One thing I've noticed, very bleary-eyed in the mornings on Swedish TV (and I presume to be found on TVs in many other countries is a new "youth phenomenon" called the Powerpuff Girls - they're both bizarre and cute at the same time, so they're obviously going to be a big hit.

Well, it's been a while - been doing too much of work and not enough of anything else.

I'm still working out in Stockholm, although, I was back in the UK for the last weekend. Kate's had a burning desire to photograph the De La Warr pavilion at Bexhill-on-sea, so we spent the day down there on the Saturday. Pavilion marvelous, but the rest of Bexhill - not really. I must say that it had the highest concentration of charity shops that I've seen in one place for a long time - on or just off the high street I found:

Cancer Research

Oxfam

British Heart Foundation

RSPCA

Help the Aged

Scope

Another Cancer charity

Two other unamed charity shops

However, in spite of this, there wasn't too much in the way of bargains to be had between them. If anyone's vaguely interested, here's a list of UK charities who run charity shops.

I did also trawl through a couple of antique/junk shops, and found a chrome-plated aeroplane on a pedastal (in this case I think it is a Hawker Hurricane, although it has a rear gun turret) - I've been wanting one of these for a while, and they are becoming pretty expensive.

As for the pavilion itself, well it was pretty cool - one of the few forward thinking modernist buildings that I've seen in the UK, and obviously very much appreciated by the local inhabitants, given the number sitting round having tea. It's a bit frayed round the edges in places, but generally is in good condition, and is a great example of how to build a useful public space - I'll stick a few photos up soon.

That reminds me - I've also put up a few pictures of a walk we took along the Southbank a few weeks ago, including a few of the Tate Modern.

OK, I guess I should mention a bit about the Lloyd Cole concert on Sunday - a very different concert-going experience than you get in London. First off, the venue (Berns in Stockholm) is incredible - so ornate and beautiful that, excpet for the stunningly large chandeliers, it's easy to think that you're in a church rather than a concert hall.
It all seems so "european", with lots of sophisticated young things sitting round wearing polo-necks and other casual-but-very-deboniar outfits, sipping from vodka and limes, and only the occasional beer - I don't think anyone was wearing trainers, so lucky I left mine at home then.

Lloyd Cole was in good humour, and able to spin a few well-recieved lines at the crowd. Given that he's got a large reportoire these days, the set was pretty representative including songs from as early as Rattlesnakes and Easy Pieces (Cut Me Down, Brand New Friend, and Lost Weekend), as well as plenty of more recent stuff from albums like Love Story (Trigger Happy, Senitmental Fool). We got some of the great standards, including (Are You Ready To Be) Hearbroken, and a final encore of Forest Fire.
The great thing about Cole's lyrics is that he's able to wallow in angst (nothing wrong with angst - it's responsible for much if not most of the best music and art) and abject misery for a couple of lines, and then follow it up with a good helping of wit and humour.

I've been a fan for a number of years now, although I think there's a bit of a gap in my experience between the self-titled album and Love Story. He does play occasionally in London, often these days with his new band, the Negatives, so I'm sure I'll have a few more chances to check him out.

Well, that was something that was long overdue, and it was nice to have the chance to see him in such great surroundings - I checked a program and there's a few upcoming gigs that I'll more than likely have the chance to see while I'm over here: Belle and Sebastian on the 19th of March, and then Godspeed You Black Emperor about a week later. I missed Ryan Adams by about a week, and the Strokes play here on the 4th of March, but I'm not too fussed about that - they're very nice boys, and it'd be a good chance to revisit the NY scene circa 1979, but probably not much more than that. And of course, there's always a chance of catching local boys, the Hives...

Other interesting Swedish things I have learned recently:

The Swedes also believe in trial-by-jury, but you have to train for years to become a juror, and it's a full-time paid occupation - they end up having a jury consisting of a dozen lawyers, so how they come to a majority decision is anyone's guess.

The Swedes love ice-hockey, and are on course to win a gold at the winter olympics - very strange for such a peaceful, civilised people, given that ice-hockey's probably the most destructive team sport known to mankind.

They have very generous maternity and paternity provisions - nine months paid paternity leave is not unheard of.

Just spent the weekend having a good look around Stockholm with Kate. I've been here for three weeks now, flying back to the UK at weekends, but this weekend I stayed here while Kate flew out to join me.

It was great having a chance to look around the city during daylight hours, and Kate had prepared by spending a bit of time on the Web checking out the places worth having a look at.
The hotel I'm staying in is almost ridicuously easy to get to from the airport (a few steps from the terminal down an escalator, marvel at the bat-cave decor that appears in many parts of the Stockholm underground, and then onto a train which zooms into town, past red-painted barn-like wooden farmhouses and flooded paddocks, and then out of the train station and twenty steps into the lobby of the hotel (the Nordic Light, with its sister the Nordic Sea across the road - I keep getting confused and calling it the Nordic Sky, and have taxi drivers look at me blankly).

From the hotel on Saturday morning we walked north along Upplandsgatan to check out some "Antik" shops - actually retro shops full of funky furniture, lighting, furnishings and toys from the fities, sixties, and seventies. Two in particular stand out - the Domino Antik shop full of retro lighting, and the Wigerdals Varld. Almost bought some more viewmaster reels in Wigerdals Varld to add to the collection, but the shop-owner was having a busy day and had quite a few people lined up trying to buy things.

Walking further northwards we followed the trail of Antik shops and turned left onto Odengatan, which seems to be the second-hand record store district - plenty of good places to buy used vinyl, including one wardrobe-sized shop we entered which had a large number of obvious record-collectors desparately trying to by vinyl singles from another busy shop-assistant.
We saw some posters advertising a Lloyd Cole solo gig on Sunday, and bought a ticket for myself, although Kate would be halfway back to England by the time he took to the stage. I'm ashamed to say that in my years of living in London I've not yet seen Lloyd Cole live, although he's one of the very few worthwhile survivors of the eighites music scene - a great combination of melody, intelligent lyrics and just the right level of angst to bridge the gap between teenagerdom and the more cynical later years, all with a smooth lounge-lizard delivery. Anyway, that's yet to come tonight - more about the gig later, I'm sure.

From Odengarten, it was up a side-street to a shop called 50-50, which was unfortunately closed, but through the window we could see a good range of retro fabrics, the sort that Lucienne and Robin Day made their name with.
After a pit-stop in a local cafe, a busy little place run by a jolly guy who looked very similar to Richard Branson, it was across the bridge to Stadshagen and R.O.O.M., one of the many design-type shops that Kate had earmarked. Very much like A Swedish Habitat, we had a wander round, picked up and squeezed a few things, flopped on a few bits of furniture, and then headed further down the island. We chanced on another retro shop, and picked up a couple of bits of sixties fabric, and took a photo of me surrounded by pinups of Swedish film stars from the fifties and sixties (I didn't realise there were so many of them).

We passed a bar called SALT, which was on Kate's list by virtue of the moose-heads displayed around the bar and which provided another photo opportunity underneath the moose antlers, and then back across a couple of bridges and down into the old-town. We found a great vegetarian restaurant, very trad in the sense of serving plenty of beans and pulses with everything, and with a nicely communal vibe. The old town seems to be the main tourist focus in Stockholm judging by the number of souvenir shops and higher-priced eateries, which is a bit of a shame as so many of the other parts of the city have plenty to offer. The old town is pretty enough to have a look around, but it's not old in the mediaeval sense, and if you're not interested in eating out and shopping for nick-nacks, it doesn't take that long to have a look around.
One interesting place was the Ice Gallery, which unforutnately was being remodelled. We did have a look through the windows, and it seems that the idea is that not only are the statues made out of ice, so is the surrounding decor - very cool, indeed.

Across another bridge and into Sodermalm, and we had a good view of the city behind as the light was fading. Had a look at a shop, one of a chain called Press-Stop, which is a good place to buy English-language magazines, and another design-type store with plenty of good ideas translated into domestic tools and appliances - the Swedes do seem pretty good at living up to their reputation for domestic-design.
Then, back across the bridge in the fading light back towards the Hotel.

Sunday saw us having a look around Skeppsholmen, a small leafy island near the city centre which houses many of the museums. We checked out the exhibition of young Swedish designers at the Swedish Arts and Crafts Council, and as seems to be typical with young designers exhibtions, saw some pieces that ranged from the bizarre to the the sublime - particular standouts for me were the fuel-cell powered bicycle, the graffiti wall-paper, and the ice-yacht.

After the design exhibition, we wandered back around the waterfront to the Vasa museum, which I had some idea housed a viking long-boat. In fact, it housed a tudor-period warship, the Vasa, retrieved from the waters of Stockholm harbour after it sank on it's maiden voyage in 1628 due to an insufficent amount of ballast given the weight of the superstructure. The ship was truely fantastic, as it had been raised largely intact after lying beneath the water for more than three hundred years, and dominates the purpose-built museum, towering over the museum-goers walking around it. Truely awesome.

We walked back into the centre of the city and did some shopping at one of the large department stores, and then sat around in the Wayne's coffee shop (I'm getting to quite like Wayne's - much better atmosphere than your average Starbucks or what have you) drinking coffee (Sweden are apparently the second largest consumers of coffee per capita in the world) and reading magazines.

Finally, it was time for Kate to go, so I walked her all the way back to the train station (i.e. about twenty steps), and then we did the "Brief Encounter" send-off thing.

One of my first impressions of Stockholm was the local coffee shop - "Wayne's Coffee" - apparently it's a national chain. I never would have thought the name Wayne would be popular in a place like Sweden.
Another impression is the moose-heads (or is it elk in this country?), antlers and the like that the Swedes seem keen on - I've seen a few around now. Somehow, a stuffed moose-head just looks so comical (apparently you should always vacuum your stuffed moose head from the snout up.). I guess they must have a few to go round.

Speaking of elks, I'm reminded of the infamous elk test, where the Swedes tried to prove that Germans just don't know how to build cars.

Well, we went, we saw, and we decided not to snowboard. It's been a few days since they'd had the snow machines going, so what snow there was was quite patchy and icey. Still, it's very handy to the centre of Stockholm (15 minutes on the train, then about 10 minutes by taxi/bus) - I'll be keen to give it a go, but I'll have to get some cheap skipants first.
We did see a few boarders there trying the jumps, and they looked pretty good.

The most interesting bit of trivia that I discovered yesterday: Winona Ryder's godfather is Timothy Leary - who would've guessed?

It's been a busy day, but hopefully we'll get a chance to try some snowboarding this evening - apparently there's a small slope with artificial snow near Stockholm where you can go and muck around under flood lights. I'll have to take my chances with the gear hire though, as I brought nothing suitable with me. Should be fun...

Have seen Stockholm by night a few times now, but it's usually pretty quiet downtown. Would be nice to have a look around during the daytime, which will happen if I get a chance to spend a weekend here.

Wow - just when I thought web-logging was a nice, low-key way to organise one's thoughts, the BBC go and do a big article about the phenomenon. For anyone reading this page, and still wondering what a web-log is, their article can be found here. Aptly enough, they quote Meg Pickard, who's web-log is eminently readable, and quite an inspiration for the web-log you're reading at the moment.