just a quick addendum, the below linked game is horribly addictive, do not start playing if you've got things like cooking, surgery or nuclear engineering going on in the background

So the good news is that I got the job I was interviewed for, most excellent - I thought the interview had gone well but you never can tell. Its very part time at the minute but they seem keen to get me more, as long as I don't completely arse things up.

Just seen my first Swedish hip hip band, advance patrol, at the opening do for K's work - all good though bloody cold, open air gig you see........

weather:cold as a cold thing
music:none, just the damn annoying noise from the game below
well addictive.....
SUPER KICKUPS : spikything.com

Well, this is my second attempt at posting to my blog as the broadband connection (bredband in Sweden, which makes me think of Breadboard straight away, not very funny but amuses me) failed at the critical moment.
Anyway, I talked about an annoying conversation I had with a fellow student who was moaning about Sweden, desribed the forthcoming may day communist marches and prattled on about the climbing wall and its rat problem for a while. So once again, this morning I had a rather annoying chat with a fellow class mate who was previously living in Brussels, well fuck me, but Brussels is obviously the centre of the universe and all other places are like one piece of poo in a five poo bag. THe main point about coming to a new country is that things will be different, 'kay, its really not that hard a concept to grasp so don't expect things to be the same.....and particularly don't moan about them all the time, just accept and get on with it. Maybe I've become more intolerant these days, I dunno. The end of april will bring fire festivals and comminist marches on saturday, should be exciting. The climbing wall is infested with rats and large, dangerous traps add to the danger. I was failed to get to the top of anything last night at the wall, but thats okay, as I now have a chilled out zen attitude. Its the taking apart not the whining which counts.

Music: the phones working again, which is nice
weather: rather nice and sunny
My lords.......
Finn's train and travel page : Trains : Sweden

Ab-glute contractions and the purchase of 'Mens Health', these two events are related.

just finished sets of ab-glute contractions, as a kind of reward for a damn fine interview. Definitely gave it my best shot and they'll let me know at the end of the week...so we shall see. The jobs very part time at the minute but with good opportunities for the future, all good!

Amusing thing was, I got a taxi from Lund railway station (the jobs in lund which is cool) and had to wake the driver up to let me in the car. A few minutes later, once we had got moving, he fell asleep at a set of traffic lights - in true English style I loudly cleared my throat, he woke up and off we went. Suffice to say I did not tip very well.

Loads of homework to do as I missed class today and was entertaining over the weekend.

Weather: 15+, cloudy with blue patches
Noise: Radio 4
aahhhh, nostaglia - the clatter of dice, the rustle of paper and the singular power of imagination. Never have I laughed so long and so much as when we used to play such things.......
BBC NEWS | Magazine | Whatever happened to Dungeons and Dragons?

Sleeping in the front room as my parents have got the bedroom. Its early and I've just finished another job application, its actually the first questions of their initial prescreen - 'when was the last time you had personal responsibility, can you work as part of a team and are you frightened of spiders?'-that kind of guff.

Off to the summerhouse after school. Bought my first copy of 'Mens Health' yesterday. These two events are unrelated.

weather: murky and tired
comrade.....
THE YURI GAGARIN COSMONAUTS TRAINING CENTER

Yes, its wednesday and the trees have leaves and the birds are busily building nests.....all rather spring like, bloody lovely.
My parents are down from the mother country tonight so there may only be a few sporadic postings for the next few days, as I will likely be involved in family duties of water carrying, badger baiting and tinkering.

Tired today, we had a chum stay over and as her, and her child, got our bed it meant camping on the floor. Woke up far to early as suns rays broke throught the living room window at 0530 this morning - not nice! The good news is that I've got some new trainers which, after a run in them last night, made me realise I've been running with the equivelent of thin pieces of carpet for ages.

nog.

weather: 15+, blue skies.
Music: just the disturbing sounds from the website below......
Very odd, and a wee bit disturbing.
incoma

sing along with polly coming soon.

oh yeah, another thing ......you may have noticed the pop up ads which accompany this site, sorry about that and they are nothing to do with me - the price to pay for not actually paying anything. As soon as I get around to it (so don't hold your breath) I will upgrade this to do away with such things.

A little indulgence this weekend by getting out onto the rock, bouldering, for the first time since I left the UK. It was only an hour stolen from a hectic schedule of cars, visits and preparations for my parents visit on thursday. It was bloody excellent however, back to a little spot I found a while ago on the coast. Really nice clean granite beside the sea but with the nastiest landings I've ever seen - the rock has contrived to break up into thin sheets leaving the base of most of the best lines scattered with almost knife sharp boulders. Last summer I found one face unadorned with such cleavers and spent some time tinkering around at its base. On my return this sunday I found it had not only grown in size but my climbing had improved - a rather unfortunate combination leaving me stranded halfway up the rock face whimpering as I comtemplated the absolutely committing nature of the hitherto unreached last move. I leapt off, avoiding the bacon slicers at the bottom, on more than one occaission before gaining the realisiation, as usual quite slowly, that this ones a bit hard - a project for the summer then. For those of you who are really interested its a pefectly vertical face with a hard starting move off poor crimps and a layaway to gain a good jug on the left arete. Step up on poor foot holds to gain a small crimp for the right hand (long stretch), leave the security of the jug and.......who knows, in my case peel off the rock with a cry of terror.

The good news is that I'e got a job interview next week, which is nice, a biotechnology company, or rather, one which links companies with companies and encourages colloboration - all good.

weather: blue skies, 20+.....but will it last?
how can you resist the temptation.....
Nuclear Weapons Resources

Things to be aware of when you study a new lanquage. Firstly, you are not trying to buy a can of drink or book a table when talking to your teacher - shouting loudly in English and miming will not help here. Secondly, when he gives you visual clue as to what hes talking about its no use suddenly saying 'oh yes, you mean a pocket' in English. Of course he knows it a pocket you dumbass, your're supposed to be learning a foreign lanquage not showing off your English skills. Thirdly, when the teacher asks you for a new word which you heard the day before do not blurt out the first word in your head, without fail this will be very rude, unrepeatable and you will be forced to spell it out infront of the class. You only have to do this once to be labelled as a deviant. Fourth, when asked what you did yesterday (a common ploy by the teacher to get you talking) do not mention off licences, cake shops, or churches. This will get you a reputation as an alcoholic, fat bastard grave robber - much safer to simply say shopping.

Film most recently seen on TV: GI Jane, I thought Private Benjamin had a stronger message about women in the modern army
Music: Real player has once again popped its electronic clogs but I was listening to radion 4
Weather: nice and blue with a dash of salt
Website: Funny, give it a chance.....
Things My Girlfriend And I Have Argued About

So welcome back after the Easter celebrations where we remember Christs ultimate sacrifice for us through days of torment and suffering by eating chocalate eggs.
Seriously though, totally awesome weekend. Me and K went up to the Summerhouse on the thursday night. Its about a one and a half hour rail journey from Malmö, up on the west coast, North of Malmö. On the friday some chums of K's met up with us and we headed off to Denmark for the day - another country, day trip - how cool is that. All it involved was a 20 minute boat ride where we feasted on bright red Danish sausages which are banned in Sweden (they are far too red). We went off to Lousiana which is a art gallery on the coast, north of Köpenhamn. Sadly the main exhibition was a rather dull show about the architect who designed the Sydney Opera House, all good if you like that kind of thing but left me rather cold I'm afraid. What was much better was the modern art exhibition from the Falkenberg collection in Hamburg, bloody excellent. Some very wierd installations one of which involved a naked chap dancing in front of a camera in his flat, most amusing or was it..............the other main wierd stuff was by Paul McCartney who is a totally fucked up chap, fortunately I had one of those brief moments where my brain managed to activate before my mouth and I narrowly avoided saying 'quite a departure from the beatles isn't it', whilst watching a video of him freaking out in his studio wearing a hideous mask and loudly going insane. All good clean fun.

The rest of the weekend was top, eating, reading, running, and chatting in both English and Svenska with K's family - frighteningly my Swedish is gradually coming on, I just try to use it on any occaision now and to hell with the consequences. I obviously try to use the right words but it makes you learn faster when you fuck up at a counter in a busy shop than the relative safety of the class room.

Music: Radio four, news and stuff......nuclear weapons, blah blah, George Bush, Blah blah...........ahh, the Archers, most excellent. Winning cinnamon cakes.
Book: Stephen Erikson, Deadhouse Gates - bloody excellent fantasy, think David Gemmell with larger plots and no problems with slaying major characters (and believe me, I'm not giving anything away there, the hacking starts after page 1)
Weather: 15+, blue skies and little fluffy clouds
Excellent...............turn those speakers up loud
UPLOAD III MULTIMEDIA RUNNER UP - DREW COPE (DRUM MACHINE)

Easter is here, the chickens are getting fat and the eggs are turbulantly full of promise.
I'm off to the Summer House for the next 4 days in the excellently named town of Båstad (pronounced Borrstad) - it should be good. We will also be sneaking a day trip across the border (and the sea) to sunny Denmark to check out Louisana. This is not a marooned US state but an art gallery, similar style to the Tate Modern, very cool. Last time I was there one of the installations was simply a tv playing Blade runner, most excellent. This time I'm hoping the artist has moved onto Predator.

Its rather early and I have a train to catch as my language course is not actually in Malmö but in Lund, the big university town about ten minutes up the road.

Weather: A murky morning......
Surreal in the extreme............
Introduction

Monkeys, on television - David Attenboroughs dulcid tones lull me into a semi state of Englishness spoiled only by the subtitled Swedish scrolling across the bottom of the screen. Its good to learn Swedish from the TV, so I'm looking forward to using my technical vocab of monkey mating activities in class tommorow.

Its raining like hell here, everything definitely damp.

Truly one of the greatest websites I have yet discovered on my journeys through the electronic ether, everything else will seem cold and worthless now.
Eric Conveys an Emotion

Easter week, and the twigs are appearing bedecked in feathers. The eggs are being filled with candy and the food is the same as for Christmas, happy day!!

More books: I really should not have left these out in the first place, you either like them or hate them. I personally thought these were awesome but some have been known to differ. Try, China Mieville author of Perdido Street Station and The Scar. Fantasy (dark fantasy, as I believe it is known) with some very good ideas, reads a bit like Clive Barker before he went bonkers.
They don't really go a second reading but are fantastic first time around. His other, and first novel, King Rat is not so good......
weather: its raining, its +10 and the sky is grey
another awesome mind expanding use of the genious that is the internet....
Drive Me Insane!

4nd s0 1t w45 fr1d4y.

Did my first proper hard problem last night at the climbing wall and still feeling a bit stoked. For those in the know it was a gnarly traverse wíth the crux move right at the end on poor slopers and a poor undercut. For the unitiated it was mindless moves on a piece of angled plywood with blobs of hard plastic drilled onto it. Thinking about it that way I am forced to ask myself why? Nevermind.

So been in Sweden for a while now. Starting to find my way around Malmö, getting to grips with the lanquage and springs sprunging. So the little things which are noticably different, loads of bicycles for a start and massively wide pavements to accomodate them and the pedestrians. Police cars which go waa waa rather than woo woo. Outdoor cafes with a blanket on every seat so you can wrap yourself up against the cold. A huge selection of yoghurt in the shops (this is not a good country to be lactose intolerant). Road side kiosks selling phallic hot dogs on a little cardboard tray with mashed potato. and thats enough of that I think, its the little things which are different you know (apart from a completely different lanquage, political system and organisation of society).

Coming soon.....sing along with polly and a blow by blow account of one mans quest to find the perfect underpants. Trevlig helg!!

Music: Communards, Don't leave me this way (all together now, ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh baby)
(and now its Nancy Sinatra, nice.......)
Weather:+7 and lovely blue skies
Recent Movie: 21 grams, good but don't expect to be cheered up
Website: Horribly fascinating......
Shockwave Stick Men Fighting No. 2

annoyingly the website address did not show up so here it is again in good old fashioned text

http://www.freshsensation.com/samorost.swf

So, the first full calander month in Sweden, time seems to have whizzed past. Very strange to think that last April I was in Plymouth sweating away in the science park. Times arrow and all that.
Another trip to the immigration office today, I finally managed to get hold of my case office and get my test date for my 'Lura-examen' which I need to take as part of my residency obligation. Thankfully its in English but the questions can be quite tough, related to Swedish history, the rights that a citizen has etc. Annoyingly I have to sit it wearing the Swedish national dress but I'm sure it will be fine.



Its sunny and nice, double figures once again.....!
Most excellent.......