kalles Kaviar. The first time I had some I put far too much onto hard-bread and found it almost inedible. I now know how much is right.

“You would often see Swedish mothers with their children at the IKEA looking at the food”, my friend Graeme commented. You would often see emotion in the eyes of the mother (an expat) as she passed on some “secret cultural knowledge” to their children growing up in Australia. As much as I purchase home brands most of the time, I also recognise there’s often an affection for brand names too.

But that’s all changed, as the new IKEA at Tempe in Sydney has only IKEA brand food. Sure, you can buy the hard breads, the caviar, the chocolate, the pickled herring and so on, but it’s not quite the same, I think, to purchase IKEA brand chocolate instead of the iconic Marabou. Even in the cafe now, Lingon soft-drink has been replaced by Schweppes Raspberry.

Apple and Pear Cider at IKEA

Despite the veneer of Swedishness, IKEA has obviously become as international as McDonalds. They have the Swedish named furniture, they have the portraits and biographies of the Swedish designers on the walls, they have Swedish language books on the bookshelves, but they seem to shy away from anything “too Swedish”. It would be great to hear the occasional Swedish pop song on the PA system. It would be great to see some photographs of Stockholm in the frames which otherwise feature images of New York, London and Paris.

I understand things change, and that they’re a global company not a Swedish company anymore. But I did quite like that you could purchase some well known Swedish brand food in the food section. Alas, no longer…

As much as I understand the importance for internationalism in the commercial sector, I note that McDonalds, for example, appreciates you can have variation from country to country. I hope IKEA doesn’t become too generic, and preserves a little of their intrinsic Swedishness. I also understand I’m a bit of a freak, and the vast majority of Australians don’t give a shit if there’s Lingon soft-drink, or if you can purchase Marabou chocolate…

Thanks to Facebook Group: I don't mind if the Swedes take over Australia.

There has been a proliferation of news about Sweden and Swedish-ness in the Australian newspapers lately, and I don’t mean just stories about Julian Assange. Of course, there are the regular stupid stories – the Swedes are so kooky stories – about studies from various universities, elks, Nazi connections to the Swedish Royal Family and so on, but there have also been some generally interesting stories about the influence of Swedish culture.

For example:

Roxette have sold 100,000 tickets for their forthcoming tour, and they had trouble getting a promoter in the first place.

Meanwhile, Anne Sofie von Otter is about to tour Australia for the first time.

Swedish cider brand Rekorderlig has launched a national campaign to boost its standing in the high-growth alcoholic beverage category, positioning itself as ‘Beautiful Swedish’.

IKEA seems to be doing quite well in Australia, with revenue up 5% and they’re opening now stores.

Sadly, no sign of H&M yet, though. And we’re still waiting for the Robyn tour!

I’m sure there have been other stories, but these are the ones I’ve spotted lately.

In the song and video, he’s walking around the centre of Stockholm and is reflecting on the history of the area, including locations where Anna Lindh (the Swedish politician who was killed) gave her last speech, and where the criminal, Clark Olofsson gave rise to the phrase “Stockholm Syndrome”. Most of all, though, it’s a love song about the city, as Peter wonders if there is anything as beautiful as Stockholm at night.

Lots of cities are beautiful at night, and Kenneth Slessor’s “Five Bells” poem is a wonderful reminder of the haunting beauty of Sydney at night. But for me, this song by Peter exquisitely captures the beauty, vitality, and complexity of Stockholm also.

But one of the things I love most about the video clip for this song is the bit where the bloke jumps – defiantly – into Lake Mälaren.

It’s an image also found in the video clip for “Stars” by Roxette.

I love both of these images very much. They’re images which signal defiance, adventure, and many other emotions.

“Jump off the cliff” is a phrase I often use to mean “take a risk”. A phrase I first came to truly understand when I went hang-gliding for the first time, and although you’re scared, if you count 1, 2, and 3, and suddenly you’ve made the jump, and soon you realise how exciting that final jump can be.

Tonight I did that in a sense, in that I went out on my first, serious proper date in many years.

It wasn’t without some fear and emotion. For a while I actually felt physically sick. And then I recovered. Though I still felt a little overwhelmed. “Why would someone want to go on a date with me?”, I thought to myself.

Anyway back to Stockholm… tonight, I’ve decided, before I die, I want to go back to Stockholm and I want to jump off the cliff into Lake Mälaren. How cool would that be?

Oh and here’s the video clips for both songs…