Day 2425: How to hoard like a Swede

Last week was all about mocking the Australians because they were hoarding toilet paper.
Well.
This week was all about imitating the Australians and hoarding toilet paper.

This week was also all about learning the Swedish verb "to hamster" (att hamstra) which means to hoard things, although you (hopefully) don't have to stuff them in your cheeks. I went on a photographic tour of my local supermarket to document the things which Stockholmers consider hamsterable. How do they compare with your local supermarket?

1.TUNA
Pros: Keeps for ages and is good protein. Cons: Too much of it will give you mercury poisoning.

2. CANNED SAUSAGES AND RAVIOLI
Pros: Canned goods can be hamstered for eons. Cons: Canned ravioli and sausage. Do I really have to spell out the cons for you?

3. MOZZARELLA AND PARMESAN
Pros: Italy is on lockdown so when are we gunna get more? Cons: You're so fucked in an apocalypse if you can't live without a bit of melty cheese.

4. BEEF OF VARIOUS KINDS
Pros: Can be frozen, so you can eke out your high carbon, rainforest destroying existence for slightly longer. Plus it has that whole manliness thing going for it. Cons: Literally any other meat or soya product is less soul and/or planet destroying.

4.5 BUT ONLY IF IT IS MINCED
Pros: Make the burgers. Cons: SLAB of beef? What is this SLAB you speak of? No SLAB only MINCE.  There will be no SLAB in the apocalypse.

4.5.1 BLOOD PUDDING
Pros: I just...I don't even know, man. This is a cultural aspect of Sweden that I have not engaged with. Cons: It's a pudding made of blood. And they store it next to the cheesecake, which is a less desired apocalypse food.

5. FUCKING CARROTS
Pros: Beta Carotene. Cons: Why are you hoarding this? Super easy to grow yourself. Plus they're from FUCKING SWEDEN so there's like, 0 chance they will be blockaded/banned/taboo.

6. NOT CARROTS IN A BAG. OR AVOCADOS.
Pros: There are no pros here. You're all idiots. You only hoard if you have to pack the item yourself, or if it is ready to eat today. You won't even hoard it if it keeps for slightly longer and is clearly on sale. Nonsense.

7. GINGER
Pros: Immuno booster. I see why you all hamstered this. Cons: At 6 quid a kilo this is some serious middle class hamstering.

8. LEMONS
Pros: Together with that ginger you're basically immune to corona virus. Cons: Bit sour.

9. NOT YOU LIMES, FUCK OFF.
Pros: More for me. Cons: I dunno, y'all hate green or summat?

10.BAG OF LETTUCE
Pros: CLEARLY healthier than limes. Cons: Lasts about 5 minutes after you open the bag. A very poor choice for the long term apocalypse.

11. DRY PASTA, RICE, BULGUR, COUSCOUS, SPAGHETTI...
Pros: Bolognese for dayzzzz. Cons: This aisle was devastated. I have lost all faith in humanity.

11.5. KETCHUP
Pros: There's plenty of non-Heinz left. Cons: Swedish people eat Ketchup on pasta. Whatever shred of faith in humanity you had, it's gone now, hasn't it?

12. FRESH PASTA
Pros: You can buy it when all the dry pasta has been hamstered. Cons: At this point, everything is a con. Especially considering....

...13. FRESH SPINACH PASTA
Plenty of that. Hamstering is a very trend specific hobby.

14.BREAD BREAD BREAD BREAD BREAD
Pros: BREAD BREAD BREAD BREAD Cons: BREAD BREAD BREAD BREAD
You hear corona zombies in the distance, what is that they are braying after? BREAD BREAD BREAD.

15.POOR QUALITY CINNAMON BUNS
Pros: When all the good quality buns are gone, these ones will outlast even your last born children. Cons: They taste mostly of additives so that they can outlast even your last born children.

16. SHIT CAVIAR IN A TUBE
Pros: Salty. Cons: Fish eggs in a tube. Just....okay. I have a Swedish passport but I am clearly not Swedish because ... I don't get it.

16.5 GOOD QUALITY CAVIAR
Pros: Is fine people, plenty of it.Cons: Where's that facepalm emoji when you need it...

17.NESCAFE INSTANT COFFEE
Pros: Now when Swedes tell you that they are the foremost nation of coffee drinkers you can point out that, when shit hits the fan, they are actually the foremost nation of shit instant granules.
Cons: If you are a Swede who hamsters Nescafe then you have some reflecting to do.

18. CHEESE PUFFS
Pros: If corona has taught us something about Sweden, it is that they are serious about their cheese. Cons: If you eat just one of these puffs, you will in fact have to consume the whole bag. Not a sustainable hamstering choice. 

19. VANILLA YOGHURT
Pros: Er...It has vanilla in it? Cons: I don't understand why this one yoghurt trumps all the other yoghurts?

20.HICKORY BBQ SAUCE
Pros: Again.....the specific flavour. Cons: Hickory will forever be the flavour of the corona shutdown, eating hickory at any later date will transport you back to this terrible time of depression and desolation.

21.SALT
Pros: A good apocalypse choice, we can't live without salt! Cons: A box of salt lasts for literally years. How long do people think they are going to be in corona isolation?!

22. BROCCOLI
can fuck right off. 

Day 2392: Make like a tree and leave

Christmas was 47 days ago but people are still recycling their trees. And not just a few people, no, there must be a lot of people keeping their trees well into February because:
1. Demand for tree recycling points is high enough that the council has kept doing the clearing rounds 6 weeks after Christmas.
2. There are consistently piles of trees at these points.
3. Some roads are still covered in pine needles and smell like Christmas trees.

If there are still lots of people recycling trees, then there must also be a significant number of people who still have the trees at home somewhere. Like my neighbor...

I thought my neighbor might have forgotten that they even have a tree, because they threw it outside at the beginning of January, still with the lights on. Then it fell over mid January and nobody picked it up. But I can see now there are no lights on it any more, so there is a very slow, glacial even, cleaning process going on here. Maybe they will recycle it in March.

I was taught that it is bad luck to keep Christmas decorations around after the 6th January. Also, trees shed their needles everywhere after a while, so why keep them around? This tree hoarding behaviour just adds further evidence to my mounting case that Swedish people are extremely image conscious, projecting an outward appearance of being sleek, tidy, well designed, organised and clean while secretly hoarding old christmas trees and god only knows what else in their houses. No wonder nobody wants to invite you round for dinner, they've probably got several month's worth of crap built up that they can't be bothered to take away.

Day 2303: Bus Bag Bastards

A typical Stockholm commute would not be complete without a fellow passenger taking up an extra seat on the bus or train with their bag, leg or other general item/body part. Another favourite strategy, unfortunately not captured in my picture but happening accross the aisle, is to sit in the aisle seat so that the window seat is left free.

I'm long finished complaining about people who take up two seats - I'm from London. I did not arrive late to the selfish passenger party, I was born in it. I'm from that hardy race of commuters who sees a bag or overextended limb as an invitiation to confrontation. No wait, that's wrong. Most Londoners won't even confront you about moving an offending item any more, they'll just sit on it.

Which is why I am not frustrated that the woman in the picture above has her bag on the seat. Instead I want to know where the COJONES, the BALLS, the GRIT, the INTREPIDITY of the many standing passengers is to be found?! I know they wanted to sit, they were giving "the look" to the woman and her bag. Looks 👏 won't 👏 get 👏 you 👏 a 👏 seat.

Judging by her accent, the bag lady was NOT Swedish. For all I know she was from London, just like me. She was capitalising on the native aversion to just fucking TAKING the seat which is PAID for. Swedes - we foreigners are PLAYING you in your own system. Do not be afraid to sit on a bag, loudly state that you are going to park your rumpa, or stride awkwardly and determindly over some knees to get the window seat. I know from sharing other public spaces with you that y'all are masters of the barge and the invasion of personal space, so why do these skills MAGICALLY DISAPPEAR on the bus? Seats are there, GET SOME.

And while we are at it, GÅ LÄNGRE FRAM I BUSSEN FÖR FAN.

Day 2219: NOT THE SAME

LEGIT MISTAKES I HAVE MADE IN SWEDISH

(AND HOW TO AVOID THEM)

1. 

 

2.

 

3.

 

4.

 

5.

 

6.

 

7.

 

8. 

 

9. 

 

10.

 

BONUS 11. 

(NOT ME WHO SAID IT, THANKFULLY)

Day 2061: How to lose Swedes and alienate people

Have you ever heard someone say that it's hard to make friends in Sweden? It's a commonly held idea. Year upon year Sweden ranks bottom in international surveys of immigrants for making new friends and if you are one such immigrant it's a sure fire phrase to get a conversation going among fellow foreigners. Everyone has anecdotes about their attempts to make friends. Last month in a seminar at university, a Swedish girl told a Greek boy in the class "I saw you on the bus last week, but I thought eh, and I sat further back" which basically means "I saw you and I avoided you because I couldn't be bothered to make conversation for the whole bus journey". Now I have definitely avoided people I sort of know on the bus. But what is key, and I can't stress this enough, is that I DON'T tell that person that I deliberately avoided them.

A lot of really uninformed people get on their soapboxes and shout that not knowing Swedish is a key barrier to making friends.  One of the reasons I decided to study full time for the last two years - in Swedish - was because, at least in England, university is an excellent place for meeting likeminded people. So far I've made one firm friend, who's Malaysian. And I met her on one of the seminars that was taught in English. Sometimes the Swedish seminars were bordering on painful in terms of social interaction. Obviously some facet of Swedish sociality is beyond me. Where am I going wrong? I have a few ideas.

1. I talk "in other people's mouths" (tala i munnen på varandra)

Swedes are really, really loathe to speak on top of each other. "Att prata i munnen på varandra är sällan vägen till ett lyckat samtal," apparently. Of course, it's quite confrontational to talk over someone. If you do it at the wrong time, they'll feel like you hijacked what they were saying or maybe weren't even listening to begin with. It's also domineering, to think that what you have to say is worth overtaking another person's input. Now we're stepping on the toes of the big Swedish No-No, namely jantelagen (everyone is equal). You're not better than your conversation partner, so why are you talking over them?

Well, here's why: because you're showing that you are keen, interested, genuinely involved, brimming with ideas! Timing is key here, you don't want to completely cut off the other person mid-flow. The aim is to rejuvenate the topic as that person is coming to the end of their idea, or build upon what they've said, or supply a word they're floundering after. If the person talking has repeated themselves multiple times already and the rest of the group is losing interest, please for the love of god, cut them off and take the conversation elsewhere. At the other end of the spectrum, people, no matter what they say, do not want the conversation to lapse into silence. They don't want to be the conversation killer. Save them by picking up the tail end of what they've been saying.


2. I'm not "med i föreningen"

Actually I am. I'm in several groups. But they're not the right ones. I tried to join a badminton förening but they are all completely, completely full and frustratingly opaque about annual recruitment. The best way to join a förening is to know someone who is already in the förening. I joined, you guessed it, a (really great, by the way) badminton group full of immigrants. In my first few years here I was in a Swedish conversation group with no Swedes. I set up a French conversation group and some Swedes came, I tried to get them to stay an hour and speak a bit of Swedish; they did not. Many organisations are very insular and cliquey, often consisting of groups of people who have already known each other a while from outside the förening. As one migrant put it, 'Only in Sweden have I ever been told ‘I don't need to talk to you, I have enough friends'. Even if you are in a group and you meet Swedes there, like my book group for example, you'll most likely never see each other outside the designated group times.

3. My Swedish is rude

After the Stockholm marathon I was waiting for a train with my boyfriend when a runner wearing a medal walked past. "Grattis!" I said (congratulations). When he'd walked out of earshot, my boyfriend told me I sounded really sarcastic. Unless you put the right nuance and intonation into what you say, perhaps you are not really saying what you think you are saying.  God knows how many times I've sounded like a total bitch because of my word choice or lack of nuance. A lot of Swedish sounds completely saccharine and overbearingly false to me in much the same way that American English does to my British ears. "Åh vad häääääärligt, gud vad bra". Fuck off.

I state opinions (bad), I swear (in Swedish: bad. In English: helt ok), I talk about the class divide (awkward) and I disagree with people (social suicide).

4. I do not live in a flatshare; I do not work with Swedes

We spend a lot of time at work. We spend a lot of time at home. If you share those two places with Swedish people, the probability of you meeting some is substantially higher than if you don't. The only Swede in my workplace is my boss, who is awesome - in a professional sort of way. She's definitely not my friend. The only Swede in my home is my boyfriend and, well, he's already trapped and has nowhere to run.

5. I don't want to talk about Britain

Wow - are Swedes complete Anglophiles. Swedish people are so incredibly interested in Britain, they speak English, they read about it in the news, they watch BBC, they don't dub anything, they invite British comedians over, they take regular trips over there, they study over there in droves, they talk about London like a second home, and as soon as they hear my accent they want to talk to me in English about Downton Abbey. But...I hate Downton Abbey.  I don't want to talk about the queen, I'd rather get rid of the whole bollocks royal affair. I'll talk to you about Brexit if you really, really want...but then you have to be prepared for the rudeness I mentioned in (3). Plus, it's frankly bewildering. Do these Anglophile Swedes realise that most Brits think Sweden is Switzerland?

6. I don't know who the fuck Mikael Persbrandt is...

...And I think I wouldn't care even if I did. Come to mention it, I don't watch Swedish TV and I don't know who any of the so called "celebrities" are. Charlotte Perelli who? Parneviks what? Is Jonas Gardell even funny any more? I went to see Eddie Izzard once in Sweden and they billed me a 3 hour show, only 30 minutes of which was Izzard and the other painful hours were filled with literally THE WORST "comedy" I have ever seen, it was sickeningly, cringeworthily bad. Thank god it was in Swedish so Eddie Izzard couldn't understand how dreadful it was. One section of the show consisted of two women saying cunt over and over again to show how modern their comedy was. Still, I think I'd rather see that again that watch Melodifestivalen (the long, drawn-out preamble to the twattery that is the Eurovision song contest). When Swedes start bandying the names of Z-list celebrities around in conversation it really is time for me to get my coat. If Pewdiepie is your country's highest grossing cultural export then something's definitely going wrong in the art factory.

7. I'm neither here nor there

I'm sure many other people would agree with me when I say that when you leave one country and move to another, after a while you don't really fit in either. It becomes more challenging to maintain friendships with people who come from one place, relate to one place, speak passionately about one place and are unequivocally invested emotionally and socially in one place. Yes, that one place is important to me too, but I've got divided loyalties. I take comfort and support from other immigrants just like me who understand my divided loyalties. So, I work hard at my friendships with people in England and I keep an open mind about friendships appearing with Swedes, but more often than not the Swedes who end up with foreign friends have lived abroad themselves, and they too are two parts (or more!) of one whole. On the positive side, a recent study showed that having friends who are different from you makes you a better, more adaptable person.

Day 1925: IS TOO EARLY

IT IS TOO EARLY FOR:

LUSSEBULLAR.

THESE BUNS ARE FOR LUCIA ONLY!

 JULMUST.

 IT'S NOT TIME FOR CHRISTMAS YET

 TEMPERATURES LOWER THAN MY FRIDGE.

I DON'T WANT TO COMPARE THIS WITH THE EXTERNAL TEMP AT BREAKFAST

 AND GIVE UP ON MY DAY BEFORE IT HAS BEGUN, THANKS.

WEARING A COAT NOT A JACKET.

 DEFINITELY INTERESTED IN ONE OF THESE COATS...FOR LATER.

DARK. DARK. DARK. ALL THE TIME DARK.

A PIC FROM MY BEDROOM WINDOW

DARK WHEN I WAKE UP.

IS IT THE INSIDE OF MY EYELIDS, OR MY ROOM, OR BOTH?

DARK WHEN I LEAVE WORK.

 THIS IS THE BUS STOP WHERE I CATCH THE BUS

DARK WHEN I LOOK OUT THE WINDOW.

 OH, THERE'S A BIRD. I THINK. 

TRICK OR TREATERS.

SWEDISH PEOPLE DON'T KNOW WHEN HALLOWEEN IS. 

KIDS JUST TRICK OR TREAT FOR ABOUT 3 WEEKS.

BALD TREES.

SERIOUSLY, I SNEEZED AND THE LEAVES WERE GONE.

VINTERDÄCK.

WHY ARE THE ROADS ICY ALREADY?

RECIPES TRYING TO REINVENT THE SAME OLD CHRISTMAS FOODS.

NO I DON'T WANT MAYONNAISE IN MY SAFFRON BUN.

PEOPLE ASKING ME WHAT I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS

I DON'T KNOW 

SNOW. 

YEP, SEEN SOME ALREADY. NOT YET PLZ.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION.