Gävlebocken: Burn Baby Burn !

Christmas is coming and in the Swedish town of Gävle it is time for the Gävlebocken to come out again. For those who don't know, the Gävlebocken is a giant goat, made of straw, who stands proudly in the town square of Gävle during advent.

The problem is that after a few drinks it is inevitable that some people will think, "Mmmmm, giant straw goat, I bet that would burn well"

So now we not only have the tradition of putting up the Gävleboken, but also the tradition of burning it down as soon as possible. This has become such a tradition that one US tourist didn't even realise it was actually illegal and was imprisoned for arson after torching it one year.

But now every year there is all this anticipation as people wait to if the goat will get torched before Christmas. It's like a Swedish Groundhog Day.

The authorities have been playing dirty though by using flame resistant coating and sprays to make the goat inflammable. But, there is a catch here...The international media interest is not there because of a giant Christmas Goat, but rather because of the fact it keeps getting burnt down. That is always the angle that the BBC and CNN take when they make their reports.

So the city council should be wary about making Gävlebocken too indestructible. In order to keep the town on the international map, the goat has to get burned down once in a while...

World Tours, Cancelled Tours and Tours Which Should be Banned

As if the Spice Girl tour was not bad enough, now we’ll have the Jackson Five reunion thrust upon us. When the Jackson’s first performed they were five, fresh faced, black skinned boys in their teens (or younger in little Michael's case). Now they are no longer boys, or fresh faced and one of them isn't even black anymore. I can only guess this has come about because something has to be done to keep the Neverland Ranch in animal feed and Michael can't face touring on his own with his image in such tatters.

Amy Winehouse on the other hand has suddenly cancelled her tour in order to continue her very public nervous breakdown. Even Brittney Spears has not managed to loose it in such a spectacular fashion. First she was booed on stage during an earlier gig and now, with just 2 hours until she was supposed to sing, she has cancelled the tour. Musical Stars falling apart is nothing new, but Amy seams to be dragging her fans along for the ride too, which I doubt many really signed up for. Still this is just the sort of troubled genius stuff that pop legends are made of. Pete Docherty practically built a career out of falling apart but is still bouncing back, so we have to hope Amy Winhouse can do the same.

Luckily, in all of this madness, we still have Saint Kylie to show the young upstarts and worn out has beans how a true performer is supposed to behave, and next year she's even coming to Sweden to do a show in Stockholm.

I'll Tell You What I (dont) Want!!

The Spice Girls comeback single, "Headlines (Friendship never ends)", has only sold a paultry 5278 copies in its first week.

The thing is that doing a comeback tour was probably a good idea as lots of people in their later 20s and early 30s have nostalgic memories of the Spice Girls (manly because after so long you forget how bad they could be and only remember Gerri's cleavage!). Seeing them prance around on stage doing tall the old hits is all very fun and retro.

But to do a single, oh no. Then they have to compete with the modern artists and I'm afraid the Spice Girls are just SO 1990s...

Santa Is a Big Fat Fake!

It's that time of year for children around the world to write their wish lists to Santa in the hope that on Christmas morning they will get what there hearts desire (materialistic little sods).

But when you look at things is the idolising and hero worship that kids give Santa really justified, or his he selling them an idea which is quite a long way from the truth?

First there are the Christmas lists, which Santa reads and decides who has been naughty and nice. But is that really fair, I mean who is he to judge kids like that and what about a fair trial, innocent until proven guilty or the right of appeal?

Then there are the presents. It's not like he makes them himself is it? No, instead he exploits low cost immigrant labourers, who work in sweatshop conditions for next to no pay. And if they complain he can always fire them and out-sourse the whole operation to China instead.

Then you have Santa complaining about how hard he works to deliver all the presents to the childern of the world on Christmas Night. But hang on, it's not like he has to bother with the Jews, Muslims, Sikhs, or in fact any other non-Christian Religion. That narrows things down quite a lot. Then of course in the Nordic countries Christmas Night is on the 24th so he can bag them in one night before even worrying about Britain and North America.

Then you have the time zones which means that if Santa starts in New Zealand and works his way westward, he can stretch Christmas Night on the 25th. by an extra twelve hours. And then he get to take easy until the 6th. of January before having to do Spain!!!

After all that he then takes the rest of the year off, to do God knows what. Probably living it up in some Carrabean tax haven.

So he is a fake, but like many public figures, a master of spin and has cynicaly manipulated his media image over the years and abused his monoplistic position. I think its time that the truth about Santa comes out....

British Ale: The Best Beer in the World

It has been reported that the sale of British Ale has dropped 22% since 1979, with sales now at their lowest level since the 1930s.

One problem has been the ease at which Brits can buy cheap beer in France and then take it home through the channel tunnel. Another is that most of the small breweries have been bought up by pub chains, who are more interested in selling large numbers of pints than delivering a quality product. This has made it harder to find really good beer. Also, Ale now has to compete with trendy drinks targeted at young people.

This is a national tragedy as British Ale is the best beer in the world...I know that many German's and Czechs might disagree with this, but frankly this is my blog and they can kiss my hairy butt.

British Ale comes in so many different types with such a diversity of flavour and texture, it's more like wine than the rubbish you get in other countries. In Sweden its very hard to find decent beer (although Swedish Ale, particularly that coming from the Jämtland Brewery is pretty damn good stuff and there are pubs like Accurat and Oliver Twist in Stockholm selling British Ale).

The best way to sample British Ale, if you can't find a pub is to go to a beer festival. On any given weekend there is bound to be a few going on somewhere in the country. This picture is from the Bath Beer festival which was held in September. They had about 50 ales to sample, and a pint cost around 2.20pounds which is about 30Kr.

Is Serbia Ready For Kosovan Independence?

EU leaders have called on Kosovo Albanians not to jump to any unilateral declaration of independence, since any future Kosovon state would need the support of other EU countries. However, in all of this not so much has been said about what Serbia would do if Kosovo declares independence.

Serbs believe Kosovo is the heart of the Serbian nation and that it must forever remain a part of Serbia. Writing on an earlier blog post of mine one Serb wrote:

"Serbs have become a minority in Kosovo over the past 60 years due to misgovernment and the opening of borders by a totalitarian communist regime which we dared not rise against because we saw what Stalin did to his own people in the USSR"

"And don't even start with Kosovans. There is no such thing. There are Serbs and there are Albanians. And there never have been and never will be any Kosovans. "

"And I see absolutely no reason why Albanians should be allowed to have Kosovo to themselves when 60 years ago there were no more than 100,000 of them there, and when they have their own country right across the border. What we did to them is no more than what you would do to anyone who would try to take away a part of your own country because one day they woke up and decided to do so."

Now these could be the isolated comments of one angry nationalistic Serb, or it could be one Serb voicing the opinions of a nation who will not sit back and let a part of their country be taken away from them. While Kosovo is protected by the UN, there is not much Serbia can do, but how long with that last, a decade? 50 years, a century?

Nationalistic identities and beliefs do not die out so easily as has been shown time and time again in Ireland, Palestine etc..

If this is the case a Kosovo Albanian state might not be so secure in the long run.

Queen of England and the King of Cool

The Queen of England is celebrating her diamond jubilee after 60 years of marriage to Prince Phillip. This is quite an achievment when you consider that three of her four children are divorced. It's even more amazing when you think that Prince Phillip is a xenophobic gun freek.

Still, I guess Charles married the wrong person in the first place and now he has put right that mistake, he'll be married for life now. Anne too is now happily remarried, but you never hear much of what Andrew is doing since his divorce to Fergie. Fergie of course whent to the US where she tried to support herself on the chat show circuit for many years, before finding fame as the only girl in the rap group, 'The Black Eyed Peas'.

Another Royal in the news is the King Juan Carlos of Spain, who has become the King of Cool anfter telling Venuzuala's President Hugo Chavez to 'shut up' at a recent summit. This has now been downloaded to phones, put on tee-shirts, mugs etc.. and is being lapped up by anyboday apposed to Chavez (of which there are many).

Come On England, A Nation Expects

It's never a good feeling in football when your fate rests in the hands of others, but today Israel though England the lifeline they need to still qualify for the European Cup.

With Israel beating Russia, England now needs to win against Croatia to qualify. This is tense stuff. The idea of England not qualifying is unthinkable. England has to be there, it’s a matter of national pride. But after Macedonia beat Croatia 2-0, England could actually top the group and a draw would be good enough for them to go through. Even if they loose, Russia still need to beat Andorra.

Britain has a permanent seat on the UN Security Council and a guaranteed place in the final of the Eurovision Song Contest, but in football the team has to earn its place and so far it hasn't exactly done that. But now the chance is there for the team to shine and play the way they have shown they can.

World's First Computer Cracking Codes Again

During World War II the British set up a secret code breaking centre at Bletchley Park in Buckinghamshire. From there they perfected the techniques and machines necessary to break the German Enigma codes and later the Lorenz code, used by the Germen High Command.

The Enigma machine was cracked by an electromechanical machine called the Bombe, designed by Alan Turing, the father of modern computing and was based on a design made by Polish engineers.


The Lorenz code was much more difficult to crack and for this job the Colossus was built. Colossus was the world’s first programmable computer and used electric valves instead of the mechanical rotors used by the Bombe, making it much faster.

After the War, all the Colossus machines were destroyed, to stop the technology falling into enemy hands (in this case probably the Russians, since the war had ended), but now a team at Bletchley Park have successfully re-created one and it is now once again cracking the Lorenz code.

Bletchley Park is now a museum to computing and the code breaking efforts of World War II and is a fascinating place to visit for anybody interested in computers or history.

The work done at Bletchley Park was of such value that it probably shortened the war by 6 months and saved many countless lives. However, this did not stop Alan Turing being convicted of gross indecency after been caught having a homosexual relationship in the 1950s. Even though he was a hero of the war, he was still sentenced to undergo chemical castration and eventually committed suicide in 1954.

More Ways to Make UK Parliament Greener

The British Parliament building is to be made more environmentally friendly in order to cut the huge energy cost. Suggestions include installing double glazing, water turbines, driven from the Thames, and even a wind turbine.

Considering all the hot air spoken by the MPs during debates, I'm sure this could be recovered and turned in to useful energy. All the crap they speak could be used to generate methane to run a turbine too. Maybe MPs who die in office could be composted down as bio-fuel - maybe some living ones too for that matter...

The different political parties in the UK have been recycling each others policies for years, so they are at least ahead of the game in that respect.

Mulder and Skully We Need You !!!

A group in the US is calling on the government to reopen the files on investigations into UFO sightings. But this isn't a group of paranoid nutters, but rather a collection of former pilots and government employees form seven different countries, which have seen UFO's or have investigated sightings.

They claim that these sightings could represent a security risk and so should be taken seriously. Only last month the Democrat presidential candidate, Dennis Kucinich, said during a televised debate that he'd seen a UFO.

So its time to bring back Mulder and Skully and find out what is really watching us from the skies, before George W. tries to invade Mars.

GPS: The Must Have Present for '07

In Sweden at least, the must have Christmas present for this year is a personal GPS system. It's not the most blingy of presents; in fact it’s a bit of a geeky toy. I would have thought mobiles with extra big screens for watching TV would have been higher on people’s wish list.

It just goes to show that technology is becoming an ever more important part of our lives. We are now so used to having a phone, camera, radio, MP3 players, games machine etc... All at the tip of our fingers, it’s hard to remember how we lived without it. The humble home PC might soon be made obsolete as well as more stuff is crammed into phones and other mobile gadgets.

I bought a GPS system a couple of years ago to help us navigate our way around Europe with our Caravan. Originally my wife insisted we used the Swedish voice to give the directions as it would be good training for me. However, since the voice had a Stockholm accent and my wife is from Göteborg, she soon decided she didn't like some Stockholmer telling her where to go, so we changed the voice to English. The English voice has a very special ‘1940s BBC radio announcer’ kind of voice.

We call him Charles...

Bhutto Back Under House Arrest

Benazir Bhutto is back under house arrest just days after being freed from the last time she was placed under house arrest!

This time it’s because she was planning to lead a march in protest of the continuing state of emergency in Pakistan. The Commonwealth Leaders have given General Musharraf 10 days to lift emergency rule and reinstate the constitution or else Pakistan will be suspended again.

I wonder where this is all going. Clearly Musharraf wants to hold on to power and is doing all he can to do so. But the pressure on him is building all the time and it can't go on like this. The situation as it is can only weaken the country further. Insider Pakistan there has been news blackouts, TV stations have been taken off the air and internet connection severed to keep the people in the dark as to what is going on.

But Pakistan is no Burma and the people won't be so easily bullied into submission. The irony is that Pakistan has not done so badly under Musharraf. But now he needs to give in to the democratic process, step down as head of the military and hold free and fair elections. The people will then judge his record as a leader.

Baby Care Books - Why Bother

I was looking through some of our books the other day and came across a small collection of books on baby care and raising children. We bought them back when we learned that we were expecting our first child.

Since neither of us had ever taken a very practical role in raising other babies in our families, we felt we needed some idea of what was to come, so being good educated people; we went out and bought a load of books.

They were mainly useless, flicked through once and then left to be forgotten on a shelf. The truth was that as soon as the kids arrived we just bluffed our way though it and made it up as we went along the same as everybody else does. With the second child it was even worse as even the 'great systems' we had devised for our first child became just too much bother when the second one arrived and were even further watered down.

Incidentally, there are two books though which have proved to be invaluable in caring for both our children. These are 'Advanced Engineering Mathematics' by Erwin Kryzig (6th edition) and 'Longmans Dictionary of Contempory English'.

Both these books are about 6cm thick and therefore perfect for placing under the legs of the babies’ cot to lift up the head end when they catch colds and can’t sleep because of blocked noses...

60 Years for Hacking, 6.5 Years for Murder!

Sometimes I really wonder about the judicial system in Sweden when a dangerous brutal murderer who stabbed and strangled his sambo to death can have his sentenced reduced from life to 10 years, which means in practice he could be out in maybe 6.5years.

What kind of deterrent is this? And what happens when this brutal man is released back into society?

And then you have a hacker in the USA who faces 60years in prison for infecting computers with a virus! It's crazy...

Murder must carry longer sentences because it a) Acts as a deterrent and b) keeps these dangerous individuals off the streets and c) gives people a long, long time to reflect on the damage they have done with their selfish actions.

Bhutto Freed From House Arrest

It's good to see that the house arrest of Benazir Bhutto has been lifted. Only time will tell if this was due to President Musharraf bowing down to international and internal pressure, or if is all part of an elaborate charade between Ms. Bhutto and Musharraf (See Is Musharraf-Bhutto conflict all it seems?)

We Should All Be Worried About Pakistan

Pakistan's President Musharraf has now placed opposition leader Benazir Bhutto under house arrest for 30 days (Dn, Svd).

Interestingly it has been done, 'for her own safety', which is very decent and thoughtful of him don't you think ?

Musharraf himself is under pressure to end the state of emergency and resign as head of the Army. However, he'll only do this if the High Court agree that it is legal for him to stand as President again.

All this does not make one feel very secure that the election, if and when it happens, will be free and fair. Ms Bhutto's party is the largest in the country so she does command great power amongst the people of Pakistan. It is this which has Musharraf so worried.

A military commander who takes power by force and then abuses his position to keep down opposition and rigs elections to give the illusion of credability is a dictator, fair and square.

As I have said before, anachy and political strife in Pakistan is bad for all of us. The situation in Burma is bad enough, but Pakistan is a country with nuclear weapons, and a small, but dangerous group of Islamic militants, waiting to exploit the political situation.

Classic Film Quotes

A List of the top 10 movie lines has been published recently. Here are some more.

" I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."
- Aliens.

"I got a bad feeling about this"
- Star Wars (various episodes)

" You're only supposed to blow the bloody doors off!"
- The Italian Job (original)

"Listen, you fucking fringe, if I throw a dog a bone, I don't want to know if it tastes good or not. You stop me again whilst I'm walking, and I'll cut your fucking Jacobs off. "
- Snatch

Cheese Eating Surrender Monkeys

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has recieved a standing ovation from the US Houses of Congress during his official visit to the US. It is hard to believe a French Prsident could be so walmly recieved after the cool relationship betwen the US and France in recent years.

It's not so long ago that the French were being rediculed as Cheese Eating Surrender Monkeys in the US press and even in an episode of the Simposons. France, along with Germany and Belgium were also decsribed as the 'Axis of Weasles' for thier lack of support for the Iraq War. Fance also has been in the top 3 list of Most Weasliest Nations' on the Dilbert Site for many years, beating the likes of Iran and North Korea. Finnally who could forget the campaign to rename French Fries to Freedom Fries.

But not now, Sarkozy has put on a charm offensive of stunning magnitude and said all the things Americans want to here from a European head of state (Thanks for saving us from the Nazis; Yes we will support you in Iraq and Afganistan; No we won't stand by and let Iran develop Nuclear Weapons). The fact that France has a permanent seat on the UN Security Council will also help.

So now the American people will be free to embrace all things French again without feeling like traitors.

Vive La France!

Pakistan President Getting More Desperate

The situation in Pakistan is getting worse as General Musharraf has declared a state of emergency and is now rounding up opposition supporters of Benazir Bhutto.

The West has always turned a blind eye to Musharraf's not-so-democratic behaviour in the past as he has been such a keen ally in the War on Terror. However, now we are starting to see a desperate man using his position as head of the military and head of state to take unconstitutional action to secure his position in the face of popular resistance.

The danger is that a power struggle at the top of Pakistan's political system will give the militants breathing room to and spread further instability in the country. We can't afford to let Pakistan descend into chaos. This will give the likes of Al-Queda a haven to grow, just as they did in Afganistan.

Stability in Pakistan is good for all of us in the long run.

Don't Be Surprised When People Want Things For Free

Is it really a big surprise that so few people have been willing to pay for Radiohead's new album after they were invited to download it from their website and pay only as much as they felt appropriate.

When this was announced the Thom Yorke said something trite about trusting to the honesty of the public and proving the cynical record industry wrong.

Well that is a fine and noble idea but the fact that 62% of people have not paid anything and the rest have paid an average of 38Kronor says something else. The whole reason that people pirate music and films is because it is free and people like getting things for free or at least as cheap as possible. You only have to look at the scandal in the Swedish Moderata Party over ministers buying services without paying taxes to see this.

Still, maybe the people who downloaded the album for free from their website would have downloaded it for free from Pirate Bay or some other site anyway. In this case the band will not have lost out financially and have gotten a whole load fo free publicity.

Put An End To November NOW!

What is the point of November? Its just dark, cold, wet and nothing fun happens. There are no holidays, festivals of sporting events to take peoples minds of the tedium of getting up in the dark going to work in the rain and then tramping home again in the dark and gloom.

September has the blaze of colour that a nature throws up as its swan song for the end of summer. December has the lights of Christmas, Lucia and the anticipation of a well earned holiday. But November has nothing like that.

I propose to simply cancel November and go straight from September to December. That way we can all miss out the most depressing month of the year.

April is pretty rubbishy too. There isn't enough decent snow to ski and the weather is too cold and wet for it to really feel like spring.

If we could cancel April too then we could also ditch the silly Gregorian Calendar and replace it with a nice modern 'Metric' calendar with only ten months (only they would't be called months they would be 'deciyears').

Maybe I should start lobbying the EU parliament......

Religiously Inspired Terrorism in the 17th. Century

Today is the anniversary of a plot which, if it had suceeded, would have been the worst terrorist attocity in English history. The plan was very simple, to cause an explosion under the House of Lords during the state opening of parliament and kill the monach and most of the English ruling class.

This happened in the year 1605 and the plotters were Catholics angry at the mistreatment of other Catholics in England. They hoped to kill the Protestant King and then start a revolt to put a Catholic back on the English Throne.

At this time it was possible to rent store rooms under the Houses of Parliament in London and one of these was loaded up with gunpowder. In fact there was enough gunpowder to completely destroy the Parliament building and blow out windows in a 1km radius.

But the plotters were betrayed, discovered and tried. Although Robert Catesby was the ringleader it was Guy Fawkes, the explosives expert who is most associated with the plot. He was arrested and questioned by the authourities. Of couse in those days you didn't need to fly a suspect to a secret CIA prison in Romania to torture them, you just sent them to the Tower of London.

After being found guilty the plotters were sentenced to Death by being hung drawn and quartered. This involved hanging somebody until they were nearly dead, then drawing out their intenstines and burning them in front of the condemend man before beheading them a cutting up the body into four parts (presumably to make sure they were really, really dead!)

The idea of the plot was to give greater rights and freedoms to the Catholics in Britain, but instead Catholics were even more pursecuted in the later years.

Every year in Britain, on November the 5th. people light bonfires and fireworks. It is also tradition to make a figure of Guy Fawkes to burn on top of the bonfire. When I was growing up it was my favourite day of the year because I loved watching the fireworks so much and, unlike in Sweden, people don't light fireworks at New Year in the UK.

Stuck in Standstead Airport's Security Check

Last weekend I flew to England from Sweden for a weekend visit. Flying out from Sweden with Ryanair was a dream as I had no baggage and had checked in on-line so I didn't even need to queue for the check in desk.

Getting home again was a nightmare though. There were so many people trying to squeeze through the security check at Standstead airport that it took me an hour to make it into the departure hall. It's always the same; there are so many flights and just too few X-ray scanners, which creates this terrible bottleneck.

All around me were people worrying that after queuing for God knows how long to check in they were now going to miss their flights as they couldn't get through the security check. We were hot, frustrated and just shuffling along like sheep. By the time I made it through, there was barely enough time to buy a sandwich before I had to go to the departure gate. I wonder how many people miss their flights after being stuck there so long.

It was ridiculous and made me again wish that Ryanair had not moved their flights from Sweden's Västerås airport to Standstead from Luton. Luton airport is much smaller and consequently it does not take as long to clear the security.

I would have hated to have had my kids with me. Whenever I fly with my kids I use SAS or British Airways since the service is much better, even though the tickets cost more.