Happy Groove Year!

Happy New Year!

It's 8.30 am and everyone here at Danne and Helena's country home is fast asleep. Even Bruce the poodle. Everyone that is except for my darling daughter who is wide awake and ready to rock. She is very miffed with me that I won't turn the stereo on so that she can dance. She was boogieing down till 2 am and now wants more! DJ Daddy is not going to oblige!


Is this what the Scots call first footing?

Garrulus pops in!

A new visitor to Grandma's garden this morning: a jay. The Swedish name is nötskrika and it has the wonderful latin name garrulus glandarius. Bright sunshine and blue sky and everything looks very beautiful except the thermometer. Minus 13! Brrrrr!

Garrulus pops in!

A new visitor to Grandma's garden this morning: a jay. The Swedish name is nötskrika and it has the wonderful latin name garrulus glandarius. Bright sunshine and blue sky and everything looks very beautiful except the thermometer. Minus 13! Brrrrr!

Xmas Party - Xmas Day!

Merry Xmas everybody!

The snow continues and the populace of N. Öland have been advised not to make any journeys that are not strictly necessary. We should have gone Maria, Ulrika's sister for Xmas lunch. But down her way, snowdrifts are 2 metres high! Kai got a Wii for Xmas so he is not complaining.

Today's song is probably one of the best Xmas songs ever: Wizzard's I wish it could be Xmas every day.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZoxQ4Ul_DME

One great explosion of joyfulness about the festive season. Magnificent!


Off now to the forest to leave some food for the deer.

John and Gary's Xmas party! Day 24: Xmas Eve

Merry Xmas everybody! Greetings from a very snowy Öland!

This morning Kai and I had to be dug out of a snowdrift by a tractor. It sounds a lot more dramatic than it was. A lady who was driving around as a home help had got snowed in before we arrived and she'd already called The Man With The Snow Clearing Tractor. When they saw us, I bet the locals were thinking: Bloody tourists sholdn't come in the winter!

Traffic conditions are dreadful! Only fools and reindeer are out on the roads.
Today's song is deeply ironic.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRYPWlyU_Zk

If Bing tried singing this song at T Centralen or Heathrow this year, I suspect he'd be lynched on the spot!

John and Gary's Xmas party! Day 23: Thursday 23 December

One of the delights of eating breakfast at Grandma Stina's is watching the dining going on at the bird table just outside the kitchen window. It's busier than MacDonalds. Lots of tits and the that elegant ittle bird, the nuthatch.

It seems we were not the only one watching the diners. I saw a whopping great bird of prey swooping over the garden. Planning its next meal?

And now the mighty Sharon Jones and her Dap Kings explain an anomaly of urban architecture: There ain't no chimneys in the projects.

http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3Dbh5Caj2q-_w&h=5bc67

John and Gary's Xmas Party Day 22: Wednesday 22nd December

Arrived at Grandma Stina's at 23.00 last night after a 12 hour drive down which was not at all the nightmare we had feared. The worse moment was when there was suddenly a Xmas tree rolling around on the motorway in front of us. Temperatures in Småland were minus 16 so we were glad not to have any problems. Here on Öland it's a balmy minus and very beautiful. Clear blue sky.

The worse thing about the journey was that Kai insisted on listening to Mr Hanky the Xmas Poo about 20 times. So that of course is the Xmas song for today.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCPOowojiC0

It's a wonderful song but after 20 times one begins to suffer from dire ear!

Reading on Facebook about all the chaos being experienced by pals in England.A lot of Xmasses are not going to be as planned this year due to closed airports etc.

Today we are off to the forest to find a Xmas tree for Grandma Stina.

John and Gary's Xmas party! Day 21: Tuesday 21 December

I'm sure you've all heard Tom Waits's version of this song so here's that very talented Canadian, Neko Case, doing a cover.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgTPo4zRI2Q

Full of Xmas cheer. Not!

John and Gary's Xmas party! Day 20: Monday 20 December

Seattle radio DJ Bob Rivers does wonderful pastiches of Xmas songs. Here he is Dreaming of a White Trash Xmas!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8u_c1oyaClU

Hilarious!

John and Gary's Xmas party! Day 19: Sunday19 December

A beautiful Swedish hymn today by a capella maestros The Real Group.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMe7oqZKdK8&feature=related

(I was trying to find a version of Nu tändas tusen juleljus (A thousand Xmas lights are being lit) that we sung at Mollie Brown's christening yesterday but wasn't really happy with any versions that I came across.)

John and Gary's Xmas party! Day 18: Saturday 18 December

One of my favourite songs this Xmas. No Doubt with a cover of The Vandals' Oi to the world. A fine Xmas message: Oi to the punks and oi to the skins and oi to the world and everybody in it!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hoL1Uxwk6vc


And if you haven't heard it, don't miss The Vandals' My first Xmas a woman:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xqvQOvE0vA

Stressmas!

Ulrika is getting really stressed about Xmas and I just don't see what the problem is. There's not that much to do.

"But what about buying presents??"

"Don't worry about that!" I reassure her. "Santa fixes all that. That's what he's there for. We've all written our letters to the North Pole so on Xmas Eve we should be in for some pleasant surprises!"

What a marvelous chap he is!

John and Gary's Xmas party! Day 17: Friday 17 December

No apologies for treating you to another classic song by a great artist. Ella Fitzgerald gets her chops around The Christmas Song from her classic 1960 album Ella wishes you a swinging Christmas.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGtiLouJWuU

Sounded wonderful then. It still does!

The song was written in 1944 by Mel Torm and Bob Wells in the middle of a very hot summer and made famous of course by Nat King Cole. It has been covered by every singer on the planet.

Here's Twisted Sister's version:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zY7l6DyMJo0

From the sublime to the ridiculous! Poor Nat must be turning in his grave!

Lucia in the sky with diamonds?

It was Lucia here on Monday. A big day. Ulrika went to watch Zoe and her nursery pals singing out in the snow: very picturesque. I drew the short straw and went to watch Kai's class at school.

Kai just hates singing in a choir: he wants to be the lead singer. If you can imagine Johny Rotten or Mick Jagger performing with the Westminster Abbey Boys Choir, you get some idea what it's like.

I was nervous!!What would he do this time? Break into an improvised rap? Moon at the parents? Climb up on the amps?

This time I was lucky. He behaved himself for once. he marched in his Santa outfit and then sat moodily on the floor. Some artists sing into their beards. He took his off and gazed at it meaningfully for 10 minutes, rather like a popstar who has been roped into some kind of naff event.

His message was clear. This frivolity is not for me. I am an artiste.I am suffering for my art.

Seven years old and he's already giving Mozza a run for his money!

John and Gary's Xmas party! Day 16: Thursday 16 December

One of the great Xmas songs. Sung by one of the great soul voices.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Axq1zNyYD8U

Aaron Neville could sing the New Orleans telephone directory and it would be magic.

There's lots more Aaron on YouTube so just cook a big pot of gumbo y'all and enjoy!

John and Gary's Xmas party! Day 15: Wednesday15 December

Shameless nostalgia today! Danish duo Nina and Frederick's big hit from the early 60s.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qudi6JqE-M

Fredrik, aka Baron Von Pallandt, came to a very sticky end. From singing about donkeys, he became a drug mule for an Australian crime syndicate and was murdered in the Philippines in 1994.

This song, by the way, was recently covered by wonderful Scottish indiekids Camera Obscura.

I put this on the Farrow family musical Xmas card, much to the delight of Corinne in Valencia who hadn't heard it for donkeys' years.Her partner, Andrew, was more enthusisatic about the song I'd found about a psychopathic Santa!

Santa. With claws!

Juha sent me this gem. A portrait of Rudolf's boss before Disney got hold of him?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkyqODDF-LU

If this is what the Finnish Santa is like, I'm certainly not taking my kids anywhere near his magic grotto in Turku !

Here's a useful link:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1401143/

I feel Tarantino should remake this with a big Hollywood budget! Inglorious Santas?

John and Gary's Xmas party! Day 14: Tuesday 14 December

We have received hundreds of irate emails from Watson Language's business partners. The message has been very clear: we want metal!!
So here, to put things right, is Lemmy juggernauting his way through the old Chuck Berry classic Run Run Randolph.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsqC6HRS8Lc

So, bang those heads! Mosh that pit!

I'll confess that with me a little metal goes quite a long way.

One thing that fascinates me is how heavy metal has become so very mainstream in recent years. I'm old enough to remember when it was a really underground scene: dodgy satanists carrying out dark deeds in murky pubs in Birmingham. Nowadays it's loved by everyone: bank maagers,prime ministers, nobel prize winners. Metal has become completely socially acceptable.

My unspeakable son, who is 7 years old, started our day this morning with a blast of Lordi.

John and Gary's Xmas party! Day 13: Monday 13 December

It's the Santa Lucia celebrations here in Sweden today so we had to have a song related to this wonderful tradition. Here's rising star of the Swedish folk scene, Sofia Karlsson, in very fine voice.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgfT905gUGM

Lots more clips of folk in white nighties on YouTube if those of you outside Sweden want to see what we'll be doing here today.

Here's one of them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mk0FyZqNp5Q

John and Gary's Xmas party! Day 12: Sunday 12 December

One of my absolute favourite Xmas songs today> Christmas in paradise by Mary Gauthier.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbfeclelJuI

Duncan and I saw here in Stockholm recently along with the very talented Tanja Elisabeth and, as always, she was marvelous.

She was proud to announce that she'd recently won an award as Nashville's number one gay singer-songwriter!

Xmas quiz

Here's a Xmas quiz to brighten up your day.Just one question:

Who is this person?

he lives in a very cold place in the far north

he works only about one day a year

his home is chock-a-block with toys

many people when they hear about him, refuse to believe he actually exists

he's fat and always jolly and loves children and animals

his long suffering wife has to listen to Jingle bells and Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer all year round.

Got it yet?

OK. Here's a clue. His employer supports Burnleyy F.C:

Ho ho ho!

John and Gary's Xmas party! Day 11: Saturday 11 December

Some fine Swedish indie rock today from Hello Saferide:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gJ0iqJ3Tuk

Annika Norlin really is one of Sweden's most talented songwriters. She performs in English as Hello Saferide and in Swedish as Säkert (whose album Facit was one of the best of 2011).

I discovered this little gem from Nisse Hansson's 50 Festive Favourites in Dagens Nyheter:

http://www.dn.se/kultur-noje/musik/har-ar-julens-basta-latar-1.1223647

Take a browse through that and your Xmas holiday will be saved! Many of the songs have a Spotify link.

John and Gary's Xmas party! Day 10: Friday 10 December

Here's a song that would get any Xmas party going by the fabulous Tractors.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3QZcyyVuE4&feature=related


With all the delays on the Swedish railways, I suspect Santa is more likely to stick his sleigh!

John and Gary's Xmas party! Day 9: Thursday 9 December

Across the Baltic today for some beautiful a capella singing from Finland's pride Rajaton.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBhqQqTK8mg&playnext=1&list=PL3EAA68E2840B2FDF&index=45


Thanks to Juha in Turku for telling me about them.

If it's a really cold winter, you could actually drive to Finland over the ice!

John and Gary's Xmas party! Day 8: Wednesday 8 December

An Asian Xmas today: Itsuka No Merry Christmas (A Xmas Day in memories) by the Japanese band B'z who have sold millions of albums. Very Big in Japan.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QATKfOQbn3g

It's from a film soundtrack so there's even a decent video sequence.

And here as a special treat is a cover version of today's song by Japanese superstar Ayumi Hamasaki:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bm8fkioPlLg&feature=related

Thanks to that Wise Man of Pop,Nils Hansson, who tipped me off about B'z. Don't miss his 50 Best Xmas songs in today's DN!

John and Gary's Xmas Party! Day 7: Tuesday 7 December

A wonderful rendition of the the Boar's Head Carol by stalwarts of the British folkrock scene, Steeleye Span


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVwr5B6VQZk

The carol dates back to the 15th century, if not earlier.It tells of the tradition of the sacrificing of a boar at Xmas,the head of which was put on the Xmas table. It all sounds pleasantly pagan to me.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boar%27s_Head_Carol

Sweeping the nation?

I like to think I have my finger somewhere near the pulse of things (on the arm if not actually on the wrist), so I was a tad shocked by the front page headline on the City freesheet: Everybody loves Finnish tango.

Are Olavi Virtu tribute concerts selling out Globen?

Are naisentanssi clubs popping up like mushrooms?

Is there a new sensation sweeping the nation?

Much though I love Finnish tango, I do feel that this was perhaps a tad hyberbolic.

Talking of Sweeping the nation, that's the name of this fab blogspot which has four hours of fab indie Xmas music to download. A real labour of love.


http://sweepingthenation.blogspot.com/2007/12/very-sweeping-christmas-complete.html

It would be impolite to say no!

Oh Lawdy!

Ian and Astrid came over for a bite of supper yesterday.

Mr Dunn brought a gift: a CD of Xmas music from Taiwan by Ying-ying Shih. Bet you're all jealous!

Kai and Zoe seemed singularly unimpressed. They grabbed a ghetto blasterette and retreated to their bedroom to play Lordi. Loud! Kids, eh? Long hair! Loud music! Disgraceful!

John and Gary's Xmas Party! Day 6: Monday 6 December

Xmas is a time for being with your family. Xmas is a time for giving.

Here's singer and comedian,Red Peters, with a darned fine little country and western ditty: You ain't getting shit for Xmas:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srHM2sIll68

John and Gary's Xmas Party! Day 5: Sunday 5 December

A Xmas carol from the Ukraine today. It's from Joy to the World, the excellent new Xmas album by Pink Martini, a 12 piece band from Portland, Oregon.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nj6dSQqjFlQ

They describe their sound as "music of the world without being world music" and their sophisticated albums are always a wonderful smörgasbord of different styles.

Frozen dads

Tor Tychodad and I had to stand around this afternoon while Kai, Elivira and Tycho clambered around on a large mound of snow.

Temperature was minus 10 and despite the fact that we were warmly dressed we were obliged to move around to keep from freezing. This resulted in what must have looked like a display of traditional Same dancing!

I'm just grateful that Kai hasn't yet taken up a sport involving me spending long hours standing around on the touchline.

John and Gary's Xmas Party! Day 4: Saturday 4 December

Here's one of my favourite Xmas songs of all time: Maybe this Christmas by Canadian singer-songwriter Ron Sexsmith.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BAByJQGAIg

Here he is performing it live in the office of a Spanish newspaper!

Short, sweet and completely to the point.

The geisha from Ipanema?

It will be of no interest to any of you, but I'm going to tell you anyway!

My Xmas album discovery of the day yesterday was Lisa Ono, a Japanese jazz guitarist who has done two Xmas albums. In Portuguese, bossa nova style!


http://www.amazon.com/Boas-Festas-2-Feliz-Natal/dp/B00061QXPO

Sounds pretty grim, but actually it's rather well done and agreeable in a mellow way.

All of which which gets me wondering what Japanese kids make of Santa-San. The Japanese have embraced other aspects of Western life such as baseball, so surely the fat chap gets a look in?

As an ancient and very venerable gentleman, surely he is highly revered?

Do they think he lives in Sweden or Finland?

Do they have chimneys in Tokyo?

I will investigate further!

John and Gary's Xmas Party! Day 3: Friday 3 December.

Here's Yorkshire's pride and major star of the English folk scene, Kate Rusby, extolling the delights of wassailing:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRn3iL--VUs

It's from her 2008 Xmas album Sweet Bells.

Wassailing is rather an old tradition, rather like carol-singing The poor would go to the lord of the manor and sing and be rewarded with Yuletide food and drink.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wassailing

John Timpane interviews Rickie Lee Jones

My old university pal, John Timpane, gotto interview Ms Jones. Cool!

http://www.philly.com/philly/entertainment/20101129_Rickie_Lee_Jones_on_Bix__Billie_and_the_art_of_song.html

Björn again

There's nothing worse than the fervour of the convert! And this is particularly true of the born-again Viking.

This morning, Ulrika very sensibly wanted to take the metro to deliver Kai to school. But I wouldn't hear of it. Darling, it's a lovely morning,I insisted. It'll be a lovely walk. So off they trudged. In temperatures of minus 15. Invigorating!

I stayed at home and had a cuppa.

John and Gary's Xmas Party! Day 2: Thursday 2 December

It's minus 15 out there this morning! So some West Indian Xmas sunshine is just what's needed.

Here's The De Paur Chorus, featuring a young Harry Belafonte, from the 1958 album Calypso Christmas.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvkWm4YluCo

I read a fascinating interview with Harry a while back. What an amazing life that man has led. And those old recordings like Matilda and Hold the line still cut it.

Kai loves this song.

Xmas Party ! Day One: Wednesday 1 December

We're kicking things off in a fairly mellow way.

Here's our first clip, that brilliant recluse, Ms Bush, making a rare live performance.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZiadb3bpOI

Magic indeed!

An even more interesting treat would be Kate and her idol Rolf Harris doing a Xmas duet together! I'll get looking!

Welcome to John and Gary's Xmas Party!

Siberian snow storms! Hundreds of Xmas presents to buy and wrap! Mince pies and gingerbread to bake! Xmas can be so very stressful.

Today children will all start to open the doors of their advent calendars, and stuff their faces with chocolate. But why should the kids have all the fun at Xmas time?

So every day from today until Xmas, Gary and I are going to post a succulent Xmas titbit (both here and on the Watson Language page on Bacefook) to help grown-ups get through the Xmas season

Musical favourites - old and new. Vintage comedy. Film clips that have amused us. Basically anything that takes our fancy that we like and think you will too.

Hopefully this to be pretty interactive. So do feel free to post your own links, comments and suggestions.

And as we are a pair of polygluttons, there is no need for you to post in English. Swedish, Finnish, Spanish, French, German, Mandarin, Latin: all will do equally well.

Enjoy!

Crisp and even?

Not sure about crisp and even, but the snow is certainly deep out there this morning.

It's been snowing all night and there's about 6 inches of it. All very pretty as I trudged to he laundry room at 7.00 am. I am very glad I am not a car owner.

Stockholm is going to be full of happy children and irate motorists today.

Xmas presence of mind

One of my friends or loved ones is going to be very happy this Xmas! I was rooting around The Ants (the Sally Army charity shop)and I found a real treat: a 10 VHS set of The Avengers.

Outdated technology. Cult TV series. And I've left the best to last: it's all dubbed into French! Chapeau melon et bottes de cuir! Bowler hat and kinky boots!

Formidable, Monsieur Steed!

The happy friend of course, will be the one who doesn't get chosen to receive this cult item!

Who's the cat that won't cop out....

..... when there's danger all about!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfK-UzQ48JE

Can you dig it?

Middle-Aged Flabclub?

Grand night out last Friday wth Kieron and Duncan: a curry followed by the fabulous Teenage Fanclub. What a marvelous band they are!

Kieron commented very wisely that despite the fact that they are not the best singers in the world or the best instrumentalists, and their songs are not megahits, somehow there is a special magic about them. The sum is infintely more than the parts. Which is pretty much what John Peel said to me about the Pink Floyd when I interviewed him for our school magazine, the Gaytonian, more years ago than I care to remember.

This song was one of the highlghts of the set.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlTwJYVXOk0&NR=1


(Kai clearly doesn't think I am a Real Man: Daddy! How can you possibly like the Teenage Flanclub?)

Sore 'Un

Cold, neo-Siberian winds blew through Kärrtorp yesterday evening and today,sure enough,everything was covered in snow.

Kai and I nipped into our local charity shop and found a Lord of the Rings Risk game so that should keep us busy. He wants to play as Sauron and conquer everything.

Reminds me of the time,many moons ago when I played Risk with Michael Portillo.(!) He proposed a Non-Invasion Pact and then sunk my navy and invaded all my territoroes!

Hooving and grooving

The joys of housework!

Today I learnt that, provided one has a good album of atonal, ambient Finnish accordion music to listen to, cleaning the flat can be quite enjoyable.

Hoover? Hyväää!

New dimensions in cinema!

Dark, gloomy rainy weather here so the Stockholm Film Festival couldn't be better timed.That cinéaste extraordinaire, Mr Dunn is dashing off around the clock to sample international cinematic gems. After an English rasher, it's a Korean slasher. A ploughman's lunch then some Hong Kong punch.


We also had our own exclusive premiere here today: Shrek in 3D that Kai and I had found in a second-hand shop. It came complete with ridiculous paper glasses which his lordship insisted that we all wear. The family looked a right bunch of wallies! Even more so when Ulrika pointed out that it was only the 10 minute extra film that was in 3D. The film itself was in boring old 2D.

Kai, who'd been raving about the 3D effects and how much they added to our viewing pleasure, was particularly crestfallen!

A case of the King's New Clothes methinks.

Jingle all the way!

Xmas is coming and the goose is getting fat. Personally, I'm getting earplugs.

Visited a toy shop today and Kai decided he wanted an unspeakable, cuddly penguin that squeaks Jingle Bells for hours on end ( probably pre-tested by US military interrogators).And Zoe has her eyes on a large drum kit.

Jingle Hell! Jingle Hell! Jangle all the way!

Hamming ut up

Some of Kai's classmates are into Warhammer and today he told me that he wants Warhamster for Xmas.

Is this a pronunciation problem or has he really found a game packed with axe-wielding rodents all beating the shit out of each other? Interesting!

It's certainly got to be a bit more interesting than Warlemming which I fear would be a real damp squib!

Stamp of approval!

An invaluable addition to our modern lifestyle! Wallace and Gromit Xmas stamps!

http://postalheritage.wordpress.com/2010/11/02/wallace-and-gromit-christmas-stamps/


K & and Z are deep in W & G revival at present, watching all the films again. Zo is particularly taken with that finest of English pooches. So they are going to be pleased as punch about this.

Eh lad, that's what I call a true stamp of approval!

I suspect a knighthood is imminent!

Arise Sir Wallace of Wigan!

Gobbling

The Hobbit hobbles forward.

There are no pictures and Kai was pestering me about what a goblin looks like. In desperation,I picked up the nearest thing to hand, this morning's DN, and showed him a photo of Keith Richards.

He seemed very satisfied, if a tad incredulous that they looked so terrifying!

Was pondering the fact that so far Bilbo and pals have not run into any buxom, bikini-clad, sword-wielding, battle babes (standard issue for fantasy books, I thought) when I realised that The Hobbit was published in 1937, before that particular garment made an appearance.

Tentatively dipping our toe into Tolkien

Kai and I have started to read The Hobbit,which he seems to be enjoying.

But talk about a return to a bygone,more leisurely age. 10 pages in and the only thing that has happened is that some dwarves have turned up,pigged out on Bilbo's buns and had a jam session.

No explosions,car chases, gratuitous nudity or Mexican standoffs here!

Uncommon person heats things up in the kitchen

Our day started with a Wacko Jacko Breakfast Disco. K & Z just love the King of Pop.

No point in telling Zo that the man was a narcisstic, deranged megalomaniac with major personal problems. She just wants to boogie!

I'm with Jarvis here and just want to groove with the common people. But the kids can't resist the magic of pure pop!

Glad Dad

It's Father's day here and Kai has just given me a home drawn card.

It's a drawing of what looks like a mariachi, wielding a large axe in one hand and a submachine gun in the other.

What a thoughtful child!

Kate's cottage industry

My pal Kate Percival has started her own cottage industry selling gorgeous things that she has made herself on line .

So with Xmas coming, if you are looking for something unique as a gift or decoration, do take a look!

http://www.etsy.com/shop/finkstuff

Listless?

As Nick Hornby so clearly documented in High Fidelity, lads do love lists. Personally I find those that catalogue such things as the 10 best Beatles B sides or the world's 5 greatest lefthanded jazz xylophonists rather tiresome.

This very witty, erudite book though is a joy from beginning to end.

http://bfgb.wordpress.com/2010/02/03/inventory-by-the-onion-a-v-club/

It inspires me to want to start more offbeat lists of my own

Hindifever !

Ulrika has got a new favourite!

Since Saturday's concert Ms Zahra has been heard a lot in these parts.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3ZsBimsaUc


And quite right too!

He don't need no education

Jinkies! We are meeting Kai's teacher, Eva, today for his Development Discussion.

The agony! Our ignominous failure in the parenting sector will be put under painful scrutiny.

I've made it very clear to his lordship that if he doesn't pull his socks off, we'll be shipping him off to boarding school next year. The St.Begbie Gentlemen's Academy on the Outer Hebrides.

50 winks

The new Boring Bedtime Project to get Kai off to sleep at an earlier hour has got off to a rather wobbly start.

Our strategy yesterday was to listen to a talking book. When Ulrika came into the bedroom at 21.00, she found me in a deep slumber snoring contentedly like a large walrus.

Our son was wide awake and looking very bored.

Making bedtime boring

"O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.
God keep our land glorious and free..."

That ingenious chap, Tor Bergman, has suggested that in order to get Kai off to sleep I sing the Canadian national anthem.

Any other suggestions for the Boring Bedtime songbook?

Bear essentials

As wise as a bear! I only I was!

As I cycled to school through a snowy blizzard to get Kai from school this afternoon I thought of our visit to Skansen on Sunday. On Bear Mountain there was no sign of life. Our ursine chums had very wisely stocked up with a few DVD box sets and snuggled in for the winter.

Perhaps I should send a note to teacher tomorrow. Kai can't come to school for 6 months due to hibernation

Piping hots?

Icy winds are blowing in from the Baltic and the snow is bucketing down or whatever it is that snow does.

On a day like this,I am so grateful for Multi Kulti. I was able to pop in and stock up with a large wodge of Galician folk music, bagpiping hot!

What more can a man ask for?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCpcLhkDICc&feature=related

The Galician bagpipes are known as gaita and they sound a lot more agreeable than their Scottish relative. This video is very silly but the music is rather jolly. I wonder if Susanna Seivane has done a cover of the Captain Pugwash theme tune?

Watching this video I get the impression it is considered to be quite sexy to be a gaitera and play the bagpipes. Sexy is not a word I would ever use to describe the Scottish variety which are always played by some grizzled old geezer in a kilt who's had a few too many wee drams.

Delayed departures for the Morningtown Express

Bedtime here is a total nightmare at present. Zo, bless her, is fast asleep five minutes after her bedtime story.


Kai by contrast goes to bed at 8.00 and is still awake at 22.30. Grrrrrr!

Why? Why? Why? Is he planning a career as a jazz musician or a night watchman?

This week we are going to have our meeting with his teacher. We feel like Mr and Mrs Dodger going to talk to the beak about Artful.

Hindi pop

Ulrika, yes Ulrika!, and I enjoyed a fine concert at Nalen yesterday by the impossibly charismatic Hindi Zahra.

Our first evening out together since she got ill in May. It was a toss up between Hindi and an evening of German industrial noise terrorism by Einsturzande Neubaten.

I probably made the right choice.

Regalize it!

As you may have read, the King of Sweden is currently in very hot water due to the publication of a book full of revelations about his private life.

Thanks a lot your Majesty!

When we have tried to teach our kids a few social graces, we have always used the question: What would you do if the king came to visit us?

Now Kai can answer:Get in some strippers and a lot of contraband booze.

Karrtorpski Park

Temperatures are Siberian here today.

So it was rather appropriate to find a gaggle of dodgy Russian geezers lurking near the swings in our local park, surreptitiously swigging from a bottle of vodka.

Greetings from Karrtorpistan, comrades!

Guy Fawkes and the Fake

What a bogus Englishman I am!

November 5th has gone by and I felt no urge to encourage my kids to make an effigy of that failed regicide Fawkes and then go out on the streets begging for money for pyrotechnics.

I feel I no longer have any right to a British passport

Mulatu!

Joined Tim and Duncan for a fabulous concert yesterday evening at Gota Kallare by Mulatu Astatke and the Heliocentrics. The grand old man of Ethiopian jazz with a wonderful young band from London taking his heritage further.

Hats off to Mr Byrne for bringing them to Stockholm.


I even had a pee with the geezer selling CDs who was telling me more about life on the road with the band.

Betelmania?

Yesterday we received postcards from Ian in Taiwan. The Pope Anderssons got one of a dragon boat; we got one showing the activities of the "betel nut beauties".

We were delighted to have this aspect of Taiwanese popular culture brought to our attention and Kai had a lot of questions. Now you can all read more about Steamed Bun and her chums.

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/china-and-its-neighbors/100208/betel-nut-taiwan-asian-girls

Sweden has snus (chewing tobacco). Taiwan has betel nut.


I trust that Mr Dunn is far too old to succumb to Betelmania!

Gromit or grommet?

This morning I have to take Zoe in for a minor operation (myringotomy for all you medical folk).

Basically, she is going to have some ear tubes, called grommets, inserted which will improve her hearing. Not of course to be confused with Wallace's magnificent pooch, Gromit! Rather confusing that the world's favourite dog and these tubes are homophones.

The (Bash Street) Kids are alright!

Strange day here.

Ulrika is back at work for the first time in 6 months since her meningitis on May 17th. Only a few hours this week and then a slow build up.

And it's half term here so I'm stuck with the terrible twosome. who mercifully are glued to the telly watching Scooby Doo and the Tweenies.

As a kid, I remember going to a play centre in school holidays and discovering the Beano and The Dandy (forbidden in East Towers forbeing subversive). The Bash Street Kids and Dennis the Menace were a revelation. They became and still are my role models.

A wizard, a true star!

Sir David enjoys a status in this household experienced by very few other mortals. Zoe worships the Tweenies. Ulrika would probably like to elope with Lenoard Cohen. I am a fully payed up member of the Peelite Tendency. And Kai can't get enough of Lordi, Scooby Doo and Basil Brush.


But when Attenborough is on telly the whole family gather and enjoy in gobsmacked awe and reverence.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/2010/oct/31/david-attenborough-feature-readers-questions

What appeals to me is his sense of self distance,his enthusiasm and his wonderful use of language. Kai's vocabulary has benefited enormously from having DA as a mentor.My personal contribution to his language development is little more than a series of monosyllabic grunts and curses.

Any relation to persons living or undead.....

Bizarre! Our pal Andreas, Frida's dad, has written a children's mystery set on Oland.

And can you believe it? The baddie is a fat,bald Englishman. Called John!

Being the role model for a villain is a first for me! Many would argue that it's surprising it's taken so long.

I will do all I can to ensure he finds a publisher,is enormously successful and that the book gets made into a Hollywood film, preferably starring Anthony Hopkins.

And then of course I will sue his ass for the apalling emotional suffering this has all caused me. Maybe I could even sell my true story to the News of the World?

Pehli pehli preet

http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=US&hl=uk&v=u4OXz6GpR-c

Sonny side up

Juha has discovered a Bacefook application Which rock star do you most resemble? which I fear will lead to great disharmony in many homes.


It decided that he was Kurt Cobain which of course makes Mrs H Courtney Love. But what if Ulrika does it and discovers she's Tina Turner or Cher? That makes me Ike Turner or even worse Sonny Bono. She's got me babe.

I could live with her being Yoko Ono on the other hand.

Hell's belles

Just what you need to get the weekend started. A little lounge metal!

Hellsongs from Gothenburg are probably the only practitioners in this rather niched sub genre , but they are very fine.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWLHSRnVqug

Jackanaxy

Cosied up in bed last night reading Kai a bedtime story when Danne rang me. He wondered which children's classic we were enjoying. Pippi Longstocking? Winnie The Pooh? Moomintroll? Madame Bouvary?

No we were laughing our heads off to Urgum: the tale of a psychotic, pagan axeman. Hilarious! Ooops! Reality calling. Perhaps not quite the best read for a seven-year old!

Ulrika wonders why he has so many nightmares......

Brushing up their English

I had an interesting hour today helping out with at school with Kai's class English lesson.

I asked the kids a few simple questions: What is your favourite colour? What is your favourite food? How old are you?

Then Kai said he wanted to ask them a question and did. Which famous English film star was met the Queen? Nobody (myself included) had a clue. The answer (of course!) is Basil Brush.

Yesterday he was screaming for the Wombles. That boy lives on his own strange Anglophile planet!

Pat, Ex-Pat or Postman Pat?

Last week Ì was preparing a few musical offerings for Neil, my old school friend in Hong Kong. That got me thinking about what sort of music the modern British ex-pat longs to hear. It probably isn't Vera Lynn and Noel Coward. It's more likely to be The Buzzcocks, Half Man Half Biscuit and The Clash or for the even older ex-pat, Yes, Genesis, Gentle Giant, Soft Machine etc.

This led me on to the question: what is an ex-pat and more importantly: am I one?

The theasaurus gives sone useful suýnonyms: fugitive, wayfarer, emigrant,refugee, displaced person.

I asked Emile who came up with the useful definition something along the lines of:

an ex-pat is a disgruntled Brit sitting in Torremolinos, Dubai or somewhere else sunny, leafing their way through the Daily Mail and grumbling about a dreadful state the UK has got into. He puts the blame firmly on immigrants, the Labour Party,the abolition of miltary service, women's lib, rock music, the anti-foxhunting lobby,etc.

That's fine, as far as it goes, but what then of the thousands of Brits abroad like myself who are reading the Guardian on-line every day.

Not to mention their children. Kai inhabits a strange Anglophile oasis where Bagpuss and Basil Brush are king. These unlikely icons are completely unknown to his classmates. He can't be an ex-pat as he's never been a pat.

Clearly one could write a whole book on this topic.

Cottoning on

I usually run into Gunilla in the moshpit at Roskilde rather than the cotton fields of Uzbekistan. However her new book on the cotton trade sounds well worth a read.

http://www.dn.se/dnbok/bokrecensioner/gunilla-ander-bomull-en-solkig-historia-1.1191565

Kiss and make up

A grand night out at Pernilla's 50th birthday party yesterday.

The theme was 60s and some of the guests had done a wonderful job of finding vintage outfits. I contemplated dressing up like a hippy but in the end bottled out. Kai's comment was something of a disincentive: Daddy, why do you want to dress as a hippo? What's so funny about Peace, mud and understanding?

If you want a party to go with a swing, invite a choir! Pernilla's really sung their socks off which was a marvelous tribute to her. A treat!

I was sitting opposite Ganesh, a charming chap from Mumbai. He'd never been to this kind of Swedish party before and was a bit baffled by the song booklet we had on the table. It contained the lyrics of 50 songs for community singing.He probably was wondering how long the party would last!

Gary got out his ukelele and sung á few numbers. Young Jack Watson dressed up as Gene Simmons and very bravely did a Kiss song karaoke style. The look of sheer, unadulterated pain on Duncan's face during this was priceless. Cooper is a very sensitive chap and metal is most definitely not his thing.

The Kiss army pedants on my table pointed out to me that Jack was in fact made up like Paul Stanley and not Gene. There's no pleasing some people!

Locky holler?

That fabulous Skildebeest, the Whitehaven Wanderer departed eastwards yesterday. (I can't mention his real name as I am aware that memebers of the criminal fraternity read my blog daily in order to gather tips to plan their next heist).

Leaving Sweden in snow, he's heading for a typhoon that's about to hit HK. Talk about frying pans and fires!

The kids and I went past his workplace to drop off a packet for my old school friend Neil who he will hopefully meet up with. Neil is currently performing in an amateur production of The Rocky Horror Show in Honk Kong.That I would like to see!

Zoe soon discovered a fabulous paddling pool in the bank reception area. I wonder how often the denizens of the banking world take their shoes and socks off and have a good paddle.

Kai is fascinated by bankers, these mysterious creatures that, like magicians, inhabit a mysterious world with its own laws. Here's Neil Hannon's opinion.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dbsFmEf37g

Divine! Comic!

Magnificent concert on Thursday evening at KGB by Neil Hannon aka The Divine Comedy. Witty, intelligent, sophisticated pop at its very best.

Just him, a grand piano, a guitar and his fabulous collection of songs.With material that good, he actually benefited from not having a band. The emphasis was on the songs and what a string of pearls it was. A lady of a certain age, The pop singer's fear of the pollen count,National Express, Our mutual friend. One small masterpiece after the other.

The man is a natural entertainer. A sing along to Don't you want me baby came as a pleasant surprise seguing in from a quote from Blue Monday at the end of Indie Disco. I've never heard New Order's classic played on a grand piano before!

Duncan, who has been to just a few gigs (!) said that it was one of the best Stockholm audiences that he'd seen. There were quite a few ex-pats there who bantered with Mr Hannon but also a large crowd of local,sophisticated pop fans. Quite a turn up for the books for Cooper and I to go to a gig that was well-attended.

Luke. Warm or Skywalker?

Gary tipped me off about the interesting Difference between site which covers a whole spectrum of different areas.The language ones will perhaps be useful to us professionally.

http://www.differencebetween.net/miscellaneous/difference-between-cute-and-hot/

Shame it's not more interactive. And some of the questions are rather naive.

But on to the important question. Am I cute or am I hot? Or am I just dogeared and lukewarm?

Harvest time

Greetings from Sundsvall where I am working for two days.

This afternoon we had a guided tour of a sawmill. It reminded me of Gröna Lund. Very noisy and lots of conveyor belts going up and down everywhere, not to mention powerful mechanical arms. Kai would have loved it!

I also paid a visit to the wonderful Harvest Records. Specialist in 60s tarities. The poor owner was a bit taken aback by my arrival. I don't think he'd seen a customer for several months.

Surprising!

I thought there'd be a big demand here for the Edgar Broughton Band, Quintessence, the Groundhogs and East of Eden!

A bad morning for Olle

Poor little Olle, Kai's classmate, had a rather shocking experience this morning.

Ten past eight and all the teachers were trying to get the class settled down for the day. The kids were all sitting drawing, their little blonde heads deep in their notebooks. I'll confess that I was rather tired and a tad stressed out at everything I had to do before I could leave for the evening train to Sundsvall where I am now sitting.

So there I was going through my mental checklist: leave Kai's bicyle key in his bag; leave a note to the teacher; leave extra clothes in his cubbyhole; say goodbye to Kai.Ooops haven't said goodbye to Kai! Quick do it and get home!

So I saw a little blonde head in front of me,want up to it,admired his drawing, gave him a big hug and said "Don't forget Mummy is taking you swimming later". At this point, to my horror, I realised that the little blond head belonged to Olle and not Kai. Oh god! The embarassment! If I ever had any cred with Kai's class (unlikely!) it's totally gone now. They must all think I am a raving loony.
The teachers, mercifully, were more amused than shocked.

I fear that today's debacle is even worse than the occasion when I was picking up Zoe from nursery to take her for a haircut. It was siesta and all the little ones were sleeping. ¨Late and stressed as ever, I dashed into the semi-darkened room, grabbed Zo and went dashing out, muttering "Time for a haircut". At this point, the rather embarassed staff pointed out that I had taken the wrong child!

Cornucopia

A gorgeous sunny day here, further gilded by the fact that Multi Kulti had a large box of cut price CDs that was full of wonderful, mostly unknown, Spanish and Brazialian oddities.

I bought an album by Japanese dubsters Oki, Charlie Gillett said that it sounds " sort of Tyrannosaurus Rex meets Horace Andy and Can in Hawaii". How can one resist?

La vida loca

In the great football game of life, this week's match between Oscarsson Farrow United vs Reality has been rather like Sweden vs Holland.

Zoe is being very naughty and refusing to do anything we want. Kai is behaving very badly at school. Billy The IKEA wardrobe will not let us put his doors on.

And my computer crashed just when I didn't need any technical problems!

Don't you want me baby?

You were workig as a waitress in a cocktail bar ....

After a hearty supper, all a dad wants to do is put his feet up, smoke his pipe and read the Telegraph. Fat chance! Young Ms Farrow wants to bop all night to the League. Inhuman I call it!

Alll my fault of course. I should have never have introduced her to Soft Cell, Yazoo, Heaven 17, OMD and all those other fine 80s bands that I used to dance to.

But as the old saying goes: The synths of the fathers......

Munch

The feminine touch, eh? Ulrika is still on sick leave which means that she's at home when the kids have breakfast. She makes every effort for the first meal of the day to be a special occasion: candles on the table, a flower, maybe even the reading of a fairy story. Quite a contrast to breakfast time with me. I'm like an irate zookeeper at feeding time. I hurl a few stale crusts at the kids and scream: "Eat you varmints! Eat!

Am currently reading, and greatly enjoying, Black Swan Green by David Mitchell. Cousin Ron warmly recommended his Cloud Atlas, and since then I've been hooked.



http://www.guardian.co.uk/theobserver/2010/apr/11/observer-profile-david-mitchell

Bedhead

Zoe now has a new bed. This means that she can get up whenever she feels like it.


This morning she felt like it at 5.00 am and toddled around exploring the flat in the darkness. At that hour even Motorhead couldn't wake Kai and myself so light sleeper Ulrika landed the job of persuading the midnight rambler to return to her slumbers.

I'm told that Emmerdale Farm is on at 4.00 am. Could this explain her behaviour?

Living room?

Last week all the kids in Kai's class painted magnificent dragon kites. Lots of jolly colourful flowers and birds. Kai's is very fine but I'm a bit uncertain about the subject matter: A gigantic devil's head. "It's a bloodthirsty skeleton, Daddy" he told me proudly.

I felt a little like Herr and Frau Hitler at the primary school admiring young Adolf's first etchings. And he's already starting to grumble about a lack of Lebensraum in the kids bedroom. This could end in tears!

The days are packed

Hilarious! An article in yesterday's DN described various immaculately turnedout Stockholm families and all the fab activities that their kids crammed into a week.

The poor mother in the family would get up at 4.00 am to start preparing supper, to ensure the logistics of this. The philosophy seems to be that unless a child is doing at least two after-school activities a day, they are not leading a full life.

The Von Snottenburgers managed: archery, origami, karate,pony-trecking,tap dancing, football, ice-hockey,ballroom dancing,table tennis, deep-sea diving and wind-surfing.


We Farrows by contrast manage: sleep, eating, more sleep, hoovering, watching TV, laundry, bickering, loitering, eating crisps, computer games, interpersonal-violence, shoplifting, hospital visits and karate.

Fogey that I am, I think it's very good for children to get bored once in a while. It inspires creativity.

Sid Vicious didn't get where he is today by dashing off to origami classes!

Kai declares war!

There are a lot of war and battles in Kai's little head just now. He's bitterly disappointed with me that I didn't make a greater contribution to WW2!

He seems to think I should have been using my black belt karate skills to slug it out man to man with Herr Hitler on Normandy beach. The fact that I wasn't born he considers to be a fairly feeble excuse.

We parents are just one big disppointment to our kids!

Band of Mothers?

Yesterday I picked up the complete box set of Band of Brothers for a mere 60 SEK in my local charity shop. Explained to Kai that it was about WW2 and he was curious to know if his Grandma Fay was in it.

He was also curious to know what I had done in WW2!

There is a lot of hyperbole among the lads in the schoolyard.I eavesdropped this morning and listened to them all trying to outdo each other in telling tales.

Quick to catch on, Kai was boasting to his pals that his Grandad Fred had been in
WW1, WW2 and WW3!

The hills have Kais

A gorgeous sunny autumn afternoon and I was enjoying the blissful luxury of a child-free afternoon. Kai was over at a pal's for supper and Zo was in town with Ulrika. So I was pottering around getting some jobs done and ambled down to the post office to post some letters. Ran into Tor Zombiedad and was having a natter about the new BBC Sherlock, when suddenly a familiar voice dragged out of my reverie.

DADDY! WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE? DADDY! BUY ME SOME BOUNTY! DADDY BUY ME SOME GUM! DADDY BUY ME A COMIC! DADDY! BUY ME! BUY ME!

Heaven know what my son was doing hanging around the post office when he was supposed to be at Konrad's. At / he's too young to bet on the horses or the football, unless of course he's bribing some old pensioner to place his bets for him.

Whatever the case, clearly some mischief was afoot.

And how did he know I'd be there? Did he sniff me out? Scary!

I made my excuses and left.

Next time I get an afternoon off I'll spend it heavily disguised in Umeå or Malmö. Perhaps then he won't track me down?

Dads! You can run but you cannot hide!

That's rich!

For some reason Kai wanted to know more about millionaires today. We had a fascinating conversation about the rich and the poor.

I was intrigued as to how he assessed someone's financial status. Having a beard seemed to be a pretty clear indicator of being short of cash.

"Do you know Daddy" he remarked rather snootily. "I actually met a poor person once!" Clearly not an experience his lordship would care to repeat.

The tills are alive with the sound of music

Very entertained to read that Malmö City Theatre have just had the premiere of a musical about Mr IKEA, Ingvar Kamprad. What a wonderful idea!

Nessun dorma? No chance of sleeplessness with those cosy IKEA beds! Can Mats be as big as Cats?

http://www.dn.se/kultur-noje/scenrecensioner/ingvar-en-musikalisk-mobelsaga-pa-hipp-malmo-stadsteater-1.1177621

Wonder what the music's like. I think we can expect Believe and other of Chair's greatest hits.

Leena in Ibiza wittily commented that the audience will probably have to arrive early and assemble their own seating.

All in all, it's just another brick from the Wall

Ulrika returned yesterday evening having had a very enjoyable weekend in Berlin.

She brought Kai an unusual present: a small piece of the Berlin Wall.(Now there's a nice line of business: selling off bits of masonry to tourists!)

She then tried to explain why this fragment of modern history was so important. An uphill struggle! Kai hadn't really grasped what Germany was. When questioned during her absence, he told me that it was the capital of Japan.

So getting into an explanation of how Berlin was divided after World War 2 was bound to lead to confusion. For example, he started to ask me what I had done in the war.

Anyway, his bit of wall started to give him ideas (never a good thing!) and he now seems to have ambitions of building a large wall of his own. I think the plan is that the wall should be between Kärrtorp and Björkhagen. This, of course, would be very convenient as it would make it very difficult for him to get to school. Now that he's sussed that going to school means he actually has to learn something, his enthusiasm about education has become very lukewarm.

Will my son become as famed as Hadrian and other great wall builders? Or will he just throw the towel in and get out his Play Station?

Time will tell.

Bambi rides again

Ulrika is away in Berlin for the weekend with her girl gang, so Kai and I invited Ian over for a Boys Night In reliving the glories of the 80s with a Young Ones DVD boxset.

It's still hilarious and benefits from being watched in company. I failed miserably in explaining the cultural significance of Bamber Gascoigne, Margeret Thatcher, Cliff and Felicity Kendal to him but he laughed a lot anyway. Extreme violence and excessive vomiting tend to hit the spot with 7 year old boys.

In the doghouse

Ulrika has flown off to Berlin for a girls' weekend. I'm very glad that she feels up to it.

And Man's Best Friend, in the shape of Gitte's dog, Nikki, has moved in with us for two days. So the Farrow Family Circus now even has animals!


Someone should have warned me though! This dog-minding business is dangerous stuff! I'd just picked up Zoe from nursery yesterday when we were set upon by a snarling, beefy Björkhagen moggy who was ready to put the paw in. Nikki cowered behind Zo, Zo cowered behind me and I tried to reason with the vile beast to little avail.

I think it's pretty par for the course in the topsy turvy world of Farrow that we get to dog-sit a pooch that gets beaten up by cats! Just taken Nikki for a quick early morning stroll and there was a local mog sizing us up. The Nikkster, to her credit, is the epitome of calm and refuses to be drawn into any mindless street violence.

Bloody Hitlerite Kittens, eh? Don't like their politics, would prefer they weren't there but those fiendish felines won't go away.

Once you start walking a dog you realise: it's a jungle out there!

Damp! Damp! Damp!

Far be it from me to make predictions about the glamorous world of pop...

However, last week I read how Ozzy used a giant water cannon in his Stockholm concert and saw Eric Saade use a shower on stage as the climax of his stage act.

Something tells me that aquatic acts are on the rise.

Looking in my crystal ball I see:

Rick Wakeman releasing a box set of his version of Handel's Water Music followed by a live show featuring a giant aquarium,frogmen and a robot octopus.

A hit single for the Piranhas

And then of course, a reunion tour by Wet! Wet! Wet!

Please don't be a wet blanket and tell me I've got it all wrong!

Carry on screaming?

Scream and scream again! Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeric! Kvaaaaaaaaaaaaaaasten!


Yesterday Kai and I were at the Gröna Lund funfair to get the hell shaken out of us and to see a gig by teen idol, Eric Saade. My first real gig since Roskilde and it was this! What a let down. But Eric was Kai's favourite from the Eurovision heats and I thought it would be fun for him to see him live.

Kai kept asking: is it on TV? We were there at Grönan for a live broadcast a while back and he was convinced that all gigs there are shown on telly. After a few romantic ballads he got bored and dragged me off for a spin on the Wild Mouse rollercoaster.

But we did get back in time for his one hit, Man Boy. At the climax of this, Eric was showered upon and got thoroughly soaked. What showermanship! If music doesn't work out for him, he has a great future as a bathroom salesman. Showering on stage in September? Brrrrr!

Screaming girls and extreme discomfort.Grumpy old curmudgeon that I am, this is not my sort of thing. But I have to confess, we actually had rather a good evening out. And went on the front seats of the Broomstick. Twice!

Itch

Itchy! Itchy! Itchy! Yesterday I felt like a dog with a bad case of fleas after spending an hour watching Kai trying out a karate class. Difficult not to start scratching.

Itchy is the Japanese word for one and they kept shouting it. So now I can count to one in Japanese. A useful skill that will doubtless stand me in good stead.

If I can find a Japanese Ramones tribute band, I can learn 2,3 and 4! Hey ho! Let's go!

Mr Snook

This week I have been thinking a lot about Mr Snook, the Master Hatter.

What a fabulous name! Sounds like something from Mumintroll or the Hobbit. But he is a real person and is organising the UK's first Hat Festival where my pal Kate will be doing a workshop.

www.bridporthatfest.org


What a feather in the Snookster's cap! I take my hat off to him!

London is the place for him!

When we were in London recently, Kai was singing Lord Kitchener's 1950s calypso London is the place for me non-stop. Quite right too. It's a cracker.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGt21q1AjuI

The album it comes from inspired me to find out more about the culture it emerged from. Tipped off by that great bibliophile, Mr Cooper, I'm currently reading The Lonely Londoners by Sam Selvon, an eye-opening novella on West Indian life in London in the 50s. Written in lively dialect and full of lots of wonderful characters. Often hilarious but also pulling no punches on the racism of the time.

Lots of interesting details too. The West Indian boat train used to come into Waterloo.

Duncan has also turned me onto the swinging 60s jazz sounds of Jamaican flautist Harold McNair (who I've just discovered played on Donovan's magical first live album).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5K-LyTjMdI

Mmm! Nice!

Karate! I Kid you not!

Zoe and I are at home alone enjoying some quality father-daughter time, listening to Boney M's greatest hit and Lucinda Williams live in Austin. A concert DVD from 1998 with Texas's finest at the top of her game. Very fine too. (When I pop my clogs, I want the DJ to play Sweet Old World. What a beautiful song!)


Ulrika has taken Kai for an introductory class of Extreme Martial Arts.He's already a black belt in GBH and personally I was trying to interest him in stamp-collecting or flower arrangement. But his mum seems to think that karate will integrate his yin and his yang. I knew we should never have let him watch Kill Bill!

Iggy would not be pop!

It's so easy to buy things on line! Press a couple of buttons and hey presto! A 10 CD box set of obscure reggae B sides is yours!

Being a clever boy, Kai has also realised the ease of internet shopping. Look! an online petshops selling iguanas.

I get cold shivers in anticipation of a knock on the door and a DHL guy deliverng several large aquatic lizards! Cute, aren't they?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NL7pzPj2bI

Attenborough beware!

Watch our Sir David! Kai has decided he wants your job.

He thinks it sounds like a good gig. Go somewhere exotic. Wait around 5 minutes until some marine iguanas or a Komodo Dragon pop up and do something interesting. Film them. And then spend the rest of the day in Legoland!

A lot more interesting than going to school and learning to read and write!

Reading, righting and rithmatic

With Kai starting "real" school after a year's warm up, learning to read has become a hot issue for us.

There's a strange disparity. His oral vocabulary is great: predator, antagonist, lethal, psychopath etc. But he can't read cat, dog and hat.

A couple of interesting things from the Grauniad.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jul/31/ben-goldacre-teaching-reading-shootout

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/jul/19/primary-schools-street-literacy

She is the Lizard Queen!

Yesterday was the parents' meeting at the school. Sartorial elegance on these occasions is very important for me and I found a natty navy blue T shirt that was just the job. Then I read the text emblazoned on it: No hope for the kids. Perhaps not quite appropriate. I settled for a cool, black jazz T: Thelonius Monk: The London Sessions. Mmm! Nice!

After a hard day's work, that stupendous woman, Ms Ott had come over to child-sit so that Ulrika and I could go to the meeting at school. To begin with Kai was his usual, uncommunicative self answering in monosyllables.

Then the conversation for some reason turned to reptiles and he realised that Astrid ( who knows everything about anything) was something of an expert. From that moment they got on like a Raptile House on fire. By the time we got home, he had learnt about several new species that he now wants to buy and had developed his plans to turn our home into an enormous vivarium!

I am the Lizard King!

It's Lizard Week here and Kai and I are spending a lot of time discovering more about reptiles. So much that I didn't know! For example, there's an amazing clip on Yooftube of a basilisk running on water.

There is an ulterior motive. Kai has decided that he wants a pet and has asked for a Komodo Dragon for Xmas. And you know that we just hate to disappoint him!

Wordy

Kai asked me the very pertinent question at the weekend: how many words do I know?

According to Wikipedia a 6 year-old English speaker knows 10,000 - 14,000 words and learns 5 - 10 new words a day.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_development_stages#Language_4


So, as a bilingual 7 year old he's probably well up to this level. Sadly most the new words he learns are the names of obscure lizards and profanities.

Scotland's finest!

The magnificent Teenage Fanclub with my song of the week. If this doesn't brighten your day, you should contact an undertaker!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6UuoS7kd-g

On heat

She's on heat. So she just lies there on the floor all morning with those big sad eyes gazing at the door, giving me a bad conscience. There's clearly only one thought on her mind: walkies.

Yes, today, we are dog-sitting Nikki, Gitte's pooch, for the day.

Can't really decide whether I'm more a mogger or a dogger. It's certainly fun to go for walkies with a creature who gets so much pleasure out of using their nose.

One thing this week has taught me: don't mess with the Cat People. That stupid woman in Coventry now has a catwa on her head. Hard-core Miaowists make Al Quaeda seem positively laid back.

Pooh sticky!

Talk about literary appreciation! Kai was listening to a CD of Wiinie the Pooh and the Heffalump in bed last night (Stephen Fry as Pooh) and he laughed so hard that he peed himself and soaked the bedclothes.

A damp and rather smelly tribute to Milne's comic genius.

Disney's Pooh is one of the worst acts of cultural vandalism of our time. Grrrr!

The politics of patience

We have an election here in a month's time and the Social Democrats seem to have had some help from Kai with the their campaign. Their slogan? We don't want to wait. Our son in a nutshell! Mr Ants in his Pants wants everything at once.

Patience? Not in his vocabulary.

I've started so I'll finish

Reading and greatly enjoying David Nicholl's debut novel, Starter for Ten. His One Day is already one of my favourite novels of the year and here's another cracking read. 99p from the Oxfam shop in Wembley High Street.

Hilarious reading in particular for anyone who's been to a UK university but I can't imagine anyone not enjoying it. A Bildungsroman about a young working class guy at university is not perhaps the most original topic in the world. But the dialogue and the descriptions of the characters are so good that it really doesn't matter.

I've even bought the DVD from Amazon. Second hand (no VAT to pay!) it came to a princely SEK 24.

Rewiring the brain

Today's kids are amazing at multi-tasking. Kai can eat breakfast, surf Internet shops,have a bath and play Playstation all at the same time.

But is it a good thing?


http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/aug/20/internet-altering-your-mind?CMP=NECNETTXT1349

Thought-provoking stuff for all of us who spend far too much time in front of a computer screen!

Winter drawers on!

Our kitchen constantly fills up with sluggish wasps who seem to be aware that summer is on its way out. Dan and I had an outdoor beer at Mosebacke last night and by 23.00it was decidedly chilly. The balmy summer evenings are over.

Nine months of winter await!

Way down on the Klara River

Very funny article about a rafting holiday in Sweden that Maria Tychomum sent me.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/3663059/Hell-and-high-water.html

Makes Deliverance seem like a picnic!

Punk mutates into Nazi Piranha!

Instead of going to school, Kai has spent his day softing out and watching a TV show about a trio of chickens who are Kung Fu masters. Co-produced by Aardman so I snapped it up when I was in London.

I was amused by the voice talent of the actor playing the baddie, a futuristic Nazi piranha, so of course I had to learn more. Turns out it's Paul Kaye who used to be Dennis Pennis. Well I never!

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/tv_and_radio/article4673381.ece

Educational

Well the new school year got off to a cracking start today. All the kids were to gather in the schoolyard to hear words of inspiration from the headmistress. About three minutes after he'd got to the classroom, Kai told Ulrika that he wanted to puke. So he came home and has been lounging on sofa all day watching Kung Fu Chicken films. Probably not malingering this time but I wouldn't put it past him!

Come all you fair folkies!

Jon sent me this link which contains a large dollop of delicious folk music from Cropredy:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p0098pzx/Fairports_Cropredy_Convention_14_08_2010/


Enjoy!

Cropredy - Quo Vadis?

Last weekend, various pals of mine were at some fab festivals that I would dearly liked to have joined them for. Now, thanks to the wonders of modern technology I can get some idea what it was like and get a close look at the back of the head of members of the audience!

Jon and Jan enjoyed the rustic pleasures of Cropredy and saw a blistering 3 hours set by the Fairports.

Here's Dave Swarbrick dropping in unexpectedly to join them for Sir Patrick Spens.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6UM8F78_yE

The Cropredy line up was full of wonderful folk acts. I'm told that Welsh singer song-writer Martyn Joseph was marvelous and I'd have loved to see Bellowhead again. I was a bit surprised though to see Pauline Black and the Selector, Rick Wakeman and Status Quo on the bill.

I mentioned this to Nisse who argued rather convincingly that the Quo and Steeleye Span sound remarkably similar. These music journalists notice things that escape us ordinary moshers.

Meanwhile in Helsinki, those bad boys of Brighton, Steve and Pete, aided and augmented by Juha and Wolfgang, were enjoying the Flow Festival which also had a marvelous line up.

Wolfgang raved about Owen Pallett so here he is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXxHQJVq1ws

I should point out that when Wolfgang is enthusiastic about something he doesn't do things by half measures. If he tells me a gig was very good I know it was probably rather so so.

Long live enthusiastic pals!

It ain't over till...

An unexpected twist in the tail to our visit to England. My poor brother, Don, arrived at Heathrow to be declared unfit to fly due to an ear infection. Quite right too! Thank heavens for Maison Grunewald where he is now recuperating. His luggage is somewhere in the bowels of Heathrow. The best laid planes....

Ymerodraeth state of mind!

Here's a real treat from the Land of Song!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4NeFo7zkfk&feature=related

Love, hate and arson - a typical day in Scotland?

Home again in Stockholm. I haven't had decent internet access for an eternity and there is, to put it midly, a lot to write about!

Alasdair Roberts is a great favourite in these parts.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/aug/08/alasdair-roberts-interview-tim-adams

Now how on earth did the Scots get a reputation for being dour and gloomy?

Busy!

Another busy day in London getting things organised. I was in such a hurry to get to the Harrow Registry Office yesterday that I forgot to take the death certificate!

Kai is enjoying spending time with his Uncle Don. Have been asking friends for anecdotes about Fay for the funeral but most of these are unusable as they describe things that I did as a teenager. What an unspeakable monster I was! So, no change there!

Fay Farrow 1920 - 2010 RIP

My mum passed away just before midnight on Tuesday evening very peacefully to the sound of Vaughan Williams on Classic FM with me holding her hand. I'm very glad that I made it over to Sweden in time.

One minute later Kai rang and said he wanted to go back to the hotel! Hats off to the fabulous Grunewald family who took care of him all day and then drove us home.


Thanks to everybody for their messages of condolence. It's a sad time but Fay's going was a blessed release for her. She really looked very old and frail at the end.

Don and I are now busy organising the funeral. He's on NY time so we were up and at it at 5.00 am! Kai is keeping me sane by forcing me to spend 2 hours a day in Hamleys. Yesterday Jeanie kindly took him to see Toy Story 3 in 3D. Cool!

I'm very blessed to have such wonderful, helpful friends!

Sensible shoes

As a complete raving loony, when confronted with a crisis I sometimes have to ask myself: What would a sensible person do in my shoes?

The answer is pretty straightfoward: Pay a visit to the nearest shoeshop as soon as possible!

Kung! Phew!

After watching Scooby Doo and the Samurai Sword, Kai has taken an interest in the martial arts. Well actually there doesn't seem to be much art to it. He just uses fists, feet and any available gardening implement to beat the shit out of me.

Crouching elephant, raging tigerette!

Om-bloody-niverous!

Kai, Zoe and I had a grand day out at Öland’s funfair and zoo on Saturday with two other families.

The day didn’t start too well. No sooner had we left Löttorp than the skies opened and there was a major downfall. Thunder, lightning and rain so intense that we had to drive at a snail’s space as we couldn’t see the car in front of us. I was convinced we’d have to re-think the day but by the time we got there the weather had cleared up and it was actually sunny for a few hours before the skies opened again.

The zoo was a strange place. Most Swedish zoological parks these days are hyper-organised and almost too slickly professional. Last summer we were at Kolmården, where Kai and I watched a display of birds of prey that felt like a stadium rock show. Pounding heavy metal music. Witty repartee. Every wingbeat meticulously choreographed.

Here everything was a bit more amateur in the best possible way. Most of the staff were clearly schoolkids doing a summer job. On a day when it was half-empty that suited me fine.

First out was a large piranha. One of the (very young) zookeepers was feeding this ferocious Amazonian predator with pieces of melon. I commented on this and she told me that all their piranhas had gone vegetarian!

The funfair was perfect for Kai as he could go for as many rides as he wanted. The splendidly bequiffed young chap working the Octopus looked like a refugee from Mozchester. Probably hoping that Mozza would just happen to stroll past and give him a part in his next video!

The goats were a big hit with both K and Z. Kai stroked them and Zoe was a tiny bit frightened but also very delighted by their rather pushy attempts to get food. To my horror I felt something nuzzling my thighs and discovered that the horrendous beasts were doing their best to eat my shorts. Any animal prepared to sink that low must truly be described as omnivorous!

Nettled

One of the delights of being a parent is discovering all the different ailments that a small child can suffer from.

Yesterday after lunch, poor little Zoe found herself covered with some horrible lookig blotches that made it lookmas though she had been rolling around in some stinging nettles.They itched enormously and after a while transformed themselves into a rash over her whole body.

Off to the health centre to discover that she was suffering from urticaria, commonly known as nettle rash. She's now had some meds and is her old naughty self.

Before we got to the doctor, Grandma Stina suggested that we covered her in potato flour to ease the itching. Passing motorists must have wandered what on earth was going on. It looked at though we were basting her up prior to popping her in the oven to cook her for supper. Cannibalism is not that common here on Öland.

Those socks are made for walking!

This summer, various of my pals are off carrying out epic feats of endurance. Armchair traveller that I am these days, it is great fun to follow their adventures. And in this age of the internet and mobile phones, one can receive an almost daily update. Quite a contrast to the days when I was a backpacker. I remember one Yuletide back in the mid 1980s spending most of Xmas Day in Cuzco with Jeanie trying to make a phone call home.

First out is my pal and colleague, Gary (Watson). With his son, Jack, who is 10 years old, he is walking right across England from east to west: from Whitehaven to Whitby. The Coast to Coast Walk is certainly going to treat them to some magnificent scenery as they trudge through several national parks. They are now four days into the journey and have reached Patterdale.

Prior to departure Gary explained to me about the equipment that they had purchased. Special shoes of course and extremely expensive wonder-socks that they must change twice a day. These super-socks are so state of the art that they don’t ever need to be washed. It all sounds a bit super-pongy to me but I’m sure Gary has thoroughly investigated this wonder of modern technology.

Wet! Wet! Wet!

Now enjoying peaceful rural life at Grandma Stina's on Öland.

The drive down yesterday took a while as Ulrika isn't currently allowed to drive so I had to do it all. Got up at 4.00 am to ensure an early start so I'd only had 3 hours sleep. The stops became longer and longer and more frequent as we progressed.

Very chuffed to find a vintage, hand-made dress for Zoe in a charity shop in Kalmar. She looks very sweet in that and her new straw hat!


Within an hour of arrival, Kai and Zoe had dragged out all the toys from the woodshed and found some water pistols and then transformed the garden into some kind of aquatic war zone. Children!

They love having a large garden to run around in, being flat-dwellers.

Back to the battle!

Roskilde - more than just moo sick!

One extraordinary discovery as we wondered round the Roskilde Festival area. At the stand on sexual education, Pete and I found a small inflatable mini cow sex toy. That was wierd enough in itself, but what was worse was when a gentlemen uses it to pleasure himself it moos ! Strange country, Denmark

The R Team and Pancakus Maximus

Tomorrow morning at the crack of dawn, Ian, Wolf and I boards the train to Copenhagen where we'll meet Steve and then Pete from Brighton. 4 days of musical bliss at Roskilde. And Motorhead!

Meanwhile the amazing R Team - Gitte, Sussi, Astrid and Yvonne - will be helping out here and keeping Kai and Zoe out of mischief so that Ulrika can keep on top of things.

Hot here so I won't need an umbrella or my wellies.

Bliss!

To sleep perchance

Summer is not good for sleep here. The long hours of daylight mean that Kai has problems getting to sleep and then wakes very early in the morning. And the bloody dawn chorus starts at about 3.00 am!

Midsummer. And Midjumper!

A few photos from our Midsummer celebrations out at Danne and Helena's which were a great success.

Kai spent hours on the trampoline.

And here's Zoe picking forest flowers to decorate the maypole and then later on in the day, flirting shamelessly with the DJ from Disco Danne, Ortala Lund's groovy new hotspot!

Beyond my Ken!

A wonderful featurette to whet our appetites for Toy Story 3 featuring Ken.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tkg2ptFFTD4

Not, regretably, the ex-mayor of London! Now that would be fun.

While we're on the subject of Ken (the plastic one, that is) here's a version of that song about his better half which is a great favourite here in Kärrtorp. We were under the impression that it's sung in Japanese until some cunning linguist (probably Ian) pointed out that it's actually sung in Russian. A cracker whatever language it is!

Midsummer? Not so murderous!

Kai, Zoe and I are out at Danne and Helena's summer place. Tomorrow we will celebrate the great, Swedish,pagan holiday of Midsummer.


Ulrika felt that she wasn't really yet up to daubing herself in woad and dancing naked round the maypole, as is customary during the celebrations, so she has stayed in town to take it easy.Stockholm is like a ghost town during midsummer weekend.There is always a vaste exodus to the countryside. The lack of background noise from traffic is a real ear-opener. One suddenly realises how much background noise one endures every day when it's no longer there.

Tomorrow morning we will get up early and a tractor will drive all the children into the forest to pick wild flowers to decorate the maypole.

The whole celebration is very uncommercialised and amateur in the very best sense of the word.

Zoe has already been dancing a bit with Helena and Vendela to ensure that tomorrow night she will be a dancing queen, ready to pingle all night long!

Palindromedary

Andrew, that brainbox of Valencia, sent me this link, which should appeal to many of the readers of this blog.


http://www.jehsmith.com/1/2010/06/broody-baba-yaga-a-note-on-palindromes.html

The return of the Mummy

Carol told me about this article.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/jun/22/recovering-brain-injury


Interesting reading. The problem when someone is recovering from a brain injury, as against something like a broken leg, is that they look perfectly normal and act normally. But they get tired easily and tolerate no stress.

The doctor today explained how Ulrika will suffer from brain fatigue for a while and will rapidly get tired. She has a small supply of mental energy for each day and must use it carefully.

Maybe we should cover Ulrika's head in plaster or bandages to signify that she is still recovering?

Kai would probably go for that. My Mummy is a Mummy!

Sweet Home a la Mamma?

A big day for us today. Ulrika is leaving hospital and coming home. She's been away since 17 May! This isn't to say that she's fully recovered. She can't drive for 3 months and won't be returning to work until August when she'll start probably working 50%. All the same, she's made marvelous progress and it will wonderful to have her back.

But poor girl! I fear it will be a shock for her to return to Vikstensvägen and reality. I suspect that her absence has led her to believe that she lives in a designer palace with Brad Pitt. Tough then to come to terms with life in a suburban shanty town with a fat, bald John Peel clone!

While she's been away there's been a turf war between three factions in the family.

Zoe has done her best to turn our home into a 24 hour hour disco. Studio 53? All that girl wants to do is dance. That is when she hasn't been empyting every cupboard and receptacle of its contents and strewing them over the whole flat.

Kai, meanwhile has been filling every nook and cranny with robots and mechanical monsters. That is when he's not been watching Transformer cartoons arounbd the clock. His vision clearly is that our home should be as similar to the planet Cybertron as possible.

And of course, it's no secret that my dream is to have a home that resembles a branch of my favourite record shop. You can't open a cupboard without finding an interesting pile of obscure CDs or indeed DVDs of anime masterpieces.

Between us we have created Studio Hamley Kulti!

Jinkies! Have I got some tidying up to do!

Klingon and other invented languages

Another interesting article from my pal John Timpane in Philadelphia!


http://www.philly.com/philly/entertainment/96646229.html?viewAll=y#axzz0rWubkOu6

I don't want to be a pinhead no more, I've just found some brass that I can go for!

How many Ramones cover albums do I need? Well these two are certainly worth a listen.

First out, The Nutley Brass play the Ramones Songbook.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TO3fOFe9_eo

Thank you Martin for putting me onto that: the fab four elevator style! It certainly gave me a lift!

And now the boys from Rockaway Beach go on a hot date with some gurls from Ipanema.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4Ha3XCLw3w

Bossa Bossa Hey!

Glad Tidyings of Great Joy

Ulrika is coming home over the weekend to see how she copes with "normal" life. So I've been tidying up all day. Not so much housework as an archeological dig, particularly the kids' room. There are large areas there which have not seen the light of day for centuries. As the weeks have gone on, layer upon layer of stuff has accumulated as Zoe empties every cupboard she can and Kai discards things everywhich way.

I'm making all sorts of discoveries: innumerable robot spare parts, a Japanese fan from Kai's first ever rock concert (Asaksa Jinta), sundry seashells, rocks and other aquatic flotsam and jetsam,a copy of the Magna Carta, a pizza carton from the dynasty of Tutenkamun and the Holy Grail.

Not bad for a morning's work.

One small word!

After 57 days " the invisible man" opens his mouth and puts his foot right in it!

"We care about the small people."

One "small" word used wrongly, and the CEO of BP is in even hotter water. I suppose that a "big" person like him doesn't think to run what's he's going to say past a native speaker.

http://www.dailyfinance.com/story/company-news/bp-chairman-we-care-about-the-small-people/19519355/


Gary and I could have saved him a lot of grief. Thank goodness he didn't say "We care about the little people". Then we'd have though he was talking about leprechauns and had really lost the plot!

Send in the marines!

Lawless gun-toting hooligans roam the streets. The infrastructure has collapsed.Food supplies have run out.There have been serious breaches of the UN Convention on Bedtimes.A monomaniac extremist has come to power.

Welcome to Vikstensvägen 53!

Sweden has a long tradition of UN missions in the more unstable parts of the world.
Continuing this good work, this evening the Swedish marines will be landing here. To be more exact, my old friend Nina and husband Sten will be coming over to cook dinner and establish a bridgehead for a trouble-free return to normality.

Nina is ideally suited for this task. For many years she has been a reservist in the Swedish marines. Military efficiency is second nature to her.

And for almost as many years, she has been refusing to tolerate any nonsense or jiggery pokery from my good self. She is well aware of the kind of japes that unruly English hooligans can get up to.

Nina likes things ship shape and Bristol fashion and I've little doubt that, by the time she returns to base, order will have been restored to the troubled province of Baksmellistan.

Notes from the Knitosphere

As a blogger, it's fun to be able to put in a plug for my fellow bloggers.

Here's the one written by Anna Maria, one of Zoe's wonderful nursery ladies. It's primarily about knitting but here are some wonderful photos of Kärrtorp wildlife taken from her kitchen window.


http://knitonnet.blogspot.com/2010/06/mor-och-barn.html

I'm more of a nit than a knitter but Anna Maria is also very interested and knowledgeable about music and has introduced me to many a fine artist in recent years.

Homeward bound!

The doctor has now announced that, all being well, Ulrika can return home next Wednesday 23 June. Great news!

First of all she's coming home for the weekend to see how she copes and then on Wednesday she'll be back.

Here she is with Susan, Zoe's wonderful resource person, at today's Nursery Garden Party.