Monday, 20 March 2017
Day 1307: Ants
Today I heard the expression "myror i benen". It doesn't mean the same thing as "ants in your pants". In fact, just like in French, it refers to restless legs syndrome. I drew a horrendous commemorative cartoon in MS paint to celebrate.
Monday, 13 March 2017
Day 1300: Ruotsinsuomalainen
If you got in your secret time machine, went back to 2010, accosted me and told me I would one day live in Sweden I would have said "Let me go before I call the police". But then as an afterthought I would have sniggered and said to myself "I hardly even know where Sweden is, let alone what the language is like." So believe me when I say that it is surreal learning Finnish phrases on Swedish packaging and that it is surreal for Finnish, quite possibly the strangest language on the planet, to be on my linguistic radar. Me. Someone from an island that languishes at the bottom in Europe for teaching kids a second language and pretends the old Celtic languages don't really exist.
Approximately 5% of the population in Sweden are native Finnish speakers thanks to a long and complicated history between the two countries. This involved at some points the systematic enforcement of Swedish over Finnish in Finland itself and it was relatively recently that Finland stopped making all their public signs in Swedish too. The most famous product of the Swedish/Finnish cultural blending was the Moomins by the Swedish Finn (Finlandsvensk) Tove Jansson. Confusingly, native Finns living in Sweden are known as Finnish Swedes (Sverigefinnar.) Finnish and Swedish are in absolutely no way alike, since Finnish developed from a completely separate language family (the Uralic langauges).
Nevertheless, most Swedish people know one or two bits of Finnish. Here's my handy-dandy guide for anyone finding themselves in an inevitable "Swedish-people-pretending-they-know-some-Finnish" conversation, in which people shout stupid phrases at each other in a pseudo-Finnish accent.
EI SAA PEITTÄÄ
They'll explain that they got this one from all the Finnish electric radiators. It means "do not cover". Except in all my years of being in Sweden I have NEVER SEEN A RADIATOR WITH EI SAA PEITÄÄ ON IT!
YKSI KAKSI KOLME
When they say this it will sound like a witch uttering a spell, but it just means "One, Two, Three"
KIITOS
Again, it sounds mysterious and foreboding, but it's just "Thanks".
RUOTSI/SUOMI
I know this one from working in schools, but everyone else knows this from seeing the dictionary cover "Swedish, Finnish"
RUOTSINSUOMALAINEN
If you want to contribute to the slinging of pointless phrases, this would be a safe bet; it's long, impressive and most people don't know this one, it means "Finnish Swedish"
PARASTA ENNEN
Admittedly this was probably the first Finnish phrase I learned since it's on every item of food: "Best Before". It's so different from all the other Scandi languages on the packet I reckon it should be one of those memes:
HYVÄÄ
Oh this, you definitely can't avoid this. They won't just say "Hyvää" though. They'll say "HYYYYYYVÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ" like a constipated duck. It means "good".
SUU AUKI SUUREMPAAN
Only use this in extreme circumstances. This is my trump card, my Ace, my crushing blow. Nobody will know what this means, and if they do then they're Finnish and you should be ashamed of yourself for shouting pointless phrases at them in their own language.
Monday, 6 March 2017
Day 1293: A tourist in your own town
Living in Sweden means making regular trips home to see the family and reconnect with close friends. Fortunately for me, home is London and no matter how many times I go back there, I always find new and exciting things to do, or still enjoy some old favourite haunts. For anyone making a trip to London, here's what I got up to in my "Sportlov" that you might like to try, too.
The only large scale brewery left within London, Fuller's are a huge commercial enterprise most famous for London Pride beer. Funnily enough the largest market for exports is....Sweden! Tours of the brewery run every day, and include a tasting at the end. I've been on tours of smaller breweries before, and still this tour taught me a lot. Check it out here.
I took my mum out for the day and while we were having a coffee we noticed EVERYONE was walking past with bunches of flowers. Eventually we asked an American sitting beside us about the source of the flowers and it was Colombia Road market. Every Sunday officially until 2pm this busy market is bursting with sights and smells of thousands of flowers and plants. Although we were late, at about 3:30pm, it worked in our favour as all the stalls were closing and offering cut prices on everything!
There are several farms to be found even in the deepest recesses of the concrete jungle. Usually nestled on unwanted land beside railway tracks, gems such as the Kentish Town City Farm and the Spitalfields City Farm offer quiet oases and an opportunity to see week-old lambs and kids just a few steps from the mad, bustling tourist hotspots. This time I even managed to meet Britain's rarest goat, the Bagot. There are fewer than 100 of them and they rarely venture out of Staffordshire!
With throngs of mindless tourists, endless repetition of high end chain stores and a really bloody old tube station that can't cope with 10 people let alone 10,000, Covent Garden is not one of my, or any Londoner's, favourite haunts. It is, however, very convenient for friends who want to meet despite living an hour away in opposite directions. If you end up there on a weekday, charmless chain Dirty Martini have happy hour all day and Flavour-of-the-Month restaurant Dishoom have a branch nearby if you like waiting outside in a storm for an hour for a table. Keep your eyes peeled at the tube station for free bus pass holders!
We just had to pay for our TV license here in Sweden, even though I never watch TV. It's time for me to seek out something similar to any of the myriad TV services in England, which you can pause, rewind, record and manually control. Absolutely great for randomly watching old movies you'd forgotten even existed (I watched the Fifth Element and the Jungle Book just because. And yes I have Netflix, but sometimes you want fate to decide your movie choice!)
Shrove Tuesday. Mardi Gras, Fettisdagen...whatever you want to call it, don't forget to eat something very indulgent on this important day! I only managed 4 pancakes this year but they were really good ones! I made pancakes with my family and friends for maximum effect, but if I was a tourist I would definitely go to My Old Dutch, a fantastic pancake house!
Since I've unwittingly taken on some Swedish culture, I felt compelled by all those pancakes to do something physical. Somehow I managed to find the motivation to swim outside on a stormy, blustery night which whipped the steam rising from the warm water into an ethereal mist and made it feel like I was swimming in some weird pancake day Limboland. The only other people crazy enough to shower outside in the cold and dark were speaking in Swedish so that says everything really. Care to try?
8. BBC Radio Audience
If you apply in advance and get lucky, you can be in the audience for a BBC production totally free, nada, zilch, zero dollah. I went with my dad to sit in the audience for a BBC Radio 4 comedy called "Newsjack" recorded at BBC Broadcasting house in central London.
Draughts was a new place I wanted to try, but unfortunately it was completely packed out with hipsters playing Jenga and ignoring the hundreds of other board games on the shelves. You have to book a table well in advance if you want to try this place! We ended up in a nice pub around the corner called the Glory. When I sent the address to a friend she discovered from Google that this is a "Super-Gay" pub which explained the Shirley Bassey on the speakers, the glitter hanging from the ceiling and the flowers climbing up the walls. Oh, and all the single sex couples of course. It was much more welcoming than the board game place at any rate!
From Haggerston to Deptford, I did a real pilgrimage to gentrification central on this trip . And I'm glad I did, because Deptford has some of the cheapest, tastiest Japanese food ever, and you can bring your own booze to M&D Sushi. Just down the road is an old Job Centre, turned into a pub imaginatively called The Job Centre. This was an insult to some people...
Friday night's entertainment came in the form of the Gentleman's Dub Club, funnily enough a dub band also throwing out a bit of reggae, ska, dubstep and beyond. The venue is fitted out in art deco style both inside and out, again a place I never even knew existed.
The Crystal Maze was a popular 90's TV show in which contestants in a team faced puzzles in little rooms found in four distinctly different "zones". If they solved the puzzles they received crystals to redeem for time in the Dome where they collected shiny tickets to exchange for real prizes. Some clever moneyspinners made a real life version of the Crystal Maze and it is so popular my friends and I had to book a spot a year in advance. It was worth it though, as we ran about and quested our way through brilliantly designed sets, revelling in our nostalgia.
There are a lot of Thai people in Sweden and they make a good curry, but I was raised in a country with the best Indian curries this side of the continent so I always get my fill when I go home. This time I managed to get to Angel Curry Buffet on Chapel Market with its tasty cheap eats. The Hare Krishna centre, Govindas, is conveniently central and close to Oxford Street and served us dinner before our radio show. I usually try to cram in a weekend buffet at the best of the best, Chutneys on Drummond street, but that didn't happen this time so I look forward to the next...
My last night in London was unplanned as it usually is, and saw me ending up in Camden's Electric Ballroom again. It is in no way a good club, your feet stick to the floor, the bouncers are arseholes, the queue for the toilet is permanent and at any age beyond 18 you feel too old to be there. But nevertheless it is an old friend, always playing the shit you know and always just a short walk from home.
An old friend came into town at Paddington, not my usual haunt, and we accidentally found a very fancy, very reasonably priced brunch in Michelin recommended Salt and Honey. We continued our fancy day by taking a walk through Hyde Park and Speaker's Corner over to Burlington Arcade, a very posh shopping street where some of London's ever-expanding homeless population camp outside overpriced macaroon peddlar Laduree. If anything else, London is definitely a city of contrasts.
I don't normally even eat brunch but I managed it several times last week. In the centre of Finsbury Park is a really laid back cafe with tasty, filling food and it was perfect for a meet-up with family.
I know I just massively insulted Covent Garden but actually there is a good, cheap hairdresser there called Hair By Fairy. You don't even need an appointment, you just show up and an experienced hairdresser will cut, style, dye, shampoo or whatever-you-want your hair. A cut that would have cost at least £60 in Sweden cost me just £20 in Central London.
Whew - how did I manage all that while also watching two seasons of Merlin on British Netflix?
1. Fuller's Brewery Tour
The only large scale brewery left within London, Fuller's are a huge commercial enterprise most famous for London Pride beer. Funnily enough the largest market for exports is....Sweden! Tours of the brewery run every day, and include a tasting at the end. I've been on tours of smaller breweries before, and still this tour taught me a lot. Check it out here.
2. Colombia Road Flower Market
I took my mum out for the day and while we were having a coffee we noticed EVERYONE was walking past with bunches of flowers. Eventually we asked an American sitting beside us about the source of the flowers and it was Colombia Road market. Every Sunday officially until 2pm this busy market is bursting with sights and smells of thousands of flowers and plants. Although we were late, at about 3:30pm, it worked in our favour as all the stalls were closing and offering cut prices on everything!
3. The Farm
There are several farms to be found even in the deepest recesses of the concrete jungle. Usually nestled on unwanted land beside railway tracks, gems such as the Kentish Town City Farm and the Spitalfields City Farm offer quiet oases and an opportunity to see week-old lambs and kids just a few steps from the mad, bustling tourist hotspots. This time I even managed to meet Britain's rarest goat, the Bagot. There are fewer than 100 of them and they rarely venture out of Staffordshire!
4. Covent Garden
With throngs of mindless tourists, endless repetition of high end chain stores and a really bloody old tube station that can't cope with 10 people let alone 10,000, Covent Garden is not one of my, or any Londoner's, favourite haunts. It is, however, very convenient for friends who want to meet despite living an hour away in opposite directions. If you end up there on a weekday, charmless chain Dirty Martini have happy hour all day and Flavour-of-the-Month restaurant Dishoom have a branch nearby if you like waiting outside in a storm for an hour for a table. Keep your eyes peeled at the tube station for free bus pass holders!
5. Late Night Movies on Sky
We just had to pay for our TV license here in Sweden, even though I never watch TV. It's time for me to seek out something similar to any of the myriad TV services in England, which you can pause, rewind, record and manually control. Absolutely great for randomly watching old movies you'd forgotten even existed (I watched the Fifth Element and the Jungle Book just because. And yes I have Netflix, but sometimes you want fate to decide your movie choice!)
6. Pancake Day
Shrove Tuesday. Mardi Gras, Fettisdagen...whatever you want to call it, don't forget to eat something very indulgent on this important day! I only managed 4 pancakes this year but they were really good ones! I made pancakes with my family and friends for maximum effect, but if I was a tourist I would definitely go to My Old Dutch, a fantastic pancake house!
7. London Fields Lido
Since I've unwittingly taken on some Swedish culture, I felt compelled by all those pancakes to do something physical. Somehow I managed to find the motivation to swim outside on a stormy, blustery night which whipped the steam rising from the warm water into an ethereal mist and made it feel like I was swimming in some weird pancake day Limboland. The only other people crazy enough to shower outside in the cold and dark were speaking in Swedish so that says everything really. Care to try?
8. BBC Radio Audience
If you apply in advance and get lucky, you can be in the audience for a BBC production totally free, nada, zilch, zero dollah. I went with my dad to sit in the audience for a BBC Radio 4 comedy called "Newsjack" recorded at BBC Broadcasting house in central London.
9. Board Game Bar, Haggerston
Draughts was a new place I wanted to try, but unfortunately it was completely packed out with hipsters playing Jenga and ignoring the hundreds of other board games on the shelves. You have to book a table well in advance if you want to try this place! We ended up in a nice pub around the corner called the Glory. When I sent the address to a friend she discovered from Google that this is a "Super-Gay" pub which explained the Shirley Bassey on the speakers, the glitter hanging from the ceiling and the flowers climbing up the walls. Oh, and all the single sex couples of course. It was much more welcoming than the board game place at any rate!
10. Deptford Sushi and Job Centre
From Haggerston to Deptford, I did a real pilgrimage to gentrification central on this trip . And I'm glad I did, because Deptford has some of the cheapest, tastiest Japanese food ever, and you can bring your own booze to M&D Sushi. Just down the road is an old Job Centre, turned into a pub imaginatively called The Job Centre. This was an insult to some people...
11. Troxy Music Venue
Friday night's entertainment came in the form of the Gentleman's Dub Club, funnily enough a dub band also throwing out a bit of reggae, ska, dubstep and beyond. The venue is fitted out in art deco style both inside and out, again a place I never even knew existed.
12. Crystal Maze
The Crystal Maze was a popular 90's TV show in which contestants in a team faced puzzles in little rooms found in four distinctly different "zones". If they solved the puzzles they received crystals to redeem for time in the Dome where they collected shiny tickets to exchange for real prizes. Some clever moneyspinners made a real life version of the Crystal Maze and it is so popular my friends and I had to book a spot a year in advance. It was worth it though, as we ran about and quested our way through brilliantly designed sets, revelling in our nostalgia.
13. Curry
There are a lot of Thai people in Sweden and they make a good curry, but I was raised in a country with the best Indian curries this side of the continent so I always get my fill when I go home. This time I managed to get to Angel Curry Buffet on Chapel Market with its tasty cheap eats. The Hare Krishna centre, Govindas, is conveniently central and close to Oxford Street and served us dinner before our radio show. I usually try to cram in a weekend buffet at the best of the best, Chutneys on Drummond street, but that didn't happen this time so I look forward to the next...
14. Camden Lock
My last night in London was unplanned as it usually is, and saw me ending up in Camden's Electric Ballroom again. It is in no way a good club, your feet stick to the floor, the bouncers are arseholes, the queue for the toilet is permanent and at any age beyond 18 you feel too old to be there. But nevertheless it is an old friend, always playing the shit you know and always just a short walk from home.
15. Fancy Brunch
An old friend came into town at Paddington, not my usual haunt, and we accidentally found a very fancy, very reasonably priced brunch in Michelin recommended Salt and Honey. We continued our fancy day by taking a walk through Hyde Park and Speaker's Corner over to Burlington Arcade, a very posh shopping street where some of London's ever-expanding homeless population camp outside overpriced macaroon peddlar Laduree. If anything else, London is definitely a city of contrasts.
16. Normal Brunch
17. Cheap Haircut
I know I just massively insulted Covent Garden but actually there is a good, cheap hairdresser there called Hair By Fairy. You don't even need an appointment, you just show up and an experienced hairdresser will cut, style, dye, shampoo or whatever-you-want your hair. A cut that would have cost at least £60 in Sweden cost me just £20 in Central London.
Whew - how did I manage all that while also watching two seasons of Merlin on British Netflix?
Monday, 20 February 2017
Day 1279: Translation exercise
A browse of the local paper often nets some gems; a job nearby, a new cafe, a relevant event to go to or, my personal favourite, an insight into your neighbours' love lives.
Reading the personal ads is an excellent exercise in translation. Not only do you come across some Swedish words that simply do not translate well into an English personal ad, you also see ads which need a different kind of translation altogether. Here are some of my favourites from this week's paper, although they were tame by previous standards!
A nice, simple start. This man born in the 50's is using his borgerligt life to attract a mate. Maybe this is a generational thing, but if someone told me to go out with them because their highest redeeming quality was their bourgeois life I think I'd call them a Number 2. (In the Merriam Webster.)
How about someone who uses their looks rather than their personality to get a date? This woman has a fördelaktigt utseende. Now this kind of word is a translator's nightmare. Does she mean the literal translation, that she has an advantageous appearance? If so, what exactly is it advantageous for? She might have really big teeth, all the better to eat you with! Or does she mean "sexy" even though Google thinks it's unlikely. Either way you end up with two completely different ideas about this woman...which one is the right one??!
Oh this man starts his personal ad off so well! And then just...fucks it up. He's "glad" "humoristisk" and "sensuell" that's good, he "ser bra ut" yeah - I guess that's good too, and he's...."alert"? Let me just check that on Google translate, yep, it means the same thing. Well, I suppose I like a man who isn't in a coma or something. He's looking for a woman who likes to do "praktiska göromål" and I didn't use Google translate to figure out it means cleaning up after him. Oh, and to finish off, no fat chicks. That's a common theme in most of the personal ads.
Here we have a real trainwreck of an ad. This man wants only dark, curvy women who are fifteen years younger than him within a 7 year age span. He wants to have a "lungt familjeliv" and needs a woman to give him kids asap. Okay, that's quite specific - he must have some goods to trade that put him in a position to make demands. Here it comes, in return for being this man's dream woman and having kids with him he will support his new family with....well, he doesn't have a job actually, he "går en utbildning" (is on a training course.)
This is where it starts to get difficult.
A lot of people use the personals to either advertise their dominatrix trade, or to find a good dominatrix. This "undergiven" (passive) man wants a "bestämd" (determined - although Google was a treasure trove of potential other translations!) woman to "klä upp" (dress) him.
But then there are others that are teetering on the line between what is clearly a request for a fetish and ... then again might not be. This "mogen" man (read- old) wants a woman who likes wearing nylon. Does he have a nylon fetish or does he want a woman from a time period when nylon tights were all women ever wore?
From the ambiguous to the downright suspicious. Would you trust anyone who described himself as "helt vanlig" (totally normal)?
Aw I feel sorry for this stranger. He's got no friends because all his old friends went off and had children. I can't help but wonder if a personals ad in the newspaper is the most productive way of meeting new friends? Also he's 48, he only has to wait a few more years and then all his friends will have teenagers or empty nests and be desperate for friends again. Or?
Reading the personal ads is an excellent exercise in translation. Not only do you come across some Swedish words that simply do not translate well into an English personal ad, you also see ads which need a different kind of translation altogether. Here are some of my favourites from this week's paper, although they were tame by previous standards!
EXHIBIT A
EXHIBIT B
EXHIBIT C
Oh this man starts his personal ad off so well! And then just...fucks it up. He's "glad" "humoristisk" and "sensuell" that's good, he "ser bra ut" yeah - I guess that's good too, and he's...."alert"? Let me just check that on Google translate, yep, it means the same thing. Well, I suppose I like a man who isn't in a coma or something. He's looking for a woman who likes to do "praktiska göromål" and I didn't use Google translate to figure out it means cleaning up after him. Oh, and to finish off, no fat chicks. That's a common theme in most of the personal ads.
EXHIBIT D
EXHIBIT(S) E
A lot of people use the personals to either advertise their dominatrix trade, or to find a good dominatrix. This "undergiven" (passive) man wants a "bestämd" (determined - although Google was a treasure trove of potential other translations!) woman to "klä upp" (dress) him.
EXHIBIT F
EXHIBIT G
Monday, 30 January 2017
Day 1258: UNFORGIVABLE CRIMES
UNFORGIVABLE CRIMES IN SWEDEN
MAKING A SKIDBACKE WITH THE CHEESE
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| A reddit original |
WEARING YOUR UTOMHUSSKOR IN THE HUS
NOT LEAVING THE SISTA BITEN FOR SOMEONE ELSE
FAILING TO LOOK IN THE ÖGA OF ABSOLUTELY EVERYONE WHO EVER EXISTED WHEN SAYING SKÅL
NOT DOING YOUR TVÄTT IN THE TIME ALLOCATED FOR TVÄTT
NEGLECTING TO TACKA THE HOST EVEN IF ITS A FRIEND SO OLD THEY MIGHT AS WELL BE A KROPPSDEL
HAVING SEPARATE KRANAR INSTEAD OF A BLANDARE
FORGETTING THE KUNDPINNE FOR THE SHOPPER BEHIND YOU
UNFORGIVABLE CRIMES IN ENGLAND
MAKING A TEA FOR YOURSELF AND NOT OFFERING TO EVERY MAN AND HIS DOG IN A 5 YARD RADIUS
SKIVING OFF WHEN IT'S YOUR ROUND
FORGETTING YOUR BROLLY
SCOFFING CHEESE AND ONION WALKERS BEFORE A MEETING IN A CONFINED SPACE
LOITERING IN THE MIDDLE OF THE TUBE DOOR LIKE A BERK OR TRYING TO GET ON THE TUBE FIRST LIKE A TWIT
BUGGY DURING RUSH HOUR
BAD INDIAN FOOD
UNFORGIVABLE CRIMES IN BOTH COUNTRIES
FORGETTING THE REUSABLE SHOPPING BAGS
AWKWARD EMOTIONAL OUTBURSTS
PAYING FOR BIG THINGS WITH COINS
Thursday, 19 January 2017
Day 1247: I, Daniel Blake
Vi måste prata om klass (we have to talk about class) is a popular phrase at the moment in Sweden. Some Swedes see growing division in a society often praised by outsiders for its equality. It's not my intention to analyse the economic stratification of Swedish society - that's a whole academic area of research by itself. Nor do I want to get wrapped up in the messy business of defining class (that has its own research field too...) But I would like to share my peculiar experience of watching I, Daniel Blake in a Stockholm cinema full of Swedes.
I, Daniel Blake is a film by Ken Loach, a director known for highlighting issues of the working class in Britain. It won a golden Palm at Cannes film festival and got a lot of people talking. You can watch the trailer here, if you're interested.
Now, I don't like to generalise even though I do it a lot, I am going to generalise here and say that the majority of people in the audience for I, Daniel Blake last Sunday at the cinema on Stockholms South Side weren't drawing from their experiences living in modern working class Britain to help them relate to the film. In fact, I took a moment to absorb and admire the people who constituted the audience. I admired them for taking the time and the interest to watch a difficult film about something which probably had little actual bearing on their everyday lives. And for being open to learning about people who slip through the cracks in a society while they swan about attending Cannes-film-festival-winning-movie matinees.
But hey, that's me too. I live in my nice flat and I have my nice job and I go to my intellectual film matinees. And I find that hard to reconcile with my life back in England. Back in England I've got two family members who are basically Daniel Blakes. They're chronically ill and they've slipped through the cracks. If I still lived in England I would be in the world of the British working class. I was raised in a working class area, I lived with working class neighbours, and when my little students start imitating my accent I know I should pronounce my T's better. Being in Sweden means I've got a comfortable life and I don't know where the cultural differences end and the class differences begin.
The people in the South Side cinema who watched I, Daniel Blake have as much understanding of what life is like for working class Brits as I do for young jobless immigrants in Skåne because I watched the Swedish film Eat, Sleep, Die (Äta Sova Dö).
Both films are incredibly depressing in their own ways, one because it hits me so close to home and one because it doesn't. I don't know what the Swedish working class looks like, how people slip through the cracks here, what their lives are like or how they get by. I don't know where they live, what features of language they use or what their values are. It is incredible how easily a whole division of society is hidden and I find myself asking, is it hidden because I'm British and I don't understand the system like a Swede or is it hidden because I'm middle class?
I, Daniel Blake is a film by Ken Loach, a director known for highlighting issues of the working class in Britain. It won a golden Palm at Cannes film festival and got a lot of people talking. You can watch the trailer here, if you're interested.
Now, I don't like to generalise even though I do it a lot, I am going to generalise here and say that the majority of people in the audience for I, Daniel Blake last Sunday at the cinema on Stockholms South Side weren't drawing from their experiences living in modern working class Britain to help them relate to the film. In fact, I took a moment to absorb and admire the people who constituted the audience. I admired them for taking the time and the interest to watch a difficult film about something which probably had little actual bearing on their everyday lives. And for being open to learning about people who slip through the cracks in a society while they swan about attending Cannes-film-festival-winning-movie matinees.
But hey, that's me too. I live in my nice flat and I have my nice job and I go to my intellectual film matinees. And I find that hard to reconcile with my life back in England. Back in England I've got two family members who are basically Daniel Blakes. They're chronically ill and they've slipped through the cracks. If I still lived in England I would be in the world of the British working class. I was raised in a working class area, I lived with working class neighbours, and when my little students start imitating my accent I know I should pronounce my T's better. Being in Sweden means I've got a comfortable life and I don't know where the cultural differences end and the class differences begin.
The people in the South Side cinema who watched I, Daniel Blake have as much understanding of what life is like for working class Brits as I do for young jobless immigrants in Skåne because I watched the Swedish film Eat, Sleep, Die (Äta Sova Dö).
Both films are incredibly depressing in their own ways, one because it hits me so close to home and one because it doesn't. I don't know what the Swedish working class looks like, how people slip through the cracks here, what their lives are like or how they get by. I don't know where they live, what features of language they use or what their values are. It is incredible how easily a whole division of society is hidden and I find myself asking, is it hidden because I'm British and I don't understand the system like a Swede or is it hidden because I'm middle class?
Wednesday, 11 January 2017
Day 1239: Butter Goose
Sometimes when you've really got nothing better to do, you read the packet that bread comes in. And in Sweden packets are usually covered with interesting information. Is this because there is generally nothing better for anyone to do in Sweden? Who knows.
At any rate the packet told me something I actually wanted to know but never bothered to find out until staring lazily at a packet with a slice of bread hanging out my gob, which was why the Swedish word for sandwich is 'butter goose' (smörgås).
A long time ago a person who I can only assume was partially sighted was churning some butter, saw some solid chunks floating to the surface of the milk and decided they looked like geese. I'll provide you with a handy image of a lumpy butter churn and let you decide if the chunks look geesey.
Personally, I saved this image on the computer under the filename "not a goose" but I did say I would let you decide if there are any anserine globules in there. Assuming you found a goose, I'm still not sure how ye olde Swedish person managed to get the name to stick to the object after smearing the fat over a piece of months old crust and proclaiming the resulting foodstuff a Butter Goose. "Prove it was a goose" I would have demanded after my friend had already smushed it onto the sandwich. "I've got more in the churn!" she'd claim. Then we'd both go over to the churn, see a load of butter and decide to be like the Danes and the Norwegians and just call the bloody thing butter bread (Smørrebrød) like sensible people. But then we'd have nothing to read on bread packets...
At any rate the packet told me something I actually wanted to know but never bothered to find out until staring lazily at a packet with a slice of bread hanging out my gob, which was why the Swedish word for sandwich is 'butter goose' (smörgås).
A long time ago a person who I can only assume was partially sighted was churning some butter, saw some solid chunks floating to the surface of the milk and decided they looked like geese. I'll provide you with a handy image of a lumpy butter churn and let you decide if the chunks look geesey.
Personally, I saved this image on the computer under the filename "not a goose" but I did say I would let you decide if there are any anserine globules in there. Assuming you found a goose, I'm still not sure how ye olde Swedish person managed to get the name to stick to the object after smearing the fat over a piece of months old crust and proclaiming the resulting foodstuff a Butter Goose. "Prove it was a goose" I would have demanded after my friend had already smushed it onto the sandwich. "I've got more in the churn!" she'd claim. Then we'd both go over to the churn, see a load of butter and decide to be like the Danes and the Norwegians and just call the bloody thing butter bread (Smørrebrød) like sensible people. But then we'd have nothing to read on bread packets...
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