A few posts back I made cider and squirrelled it away until it had matured. I can now happily report that it tastes great! Hurray!
Well, I think it tastes nice. But some Swedish friends (and others of non-british origin) were not so keen. But they just reaffirm that I succeeded, since you've got to be a true Brit to like that true, bitter, cloudy cider that doesn't taste like cheap soda.
Monday, 30 November 2015
Monday, 23 November 2015
Day 838: Swedish English Learning
What happens if you think you're better at something than you actually are?
I recently attended a conference for English teachers in Stockholm and by far and away the most interesting piece of information I took away from the event was this: Swedish school students' motivation for learning English is low because they think they are already good at English and they don't need to study it at school.
It's a commonly accepted fact that Swedes are good at English. If you come here on a visit and can't even manage a "Hej" or a "Tack" you won't have too many difficulties getting around and about. Sometimes you'll meet someone who'll explain that they're "terribly sorry for my lack of English" and use a whole host of words you would never use yourself in doing so. You also meet Swedes who take the piss out of other Swedes speaking "terrible" English while you smile on, and nod, thinking about your own, utter lack of Swedish.
But while it's all well and good being able to communicate with people on an everyday level, a sad truth about English is that when it comes to certain situations, be they academic, business related or formal events, the language is a total bitch to master. More than this, if you're not a native speaker (and let's face it, sometimes even if you are a native speaker) there are times when you won't use a subjunctive, or a whom, or a pronoun, or some other finicky piece of shit word, and your fabulous idea suddenly won't pack the punch that it's supposed to.
This is in fact true of all languages, of course, but the particular problem with having English as your second language is that you're up against a globalised world full of millions, perhaps billions, of other people using English to reach out to the English speaking world in the best way possible. If you end up in a job which requires you to write formal, or academic, or business, or sales, or any of the other myriad forms of English then you'll either be glad that you had the chance to learn these things or spend a lot of frustrated time trying to do it as an adult. And I'm all for the adaptation of language over time, and the natural changes that come through regular use, but I don't think there's any escaping the need to use the language "correctly" according to the currently accepted model. If you write an academic paper with no apostrophes whatsoever, your reader is going to ask you where they are, instead of thanking you for pioneering a new form of apostrophe-less English.
Where am I going with this? Well, in the study which I was shown at this conference, the presenter (a very interesting academic called Alastair Henry, whose research can be found here) explained that motivation in class comes from a variety of sources. One of these sources is the perceived gap between how good the learner thinks they are at the current moment, and how good they think they will be in the future. If this gap is big, then students accept that they have some work to do and feel motivated to do it. If the gap is small, then the students feel no pressure to work hard, since they think they don't have too far to go. What does this have to do with Sweden? As part of the study, the results from Swedish students were compared with several other countries:
The numbers in the first red circle, under the r, show the mean size of the gap between how good students ranked themselves currently and how good they think they want to be in the future. Sweden's average was .34, which is almost half as small as the next smallest gap in Iran at .62. This basically means, as I already said, that Swedish teenagers think they're nearly the fucking DON at English and that they don't have to do anything because they're only .34 away from being the actual fucking DON at English.
Why do they think this? They think this because:
a) On average they spend >20 hours a week interacting with English on the internet or in games or on TV etc
b) They are actually quite good. I work in a lot of schools and when kids find out I'm English they follow me around and talk to me because they want to show off.
c) Sometimes they can express themselves better in English than in Swedish. Some kids asked a colleague of mine "how do you say 'coincidence' in Swedish?" in English in the middle of a Swedish speaking exam.
Why is it dangerous to think this?
a) Because you're never the fucking DON of a language. There is always more to learn and more to write and more to read. Unless you're J.R.R. Tolkien, then I'm happy to call you the fucking DON of English (although I'm sure he'd agree with what I just said, being an academic)
b) Because the kids I teach might be able to talk fluently and express some complex ideas but they sound like Jessie Pinkman from Breaking Bad all the while
c) Because as much as I like and use them, there are more adjectives, modifiers, verbs and just general vocabulary than just "shit" "bullshit" "motherfucking" "fucking" "poop" "fuck" "dick" and "ass".
The advice of Alastair Henry at this conference was something which all teachers should know and do all the time, but which in any case bears repeating, essentially it is the job of the teacher to show the student a different future self, one which is a bit further away from that which the student has created for him or herself. This future self can achieve more and be even better that the one which the student imagined and can inspire motivation.
No motherfucking pressure then. Poop.
I recently attended a conference for English teachers in Stockholm and by far and away the most interesting piece of information I took away from the event was this: Swedish school students' motivation for learning English is low because they think they are already good at English and they don't need to study it at school.
It's a commonly accepted fact that Swedes are good at English. If you come here on a visit and can't even manage a "Hej" or a "Tack" you won't have too many difficulties getting around and about. Sometimes you'll meet someone who'll explain that they're "terribly sorry for my lack of English" and use a whole host of words you would never use yourself in doing so. You also meet Swedes who take the piss out of other Swedes speaking "terrible" English while you smile on, and nod, thinking about your own, utter lack of Swedish.
But while it's all well and good being able to communicate with people on an everyday level, a sad truth about English is that when it comes to certain situations, be they academic, business related or formal events, the language is a total bitch to master. More than this, if you're not a native speaker (and let's face it, sometimes even if you are a native speaker) there are times when you won't use a subjunctive, or a whom, or a pronoun, or some other finicky piece of shit word, and your fabulous idea suddenly won't pack the punch that it's supposed to.
This is in fact true of all languages, of course, but the particular problem with having English as your second language is that you're up against a globalised world full of millions, perhaps billions, of other people using English to reach out to the English speaking world in the best way possible. If you end up in a job which requires you to write formal, or academic, or business, or sales, or any of the other myriad forms of English then you'll either be glad that you had the chance to learn these things or spend a lot of frustrated time trying to do it as an adult. And I'm all for the adaptation of language over time, and the natural changes that come through regular use, but I don't think there's any escaping the need to use the language "correctly" according to the currently accepted model. If you write an academic paper with no apostrophes whatsoever, your reader is going to ask you where they are, instead of thanking you for pioneering a new form of apostrophe-less English.
Where am I going with this? Well, in the study which I was shown at this conference, the presenter (a very interesting academic called Alastair Henry, whose research can be found here) explained that motivation in class comes from a variety of sources. One of these sources is the perceived gap between how good the learner thinks they are at the current moment, and how good they think they will be in the future. If this gap is big, then students accept that they have some work to do and feel motivated to do it. If the gap is small, then the students feel no pressure to work hard, since they think they don't have too far to go. What does this have to do with Sweden? As part of the study, the results from Swedish students were compared with several other countries:
The numbers in the first red circle, under the r, show the mean size of the gap between how good students ranked themselves currently and how good they think they want to be in the future. Sweden's average was .34, which is almost half as small as the next smallest gap in Iran at .62. This basically means, as I already said, that Swedish teenagers think they're nearly the fucking DON at English and that they don't have to do anything because they're only .34 away from being the actual fucking DON at English.
Why do they think this? They think this because:
a) On average they spend >20 hours a week interacting with English on the internet or in games or on TV etc
b) They are actually quite good. I work in a lot of schools and when kids find out I'm English they follow me around and talk to me because they want to show off.
c) Sometimes they can express themselves better in English than in Swedish. Some kids asked a colleague of mine "how do you say 'coincidence' in Swedish?" in English in the middle of a Swedish speaking exam.
Why is it dangerous to think this?
a) Because you're never the fucking DON of a language. There is always more to learn and more to write and more to read. Unless you're J.R.R. Tolkien, then I'm happy to call you the fucking DON of English (although I'm sure he'd agree with what I just said, being an academic)
b) Because the kids I teach might be able to talk fluently and express some complex ideas but they sound like Jessie Pinkman from Breaking Bad all the while
c) Because as much as I like and use them, there are more adjectives, modifiers, verbs and just general vocabulary than just "shit" "bullshit" "motherfucking" "fucking" "poop" "fuck" "dick" and "ass".
The advice of Alastair Henry at this conference was something which all teachers should know and do all the time, but which in any case bears repeating, essentially it is the job of the teacher to show the student a different future self, one which is a bit further away from that which the student has created for him or herself. This future self can achieve more and be even better that the one which the student imagined and can inspire motivation.
No motherfucking pressure then. Poop.
Monday, 9 November 2015
Day 824: You will be assimilated, resistance is futile.
On taking a trip to England to see friends and family I realise I've gone beyond just looking the wrong way on the road and getting in the wrong side of the car. Now I've started to do subtly Swedish things while back in the home land...
1. Forgetting my Oyster card when leaving the tube station and expecting the barrier to open for me like it does in Stockholm. Standing there like a lemon.
2. Wincing when sitting in the passenger seat and watching the car make a turn.
3. Closing the entire lid of the toilet seat when flushing and wondering why it's not closed in public places.
4. Having to use a skanky scourer that's been sat in the sink for a week or two, instead of one of these:
5. Going to get a drink from the bathroom tap but remembering that's not a thing in England and having to go all the way to the kitchen.
6. Apologising to my friends for being late and texting them afterwards to say thanks for having me.
7. Taking up two seats on the train.
8. Getting knocked down by the STENCH of too much laundry detergent on everybody's clothes
9. Using Swedish words for things around the house when I need them urgently.
10. Wishing there were toilet brushes in public bathrooms.
1. Forgetting my Oyster card when leaving the tube station and expecting the barrier to open for me like it does in Stockholm. Standing there like a lemon.
2. Wincing when sitting in the passenger seat and watching the car make a turn.
3. Closing the entire lid of the toilet seat when flushing and wondering why it's not closed in public places.
4. Having to use a skanky scourer that's been sat in the sink for a week or two, instead of one of these:
5. Going to get a drink from the bathroom tap but remembering that's not a thing in England and having to go all the way to the kitchen.
6. Apologising to my friends for being late and texting them afterwards to say thanks for having me.
7. Taking up two seats on the train.
8. Getting knocked down by the STENCH of too much laundry detergent on everybody's clothes
9. Using Swedish words for things around the house when I need them urgently.
10. Wishing there were toilet brushes in public bathrooms.
Monday, 19 October 2015
Day 803: Make Simple Cider
Of all the things I thought I would miss from England, Cider was not high up on my list. But here in Sweden, Cider is a byword for shitty, sugary, fizzy syrup with a vague apple hint somewhere behind the sweetness. If Swedish cider is an annoyingly perky teenage girl who talks in incessant high pitched babble about vacuous nothing, then English cider is a wizend, contemptuous, sardonic old man who knows his way around a pub or ten and won't associate himself at all with the former.
As you may have read, a not-so sneaky apple thief came a-scrumping a month or so ago and I had no apples. Fortunately a friend, actually two friends, came to my rescue and rekindled my cider-making motivation. One friend knew where we could get some apples, and the other had the right kinds of bottles to store the maturing cider. If you know where you can get these two things, then you might benefit from my simple step-by-step instructions for how to make your own cider.
We did not have the means to weigh our apples, but an educated guess puts these three boxes at around 60kg. They are autumn apples, as summer apples like the Transparence Blanche that my scrumping thief stole from my garden are no good for making pressed apple juice. Apparently they just bruise and taste bad.
In Sweden you can look up your local musteri or juice press. For a small fee per litre they have the capacity to press the apples quickly and efficiently. We pressed ours at Vårdsätra Musteri and they produced 40 litres or delicious juice, ready to drink or brew into cider. You can press the apples yourself, there are plenty of tutorials online, but you need extra materials and lots of space and these factors put me off. It's supposed to be simple!
Your juice should not have preservatives in it and can go bad quickly. Therefore if you want to gather together the things you need and not feel rushed into brewing straight away you can freeze the juice and keep it for up to 3 months. Just make sure you thaw it completely and bring it to room temperature before you add any yeast.
This is a water lock (vattenlås, jäsrör) you can buy this and other useful things (such as larger containers if you want to brew more cider, bigger corks and lids, yeast and siphons) from www.humle.se. I brewed my cider in the plastic bottles provided to me by Vårdsätra Musteri and just bought the cap and water lock in the picture. You put water in the water lock (no shit Sherlock) and it lets the gas out of the cider while stopping air from going in and contaminating the cider. Make sure all the things you use are clean to avoid contaminating the cider.
As for yeast I bought Safcider Yeast for Cider because it was cheap and had a good tempearature range. My bathroom is always 20 degrees and that's right in the middle of this yeast's range.
I also bought 1 metre of plastic tube to use as a siphon, which is really useful for transferring the cider from the big bottle to small bottles without all of the yeasty crap following along.
If you live in England, you can buy all of these things really, ridiculously easily. Even Tescos and Wilkinsons sell home brew kits.
If you want to be precise, you can also buy a Hydrometer to measure the alcohol content of your cider and to work out how much sugar needs adding.
If you are impatient, like me, and just want to see how it turns out, then add some white sugar (I added 100g to my 5L batch, I will let you know how it turns out!) to your apple juice and then add some yeast (a 5g packet like the one above is good enough for 20-30 litres) and then guess how alcoholic it is at the end when you drink a bottle and fall over (or not.) According to some websites, if you add no sugar at all you will end up with 5-6% alcohol in your cider.
Put your airtight waterlock on the bottle.
I left mine in the bathroom for 10 days at 18-20 Degrees. I knew it was working because some froth formed (and left the brown smudge on the neck of the bottle) and for a few days in the middle you could hear the "sploop" of the air escaping from the lock. After 10 days I knew it was done because the air sploops had stopped.
I was able to get my hands on some Czech and German beer bottles with resealable rubber/metal/ceramic lid contraption dealies. I boiled the lids to sterilise them, for 10 minutes on a rolling boil.
As for the bottles themselves, I soaked them in soapy water for 10 mins to remove the labels and then baked them for 20 minutes at 120 degrees to sterilise them.
I let them cool completely before putting any cider in them!
Some people re-bottle the cider in another large container and let it sit a bit longer before bottling, just to get rid of the dead yeast and make sure the cider is really ready.
Since my cider had completely stopped making any bubble noises, I decided to put it straight into bottles. This may or may not be a giant mistake, watch this space...
I took the bottling process as an opportunity to try the cider and it tasted ok, like the old man mentioned above but maybe not quite wizened. I hope me comparing the taste of cider to the taste of an old man isn't putting you off completely.
And now I wait, to see if some time sitting in bottles in my basement will make the flavour mature at all, or just turn all my hard efforts into vinegar.
As you may have read, a not-so sneaky apple thief came a-scrumping a month or so ago and I had no apples. Fortunately a friend, actually two friends, came to my rescue and rekindled my cider-making motivation. One friend knew where we could get some apples, and the other had the right kinds of bottles to store the maturing cider. If you know where you can get these two things, then you might benefit from my simple step-by-step instructions for how to make your own cider.
1. Get apples
We did not have the means to weigh our apples, but an educated guess puts these three boxes at around 60kg. They are autumn apples, as summer apples like the Transparence Blanche that my scrumping thief stole from my garden are no good for making pressed apple juice. Apparently they just bruise and taste bad.
2. Press apples
In Sweden you can look up your local musteri or juice press. For a small fee per litre they have the capacity to press the apples quickly and efficiently. We pressed ours at Vårdsätra Musteri and they produced 40 litres or delicious juice, ready to drink or brew into cider. You can press the apples yourself, there are plenty of tutorials online, but you need extra materials and lots of space and these factors put me off. It's supposed to be simple!
3. Freeze the juice
4. Buy yeast, a water lock and a siphon
As for yeast I bought Safcider Yeast for Cider because it was cheap and had a good tempearature range. My bathroom is always 20 degrees and that's right in the middle of this yeast's range.
I also bought 1 metre of plastic tube to use as a siphon, which is really useful for transferring the cider from the big bottle to small bottles without all of the yeasty crap following along.
If you live in England, you can buy all of these things really, ridiculously easily. Even Tescos and Wilkinsons sell home brew kits.
5. Add sugar and yeast to the apple juice
If you want to be precise, you can also buy a Hydrometer to measure the alcohol content of your cider and to work out how much sugar needs adding.
If you are impatient, like me, and just want to see how it turns out, then add some white sugar (I added 100g to my 5L batch, I will let you know how it turns out!) to your apple juice and then add some yeast (a 5g packet like the one above is good enough for 20-30 litres) and then guess how alcoholic it is at the end when you drink a bottle and fall over (or not.) According to some websites, if you add no sugar at all you will end up with 5-6% alcohol in your cider.
Put your airtight waterlock on the bottle.
6. Let it ferment for 1-2weeks
7. Sterilise some containers to put the cider in
I was able to get my hands on some Czech and German beer bottles with resealable rubber/metal/ceramic lid contraption dealies. I boiled the lids to sterilise them, for 10 minutes on a rolling boil.As for the bottles themselves, I soaked them in soapy water for 10 mins to remove the labels and then baked them for 20 minutes at 120 degrees to sterilise them.
I let them cool completely before putting any cider in them!
Some people re-bottle the cider in another large container and let it sit a bit longer before bottling, just to get rid of the dead yeast and make sure the cider is really ready.
Since my cider had completely stopped making any bubble noises, I decided to put it straight into bottles. This may or may not be a giant mistake, watch this space...
I took the bottling process as an opportunity to try the cider and it tasted ok, like the old man mentioned above but maybe not quite wizened. I hope me comparing the taste of cider to the taste of an old man isn't putting you off completely.
And now I wait, to see if some time sitting in bottles in my basement will make the flavour mature at all, or just turn all my hard efforts into vinegar.
Monday, 12 October 2015
Day 794: Amirite?
Imagine you're at school and you are waiting for the teacher to give you a test back so you can see your score. The teacher hands you your test and most of your answers are marked with THIS:
You think "I done fucked up big time!" (It was probably a grammar test if you think in that voice). To your horror only one or two of these feature on your test:
"The world is so unfair!" you whine "I really, actually, truly studied for and/or cheated on this test! There's no way I could have failed!"
You actually did really well. In Sweden, ticks mean WRONG! and crosses mean RIGHT! as I discovered when handing back tests to my students, and as I explained to my team mate at a pub quiz last week when some Swedes marked his answers. If you don't believe me (because this is the only country in the DAMN WORLD THAT GETS TICKS AND FUCKING CROSSES MIXED UP!) then you can see for yourself on this teacher's blog.
You think "I done fucked up big time!" (It was probably a grammar test if you think in that voice). To your horror only one or two of these feature on your test:
"The world is so unfair!" you whine "I really, actually, truly studied for and/or cheated on this test! There's no way I could have failed!"
You actually did really well. In Sweden, ticks mean WRONG! and crosses mean RIGHT! as I discovered when handing back tests to my students, and as I explained to my team mate at a pub quiz last week when some Swedes marked his answers. If you don't believe me (because this is the only country in the DAMN WORLD THAT GETS TICKS AND FUCKING CROSSES MIXED UP!) then you can see for yourself on this teacher's blog.
Monday, 5 October 2015
Day 787: Plastic not so fantastic
Today marked the first day of the new rules in England forcing everyone to pay 5p for their plastic bags. Once again, as with the "Poo Bus" last year, I am left wondering how the hell England is so far behind environmentally. Well, I say that feeling all smug over here in Swedenland, but actually it turns out Sweden doesn't use that many fewer bags...
God knows what the Czech are doing with their bags, making a fort? Brewing them into bag beer? Oh wait, I know, making LE FASHION.
A hundred bags per year in Sweden? Really? I don't think I collected that many last year. But my boyfriend recently developed an obsession with reusable bags with cute print. He buys them "for me" you understand...
We do have a plastic bag full of bags in the cupboard though, which I am sure everyone has (unless you live in Finland or Denmark. There you have a plastic bag containing exactly 3 bags). What do Finns and Danes do when a friend visits and needs to carry something home? "Do you have a plastic bag I can use" "Piss off it's my last one". Reminds me of a Rolo advert. Do you love anyone enough to give them your last plastic bag?
What about when you run out of bin bags? Then what do you use? I guess a nation prepared enough to live life on the edge with only 4 plastic bags per year is also prepared enough to never run out of bin bags. This is something Brits will take some time to adapt to, culturally. We're not the most prepared folk, we'd rather just deal with the problems when they show up rather than pre-emptively tackling them.
"You've put asbestos in that wall"
-"Yeah we'll take it out when we find something better".
"Are you going to put insulation in that house?"
-"No we'll wait for people to move in and they can install it themselves".
"Let's make lots of nuclear power plants!"
-"What about the nuclear waste?"
"Oh I'm sure we'll find something to use it for".
-"Is it a good idea to encourage dependency on Diesel fuel?"
"Sure why not! What's the worst that could happen?"
-"What will happen when you sell all those NHS contracts to private companies?"
"Only good things, I'm sure!"
And so on, and so forth. Perhaps this would be a good time to take some advice from the Danes? On this handy dandy website there are some top tips for how to avoid using excessive plastic bags, with such classics as "carry it yourself" and "make your child carry it". With the BBC already worrying on behalf of the pound shop who, poor them, will have to charge 5p increments instead of nice, round figures, I can only wish good luck with your reduced bags, England. I think you'll need it.
 |
| Source: BBC |
 |
| Katerina Smejkalova, Miss Czech Republic 2005 |
A hundred bags per year in Sweden? Really? I don't think I collected that many last year. But my boyfriend recently developed an obsession with reusable bags with cute print. He buys them "for me" you understand...
 |
| okay...he didn't buy ALL of them, |
What about when you run out of bin bags? Then what do you use? I guess a nation prepared enough to live life on the edge with only 4 plastic bags per year is also prepared enough to never run out of bin bags. This is something Brits will take some time to adapt to, culturally. We're not the most prepared folk, we'd rather just deal with the problems when they show up rather than pre-emptively tackling them.
"You've put asbestos in that wall"
-"Yeah we'll take it out when we find something better".
"Are you going to put insulation in that house?"-"No we'll wait for people to move in and they can install it themselves".
"Let's make lots of nuclear power plants!"
-"What about the nuclear waste?"
"Oh I'm sure we'll find something to use it for".
-"Is it a good idea to encourage dependency on Diesel fuel?"
"Sure why not! What's the worst that could happen?"
-"What will happen when you sell all those NHS contracts to private companies?"
"Only good things, I'm sure!"
And so on, and so forth. Perhaps this would be a good time to take some advice from the Danes? On this handy dandy website there are some top tips for how to avoid using excessive plastic bags, with such classics as "carry it yourself" and "make your child carry it". With the BBC already worrying on behalf of the pound shop who, poor them, will have to charge 5p increments instead of nice, round figures, I can only wish good luck with your reduced bags, England. I think you'll need it.
Monday, 28 September 2015
Day 781: Scrumping
Every now and then I come across a list on the internet of words which exist in other languages but which we are lacking in English. Like "backpfeifengesicht" from German, meaning a face that needs a slap, or "hygge" from Danish, meaning a good, pleasant, comfy feeling (I guess the same as the Swedish mysig). But recently I was lacking a Swedish word for an English concept: Scrumping.
Scrumping is stealing apples from someone's garden or orchard to make Scrumpy, a small batch of local cider. Although I guess you can also scrump just to eat the apples. Or, you can do what someone did in our garden and hire a fucking trailer and pick all the apple trees in the private garden totally bare in broad daylight with the residents watching you, and then sell them for a profit. That definitely counts as scrumping.
I myself have been thinking about making some non-scrumped-cider out of all the apples in the garden which nobody is eating. But before I can get my special apple picking tool (yes, every good Swedish residents association has some) I look out of the window to see a guy with a bike trailer full of apples. Since I live with the CHAIRMAN©® of the building, I sent him out to find out why this guy was entitled to pick ALL THE APPLES.
The conversation was as follows:
CHAIRMAN©®: Hello.
GERMAN GUY: Hello
CHAIRMAN©®: I see you have picked quite a lot of apples and I was wondering if you live here or if you're staying with someone here?
GERMAN GUY: Oh yeah, my friend said I can pick as many as I want.
CHAIRMAN©®: Who's your friend?
GERMAN GUY: Oh, er, I, er, forgot his name. He has a beard.
CHAIRMAN©®: I see. Well, you're welcome to pick the apples since we don't want them to go to waste, but next time I would appreciate it if you called someone from the residents association *points to phone numbers* to ask, as there are some people in the building who would like some apples for themselves.
GERMAN GUY: Oh yeah totally I will do that.
Great! Fine! Wonderful! Nobody's being an asshole over the apples, all was solved. Lovely. 5 Days later at the weekend GERMAN GUY texts to ask if he can pick ALL THE APPLES on the remaining trees that the CHAIRMAN©® scared him away from. The CHAIRMAN©® says "sure." because, hey, apples. Who cares. Apart from me, who will never get any cider at this rate, since there are about 2 apples left on the trees.
BUT THEN
The following weekend we're having fika (not a euphemism for sex) with a retired lady in our building, when she says:
RETIRED LADY: Your friend was here on the weekend.
CHAIRMAN©®: My friend?
RETIRED LADY: Yes, the one who picks the apples.
CHAIRMAN©®: He's NOT my friend.
RETIRED LADY: Oh, he said he was your friend. "My friend told me to go ahead and clean the fuck out of every. single. apple tree." that's what he said.
CHAIRMAN©®: He's NOT my friend.
RETIRED LADY: Well, he's gone now and he said he would sell all the apples at the local market
CHAIRMAN©®: He's not my friend.
You know you've lived in Swedish societal harmony too long when you use your Monday nights to write a frikkin' soap opera about a man stealing your apples. Apples which nobody was eating and you were paying money to have cleaned up by a gardening service. The irony is, now I have to go and scrump some apples of my own because I still want to make cider. I go now.
Scrumping is stealing apples from someone's garden or orchard to make Scrumpy, a small batch of local cider. Although I guess you can also scrump just to eat the apples. Or, you can do what someone did in our garden and hire a fucking trailer and pick all the apple trees in the private garden totally bare in broad daylight with the residents watching you, and then sell them for a profit. That definitely counts as scrumping.
I myself have been thinking about making some non-scrumped-cider out of all the apples in the garden which nobody is eating. But before I can get my special apple picking tool (yes, every good Swedish residents association has some) I look out of the window to see a guy with a bike trailer full of apples. Since I live with the CHAIRMAN©® of the building, I sent him out to find out why this guy was entitled to pick ALL THE APPLES.
The conversation was as follows:
CHAIRMAN©®: Hello.
GERMAN GUY: Hello
CHAIRMAN©®: I see you have picked quite a lot of apples and I was wondering if you live here or if you're staying with someone here?
GERMAN GUY: Oh yeah, my friend said I can pick as many as I want.
CHAIRMAN©®: Who's your friend?
GERMAN GUY: Oh, er, I, er, forgot his name. He has a beard.
CHAIRMAN©®: I see. Well, you're welcome to pick the apples since we don't want them to go to waste, but next time I would appreciate it if you called someone from the residents association *points to phone numbers* to ask, as there are some people in the building who would like some apples for themselves.
GERMAN GUY: Oh yeah totally I will do that.
Great! Fine! Wonderful! Nobody's being an asshole over the apples, all was solved. Lovely. 5 Days later at the weekend GERMAN GUY texts to ask if he can pick ALL THE APPLES on the remaining trees that the CHAIRMAN©® scared him away from. The CHAIRMAN©® says "sure." because, hey, apples. Who cares. Apart from me, who will never get any cider at this rate, since there are about 2 apples left on the trees.
BUT THEN
The following weekend we're having fika (not a euphemism for sex) with a retired lady in our building, when she says:
RETIRED LADY: Your friend was here on the weekend.
CHAIRMAN©®: My friend?
RETIRED LADY: Yes, the one who picks the apples.
CHAIRMAN©®: He's NOT my friend.
RETIRED LADY: Oh, he said he was your friend. "My friend told me to go ahead and clean the fuck out of every. single. apple tree." that's what he said.
CHAIRMAN©®: He's NOT my friend.
RETIRED LADY: Well, he's gone now and he said he would sell all the apples at the local market
CHAIRMAN©®: He's not my friend.
You know you've lived in Swedish societal harmony too long when you use your Monday nights to write a frikkin' soap opera about a man stealing your apples. Apples which nobody was eating and you were paying money to have cleaned up by a gardening service. The irony is, now I have to go and scrump some apples of my own because I still want to make cider. I go now.
Monday, 14 September 2015
Day 767: Surströmming
Last weekend a friend from England was visiting for a whistle-stop tour of Sweden and so I did what any good friend would do and took her to eat partially rotten fish from a can.
Surströmming (sour herring) is actually a bit of a novelty food item that many Swedes from southern Sweden have never eaten and many Swedes from northern Sweden have. All promulgate the idea that surströmming is semi mythological and can only be eaten outdoors because there is a rule against opening the can where people can smell it and be offended or killed. It's actually partially fermented herring, left to mature in a can, which rots slightly. The rot is washed away in running water and the remaining fish tastes like FISH+++++
As we discovered you are allowed to open the can indoors and the smell is more offensive than the average fart but less offensive than a sewage treatment plant. Both of these comparisons are shit (har har) because surströmming doesn't smell anything at all like human waste. It actually smells, well, sour. Think if sour had a scale of sourness and we were looking at the absolute end of the sour scale. I don't even think it smelled fishy, but maybe I'm remembering poorly because my nose was being stabbed with sour forged into metaphorical sour shards. Actually it wasn't so much the nose that registered the sour as the whole olfactory system including the tissue at the back of the throat. As to the idea that you shouldn't open the can indoors, I don't think the smell could actually forge non-metaphorical tools and force its way into adjacent rooms or apartments. I'm not exactly selling the product here with my description, the smell wasn't half as dire as I imagined the smell should be after two years of living here and hearing others hyperbolise about it, but in any case it's not a smell which inspires lip smacking and salivating.
The person hosting the sour fish event was a northern Swede and just got on with the damn eating as soon as possible. She took the fish whole from the can and carved out the entrails and got some big bits of fish in her face before the smell from the can opening had time to waft to my end of the table. My English friend was much more hardcore than me and, despite gasping at the the stench and asking herself thrice why she was doing it, got stuck in straight away without instruction, using her hands to pull out the bones. I ummed and ah-ed about whether I was even going to eat one, before realising I would be annoyed at myself if I didn't. Putting the fish in front of you is basically embracing the smell wholeheartedly into your life and welcoming it onto your hands and into your aura. I'm quite bad at deboning regular fish, so I was not doing too well with the surströmming. I managed to pick a few meagre shards of fish away from the frankly disturbing swim bladder, bones and entrails and I shied away from the roe which the other guests were so keen on. Amateurs usually go for the ready filleted fish, but it was no regular who bought these fuckers.
The redeeming feature of surströmming is that you don't generally eat it by itself unless you're some kind of demented purist living in a shack in the woods with the bears, wolves and elk somewhere up north. Instead you make a sandwich using crisp, cracker-like bread, onions, potato and västerbotten cheese. If you wish to further disguise the fish you can add sour cream (which I did) and drink milk (which I did). My sandwich was about 1% fish in the end, but I still got goosebumps while eating it. Probably from looking at the swim bladder on my plate while I chewed. To best describe the taste I would probably use a combination of two comments made at the dinner; one person said the fish tasted like "the sea", namely the smell you get a low tide when there is some old seaweed struggling on the sand and there's a salty flavour in the air; I myself commented that it was like being punched in the mouth by a bodybuilder fish with hench arms. Put these together and you get a sensation akin to a knuckle sandwich from Neptune himself.
Would I eat surströmming again? Well. Yeah, probably. If there was a decent crowd, plenty o' vodka and good times to be had as a novelty, rare occasion. Would I go northern native and eat sour, rotten fish for my dinner on any old regular day? No.
Surströmming (sour herring) is actually a bit of a novelty food item that many Swedes from southern Sweden have never eaten and many Swedes from northern Sweden have. All promulgate the idea that surströmming is semi mythological and can only be eaten outdoors because there is a rule against opening the can where people can smell it and be offended or killed. It's actually partially fermented herring, left to mature in a can, which rots slightly. The rot is washed away in running water and the remaining fish tastes like FISH+++++
 |
| source: wikipedia |
 |
| Västerbotten cheese, source:wikipedia |
 |
| Sandwich: source here |
Monday, 7 September 2015
Day 760: Swedish Cinema
Last Friday I went to see "Inside Out". It was really great, some of the script may go way over children's heads but adults will enjoy it. But enough of that, you want reviews go to Rotten Tomatoes.
Really I'm here to compare Swedish cinema-going with English. It's essentially the same thing; first you go to a dodgy back-ally doctor and sell your kidney on the black market to scrape together enough for the entrance ticket (a kidney and a lung if the film is 3D); enter the cinema 20 minutes late in a vain attempt to avoid the adverts at the beginning; buy your ticket from a teenager who is dead behind the eyes and whose friends identify them from 100 metres by the approaching popcorn smell; be tempted by the popcorn smell for about half a second until you remember a) the popcorn is the same popcorn that's sat in the case for the last two weeks and b) the popcorn costs the same as unicorn tears and leprechaun charms; finally you sit uncomfortably close to a stranger for two hours feeling jealous as they stuff their faces with popcorn that you have the moral fortitude to walk away from.
There are some key differences though. You have to wait a considerable amount of time before the films actually appear in Sweden..."Oh did you see XYZ film yet! It's fucking awesome! The bit with the skdfouserfbhoejfboergf and the other bit with the oaiusdq8uiwegfpieaur are my favourites!" say my friends and my facebook feed and my English news sources and my family and the in-flight magazine on long haul flights months after the film has appeared on fucking in-flight entertainment but STILL not Swedish cinema screens. "They have to take time to dub the film" WRONG. Well, half wrong. There are dubbed versions for the little kids who can't read the subtitles, but a lot of families see a lot of films in English. This is part of the reason why Swedish kids are scarily good at English.
Once seated in the cinema, film's rolling etc, that's when I notice that Swedish cinema-goers are the noisiest fucking eaters in the WORLD. (I've been to the cinema in England, France and Sweden so let's call that the world for now) They love their fucking rustling packets of popcorn and penny sweets. Yeah alright, there are some rustlers in England too but not like this. This is rustling on a new scale. It goes all the way to 11 on the rustleometer and breaks the needle on the rustle scale. But as compensation for this, Swedish people don't talk during the movie. They talk all over the adverts, laughing and shouting and singing, making me really nervous that they're going to ruin the film. They always stop when the actual movie starts. This doesn't happen in England. If there are rowdy rowdy people in the screen then they're rowdy rowdy throughout.
There is one thing, though, that could put me off going to the cinema entirely here and that's SNUS.
Having never tried snus I can only assume from the smell that it is made in a factory where cats wee on things and then said things are gathered into little pouches so that people can shove them inside their upper lip. Some may argue that snus is made from tobacco and provides a more socially friendly alternative to smoking. I am not one such person to posit this view. If you break out the cat piss teabags in the cinema to have a cheeky snus and think you're doing me a favour by not smoking you can think again. I would rather watch the movie from the inside of the popcorn cabinet in the lobby than sit next to someone who breaks out a cheeky snus.
On Friday I was treated to the double whammy of olfactory excitement that was a lady who had bathed in shitty cheap perfume sitting with her chainsnusing boyfriend. If your perfume smells like Impulse body spray (basically Lynx/Axe for women) then you probably shouldn't pay more than a pound for it, though if you like kissing someone who tastes like cat urine you're probably not the worlds most discerning consumer.
Wednesday, 26 August 2015
Day 746: Closed for summer!
This blog hasn't been updated in a while because it was SOMMARSTÄNGT.
If the local tax office, police, certain hospital departments, pensions service, service for protection against unfair dismissal from work, job centre, national insurance centre, gynecological clinics, youth intake and sti clinics, government departments, train station offices, childcare facilities, restaurants, theatres, museums, attractions, shops and bars can all take a bunch of time off for summer, then so can I.
If the local tax office, police, certain hospital departments, pensions service, service for protection against unfair dismissal from work, job centre, national insurance centre, gynecological clinics, youth intake and sti clinics, government departments, train station offices, childcare facilities, restaurants, theatres, museums, attractions, shops and bars can all take a bunch of time off for summer, then so can I.
Monday, 15 June 2015
Day 658: Birthdays in Sweden
Since it was my birthday recently I thought I'd better let you all know that they don't sing Happy Birthday in Swedish. They actually sing a song which is EVEN OLDER than the one we all know and have lovingly changed to "squashed tomatoes and stew/you look like a monkey/and you smell like one too/belong in the zoo".
The lyrics are as follows:
Ja, må han/hon leva, yes may he/she live
Ja, må han/hon leva, yes may he/she live
Ja må han/hon leva ut i hundrade år yes may he/she live to be a hundred years old
Javisst ska han/hon leva, of course he/she will live
Javisst ska han/hon leva, of course he/she will live
Javisst ska han/hon leva ut i hundrade år. of course he/she will live to be a hundred years old
None of these lyrics will be any news to my Swedish readers, so for a bit of extra entertainment value (and for the benefit of those non-Swedes who have no idea what the song actually sounds like) here's a disastrous children's pop classic version of the bloody thing:
You often get subjected to this song multiple times a day, as you are traditionally woken up by family bringing breakfast while singing this song, then probably your friends or colleagues will sing it at you at work or school, some other friends or relatives will call you up on speakerphone to sing it at you and then when you get your cake you'll have it sung yet again.
The only thing I really wanna know is, what the fuck are you supposed to sing to someone on their 100th birthday? Awkward! Some suggestions for changes to the final line are "Javisst ska hon leva många lyckliga år" (of course she will live many wonderful years) and "Javisst ska du leva så länge du får" (of course you will live as long as you can) but in truth it was even hard to find those suggestions. I'm nowhere even close to being 100 and I'm already worrying about it, apparently not a lot of other people are doing the same.
After the song, everybody does the "trefaldig hurra" which means saying hooray 3 times, a bit like the seriously outdated "Hipp-hipp hooray" in England which I haven't heard anyone do for a goodly while, probably for goodly reason.
The lyrics are as follows:
Ja, må han/hon leva, yes may he/she live
Ja, må han/hon leva, yes may he/she live
Ja må han/hon leva ut i hundrade år yes may he/she live to be a hundred years old
Javisst ska han/hon leva, of course he/she will live
Javisst ska han/hon leva, of course he/she will live
Javisst ska han/hon leva ut i hundrade år. of course he/she will live to be a hundred years old
None of these lyrics will be any news to my Swedish readers, so for a bit of extra entertainment value (and for the benefit of those non-Swedes who have no idea what the song actually sounds like) here's a disastrous children's pop classic version of the bloody thing:
You often get subjected to this song multiple times a day, as you are traditionally woken up by family bringing breakfast while singing this song, then probably your friends or colleagues will sing it at you at work or school, some other friends or relatives will call you up on speakerphone to sing it at you and then when you get your cake you'll have it sung yet again.
The only thing I really wanna know is, what the fuck are you supposed to sing to someone on their 100th birthday? Awkward! Some suggestions for changes to the final line are "Javisst ska hon leva många lyckliga år" (of course she will live many wonderful years) and "Javisst ska du leva så länge du får" (of course you will live as long as you can) but in truth it was even hard to find those suggestions. I'm nowhere even close to being 100 and I'm already worrying about it, apparently not a lot of other people are doing the same.
After the song, everybody does the "trefaldig hurra" which means saying hooray 3 times, a bit like the seriously outdated "Hipp-hipp hooray" in England which I haven't heard anyone do for a goodly while, probably for goodly reason.
Monday, 8 June 2015
Day 651: How to Officially Speak Swedish
Today I received an official document in the post stating that I have passed a Swedish language test called TISUS and can therefore apply for lots of jobs and university courses that I couldn't before. Hipp-hipp-hurra, as they say in Swedish (I would never say that in English unless I had just been out fox hunting with the other lords and ladies.)
I thought I'd better share my gradually-acquired knowledge of how you can become legitimerad (certified) and behörig (authorised) in Swedish, as there is no clear path through the nebulous options open to immigrants as to how Swedish can be learned outside of the government-offered, hit-and-miss SFI (Swedish for Immigrants).
OPTION 1: SFI
You arrive in Sweden. You register your arrival with the migration board and maybe also with the job centre (arbetsförmedlingen). Somebody somewhere starts talking about "S. F. EEEEEEee" and you spend several weeks thinking it's spelled SFE when it's actually SFI but people don't say the English letters and choose instead to drop the Swedish version on you without warning. Somebody with dollar signs for eyes tells you to sign up ASAP because you get, like, a million bajillion krona for completing the course. So you sign up! But, there's no money for you if you're from the EU. Hey, fuck it, you signed up anyway.
You have an interview with a person who says they want to see your level so they can place you in the right track. You get allocated A B or C track depending on how much you already speak. You go to the first class with ALL THE ENTHUSIASM until you find out the class is filled with a continually replenishing stock of people on all levels of the course. Together. At once. With one teacher. Also there are some people in there who have always been there, they never complete. They just come for the warmth maybe.
Eventually you take some tests and get some paper with A B C or even, brace yourself, D on it, and feel, er, well not great but, something, for having completed SF-EEEEEEEE. "But I have a certificate from SFEEEEEEE!" you tell yourself, when you still can't have a conversation with the average cleaning lady from Eritrea.
OPTION 2: SAS
You flounder around after SFI (or maybe you skip SFI entirely because going straight there after work twice a week for 3 hours was not the most useful use of your time and watching the Swedish version of Police-Camera-Action on TV was teaching you more) until someone talks about SAS. "Aha! SAS, I know that acronym! It's the Swedish national airline!" you nod knowingly . WRONG. SAS means "Svenska Som Andra Språk" or Swedish as a Second Language. It's where you go when you realise you can't have a conversation with the nice Eritrean lady and maybe should learn how. But you can't go there unless you have your bit of paper with D on it from SFEEEEEE, so if you skipped, then it's back to Joseph and Layla, your old, reliable friends who should still be enjoying the warmth of the SFI classroom.
After many an evening of crying into a textbook and reading the dryest reading list ever, you'll earn yourself the HOLY GRAIL which is a SAS 3 certificate. And you will be able to converse with whichever cleaning lady you like. About Camus and Dostoevsky. Here's an example of the sort of shit you can do after SAS 3. Also look for employment, be generally awesome at Swedish, yada yada yada.
If you're somehow outside my network of Facebook friends and reading this, then you might like some useful links. Hermods is a company with several colleges teaching SFI and SAS. Komvux is an adult education college with branches all over Sweden, use a google search to find one close to you. Folkuniversitet is like Open University, an Adult Education college offering all kinds of courses including Swedish. Some places are free, some are not. Keep en eye out.
OPTION 3: TISUS
Let's say you hate going to class for hours and hours in the evening when it's dark outside after 2pm, -5 degrees and there is chocolate in your house. Let's also say you have a lot of Swedish speaking friends and quasi-family who babble a lot of Swedish in your presence, so much so that you can crash your way through a conversation with the cleaning lady "Yes weather good. weather sun. You (plural) like sun? Me like rain, from England ha ha! Always cleaning? No, was not you petrochemical engineer back home? Is truth!" Swedish I can talk. Test can I take maybe now.
TISUS is a test run every 6 months by Stockholms University, although you can take the test in a few different places. If you can pass the speaking, reading comprehension and writing tests then you'll get yourself a bit of paper like mine and can apply for University courses in Swedish. You'll probably have to speak a bit better than my Yoda impression, but you won't have to read Dostoevsky. I was very fortunate and already had a job when I arrived so I learned Swedish at work and as I went along, I also have a background in learning languages. This short-cut, take-a-test-and-it-will-all-be-over, option suited me best, but it does cost 1600kr so it's not for the weak of wallet.
OPTION 4: HÖGSKOLEPROVET
Similar to TISUS but for people who can't translate over their grades to the Swedish system, or who have no grades. A test in Swedish of Maths, English and Swedish that can get you in to many further education establishments. Every year the newspapers publish a quiz of the vocab test in Swedish because usually there are several words that even Swedish people don't know. If you want more information about this you can click here.
OPTION 5: KORTA VÄGEN
"Awww man more studying blarhujfioweifbsdfjg" is pretty much what any normal person thinks when confronted with further study when looking for a job. "I worked a lot back home and now I'm right back down the bottom again". Yes. Well, that happens when you can't even write an email to a colleague about the printer being out of paper. Doesn't matter if you have a PHD in putting paper in a printer if you can't communicate your expertise. Korta Vägen means "The Short Way" and is run by Stockholms University and the job centre Arbetsförmedlingen. It aims to give you some experience in using Swedish in the workplace and tries to help you find a work placement relevant to a field in which you have previous experience. Also it gets you out of the house so you stop cleaning shit for the hundreth time and contemplating life as an alcoholic.
The website tries to be all mysterious and "oooh....aah....contact the job centre for more details!" but everyone knows that's irritating as fuck and REAL INFORMATION would be more useful. I believe at the least a piece of paper with a D on it (no, not that kind of D) will be needed from SFEEEEEE before Korta Vägen is a viable option.
OPTION 6: READ THE MILK CARTONS
As previously mentioned, you can try to learn Swedish by reading the milk cartons, which feature interesting new factoids every day. This won't get you a qualification, however.
 |
| That's right, my name is officially . |
I thought I'd better share my gradually-acquired knowledge of how you can become legitimerad (certified) and behörig (authorised) in Swedish, as there is no clear path through the nebulous options open to immigrants as to how Swedish can be learned outside of the government-offered, hit-and-miss SFI (Swedish for Immigrants).
OPTION 1: SFI
You arrive in Sweden. You register your arrival with the migration board and maybe also with the job centre (arbetsförmedlingen). Somebody somewhere starts talking about "S. F. EEEEEEee" and you spend several weeks thinking it's spelled SFE when it's actually SFI but people don't say the English letters and choose instead to drop the Swedish version on you without warning. Somebody with dollar signs for eyes tells you to sign up ASAP because you get, like, a million bajillion krona for completing the course. So you sign up! But, there's no money for you if you're from the EU. Hey, fuck it, you signed up anyway.
You have an interview with a person who says they want to see your level so they can place you in the right track. You get allocated A B or C track depending on how much you already speak. You go to the first class with ALL THE ENTHUSIASM until you find out the class is filled with a continually replenishing stock of people on all levels of the course. Together. At once. With one teacher. Also there are some people in there who have always been there, they never complete. They just come for the warmth maybe.
Eventually you take some tests and get some paper with A B C or even, brace yourself, D on it, and feel, er, well not great but, something, for having completed SF-EEEEEEEE. "But I have a certificate from SFEEEEEEE!" you tell yourself, when you still can't have a conversation with the average cleaning lady from Eritrea.
OPTION 2: SAS
You flounder around after SFI (or maybe you skip SFI entirely because going straight there after work twice a week for 3 hours was not the most useful use of your time and watching the Swedish version of Police-Camera-Action on TV was teaching you more) until someone talks about SAS. "Aha! SAS, I know that acronym! It's the Swedish national airline!" you nod knowingly . WRONG. SAS means "Svenska Som Andra Språk" or Swedish as a Second Language. It's where you go when you realise you can't have a conversation with the nice Eritrean lady and maybe should learn how. But you can't go there unless you have your bit of paper with D on it from SFEEEEEE, so if you skipped, then it's back to Joseph and Layla, your old, reliable friends who should still be enjoying the warmth of the SFI classroom.
After many an evening of crying into a textbook and reading the dryest reading list ever, you'll earn yourself the HOLY GRAIL which is a SAS 3 certificate. And you will be able to converse with whichever cleaning lady you like. About Camus and Dostoevsky. Here's an example of the sort of shit you can do after SAS 3. Also look for employment, be generally awesome at Swedish, yada yada yada.
If you're somehow outside my network of Facebook friends and reading this, then you might like some useful links. Hermods is a company with several colleges teaching SFI and SAS. Komvux is an adult education college with branches all over Sweden, use a google search to find one close to you. Folkuniversitet is like Open University, an Adult Education college offering all kinds of courses including Swedish. Some places are free, some are not. Keep en eye out.
OPTION 3: TISUS
Let's say you hate going to class for hours and hours in the evening when it's dark outside after 2pm, -5 degrees and there is chocolate in your house. Let's also say you have a lot of Swedish speaking friends and quasi-family who babble a lot of Swedish in your presence, so much so that you can crash your way through a conversation with the cleaning lady "Yes weather good. weather sun. You (plural) like sun? Me like rain, from England ha ha! Always cleaning? No, was not you petrochemical engineer back home? Is truth!" Swedish I can talk. Test can I take maybe now.
TISUS is a test run every 6 months by Stockholms University, although you can take the test in a few different places. If you can pass the speaking, reading comprehension and writing tests then you'll get yourself a bit of paper like mine and can apply for University courses in Swedish. You'll probably have to speak a bit better than my Yoda impression, but you won't have to read Dostoevsky. I was very fortunate and already had a job when I arrived so I learned Swedish at work and as I went along, I also have a background in learning languages. This short-cut, take-a-test-and-it-will-all-be-over, option suited me best, but it does cost 1600kr so it's not for the weak of wallet.
OPTION 4: HÖGSKOLEPROVET
Similar to TISUS but for people who can't translate over their grades to the Swedish system, or who have no grades. A test in Swedish of Maths, English and Swedish that can get you in to many further education establishments. Every year the newspapers publish a quiz of the vocab test in Swedish because usually there are several words that even Swedish people don't know. If you want more information about this you can click here.
OPTION 5: KORTA VÄGEN
"Awww man more studying blarhujfioweifbsdfjg" is pretty much what any normal person thinks when confronted with further study when looking for a job. "I worked a lot back home and now I'm right back down the bottom again". Yes. Well, that happens when you can't even write an email to a colleague about the printer being out of paper. Doesn't matter if you have a PHD in putting paper in a printer if you can't communicate your expertise. Korta Vägen means "The Short Way" and is run by Stockholms University and the job centre Arbetsförmedlingen. It aims to give you some experience in using Swedish in the workplace and tries to help you find a work placement relevant to a field in which you have previous experience. Also it gets you out of the house so you stop cleaning shit for the hundreth time and contemplating life as an alcoholic.
The website tries to be all mysterious and "oooh....aah....contact the job centre for more details!" but everyone knows that's irritating as fuck and REAL INFORMATION would be more useful. I believe at the least a piece of paper with a D on it (no, not that kind of D) will be needed from SFEEEEEE before Korta Vägen is a viable option.
OPTION 6: READ THE MILK CARTONS
As previously mentioned, you can try to learn Swedish by reading the milk cartons, which feature interesting new factoids every day. This won't get you a qualification, however.
Monday, 1 June 2015
Day 644: Kina Review
I've decided that what makes a successful blog is regular updates. "Right, that's it, every Monday I'm going to update" I decided. I sat here for an hour and a half and did sweet FA. (That's Fuck All or NOTHING for anyone who's never done FA, you smarmy bastards).
I racked my brains for a goodly while trying to come up with cah-razy Swedish shit that happened this week and decided that while endless chat about jogging, endless people asking me which race I will be jogging in this season, endless others talking about the races they are jogging in and endless adverts for jogging events including the Stockholm Marathon do qualify as Swedish shit, they are exactly that, shit. I'm not further endorsing the jogging obsession already prevalent here, which manifests mainly in people wearing jogging pants at all times to BE PREPARED for unexpected jogging, by talking about jogging.
Instead, I will tell you about the chocolate I shoved in my gullet out of boredom and desperation when failing to come up with a half-decent blog post.
If you've had enough blog and want to leave now, here is a summary of the product called "KINA" (pronounced SHINA and meaning China): I don't know why anyone would a) be inspired to make b) make c) market d) purchase or e) eat this snack.
They're within reaching distance of my blog-writing because they were a thank-you gift to my boyfriend for some help he gave to someone. After eating them I'm starting to wonder if my boyfriend actually fucked some shit up real bad and this is somebody's way of telling him to just not help in the future. The little wheat puffs taste like burnt rice covered in the chocolate found in a year old 99p advent calendar. They're so small it takes your body a few seconds to actually notice you've fed it something, but if you eat a whole bunch at once you get a flavour sensation a bit like being punched in the face by the Sugar Puffs Monster. Some genius, probably in the good old 1930's when it looks like the packaging was designed, thought that there is a clear connection between CHINA and THOSE POINTY HATS THAT EVERYONE IN CHINA WEARS. At some point in the 1990's another designer realised the mistake and added some EXPLODING CHOCOLATE BALLS because the packaging wasn't dynamic enough.
Actually my history is totally wrong. Kina was started in the 1960's and used to have this lovely, absolutely not-racist-at-all face on the packaging until the PC brigade caught up with it in 2011 and had it banned:
Monday, 25 May 2015
Day 634: Eurovision Winners
How do I feel now that Sweden has won the Eurovision Song Contest yet
again? I feel probably the same as most people, that is to say, not a lot frankly.
How did I feel on Saturday night when I was at a Eurovision Song Contest party, wearing a costume to support my randomly allocated team (yaaaaay Georgia), watching the votes coming in and sitting on the edge of my seat when Russia was two twelve point votes ahead of Sweden? Well, considerably more engaged. And that's probably not because we had money riding on it, since Georgia had no chance when they used words like "oximated" in their song.
A lot of people will tell you that the UK doesn't take the Eurovision Song Contest seriously and that they don't care. But I think these people are lying. All the Brits I've ever met can at least converse on a basic level about how shit the entrants are and they wouldn't be able to do that unless somehow, somewhere they had watched the damn thing. For the longest time we had a presenter called Terry Wogan who drawled ironically, sardonically and sarcastically all over proceedings in his Irish accent and most people tuned in just for him, Brits love a good piss take.
He was replaced by Graham Norton, funnily enough another Irish fella who does just as much micky-taking as his predecessor. I've stuck a little load of golden moments from Graham here in the blog, the video is worth watching most at 2:20 when Albania, er, contribute.
The Swedish commentators tell you a lot of factoids in a dry, disinteresting fashion. I will say this though, they may have tried to emulate Graham a little bit and instead of sounding funny and dry they just sounded like they're bitching and slagging off the contestants. If you type in "Eurovision funny" into youtube you get a lot of Graham. If you type "Eurovision rolig" into Swedish youtube you get....a standard list of Eurovision songs. Nuff said.
Everyone left the party feeling like it was really great that Sweden won, also drunk. We mused a bit about why Sweden won. Was it political? Is it because Sweden is viewed neutrally? Maybe it's simply because the song was poppy, likeable and had the best accompanying graphics. Also the singer was good looking which helps.
In fact yeah, I'm guessing that because the song was poppy and crafted in the most generic fashion possible (Swedes being the masters of this as demonstrated by their consistently writing a large number of the songs in the contest and even choreographing some others) it won the Jury vote. But it DIDN'T win over the public, Italy did, by a long way. So perhaps Europe isn't so into shitty, repetitive pop as you might think, and actually prefer shitty opera warbling instead?
This table also handily shits on our drunken happiness that Russia was not as popular in Europe as Sweden, psshh yeah right. It helps if you have had a massive union of countries under your control at some point in the last hundred years. But not more than a hundred years otherwise they all hate you, right United Kingdom?
I realise you've now spent more time than you possibly bargained on reading an analysis of a song contest which has no bearing whatsoever on your life. But before you go I must point out this: the UK's number one choice was Lithuania's far-too-long onstage kiss and Poland's scraping-the-barrel-sympathy-vote wheelchair lady wearing a giant sail. Sweden, meanwhile, took their votes very seriously and nominated arguably the three most talented artists into their top ranks. Muse on that if you will, or you know, don't. It's only Eurovision after all!
How did I feel on Saturday night when I was at a Eurovision Song Contest party, wearing a costume to support my randomly allocated team (yaaaaay Georgia), watching the votes coming in and sitting on the edge of my seat when Russia was two twelve point votes ahead of Sweden? Well, considerably more engaged. And that's probably not because we had money riding on it, since Georgia had no chance when they used words like "oximated" in their song.
 |
| Google trend showing that people in England collectively googled "Oximated" because wtf? |
A lot of people will tell you that the UK doesn't take the Eurovision Song Contest seriously and that they don't care. But I think these people are lying. All the Brits I've ever met can at least converse on a basic level about how shit the entrants are and they wouldn't be able to do that unless somehow, somewhere they had watched the damn thing. For the longest time we had a presenter called Terry Wogan who drawled ironically, sardonically and sarcastically all over proceedings in his Irish accent and most people tuned in just for him, Brits love a good piss take.
He was replaced by Graham Norton, funnily enough another Irish fella who does just as much micky-taking as his predecessor. I've stuck a little load of golden moments from Graham here in the blog, the video is worth watching most at 2:20 when Albania, er, contribute.
The Swedish commentators tell you a lot of factoids in a dry, disinteresting fashion. I will say this though, they may have tried to emulate Graham a little bit and instead of sounding funny and dry they just sounded like they're bitching and slagging off the contestants. If you type in "Eurovision funny" into youtube you get a lot of Graham. If you type "Eurovision rolig" into Swedish youtube you get....a standard list of Eurovision songs. Nuff said.
Everyone left the party feeling like it was really great that Sweden won, also drunk. We mused a bit about why Sweden won. Was it political? Is it because Sweden is viewed neutrally? Maybe it's simply because the song was poppy, likeable and had the best accompanying graphics. Also the singer was good looking which helps.
In fact yeah, I'm guessing that because the song was poppy and crafted in the most generic fashion possible (Swedes being the masters of this as demonstrated by their consistently writing a large number of the songs in the contest and even choreographing some others) it won the Jury vote. But it DIDN'T win over the public, Italy did, by a long way. So perhaps Europe isn't so into shitty, repetitive pop as you might think, and actually prefer shitty opera warbling instead?
 |
| Thx Wikipedia as usual |
I realise you've now spent more time than you possibly bargained on reading an analysis of a song contest which has no bearing whatsoever on your life. But before you go I must point out this: the UK's number one choice was Lithuania's far-too-long onstage kiss and Poland's scraping-the-barrel-sympathy-vote wheelchair lady wearing a giant sail. Sweden, meanwhile, took their votes very seriously and nominated arguably the three most talented artists into their top ranks. Muse on that if you will, or you know, don't. It's only Eurovision after all!
Thursday, 14 May 2015
Day 633: INGEN REKLAM TACK
I was just sitting in the flat minding my own business when I heard an almighty KA-THUNK at the door. It was too early to be post and as anyone who has read my post about post would know, heavy post is not delivered directly anyway. "What the F was that?" I wondered aloud. I opened up the inner door and found THIS MIGHTY PILE OF BULLPLOP:
I discovered, much like my neighbours who had the same experience, that upon having all of our front doors upgraded to security doors last week we had lost all of our "INGEN REKLAM TACK" stickers. In England when you stick a little sticker that says "No Junk Mail" on your letterbox it will result in one of two things, either a) nothing. The junk mail will come anyway or b) The delivery agent will see your sticker as a challenge and post 4 times as much shite as they did before.
Apparently I had not appreciated the power of the INGEN REKLAM sticker. A healthy bundle of deals is slammed onto my doormat twice a week now. The residents of the building are quite worried about the loss of the stickers and one of the points for discussion at our annual residents meeting is the printing out of new stickers for everyone. Meanwhile I imagine the delivery agents are having a corresponding meeting about how they need to MAXIMISE THE TIME NOW! SEIZE THE MOMENT! that our defences are down and they can ply us with as much advertising as they can before the shields go back up.
Does this mean that there is some guy who has come and tried to deliver advertising every week for years and years and each time been disappointed that the stickers were still there? And suddenly there was a day when the doors started to get changed and he found that the stickers were gone and Christmas had come early? Or is there a cartel between the door changing company and the advertisers, so that they get information about the stickers not being up any more and can get straight down to business at the earliest opportunity?
This country is so weird. I just don't understand shit like this.
I discovered, much like my neighbours who had the same experience, that upon having all of our front doors upgraded to security doors last week we had lost all of our "INGEN REKLAM TACK" stickers. In England when you stick a little sticker that says "No Junk Mail" on your letterbox it will result in one of two things, either a) nothing. The junk mail will come anyway or b) The delivery agent will see your sticker as a challenge and post 4 times as much shite as they did before.
Apparently I had not appreciated the power of the INGEN REKLAM sticker. A healthy bundle of deals is slammed onto my doormat twice a week now. The residents of the building are quite worried about the loss of the stickers and one of the points for discussion at our annual residents meeting is the printing out of new stickers for everyone. Meanwhile I imagine the delivery agents are having a corresponding meeting about how they need to MAXIMISE THE TIME NOW! SEIZE THE MOMENT! that our defences are down and they can ply us with as much advertising as they can before the shields go back up.
Does this mean that there is some guy who has come and tried to deliver advertising every week for years and years and each time been disappointed that the stickers were still there? And suddenly there was a day when the doors started to get changed and he found that the stickers were gone and Christmas had come early? Or is there a cartel between the door changing company and the advertisers, so that they get information about the stickers not being up any more and can get straight down to business at the earliest opportunity?
This country is so weird. I just don't understand shit like this.
Monday, 4 May 2015
Day 623: RELEASE THE KRAKE-er I mean- COWS
Kosläpp is a combination of two words; "ko" which means cow and "släpp" which means release, free, let loose. I recently had a Swedish friend argue that "cow release" sounds too violent to accurately convey the meaning of the word, I meanwhile believe that it sounds far too sexual. In any case, the releasing of the cows is in fact not a giant, drawn-out cow wank, but the letting out of cows after a long winter in their sheds.
Why is this even a thing? Well, Swedish cows spend a long time indoors on account of the fact that nobody wants frozen milk with their breakfast. Also, contrary to my childhood wishes, cold cows do not produce mini-milk. When they finally get to go outside again in the spring they go a bit nuts. There are plenty of videos on YouTube to prove this, here's just a short one to get you started:
We took a picnic spot on a mound to one side of the paddock and waited for the cows. There was a little farmers market where you could get coffee, tea, milk from the farm and hamburgers - presumably from all the dead man-cows, since all the milking cows are ladies. Aww cute cows, now let's roast their manfolk and let them smell the dead (and drink all the milk they never get to feed their non-existent babies). American cowboy-themed music played over some speakers and some fake cowboys wondered around twirling their lassos impotently.
With just a few minutes to go before the cows came out the farm suddenly became absolutely packed with children shouting "MUUU. MUUUU. MUUUU" (Swedish for Moo) and people pointing iPhones and DSLR cameras at the paddock. There was a half-hearted countdown which went something like:
"20...19............................*long silence*......................................9.................*long silence*........................3..2..1!"
for some reason, and then...yay cows! They ran about, jumped with swinging udders, rubbed their faces on the grass, headbutted each other and congregated right in the entranceway so other cows couldn't get out, a bit like Stockholmers on public transport. After 5 minutes a short-lived hail shower started and all the cows tried to go back inside again, but a man with outstretched arms managed to convince them that he was big enough to stop the whole herd and so they all went out into the field.
Now I know I'm putting a cynical slant on this, but the cows were actually damn cute. If you've ever bothered to look at a field of cows you'll know they don't do much. They eat grass and amble. This kosläpp was the most I've ever seen a cow move. I'll leave you with this pic of some cows moo-ving. YES, IT WAS A MOO PUN.
Why is this even a thing? Well, Swedish cows spend a long time indoors on account of the fact that nobody wants frozen milk with their breakfast. Also, contrary to my childhood wishes, cold cows do not produce mini-milk. When they finally get to go outside again in the spring they go a bit nuts. There are plenty of videos on YouTube to prove this, here's just a short one to get you started:
I organised a last minute event to go and see some cows being released
(teehee) and expected to have nobody come (and also to be laughed at for
waking up early on a Sunday morning to look at cows like I was
attending a bovine church.) Instead, 18 fellow bovine believers followed
along, including 5 Swedes who were equally new to the whole thing as
the rest of us immigrants. According to my milk, the kosläpp phenomenon
is really taking off, with record numbers attending (You can learn a lot of Swedish by reading the milk cartons and then you can start sentences with "according to my milk").
We took a picnic spot on a mound to one side of the paddock and waited for the cows. There was a little farmers market where you could get coffee, tea, milk from the farm and hamburgers - presumably from all the dead man-cows, since all the milking cows are ladies. Aww cute cows, now let's roast their manfolk and let them smell the dead (and drink all the milk they never get to feed their non-existent babies). American cowboy-themed music played over some speakers and some fake cowboys wondered around twirling their lassos impotently.
With just a few minutes to go before the cows came out the farm suddenly became absolutely packed with children shouting "MUUU. MUUUU. MUUUU" (Swedish for Moo) and people pointing iPhones and DSLR cameras at the paddock. There was a half-hearted countdown which went something like:
"20...19............................*long silence*......................................9.................*long silence*........................3..2..1!"
for some reason, and then...yay cows! They ran about, jumped with swinging udders, rubbed their faces on the grass, headbutted each other and congregated right in the entranceway so other cows couldn't get out, a bit like Stockholmers on public transport. After 5 minutes a short-lived hail shower started and all the cows tried to go back inside again, but a man with outstretched arms managed to convince them that he was big enough to stop the whole herd and so they all went out into the field.
Now I know I'm putting a cynical slant on this, but the cows were actually damn cute. If you've ever bothered to look at a field of cows you'll know they don't do much. They eat grass and amble. This kosläpp was the most I've ever seen a cow move. I'll leave you with this pic of some cows moo-ving. YES, IT WAS A MOO PUN.
Sunday, 12 April 2015
Day 591: The Tax Man Cometh
"Insert witty and or insightful quote about taxes here". That's right, you can't avoid them (except you can if you try. Or if you put all your money offshore. Or if you have a cash in hand job. Or you lie about how much money you have.)
I'll start again shall I.
That's right, it's time to tell the government how much money you haven't got. Except in Sweden where the tax office already knows exactly how much money you haven't got and just wants you to pat it on the back and tell it what a good job it's done following your every financial move. They send you a list of all your money's comings and goings and then all you have to do is go online and tick a box to accept the sums, which for the most part are correct.
It's a damn good thing the tax office is very well organised here because I don't generally have a fucking clue what's going on with my money when everything is explained to me in English, so I have no chance when everything is explained in Swedish. Tax language is one of many languages in which you can understand the individual words in a sentence and still not understand the sentence. For example, this gem: "8.3 Förlust fondandelar m.m. Förlust från bilaga K4 Avsnitt A, K10, K12, avsnitt B och K13" (Loss of mutual fund shares etc. Loss from attachment K4 section A, K10, K12, section B and K13)
One thing I can claim here, which I can't claim in England, is a tax rebate for travelling more than 2 kilometers to work! If you spend more than 10,000 SEK then you can claim tax back on anything you spent. According to Wikipedia the "reseavdrag" or travel compensation works on the principle that your job helps you pay tax and anything which is to the detriment of you working and paying tax should not also be taxed. But it is also pointed out that around 50% of claims for the reseavdrag are false and ask for more money than they should...
Meanwhile, environmentalists point out that the reseavdrag rewards people travelling long distances to work and even using their cars while those who cycle can't claim anything as they don't spend more than 10k on their bikes!
I'm not going to take this up as my political fight. I'm just going to reclaim me some tax money and let you lot figure out the morals for yourselves. Happy taxing!
Thursday, 2 April 2015
Day 581: Bewitching Maundy Thursday AKA Skärtorsdag
 |
| Ah those days, when we would dress up like old crones. |
Easter, that time of year. Everyone's eating easter eggs and sweets and actual eggs and thinking about Jesus maybe. And most importantly the kids are dressing up as witches and going trick or treating...or, no? Wait, isn't that Halloween?
If you ever wanted to see in action the random smashing together of Christian holidays with days of other Pagan traditions, Sweden is THE PLACE. You can tell people that Christmas is in December because of Saturnalia, but nobody remembers what Saturnalia is any more. Or you can explain that Halloween is suspiciously similar to Gaelic Samhain, but people don't really know what that is either.
In England people eat buns with crosses on (because Jesus.) and eat chocolate eggs (because rebirth. And spring.) But just try to explain how little kids dressing up like crones, carrying around coffee pans with tea towels on their heads and going door to door asking for money has anything to do with Easter.
Since the witch trials in Sweden in the 1600's people have believed that Skärtorsdag, the Thursday before Easter, is the day when all the witches fly off on their brooms (or cats, or other household items) to go to a mountain called Blåkulla and have sex with the devil. If you can read Swedish then there's a lovely graphic description of the devil's penis on the relevant Wikipedia page. Interestingly the English version of the same Wikipedia page doesn't give anything near the same level of detail.
But you know, Easter was already near the devil-witch-sex time so why not nowadays just combine everything and have the kids dress up as witches and sell cards with the Easter bunny door to door?
 |
| Witches on household items = Hocus Pocus |
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)