One of the Great Explorers of Our Time

Farewell to Sir Edmund Hillary, one of the iconic figures of the twentieth century, whose exploits have inspired a generations of climbers and explorers.

Sir Edmund died aged 88 and leaves a great legacy behind. After climbing Mt. Everest with Tenzing Norgay, Sir Edmund fell in love with the Nepalese Himalayan Mountains and campaigned passionately to improve the lives of the Sherpa people who dwelt there. This led to him being made an honorary Nepalese citizen in 2003.

So many people climb Mt. Everest these days; it's hard to imagine how it was for those first two pioneers climbing an untrodden path in one of the most remote places on the planet.

Move aside Barnaby, there's a new cop in town

Britain has been in need of new TV Cop for a while now. Morse is dead, Jane Tennison is retired and Jack Frost is keeping himself very quiet. That only leaves Inspector Barnaby, so as you can imagine people are a bit desperate.

But this time its Sweden to the rescue, as the new Top Cop will be non other than Henning Mankell's Kurt Wallander. Yes, having tried importing Swedish football managers, Britain is now importing Swedish TV detectives.

The best thing though is that the series will be filmed in Ystad so Brits will get to see the fantastic countryside of the Southern Swedish coast. Kenneth Brannagh will play the leading role so I wonder if he'll try to do a Swedish accent. I guess it is a certainty the series will get aired in Sweden too, so it will be really strange for Swedes to see a series set in Sweden, who everybody is so familiar with, bu with the actors all speaking english.

I hope this will help the Brits to get a better appreciation for Sweden and see another side of the country that is not based so much on sex (now they will get to see murder too :o).

If the series is a success then you can expect the Ryanair flights to Malmö to start filling up with Brits eager to see the Swedish countryside for themselves. The series might well get aired in the US too, so expect some American's too.

Avalanche Warning For Helvellyn

It's not often that there's an avalanche warning issued for a British mountain, but that is just what has happened for the Hellvellyn mountain in the English Lake District.

I've climbed Helvellyn a couple of times and if you approach the peak from Striding Edge, a knife like ridge, it's quite scary even at the best of times. The ridge has shear drops either side and you feel very exposed.

Now high winds and unstable snow have made the risk of an avalanche much so high that climbers and mountineers are being urged to stay away.

Britney Spears Taken Away in an Ambulance

Is there some secret contest going on between Amy Winehouse and Britney Spears to see who can fall apart in the most public and destructive way. Last week Winehouse was called to attend drug charges in Norway, but this week Britney has upped the anti by getting stretchered out of her home three hours after police arrived to investigate a domestic dispute.

It seams she is finally tipping over the edge and needs some serious help. Her kids are stuck in the middle of this and I wonder how long it will be before Kevin Fedeline gets full custody.

Such a shame that such a hard working professional pop artist, who could have gone on to become another Kylie and Madonna should instead fall apart and drift into drink and drugs.

Utopia: The Most Expensive Beer in the World

I've always been shocked by how expensive beer is here in Sweden but even I wasn't prepared for a news story saying that the Sytembolaget is selling a beer for 1221Kr a bottle (72cl).

The beer is a special strong beer from the Samuel Adams Brewery called Utopia in the US (where they always have to do things to excess). It's 26% alchahol so it's more like barley wine and only 12,000 bottles have ever been produced.

I consider myself a conosieur of ale (or at least an experienced drinker!), but I won't be rushing out to buy this one. I think I'll stick to my usual Abbot Ale, which is my current favourite beer from Systembolget.

Grevinnan och Betjänten (or "Dinner For One")

When you live in Sweden you pretty soon have to get used to the Swedes love of tradition. This is sometimes taken to extremes especially where the festive TV schedule is concerned. You HAVE to watch Kalle Anka on Christmas Eve or its just not Christmas, for example.

Then on New Years Day Swedish TV, for some reason, always shows Ivanhoe....Why ?? It's a crap film! Of all the films you could show why this one and why every year ?????!!! I don't get it. Can’t they show John Boorman’s Excalibur instead one year if people want to see knight on horseback?

Most bizarre of all to me though is Grevinnan och Betjänten (or "Dinner for One" as the original English stage version is called). When I arrived in Sweden, people kept mentioning this English sketch, which has been shown every year since about 1963. They could quote the whole thing word for word with the same kind of comedic enthusiasm usually reserved for Monty Python sketches.

Nobody could understand why I’d never heard of it. When I eventually got to see James and Miss Sophie and told people that I'd never seen it before in my life they couldn’t believe me, convinced as they were it must be shown in England as

a) It's English and
b) It shown just about everywhere else in Europe.

The thing is though that Dinner for One was originally recorded solely for German TV. The English TV channels were not interested in an 18minute sketch as it didn't fit into the 30minute slots typical of English TV. So while the rest of Europe gets to see it every year The British remain blissfully ignorant of its existence (which for some might be a good reason to move to England, at least for New Year).

I can see the charm in the sketch, but for me the thing I like the most is that it so perfectly sums up Swedish TV at Christmas time (and to certain extent Swedish Culture as a whole) in that immortal phrase "The same procedure as every year".

All this hardly adds to the agument given by Sweden's SVT channel that it offers a wide breadth of viewing alternatives which justifies the TV liscence...

Benazir Bhutto Murdered

Once again those opposed to peace and democracy have done their evil work, murdering Benazir Bhutto.

She has only recently returned to Pakistan in the hope of becoming Prime Minister for a third time. On the day of her arrival there was an assassination attemp which left many dead but Ms Bhutto was spared. Today she was not so lucky. She had been campaigning for free and fair elections in Pakistan, an end to military rule and an end to extremism.

Benazir Bhutto was an inspirational woman whose strength and courage never failed her. Even knowing the threaghts to her life, she still went out to campaign for a better Pakistan. The world is a more uncertain place without her.