Podcasts

 

Do you listen to podcasts? I confess to being an addict, although within a very restricted range of subjects. The topic that has interested me most of late is nutrition.

There are many streaming or downloadable recordings out there around this theme. What should you be eating or not eating to lose weight, to slow the ageing process, improve your gut biome, what is the new superfood etc. etc. But how frustrating they can often be!

Some can go on for more an hour. Perhaps considerably more, talking all the way around the subject and seemingly never getting to the nitty gritty, the reason why I started listening after being attracted by what was promised in the heading or sub-heading. Many a time I have given up, despairing of the host and his 'expert' guest or guests ever getting to the specifics I want to hear.

There are exceptions, however, foremost among them the late, lamented Michael Mosely, whose Just One Thing series had a limit of fifteen minutes, in fact less as they were originally BBC Radio 4 broadcasts and radio programmes always have to leave room for announcements. Thanks to him I now eat beetroot and various other food items that I previously tended to bypass, am more aware than ever of the importance of exercise and that you don't need to go to the gym to stay fit, how fortunate one is to be surrounded by greenery, and so on.

I first became aware of Mosely at Heathrow Airport, where I bought a copy of his book on the microbiome to keep me company on a long-haul flight. I was hardly aware of anything called microbiome and its significance until then. Then there were his television programmes and newsletters from his Fast 800 dietary business, although that is primarily for people who want to lose weight in a healthy manner without starving to death. Why aren't there programmes for people like me who want to put on weight? Healthily!

Mosely was clearly remarkably active, although by no means working alone in his various enterprises. Indeed, there seems to be a remarkable number of medical practitioners, or former practitioners, who have found it more rewarding to produce podcasts and/or radio or tv programmes than simply treating patients personally. If only more of them were less garrulous and got to the point before listeners like me turn them off.

PS Midsummer is well behind us now, but my Midsummer Revelry story in the June issue of The Mantlepiece magazine can still be read online at https://issuu.com/themantelpiece/docs/themantelpiece_june_2024

To Guide or Not to Guide

 The prospect of writing a guidebook was daunting indeed and I thought long and hard before deciding taking the task on. The whole country would have to be covered, by just one person. Me. It would involve collecting and arranging an enormous amount of factual information, adding comments and guidance where appropriate, about everything from travelling to and within the country to accommodation, where to eat, what to see and do in every corner of the land from the far south on the narrow channel separating Sweden from Denmark, to the polar North, far above the Arctic Circle. There would also be guided walks in the major centres and a particular emphasis on history and culture.

The deciding factor, however, was that it would take me to parts of the country I hadn't been to before despite being a long-time resident (how many people have been to every part of the country in which they live?), or would like to revisit. So I said yes and signed a contract, well aware that the assignment would involve infinitely more work than pay. But there were other potential rewards to consider.

As expected, the fun part was in travelling around the land. The great fun part was in digging out, or surprisingly coming across, stories, information, that few people would know about and that potential readers were not likely to find elsewhere. Who knew, for example, that the first prisoner of war exchange in the second world war took place in Gothenburg? I stayed two nights in the hotel where final negotiations were held. The manageress told me she had once met someone who worked there at the time and how alarmed she and other members of the uninformed staff were when they saw and heard uniformed Germans greeting each other with the “Heil Hitler” salute. They assumed that the Nazis had invaded the country, as they had already done in Norway and Denmark. And when I went to the harbour area to find the exact spot where the exchange had occurred, how surprised I was when I asked two elderly gentlemen sitting on a bench if they could tell me where the dock was that I was looking for when one of them revealed that he had witnessed the scene as a small child living in a flat overlooking the harbour. It had made such an impression on him that he was able to describe it in vivid detail.

The most enjoyable trip was a four-day journey across Sweden from east to west in a narrow canal boat, with confined cabins rather like large wooden sardine tins standing on end. But there was very good food and pleasant company in the narrow dining room, while traversing the peaceful countryside and being able to visit places of interest along the way, jumping off the boat at the many locks. Sometimes we crossed a lake in the chain of waterways that can take you from Stockholm to Gothenburg if you have the time – and let's face it – the money, to spare. For someone like me, however, it was free of charge as the canal company wanted the publicity. And I did have to work.

Another highlight was a visit to Mora in the province of Dalarna to the north-west of Stockholm, where the annual 90 km Vasa Ski Race ends and which is home to the magical Zorn Museum. Anders Zorn (1860-1920), my favourite Swedish artist, whose skill as a portraitist led to his making seven trips to the United States, where his commissions included portraits of three Presidents, Cleveland, Taft and Theodore Roosevelt. But it was by no means only portraits that he painted and if ever you get the chance, lookout for some of his wondrous water colours.

From Mora there is the inland railway line to Gällivare 70 km above the Arctic Circle, with an overnight stop in the town of Östersund, situated on the shores of a lake, Storsjö, famed here for its version of the Loch Ness Monster. The local tourist office has a map showing where you are most likely to see it. It also has its own website www.storsjoodjuret.jamtland.se.

The inland line was the first main line to be completed in Sweden and, unfortunately, the first to be closed to passenger traffic. However, it has been kept partially alive from Midsummer until the autumn by informative enthusiasts, the train stopping here and there for you to get out and look around, and long enough at some stations for passengers to get refreshment or a meal.

A further 70 km beyond Gällivare is Sweden's northernmost township, distinguished these days by being an urban centre on the move as it is literally being undermined by its huge iron ore mine. It has been relocating in stages to a safer site. Small township it may be, but it is also the centre of a huge municipality covering an area of some 20,000 km that contains the country's highest mountain, thousands of lakes, seven rivers, two national parks and much else of note.

Yes, all that was the fun part of the work. The rest was a hard slog to produce 400 printed pages that were eventually published in London and New York.

Letter from my island 02

 

Alone and unattached, or with fox-family and friends, the unwelcome canine creature for whom I have little sympathy, is not the only island animal for which I have hard feelings. Even the squirrels that run around the cottage before darting up a tree, fail to melt my heart, at least since the time when I used to grow strawberries. Of course, I was not naive enough to think they would be left undisturbed by local land-based or airborne marauders if unprotected and so they were carefully covered with netting. It was a good year for them and they were admired by friends visiting from the other side of the planet. Suddenly my friends called out to me.

”Don't get angry,” they said.

Angry? Why Should I get angry?

They were laughing.

I followed their gaze, and there was a squirrel, which had managed to lift up the netting though I fondly thought it was firmly secured, sitting on the ground, happily munching my plump red fruit!

Then there are badgers. I have admittedly only seen one on the property in the past year or so, but there used to be a whole family somewhere very close by. They would regularly come out for an evening stroll when it was getting dark, keeping to the edge of my place as though there was a public right of way there. Innocent enough, you might think, but given half a chance they would tip a dustbin over and spread everything in it around the landscape, something the fox must have learnt from, although I have never heard of him trying to get at anything so large and with a lid.

Most people visiting the island would rank the roedeer above the squirrels as the most attractive of the island fauna. They ooh and ah over them and think they are so graceful and pretty. Residents hate the sight of the them. Let them get anywhere near your vegetable garden and it's goodbye to all your hard work and epectations. In the growing season, when the island is full of the food that they can keep them in the pink of condition, they will nonetheless go for the little you have carefully nurtured and maintained against all the odds. And they won't just take a lettuce and be satisfied with that, but will go along a whole row and bite the tops off every one!

Towards the opposite end of the size scale are the much-despised slimy slugs. There are two varieties that set alarm bells ringing in these parts, the longer black 'forest slug' and the fearful brown invaders commonly known here as 'murder slugs'. Many are the tips that are bandied about for dealing with them. One that I have tried is to sink little pots of beer in the ground around the vegetable plot. Sure enough, no sooner had I done so than it became evident that the creatures will do anything to get some free booze. Their advance party must have spread the word far and wide and soon every slug on the island was heading in this direction!

Okay, many drowned in the drink, but their numbers are unlimited. Moreover, it didn't take long for assorted birds and beasts to discover there was good ale-marinated grub to be had in those sunken pots. I would come out in the morning and find they were no longer in the ground, but had been lifted up and tipped over to get at what was inside.

So what to do? Even with only the smallest horticultural aspirations, life is a perpetual battle against these voracious, heartless invaders – and I have hardly mentioned aerial bombardment by winged creatures of varying sizes, all with evil intent. I have but one card up my sleeve, one that I tried to a very limited extent very late in the season last year. I hesitate to speak too quickly, but a full-scale trial is due to begin in the spring.

Letter from my island

 

Letter from my island (in the Stockholm archipelago)

This morning, looking out at the snowy scene and noting how an overnight fall has completely covered the areas I cleared only yesterday, I saw the fox crawling underneath the cottage. He has become a regular, uninvited visitor. But should I not feel sorry for him? He wants shelter. He wants food. The trouble is, his visits invariably spell trouble.

There are no recycling bins on the island for plastic or metal, only for glass and newspapers – near the jetty, about one-and-a-half kilometres from here. To throw plastic and metal containers in the ordinary rubbish, which is collected every other week, would leave me with a bad conscience, especially with regard to plastic, so I collect them and wait for the recycling boat to come, which it does twice a year. I have been tying them up in refuse bags and leaving them on a trolley outside, ready to be wheeled away when the time comes. Hmm... It's no longer possible. The fox gets there first.

His sense of smell tells him immediately whether anything has contained food, regardless of there being traces left or not, and he will stop at nothing to get at it. I have placed a heavy log over a bag, but what use is that against one so skilful and sly. He will somehow get it, and although he may not be good at untying knots, will gnaw his way through the bag, drag it away and spread its contents far and wide. So now the bags are piling up in the tool shed, where he has little chance of reaching the bolt that keeps it closed.

Or has he? My nearest neighbour assures me he is by no means the only representative of his species on the island, so I suppose he could return with some of his friends and relations and stand on each other's backs. You may think it's very unlikely, but I have underestimated him before. And lived to regret it.

Alfred Nobel and his Prizes

It's that time of year again, when speculation is rife as to who will receive the prestigious, and lucrative, NobelPrizes, with acclaim or criticism from the media pundits and others once the winners are announced.

Whether Alfred Bernhard Nobel realised what a stir he would create, we cannot know. He was a man of great contrasts. A Swede born in Stockholm in 1833, he spent most of his life abroad. The inventor of dynamite and other explosives, he was even called a 'merchant of death', but aimed to promote world peace. A skilled chemist, he wrote poetry in both Swedish and English, and prose in other languages too. The son of a man who twice went bankrupt, he became one of the wealthiest people in the Western world.

His great wealth did not bring him happiness, however. He never married, suffered from loneliness and was in delicate health from childhood. Only in the last three years of his life did he have a home of his own in Sweden, where he had bought the Bofors (pr. ‘Boo-fosh’) armaments factory. He nevertheless died in the Italian resort town of San Remo on December 10 1896. And December 10 is the day on which the Nobel Prizes are ceremonially awarded each year, the Peace Prize in Oslo, the others at the Concert Hall in Stockholm.

His will was written in Swedish without legal guidance, which led to much delay in its implementation as it was disputed. It stipulated that the greater part of his estate should be invested and the income distributed annually in the form of prizes to those conferring the greatest benefit on mankind during the preceding year within the fields of physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature and what he called ‘brotherhood among nations’, but which we know as the Peace Prize.

Swedish institutions were to award the first four prizes: the Royal Academy of Sciences (physics and chemistry), Royal Caroline Institute (physiology or medicine) and the Swedish Academy (literature). The Peace Prize was to be awarded by a committee of the Norwegian Storting, or Parliament, as Norway was joined to Sweden in a union under the Swedish crown during Nobel's lifetime. A sixth award, the Economics Prize, was added in 1968 by the Bank of Sweden in his memory.

There is no doubt that Nobel had a great interest in each of the fields he mentioned. The Peace Prize is the one that is most intriguing. Nobel believed that when the great power of explosives was understood, nobody would use them for military purposes. He knew from personal experience what devastation they could cause. In 1864 the factory where he had been studying nitroglycerine was blown up killing everyone in it, including his 21-year-old brother Emil. Nevertheless, he maintained his factories could well put an end to wars sooner than all the peace congresses that were held.

He was also influenced by his friendship with the Austrian Baroness von Sutter, a pioneer in the peace movement. She was herself awarded the Peace Prize in 1905. But as with the Literature Prize, some of the laureates selected in Oslo, such as Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho in 1973, and Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat in 1978, have been highly controversial, while others generally considered to deserve the award, such as Mahatma Gandhi, have been unacknowledged. And when the first Literature Prize was awarded to Sully Proudhomme in 1901, Sweden's foremost author August Strindberg, who never received the prize, and more than forty other prominent Swedes wrote a letter of apology to Tolstoy.

The stipulation about conferring the greatest benefit on mankind in the preceding year has been more closely observed for the Peace Prize than for the others, with juries otherwise tending to look back at what candidates have achieved during their careers as a whole and not only in the very recent past.

Unexpected

It's not only in such dramatic circumstances as being stranded abroad and threatened by fire, that the unexpected can catch you unawares. Take what happened to me less than two months ago.

I had been feeling unwell for weeks and put it down to allergic reactions, poor sleep and anything else I could think of to explain it away. However, one of the closest neighbours on the island where I've spent almost all my time since returning to Sweden from enforced exile in California, is a retired district nurse and she and her husband finally persuaded me to see a doctor at the local medical centre, about a fifteen minute boat ride away. Which I did, taking with me my shopping trolley as you can't buy anything on the island and I badly needed to replenish my food supplies. I would go to the supermarket after my appointment. Hmm.

Tests were taken. The doctor looked at the results – and sent for an ambulance! I had a very high level of infection, an even higher level of inflammation and low blood counts. Ten minutes later I was on my way to the hospital, shopping trolley and all.

I'll say this, if you absolutely must go to the hospital A & E, it is much better to arrive in an ambulance than simply to walk in. Your status is definitely higher, though unless you are deemed to be in the most urgent need of attention it doesn't mean you will spend very much less time waiting for someone to come and decide what to do with you. But you won't have to lie among a herd of other poor souls seeking help. At least I didn't.

I arrived in the afternoon. Well after midnight I was wheeled to one of the wards, having first been covid-tested. Without a negative result you won't be placed among non-covid patients. Of course. At about one o'clock in the morning I was given something to eat and later moved into a room with one other person, blissfully snoring in his sleep. By two o'clock I was attempting to join him in slumberland and might just have succeeded an hour or so later when I felt someone groping for my arm, needle at the ready. To take blood. A couple of hours later, maybe less, it was the turn of a young lady wanting to record my blood pressure, temperature etc. “Have you had a good night's sleep?” she asked.

I tried to open my mouth, but words wouldn't come.

(To be continued)

Life has its Contrasts

 

What do you say to forty-four degrees of scorching heat and having to escape from one of California's wildfires, compared to staying in a small timber-built cottage on a tiny, at times ice-bound, island in the Stockholm archipelago – which is where I am now? The pandemic has certainly brought contrasts into my life.

The present problem does not involve checking air quality and the progress made by fire fighters, but keeping a careful eye on the thermometer to know when the taps are likely to dry-, or rather freeze-, up and there is no running water. That has already happened a number of times. A lesson I learned the first time was to fill up everything available as soon as the weather gods relented for a day or two and the taps started to drip, drip and eventually run again. For a while.

There are no municipal supplies on the island so everyone has to make their own arrangements, which inevitably means having a well drilled deep into the post-glacial stone-strewn ground. Mine goes down about forty-five metres, which is far below the frost-free level, but the water has to come up to the surface. I have installed a small heater in the space below the cottage where it comes in, but the weak link is between that and the well outside. Of course, I should have made sure it was sufficiently well insulated long ago, but as I never envisaged staying here in the depths of winter, I never bothered.

But going without running water is by no means the only hazard to be aware of. There can be storm winds at this time of the year, and with them the likelihood of a power failure, like the one that occurred a couple of weeks ago, leaving the indoor warmth to fall alarmingly in the direction of the sub-zero temperatures outside. Fortunately, I was rescued by my kind neighbours, who invited me to sit in front of the efficient wood-fired appliance that spreads its warm glow around their place.

Then stepping outside also has its dangers as there are patches of smooth ice to look out for, sometimes artfully concealed by a thin layer of snow – like the one I fell over on with a nasty bump more than a week ago. It still hurts!

My covid story - expect the unexpected

 

My story begins with a scheduled three-week visit to family members in California. That was early in March last year, 2020. Countless flight cancellations, travel restrictions and ESTA extensions later, instead of being six thousand miles away, I was still there. But life for me was not to be a simple matter of seldom venturing beyond the front door, mask-wearing and social distancing whenever I did step outside, thoroughly washing hands and ordering supplies on line for delivery. Much more drama lay in store.

It began with a heatwave. Where the family live, the temperature rose to thirty-five degrees Celsius, followed by highs of thirty-eight and a couple of days with a scorching forty-two, which is a little over one-hundred-and-seven on the Fahrenheit scale. Then came a prolonged night-time thunderstorm, with not a drop of rain but countless lightning strikes that ignited the tinder-dry terrain. Many of the innumerable small fires soon merged to form large conflagrations spreading their ugly flames and fumes to threaten everything and everyone in sight. And well beyond.

By the morning, grey ash was raining down on us through the increasingly acrid air. An official warning was issued: Be prepared to evacuate! To think, I had come for a short stay, yet here I was five months later, marooned by the pandemic and now, along with everyone else for many miles around, menaced by one of those fearful fires.

What to do? We decided to pack what we could and head initially, the next day, to an in-law's place some fifty miles away. Social distancing within the extended family circle would have to go by the board. “Take only what is of value to you,” the kids were told. “Provided it isn't too bulky.” They silently set about their task. They had seen the ash and smelt the smoke. And were old enough to understand the seriousness of the situation. An uncomfortable, nervous night awaited.

The situation was yet more ominous by the time we finally departed, well aware that the family could have seen the last of their house and home with all but the few belongings we were taking with us. The children were duly deposited with the in-laws while we went to check on somewhere to stay. We were very fortunate. Many evacuees were forced to rely on emergency arrangements made by local authorities or organisations, with covid complicating every step of the way. In our case, a relation of the in-laws had a temporarily empty apartment we could use, not far from San Francisco airport.

We went there, left our things – then drove all the way back to the fire-threatened house to rescue what else we could. The pungent air, thick and tinged with an orange glow, was painful to breathe. Out came our face masks. The virus was not now the only menace to keep at bay. Inside, items were quickly collected, including clothes and food from fridge, freezer and cupboards. And this time, before we left, a mandatory order to vacate was in force. Incredibly, we later learned that some people refused to go and had to be removed. Perhaps they had an exaggerated belief in their ability to protect their property, not only from fire, but the possibility of looters breaking into homes when it was guaranteed that nobody was there. All roads into the area were then closed.

We collected the kids and went back to our small temporary refuge, which we arranged as comfortably as we could. From there we were able to follow the fight against the flames. Press conferences and fire-fighters' briefings from the command and control centre set up in the local park just a few hundred metres from the family's home, were relayed online. We also continually checked air quality on the Purple Air site. Single figures were best, but anything under fifty on the scale used was still shown as acceptable. Where we had come from it was well over four hundred.

But even in our new location the air could be far from good. All depended on the winds, as pollution from other fires, and there were many of them, could easily drift in our direction. It was infinitely better, however, than what we had left behind. Nevertheless, we seldom ventured out during our enforced exile. When we did, we drove to a coastal area for an afternoon or evening walk in air that was indeed fresher, with mask-wearing and keeping a safe distance from other people still the golden rule.

We remained refugees for more than a week. By then the fire – ‘our’ fire – was sufficiently contained for us to be allowed back. It had destroyed more than nine hundred homes in a part of the state not normally afflicted by the notorious wildfires. But in 2020 they were more widespread, numerous and intense than ever, the weather more extreme. At the height of the emergency, the governor urged people who didn't believe in climate change and global warming to come to California. Well, for my part, I was already a firm believer and thanks – or no thanks – to covid, was already there.

However, the immediate area around where the family live was now considered safe. At most, two thousand four hundred people had been battling the blaze, ringing it in, back-burning, denying it fresh fuel. When weather permitted, which wasn't always, helicopters and a fixed-wing aircraft joined the fray, dousing from above. When we walked past the park now that we were back, we could see long lines of vehicles marked ‘mobile sleeping trailer’ or ‘mobile shower trailer’ drawn up on the grass. Members of the national guard had joined the fray which, though being slowly won, was by no means over.

Neither was the heat, which briefly rose to an unbearable forty-four degrees, a little more than a hundred-and-eleven Fahrenheit.

In the subsequent months, despite more heat, if nothing like as great as before; rainstorms threatening flash floods, rock- or mudslides; high winds bringing down power lines, leading to outages and starting yet more fires, though they were quickly dealt with; and a four-point-four quake that sent the children under the dining-room table fearing worse was to come (they had been taught what to do at school); we didn't need to abandon ship and seek refuge elsewhere, though by no means everyone in that neck of the woods could say the same.

If there is one thing the pandemic taught me it is that you never can tell if or when you may be caught up in life's great dramas. Suddenly to find myself part of catastrophic events I had only heard or read about, or seen on television from afar, has made me realise there are times and places where you can expect the unexpected.

As a covid castaway, I had found myself in such a place, at such a time.

Sweden in the first world war

 

Sweden in the First World War

War memorials are hard to come by in Sweden as it is more than two centuries since the country last went into battle. That was in 1814, to force an unwanted union under the Swedish crown on neighbouring Norway. Since then, apart from supplying peace-keeping troops to the United Nations, it has managed to keep on the sidelines of the various armed conflicts that have afflicted Europe and the world.

Like its Scandinavian neighbours Denmark and Norway, Sweden declared its neutrality at the outbreak of the first world war. But it was profoundly affected by the embargoes and blockades imposed by the warring parties, although it continued to trade with both sides. Two hundred and eighty Swedish merchant ships were lost, with the death of nearly eight hundred crew members, and the country's territorial waters were repeated violated. Unemployment and food shortages, compounded by failure of the harvest in 1916, led to considerable social unrest, giving rise to hunger marches and demands for social reform that resulted in greater democracy when the war was over.

Public opinion in Sweden as well as sentiment among officers in the armed forces and in the Royal family, was largely sympathetic to the German side. An official ban on the export of armaments was circumvented and Swedish foreign policy has been described as 'far from neutral'.

There was one instance when Sweden did take military action and that was in the Åland Islands after the Russian revolution and civil war. The islands, with their largely Swedish-speaking population, were part of Finland, which Sweden had lost to Tsarist Russia in 1809. They were briefly occupied by Swedish forces, but withdrawal followed protests from Finland, which declared its independence in 1918.

As a non-combatant, Sweden took no part in drawing up the Treaty of Versailles, but joined the League of Nations in January 1920.

Adapted from What You Should Know About Sweden

https://stanleybloom/weebly.com

Letter to my book club

Letter to the Bookworms book club in Stockholm prior to a discussion of Steven Hawking's A Brief History of time:

Greetings one and all from afar.

I wonder whether you know in which country people read the most? According to an annual survey of reading and literacy, the list is topped by India, with an average of 10.42 hours per person spent reading each week, which is surprising considering so many of its 1.3 billion people live below the poverty line and literacy is probably far from universal. (In the world as a whole, only 86 per cent are said to be literate - 90% for boys, 83% for girls. By comparison, a hundred years ago only 12% could read and write.)

In second place is Thailand with a weekly average of 9.24 hours, while China is third with eight hours. Sweden comes in seventh with 7.06 hours. How these statistics are compiled, I've no idea. China is the country which publishes most books, a staggering 440,000 in a year, but I haven't seen anything to indicate what kind of books they are. One-third of all books published in the world, however, are in the ‘romance genre’, (which the Bookworms have been mercifully spared from.) The average age of people who read ‘romance’ books is 42. The vast majority are women; 16% are men.

The second most prolific book-publishing nation is the United States, with 304,912 in the past year. The UK comes third with 184,000. One table is topped by the Swedes. It is headed ‘News Junkies’. 85% of the population are said to read the news more than once a day. Again, what kind of ‘news’ is not specified. I trust that Facebook pages and Twitter feeds are not included.

Finally, let us all take comfort from the list of benefits claimed for reading. They include reducing stress levels, developing stronger analytical skills, improving memory and concentration, reducing the likelihood of certain diseases, expanding your vocabulary and improving you writing skills. So read away!

Which brings me to Steven Hawking and his Brief History, in trying to read which most of the benefits I am supposed to gain suddenly evaporated. Unable to concentrate on such a vast amount of information for more than half a chapter at a time, unable to remember much of what had come previously (as one who has not studied physics), increasingly stressed as my appalling ignorance became clearer with every page, I eventually gave up for the time being, but have promised myself I will return and try to read at least half a chapter a week, (or perhaps a month), as soon as I have recovered sufficiently to do so.

As so often, however, a majority of the online reviewers are much more at home with the book than I am, but then very many of them are extremely familiar with the subject and at least one of those I have seen admits to being a physics Ph.D. When I looked, both the Amazon US and UK sites had 186 virtually identical ‘global’ reviews with an average rating of 4.7. Goodreads, which counts ratings and reviews separately, had 307,896 ratings and 9,029 reviews.

“Purchased for my son for his birthday,” writes one of the 5-star people. “He is a physics fanatic, and although Stephen Hawking is not his favourite scientist, I figured every budding scientist should have read A Brief History in Time.” Unfortunately, I have never been a budding scientist. “Isn't it amazing,” writes another reviewer, “that a person can read a book like A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking and come away feeling both smarter and dumber than before he started?” Where I am concerned, it is definitely not both, just dumber.

“It’s quite short and generally a quick read,” writes a third member of the 5-star brigade. Quick for him maybe, but not the likes of me. “Not every page is filled with mind-blowing/numbing theories and brain-busting equations,” he continues. “Some of it is just history, say on Newton and such. However, there were a few pages worth of passages where my wee brain felt like it was getting sucked into a black hole...mainly during the black hole segment.” I would unfortunately have to replace the words ‘a few...’ with ‘many if not most’.

To put me further to shame someone else states, “This is an absolutely magical book, both objectively and for me specifically. I first read it when I was about 9 or 10.” That was from the gentleman with a Ph.D in physics. I was puzzled by this person though when he wrote, “It's such a concise, understandable introduction to the field that I’m determined to get my girlfriend (a linguist with no real interest in physics) to read it. Not just because I think she’ll understand it, but because I think she will enjoy it!” Can you really enjoy something like that without understanding it?

Come down to the 3-star level and here is someone I can agree with. “...at times it is very clear that the reader needs a certain level of knowledge to understand what he’s talking about. As such, Hawking makes certain assumptions as he shifts from concept to concept which left me a little confused.” And another 3-star reviewer writes, “Stephen Hawking’s book is easy to read, but harder to comprehend. In every chapter came a point where my brain couldn’t hold another permutation of a theory...” Easy to read, but harder to comprehend?

A two-star person wrote, “I probably understood half of what I read, which I’m happy with. If I could fully grasp the whole book I’d probably have a better job and be much richer.”

Someone else pointed out that the book tops the list of ‘bought but not read’.

Now that I can fully understand.

Happy Zooming.

Stanley

Wildfires

It started with a Californian heatwave. Where I was, the temperature rose to thirty-five degrees Celsius, followed by highs of thirty-eight and a couple of days with a scorching forty-two! Then came a prolonged night-time thunderstorm, with countless lightning strikes igniting the tinder-dry vegetation. Many of the innumerable small fires soon merged to form large conflagrations spreading their ugly fumes and flames to threaten everything and everyone in surrounding areas.

By the morning, ash was raining down on us through the increasingly acrid air. An official warning went out: Be prepared to evacuate! To think, I had come for a short family visit in March, yet here I was five months later, marooned by the pandemic and now, along with everyone else, threatened by fire.

What to do? We decided to pack what we could and head initially, the next day, to an in-law's place some fifty miles away. “Take only what is of value to you,” the kids were told. “Provided into doesn't take much room.”

The situation has growing ever more ominous by the time we finally departed, well aware that the family could have seen the last of their house and home with all but the few belongings we were taking with us. The children were deposited with the in-laws while we went to check on somewhere to stay. We were fortunate. Many people had nowhere to go and had to rely on emergency arrangements made by local authorities or organisations, everything complicated by the need for social distancing. In our case, a relation of the in-laws had a temporarily empty flat we could use not far from San Francisco airport. We went there, left some things – then drove back to the fire-threatened house to rescue what else we could. The air, thick and tinged with an orange glow, was painful to breathe. Inside, items were quickly collected, including clothes and food from fridge, freezer and cupboards. This time, before we had left a mandatory order to get out had been issued. Incredibly, we later learned that some people refused to go and had to be forcibly removed. All roads into the area were then closed.

We collected the kids and arranged our temporary refuge as comfortably as we could. From there we were able to follow the fight against the flames. Press conferences and fire-fighters' briefings from the command and control centre set up in the local park just a few hundred metres from the family's home, were shown online. We also continually checked air quality on the Purple Air site. Single figures were best, but anything under fifty on the scale used was still shown as acceptable. Where we had come from it was well over four hundred.

But even in our new location the air wasn't always good. All depended on the winds, as pollution from other fires, and there were many of them, could easily drift in our direction. Compared to what we had left behind, however, it was fine. And three times we drove to a coastal area where the air was fresher, for an evening walk.

We remained refugees for eight days. By then the fire – 'our' fire – was sufficiently contained for us to be allowed back. It had destroyed more than nine hundred homes, but our area was now considered safe. At most, two thousand four hundred people had been fighting the flames, ringing them in, denying them fresh fuel. Weather permitting, helicopters and a fixed-wing plane joined the battle. When we walked past the park now we could see dozens of long vans marked 'mobile sleeping trailer' or 'mobile shower trailer' drawn up on the grass. The fight, though being steadily won, was not yet over.

Watch Your Words

 Once upon a time, English – Old English that is – had lots of inflections, those little word endings that alter depending on number, gender and grammatical function. If you are a native speaker of the language you have probably never wondered over the fact that English adjectives never change, for example. Thus you can have a green light or a thousand green lights, the word green remains the same. It wouldn't in most other languages.

With few exceptions, the only change to nouns is the addition of an s in the plural. And there is only one gender. But in Old English woman, quean and wife, for instance, were masculine, feminine and neuter respectively! Foot was masculine, hand feminine and eye neuter and words that agreed with them had to be adjusted accordingly. Such complications you do not have to think about today.

But, there is one big, potentially puzzling, or sometimes hilarious, drawback. When almost all the inflections have disappeared, you have to watch out for your word order. Get them the wrong way round – and who doesn't at times? – and you can cause confusion, or laughter. How about this quoted in the BBC Radio 4 News Quizz comedy programme. It was taken from a parish magazine somewhere in England:

Join us on the 2^nd and 4^th of the month for Brexit with hot sausages aimed at children under 10 years old.

Or this, seen at an English launderette (US laundromat):

Automatic washing machines: please remove all your clothes when the light goes out.

Or this:

The painting went to the elderly gentleman with the heavy gilt frame.

So watch your words. Or where you place them.

Adapted from How To Write Much Better English.

https://stanleybloom.weebly.com

My Life in Houses

 

My Life in Houses by Margaret Forster

This a book club choice. If you thoroughly enjoy one detailed description of rooms and houses after another, it is definitely something for you. But for someone who isn't at all enthralled by a continual succession of such accounts, the question in my mind from the start was what on earth can there be to sustain interest?

I could find very little. A touch of humour would have helped. Nay, an outsize overdose of it. But this is straight-faced, straight-laced writing. Some greater insight into climbing up the socio-economic ladder from a rented home on a working-class council estate in Carlisle to owning a large house in London, a weekend cottage in the Lake District and a holiday home in Portugal all at the same time, might have helped. Alas, there was little of that either. Even the autobiographical background is minimal and also very sketchy. For example, Forster suddenly reveals that she got married from one of her homes and out of nowhere we learn she has a husband, not a word about him having previously been mentioned. And like her parents and children, he remains a shadowy figure. There tends to be more detail about wallpaper than her family. And as I was not waiting with baited breath to discover whether there would be a sitting tenant in the next abode or noisy neighbours, I can only label the book – for me – a colossal bore. Moreover, it adds insult to injury in exceeding its proclaimed mandate by describing houses other people lived in (Elizabeth Barret Browning and Daphne du Maurier) in addition to Forster's own.

I fear this made me maliciously hope she would discover all her dwellings were suffering from untreatable dry rot, woodworm, leaking roofs, ditto drains, flooding and severe subsidence, while a horde of the most obnoxious sitting tenants, who had been temporarily absent and whom she didn't previously know about, suddenly turn up to claim their right of abode. Plus that the neighbours on either side and at the back are the loudest and most abusive people on the planet. It might have injected some spark of life into the book. At best, I thought it could have made a series of articles in a House & Home-type magazine.

The others in the group may well have had very different views. In my exile, I still don't know, although the meeting at which it was to be discussed has been held. Most of the online reviewers would certainly disagree with me – but then a large percentage of them proclaim themselves to be Forster admirers on the basis of her other books. When I looked, both the UK and US Amazon sites had 150-odd 'global' reviews, i.e. they were substantially the same, and both had an average rating of 4.6 (!). GoodReads had 76 reviews and 605 ratings, with an average score of 3.9.

https:stanleybloom.weebly.com

https://www.slideshare.net/StanleyBloom/about-swedenpptx

Swedish cooking - 1

The first Swedish cookery book was published in 1650, but a couple of hundred years went by before such books were in anything like common use. A very popular volume containing some three thousand recipes and much else, was published in 1878-79 by a Stockholm doctor called Charles Emil Hagdahl. Naturally, he had an interest in food’s healing qualities. Thus he stated that lettuce was found to have such a cooling effect on burning amorous feelings in medieval times that nuns at a particular convent were advised to eat lots of it. However, he realised people had been consuming it for hundreds of years without curing the complaint and was uncertain whether love had grown stronger or lettuce weaker.

From: What You Should Know About Sweden

https://stanleybloom.weebly.com

Frankie and Stankie

 

Some thoughts on Trapido's book: I came to it expecting to read an illuminating tale of life in apartheid South Africa and was greatly disappointed as this aspect, although undoubtedly there to some degree, is completely overwhelmed by so much else. I could certainly have done without most of the little girlie with her favourite doll or dolls stuff and the endless, schoolgirl ramblings around best friends, teachers, their pets and clothes etc. etc. The more it went on, and on, the more it made each Kindle page cry out “Time to abandon ship and spend time on something more rewarding.”

The book is as clearly autobiographical as anything I have read that claims to be something else. But it is also in some part a family history, with largely irrelevant details about all the German relatives, who then disappear off stage, plus a potted history of the country after the arrival of Europeans, but especially in the apartheid era. Add the parts together and what do you get? Definitely not a coherent whole. Whatever it is, it's nothing I would call a novel.

If there is no plot – and there is no plot – the writing must sparkle enough to maintain interest. The author has indeed been praised at times for her fine prose. Hmmm. Well, I found little to admire about her way with words in general, whereas for me at any rate, there were some severe lapses that made my tummy complain. When I read about men who had to bend their heads in order to “affect an entry”, that “nobody else can take its sequence on board”, that “her mum will have an absolute fit” (what are absolute and non-absolute fits and is there something between?), and when “cranial undulations” came along to crown it all, there was not only a severe disturbance to my literary digestion, but my poor innocent Kindle was placed in grave danger of being tossed into the Californian wildfires. After that, though, I could almost have forgiven the second sentence in Chapter eight for being sixty-two words long. Almost.

https://stanleybloom.weebly.com

Surprise, surprise

 

A family visit to loved ones who live six thousand miles away, isn't for an afternoon, a day or a weekend. So when I arrived early in March it was for a three-week stay. More than six months later I'm still with them. Unable to forecast the future, I hadn't reckoned on a pandemic leaving me marooned. And even months into my prolonged presence here, I didn't dream that I, and they, would become evacuees, with ash falling from the sky and wildfires breathing their foul breath upon us. But then they say life is full of surprises. Unfortunately, not all of them are pleasant.

https:stanleybloom.weebly.com

Stranded

I came to visit my nearest and dearest early in March. Nearly three months and repeated flight cancellations later, here I am still. At the same time, my 90-day maximum ESTA allowance for staying in the country without a visa, is almost over. So what happens now? Who knows? The authority in charge of these matters says it will be in touch within 24-48 hours.

 

https://stanleybloom.weebly.com

Dismal Reading

A 432-page dystopia would not be my preferred reading at any time let alone in these dire days. But that is what members of the book club chose at their last (online) meeting, for discussion next time. Owing to the 9-hour difference between Stockholm and the location where I am stranded, I had no say in the matter. But the next meeting is due to take place two hours later, to accommodate me.

Thus I have been struggling to get through at least a substantial part of the work, reading reluctantly in fits and starts and escaping for relief after each chapter to anything from Sherlock Homes (I hadn't read all the tales) and The Three Musketeers (I hadn't read that either) to books on photography, publishing and making soup, (all downloaded free of charge from you-know-where.) Almost to my own surprise, the one that has intrigued me most, as it would seem to contradict my distaste for the dismal, is Daniel Defoe's Journal of the Plague Year 1665.

Those were very different times when it comes to medical knowledge and resources. And there was no means of rapidly transporting people from one country and continent to another, taking the disease with them. Yet there are some remarkable similarities with the present situation. Despite all the advances of the past three-to-four centuries, knowledge of the current affliction and how to cure or prevent it is woefully weak. Then as now, there were the unscrupulous, quick to take advantage of our ignorance and fears, nowadays with a surge in cyber fraud, at that time by going around offering to sell wonder potions that were either useless or dangerous.

Then, although transport may have been very different in 1665, the first two cases Defoe mentions were Frenchmen in London. Moreover, many of the wealthier citizens left the city for the countryside, thus spreading the disease to rural areas that might have remained free of it. And while surrounding boroughs recorded alarming increases in the number of fatalities, the City of London suffered much less owing to draconian measures announced by the Lord Mayor, something of an equivalent to the lock-down of our day but very much harsher, with imprisonment for anyone who did not comply.

To some extent the measures were counter-productive as nobody was allowed to enter or leave a house where someone had contracted the disease. Such a house was watched night and day. It meant that others in the household who might have escaped the illness were condemned to stay where they were most likely to get it and according to Defoe, many died as a result.

Not pleasant reading, yet I turn to it in preference to Atwood's fictional Gilead, which I have now finally decided to abandon.

 

https://stanleybloom.weebly.com

Can there be beneficial Corona effects?

Could some benefits nevertheless result from the deadly virus? For instance, could many employers and employees realise there can be certain advantages in working from home when and where possible? At least part of the time. Can it be that many people are more efficient when spared the hassle of getting to and from work and the distractions of the office?

This would mean fewer vehicles on the roads. There is certainly far less traffic right now. This must mean fewer accidents, fewer people killed or injured, less pressure from this source on the hard-pressed health services, cleaner air for this reason and because so few planes are flying – with further health benefits, greatly reduced dependence on imported fossil fuel, benefiting both the economy and the climate. Could the deadly virus be saving some lives as well as taking so many?

Then what effect can being confined to the home be having? Could it lead to a lasting growth in distance learning, food deliveries, the birth rate, perhaps even the divorce rate? Some industries could continue to benefit greatly, while others decline. The possible ramifications are many and varied and worth thinking about in these gloomy days.

Thoughts from someone stranded far from home

https://stanleybloom.weebly.com

Letter from London to the Bookworms Book Club in Stockholm

Letter to the Stockholm Bookworms prior to a meeting to discuss the much-hyped 'Normal People' by Salley Rooney.

Greetings from London,

I couldn't resist sacrificing some valuable shopping time to have a brief word about this book. It is definitely not my cup of carrot juice. I had difficulty getting beyond the first few chapters. Had I picked it up in a bookshop to read a little before making a decision, it would have gone back on its shelf double quick. Apart from finding the present tense uncalled for and difficult to get used to, I kept coming across expressions like, “It's a face like a piece of technology.” Can someone explain what “a piece of technology” is and what such a human face really looks like

 

Before long there was: “She was attuned to his body in a microscopic way.” What, may I ask, is that supposed to mean? And then: “Their secret weighed inside her body...pressing down on her pelvic bones.” After that, I'd had enough as the writing was beginning to press down not only on other vital parts of my anatomy but all my senses.

An Amazon 1-star reviewer gives some more Rooneyisms, like: “He's wholesome like a big baby tooth.” And: “The heat beats down on the back of Connell's neck like the feeling of human eyes staring.” And so it goes on. And on. Book of the year? For me, how this gibberish got into print remains one of the mysteries of the year. At the very least, the publisher's editor should be arrested and put on trial charged with gross negligence, causing untold harm to perfectly innocent and unsuspecting readers duped by the hype.

Yet on both the British and US Amazon sites, 44% of those rating the book gave it a 5, although no fewer than 24% of the UK reviewers were lone-star people and some of those would have given it a very round nought if that were possible. Nevertheless, let's let the admirers (I suspect that Rooney has a very large extended family) have their say.

“I loved this book, I couldn't put it down,” writes one (her mother?). “I felt a strong connection with all the characters, it explores human relations at it's best and worst... This is one of those books that will stay with me and I can't wait for what Sally Rooney (my daughter?) comes up with next!”( Hmmm.)

“I cried a little and found it moving,” writes someone else. “It was an easy read, which was a pleasant welcome after some stuff I have read recently.”

Here's another member of the fan club: “Rooney has a real talent in making you care about these characters and what happens to them, as well as subtly explaining the reasons for their seemingly unexpected and usually misguided actions and decisions... I cannot recommend this book highly enough...”

Contrast those remarks with these from the opposite end of the scale:

“I absolutely hated this book and hated that it sucked hours of my life reading it. I kept hoping it would get better but it just droned on. If this is what millennial writers have to offer, I will begin re-reading the classics or authors from previous generations who knew how to write. Ugh. Horrible.”

“If I could have given this book no stars I would have! It was so dull, boring, badly written and irritating! I had no empathy with any of the characters. I can't believe the comments on the cover are actually about this book!”

“Quite the most inane and intensely annoying book I have ever read.No cliche is left in the bag,the main characters are self absorbed bores,stuff just stupidly happens to enable the damn thing to keep moving forward until the inevitable ending is crowbarred in.”

“Worthless. I wish I could delete the mental pain caused by "this thing", but it is too late now that I've read it. There was no space in the household waste for it, and Bonfire night is too far away, so I have recycled it.”

And there's lots more in the same vein, on both sides. I don't think I've ever found a book with opinions about it so polarised 

My advice is beware of people with heat-ray eyes breathing down your neck, and above allt, take good care of those pelvic bones.

Love to all,

Stanley

http://stanleybloom.weebly.com