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.

Electronic Christmas Cards Just Can't Replace the Real Thing

In Sweden this year fewer Christmas cards were sent via post than last year, in which even fewer were sent that the year before. This downward trend is blamed on the ease of sending electronic cards via the internet.

Which is a shame.

In our house we always send loads of Christmas Cards (at least 20 to England and about the same again in Sweden and Europe). For all the fancy graphics and animations you can get with e-cards you can't stick them up on the fridge, or line them up on a shelf or, as we do, hang them from the curtain rail. For us they are another part of the Christmas decorations and make us think about the family and friends who sent them.

You just don't get this emotional connection with electronic cards.

So think twice before deciding not to send Christmas cards via the post. The cost of the stamps and paper is well worth it when you consider the happiness that getting them brings to those close to you.

Merry Christmas...

Coffee, The Last Affordable Vice (But Not For Long)

Isn't it bad enough that every possible vice in Sweden is either illegal or taxed to hell, without prices going up on the only plessure left....drinking coffee.

Sweden's pub culture is nothing like what you find in Britain, but instead Sweden has the coffee shop culture where people come to meet and chat.

But now there is the risk of higher prices even for coffee as world demand pushes up the prices of coffee beans.

Soon there will be nothing left which is affordable, unhealthy and gives pleasure in an otherwise humdrum life of work, kids and more work.

Tony Blair Becomes a Catholic

After much speculation, Tony Blair has left the Anglican Church and become a Catholic. I was never that happy with having a overtly religious leader when I lived in Britain. At the time of the Gulf War we had the Muslim world declaring the they were doing God's Will and with God's help they would prevail and then we had Bush saying quoting the Bible and calling on God to bless the American troops in their 'Crusade'.

The fact that Blair was an active christian did not sit well with me as I don't like the idea of politicians taking guidance from religious teaching to decide policy. Blair admits he prayed to God about whether to send troops to Iraq. He didn't say what the answer was though. Maybe he parayed along the lines of, 'God if you DON'T want me to invade Iraq give me a sign'. If in fact his payers were answered then you have to wonder what God is playing at as he also told the Muslim's to resist until death since matyrdom is the quickest way into paradise.

We don't need religion to tell us what is right and wrong and I don't like the way religion is so easily used to give legitamacy to people basically being shitty to each other.

Fatscreen TVs Consume More Energy

Yesterday I blogged about the rise in demand for flatscreen TVs. This morning I came across an article which states that LCD TVs consume 75% more power than regular TVs and Plasma TVs consume up to 300% more!

With all these TVs being sold, the increase in energy demand to pay for them should be considered too.

Plasma or LCD TV, That is the Question!

Sometimes you can have too much choice! With sales of flatscreen TVs rising by 55% in Sweden every electronics shop is full of them. But which to choose ???

First you have to decide on LCD or Plasma. Plasma give better picture quality but can suffer from picture burn in. LCD is immune to burn in, but can have a really crappy picture if the signal is bad. I just can't decide.....Some flat TV pictures I have seen are not even as good as my existing analogue TV, which is 15 years old.

In the shops they have hundreds of different TVs but I can never find any good reviews to say which is a good purchace.

The review published in Dn really scared me off Plasma, due to the burn in problem, but a salesman in a shop told me you would need to have the same picture on the screen for hours for this to happen. Who is right? .....aggghhhhh!!!

While I can't decide I'll keep watching my analogue TV and watch the cost of the flatscreen TVs fall. But now my kids are a little older I want to be able to watch DVDs in the evening on a proper screen and, like Gollum lusting after the One Ring, I can't stop thinking about the owning my own 40inch+ flatscreen 'precious'.

Mickey Mouse to Appear in an Italian Court

What a great story! Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck (Kalle Anka), Tweetie Bird and other Disney characters have been called to appear in an Italian court as witnesses in copyright dispute.

It seams unlikely that they will attend (after all Italy does not have an extradition treaty with Disneyworld).

I'd love to here Donald Duck give evidence in court....Tweetie though would esily break down under cross examination and sing like a canary.

Earlier this year two Hindu Gods were called to apper in an Indian court as witnesses in a property dispute, so this is not as strange as it might seam.

The Most Overpaid Stars In Hollywood

Forbes in the US has published a list of the most overpaid actors in Hollywood, with Russel Crowe topping the list since the film studios only earn 5dollars for each dollar Crowe gets paid. The most bankable stars are Tom Cruise and Will Smith who earn 11 and 10 dollars for the film compaines for each dollar they get paid.

Still, you have to consider that Will Smith is hardly a great character actor and by starring in big budget, mass appeal action films he is bound to pull in big bucks. After the film though you never identify him with the character he plays, he's just Will Smith.

Russel Crowe is a proper actor though, who does films bacause he feels they are artistic roles to play which tell a story worth telling, even if they don't have mass appeal. This might make him sound a bit pretentious, and that may be so, but he does have an Oscar and is a great actor.

In lists like this someone always has to come bottom, but few names on the list belong to serious character actors, wo do more than just blockbuster action films and comedies.

Renovating an Old House: A Brilliant or Stupid Idea?

My wife and I have been looking to buy a new house for some time. We want to leave out 1.5 storey house and move into a single storey house. We have been on I don't know how many viewings and bid on three houses only to back out when the bidding rose above the point where we felt we were getting a good deal.

Eventually we found our dream house and said, 'This is the one we want and were going to make damn sure we get it whatever the cost'.

But then the bidding started and rose up about 30% above the asking price, so we eventually pulled out of that one too, which was a crushing blow. What we loved most about the house though was the layout. It was perfect with plenty of space, bedrooms away from the rest of the living area, semi-open planned, but with a gap between the kitchen and living room, so that you could cook without interfering with or being interfered by the TV.

Then we found another house with the exact same layout and going for a fraction of the asking price of the other. The catch is that it was un-renovated since it was built in 1977. This means that the bathrooms are in green porcelain and the kitchen cooker is built by ASEA and looks like the first cooker my parents had back in the 70s. This time we won the bidding and became the owners of a lump of coal destined to become a diamond.

So here’s the thing, can we fix up an old house and turn it into our dream home. From a cost point of view it seams like a good idea as after the house is fixed up we will only be paying for the true cost of a new house rather than bidding on a newly renovated house where the final price depends on how many people are interested during the bidding. Although I write about this now, we bought the house back in September, when prices were still high.

Have we made a good business move or condemned ourselves to the trouble and stress of fixing up a house whilst managing our jobs and two small kids? On the plus side much of the work we can pay somebody else to do, but there is still a lot of decorating for us to take care of.

My gut feeling is that we are doing the right thing, but only time will tell. We get the key in the beginning of the New Year so Christmas this year will be the calm before the storm!!!! We then have a couple of months before leaving this house to get the bulk of the restoration work done.

Nobel Party or Springsteen? Not such a tricky choice for some

It's always tricky when you have two parties to go to and you have to choose which one to pick. Today was one of those days for Mona Sahlin (leader of the Swedish Social Democrats), who had to choose between the Nobel Prize party or the Bruce Springsteen concert in Stockholm.

So faced with being the dutiful politician or a simple rock chick, she went for rock chick...good for her. She is even getting a back stage pass...

To be honest, I'm not a big Bruce Springsteen fan, but my wife worships him and still keeps going on about seing him in Göteborg when she was a teen and that was over 20 years ago. I watched every single episode of Sopranos and never once realised Steven Van Zandt was the guitarist in the E street band. Even so I have to respect an artist who has had such lasting appeal as Springsteen and they don't call him The Boss for nothing.