Ten years after Diana can we please move on

It's been ten years since Diana died so can everyone please just get over it...

This cult of personality which has been built up around her is just because people love the drama of her life and the fact she died young in a very public way. The same people who were so horrified that she was killed being chased by the paparazzi are the same ones who bought the newspapers who printed the endless pictures of her. Now they have elevated her up into some kind of saint when in fact she was just a another flawed human being who made plenty of mistakes herself. I wonder how peoples opinon of her would have developed if she had lived on.

Reading the comments left on the BBCs website I can't believe peoples reactions though; one person called her the 'world princess????'.

The most touching an honest comment came from somebody who just wrote this

No, she wasn't.
My Mum was better.
She's dead too.

Flying car to replace the Volvo?

This is the M400 sky car which will be available for purchace in 4 years time. A smaller hover car is availble now. It's being built by Moller International and is the brainchild of (mad inventor) Paul Moller, who claims it will revolutionise personal transport.

Of course he's not the first person to promise this. We all remember the hype surrounding the Segway (built by mad inventor Dean Kamen), which I've had a chance to drive and it is great fun. Still I certainly wouldn't use one just for getting around (I have legs for that you see).

People in Britain also had the C5 which was built by (mad inventor) Sir Clive Sinclair in 1985, who also built the Sinclair ZX Spectrum home computer in the early 80s (Oh come you must remember that...). The C5 was a spectacular failure and became a real joke.

Of course the M400 does have some things going for it that the others didn't, like

1. It flies.
2. It looks really sexy and cool.
3. You can pretend to be James Bond.

Still I can't see many people swapping the volvo for a skycar any time soon.

British Unions Say Yes to Facebook at Work

The Trade Unions Congress (TUC) has announced that workers should have the right to view social networking sites such as facebook and bebo whilst at work. Whereas it is ok for employers to insist that these sites are not viewed during working hours, there was no reason why people should not be allowed to view these sites during lunch breaks. They argue that the workers have the right to a social life outside of work and so should be able to use modern social networking technology.

This was done in response to the growing number of companies who have banned access to facebook from company computers.

Not everyone was so convinced though and Peter Mooney, of Employment Law Advisory Services, said the TUC's call was "nonsense".
"Why should employers pay for the privilege of allowing their employees to access Facebook, MySpace or Bebo from work computers whether in an employee's lunch-time or not?”

So who’s right and who’s wrong? You can’t block all non-work related sites as this would have to include all news sites and (God forbid) bloggs!

I think you just need to trust employees not to overdo things. Our working days can be very stressful and intensive and the time it takes to couple off and take a short break form work is a good thing to help you get through the day, so long as doesn’t replace work !

The old ideas of two fika breaks per day plus lunch does not always work for me as quite often I miss fika due to meetings or just because I have too much to do.

It's interesting though that the same debate is raging in both Sweden and Britain.

God's Own Airline?

The Vatican is to begin offering a low cost airline to Catholic pilgrims to transport them to various holy sites, beginning with Lourdes. I hope their pricing policy is more transparent than other low cost airlines. The airline will be called Mistral Air (easypray.com was dropped at the last minute)

Lourdes is a strange holy site. Every Catholic has heard of the miraculous healing that can be found there, but the statistics are not that good. There have been around 200million visitors to Lourdes since 1860 and 68 recognised miracles. That's about a 1 in 3million chance of having your prayers heard and a miracle performed. It's not great odds when you consider that medical science produces similar numbers of cures which cannot be explained. What do the millions who go there seeking healing and don't find it feel?

Ryanair: Stop complaining, It's still the cheapest

Ryanair want to start charging a fee for checking in at the airport terminal. At the same time they will make it free for people to check in on-line.

Every time Ryanair start charging for something new everyone gets so upset, like 'how dare they charge us for this'. But the bottom line is Ryanair is WAY cheaper than any other national airline. The new charges are nothing more than a carrot and stick approach to get people to check in on-line and together with the baggage charges they introduced earlier will make it even cheaper to fly if you only have hand luggage.

People need to stop complaining and realise that whatever the extra costs are you still can't find a cheaper carrier. If you want customer service though you can always look elsewhere and pay the extra.

It won't end here though....there are plenty more charges to made.

High Cost of War hits US Bullet Sales

SvD has an article today about how all the wars the US is fighting is driving up the cost of bullets. I wonder how expensive it needs to get before war becomes unacceptable on economic grounds.

Wouldn't it be ironic, for example, if the NRA (National Rifle Association) started lobbying for the troops in Iraq to be pulled out because the cost of bullets for it's members was getting too high!

In general people are selfish in that they worry most about the things that directly affect them. For the average person in the US, the war does not change their daily lives so much unless they have some personal link to the people serving there. It's not until there is some direct effect which impacts on their daily lives that they start really making a fuss which the politicians need to take account of.

The Myth of Baby Toys

When you're a first time parent you want to provide your child with the right kind of stimulation. You look for toys which are going to help the childs development and are perfectly safe for your little angel to play with. The magazines are full of advice on what things to buy and you would never dream of buying anything which is for an alder child for fear of it being swallowed or breaking etc.. Like everything else, you're guided by experts saying what you should and shouldn't get and a good dose of guilt to make sure you toe the line.

Then the next little angel comes along, except this time the house isn't full of pedagogically designed plastic toys in big bright colours but instead full of little metal cars, plastic dinosaurs and wooden trains. It would be impossible to stop them playing with these toys, especially once they start crawling, as you can't watch them 24-7. Actually its my two and a half year old who stops my daughter from playing with things she's too young for by ripping them out of her little hands a shouting, 'Ney, sluta bebbe, Tristam's tåg!'. I susupect though that his motives are not very altruistic.

So here is a list of my 7 month daughters top five things to play with, which can be used as a reference for any first time parents.

1. Old nappies tied up in a hundpåse


2. Power cables for lamps


3. Woooden trains from IKEA


4. Squeeky plastic bath duck


5. Small toy cars

Also, what strange kind of sixth sense lets a baby know the difference between the old, broken mobile phone she is allowed to play with and daddy's nice new one she is absolutelu not supposed to dribble all over?

Banning Smoking at Home!

A women has been banned from smoking in her own garden because her neighbour has complained that the smoke is ruining his quality of life.

This is crazy...She's outdoors, it's her house so why should she not be allowed to light up. The neighbour is being pedantic and I think using the rules just get back at his neighbour. Sure he might get some smoke blowing over, but he'll just have to live with it, thats what being neighbours means. When my neighbour wants to cut his lawn late in the evening I don't try to get the courts to stop him because the noise pollution is damaging my quality of life. Of course peole will say that the passive smoke is damaging his health, but come on...any effect must be negligable.

A great day for Texas?

The US state of Texas has just executed its 400th. prisoner, since the death penalty was re-introduced in 1976, according to SvD. How can a country which prides itself on being free just and democratic still cling to the barbaric practice of executing criminals?

Its not a deterrent, it does nothing to protect society and although the families of those hurt by crime might feel some sense of justice, it is a cruel way to treat the families of those being killed who are themselves innocent of the crimes. It's very hypocritical to condemn others for violating human rights and at the same time continuing to violate the right to live. Sure these people are convicted killers themselves, but that is not the point. I don't hold with this 'eye for an eye' mentality.

I wonder why the Christian Right does not stand up and demand an end to the killings? They seam to have such influence in so many other areas of American life, they must have an opinion. I guess the problem is that the bible has as many passages which can be interpreted as being in favour of capital punishment as it has ones which appear to appose it.

Pink for Girls -It's all in the Genes (and the blouses and the skirts..)

A Study by the University of Newcastle has concluded that women prefer redder shades when given a choice. They checked more than 200 men and women to choose between different colours. Just to make sure the women were not just showing cultural conditioning, they also tested a control group of Chinese people who are not brought up to associate pink with the feminine.

Of course this does not excuse the clothes shops from only stocking pink and white girls’ clothes in their stores. I can't stand the fact that we are so limited when looking for clothes for our 7 month old daughter. I don't want to dress her up as a Barbie doll or a princess, but it is next to impossible to find clothes which do not have pink in them or cute little flowers or other 'girlie' things. My son’s clothes have animals and dinosaurs and tractors on them... much more fun.

I hope my daughter will grow up to be confident and strong and independent and not pink and fluffy and I refuse to dress her up in a way which is being imposed on me by a society which expects little girls to be little pink princesses. Luckily our first child was a boy so she gets to where his clothes.

People are always assuming she is a boy, but I don't care, because for one thing the darker colours she wears are much better at hiding the dirt/food/sick etc....

Humans do appear to be 'hard wired' to have an underlying liking for blue and this is not so biased between men and women so why can't we have girls clothes in blue...with tractors on....

Life On Mars

I've just watched the last ever episode of the BBC drama 'Life On Mars' on SVT2. It's been one of the best series I've seen for a long time and I loved everything about it. When you get hooked on a series its always a problem that you want it to go on and on but at the same time you need it to reach a conclusion, so you can find out exactly whats been going on all that time. With US series (like Lost and the X files) that go on and on season after season, you really start to wonder if the answers will ever be revealed.

But not so with Life On Mars, two super slick series and a really cool final episode. Where we sad that Sam died in the real world or happy he returned to the 70s? Either way, it might be the end of Sam Tyler, but Gene Hunt will return in a new series called Ashes to Ashes (another Bowie reference), this time fighting scum on the streets of 1980s London. I just hope it gets picked up by Swedish TV.

So that's that... Sunday nights will never be the same again.

At least not until next week, when Sopranos starts...

Flying the Flag

One very striking thing about Sweden is that so many people have Swedish flags flying on the homes. In a country that is so scared of being nationalistic, it is one of the few politically acceptable ways to show ones national identity.

In England you just don't see this, accept on football fields and at special times of national celebration. One reason is that flying the Union Jack or Saint George's Cross is so often associated with the far right movement. For them the flag is a symbol of Britain for the (white Anglo-Saxon) British. Whenever you see the British NF marching they carry Union Jack and Saint George's Cross flags.

In SvD today they review the film, 'This is England', a portrayal of skinhead culture in the 1980s Britain. The film makes clear the distinction between the skinheads who worship Ska and Reggae and the ones who support the NF and the far right. The article features a picture of the lead character, a twelve year old boy, holding up a Saint George's Cross and the with his shaven head, he looks like the stereotype neo-Nazi.

If I was publishing this blog in England I would not use the Saint Georges Cross as an associated image, for fear of being labeled a racist. For me the flag is a symbol of my English heritage and I show it with the same pride as football supporters around the world fly their national flags.

Don't ignore the symptoms, fix the cause

Being burnt out(Ref: SvD) is a terrible thing to happen to somebody. I have experience of seeing close friends go through this and it has had profound effects on them and their families.

One of my friends was off sick for about 2 months and luckily they were able to pull out of the downward spiral of depression which so often follows those who are burnt out. They were able to change jobs and get themselves back on their feet.

They were lucky...And even so they still have symptoms such as memory problems, low stress tolerance and anxiety.

What we really need to do is tackle the work environments which give rise to this condition in the first place. Poor working conditions, poor management and support, setting people unrealistic goals and then not giving them the tools needed to achieve them all add to the problem. This is the key to having less people off work due to being burnt out, not ingoring their symptoms and sending them back.

Being burnt out is not like catching a cold, it is like being hit by a car. It's not something you catch it is something which is done to you.

The fact that my friend was able to take those weeks off allowed them to recover. Taking this away will just drive more people into the ground and hide what is becoming a real social problem.

The New Gold Rush

Dagens Nyheter writes today about the rush by Russia, Denmark, Canada and the US to lay claim to what they believe are their rightful slice of the North Pole.

But is not about simple territorial disputes, it's about making big bucks from exploiting one of the last un-spoilt parts of the Earth to feed the need for oil and gas. And whenever big money is involved things can get nasty!

The irony is that getting the oil out is very difficult, because of all the ice. But luckily, because we are burning so many fossil fuels, the Earth is getting warmer and the ice is melting, so in 30 years time it might be possible to extract the oil and .... ermm.....burn some more fossil fuels....

Meteorites Over Västerås

Thursday night I stood in my garden and saw three shooting stars. Tonight my chances of seeing some more should be even better. It’s that time of year for the Perseids Meteor Shower, when the Earth passes through the tail of Comet Swift-Tuttle and as the debris hit’s the atmosphere it burns up to form shooting stars. The best time to see them will be from Sunday night to sunrise on Monday morning, but even tonight there will be plenty to see.

Since there is no moon just now, if the skies are clear then it promises to be a good show. It’s just a shame that its still quite light in the sky over southern Sweden, as the darker the sky, the better. I’ve been watching the Perseids every year since I was a child so they are a real pert of the summer to me.

So go out and watch the skies…

Russia Fakes North Pole Flag Mission

It's been a busy time for the Russian propoganda machine, only last week they planted a flag under the North Pole with all the symbolism of the US Moon Landings, and today it was reported in SvD that the picture might actually be a fake, digitally manipulated from footage of the Titanic wreck!


If you're going to make a fake image, don't take the picture from a Hollywood film! This is just like the bollocks of the bad old days under Communism. I wonder what really happened. The Russian's had really built up the mission before the sub left port, so maybe, when it turned out they weren't actually going to be able to do what they had claimed, they decided to fake things rather than admitting defeat.


It would be quite funny if not for the fact that Russia is a sabre-rattling with the West again and clearly willing to go to whatever lengths necessarry to score political points with the rest of the world.

Darth Vader Being an Asshole

A friend of mine showed me this and I nearly cried laughing. This is what YouTube is really about, not kids videoing each other burning their hair and hanging onto electric fences.

Gonna Get Myself Connected

VLT ran an article today discussing how more and more people are living out their social lives on the Internet. Some 100 000 Swedes are now members of some sort of social internet site and these sites are becoming a more integrated part of our social lives so that there is less of a distinction between the friends you meet in the flesh and the friend you meet online.

Ten years ago this phenomena was purely for the geeks, but now anybody and create a life for themselves on the net. Both my wife and I write bloggs, I have accounts on social networking sites Friends Reunited and Facebook and my wife also publishes pictures on Flickr.

I use this blogg to just sound off about stuff I see around me and most of the time it feels like I’m having a conversation with somebody over coffee, even though I have no idea who you are reading this right now…(also, you don’t get to interrupt me, which is nice :o).

Facebook is different though, as I use it to keep in touch with friends back in the UK who I have not seen for years. You can use it to chat to people and upload pictures of what you are doing or where you have been and see what your friends have been up to, you can also send people virtual fish if they have a virtual aquarium and even start a virtual food fight! I rarely ever ring me friends back in the UK now, as all our conversations are done over the internet.

I wonder though what it will be like in 15 years time, when my kids are teenagers and bulky computers and keyboards will be old technology…

‘Look, son, you are not getting a Web4.0 Brain Implant and that’s final!’

Just a Perfect Day

One of things I love most about working in Sweden is the freedom which flex time allows. When I worked in the UK it was all very rigid, we started at 9.00am and finished at 5.00pm.

Today though at 14.00pm I decided to flex out and enjoy what might be the last of the summer sun and take my son swimming at 'Gropen' in Hökåsen.

I wasn't the only one either, many of my collegues left early to enjoy the sunshine too. Flextime is like freedom of expression, or the right to vote, it should not be taken for granted since not everyone in the world gets the chance to make use of it. It makes the balance between work life and home life so much easier to manage and it gives you opportunities like today, to go off and spend some quality time outdoors with the kids.

See - I'm not making this shit up!

With reference to 'A Land of Two Seasons'

On the back page ofthe local newspaper, VLT, they have a Question of the Day section. Today's question was, 'What do you do so as not to start getting stressed after the summer vacation?'. One guy replied, 'I started work today so I try to think of something like, it's not long until the christmas vacation'.....

This came from a 24 year old student!

Webstats Ruined My Life

My name is Swenglishman and I am an addict…this is my story…

When I started blogging I set up stat tracking accounts with statcounter.com and then later with Google Analytics. It seamed like a bit of fun at the time, to see how many people were looking at my blog and where in the world they came from. I thought I could handle it… You know how it is, other people get hooked, but not me, I’m stronger than that…

But then I found myself checking the stats more and more. I would find myself coming home from work and immediately checking how many hits I’d got that day, it was the first thing I did in the morning and the last thing I did at night. Everything else took second place, my job, my kids, my marriage, now I am left with nothing, living out of a cardboard box with just this laptop and a WiFi connection.

Oh all right, maybe not, but it is still really fun and to see the webstats and its interesting what they tell us about the habits of Blogg readers. For example I get most hits at 13.00pm on weekdays, when office workers get back from lunch and need some chill out time before the afternoon session. Another big peak is at 8.00am, when the workers first log on and read the latest blogs while they wait for that first coffee of the day to kick in. After lunch there is a peak at the 18.00pm and another at 20.00pm (which I guess are readers with small kids who have just got the little devils off to bed).

Hmmm….I wonder how many new hits I’ll get form this post…I better just go and take a look…

Get rid of the TV and Chill Out

The local Västerås newspaper has been running some features on lack of sleep, which is apparently a modern health hazard affecting ever more of us. In recent years sales of medication to help people sleep has increased dramatically.

It's the curse of our modern all connected information overload world. For example I am writing this at 10.00p.m in the evening when I should be winding down and getting ready for bed. Last night I stayed up watching Foyle's War till 22.30 and the night before it was the Midsommar Murders. A few years ago I would play computer games all evening so when I finally got to bed, laid down and closed my eyes I would still visualise Civilization units, or bad guys waiting to be shot at.

You don't need medication to fix this, you just need to disconnect from the buzz of modern life for a while and let the body relax.

I know this, being a caravan owner because when we are out with the caravan there is no TV, no computer or DVD player and instead we sit up and read or play cards, Yahtzee etc.. before going to bed at around 22.00 ready for the next day. After a few days of this you start to sleep like a brick and the lights in your head go out just as soon as your head hits the pillow.

I wonder how many people are stressed right now glued to their computer looking for on-line farmacitical sites where they can buy pills to help them sleep!

Most of the time it's not what goes on at work that makes us too stressed to sleep, it's what we do in the evenings that doesn't allow the brain the time it needs to cool off and relax.

Bunking Off

Next week more people will be back at work and normality is beginning to be restored. So this seams like a good time to take a day off before the pressure returns.

I'll be taking my son to the swimming pool, it will be the first time he's been to a pool for about a year. I had hoped to take him to Björnön or Gropen this summer, but the weather has never allowed it.

Live each day as If it could be your last' - What a load of Bollocks!

You often hear people say, ’live each day as if it was your last’, but what would happen if you actually took this philosophy to heart.

If I thought this would be my last day on Earth I probably wouldn’t bother with anything as mundane as cleaning the house or washing my clothes. There would be no real point in shaving just for one day either. Also, I’m not likely to want to spend what could potentially be my last day alive at work so I can forget about that right away.

I really should do something meaningful with my time. I’ve always wanted to see the Pyramids of Egypt, but of course it would take a day to fly there and if this might be my last living day then I sure as hell don’t want to spend it on a plane. Probably best if I just stay at home.

Eating will be a problem because there will probably be no food in the house as I didn’t go shopping yesterday as I though I might be dead today. I wouldn’t want to leave my family without saying goodbye so I would definite ring everyone and tell them how much they mean to me, just in case. This will be awkward as they will probably reply, ‘Yes, yes, you’ve been saying that every day for the last four years since you decided to live each day as if it might be your last, so sod off and please stop calling it’s getting depressing!.

You get the idea…..I propose instead to have a philosophy that you should ‘live each day as if you were sure you’d get another one tomorrow’. This has the advantage of ensuring that the housework gets done, you keep your job and also, for all but one day of your life, your assumption would be proved correct.