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Wednesday 10 March 2010

Taking a break

Yesterday was my first miss of oneaday after a 50 day run. I'm pretty pleased (and very surprised) at getting so far, but think that it's time to take a break for a week or so. It started out as fun, and a challenge, but has recently descended into being a chore and I have enough daily chores as it is. Not that I've quite run out of things to write about, but my enthusiasm for writing about anything at all has disappeared and that doesn't make for interesting reading. I don't want to give up altogether, and hopefully I'll feel a little better about things in a week or so and can pick up the gauntlet again.

We'll see.

But thanks to everybody who has made the time to read my frequently inane ramblings - I don't think I would have even got this far otherwise.

Monday 8 March 2010

Not quite what I intended

My original plan for today's #oneaday was to write about a tv programme called 'Simon och Tomas: Design' that is usually shown on Monday evenings. But we turned the tv over to the right channel at the right time, only to be confronted by something called 'Stjärnkockerna' (which I think is sort of a cross between Celebrity Masterchef and that cookery show that Anton du Beke presented, whatever it was called) instead which was something of a disappointment.

We discovered Simon and Tomas not long after we arrived here, and it was the first piece of non-UK or US TV that we really watched. They are a pair of interior designers (similar-ish to Colin and Justin) but Simon is English and only speaks English (and swears a lot in English) most of the time, and of course Tomas is Swedish and speaks - well, Swedish. The bilingual conversations that they have fascinate me, as well as making it easier to keep up with what's being said in Swedish, and they're also quite amusing. And that's without mentioning their two little dogs, or 'the boys' as they call them who go everywhere too and generally cause chaos.

Anyway, as they weren't on this evening, I can't write about them. As you were.




(Sveriges Fulaste Hem -> Sweden's Ugliest Home)

Sunday 7 March 2010

Ice hockey or UFC?

Last night one of Mr.B's colleagues took us to an ice hockey match at the local stadium. Happily we also had use of one of the corporate boxes, so were able to watch in some comfort and with a free cup of coffee.





It wasn't the first ice hockey match I'd ever been to (I went once in the US a few years ago) but to be honest, most of what I know comes entirely from playing EA Hockey on the Megadrive. And the main thing I remember from playing that is that it's ok to fight members of the opposing team. Which is what happened last night. (Not me, the players).

There was a particularly nasty shove by the opposition of one of the home team which left him injured, but for some reason went unpunished. A couple of minutes later someone decided to punish the culprit himself by taking a swing at him and was promptly sent to sit in the corner for 10 minutes to think about what he had done. However the home team's blood was well and truly on the boil by then and it wasn't long before another fight broke out but on a much larger scale than before. I couldn't help but be bewildered at the sight of two men having a full on brawl (helmets and gloves off) whilst 4 match officials just kind of stood and looked on. Apparently that was because they were trying to stop everyone else from joining in - although there were still a couple of other scuffles. The fight went on for at least 5 minutes and the spectators were starting to get a little restless. Eventually the referees put a stop to it and then proceeded to spend even longer deciding on who was going to get punished and by how much. They read a big long list of names and penalties out after that, but it didn't mean an awful lot to me.

Interestingly, the chants that were used wouldn't have been out of place at any English football match. The away supporters were very vocal (and there were quite a few of them considering the distance they had to travel to get there), but I was quite disappointed in the lack of home supporters. To my knowledge, our team are currently near the bottom of the table where they have been languishing over the last few years, and the supporters have got a little frustrated and started to give up on them. Which is a shame as it's times like that when you need your supporters the most. But then, they did play pretty badly so I can kind of understand why. The supporters were also at their most vocal when cheering on the fight which was quite depressing.

Final score: Södertälje SK 2 - Skellefteå AIK 7 (One SSK goal was scored in the first 2 minutes, and one in the last 2. The rest of the time they were mostly fighting and falling over.)

Saturday 6 March 2010

Dinner for one

Too tired to do my ice hockey report justice so that will have to keep till tomorrow. We went back to Mr.B's colleague's house for dinner afterwards, and had a really lovely evening with him and his family. Good food, good wine and good company - what more could anyone ask? 

They introduced us to this fantastic sketch that is a staple fixture on Swedish tv on New Year's Eve (and lots of other places too according to wikipedia). Despite the fact that it stars an English actor, I'd never heard of it before. It's a beautiful and clever piece of vintage comedy and worth 10 minutes of your time:

Friday 5 March 2010

Tom Tits Experiment

As this week has been half-term, we managed to get in a proper family day out to the Tom Tits Experiment. Shamefully it was the first time we'd been together despite the fact that it's only a 10 minute drive away. Basically, it's one of those hands-on science museums for kids which is nearly as much fun for adults.

We all had a great time, although I did struggle a little bit trying to find the words to explain Newton's 3rd law and Moments to an 8 year old and 5 year old so they could understand it. The 'body' exhibition meant dragging up GCSE Biology from the depths of my memory in which I had shoved it to explain which internal organ was which and where it went. I liked the pickled brain in a jar best, but they were more interested in the plastic models of foetal development and the actual birth process.... happily there were no awkward questions to catch us unawares.

This was by far and away my favourite thing that I saw though:



I asked the youngest at lunchtime what had been her favourite bit so far. Her answer, "The ice cream that we haven't had yet."

We managed to get round everything inside, but we'll be making another trip back in the summer as there's lots of outdoor stuff that obviously wasn't available today (being covered in 3 feet of snow still), including a hot air balloon!

Thursday 4 March 2010

The power of film

There are many films that are extremely powerful and memorable in one way or another, but believe it or not, in this instance I'm actually talking about the Blair Witch Project. I remember vividly going to see it; I was living in Switzerland at the time, but there was one small cinema in town that showed US films with subtitles rather than dubbing. A friend was over for a visit and it seemed like as good a way to spend a Saturday afternoon as any. Unfortunately we would have been better off in the pub. Original? Yes. Scary? Erm.... not really. We spent most of our time giggling at the lazy subtitling - there was one point where the female character screams and swears at one of the others for a good couple of minutes, and what did the subtitles say? 'Non.'

Anyway, it was coming to the end and I was ready to write it off as something of a disappointment (particularly considering the hype) when we came to the last scene. For some reason this image freaked me out, probably more than it should.


So when I turned round this afternoon to find my eldest daughter stood with her face pressed into the corner of the lift I admit it did send a few chills down my spine momentarily. Simply because of a 5 minute piece of film that I last saw 10 years ago.

(She said it was because the lift was smelly and she thought that by sticking her face into the corner she could escape. And nobody hit me over the head while I was looking at her.)

Wednesday 3 March 2010

My life in music (part 1)

Inspired partly by Rachel's Temple of Love post last week and heavily influenced by the 'CD CV' feature Mark Radcliffe does sometimes, I present to you some of the stand-out tunes that I can date my life by.  There's even an accompanying Spotify* playlist which I had a great time making this morning, and which could have contained an awful lot more songs.

Stand and Deliver/Take it Easy: These are two of the first songs I ever remember, largely down to having a much older sister who thought it was hugely amusing to teach a 5 year old all the words to the very first Eagles album. As she was a punk at the time, I suspect she knew she would be pushing her luck to teach me to sing along to any of the other music she listened to.

Agadoo/The birdie song/Pass the Dutchie: 3 songs that launched a thousand children's birthday parties. Not a high point to be fair.

Love in the First Degree: We could spend hours pretending to be Bananarama and making up rubbish dance routines. Happily this phase didn't last too long thanks to...

Hot in the City/Paradise City: The same sister who indoctrinated me with The Eagles as a small child also introduced me to rock music when I neared my teenage years. She very kindly copied some of her vinyl onto cassette for me (yes, it was that long ago) which I had to hide from my parents. My mother walking into my room right at the sweary bit of 'Mr Brownstone' got us both into a lot of trouble, but it was worth it.

The Final Countdown/China in your Hand: For some reason I had a tape with Europe on one side and T'Pau on the other and I listened to them both far more than is actually healthy.

Money for Nothing/Poisoning Pigeons: These were courtesy of the record collection of my friend's dad and we spent many Sunday afternoons listening to Dire Straits and playing cards. Tom Lehrer was more reserved for singing in the van on the way to one of our frequent camping trips.

Harvest for the World/Another Day in Paradise: These were the first two albums that I ever bought with my own money. I'll be your baby tonight was the first cassette single I ever bought, I think because it was in the bargain bin (at least I hope that was the reason).

Time of my life: I remember vividly going to a sleepover with a load of friends and watching Dirty Dancing for the first time.

The Time Warp/Should I stay or should I go: Listening to these takes me back to secondary school discos and sweet sixteen parties. Mostly good memories...

Dizzy/Sit Down/Birdhouse in your soul/Mmm mmm mmm mmm: Inextricably linked with 6th form college and sneaking off to the pub at lunchtime with boys who had floppy hair.

Purple Haze: My first serious boyfriend who forbade me to speak while Hendrix was playing. He was also into Sepultura at the time, but I tried not to listen to that.

Caravan of Love/We are Family: We used both of these in 6th form productions. Best thing about being in the music & drama department was being told indirectly by one of our teachers that if we put Bacardi into a can of coke, nobody would know that we were drinking.

Two Princes: My year out working and living away from home for the first time. This was the favourite song of one of my housemates'. I think I probably drank too much to remember anything else.

The playlist has a few more that aren't mentioned here - no particular memories associated with them, but they're very much of their time.
Post-1994 music will come another day.

*If you don't have Spotify and would like it, send me your email address as I have a spare invite or two.

Tuesday 2 March 2010

What's brown and sticky?

Ever noticed how you can have the same conversation multiple times with a straight face and then on the 25th time all of a sudden it is quite the most hysterical thing in the world?

This happened to me at tea-time this evening, all because of this:











And yes, I am more than 7 years old.*

I had bought the girls some miniature bars as a treat and as a result Mr.B had one of those 'things I never thought I'd say' moments when he told one of them, "If you don't finish your tea then I'll eat your Plopp." Things snowballed from there and I ended up in the serious giggles, tears rolling down my face and unable to breathe. But the funniest part? The kids had absolutely no idea why I was laughing so much (the only thing Plopp means to them is horrible gooey chocolatey caramel stuff) yet they giggled along with me anyway. Ok, maybe they were giggling at me, but still.

*(Although at times you may think otherwise. The correct answer to the joke in the title if you didn't already know is: a stick - one of the few jokes that always stupidly makes me laugh like a drain whenever I tell it to someone who hasn't heard it before.)

Monday 1 March 2010

A bad day

Today I am having a bad day. Ok, I know that in the grand scheme of things it's actually nowhere near being a proper bad day, more of a string of petty annoyances, but I find myself less equipped than usual to deal with them in an adult fashion. Don't worry, I'm not going to bore you further with a detailed list of things that have gone wrong (and because if I did I would be forced to confront just how trivial they really are).

Anyway, the consequence is that I have more to do than time to do it in, so reluctantly I've had to admit that this is the least important thing on the list, and will not be doing a proper #oneaday entry today. Hopefully I will have pulled myself together by tomorrow...

Happy St. David's Day.