Blog 6:
Greetings my friends; as I write it is a glorious day here in Sticksten, a clear blue sky with bright sunshine. I myself am typing in the satisfaction of having just eaten a bacon and egg butty smothered in HP sauce, accompanied by a good old cup of English tea. It is the summer solstice tomorrow and it won’t get dark here until about 11:00pm. Tomorrow however I will return to England for a week holiday and to attend the Glastonbury Festival of Contemporary Performing Arts (to give it its full title). It is looking like the weather should be good for Glasto, however the BBC weather forecast for anything beyond the next day isn’t worth the bytes it’s made from but fingers crossed it is accurate this week.
Unless you’ve been living in a hole cut-off from the rest of the world you will have noticed that the World Cup has kicked off. The first week was quite poor with the exception of the first Germany game then things began to get interesting once Spain got beat. The less said about England the better; two games in and we’ve looked quite poor so far. I watched the first game in the esteemed company of Dr Eric Westman and his friends at Eric’s flat. I suppose we were unlucky to draw what with Green’s mistake but the second game though was just plain awful. Now I can’t be the only person who can remember previous tournaments and England are never really any good. As soon as they show any character they tend to go out, usually on penalties or because of some controversial incident. This has been the case since England v Argentina in 1986 (my first World Cup memory). What I find most surprising is that the whole country seems to suffer a selective amnesia in the build up to every tournament, partly because of the media (who build the team up to knock it down when it falters), and think England are going to win it. When as an international side we’re simply not good enough individually or collectively to win the “big one”. Anyway the bottom line at the moment is beat Slovenia on Wednesday and we’re through to the knock-out stage. What’s so depressing about that?
Aside from watching World Cup games and avoiding hard work I also went for a 10.1Km run the week before last. The run was in Djurgården, which is a park in central Stockholm. The run was called the blodomloppet and as far as I could gather was for a charity aimed at encouraging people to give blood (I didn’t). I ran the distance in 51:16 mins, quite slow for me I must be getting old! For some reason the race timers were placed at 9.7Km and 10.1Km don’t ask me why they didn’t just have one at 10Km, some kind of Swedish logic must be in operation that I don’t quite fathom. (My medal and badge to the right). It was a nice run none-the-less only spoiled by rain after the event so we couldn’t enjoy our complimentary post-race picnic.
Yesterday here in sunny Stockholm there was a Royal wedding. Unfortunately I was not one of the guests of honour so I cannot give you any inside information about the ceremony or the reception. This means I can’t tell you whether at Swedish wedding’s there are kids running around doing aeroplanes and sliding on their knees with drunk aunties and uncles jiving on the dance floor to 1970’s ABBA classics, while the best man tries to pull one of the bridesmaids. The best I can do is showing you a picture of the wedded couple. The wedding was between the Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden and Daniel Westling. Apparently the bride much to the disapproval of her father, King Carl XVI Gustaf, was marrying well beneath her station to her former fitness coach, oh the scandal. The wedding was supposed to be the largest in Europe since big ears and Lady (never gonna let her) Di tied the knot. The bride’s decision to be escorted down the aisle by her father was also criticised by many Swedes as sexist and outdated. Sweden is apparently renowned for its gender equality and couples normally walk to the altar together, oh how very modern! The Swedish media was disappointed by the fact the wedding was "snubbed" by Prince William who is in South Africa watching the footy, even the Queen and Prince Philip skipped the event! Prince Edward and the Countess of Wessex represented British royalty.
Well after all that royal intrigue and scandal that’s all for now; England, England v Slovenia (Dan Toomey’s 30th birthday party) and Glastonbury beckon. Hopefully I will see some of you over the next week and we can catch up listening to good music in a farmers field, basking in the English sun, while drinking pear cider with smiles on our faces and sunburn on our brows. Until next time readers.
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