Boz's Blog

The Flood

2010-08-09T18:40:00.001+02:00

After the delivery of the two new family members this Friday just gone, we had all pretty much settled down. The two kittens were laying on the rug snoozing, and I was pottering around the internet on my laptop. It began raining at this point and suddenly it got very heavy.

I didn't think much of it - it IS Gothenburg after all - and I carried on doing my thing.

After a while, I needed to go down to the DorkDen (what we call the basement), so I wandered down there - and found that there was about 10mm of water on the ground! The water was trickling in from outside - and what's more, the water level against the door from the basement to the outside steps was 1.5 meters high! I had panicked visions of the door giving way to the pressure and getting a tide of water rolling in, destroying the whole basement.

I grabbed a bunch of towels and plugged them up against the bottom of the door, which it seemed was where the water was coming from (the rest of the door was doing a damned good job of keeping the water out!). Then I phoned Slaygon, as he lives nearby and I was going to need help on this.

Slaygon came 20 minutes later and we began the job of clearing up the immediate problem - removing the water. I had switched the electrics off earlier, so we made sure there was nothing electrical near the water and I slowly tripped each circuit back on, so at least we had light and the fridge was working. By this point, the water had pretty much gone down the drain outside, so there was no pressure against the door either.

Most of the water was going towards the laundry room at the back of the basement and it was about 20mm high out there. So we grabbed what we could and just scooped the water into buckets.

At this point we saw the Räddningstjänsten (Rescue Service) vehicles pull up and we found out from one of the guys that it wasn't just our house - 30 houses in all were being flooded. We were lucky in that with some of them, the sewerage was also coming back.

So, the first night was clearing the immediate problem and moving everything away from the floor. I thanked Slaygon by making a spicy pasta dish (and he had helped me by bringing beers!).

On the Saturday, Linda came back, and we got to work on the main problem - throwing things away. Unfortunately we have a storage area in the basement, and a few things had been water-damaged. So we had to be ruthless and throw some stuff away.

We continued this work on the Sunday, and went to buy a wet-vacuum, a normal vacuum (better than the one we had) and another dehumidifier (which always comes in handy anyway).

Today (Monday) we hired a van and, along with the water-damaged stuff, threw away some accumulated junk we had lying around in our shed too.

There's still more work to be done - cleaning the floors, making sure the floor isn't permanently damaged (by dehumidifying for a few days) and re-packing everything we saved.

So, that was my weekend. Oh what fun!

Two Additions to the family

2010-08-09T18:20:00.000+02:00

On Friday when Linda got to work (which is a farm), she found out that they had discovered three kittens in the barn. We're not sure about the back story at all - just that they seem to be human-friendly and that they are around 11-12 weeks old. Linda fell in love with them pretty much immediately, especially because they seemed so loving and cuddly. The farm wouldn't be able to keep them, however, which meant taking them to a animal refuge center or finding a family to look after them. However, her plan was to take me to look at them on Sunday and see if we could look after them - temporarily to start with of course!

However on Saturday, there was a terrible accident. Some of the patients on the farm were getting into the company car to go on a trip. In a moment of bad timing, it seems that one of the kittens - the middle one of the three - got curious and started to get in the car, just as a patient was closing the door. The door slammed, with the cat's head in the middle. Linda immediately took the poor fella to the vets, but nothing could be done. He was obviously haemorrhaging and gurgling blood when breathing, so he was given a shot to put him to sleep.

Linda, obviously upset, made a decision. She phoned up, telling me that the remaining two cats are being dropped off at our house "and we'll argue about it when I get back from work tomorrow".

So, two lovely grey kittens arrived and, despite trying to fight it, I fell in love with them too. They were little angels - for a while at least until they woke up. And even then, being little devils, they were still just two little rascals instead of being completely uncontrollable.

My plan for Saturday was to stay in the living room for the rest of the day, looking after them and surfing around the internet on my laptop. That was, until the flood came. But that's another story.

Here's a quick video of the two little terrors...

Kraków Polish Restaurant: Crap website, great food

2010-03-30T22:33:00.003+02:00

I decided to take the wifeoid-type-unit out for a date last weekend. Yep, just because we're married doesn't mean I can't take her out for a date y'know! One of our favorite restaurants happens to be Kraków, but we haven't been there for a while so I thought I'd book a table.

As an aside, Swedish people can be polite to the point of being annoying (in a nice way, mind you). I thought I'd show off my One-Three-Three-Seven Swedish skills by booking in Swedish. "Hej," I began (which is a surefire way of beginning on the right track), "jag skulle vilja boka ett bord till lördag klockan sju."

The question that I received also answered the question "was my Swedish alright," because she asked, in English, "What name, please?" Ho hum.

Anyway, the missus and I go there for one particular dish - grilled cheese. It's pretty much that, with breadcrumbs on the outside. One's heart palpitates at the mere thought of eating soft melting cheese, and man is it good! It comes with fried potatoes, tartare sauce and salad.

But we thought we'd make a whole night of it. So we share a starter of a mixed sausage dish (Polska charkuteridelikatesser in Swedish, Talerz zimnych wedlin in its native language). Then we decided to order a separate main course and take half of each, seeing as we'd never had anything but the grilled cheese; so, the other dish was Pierogi. You could call them "Polish Pasties" in English, that would suffice; but they're unleavened dough stuffed with meat and various ingredients. Very nice indeed.

Top that off with a few glasses of 1795 Polish beer (or a carafe of white wine) and it makes a long enjoyable evening. On "lönhelg" (the first weekend when just about everyone gets paid in Sweden), as it was when we were there, it's a very busy place, so if you don't like noisy atmospheres, don't go then. The decor in the restaurant hasn't changed since the 80s either. But none of those reasons are why people go. It's the food - simple, unassuming, but oh-so-tasty. I'd recommend you give it a try if you want a straightforward unpretentious menu with a wide-ranging selection of food and a hint of Eastern Europe. The menu is available on the website in Swedish, English and Polish - but don't expect it to win any Website of the Year awards anytime soon.

Kraków Restaurant can be found on Karl Gustavsgatan in Göteborg; more details here.

Our Little Car Incident

2010-01-01T13:33:00.004+01:00

For Christmas, we went up to Alta in Norway to visit Linda's grandparents. It's a lovely place, away from the hussle and bussle of modern life and it really calmed us down at the end of the year.

There's an airplane service that runs between Oslo Airport and Alta Airport, so that's what we used. This meant that we drove from Oslo back to our place - a three-and-a-half hour drive. We came back on the 28th, later than planned because Oslo had had "snow chaos" - it's been snowing a lot here in Scandinavia. We had to shovel our car out of its car park place too. Here's a picture of it:

So, as you can see, it took us a little while to dig it out!

Anyway, driving conditions on the way back weren't particularly good - fog meant poor visibility for some patches - and Linda decided to drive, taking it nice and easy.

We had just got to Uddevalla when all of a sudden, the back of the car skidded sideways a little - we had obviously hit a patch of black ice because there was no indication of ice on the road - snow, yes; but there were tracks made by the volume of vehicles that we were following. Linda tried to counter the skid - not TOO much because that wouldn't have helped - and the car almost got back to where it should have been. However, it decided to "overskid" and started sliding the other way, with the car dangerously pointing towards the central crash barriers. So, Linda steered the other way. This time, the car just skidded to point towards the outer edge, but too much.

Before we knew exactly what was going on, we were skidding down the road sideways, with no grip on the road. Linda and I briefly looked at each other with that "Uh-Oh" look on our faces. Then the front of the car hit a clump of snow that was piled up on the side of the road.

We didn't so much "roll" as "bounce" onto the roof. Both Linda and I had our eyes closed at this point, thinking that we were going to be terribly injured or worse. I recall also shouting out some sort of gutteral moan as well; a noise my distant Neanderthal cousin would have made when being attacked by a woolly mammoth, let's say.

The car skidded on the roof for what felt like 10 meters, although I can't be sure, as time seems to expand in this sort of situation. Then we hit another big clump of snow and we slowly rolled again, this time righting ourselves onto the wheels. The car skidded for another 10 meters or so, dug itself into the snow and stopped.

There was a couple seconds of silence, then we both opened our eyes. We were alive! For some reason we had survived an 80km/h skid-and-roll. The car was in the ditch at the side of the road, facing the opposite way. Linda and I asked each other if we were OK, which we seemed to be. Then, because we had seen too many car crashes in Hollywood movies, we needed to get out of the car because petrol might be leaking and the car might blow up - even in temperatures of -8C (which it was).

At this point a trio of lads showed up. They had seen the incident while driving on the other side of the road, and stopped and ran over to see if we were OK. One of the lads phoned the emergency services, while I was comforting Linda who was obviously distraught at this point. The ambulances turned up within 15 minutes and they immediately put neck braces on us, just in case. We went in separate ambulances and turned up at Uddevalla hospital a little later.

Everyone there was so kind, calm and professional and we were feeling quite calm. We both had X-Rays taken and, after a couple of hours, the doctor said that, apart from a couple of bumps and bruises, we were miraculously fine and he discharged us. Linda's sister and her boyfriend picked us up and took us home. The accident happened at 21:00 and we were home for 01:30.

For what happened - or what could have happened - we were both incredibly lucky and we've been filled with a sense of euphoria for the past few days. Linda "confronted her demons" a couple days back too - we hired a car and she got straight back into the driver's seat and she was fine. I was fine as a passenger too, and I drove just to make sure I was OK with that.

So, that's what we've been up to! Below is a YouTube video of the car after the crash, and where it happened.

Christmas display at NK

2009-12-12T14:55:00.000+01:00

This is the annual Christmas display at NK, which is kind of Gothenburg 's Harrods. Pretty...

The Ongoing Adventures of Fanny

2009-11-16T09:08:00.000+01:00

Finally, here's a picture of Fanny relaxing a little, so you can see her properly without any action blur:

Awww, isn't she a cutey... mooshy mooshy mooshy OY! GERROFF ME SHOES!

New family member

2009-11-01T18:09:00.000+01:00

On Saturday, we got a new family member, in the form of a kitten. Linda's sister and her boyfriend had a new litter recently (well, their cats did obviously) and asked us if we wanted one of them. Initially I said no, because I'm a grumpy old man and was happy just having Åke around. But having met the little bundle of energy my heart melted and gave in (much to Linda's delight).

As a "reward" for this, Linda decided that I can name the little kitty. So, she's called Fanny. Yes, exactly.

She's just getting acquainted with us all right now, and she doesn't like Åke very much (hissing at him), but that's what cats are like sometimes and so, with a little time and patience, she'll come round to him. And she's a little Daddy's Girl too, sleeping with me last night until quite a decent hour actually. It was only around 9am that she realised how much fun it was to hunt down and chew on my toes.

Being so young she hardly sits still, so this is the best photo I've managed to take of her so far:

I'll try and post another one when I get a better quality shot!

Winter's here, suddenly

2009-10-16T08:30:00.000+02:00

The overall weather here in Gothenburg can change in a matter of days. Last Thursday I was wearing my denim Spring/Autumn jacket. However, the following Monday - the space of just over three days - I had to start wearing my winter coat. It's definitely winter here now in Gothenburg.

Since Monday it has been beautiful weather actually, if you can stand the cold. The sun has been out and there's that crisp air that freshens everything up. Unfortunately, today has messed everything back up - we're back to dull and wet - Gothenburg's default weather. Actually, Gothenburg's default weather is horizontal rain with plenty of wind, so it's not that bad yet (the rain is actually falling vertically right now).

We've recently moved around in the office and now I have a view out to the track leading up to the train station, 200 meters up the road. It can be quite busy with 32 trains coming and going per hour. Thankfully the double glazing - and the fact that the trains are electric - means that we don't get too much noise; just the low rumble of wheel-on-steel.

We also now have Fredags Frukost (Friday Breakfast) at work, instead of the old Fika on Friday afternoons. Much better! Makkor (sandwiches), yoghurt, cereal, eggs and juice for the taking, and a chance to meet up with the other colleagues. Speaking of which, it's almost time. I'll sign off now in the hope that this random blog entry will stop me from forgetting to visit every now and then!

My new workplace

2009-10-05T09:37:00.000+02:00

We just moved around a bit, to accomodate the new employees, so this is where I sit now. It's also the cleanest it's been for a long time!

Visiting Tjolöholms Slott

2009-07-26T12:34:00.000+02:00

This is the sea at the back of the castle. Lovely!

....And Relax!

2009-07-09T19:17:00.002+02:00

Well that's it for four weeks. Today is the first day of our vacation, and I "celebrated" last night by broadcasting an extra-long show on the BBB which seemed to go down well. We're off to England next Monday for 9 days, seeing the folks which includes a big family meal (about 20 of us) on Friday night.

We're also going to see the old Chortles Gang, who I haven't seen for a long time either. That's the name for our gang of friends who have hung around for a number of years. It's getting more difficult now that I live in Sweden, but we still try and meet up at least once a year. Of course, it will involve going out for an Indian meal.

Good Indian meals are difficult to find in Sweden - for an English person anyway. Most Swedes are not accustomed to very strong spices, so a typical Indian restaurant in Sweden wouldn't have, for example, a madras or biryani on the menu. They do have vindaloo, but it's not head-exploding hot like the English counterpart. In fact, that's usually what I choose as it's the spiciest I can find around here.

That reminds me of a story when Linda was still living in Trollhättan. We went to the local Indian restaurant there, and Linda asked for an English-style madras, to which the owner agreed and asked me in English where I used to live. When I told him it was Leicester, he told me that it was there that he came from, and moved to Sweden 19 years ago. Small world! Oh, and he made a perfect madras by the way. Pity we live an hour away now.

Panic Attack Out of the Blue

2009-05-19T22:33:00.004+02:00

It's been a while since I've written an event on this blog, but something happened earlier today that I thought I'd share; not only to help me process it, but also to help anybody out there reading this who will have - or has had - a similar experience.

I decided to grab some lunch with some work colleagues at lunch time, and this time we decided to go to Jensen's, a Danish steak restaurant with some outlets in Sweden and Germany. I ordered the lunchbiff (lunch steak) as usual and tucked into it when it arrived. About halfway through, I took a chunk and realised, mid-chewing, that there was a streak of hard fat in there. After realising that I wouldn't be able to swallow this, I had to take it out of my mouth. I then took another chunk, chewed it as normal and, as I tried to swallow, my usual bodily functions froze - I couldn't swallow the meat.

It was just then that I had a sudden panic attack - the heart boomed in my ribcage, my mouth went dry, I tensed, I shook like a leaf, I became wide-eyed, very self-aware, short of breath and had the classic "rabbit-in-the-headlights" look about me.

Sound familiar to any of you? Well, it's a natural body reaction. Whenever your subconscience senses danger, it pumps a massive amount of adrenalin and other chemicals through your body and sets your heart on full speed ahead. This blood readies the muscles and the chemicals help this reaction and set your brain into an emergency situation. You will know this by the more common phrase: "Fight or Flight".

This reaction is normal, and perfect when there's immediate danger that would harm you, and that's why the human race has survived for so long. Unfortunately, sometimes the body goes into "Flight or Flight" mode because of a miscommunication from another part of the brain. This is what happened in this situation.

I won't go into detail, but when I was younger, I developed a social disorder in that I found it very difficult to interact with people. This got worse and worse - like, I couldn't go into a shop without feeling uncomfortable - until, one day, I went to a hypnotherapist who saved my life. A bit of a dramatic phrase, perhaps, but he certainly "saved" it in that I'm now just a regular guy that gets shy like normal people would, but can still talk to people, be in social situations and get on with my life.

One of the previous problems was that I had a major problem with "being made a fool in public". It happens to us all sometimes, but I had a particular hang-up about it. That's what happened in this situation: all of a sudden, my body didn't think it could swallow food without me choking, spluttering, or just coughing the food out. That would draw attention to myself and what an idiot I am not being able to eat properly, and it just froze the "swallowing muscles"; instead, it sent the Fight or Flight message.

I managed to get back to the office - spitting my saliva out along the way instead of swallowing it, because I couldn't even do that without a reaction - and just sat in silence, trying to calm myself down but not having very much luck.

I am, however, lucky in that my wife also happens to be a counsellor; I had tried to phone her with no reply, but she phoned back ten minutes later. She could hear in my voice that something was very wrong. After an hour's length of talking she managed to bring me down a bit and work out that it wasn't the food and the threat of choking that was the problem, it was a distant memory of the social phobia that triggered it.

But she went futher than that: after work, she met me in town and - gently - got me to "confront my demon". We went to Jensen's together, just for some coffee and ice-cream ("smooth" foods that would go down my throat easier). I looked a bit like a crane while eating and drinking, but I managed to eat and drink most of my order, along with some of Linda's. We came back home and I also ate a ham sandwich too (albeit without some of the crust).

So here we are: Linda is playing a card game while I write this blog entry. We both tidied the house up (as I have my mother visiting this weekend - that's another story!) which also took my mind off things, and now we're treating ourselves with a glass of chardonnay.

It was "a learning experience," which is a more polite way of saying "a shitty day", but confronting the problem while it was still a fresh experience and battling through it certainly helped. Sure, it was uncomfortable but one just has to remind oneself, "These are just feelings. There's no real danger. These feelings will pass, so ride through them."

After a night's sleep, I think tomorrow will look a bit better. Can't look much worse!

The wheels on the Bus go KERRAANNG!

2008-12-11T09:43:00.003+01:00

As you know, I take the bus into work in the morning. Usually on a Thursday morning, I catch a slightly later bus, allowing me to sleep in a bit after a BBB. Today started off as usual, and I decided to catch the 9:02 bus. There were about 20 kids of about 7-8 years old there too, obviously on a field trip and they had a bunch of 4 adults supervising them. "Great," I thought, "I'm gonna be standing up with a bunch of loud kids." (Such is my humor of a morning.)

To my surprise, I found a seat and another adult sat next to me. Everything set off as normal, until we got to Vågmästareplatsen, where I actually used to live. At this point, the bus leaves a bus-stop and has to cross a lane to get ready to turn left.

I was in "screen saver" mode, as I usually am on this trip, but in the corner of my eye I saw a red van drive by. At this point, I also felt the bus start to pull off and swing over to the left.

You know sometimes when you get that "feeling" - that instinct that you need to ready yourself for something? That happened to me. I put one hand on the back of the seat in front of me and thought, "Well, this ain't gonna be...."

BANG!

I don't know whether the bus driver was just distracted or plain stupid, but he sure traded paint with the van. Everyone was thrown forward of course. As mentioned, I was in a ready state, so I more or less stayed where I was. There were a bunch of people standing up who did an impressive Human Domino impression. There were also kids at the back who were standing up, faffing around, talking to each other and their guardians who suddenly fell down. Lots of gasps and then a few kids starting to cry.

After everyone realised what had happened, the kids found that they were actually OK - just a bit shook up of course. The driver of the van was a woman in her mid-50s and was on a warpath. When a Swede talks quickly, I tend to lose the actual words, but I could make out "Jävla" and "fan" a lot (Swedish swear-words which would be equivalent to the F-word and such in English).

After we decided that the bus driver and the van driver were going to have to exchange insurance details and all that stuff, we all got off the bus and I got on a tram instead.

So, no caffeine needed to wake me up this morning!

Autumn is around the corner

2008-09-20T18:36:00.002+02:00

This is a sure sign that summer is over - golden leaves on the trees. It was a beautiful day today, sunny and quite warm, but you can feel a chill in the background and the trees know it too.

The turnaround for my Xbox was two weeks in all. It's now working fine and it sounds different too, so the fan and heatsink have certainly been changed. Also, the Bike pack has been released for Burnout Paradise since Thursday, so I've been giving that a go too - they've done a great job integrating motorbikes into the game, actually. Also, there are weather conditions (namely mist, fog, etc) and a "day and night"; some races have to be taken at certain times of the day. Great stuff!

We've moved office at work too. The new offices are over two floors so there's a lot more room for us all to fit in. It's looking great, albeit a bit "sterile" at the moment; but that's just because it's newly finished and we need to add colour here and there through photographs and other stuff. Definitely a nice move though. Plus it takes me the same amount of time to get to work - about 20 minutes, involving a 15 minute bus ride and a short walk to the front door.

Making Failure as Painless as Possible

2008-08-19T09:10:00.004+02:00

Well, I have to hand it to Microsoft's XBox division. Having been plagued by the Red Ring of Death, they've tried to make it as easy as possible to repair people's machines.

First of all, you register your 'box (if you haven't already done so), and they know from the serial number that it's still in warranty. Then, you fill out a quick Hardware Failure sheet. Then they inform you that they will send a flatpacked box for you to put the Xbox into, and a link to UPS's site to print out a special label that you put onto the box. Once that's done, you either go to your local UPS Drop Off Point, or phone them to get them to pick it up from you. Simple!

The only problem is time - there's a couple of days that go by while you're waiting for the box, then apparently it takes 2 to 3 weeks to repair/replace and return the 'box to you. That's a little inconvenient, but at least they've tried to make it as trouble-free as possible.

I've been out of sorts for the past couple days too. I don't know what it is exactly, but I think I may have a bug of some sort. I was knackered on Saturday and I put it down to the night of pool I had with Slaygon. But it didn't clear; Sunday and yesterday was like walking through treacle. I actually went to bed at 8pm last night, albeit to just relax and read. When the lights went off, I immediately fell asleep. I feel a lot better this morning, so hopefully the worst of it is over.

The internet connection seems to be stable enough now, so I'll atempt to transmit a show after two weeks' break. It's been a strange couple of weeks, relaxing on a Wednesday rather than talking into a microphone, but I'm looking forward to it!

Technology Hates Me

2008-08-15T07:36:00.004+02:00

It's been an eventful week this week, for all the wrong reasons. First of all, we've been noticing that our satellite TV reception has been steadily degrading, to the point that sometimes we get 0% signal on the status screen. So I phoned up Viasat and apparently we're within warranty, so it's a call to the local people who installed the dish in the first place for them to come over and tweak it. Skitz tried to help me wobble the dish around to see if it was just an angle problem, but we couldn't get anything more out of it, so it's going to be a cable problem methinks.

After the fiasco of my router deciding to give up last week, we've found that there's something more sinister going on. My Xbox kept logging out of Xbox Live at random times, and freezing in the middle of a game, but I thought it was just a WiFi thing and I was going to tweak it this weekend. But when I was trying to get ready for my radio show on Wednesday, I discovered it was a lot worse than that. Every time I started the stream or even just loaded up the IRC chat window, after a while the modem dropped the DSL connection for a couple of minutes, then logged back in. A panicked call to Tele2 support five minutes into when my show was supposed to be broadcast confirmed the worst - the support guy was also sending data down the line and it was regularly disconnecting. He ticketed a support request for me and engineers should fix the problem "within 48 hours" (which is this evening). Fingers crossed that it's just a quick fix.

The Xbox freezing, on reflection, should have warned me. I thought it was just that the internet connection was going down, and the game coding didn't know how to handle it. But NO. Last night it froze again, I rebooted and got... yes... the Red Ring of Death. (This was when I was trying to play the new Bionic Commando game, by the way. The short time I got to play it, it's great!) Specifically, it's three red lights on the ring on the front panel - usually they show which joysticks are "logged in" to the console, but these turn red if there's some sort of problem. The 3 rings (top-right quadrant missing) means "hardware problem" and it also means you have to send your Xbox off for repair. So, that's another thing that I have to do over the weekend.

Three technology-based things going wrong in one week. Oh joy.

Bionic Commando Rearmed out on Xbox 360 tomorrow!

2008-08-12T08:48:00.004+02:00

One of my All-Time Favorite All-Time Games of All-Time™ has to be Bionic Commando. It was released in 1987 as an arcade game by CapCom, and released later that year on the Commodore 64 (along with other platforms). I loved playing the arcade version at my local amusement arcade, and I even went out and bought the Disk version for my '64 - pretty damned good conversion too!

Well, I've been waiting for the Redux versions for a little while. There's a whole new 3D version coming out on the NG Consoles (Xbox 360, PS3) soon; but, as a taster, there's Bionic Commando Rearmed, a re-imagining of the original arcade game. It's in faux-3D (i.e. slightly 3d ish but played as 2d) and it looks shit-hot... and it's available on the Xbox Arcade from tomorrow, Wednesday 13th August 2008! (I don't know about the PS3 version unfortunately, check your online thingy, whatever it's called, if you've got one of those.)

I for one will be using some of my Microsoft Points to unlock the full version of this baby. If you know which game I'm talking about, do it too! If you don't, download the Trial version anyway and see what REAL action games should be about (i.e. the 80s ;)).

When Technology Goes Wrong... and then Right

2008-08-08T13:51:00.002+02:00

Kablooey!

That's the imagined sound that my Belkin ADSL router made on Tuesday, while the missus and I were at our respective jobs. In one way, I was glad though.

I had bought myself a Wireless Network Device add-on for my XBox 360 (the official one, not a third-party make). However, when I plugged it in, it showed a red light and that was about it. Last Monday, I decided to phone XBox Support and see if there's anything I was doing wrong. Unfortunately I wasn't - thanks to the helpful advice from the support guy, we found that it was my poor old Belkin, that I had had since 2003 when I was still in England. I shouldn't be surprised really, routers have grown a little since then.

So I was uhming and ahing as to what to do, when the Belkin made my mind up for me, by fizzling out rather unceremoniously in the middle of the day - something we found when Linda tried to wirelessly access teh interwebs through her laptop.

I reconnected the Speedtouch that actually came with my Tele2 internet account, and quickly realised that, although it doesn't have WiFi, it's actually a damned good little router. So I went to On/Off and bought a Netgear wireless access point, hooked that up and everything seems to be back to normal. The XBox's wireless device definitely liked it a lot more. I switched on, put the right password in, and we were connected almost immediately. Some of my online chums started sending messages almost immediately, along the lines of "bloody 'ell Boz, we thought you'd sold your box!", as I haven't been online since moving.

We had the SLAY Radio Gathering last weekend, where listeners of SLAY Radio come to Gothenburg for a general get-together. This was the fourth year running (always on the first weekend in August) and it's just as enjoyable. Personally speaking, it's good for me to be able to put faces to some of the listeners that I transmit a show for. It's good for the listeners to meet each other, too, so that they know who they're chatting to on IRC. The Gatherings will be going on for as long as they're popular, so there's definitely one next year!

The Wheels on the Bus go Round and Round

2008-07-18T10:26:00.004+02:00

After one has been travelling on any form of transport for a while, one notices the "regulars" that enjoy(!) commuting. I am starting to notice this as I bounce around on the Number 25 bus to and from work every weekday. Because it's half-past silly in the morning -- and because we're Swedish -- most people keep to themselves, quiet as can be with a slightly distant look on their face. However, some people stand out more than others because of certain foibles or mannerisms they have.

Every now and then, I'll return to details any new characters I chance upon; however, there are three (or, technically, four) that I have noticed.

Mr. Blind-as-a-Bat. Even though he wears glasses, he takes them off and holds his Metro about 5 centimeters from his face, squinting like Mr. Magoo and taking ages to read any one article. He usually gets on at my stop but doesn't stand up until the bus has stopped - presumably because he can't see the number until it's right in front of him.

The Turk. This guy plays his music a little too loud, so you hear the high frequencies of ethnic Turkish music coming from his iPod. I have no idea what he looks like; I only know that he sits towards the back of the bus on the left-hand side. If one sits within 5 rows of him - which I have done on numerous occasions - one can hear that annoying tinny sound of someone who's listening just a little too loud. Not that I have anything against Turkish music per se, but it kind of loses something when you have to listen to it second-hand.

Miss Bullhorn and Miss Tired. These couple of giddy girls get on the bus before me, but I know when they are there (along with just about everyone else on the bus). Miss Bullhorn, obviously, talks at her friend in a loud voice, usually about telephone conversations she's had the night before. She has a bad case of the guztuhs (see below). "Hon säga till mej, 'blah blah blah', och så säga jag till henne, 'blah blah blah'..." is the usual thing you hear (with actual "blah"s in there); at the same time, her friend is saying "'A... [yawn]... 'a... [yawn]... 'a... [yawn]" ('a is Swedish for "yeah", it's a shortcut for ja), she's either bored out of her skull or she's been partying too hard the night before. My guess is the latter.

So, three examples of people on the Number 25 bus. Feel free to share your regulars in the comments below.

*guztuh is a word from the Midlands (especially Leicester). It's short for "goes to", which actually means "says to". Can also be just guz = goes = says. For instance, a Leicester person would say:

"She guztuh me, she guz 'Eh up Shaz, are ya gooin down pub tonight?" And I guztuh 'er, I guz 'Nah, I ain't got no moneh'."

"She asked me, 'Pardon me Sharon, are you frequenting the public house tonight?' And I replied to her, 'No, I seem to have a lack of funds.'

Even if it should be in the past tense, it's still used in the present.

Back to Work

2008-07-16T11:25:00.004+02:00

Linda and I have just enjoyed four weeks' vacation from work. It's not unusual for Swedes to take this many weeks off, unlike the UK where most people would take a maximum of two weeks off, maybe three, in one go. Anyway, most of the time we were fixing the new house up; finishing off painting, going to the Swedish Place of Worship (IKEA) for more furniture and so on. We also enjoyed visitors coming over for a barbecue, and we went to Wonderful, Wonderful Copenhagen for a short stay. It's a beautiful city actually, well worth a visit. If you are a Facebook friend of Linda's, then you can view some photos here that she took. Otherwise, click here to see my copy on a web album.

We decided to take the time off now to avoid conflicts with work calendars. There is a phenomenon every year where the Svenssons take a long (four-ish week) vacation toward the end of July, and effectively Sverige AB (Sweden Ltd.) closes down. Lots of small shops, restaurants, cafés and indeed, sections of the government itself, go on hiatus for the vacation duration. Läppstiftet, the skyscraper in which I work, is like a ghost building; hardly anyone is around and the café and restaurant on the ground floor is closed for business.

There is a similar thing in England where most Brits go on holiday at the end of July, but it just seems so much more noticeable over here.

Also, this summer season is when lots of roadworks are performed. A great idea in principle, but I think Sweden has forgotten the hoards of tourists they get! Sweden is a lovely country to visit, but because of the Jante Law (of which I will comment on in another blog entry one day), your typical Swede won't admit to it. So, they close roads off and suspend some tram and bus services, leaving Mr and Mrs Tourist scratching their heads, wondering where the tram is (according to their tourist map) and wondering what the strange Swedish sign says on the platform.

Yes folks, Sweden can be a quirky place. Wouldn't change it for the world though.

Newsflash: Concentric Circles Eminating from Glowing Red Dot

2008-07-16T09:51:00.002+02:00

Just read this startling news from The Onion's video network:

Breaking News: Series Of Concentric Circles Emanating From Glowing Red Dot

Waste-to-Hip Ratio Extreme!

2008-07-15T09:15:00.001+02:00

1209664995420
Originally uploaded by bdaywans

There I was, surfing teh interwebs as one does, and I found this peach on Flickr.

It took me several minutes to return to planet Earth.

Settling in

2008-05-23T08:10:00.003+02:00

Things are going pretty well with the after-move mayhem. We're unpacking boxes as quickly as we can, but of course it takes time. At least most of the rooms are livable in. Last Thursday I had a day off; the sofa was delievered, the satellite was installed and the security alarm was activated. We also indulged in a big plasma TV so we can watch satellite TV and play my XBox on it. The next thing is to connect the XBox to the internet - either by one of those wireless gizmos, or I might feed a cable down to the DorkDen.

The DorkDen™ is the name given to my basement room by Wenchie, which is a great name! It's small (because the rest of the basement has a shower, sauna and laundry room) but we've managed to fit quite a bit in there. There's a computer desk on one wall, with a desk big enough to fit all my radio stuff on. There's also a sofa and TV unit so I can chill if Linda's watching something upstairs.

I transmitted my first show on Wednesday, using Patsy, my new PC. Everything worked fine, even though I hadn't actually performed any test transmissions. This was all made possible by the fact that Tele2, against all odds, installed ADSL in two weeks! It was actually switched on on Thursday (the same day I was off). I guess because I was anticipating the same deal as last time, when I moved into the flat, that it would take a while. But now it seems that, because I'm not "apartment scum" any more it happened quicker. It also helps that the telephone switch is right outside our front fence!

We've done the big shopping run to IKEA, of course - twice now actually. The desk in the picture, with the new bin and filing system, are courtesy of our Swedish flatpack company, of course, along with lots of other little bits and pieces for the kitchen.

I was off from Monday to Wednesday this week with a cold. I guess the stress of moving and stuff caught up with me. Linda had the same thing the week before and had to take the rest of the week off from Wednesday. At least we've got the "summer cold" out of the way now!

People are unreliable

2008-05-06T23:31:00.002+02:00

BAH!

That's all I can say... Big Eddie let us down by phoning Linda up the week before last, saying that he couldn't make it because of other work. That left us in the lurch somewhat - so we decided to buy some paint and get on with it ourselves.

It won't be finished in time, however. But we have to remind ourselves of the old adage, "Rome wasn't built in a day". The living room is nearly done and, touch wood, will be finished in time for the move. Then we can tackle each room after moving in. It's not as if the house was falling in on itself after all.

We christened the house last weekend, actually. On Saturday, my friend Robert came over to help me fill in the dreaded Tax forms (I closed my business down last year, so I had to report on it in this year's accounts), and afterwards, we joined up with Linda and Kenneth who had been painting throughout the day. Robert and Cicci had bought us a barbecue grill as a wedding gift, so we tried it out of course! After some rather fine flintstek (pork steak) with potato salad, we plunged into the jacuzzi that is in the back patio of the new house. Ah, bliss! And we had to try out the sauna as well. I can see us using those two contraptions quite often through the summer! And the previous owners told us there's nothing better than seeing the freezing cold New Year in than a bottle of chilled champange in the heated jacuzzi - we will certainly be trying that.

The old apartment is just about ready for moving now - there's a load of boxes lying around with the "last moment" stuff remaining, like my PC. Tele2 are unfortunately dragging their heels again witht he broadband transfer, so for some reason I still have broadband here at the flat (even though I asked them to start transferring it a week ago). That's ominous...

Other than that, nothing exciting to report... moving house can't be called "exciting" really, can it?!

Getting the Key

2008-04-24T16:02:00.002+02:00

Over the past month, things have been progressing with Operation: GöteBowness. We have moved Linda's stuff into a storage facility (except for her clothes and essentials of course), and she and I are now in the flat.

Next Tuesday is the Big Day where the keys are signed over to us. We are going to the local bank, signing some papers and then the previous owners will take us over to the house to explain a couple of things to us; for instance, we have an online security system, so we need to know how to set the code so the security guys don't come in the middle of the night thinking there's a robber! All the little things as well, like the heating system, where the telephone / television points are, how the remote control on the shower works (no, really!) and all that malarkey.

Big Eddie, the father of one of my colleague's girlfriend, is also hopefully coming on that evening too, to check the place out and give us a quote on decorating the place. He will be decorating the bedrooms and living room. We are set to move in on Saturday May 10th, with a little help from friends and colleagues; so it should be relatively smooth. After that, there's the unfortunate nightmare of cleaning the old flat (including Polyfilling and repainting the living room), but we're going to get a professional company in to do the cleaning for us.

Spring has sprung here in Gothenburg as well. It's not too hot but nice and sunny at the moment. Pity we'll be busy most weekends and working in the daytime!

ARGH, Warehouse is Closing Down!!!11!ONE!

2008-03-12T18:28:00.003+01:00

Pfft.

At the moment, because I'm living on my own for a short while longer, and because a number of my development buddies at work also do it, I go to Nordstan for lunch. There's a few places to choose from, but one frequent place is Warehouse. They do a good "Red Hot Chilli Burger" there. This is actually false advertising because this is Sweden and most Swedes don't "do hot", but it's tasty and, besides which, I'm digressing.

Four of us went in there this lunchtime and sat at a table. The waitress came up and asked if we were eating from the buffet (all you can eat for a fixed price, blah blah). "No," we said, "we're ordering off the menu".

"Ah," she said, "we don't have a menu any more, just the buffet for a while longer, because we're closing down."

We sat there in collective gobsmackisation (for wont of a word that actually exists). One of our frequent haunts - which is pretty packed just about every lunchtime - is closing down! The waitress explained that the landlords - Nordstan I guess - have increased the rent by 140%, so I guess they wanted to get shut of them.

A sad moment in my gastronomic life. Now we're going to have to find another place to keep the number of options at a decent level. Or start making my own food.... nah.

What else has happened since I made an entry? Well, we get the keys to our new house on April 30th, but we might not actually move in straight away. Instead we'll get some of the decorating done, seeing as I have this flat for one month's crossover. Then it will be nice and new when we move in. It could mean that Linda lives here at the flat for that month too, if all goes well and she has sold her apartment by then, but that's no biggie.

Linda had her birthday party too - not too many people because space was short, but it was great fun and lovely to see friends and family - on both sides - again.

Operation: GöteBowness

2008-02-18T11:06:00.006+01:00

Forgive the crappy title, but it was the only one I could come up with using my limited brain capacity. Anyhoo, the Bowness Train continues to chuffa-chuffa at full pelt - we have just signed a contract to buy a house! We will be moving to Tolered, a suburb in the Hisingen island in Gothenburg. Actually, it's not that far from where I live at the moment - about 5 minutes by bus in fact.

We were either going to go for something in Trollhättan or Göteborg, and we couldn't make our minds up (we've been thinking of moving for quite a few months now). Our minds were in Trollhättan (you get more house for your money, it's quieter but Göteborg is still accessible by train), but our hearts were in Göteborg (this is the city I moved to, and Linda has lived here for a lot of her life). In the end, Göteborg won our hearts. It does mean that Linda will have to commute for a while, but she's had to do it before so it's not too bad. It also means that I'll have to do a lot of housework and cooking because I'll get home first. Hopefully you'll have a mental image of me in a pinafore now, a la "I Want to Break Free" video by Queen. ;) We won't be moving in until the end of April, but that gives me time to pack my stuff up and throw out all the old crap!

So... engaged in December, married in January, bought a house in February... by July we'll have teenagers!

Also, we went on our honeymoon (in Swedish, smekmånad, a translation of which could be "fondle-month!") to Crete a couple weeks ago. It was a beautiful place, and spring-like for the first few days. It got a little overcast and rainy towards the end, but it didn't detract from the vacation at all. We stayed with Linda's mormor and morfar (maternal grandmother and grandfather) whose friends have a villa in Plaka, a small village near Chania on the North penninsula. Bliss! Pictures, for those interested, can be found here.

Ladies and Gentlemen, please welcome Mrs. Bowness!

2008-01-22T16:35:00.000+01:00

Well, that's gone and done it hasn't it?!

"Sherman, set the Wayback Machine to December 23rd 2007...". This is when Linda and I had a little chat on the train from Gothenburg to Trollhättan, ready for our Christmas celebration. Our original plan was to get engaged before the year end (which we did on December 10), then get married on Linda's birthday in March. Our little chat, however, went along the lines of "can we wait that long," the answer being "naaaaah!"

We got to Trollhättan, and off to the local supermarket to buy the Christmas food. When we got to the shopping mall, we saw that the jeweller's shop was still open... so we popped in, found a pair of white-gold rings we liked and ordered them there and then! After Christmas, Linda subsequently sorted out the times for the ceremony itself.

We also decided that we did not want a big Event with pomp and circumstance; rather, it would be just us two with two witnesses - Slagge and Cicci in our case. I'm lucky in that Linda agrees that marriage is really down to the two people it's for.

Anyway, onto the event itself: Saturday January 19th 2008 at 15:15 was when we were ushered into the registry office in Gothenburg, in which we were read a very nicely worded set of vows (in English, by Linda's request I might add). We both said "I do" in the appropriate place and, less then ten minutes later, we were legally married.

Then, after checking in to the hotel (more on that later), we went to Heaven 23, a bar on the 23rd floor of Gothia towers, to drink champagne while looking out on the Gothenburg landscape. Very nice it was too!

Back to the hotel. We checked in just before going to Heaven 23, and we had ordered a room with the bröllopspacket (Wedding Package). The room had a chilled bottle of champagne waiting, with chocolate-covered strawberries and other fruits, rose petals on the bed and a "jacuzzi" style bubble-bath. We also had breakfast in bed the next morning. Bliss!

Anyway, back to the evening, as it was just before 6pm by this time. We had booked a table for four and we had a six-course meal, consisting of duck foie grois, veal, venison, creme caramel and sorbet (not in that order, and I'll have to come back and edit this when I have the proper names!). Beautifully done and very "posh" - lots of forks and knives and other weapons, washed down with copious amounts of alcohol.

All in all it was a beautiful - albeit seemingly quick - day; and thanks to the late check-out of 3pm (which was also part of the bröllopspacket) a restful Sunday too.

Here's a picture from the actual event (click on it for a larger version). You can also have a look at some more photos by clicking here.

So now we are Mr. and Mrs. Bowness. And if you read this Linda, jag älskar dig min ängel. Du är min fru och jag är mycket glad.

And so this is Two Thousand and Eight

2008-01-07T10:02:00.000+01:00

The Christmas season has come and gone, so it's time to catch up with what has been going on.

First off, Linda and I went to England for a vaction early in December, to see family and friends. It was at my mum's house on December 10th that I decided to take the plunge: I got down on one knee and asked for Linda's hand in marriage. Thankfully she said yes ;)

It was great to see the folks and some of my closest UK friends again, as it had been a year since I had seen most of them. That's one of the bad points of living in a different country of course; but Sweden isn't that far away and, in an emergency, I could take a flight that would take less than two hours. Plus with all this internet and new technology, we all keep in touch in one way or another.

Christmas was spent in Trollhättan with Linda and a couple of friends, where we celebrated it in the Swedish style - a julbord on Christmas Eve (julafton) followed by opening the presents. Christmas Day in Sweden traditionally is when they meet up with friends and family, so all of the eating and presents are done the day before.

New Year was spent back in Gothenburg with a nice dinner party followed by watching the fireworks going of all over the skyline, which we could see from a hill we walked up. We took some champagne and toasted the new year in.

On the geeky front, I'm impatiently anticipating the release of Burnout Paradise which is released at the end of January on the PS3 and -- more importantly for me -- the XBox 360. A demo version of the game came out in the middle of December, and what a demo it was! They opened up part of the city (a small chunk but there's a lot to see!) and they even enabled some of the online functionality, so I've been playing the demo with friends and having a great time. The full game promises to be fantastic, judging by the demo. I've been a fan of the Burnout franchise only since Burnout 3, when I saw it on a friend's XBox, and Burnout Revenge was a principle reason for buying an XBox 360.

More news as and when!

First Winter Snow and Topless Bathing

2007-11-13T08:29:00.000+01:00

The first snow of the Gothenburg winter fell this morning. It started about half an hour before I was due to leave, fell softly when I started to walk to work and gradually got heavier. I left my hood down and just let the flakes fall on me. Call me weird if you must, but I really enjoyed it!

One of my work colleagues is Australian, only moved to Sweden about 6 months ago or so, and she's only ever seen snow once, which was already settled. So you can imagine her excitement as she came into the office this morning, jumping around and saying "I had to phone my mum and tell her". Bless her, I wish I could experience that again!

There was also this article in The Local this morning, about women wanting the right to bathe topless. Well, I'm not going to stop them. Unless they're elderly ladies' floppy breasts (as Marcel Donné once put it).

Anybody "wanna" learn english?

2007-11-02T14:06:00.000+01:00

Good lord.

I was reading The Local (Sweden's news in English), and I decided to click on the Notice board, where people can leave all kinds of messages. As you can probably guess, they usually fall into two categories: "Need a place to live" and "need a job". I myself am guilty of the second category, after posting a message on there about six months ago.

But sometimes there is something different on there, as this post shows. I've copied it below as well (just in case the previous link expires). Suffice it to say that it's an absolute classic. Yes folks, if you "wanna" learn english (with a small E) contact this obviously reputable fellow.

WANT TO LEARN ENGLISH?

Ad type:	Announcement
Location:	Gothenburg/Västra Götaland
Date added:	2nd November 2007

if you wanna learn english language please contact me: trickyire@yahoo.com we'll make arrangements

Contact details for this advertiser are in the description

Multiplicity

2007-11-02T12:10:00.001+01:00

Multiplicity
Originally uploaded by dollen

Great little photo. Sexy back, and the bird-flip is a bonus :)

Continuing Swedish

2007-10-26T11:33:00.000+02:00

Yesterday was my last lesson in the "Swedish for Beginners" course that I enrolled in at Folkuniversitetet. Nanda, the teacher, was excellent. We used the course book sometimes, but a lot of the stuff was done by talking, writing in groups and copying things down from the wipeboard. She preferred to teach us at the pace that we were comfortable with, rather than stick to the book's set course; and for that reason we actually learnt more than we could have.

So impressed was I that, when she said we could go straight into "Nivå två" (level 2), I signed up straight away. This means that we actually carry on and the first lesson is next Tuesday - same times, same days. Nanda mentioned that most students take two or three courses before they feel confortable enough to go out with their knowledge and carry on learning on their own, and judging by how I'm going, I agree with that. I'm still not quite comfortable enough talking in public, but I do try to talk to Linda in Swedish sometimes and, with a few errors, I'm able to make myself understood. I'm sure another 12 lessons will see my confidence grow even more, and I'll be able to talk to "Svensson" (that's Swedish for "Bloggs") without feeling doubtful of my language.

Here comes Baker Boz

2007-10-15T10:31:00.000+02:00

I've always been interested in cooking my own food, but when you live on your own, you rarely get the enthusiasm to spend time on making any food - cooking for one seems like too much effort.

Recently, however -- thanks to changes in my life -- there is plenty of opportunity to cook now. I could cook-up a big batch of food, eat on the evening of preparation and take the remainder in as a work-lunch for the next one or two days.

Or, in the case of this weekend, we can make it a "couples activity". I had mentioned to Linda that it's my turn to provide the food for the Thursday Fika, a "tradition" held in the support room at my work. (Although I'm not in support any more, they have made me a lifetime honorary member.) So, Linda decided it's time for me to bake something -- or, more to the point, somethings.

The "somethings" in this case were kanelbullar (cinnamon buns), a very popular food to take with one's fika in Sweden. Basically it's a risen pastry (super-puffed with yeast) with oodles of cinnamon (and sugar, obv); glazed with egg and topped with pearl sugar. If you got one from a konditori (patisserie), they're really yummy. I wasn't quite so confident that mine would stand the test, but I was willing to give it a go.

Suffice to say that I surprised myself! We managed to make a batch of 40 of them... of which 34 are left (Linda and I had to have three each and felt bloated afterwards!). So proud was I that Linda egged me on to make a quick batch of raspberry jam-filled cookies too.

So, I think the support guys will be impressed - if not a little surprised - with my contribution to the Thursday Fika.

I would have shown you a photo of the finished product, but alas I forgot to transfer the picture from my camera. I shall edit this entry when I've done that.

UPDATE: Here's the pic!

I'm how old now?

2007-10-01T17:16:00.000+02:00

Another birthday has come and gone... it wasn't an "important" number -- nothing special to celebrate especially -- but it was good. My birthday landed on a Saturday, so in the evening -- quelle surprise -- we went to Kville Biljard; "we" being Linda, Kenneth, Robert, Jocke and Hayley; Jeff (a work colleague and one of the guys I'm going to Swedish lessons with) turned up later too. Small but good fun, doing what I like to do!

Linda bought me "Bioshock" for my XBox 360... Oh. My. God. What a fantastic game. I've gotten bored with FPSs, but this is SO much more. Lots of thinking as well as blasting, and the DNA "upgrades" you can inject into yourself are great (my fave being Telekenesis!). On top of that, the graphics are beautiful - retro (from the 40s and 50s). Yum. Go buy it now!

Beautiful landscape!

2007-09-25T07:25:00.001+02:00

Here's a great photo 4U2C (as the SMS generation would say). Beautiful female form, great lighting, and full-length (or in this case, width!). Enjoy....

(Remember if you're at work... get back on with it soon!)

She Undresses for a Great Wall
Originally uploaded by ★Tomàquet Pink★

Technical Magazine... wtf?!

2007-09-24T11:25:00.000+02:00

There's a gadget shop with a catalog that you can get in Sweden called Teknikmagasinet. It's along the lines of something you would get from, say, Radio Shack or Maplin.

We had a copy delivered here at work, and I decided to thumb through it.

"[flick flick] Ooh, gadgets! [flick] Yummy, more gadgets! [flick] ooh, want one of those! [flick] Vibrators! [flick] ooh, more... WTF?! ... [flick back] vibrators??"

Yep, thanks to Sweden's sexual liberation way back in the 60s and 70s, there's still proof that they're still pretty much laid back with all of "that stuff". Vibes, dildos, electronic Fake Orgasm sound keyrings, candy underwear and a bunch of other adult-orientated toys and games (they call that "vuxenleksaker"; literally "adult playthings"). Next time I buy something from there, it'll be a remote controlled helicopter, a USB cable, and that nice Anal Intruder on page 154.

Standing up

2007-09-21T14:21:00.001+02:00

Standing up
Originally uploaded by Allure + Desire

Have a dekko at this lovely picture by "Allure + Desire" on Flickr. Yumsome! He's one of my favorite photographers for the "arty farty" shots in Flickrland. Normally I'm more of an arse person (as most of my friends know), so expect a few postings on here when I see some good ones of those - but I just love the lighting on this photo!

Mastering Swedish Mini Series

2007-09-21T08:27:00.000+02:00

Every now and then, I come across a Swedish phrase that makes me giggle, especially when I've learnt a new word which makes that phrase understandable.

If I come across a phrase or word, I'm going to go ahead and print it here as a Blog entry (I'll tag it for easier reference).

So here's the first one. It comes from an interview that the Swedish Metro daily newspaper had with Per Morberg, a classically-trained Swedish actor that now has his own cookery show, with a unique style:

"Samma jävla skit varenda gång."

[It's the] same fucking shit every time.

Perfect!

International Talk Like a Pirate Day, YAARRRR!

2007-09-20T12:25:00.000+02:00

Ahoy me hearties!

Yesterday was the aforementioned ITLaPD, which happened to fall on a Wednesday, when I broadcast a show for SLAY Radio. However, originally I was going to miss it because I had decided to skip at least one week, while finding out how much homework I was going to get from the Swedish lessons. When we didn't get any, I decided to broadcast a show anyway, and -- of course -- I had to mention Pirate Day pretty much all the way through the show.

If you missed it, you can listen again by downloading the MP3 from here.

Jag läsa svenska

2007-09-18T21:53:00.000+02:00

So, I had my first Swedish lesson this evening, at 17:30 just after work. I am learning it with two of my colleagues, Amanda (an Australian) and Jeff (a Canadian). There are 20 of us in the class, most of them students at Chalmers from all over the world (USA, Japan, Germany, Latvia, Russia), but also a guy working for Volvo and a couple other international companies.

The first lesson went really well, and I'm champing at the bit for the next lesson. Of course, somewhere in the middle of the course I'm probably going to be cursing it and getting frustrated that I'm getting things wrong, but starting the lesson off with enthusiasm is always good.

Jag heter Alistair. Jag är inte gift, men jag har en flickvän. Jag jobber i göteborg på Lavasoft. Jag kommer från England och jag pratar englesk och lite svenska.

That's kind of the stuff we learnt in the first lesson, plus spelling our names. For those who are curious: My name is Alistair. I'm not married, but I have a girlfriend. I work in Gothenburg for Lavasoft. I come from England and I speak English and a little Swedish.

Simple huh? Well, for the first lesson, I guess so...

Radio 1: Established 1967

2007-09-18T09:53:00.000+02:00

I think just about everyone has heard of the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation, or "Beeb" for short). As well as high quality programs, they're well-renowned for their superior news sector.

One radio station that I still listen to in Sweden is BBC Radio 1, mainly aimed towards a young audience with chart music and new breaking tunes. I know I'm no spring chicken, but I was brought up listening to this station and I remember the likes of Simon "Batty" Bates (with Our Tune and the Golden Hour - "But what was the year?"), DLT (Dave Lee Travis), Steve Wright, Simon Mayo, Mark and Lard ("STOP!"... "Carry on!") and, the current self-proclaimed "saviour of Radio 1", Chris Moyles, whose show is the only one I listen to nowadays.

The station is coming up to its 40th birthday, and to celebrate, they are running a compaign called "Radio 1: Established 1967" (a bit long winded, but apparently it's not as crusty as saying "We're 40 years old, y'know!"). Celebrities and past DJs will be coming on board to do special shows - for instance, the first DJ to be heard was Tony Blackburn on the breakfast show and he will be co-hosting with the current Breakfast Show host, Chris Moyles. It's going to be great to reminisce for a while and, if you live in the UK and listened to Radio 1 at any point - or even if you didn't - I think it's going to be well worth "tuning in".

For more information, go to http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/established1967/

Oh, and thankfully Radio 1 have "Listen Again" on t'Internet, which is how I can listen to it here in Sweden. Nice!

Update: I just have to tell you that Chris Moyles has resurrected The Golden Hour (Butch And Sincere, "But What Was The Year?"), where they play two half-hour slots, each half-hour filled with songs from one particular year; and you can (just for fun) text in what you think it is and play along. It was one of the most popular slots of Radio 1 in the breakfast show when it was hosted by Simon Bates (and I think Simon Mayo carried it on, IIRC). It's on between 9am and 10am (UK time). It's mint!

The Sweetest Thing... boggles the mind

2007-09-17T10:59:00.000+02:00

I'm back at work today, after a relatively quiet weekend. I actually took the opportunity to start tidying up the flat. I'm a bit of a hoarder, so I have a lot of crap hanging around. When I move next time (which will happen sometime in the future), I don't want to have to lug around quite so many moving boxes.

We actually went out for a walk on Saturday afternoon, as we were both getting a bit stir crazy; we took a tram into town and went to Järntorget (literally "Iron Square"), an older part of town, and onto Linnégatan. Then we just went home and watched a video.

On Sunday, we hung around and then drove back to Linda's for a walk and a relax. We hired a couple of DVDs out: Finding Nemo (which Linda still hadn't seen) and The Sweetest Thing, a chick-flick with Cameron Diaz. Oh my God. It's one of the most bizarre films I've ever seen. A third of the way through the song, they break out into a Fame-style song and dance, singing "Your dick is too big" to the tune of I'm Too Sexy. Then there's a "Movie Montage" where they dress up as film stars. Then they sing the tune to Armageddon while one of the girls is stuck in fellatio with her boyfriend (because her tonsils are stuck to his piercing). It's... just... wrong.

Anyway, after an uneventful train trip back to Gothenburg, I'm back at work, getting myself up to speed with everything. I'm left with an 80-cigarette-a-day cough though...

It's that time of the year again...

2007-09-15T08:40:00.000+02:00

Yes, the transition between Summer and Autumn (or Fall) is when most people get a cold. Linda and I are no exception. Linda excused herself from work halfway through Tuesday. I suddenly started having that feeling - when you know you're going to get a cold - halfway through Wednesday, but I struggled on. I did a show as usual but I was really battling. Thursday morning, it had taken full hold of me.

Linda was still off work, so she managed to find a scrap of energy and drive down to mine, with Åke, so that we could be in pain and misery together.

It's Saturday morning now, and I've developed a cough from yesterday. I decided to get up at 8am, just so that Linda could have a few hours' decent sleep without me sounding like a 60-cigarettes-a-day smoker in her lughole.

I'm feeling a bit better today, which is good; today and Sunday should see me ready to get back to work on Monday, and of course, ready for the first Swedish lesson on Tuesday!

Sign o' the Times

2007-09-07T09:46:00.000+02:00

BBC News have just posted an item about a programme they're going to be showing on television, about citizens' opinions on whether the UK is in a "moral decline". Unfortunately, the summary shows that most people think so.

This is, of course, one of the reasons I left the UK in the first place. I was finding it more and more difficult to be happy in a place where nobody really seems to care about their neighbours any more, the government keep promising to do something about it, but they seem to be clueless themselves, setting up "citizen's juries" to find out what the "common person" would do - more ammunition to those who say that Labour are out of touch with the nation. Social integration is also deterioating between native Brits and immigrants, and it's my opinion that this is in no small part because of so much negative press in the daily "Red Tops" (The Sun, The Mirror et al). Of course, the press is always supposed to be neutral, but I've noticed they're very clever in walking the tightrope between comment and opinion, giving White Van Man (the average Red Top reader) subliminal anti-comments without being blatant.

I'm not saying Sweden is Utopia, of course. There's social integration problems here too (as an example, this item on The Local, Sweden's news in English). But the nation, in general, are a tolerant people in my experience, and friendly (once you get them over their initial shy silence). The taxes, although high, guarantee a first-class "cradle to grave" system where the government looks after you at certain critical points in life (their parental leave policy, for instance, is generous) and as an offset, renting / mortgages are cheaper, so not as much is drained out of your monthly wage.

I would be interested to see the BBC programme in full, but I doubt I can. If anyone sees it, let me know your opinions on it.

What Was That About "No Rushing?"

2007-08-14T12:31:00.000+02:00

It seems very unusual for me to post two blogs in relatively quick succession, but I find it necessary in this circumstance.

I distinctly remember typing along the lines of "me and the lady are dating; no rushing". So, forgive me if I'm a little light-headed right now.

Linda ("the lady" in question) was in göteborg this past weekend, ostensibly to meet up with an old pal of hers whom she hadn't seen for a donkey's age. We talked about "maybe meeting up if there was enough time" but I had assumed that, because of the length of time between them seeing each other before, there wouldn't be much of a chance. That's fine, I would be seeing her this coming weekend anyway.

"Imagine my surprise," as they say in the Letters column of your dreary local newspaper, when I got a phonecall asking if I was free of a Saturday evening, and would I like to come over to a restaurant and hang out with Linda, her long-time friend and some assorted other people who didn't have other Saturday plans already in place. "Sure," I said. My Saturdays of late have been a regular sequence of listening to SLAY Radio, then going to Kville Biljard and playing pool with whoever was available. Enjoyable as it is, sometimes one would like one's Saturday evenings to be a little bit "different".

The evening began as any restaurant-based evening is wont to do: smalltalk, a few drinks, a meal after some time had passed. Replete from our plates of (admittedly very tasty) food, we carried on talking. However, at some point, Linda and I both noticed that we were really only talking to each other; the other guests were sitting next to us but had been blurred out by our minds. Then, "the moment" happened. We stopped talking and just looked at each other for a few minutes. "Why the hell did we split up", was the unspoken question.

A lot of the rest of the weekend was unspoken, too. Suffice to say that Linda and I are now back together, stronger than ever and [insert favourite "spend rest of lives" style quip, cliché, rhetoric or otherwise].

"Life is just a bowl of toenails," as someone once sang. Although I may have paraphrased slightly. And I've just started the previous sentence with a conjunction. And that one. Damn it.

Normal Service Will Be Resumed...

2007-08-10T12:30:00.000+02:00

Well. That was quite a number of months wandering around in the wild.

It seems that I was a lot more depressed than I thought I was, looking back. But when you're there, you're kind of numb to it all. That's one of the reasons I haven't Blogged for so long.

Work was drying up, me and the lady had split up, and I was caught up in that horrible "don't want to see anyone but why doesn't anyone ask me out for a drink" Catch 22 situation. I was seriously considering being "yeller", packing my bags and moving back to ol' Blighty.

Then at the end of June, I got a job. A proper, paid, regular 9-to-5 job as a programmer.

Things have definitely changed in the month or so. I see my colleagues every day - human contact at last! Working for yourself - especially in the kind of job I had - tends to make you stir crazy, which in my state a while back compounded the problem. I've also just enrolled for Swedish lessons, something I should have done a long time ago. But in September, I start learning the lingo. It's an intensive 6-week, 2 lessons a week course, held at folkuniversetet. All being well, after the course I'll take a little break, then sign up for the follow-on intermediate course.

Oh, and me and the lady are dating again. No rushing, just taking it nice and slow.

Yep, it was pretty bad, looking back. But now I'm looking forward again.

Huzzah!

2007-02-28T12:30:00.000+01:00

Well, it took 'em almost 5 months in total, but I finally have a telephone line and ADSL!

I received a call on my mobile yesterday afternoon at 15:00 from the engineer, saying that he had fixed the ADSL. Apparently he had been there since 9:00 in the morning trying to fix it. Whoever had been appointed to switch my line on in the first place had botched the job up so much, that this engineer was a little surprised that I actually had a phone line at all!

I celebrated this fact by sitting on Slaygon's sofa and carrying on working, not wanting to come home and find that said engineer was actually lying -- not that he would want to, just that I have become cynical about this whole sorry situation. But as soon as I finally plucked up the courage to come back here (about 18:00), I found that he was in fact telling the truth, and I celebrated by broadcasting an impromptu show on SLAY Radio!

So I'm sitting here in my robe, looking out of my own window and noticing that it's snowing here in Gothenburg again. I have to visit Slaygon's flat with by backpack, to bring my laptop back... but I think it can wait a few hours!

+++NO CARRIER

2007-02-20T01:29:00.000+01:00

My ADSL connection was due to be switched on last Tuesday (13th). But, as you have probably guessed, it wasn't. The line has been connected, but they have neglected to "sync the modem", whatever the hell that means. I've been phoning them since that day, and basically they were saying that we have to wait for Telia's engineers to do it (Telia "own" the phonelines themselves).

But thankfully, something positive is being done now. I got through to a guy who was just as annoyed as I was, and promised to raise a Support Ticket. "Unfortunately," he said, "it looks like it is definitely a problem at the local exchange station, which means you'll have to wait another few days while we assign a local engineer". But at least he was being honest with me. We tried a few things that I could try with my modem, but to no avail. What gave me the positive vibe was that he actually phoned me back about 15 minutes after our initial conversation, to confirm that he had assigned a Support Ticket for me, and gave me the reference number so I can track it.

So, I'm still hot-footing it to Slaygon's every day while we wait another few days. Still, onwards and upwards eh?!

Treading Water

2007-01-30T22:26:00.000+01:00

It was time for me to host another DJ session at the Kville Biljard last Saturday (27th), running from 21:00 through to closing time at 01:00 in the morning. It was a bit weird this time, though. Firstly, it was a different crowd. When I last played there, we had people of all ages in; so I was able to do a great mix of stuff right from the 1970s up to present time. This time, however, it was mainly people with an oldest age of mid-twenties. Therefore I had to resort to "Plan B". This involves me screwing up my "fall-back playlist" and making everything up, mainly present-day stuff which -- in my ever so humble opinion -- doesn't work in a biljard. They're repetitive and boring - great for a dance hall but not for people playing pool.

The aforementioned "fall-back playlist" is just a piece of paper with some "classics" on it, so if my brain has a "dunno what to play" moment, I can just play something from the paper. Not so this time!

The second problem was that I'm suffering from DMF at the moment. If you don't know what that is, it's "Deadly Man Flu", which is the male version of the common cold. Most men collapse into a gibbering wreck when they catch it and become convinced that they're about to die. Actually, I usually try and ignore it. This is actually too far in the other extreme, because if you just try and work through it, it will actually get worse. Anyway, I'm taking it easy now, but having to work through it while DJing is actually very weird; I was having an "out of body" experience for most of the time. But, I got through it, so no worries.

I treated myself to a Bolognese last night, to help me through my DMF (bolognese actually being a "ragu" as the Italians would call it). I cheat by using a jar of Dolmio, but then I add my own onion, red pepper and garlic. I also added chilli to the whole thing, making it a sort of Chili Ragu Con Carne or something! But I made it nice and hot to clear my airwaves. It did the trick a little too well though. I like my food hot (spice-wise), and I overdid it slightly. My nose was certainly running afterwards; but unfortunately something else was running too . Cue appropriate "Ring of Fire" song by Johnny Cash! The rest of the night saw me desparately trying to avoid sneezing!

I'll be doing my usual SLAY Radio show tomorrow evening, even if the cold hasn't gone away. I'm a consummate professional y'know! (read: Idiot.)

Snö, w00t!

2007-01-22T12:23:00.000+01:00

It finally happened on Saturday - we had snow in Gothenbug! Yay! I say "yay" because we actually need it here. Instead of snowing, it's been raining a lot since winter crept in; because of this, there have been lots of floods where rivers have been bursting their banks. Snow is the lesser of the two evils.

Plus, snow has a psychological side, too, as Martin (one of the bar staff at Kville Biljard) reminded me: winter is always a dismal month, and when it's dull and wet, it compounds the miserable feeling that everyone has. When there's snow on the ground, however, it brightens the evenings up and lifts peoples' spirits.

Unfortunately, it only lasted about five hours. Snow turned to hail which turned to rain, and melted all the snow again. But today (Monday), it's seriously trying to snow again - the flakes are very small, there's not many of them and they're fluttering down very slowly, but it's trying at least. Let's hope it settles soon. Or, let's just skip winter and get to Spring

The ADSL saga continues, but in a positive way - sort of! I've finally got my phone line! Unfortunately I had to wait while the ADSL department's database "synched up" with the telephone department, so that was a week's worth of thumb-twiddling. Then I finally placed my order for ADSL last Thursday. Now, thanks to their stupid automated system (and the fact that they don't want to help me out, even after all the problem's I've had), I now have to wait "4-6 weeks" before I get the connection. Poo! But at least it's on it's way, I suppose.

Ups and Downs

2007-01-08T21:00:00.000+01:00

t's been exactly a month since I last wrote an entry, such is my "habit" of writing a blog! What's been happening? Well, instead of trying to do it chronologically, I'll just do it by topic.

The Christmas period has come and gone, and plans changed at the last minute for various reasons. Instead of me spending Christmas in England and Linda spending it with her maternal grandparents in Norway, we decided to have a quiet Christmas together. So, I went over to England a week early instead. But because of having to see lots of family, I didn't get to see everyone I wanted to, so Linda and I will be going over to England around March time. But it was all good. I got to see my grandmother who is now 90 years old, bless her. And Linda and I had a lovely time. For New Year, we were in Gothenburg with some friends. It was quiet and grown up - well, until we drank a lot of beer, champagne, G&T and wine!

The Tele2 story continues, but has taken a significant step forward - earlier today, in fact. An engineer came round and fixed the line. There was a fault (which had actually started going wrong when Linda had the flat), and because it's owned by Telia, Tele2 were waiting for them (Telia are the BT of Sweden - I rest my case). BUT, now I have a working telephone line! Tomorrow Tele2 should be phoning me about the ADSL - but I can see myself having to phone them. After all, the engineer was supposed to phone me last Friday to confirm the time of the appointment, but didn't. He phoned me at 9:00 this morning saying he was outside my door. "That's a shame," I said, "I'm in Trollhättan. You were supposed to phone me on Friday," I added, pointedly.

"Oh." said the engineer. "When will you be back?"

"Two o'clock," I said.

"Oh. I'll come then."

"Do that," I said. Thankfully he kept his promise and fixed the line within 20 minutes.

Expanding on that note, I was in Trollhättan this weekend. I was supposed to be in Gothenburg doing a DJ set at the biljard, but Linda had a bit of a fever so I cancelled and went over there. She could have survived without me, really, but several things happened to me since the new year, including something that happened on Saturday morning. It just made it easier for me to run off.

There is a preamble I wanted to add to this blog, but for legal reasons, I'll keep it out for now.

On Saturday morning at 7:30am, I was woken up by some bloke visiting my next door neighbour, and being none-too-quiet about it. Next door neighbour had already left at around 5am (I know because I heard the noisy bastard). After a couple of minutes of banging on the door, he walked off. However, after about 10 minutes, I was dropping off to sleep, and was suddenly woken up again by a few big bangs and clattering. Then the bloke came storming up the stairs again with one or two of his friends, banged on the door again, shouting through his letterbox. Then banging MY door and shouting through MY letterbox again to see if he was here. After another 5 or so minutes of that, they went downstairs again, shouting loudly in frustration.

When I went downstairs later in the day, I found that the banging was that they had tipped all the bins over, and smashed the window to the door that served our stairwell. That was it for me. After consultation with Linda, we phoned the landlord up and told him that said neighbour has to go. At which point I also went to Trollhättan to get away from it all and have a quiet weekend with Linda.

When I came back today, it's all very quiet in the neighbour's place. I'm assuming he's laying low for a bit.

Anyway, that's the main points of my life over the past month. Let's see what happens next, eh?!

Almost finished...

2006-12-09T05:00:00.000+01:00

Well, what a time I've had recently!

I've been in Linda's old flat for a few weeks now, and up until last week it was still looking like a bomb had dropped on it. I had set up some of the living room, but going to Slaygon's to work and then coming back home to the mess, I just couldn't be bothered to do anything with it. Linda came to the rescue though.

Last week I was suddenly immersed in a project, for the Swedish Idol 2006, to allow users to download the wallpapers and ringtones of the finalists. It was a normal web site, with accompanying WAP site. Now, I've never really done any WAP sites before; so I had to learn to technologies as well as design the sites - all in one week! So it was a bit of a rush-job, but I managed to get it done in time, thankfully.

Linda was in Stockholm for a few days for some lectures, and she came back to mine on Wednesday evening. On Thursday, I had to take some time out with her to do the last-minute cleaning up at fnord's old flat, as the inspection was on the next day. And then on Friday, Linda had set my phone alarm for 7:30, whereupon she said "right; go have a shower and get to Slaygon's, then don't come back until 6!" So, off I went, and I got an SMS at 5:50 asking me to come home. Linda had cleaned the whole place up from top to toe! She'd evening got some candles going for some added romance. She'd done a brilliant job, and now the flat feels nice to come home to.

This week has been weird - The stress from the week before finally caught up with me and I've been very tired. My BBB show suffered from it as well. Noir (who is in Gothenburg visiting friends and family), Hayley and Defiance joined me and Slaygon; so having people in the room kept me going, but I think that if I was on my own, I would have cancelled the show.

So, I decided on the night that I will do one last show this year, next Wednesday. I'm looking forward to doing a good show to end on, and then I'll recharge my batteries for a few weeks and come back alive 'n kicking!

The plans for Christmas have changed, but that's after Linda and I had a chat about it all. Normally Linda would go to her grandparents, and I would go home. But we decided we wanted to spend Christmas together at her flat in Trollhättan. So she's going to inform her grandparents, and I'm going to England next week, for only a week. It means I'm not going to see everyone I wanted to, but I really need this vacation to wind-down, rather than zoom around the whole of England trying to see as many people as possible. Linda and I have decided to go to England next year anyway; so this vacation will be to visit family.

I'll try and fit in another Blog before the end of the year; but if not, I would like to wish you all a very Merry Christmas, and I hope 2007 brings you all that you wish for.

Never again...

2006-11-22T08:24:00.000+01:00

Well, I've said it before, but this time I think I mean it: next time I move, I'm getting professional movers in. I've only ever done it once, and that's when I was moving here to Sweden (as there wasn't another easy choice) and that went well, even though they were just moving the boxes into a storage facility at the time. As mentioned on a previous blog, we were moving twice on one day - something in hindsight we definitely shouldn't have done. We finished at something like 9:45pm, and rushed to the biljard to at least have something to eat. We were absolutely knackered - moving my stuff down three flights of stairs, a 400 meter drive and then walking up three fights of stairs was just too much.

But, it's over and we moved now. Linda has come over the past couple of weekends to visit; once she has an internet connection I'll be going back up with her and spending a couple of days there.

Speaking of internet... Tele2 - despite being recommended by several people - have really dropped the ball on getting my phone line sorted. As mentioned in the previous blog, they had "lost" me and said they'd send a new contract "straight away". Well, last Thursday I still hadn't received anything. After phoning them AGAIN and explaining that I've already moved, the girl on the line said she'd send a new contract out priority post. I finally got it yesterday -- and it was EXACTLY the same piece of paper I had originally got! So... I've sent the new contract back to them, and let's hope it works this time. After that, of course, there's still another 10 working days before they can even switch on the ADSL connection; so I'll continue walking to Slaygon's to work each day.

The important stuff is unboxed now; but I haven't carried on, so I still have a load of boxes around. On top of that, I need to do the final clearing up in the old flat, as that will have new tenants from December.

So, a few odds and ends but it's getting there. I like the new flat - all the rooms are slightly smaller (except for the bedroom and bathroom), but squarer as well which I like - and it has a bath!

Marcel Donné came to visit and stayed at Slaygon's this weekend, so I managed to see him too. It's been a year since I've seen him last so it was good to catch up. Plus we found a new favorite restaurant - Tilda's, which is a five minute walk away. Excellent, excellent food and we still don't know why we hadn't tried it before! Methinks we'll be going again!

A man on the edge...

2006-11-03T08:25:00.000+01:00

GAH!

This weekend sees the Big Move, where Linda moves to Trollhättan, and I move to her flat, which is about 400 meters from where I live now. The first task is to move everything down from Linda's old flat and convoy out to Trollhättan, so that her old flat is free. It's also the "longest" move because THN is about an hours' drive away. Then we'll come back, pack the van with my stuff here and drive all of 400 meters to unload the stuff. I know, it's only 400 meters... but it's 400 meters, and there's a main road to navigate.

Of course, there's always glitches to these things. Tele2 is the company I've chosen as my telco, mainly because Linda uses them already, and they seem pretty good - or at least, they DID. Until I phoned them this week to ask if everything was OK and my application (which I had send two weeks ago) was approved. It seems they had "lost" me in the system somewhere, and had no record that I wanted a telephone line, let alone an ADSL connection. So, after being handed around to three different people, the contract was sent out again. I was hoping it would arrive today, but it hasn't. I bloody well hope it arrives tomorrow - and even then, I'm not going to get the phone line or ADSL in time. In the meantime, I'm either going to have to walk back to this flat with my laptop in my rucksack (as technically I move out of here on the 15th), or I'm going to have to ask Slaygon very nicely if I can work from his in the daytime.

This also means that BBB, my radio show, is looking a bit dodgy, although I did speak to Slaygon about that and I will probably be able to do the show from there. It will be a different show, as I won't have the sound effects and stuff that I use -- but that, actually, is a good thing. When I moved over here, I was doing the shows from Slaygon's in the first place, and I didn't rely on so much effects, just me talking bollocks. So this will be a good experiment to see what the listeners think and do an A/B comparison.

My faith in humanity dropped a bit this week, too. I went to the biljard with Slaygon on Tuesday. We left the table for a few minutes, and when I got back, someone had stolen my expensive jumper that I love wearing. I mean, a JUMPER for chrissakes! I would have understood - although I'd be very angry - if they'd have nicked the cue that I got for my birthday (which was on the table), but a jumper? And this was before the cold snap that we're in at the moment. It was mild and only drizzling slightly. Unbelievable.

Yes, we're going through a cold snap at the moment. It's been quite mild recently, until Tuesday evening when it suddenly snowed. Wednesday's temperature was -2°C, and today's has been on the zero. Luckily I have my Mafia Coat, which keeps me nice and warm.

Anyway, I have to pack a few more bits and pieces before heading off to Linda's. (That's also a source of anxiety - whether I finish in time.) I might try and add a quick addendum tomorrow before packing my PC up - failing that, I'll look for an internet connection somwehere...

Oh, and before I go, here's an Apple keyboard that I've "altered" a bit. See if you can see what's happened...

Well, I'll go to t' foot of t' stairs...

2006-10-07T04:30:00.000+02:00

It's been a week since my birthday, and a number of things have happened.

First off, the "quiet round of pool" that was supposed to happen last Friday was hijacked by my sneak of a girlfriend, Linda. "Come over to mine first," she texted me, "to open your card!" So, I wandered over and was led into the kitchen... to find a load of people in there shouting "SURPRISE!". A minute later, there was a knock on the door, and there was Skitz, along with Nick and Ellie! All I could manage to say to Skitz was "Whaddayawant?", so much in shock was I.

So, I had a great time on Friday, drinking with friends old and new, and we went to the biljard afterwards, too.

Ellie, Skitz and Nick stayed until Monday afternoon, so we spent a couple more nights at the biljard, and generally chilled out as well; so the whole weekend turned out to be fantastic.

Linda, Slaygon and Lisa had all chipped in to buy me a voucher to get my very own pool cue, and I chose it last night. To the right is me with a slightly demonic look, holding my stick in my hand (fnar). I like the "flame" design on it.

I also got a teddy bear with a customised message on it from Ellie and Nick (complete with Geordie accent!), a book on how to speak Geordie (that's the accent that Newcastle people speak, if you didn't know) from Ellie, and Nick gave me a DJ mixer... for kids! But it has some class sound effects on it! Ellie also brought along my Emergency Supplies as well - Bombay Bad Boy Hot Noodles, Pork Crackles and Black Peperami (the hottest!) -- three things I miss from England (but also the reason why I have lost weight!).

Other than that, it's back to normal. I'm a year older, but not wiser!

Ups and Downs

2006-09-29T05:30:00.000+02:00

It's been a strange week, or a little under actually.

The thing that started it was Sunday. Linda and I went to the Tower Café. It's basically how it's described - a little café on top of a tower (I don't know what the tower is for, actually), and you get a great view of Gothenburg. We had raspberry pie with ice cream and custard (or vaniljsås, as the Swedes call it) with come café latte. Then we had a little walk by a nearby beach, because it had been a remarkably nice sunny day.

Then we went back to Linda's, the plan being that she picked her work clothes up and we go back to mine, as I was catching a plane on Monday morning (more on that later). It was by pure chance, then, that I was in the kitchen and I heard Kittypoo meow. But, it didn't sound like it was coming from inside the house, so I leant over the kitchen window, and there was Kittypoo, outside, looking up at me. "Oh God," I immediately said to Linda, "Kitty has fallen out of the window," to which Linda ran down the stairs, picked him up and brought him back in.

He was in bad shape - Linda lives on the third floor (or second floor if you count the first floor as "ground"). He was limping badly, trying not to put pressure on his left hind leg; his body was twisted slightly, he was in shock and very "distant". Linda immediately phoned her boss to say she was having Monday off, and we looked after him the best we could. (I went back to mine briefly to pack my case, but came back.)

Linda took me to the airport on Monday morning and went back to the house. After all of my travelling to England, I got an SMS - Linda had taken Kittypoo to the vet, but he had to be put down. Linda was in tears and I felt useless because I was in England. She knew I had to go and was fine with it, but still... you know what I mean.

So... Kittypoo has passed away. I know I called him a little git and pissed on his head, but he was still Linda's pet, and the poor thing had to go like that, injuries because of a long fall.

Anyway... the reason I was in England was that I had a business meeting. I was there from Monday to Wednesday - it was a flying visit and I didn't get a chance to see anyone at all - not even those in London. It's a shame that I didn't have time, but hopefully soon I'll meet up with the gang again. I didn't particularly like the journey either - just felt "rushed", and because Linda was hurting, that didn't help either. But Linda had a conference in Stockholm too, so she's away until later on tonight. I got back at 9:30 last night, much to my relief. I went to see if Åke (Linda's big cat) was ok and spent a little time with him.

My mum phoned me earlier too. She was hoping to wait until my birthday (which is tomorrow), but she had to tell me that John (my step-dad) had had an angiogram - that's where they use a camera to check your arteries. It was lucky they did - John has two bloked arteries, so only one was working. He could have had a heart attack. So, they've kept him in and are operating on him today.

They have two choices, depending on where exactly the clogs are: implant a couple of stents, or bypass surgery. A stent is a plastic tube that acts like an artery. They would open up the clog, and put the stent in there, to keep the artery open. The alternative - bypass surgery - well, you know what that is, so we're hoping the stents will do the trick -- especially because John was supposed to be having his eye operation next week.

As previously mentioned, it's my birthday tomorrow. It will be no surprise if I find myself at the Kville Biljard in the evening . We will probably go into town on Saturday, too, just to keep the celebrations going. Linda has promised to cook me "English" breakfast on Saturday and Sunday mornings too, which will be nice! (That's bacon, sausage, eggs, beans... actually it's technically called "London Fry-up" because Full English has a few other bits.)

So, happy birthday (glad födelsedag) to me for tomorrow. This may sound a bit "grumpy old man", but I'll be glad to have something else to focus on, after this pretty shitty week.

Almost Swedish

2006-09-16T03:20:00.000+02:00

It's been a while since I've added something to this blog -- mainly because Im a lazy sod who always forgets!

Yesterday, I received a letter through the post from Skatteverket (the tax office) - and I have finally received my "proper" personnummer! This is almost the final step of making me a real Swedish resident! All I have to do now is go to a bank or post office with this form, my passport and a couple of passport photos and I will get my ID Card, and I will be fully integrated!

The only major step now is to learn Swedish - the basics to make myself semi-understood anyway. There's still the SFI (Svenskundervisning För Invandrare, or Swedish For Immigrants), but that's a one- to two-year course; it's free (run by the government) but the length is because it has to cater for the "lowest common denominator", i.e. people who are less able to learn a language. The alternative -- and the one I'm probably going to take -- is an intensive six-week course run by "folkuniversitetet" (The People's University). There are two lessons per week, each running for two hours and 15 minutes. Although it will be full-on, I think this will work better for me to saturate my brain with Swedish.

Linda's grown-up cat, Åke, had a bit of a scare last week. On Saturday, we noticed that he couldn't sit down properly and was waddling rather than walking. Linda phoned up the vet and took him down, and they received him immediately. The poor thing couldn't pee; his bladder was apparently the size of an orange and he was in danger. Thankfully they drained him out and he spent a couple of days there. He's back now -- a little lethargic but healthy. Shittypoo (as you'll recall from previous blogs) is still a little bastard, and he has two big hairy balls, so I think it will soon be time for a "Tchaikovsky" (Nutcracker Suite, geddit?!) before he starts humping everything in sight and spraying over everything to stake his area.

My old mates Lee and Mez came to visit last month, too. They did a little bit of touring around Gothenburg, and we went drinking (of course) as well. A throroughly good time had by all, I think!

I've also been helping K. out at work. He works at a "gymnasium" (college) specialising in I.T. (websites, databases, media, etc) and the college has just moved location. This means that the students' laptops needed to be re-installed, and there's a hell of a lot of them. So I was drafted in to do that. Being young students (of ages 16-19), they've just come out of high school and their English is still fresh in their brains, so I had no problem talking to them. One bright spark passed his laptop to me, ran into the corridor and proclaimed, "Take it easy, guys... he's English!", much to my amusement!

Linda is moving away to Trollhättan on November 1st. The main two reasons are that she works there, and commuting every day is taking it's toll on her a bit. She's always tired because of the long hours and the type of job she does, and she has to get up at 5:30 every morning just to get ready and catch the train (or drive), so moving into the same town will be perfect. The second reason is that her grandparents are helping her buy the flat (yes, she's setting foot on the property ladder!). There's also the fact that the sub-lease on this flat that I'm in runs out in November, too, and I need to move (because of the way that landlords work here). So, I can move into Linda's flat when she moves.

Now, the downside to all of this is that her and I are going to be in different towns. But we've had a good long talk about it all, and it's not as bad as it seems, especially because of this intenstive Swedish course I want to do. She can still drive down here for the weekends, and I can go up with her and do my work on my laptop on Mondays and Tuesdays. Then I can take a train back down here for the first lesson, be here on Wednesday for my radio show, and then do the lesson on Thursday. So, we'll be apart for three days (which will take a little getting used to) but we'll still have an extended weekend together, so it will work out.

And that's my recent happenings! I think I'll lie down now, I'm not used to writing this much in one go!

Step dad and Visitations

2006-06-28T08:28:00.000+02:00

Blimey, it's been a while since I've written something in here. Suppose I'll have to rectify it

My mum and step-dad are on vacation at the moment, in a county called Dorset, which has a number of seaside resorts. Then they fly over here at the end of the weekend to visit me for a few days: this will be their first visit, so they're looking forward to it as much as I am! Then they'll fly back to find out what day John (that's step-dad's name) goes back to the hospital.

John has had the follow-up consultation after his operation; but unfortunately, the tumour hasn't disappeared. So there are now two more options. The first one is an operation where -- and I won't go into too much detail here just in case you're a bit squeamish -- they basically use a mini vacuum cleaner to try and suck the tumour out.

Failing that, it will mean a complete removal of the eye and a "glass eye" fitted (although I doubt they use real glass nowadays). So, we will just have to wait and see whether the vacuum idea works, and we'll find that out over the next month.

In the meantime, they're keeping in good spirits; they're determined to enjoy their vacation and it'll be good to see them over here in a few days' time!

Slaygon and Ziza are on their way back after a long trans-Europe trek. They'll be knackered but happy, and we shall no doubt meet up for a good old chat about it tomorrow.

Next weekend, of course, is the SLAY Radio Gathering, where all the listeners and DJs meet up together. I'm not doing my show next Wednesday; instead, Ziphoid and I are doing a joint show on Thursday. Then we'll have the "unofficially official" pre-Gathering drinks on Friday evening, after some of my English mates fly over. Then it's the actual day on Saturday. In the daytime we're having a barbecue at Keillers Park (weather permitting!), and then in the evening we have the private room booked at the pool hall (Biljard). More information here.

My step dad

2006-06-27T03:15:00.000+02:00

My mum phoned me today, to tell me that John, her husband of two years and my step-dad (obviously) went for his yearly check up. About 10 years ago, they spotted a cancerous growth behind his eye, so they performed raiotherapy on it and it seemed to do the trick, albeit that he only has something like 10% vision in that eye.

He's been going for a check-up once a year from that point, and everything seemed to be going fine, until this year's. They found two tumours, offshoots from the original, one right behind the eye and one around the side. There were two choices: [1] Removal, which meant freezing the one at the back and laser-shooting the one on the side, or [2] remove the eye completely. After a consultation, they decided on surgery, and he had it on Friday.

He has the follow-up checkup in a month's time, so let's hope it did the trick. If not, then we hope at least that they haven't grown too fast, and they can just remove the eye (well, not "just" but you know what I mean).

Mum and John are visiting me at the end of July, and depending on when the hospital give him his appointment, he may have just had the checkup, or just before. But he's determined to come over anyway, bless him.

Fingers crossed... (or thumbs held, as they say here)...

I survived...

2006-06-20T22:00:00.000+02:00

Well... I got through it The parental units turned up at 17:00 on Wednesday after checking into their hotel. So we had a cuppa, then met Linda in town for a meal. Yep, she's met them too!

On Thursday we went to the archipelago in Saltholmen, where you use the ferry system to visit the series of small islands off the main coast. Absolutely beautiful; I was awestruck myself as I'd never been here. Definitely doing that again when my mum and step-dad are coming (more news on that below).

On Friday we went to the botanical gardens (Botaniska Trädgården), had a meal, and then visited Slottsskogen ("Castle Forest"), a park just over the road from the botanical garden. Then we had a meal with Slaygon, so now they've met the guy that had me sleeping in his living room for 5 months!

On Saturday, we went on the Paddan, a boat trip that lasts 50 minutes and takes you around the harbour and some of the river system in Gothenburg. Well worth a trip as the tour guide points some of the city's more prominent buildings and features out.

And then it was Sunday. A quick walk around Keillers Park, a snack, and then they were off to the airport! Very enjoyable.

My mum phoned me on Monday, and has already booked her time; she's coming at the end of July, just before the SLAY Radio Gathering. So, it'll be time to do it all again soon!

While I'm here, have a look at this link, which is a news item reported by the BBC that some people are branding Superman as "gay". Have a look at the headline and then the picture they use to show how not gay Superman is. Well, it's convinced me...

Argh! Parents!

2006-06-15T02:00:00.000+02:00

t's 15:50 in the afternoon, and my parents should have landed by now, and are probably in a taxi on the way here. Yes, they're visiting from today until Sunday. I have absolutely no idea what I'm going to do with them. Obviously, there's places I can take them, but I really don't know what they like.

When I say "parents", it's actually my dad and step-mum. My dad and mum split up when I was 5, and I stayed with mum, seeing my dad at the weekends. It's a sad fact of life that, although he's my dad, we've kind of grown apart, so I don't really know their likes and dislikes. But, I do have a small idea, so hopefully it will all work out.

Anyway, I'm off to wait for the phone call to say they're here! I'll be back soon...

Aw, what a cute... AARRGGHH!

2006-05-31T08:31:00.000+02:00

Look at this wickul kitty... aaawwww! Look at it... what a cute wickul puddy tat...

And it's a bloody nightmare too!

The missus had promised to take a kitten from her friend when it had been weened from his mother; so last Friday, she picks him up. His name is Torsten, which is an old Swedish name (it's like using the name "Alfred" or "Bert" in English), but she insists on calling him "Kittypoo" while he's so small and cute.

Being a kitten, of course, he likes to play and he has absolutely no training (except for litter training, which is a relief). So, hopefully you'll empathise with me (even if you're a woman) when I share a couple of moments with you. Imagine me in the Land of Nod, dreaming nice dreams and breathing deeply. Then imagine a bunch of needle-like claws pouncing onto my gonads. I'm sure you can image my first two words. Yes, that's right: "OW! FUCK!". The little fucker had crawled under the bedclothes and thought Little Boz would be an excellent toy for him to play with, while he waited for us to wake up.

He's a daft one alright. He even attacks the quilt cover, because it has dots on the pattern and he needs to paw them. He's even tried to suck my nipple, the confused little thing.

So... I agree with Linda that he's cute... when he's asleep. Which is hardly ever because he's full of energy, the little git. Bless 'im though

Finland FTW!

2006-05-23T06:00:00.000+02:00

Forgive me for basking in my own self-indulgence, but I'm in a very "I told you so" mood today.

Slaygon, Linda and I were having a few frames of pool, and Kville Biljard were showing the Eurovision finals. "Finland For The Win," I commented.

"No fucking way," said Slaygon, in his usual understated style.
"Fuck off!" said Linda, in her usual understated style.

The points started rolling in; and, after we got the stupid fucking pointless Political Voting out the way, it was clear that Finland were getting a big majority of The Big Three points (8, 10 or 12). At this point, S and L were getting slightly worried, but still in denial. "I'm not going to believe it if the Finns get this," said Slaygon (who, by the way, is actually a Finn).

Lo and Behold, at the end, Finland got a floor-clearing 292 points, 44 points clear of second-place Russia, I had to smirk a bit. "Un-fucking-believable" was all I got from S & L.

It was also good(?) to see that the UK did just about as good usual - 19th place out of a possible 24. Pfft.

But, there was one problem with Eurovision this year. I'm not a fan of it, but I love Terry Wogan's dry, sarcastic commentary on it. Living in Sweden now, I didn't get Wogan; just some generic Swede in Dull Voice (tm). It just won't be the same from now on. Which actually is good - I don't have any reason to watch that pile of poo any more.

Oh! And congrats to Sweden for beating previous holders Czech Republic 4-0, and therefore winning the ice hockey World Championship!

Me no likee Toilet Duck

2006-05-17T05:30:00.000+02:00

I've come to the decision that toilet rim blocks and me just don't get on. You know what I'm talking about - those gizmos that you hang over the toilet rim, so when you flush, they mix in with the newly-flushed water producing a nice deep green, or a deep blue (like the colour of women's periods, if I'm to believe the adverts).

But oh no, not me. Whenever I buy one, they always mix at such a low ratio that I get a Big Girl's Blouse light-blue colour. I can go to a friend's house and see a lovely Navy Blue. Hell, the toilet block that fnord left behind when I moved in here did a great job. But not me. Just a faint blue, like those pastel shirts that the teacher at school that you suspected was gay wore; which turns green as soon as you pee into it. No matter where I position it. If I was paranoid, I would have thought there was a conspiracy going on.

Spring has finished too. Today was decidedly undecided, weather-wise. I can feel it in my bones that it's going to piss it down tomorrow. Oh well, it was great while it lasted.

I'm a redneck!

2006-05-08T21:00:00.000+02:00

Blimey, I look like a Redneck!

Spring Has Sprung in Gothenburg, so Linda and I spent both Friday and Saturday evenings having a barbecue with Slaygon and Ziza at Keillers Park, eating dead meat and playing "Kubb", a "traditional" Swedish game where you throw sticks at your opponents' blocks of wood (and I'm over-simplifying here!). Then on Sunday, the missus and I had a picnic by the coastline and a stroll through the Botanical Gardens nearby.

This combination of staying out in the sun has left me with a neck and forehead that glows red! Proof that even in the springtime, the sun is strong enough to burn the skin - so remember kids, "Wear Sunblock"! But it's good to know that spring is here, and promises to be an environmentally damaging -- but great -- summer!

That tosspot who lived in a goldfish bowl for a week should be coming out soon, after trying to beat the record for holding his breath. Then we won't hear from him for another year - all being well anyway.

Oh, and while I'm at it, I've found a great internet-based radio station. Yes, I know I'm a DJ for SLAY Radio; but sometimes I need to listen to "real" music. Two Nations Gold plays the UK and USA's Top 40 records from the 60s, 70s and 80s (when music was music) and is a great station to have on when you're working or just chilling on the sofa.

What happened to April?

2006-05-03T08:33:00.000+02:00

Blimey, a whole month went by without me noticing it! Mind you, there was good reason I suppose.

Anyhoo; it was May Day yesterday and, like England, Sweden takes the Monday off. So a bunch of us got on a boat and sailed to Denmark, to the little port town of Frederikshavn. While there, we drank some beer (actually, we'd started on spirits while on the boat), ate a lovely Thai meal, then did some shopping for cheap booze. Then on the express boat back, we complimented our liquor with some beer. So, after the day, I came back with two crates of beer, a box of red wine, a box of white wine, some ten-year-old whiskey and some Raspberry Vodka. Yum!

Actually, the Raspberry Vodka was kind-of a drink to share with Linda. "Who?" you may be saying. Well... I seem to have acquired one of those female-type devices... er... girlfriends, I think they're called in Real Life. That's why I've been a bit quiet in the past month, as I've been busily buying lots of books along the lines of "Dating Real-Life Girls For Geeks". Actually, that's a lie; but we've obviously been dating, so that's why I've not been around. But I'm sure you'll join me in welcoming Linda to my life (but shhh! don't tell her how mental I am!)

Going back to the Denmark excursion for a moment, one of the other guys that came along noticed Slaygon wearing his SLAY Radio hoodie. "So, you listen to it as well then?" he asked, to which Slaygon informed him that he actually owns the station. "Ah," says the fellow, "I know it from all those Mastering Swedish lessons you've done!" Slaygon points to me at this point, of course, and says "There's the guy that you hear flailing." So, even on a boat to Denmark, there's a small chance you'll meet someone who's heard the Mastering Swedish lessons. And if you're wondering what they are, check out the page on SLAY Radio by clicking here.

In other news... I just read that the big-headed mentally unbalanced prestidigitating nonce David "Ooh look at me, I'm making people happy" Blaine has started his new hair-brained "stunt" of floating in a sphere of water for seven days, concluding with an attempt to beat the longest hold-your-breath-under-water record. Twat. More "infotainment" on the bastion of all news websites, BBC News.

Pfft, snow again!

2006-03-24T04:15:00.000+01:00

Can you adam 'n eve(*) it? It's snowing here in Gothenburg again... and it's supposed to be spring! Here's a picture I just took:

But it's lovely here when it snows. Here's some pictures taken at the end of January: Snow Gallery

(*)Adam 'n Eve is Cockney Rhyming slang for "believe". Every day's a school dy with Boz!

More Sticky Fingers and my Sports-Related Injury

2006-03-22T06:00:00.000+01:00

I didn't quite go into as much detail about Sticky Fingers as I wanted, but that was mainly because I was tired. There's a few songs that have particular dance moves; certainly in the UK anyway. We all know the YMCA moves - thankfully they didn't play that at SF though.

Another song is House Of Pain's "Jump Around"; when you get to the chorus, you jump around. The English Contingency did exactly that. Unfortunately, we were the only ones to do it, so we looked like complete weirdos. But, we didn't care, it's all good.

The other they played was "Blame It On The Boogie" by The Jackson Five. When it gets to the chorus, you "Don't blame it on the sunshine" (right hand in an arc over your head), "Don't blame it on the moonlight" (left hand sweeping right-to-left mimicking moonlight on the ocean), "Don't blame it on the good times" (thrusting your pelvis with arms holding imaginery partner), "Blame it on the boogie" (cheesy boogie dance). Again, none of the Swedes knew what hit them and we got a few bemused looks.

Another highlight was Mez dancing with arms up in the air to Queen's "Don't Stop Me Now", singing loudly along with it. And I thought only Lee did that! Oh, and there was a fight outside after we left. Slaygon pulled one of the guys away, while another guy pulled his friend (the opponent) away. From what I saw, Mez just stepped in the middle of the fight, spread his arms out in an "everybody be cool" motion, and walked away. Classic (Although I was later told that he did help in the actual break-up!) What added to the amusement was Mez was swaying very slightly in an alcohol-induced motion. He would have probably toppled over if someone had touched him with a feather.

Then there was the guy who came up, asking for a lighter in Swedish. Before I could offer mine, Lee said: "English!"

"OOOHHH, EEEENNNNGGLLIIIISSHHH!" shouted the tall bloke at the top of his lungs. "I AM BIG FAN OF MILLWALL. I LIVE FOR MILLWALL. I WOULD DIE FOR MILLWALL. FUCK WEST HAM!" Right... so we can ascertain that he's a fan of football (soccer), likes Millwall, and doesn't like West Ham all that much. And, if he's a true Millwall fan... then yes, he would probably die for them

Also on Sunday, I received my second Sports-Related Injury... from pool! On some of the pool tables, there's a brass plaque on the edge nearest the cue ball's area. A few weeks ago, I managed to scrape a huge chunk of skin off my knuckle after a particularly hard shot. On Sunday, it happened again, scraping the newly-formed skin right off again. I received a Band-Aid for my troubles and C. (one of the waitresses) says "that happens frequently". Well, take the bloody things off then!

I leave you with a picture of said injury. Oh the pain, the pain of it all...

"It's all gone quiet," said Rhubarb

2006-03-21T03:00:00.000+01:00

Well, the English gang have recently left to catch their flight home. Lee and Mez have an additional 3 hour trip to get back to Worcester afterwards, so it's going to be a long night!

On Friday night, we were going to go into town to celebrate Paddy's Day, but we changed our minds and stayed local, as some of the guys were a little tired after the flight etc. A nice gentle evening to start the weekend off.

On Saturday night, we went to a few bars and then onto Sticky Fingers, a nightclub with four floors playing different music (which is a great idea). It was Mez's birthday celebration and he celebrated in style; and got chatted up by a Swedish girl (only to find out she already had a boyfriend, booo!). A thoroughly entertaining night though full of music and mayhem, and a strangely large proportion of Goth chicks (which I'm not complaining about).

Sunday was a relaxing day; after all, we were nursing the aftereffects of a large night out. At 5:00 we went to Biljard again, had a lovely meal there, and then proceeded to drink Hair Of The Dog (i.e. more beer) and play more pool! Actually, after we got back, Mark wanted to see me "in action" doing a show; so I promptly plopped myself on air and did a short show for people!

Today, we again took it easy to nurse three nights' drinking, and we walked up Keillers Park, a big hill that has the most amazing view of Gothenburg when you get to the top point. After meandering back down, we went to Biljard for a meal (but no drinks), and hung around until a taxi took them to the airport.

Great weekend though. The guys seemed to enjoy themselves! Early night for me tonight, I think

English Invasion

2006-03-17T05:00:00.000+01:00

I've got four of my friends coming over this weekend - Anne and Mark, with Mez and my ex-housemate, Lee. It's Mez's birthday so he wanted to come over to celebrate, as he's done a tour of Europe (including Gothenburg) before. Plus it's St. Patrick's Day on Friday; so I guess we'll go out into town on the Friday. Then on the Saturday we'll probably go to Biljard and play some pool.

My American friend A. drew a picture of me, which was waiting in my inbox this morning. It's SO flattering when someone goes out of their way to do something like that! Apparently I was an "interesting subject to draw" - maybe my head is a funny shape or something! Still, you can tell it's me. I'll be keeping that!

Snot Nose II: Revenge of the Lurgy

2006-03-11T05:30:00.000+01:00

I think I've discovered why so many Swedes have gone down with a bad cold(*)... it's because there's two strains out there. The reason I know? 'Cos I've gone and caught the second one, that's bleedin' well why!!

It was only three weeks ago when I was slowly getting over a crappy cold, and now I'm snivelling and sneezing. What's more, I have a deadline for a piece of work I'm doing, so I can't take today off. Bleurgh!

All I want is a hot nurse in one of those sexy uniforms and stockings and suspenders to wipe my fevered brow. Am I asking for too much? (Yes.)

(*) Of course, men call colds "Man-Flu". It's always worse than the colds that women suffer from. Influenza is a completely different thing, but not to us men!

Identity theft suxx0rs :(

2006-03-10T04:30:00.000+01:00

GRRR!

About a month ago, Barclaycard (a credit card company in the UK) phoned me up to inform me that my card had been "compromised". Some bright spark tried to spend £500 at Ladbroke's gambling, along with a few other places. Thankfully, Barclaycard are really on the ball with that sort of thing, so the transactions never got onto my card, and the card was blocked and destroyed by me.

Just a moment ago, I had a call from Jemma at Barclaycard Fraud to inform me that the details of the second card I have with them had been found after a "police operation", and the police have advised them to block every card on the list. So, I've just had to destroy my second card!

If any of you identity theives look at this, you're the smegma under my foreskin of life. Bastards.

Mad as a Fish

2006-03-10T03:00:00.000+01:00

I was having a Mass Debate with my friend E. the singer on Monday morning, when Nice Old Lady came into the apartment complex. Nice Old Lady and I usually say hello to each other and she always seems to be happy and jolly. This time, she stopped to talk to me via E. She started by saying "sorry to talk Swedish, maybe you can translate for your friend," and then she talked for about two minutes and wandered off.

E. turned to me with a perplexed look. "What was all that about," I enquired?

"Well for a start, she wasn't born in Sweden. Her accent sucks!" I laughed, but then I thought, "I wonder if Swedish people are going to say that about me when I start speaking Swedish more regularly?"

Anyway, she continued: "Then she was saying that she used to smoke in her apartment, but now she can't because you're not allowed to. Then mentioned that her brother and his wife are coming to visit. Then she went on about some woman who was stabbed in her kitchen about 25 years ago."

We looked at each other for a few moments, and all I could say was "Yay... I have a weird neighbour!" Yes folks, she's a mentalist. Mad as a box of frogs. Now whenever I see Nice Old Lady, I'm going hear "cuckoo... cuckoo" in my head! Nice Old Lady has become A Couple Of Sandwiches Short Of A Picnic Lady (although I'll still call her Nice Old Lady because the above description goes on a bit).

K.'s girlfriend L. is off for a job interview today. If it goes well, we'll be going to the biljard to celebrate. I need some Hair of the Dog tonight, as I drunk like a fish through my radio show last night, and woke up feeling a bit delicate

Everyone's got the lurgy

2006-02-25T05:00:00.000+01:00

Blimey... well, the 24hour show was great fun in itself, but I had caught a cold off someone, so I was battling that for most of it. The way I get through a cold is to largely ignore it, and hope it will go away. This time, however, my body suddenly went "Nah, you're not ignoring me this time" and closed down yesterday, so I had to drag my sorry ass to bed and just lie there going "bleeeuuurrggghhh".

But anyway, back to the show. It was certainly an experience staying awake for 24 hours. We started at 18:00 on Saturday. at 05:00 on Sunday I suddenly hit The Barrier - but thanks to copious amounts of caffeine I managed to get through it. Highlights of the show include when Dimmignatt brought along his electric guitar and taught me the start of a song, which I played dreadully (but amusingly); and Andreas finding bits from my previous shows, playing them backwards and finding hidden subliminal messages about sauerkrauts, massages and Le Resistance. It would take too long to explain - just go to the Download Page and have a listen!

Right, I'm off to the Kville Biljard tonight with K. for some end-of-week ball action (oo-er!). (Actually I went there on Tuesday too, which turned out to be a nice night! )

Oh, and a whine to Wrigley's - your fruit flavoured Extra sugarfree gum sucks! They lose their flavour after only three minutes of chewing. What's that about?

I suppose I ought to add my first blog then :)

2006-02-16T05:00:00.000+01:00

Well, let's try this blog thing out then. I already have one on my own webspace (www.boznet.com), but seeing as MySpace has one, I might start using this

From today until next Monday, I'm in Stockholm visiting my friend Zihpod. We're doing our first radio show together this evening; and I'm a distinguished guest at the 24-hour show being transmitted at the weekend. Should be good fun.

On Thursday, DHS (from Italy) is coming over, and we'll be sight-seeing on Friday, as this is the first time I've been to sthlm!