Day 1012: Give us this day our daily sourdough

England has some really, really shite bread. The number one brand is Kingsmill but it's certainly not eaten by royalty and it's probably not really a mill, either. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the Kingsmill factory was just a room full of newspapers, wood shavings and disgruntled workers shoving small quantities of these into moulds before injecting them with air and dipping them into vats of bleach until the resulting product is so white you could squish several loaves together into a human shape, leave it on a beach somewhere in Alicante and have people assume it was an average British person. But hey, you are what you eat. Such is the nature of food culture in England that "healthy bread" means the same old shit that you used to eat but with a spattering of bran, not too much though or, heaven forbid, the kids will find out what real food looks like.

Some people try to convince themselves that they are actually healthy by buying brown bread, because they heard some spiel somewhere about whole grains. But companies in the UK are ahead of the curve on that one, and sell regular old white bread with a handful of other shit thrown in to make it LOOK like it's brown. "It's got 900 kinds of seeds in it! Wow!" Yeah...but is it brown? Is it fuck.

It is actually possible to buy wholemeal bread though, and you know it's the real deal because it's got a giant heart on it, in case you missed the memo about WHOLE WHEAT AND YOUR HEART. DID YOU KNOW IT'S GOOD FOR YOU, YEAH? But even if it didn't have a heart on it, you would know it was the healthy option because, just like brown rice and brown pasta, it offers not even a hint of the enjoyment of the unhealthy option and the eating experience is very much like gnawing desperately on an MDF table at 8am when the breakfast hunger pangs take you.

You might as well just give up and go for a bread that is totally devoid of any content whatsoever and designed entirely around toasting and slathering with butter (and this is England so I really mean it, get that knife in that butter block, or just, fuck it, put the whole butter slab on the toast and then add half a jar of Robinson's jam)

Sweden on the other hand, well, there is no other hand. In this respect England and Sweden really are similar. Sweden can boast as much as it likes about its class equality (most poor choices about food are linked to lack of understanding about good food, or economic inability to buy good food) but all that means is that theirs is a nation of people who really should know better about bread and who still buy the same old shit that their British neighbours do.

They also seem to fall for the same marketing tricks, believing that additional items ground into the loaf somehow magically make it more, well, magical. Like root vegetables. When have you ever been struck by the thought that your bread is missing something and that thing...is ROOT VEG?

Even if sometimes the bread comes in a different shape here, don't be fooled! It's still full of sugar. In England the bread is full of salt, some loaves have more than a gram per slice, but over here it's all about the syrup and the sugar. I confess I do enjoy a good rye or wheat cake, but I should have known what I was getting myself into when I saw the word cake...sugar by the bucketload!

This post was inspired by my search for a new daily bread, since moving to a new city we no longer have access to the delicious bread that was made in small, local factory that did its own deliveries. Now it's all about the big supermarkets and their big selection of SHITE. Everything is either bad, sourdough or a combination of the two with something experimental thrown in. Ah yes, sourdough. That's a big trend here. Everything is sourdough all the time. Especially when you don't particularly want sourdough. Here have some sourdough, it wouldn't be a complete blog post about Swedish bread without some.

Day 957: Is the gym a hobby?

There are lots of things I've adapted to here in Sweden. The standard awkward silences that happen because people are so socially retarded. The catering to people's every, tiny, emotional or physical need. The parents asking me if class is cancelled on a Tuesday because "it's nearly Easter". The pickled herring.

But something I really, really struggle with is the idea that going to the gym is an acceptable hobby.

Today in the virtual toilet paper that is the Metro I read an interview with a girl who was extolling the virtues of becoming a midwife in Sweden. And while there's nothing wrong with being a midwife or having children, I won't go into my even longer rant about how short sighted Sweden is in its flagrant and sustained moral bombardment of the whole population to pump out as many FUCKING CHILDREN as possible RIGHT NOW. Instead I'll tell you about how this particular midwife wannabe wanted everyone to know that her ONE AND ONLY HOBBY is "Crossfit Training". I was so incensed by this shitty nappy of an excuse for a hobby that I stuffed the whole newspaper down the side of my seat and did not read any more.

To me, going to the gym is very much like going to work or doing the hoovering. You don't want to, don't like to and you don't have to do these things, except there are certain benefits to your going and doing them (such as you don't get fired or suffer severe allergic reactions to ten tonnes of dusty shit). I can accept that going to the gym keeps you in shape and helps clear away the diabetes collection which you so lovingly store in your arteries. In fact, I'm well aware that you can get an endorphins rush from going to the gym that could give you the illusion that you have done something fun that may make you believe you've been engaged in a hobby.

But, if your life is so FULL OF MEANINGLESS SHITTY SHIT that you then go on to, not only tell your friends about how you lift weighted objects in the air repeatedly and put one foot in front of the other at different paces for half an hour on a machine, but also confess, nay BRAG, to a national, widely-read newspaper that this is your MAIN source of entertainment, then I can only PITY YOU. But the sad thing is, she only has Crossfit as her hobby because this whole ridiculous nation expects and DEMANDS that a person, especially one who works in healthcare role, LOVES AND CHERISHES AND ADORES AND CARESSES AND PROBABLY EVEN HAS SEX WITH exercise.

In fact, the "midwife" might not even be a midwife. She might just be a stock photograph of a generic blonde woman which the bollocks Metro newspaper dug up in order to further its buttmunch excuse for journalism. "Any news today Sven?" "Nah not really, just run some propaganda about 1. making more babies 2. filling in gaps in the work market and 3. going to the gym, people in the Nordic market really dig that shit". AND SO THEY DID, THANKS SVEN. Wow Sven man, you deserve a raise. You managed to concoct something which ticked all three boxes in one fell swoop, and made me gag so hard my colon nearly came out my mouth.

Next time you feel yourself about to tell people how great your run/gym/spinning class/yoga/INSERT GENERIC MOTION ACTIVITY HERE was, just STOP and think. Was it sociable? Out of the ordinary? Funny? Unusual? Did you learn something you can share with other people? Did you create something you can show to others? If you answer no to these questions and you open your fucking trap anyway to talk about running on a treadmill then you are effectively a SPORT JEHOVAS WITNESS and NOBODY LIKES YOU. (Unless you're in Sweden, where people will let you speak without listening to you and then contribute their own story about running on a treadmill which you will enjoy to the same degree as they enjoyed yours. Ad nauseam if you are in a group of Swedes. And I'm not sure if this counts as them "liking you" but for some reason faking an interest in other people's treadmill activity while repeatedly cooing stock phrases like "jaaaa, aaaah, aaaah, mmmm. Just det. Vad bra! Vad spännande. mmm. Ja." is the height of social capability here.)

Day 950: Ode to Uppsala

As you may have guessed from my previous post about looking for flats, I'm moving. And this means leaving the lovely city of Uppsala, a student town with a population of 100,000 people just 50km or so north of Stockholm. When I moved here from London just two and a half years ago I had no idea how to speak Swedish, a severe lack of friends, a fear of cycling, and no idea what it was like to not live with my mum. Fortunately I leave Uppsala considerably better prepared for Swedish life than I was when I came. Here's my tribute to all the things I will miss the most about Uppsala, or to put it better, all the things I will come back to visit, in no particular order:

1. Fyrishov

Sometimes, when I get my fat ass out of the chair I'm in, I go swimming here and it's brilliant. I usually get a lane to myself, I can listen to "Workin' 9-5" while I swim thanks to the old ladies swim exercise class and on Saturdays there's a disco in the adventure pool with a disco ball. I don't think there's a pool like you anywhere else in Sweden, Fyrishov, and I'll miss you.

2. Fyrisån

Through the middle of town runs the Fyris river and it's part of what makes Uppsala so picturesque. In the summer it's a cheap and underestimated day out to hire a canoe and paddle through town, or away from town towards Ulva Kvarn.

3. Distance to nature adventures 

There are so many great Nature places just on the doorstep. I've seen cows being let loose at Stabby gård, skated on a frozen lake at Österbybruk, been swimming in water that was so cold I lost all my breath when I jumped in at Fjällnora, went on a frozen forest walk in Färnebofjärden national park, and met all the baby goats at the goat farm in Långtora. These are just to name a few things!

4.  Close to other cities

I like cities as well as nature. When I've not felt like being in Stockholm, even if it is only 70km away, I've enjoyed Gävle's giant straw goat and railway museum, and Västerås' weird half-submurged hotels and excellent water park.

5. Living max. 30 minutes away from anybody, ever. (Even that guy who lives in Gottsunda)

Yeah. Gottsunda. I'll still come to your party, though.

6. Apples

Thanks, Uppsala, for making it so easy to a) find apples and b) press them into juice so that c) I can make loads of cheap, tasty cider. You can't do that in London so easily.

7. Student life

Farewell to students wondering around in costumes, people with boom boxes, people with Unicycles, people in formal wear, choir songs outside the window on the night before a gasque, gasques (like a formal dinner in a college until everyone gets absolutely fucking WANKERED.) and just general studenty madness.

8. How quiet it is when all the students leave

Yeah the student life brings some charm, but it its lovely when they all piss off.

9. Small social groups

I met pretty much everyone I know in the town through the Meetup website. It was quick and easy to meet great people from all over the place, all ready to hang out and have fun. I don't think it will be so easy and so straightforward in any other place!

10. Young people the majority

Being a student town, Uppsala has a lot of people around my age, making it even easier to meet friends with similar life experiences. Again, this is not something I expect to encounter in Stockholm!

11. Beautiful buildings

Here's a picture. 'Nuff said.

12. Cycling around

I only just got a bike, after years of people taunting me and wondering why I didn't have one. In the short time I've had it, I have definitely enjoyed the convenience of cycling around, usually on special bike lanes which are separate from traffic.

13. Fewer people, less noise

Yep, it's definitely lungnare here than it will be in Stockholm.

14. Valborg

If you're read my post about Valborg in Uppsala you'll be suprised to see it on this list, but I will miss the party spirit people get on the day, and watching the funny little boats crash their way down the river while drinking champagne at stupid o'clock.

15. Spex

After a year or two I finally had enough grasp of Swedish to go and see a Spex, a play performed by students during which the audience can shout things and make the actors improv changes to the plot, dialogue or, well, anything, to hilarious effect.

16. Lindvalls coffee making the station smell like sugar puffs

If you commute at a certain time on a certain day, you'll get to smell the roasting coffee wafting over the whole train station from the downwind Lindvalls coffee plant. I think it smells like sugar puffs, but that's just me!

 

17. Årummet, Fågelsången, Cafe Linne, and so on!

Damn, so many good spots for tea and cake, so little time!

18. The Local

There might only be a limited selection of pubs in Uppsala, but they are some good ones. I've spent the most time in Buddy's Irish pub, in fact I've just celebrated St. Patricks day there twice in two days. I go there so much the barmen all know me so it's probably time for me to get a new local.... William's pub used to be, er, tolerable but now has a new owner and an excellent pub quiz. Maybe I'll come back for that...

19. The Northern Lights

While I've never seen them in their full, spectacular glory, the opportunity to see a swirling green glow over the town has come up several times, something which is magical to this southerner. Sometimes you can see them in Stockholm, but with all that light pollution I'm not getting my hopes up!

Day 908: Stick your signalfel up your ASS

Are you hours and hours late for work, fun or getting home?

Do you have no idea at all how you're going to get there?

Are you utterly complacent about this, and will not attempt to make any change to the status of your shitty transport system through positive action or negative reaction?

Are you not even expecting the news to pick up on the hell of your, and thousands upon thousands of others' journey or the plight of hundreds upon hundreds of freight wagons over the course of a whole day, several days or even weeks?

You must be commuting in Sweden!

With this in mind, it's important that you learn my:

 

1. Obehöriga på Spårområdet (unauthorised person on the track)  

Ah yes, god bless this wonderful shitbag who has wondered about on the railways for fuck knows what reason. Whether they were stealing some copper wires, trying to kill themselves in a quiet, understated manner or just out for a fucking stroll somewhere they don't usually fucking stroll, god bless them. They really deserved that time they effectively stole from me just for being the wonderful, considerate human beings that they are.

 Annoyance factor: 

2. Elavbrott (Power Outage)

This is Sweden, an incredibly advanced western nation with a perfectly good electricity producing industry and no drops in service even during the winter when every man and his dog has all the lights on, three heaters and an oven. There is no way the railways are having a power cut. This is just code for "Sven fucked up the wiring".

Annoyance Factor:

3. Kraftiga förseningar (Heavy delays)

This isn't an explanation. We know there are delays, we've been standing in -10 for the last 40 minutes looking at a screen which has said that our train is one minute away. Fucking liars. I'm pretty sure this is actually code for "Expect a #4"

Annoyance factor:

4. Stopp i trafiken (Stop in service)

Here's what kraftiga förseningar really means. No trains are going anywhere. (Except sometimes the trains that cost more money than your shitty commuter train, they're fine.) They don't have a reason though.

Annoyance factor:

5. Signalfel (Signal problems)

I don't know who is in charge of the signals around here but they should be fired. Out of a cannon. Into the sun. There are signal problems so often I think that train drivers would be confused if the signals were signalling. They should just burn down the whole fucking signal rig, because the smoke would be more effective at actually signalling.

Annoyance factor: 

6. Omfattande (extensive)

Omfattande elfel, omfattande signalfel, omfattande whatever. Oh god you're really fucked if they wheel this one out. Just go to the pub and sleep there instead of trying to get home.

Annoyance factor:

7. Växelfel (Interchange Fault)

Just book a holiday and go to the beach. Last July there was a track interchange fault in the south station of Stockholm. No trains could go north or south for nearly 2 weeks. Fuck that shit.

Annoyance factor:

Day 901: Flat Hunting

I'm packing my bag and movin' on down to the big (er, moderately sized by European standards) city of Stockholm!

But before I can do that, there's a lot of flat hunting to be done.

I've never been in a position to buy any kind of property in London and I probably never will (I was going to do a bunch of research and give some interesting statistics about how many people own homes in London and how much it costs but I started reading and got too angry and depressed so I stopped.) Essentially what I'm writing here is not a comparison of English and Swedish life because I don't have a point of comparison having never owned anything in England. Instead it's a look at the quirks of browsing the Swedish home market.

For the past few weekends, and even some weekdays too, I've been looking at flats with my sambo to get a feel for what kinds of flats are on the market, how much stuff costs, which areas we actually want to live in and which areas suck sweaty, dirty balls.

Pretty much any house worth its bricks is listed on a website called Hemnet which, in typical Swedish fashion, also has a well made app on which you can draw the areas you want to search with a virtual pencil.

I get the impression that many Swedish people browse Hemnet and view flats just for the fun of it, after all it's SUCH a fun weekend activity for godawful couples with nothing better to do that ranks up there with "going round Ikea" and "checking out the high street". Hemnet sometimes gets over 2.5 million views a week, which is frankly astounding for a country with only 9.5 million people.

There are essentially 3 places to live in Stockholm, just like any other city; the expensive bit "inside the tolls" which extends just a bit north of the picture above, the slightly-cheaper-but-still-expensive bit just outside which has plenty of houses but not plenty of anything else, and the cheap bit with generous sizes for your money but long commutes with unreliable trains, questionable neighbours in some places and mind numbingly boring orbital towns in which the only source of entertainment is a big Willy.

No matter where you look, though, every flat has the same furniture because the seller has hired rental furniture from the estate agent, who in turn has probably done extensive research into exactly which furniture is best for driving up the price. All the houses are painted white as a backdrop for these items, I did a random search and these were the first 5 of the flats that showed up, all are white:

Apparently Scarlet Johansson's giant face sells well:

I know it's her because I viewed the flat and her face was CREEPY

as do apples:

I would browse for more spot-the-difference (or not) pictures but I just can't bear to look at flats any more than I absolutely have to. There are always candles, similar kinds of soap in the bathroom, fake fur throws on the balcony furniture, a funky coffee machine of some sort, fresh flowers, herbs and a good old HEMNES:

The whole time you're viewing, you're supposed to perform some kind of mental feat (a bit like Orwellian DoubleThink) in which you both appreciate the style of the room with the furniture in it, whilst simultaneously blanking the furniture out and replacing it with your own furniture. You have to see that the furniture and accessories exist and at the same time realise they do not exist in the house as you would have it. This, I will freely admit, is not a skill I have. I truly believe that I will have a HEMNES full of apples and posters of Scarlet Johansson when I finally live in Stockholm.

The oppressive samey-ness of the furniture, the plan layouts, the colours, the sales agents and the accents is only one part of a larger problem: the other people viewing the flats. The blandness of the flats is a symptom of the blandness of the viewers. The sales agents know what people like and give it to them. People queue up nicely, set their many shoes by the door and mill about in the hallway like so many shepherded sheep, looking at a pre-set list of values; is the wooden floor in good condition? Is the light coming from the south? How much debt does the residents association have? Is the floor layout original or have the occupants made changes? Is there a lift?

I viewed a flat last week and I really liked it. I would have bid for it, in fact. But it was not a very orthodox flat; the current owners had renovated, compromising on bedroom space to make room for an amazing kitchen with space for any conceivable size of party. The living room was not a standard square (Shock! Horror! Nightmare!) and the bathroom was not directly attached to the bedroom. Nobody was interested in this flat. There were no queues of shoes outside and no scrum of sheep inside. "Great!" I naively believed. Thinking this would mean a good price.

Actually what it means is that the flat would be very difficult to sell in the future and would not be a good investment. People don't like it because it doesn't meet their parameters of what is interesting. The absence of a lift, even in a building with just 3 floors, can wipe up to half a million Krona off the desired price for the flat on resale (another bizarre fact, given Swedish obsession with health and fitness). When starting out I really enjoyed flat hunting with my sambo and looking for that special place with a quirk just for us. I now realise that there can be no quirk, I have to conform to the ideals of the Swedish market if I want a sensible investment. And this, for me, sucks the fun out of the whole process.

Day 887: Stuff I'd never own in England

Some people pointed out I haven't written anything here for a while, that's mostly because I've been stuffing food in my face for the past month and haven't had my hands free for any other activities. Last weekend I tried to be a bit more active to atone for my recent prone-ness so I went skating on a frozen lake, as you do, in temperatures of -16C, as you do.

Understandably you can't just get off the sofa and go on the lake. It turns out you have to own a bunch of crap that I didn't even know existed prior to this trip in order to have a safe skating experience. It got me thinking about a few other items that I use here that I either didn't use at all in England, or which never even entered into my realms of thinking.

Ice Picks

You need these to pull yourself out of the water if the ice you're skating on breaks under your feet. You also have to have a waterproof bag in your backpack with dry, spare clothes, which acts as a flotation device. I borrowed mine from a Swedish person when my Swedish boyfriend couldn't find any of his 3 pairs. I think I'm justified in believing that all Swedes own these things. In fact, knowing the safety consciousness of Swedes I'm surprised I don't see people just casually wondering around town wearing them.

Reflective Accessories

Sometimes when I'm out walking in the night in winter which lasts, well, a long time, I see people with these shiny things dangling from every crevice or a fucking great high vis jacket  or ALL of these things at the SAME TIME and I think "Ugh come on, is that really necessary? We're in TOWWWWWN. I can SEEEE YOOOOU." Other times I'm a passenger in a car at night and we turn a corner and nearly hit a person in a dark jacket, dark trousers and dark shoes and I think "Ugh come on, where is your necessary reflective thingamajiggy? We're in TOWWWWWWN in a CARRRRR. We need to SEEEEE YOOOOOU" which is why I decided to wear the two free reflective thingamajiggys I got given. Also I like it when people put colourful flashy things on their dog. But not high viz jacket dogs, that's too far.

Air Humidifier

I can't believe I own this. My house in England was so damp you could have swimming championships for small insects. But up here in Sweden I'm dry as a motherfucker and I'll take all the precious water droplets I can get/make artificially.

Ice Skates

If you want to go ice skating in England you have to find your nearest ice rink and they'll have some skates for you to hire. If you want to go ice skating in Sweden you just wait for it to get a bit cold, rummage in your closet for your skates and go outside to the nearest big puddle.

Skiing Gloves

I used to use a single pair of gloves, I would start wearing them from about 5 degrees and downwards and that was that. Gone are those days. Now I have 3 pairs, and when it starts getting below -5 it's time for the big guns, er, mittens. Ski mittens are amazing, they keep my hands toasty even when the rest of my body has turned into a solid block of ice. They're also waterproof for that all-important snowman building, snowball fighting and snow sledding.

Outdoor/Indoor Thermometer

How do you know what to wear in the morning? Maybe you watch the weather or something. Not me. I have in my house, just like many other Swedish houses, a thermometer to tell me exactly what temperature I'm heading into. This is vital because putting on thermal underwear at anything higher than -3 will let you in for an extremely warm and uncomfortable journey to work. It's such an important part of Swedish life that many old houses have a thermometer as part of the window frame. It's also good for knowing if you can use your balcony as a secondary fridge.

Waffle Iron

Okay I only use it on Waffle day but still, I never used it at all before I moved here.

Wtf...

Most Christmas decorations are the same; fairy lights, tree, baubles, advent calenders and so on. But then there are some other bits N bobs that are a bit odd, like the blob of grey felt that's supposed to be Santa, the superabundance of pig bric-a-brac, straw sheep everywhere and whatever the fuck that bollocks is in the picture up there. I'm assured it's "classic" and I can look forward to Easter when the little ladies are replaced with yellow chicks. In the Swedish style, the decorations we have here will probably stay up until Easter anyway.

Vaccum with adjustable suction

Why don't we all have this, everywhere, ever? Amazing.