Making light work

Posted on July 12, 2026 by Gary

Mirinda is enjoying her side trip to Aarhus, although she had to get up at 02:30 today in order to visit As Seen Below – The Dome, a Skyspace by James Turrell. It is similar to the Skyspace we experienced at Ytterjärna last September with Sally and Kate. That was the one at sunset and Mirinda has been saying we should attend one at the other end of the day. Then, quite coincidentally, after she announced her intention to visit Aarhus, I heard a report on the new Skyspace opening in the art gallery there while listening to The Week in Art podcast.

Anyway, she set her alarm for sparrow’s fart and tried to sleep. This proved impossible. It was like when you have an important meeting or exam the next day and you lie in fear of not waking up and missing it. Your mind loses all trust in your alarm waking you up no matter how many you set. A bit like Jean-Paul missing the Olympics Marathon.

Still, she was up and out of the hotel in time to walk across the road and start the search for the correct entrance. This was not as simple as you’d expect. She began under the elevated walkway, as per instructions, only to discover that there was another elevated walkway around the other side of the gallery.

She reached the proper entrance by scrambling up and down, under and over, various walls and gullies. It sounded like she was navigating an obstacle race.

Eventually she found the entrance and had a serious chat with the guy on the door, suggesting some signage at the very least. It was all good-natured enough, but that was probably because she was pretty tired.

The experience though was well worth the hassle.

The Aarhus Skyspace is huge. Mirinda reckons it would seat about 160 people. It is also very echoey, with every small sound repeated around the circular structure. And it was amazing, she said. Watching the light change and seeing insects, birds and people moving to the centre of the space to lie directly under the hole in the ceiling.

An all-round fantastic experience, after which she returned to the hotel to get some more sleep to add to the paltry sum she’d had before going.

Sometime later in the day, she woke up refreshed and headed back to the museum to visit the rest of it.

Aarhus Art Museum, or ARoS for short, has a big rainbow doughnut on top of the roof. Mirinda walked around a bit of it, viewing the city through various panels of coloured glass. She also visited some modern art from the 1960’s which she was less than complimentary about. She sounded just like her father when she described it to me.

Late in the day, she discovered that her train back to Copenhagen was going to be the subject of rail maintenance and would be incredibly disrupted and delayed and everything bad about train travel. She decided to have another day in Aarhus and catch a bus and ferry back instead.

Here, in Trosa, things were very quiet and easy. The girls enjoyed their walk and I enjoyed a relax.

There’s no football until Tuesday so Nicoline can keep reading.

Except that’s the end of this post so she has now finished.

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Walking in the woods

Posted on July 11, 2026 by Gary

Today, rather than take the girls along the track to the ski slope, I headed up the track and into the woods. I figured Freya would enjoy the change of scene and terrain. And I think she did. She kept up with us, a few times walking in front and, generally walking with her tail held high. This was in stark contrast to how she was when she woke up.

The thing is, I give her half a tiny pill every two days and the mornings after the days she doesn’t have half a tiny pill, she wakes up very slowly and is wobbly on her legs. Yesterday was a not a tiny pill day so this morning she was wobbly.

Still, she had her half a tiny pill at lunchtime today and started to get better so, when we went up into the woods, she was pretty much normal.

We only saw one other person, a woman picking blueberries.

The day was quite warm today so we stuck to shady paths and didn’t spend a lot of time sitting on the deck. Though, later in the day, when the sun had shifted to the front of the house, I did manage to sit outside for Reading Hour.

Speaking of which, I recently finished a couple of my five books and have started some new ones. One of them is Hiding in Plain Sight: The Invention of Donald Trump and the Erosion of America by Sarah Kendzior. I have only read the introduction, but already I’m engrossed. Kendzior writes really well and she refuses to pull any punches.

Already I feel like I want to read her other stuff as soon as I’ve finished this one.

It was published in 2020 so it’s about his first term rather than the awful second one. Maybe she’ll write a follow-up. She could call it No Need for Hiding, perhaps.

Speaking of King Odious, I heard a speech given by Bill Clinton today regarding the reflecting pool debacle. Here it is, in case of interest. It’s 26 minutes of everything that is wrong with the USA.

How on earth the American voting public can justify Trump’s actions re giving taxes to corporations just because they did him a favour, is beyond me. Let alone blaming ordinary citizens for things they didn’t do.

Anyway, that’s more than enough of that upsetting stuff. Well, apart from saying how disappointed I am with Harry Kane, the England striker who I was looking forward to watching play tonight. I saw a press conference where he said he played a round of golf with Trump a few years ago.

He justified it by saying “When the President of the United States invites you to play golf, what can you do?” You say no, I said to my laptop. Apart from having little pride in the company you keep, you will be seen as condoning his actions. When you are a public figure, you need to be careful with whom you associate. The stink of corruption will stick to you like leprosy. You may also lose a few fans.

Mind you, he went to Qatar for the last FIFA World Cup so he doesn’t really care about the company he keeps.

Anyway, that’s a nice little segue into the big Quarter Final tonight: England v Norway.

Nicoline can stop reading now

And what an exciting and evenly matched game it was. It was almost as if every action by one team was negated by the other in equal measure. It was electric, end to end stuff. And I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Possibly my favourite bit of the game was after Jude Bellingham scored for England just at the beginning of extra time. Thousands of fans (maybe tens of thousands) all erupted into a thunderous rendition of the Beatles’ song Hey Jude. It was a beautiful moment.

The weather was a big talking point in Miami today with predictions in the high 30’s. But that did not deter the Three Lions who valiantly cheered, jumped about and generally sweated for the cause.

There were attempts on goal at both ends, each attempt either skied or saved. It was all exciting enough to stop me dozing off as the time eased into tomorrow.

England scored first then Norway quickly equalised.

There was everything in the game but a sending off. A penalty was awarded then taken away when VAR determined that an England player had not been brought down in the box but, rather, he had wrapped his leg around that of a defender, bringing them both down.

It was a splendid use of technology which prevented, what would have been, a terrible injustice. The English player was blatantly looking for a penalty when he could easily have remained standing and attempted to score on his feet.

I should also mention that Harry Kane was almost responsible for the Norwegian goal. He fell over in the centre of the pitch, grasping his seemingly devastatingly crushed ankle while Norway took the ball forward and scored.

Who knows if Kane could have prevented the goal if he had somehow bravely remained on his feet but I’m sure his absence from the action could not have helped.

Anyway, with the score level, extra time was played and, as I said, Bellingham scored. The English fans went mad and the Norwegians were shocked into a stunned silence.

Shortly after the above photo was taken, the ref blew his whistle for full-time and I went to bed while Argentina and Switzerland warmed up for their quarter-final game. Argentina won and will now face England in the semi-final on Wednesday.

A great night’s football.

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Not a disaster

Posted on July 10, 2026 by Gary

I spotted this on reddit today in a discussion about how downfallen the US is now. I thought it followed on nicely, but, presumably without knowledge, from The Goliath Curse. Of course, subsequent posts were all about what an idiot this poster was and how America is the greatest country of all time. Of course, the rebuttals were posted by Americans.

The first time I visited the US, I was shocked by how much of it felt run-down. The poor building quality, lack of cleanliness, homelessness, and random rude or aggressive people on the streets were not what I expected.

I wasn’t even staying in the worst areas. I was living in between middle and upper-class places. And I’m talking about my experiences from multiple trips, across multiple states and cities.

Growing up in Sweden we get fed this illusion (via movies/tv etc) that US is this paradise country, land of dreams etc. It was shocking to learn the truth was the completely opposite of this.

Yes, there are incredibly wealthy, beautiful, and luxurious parts too, but they’re a minority. The shocking thing was the sheer amount of bad parts. And the range. The contrast between the best and worst areas is insane.

It made me appreciate Sweden much more, especially the fact that the everyday baseline is so consistently high.

The US is only a better country than most western European countries if you are filthy rich. For an average person or below, you got dealt a shitty hand in life if you were born in the US and not Western Europe/Scandinavia.

Obviously, this was downvoted a lot, but it is important to note that the majority of reddit users are from the US. Unfortunately, I cannot link to the thread because the moderators deleted the whole thing. Probably because it started off discussing the World Cup and wound up going way off track in attacking then defending America.

Here, at home, not a lot was happening. I had to take a few photos but, otherwise, my day was spent doing housework. And a bit of admin. All very dull.

Of course, our lunchtime walk was a bit of a release from the mundane. And Freya enjoyed it especially. She still needs a bit of encouragement to leave the deck and head for the blue gate but, eventually, she is as eager as Emma to head up to the track. Today was no exception.

The woods looked lovely under the sun and light breeze. And, apart from a lone jogger, we saw no-one.

The lovely walking weather however did not last. Shortly after we got back to the house, the heavens opened up, and the rain fell in huge drops. This was a tad annoying as I had just set things up to photograph the deck and had to quickly reverse everything – cushions back in the house, kind of thing.

Not a disaster, just an annoyance.

Oh, and Ann Widdecombe died today aged 78. A great defender of Brexit, competitor on Strictly Come Dancing, Tory politician and super conservative believer in the Christian god. I’m pretty certain I will not miss her views, her voice or her politics.

I do wonder, however, how she felt just before her lights went out when she realised the truth about her non-existent god.

I read about her death early in the morning. By the end of the day, police were investigating her death as suspicious.

But, of course, the big event was the World Cup game between Spain and Belgium.

Nicoline can stop reading now

Spain is one of the favourites to win this World Cup and it’s not hard to see why. They play some incredibly sexy football that results in some serious attempts at goals. I was surprised they hadn’t scored at least ten by half-time. But then, there was the Belgian defence to contend with.

Time and time again, the Spanish were repulsed by the solid wall provided by the Belgian back line. It was frustrating for the Spanish team but very exciting for the viewers.

Then, a moment of fast paced passing and the ball was buried in the back of the net. Spain were ahead and Belgian hearts sank. But not for long. At around the 40-minute mark, Belgium levelled the score and the teams went in at half-time with all things back to square at 1-1.

The second half saw things the same as the two teams battled it out for possession. The game was pretty free flowing though Spain had the majority of the possession.

Something I don’t get though is how some players will deliberately foul opposition players by pulling their shirt or shorts and dragging them to the ground then giving a look like they did nothing at all. No contact, no foul, “Why is the ref blowing his whistle?” they seem to be saying. I saw it time and time again.

And I wonder, as I wrote a few days ago, how come they don’t understand how cameras work?

While there were a few yellow cards handed out, the game was played fairly, in the main.

But then, the Belgian goalie, who had played an exemplary game, saving some seriously difficult strikes from the Spanish, went down with an injury. It appeared to be something in a thigh. It is difficult when the commentary is in Swedish.

He left the pitch, tears in his eyes, with about ten minutes to go. His replacement took his place between the sticks. Unfortunately, the second string wasn’t quite as good. Spain scored again as the clock hit the 88th minute.

At least one young Spanish fan sympathised with the opposition.

And so the game ended 2-1 to Spain.

Tomorrow it’s England v Norway which promises to be quite tasty. Can’t wait!

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Colonial powers strive to win again

Posted on July 9, 2026 by Gary

First thing this morning, I had to head up to the ICA again, this time to pick up Freya’s prescription. After grabbing a few things in the supermarket first, I popped into the Apotek and pressed the pad for a ticket. Coincidentally, I was once more number 3. Also, coincidentally, the person who had claimed number 1 was having a long chat with the guy behind the counter. This meant another wait, longer than necessary.

Number 2 ticket was held by the weird guy who wears far too many clothes, a bucket hat, scarf and always with a backpack on his back. This made me wonder why eccentricity often means wearing far too many clothes. It made me sad that I could never join the ranks of the truly weird.

While I thought the weird guy might take too long as well, I was wrong. Clearly, part of his weirdness was to not take too long when being served. He was in and out in less than ten minutes. As was I. Very soon I was on my way back to the house.

And today, Freya was not as buoyant as she was yesterday. She is now down to having half a pill every two days and I think she is less active on the days without which further makes me realise that it’s the pills rather than her making progress.

I’m not saying that’s good or bad, I’m just conjecturing. In fact, she improved over the day which leads me to believe that she is getting better. Slowly but surely. She was quite spry when we went for our lunchtime walk.

Then, tonight, Nicoline came over for dinner. And I made böreği while she dead headed the flowers on the deck table.

It was my second time making the Turkish meal. I first had it in Istanbul with John in 2024 and I then made it at home shortly afterwards. Of course, given my understandable recent obsession with French food preparation and cooking, other nationalities have had to take a back seat. But, not tonight.

And, can I just say, it was perfect. It took me right back to the little local café where John and I had one each for breakfast with some amazing Turkish coffee on one of our morning sojourns.

I made the roasted aubergine in thyme to go with it as well as a few cheeky new potatoes in butter. I should add that it wasn’t just me waxing lyrical about my own cooking; Nicoline enjoyed it as well.

We had a lovely chat on the deck as the day slowly slipped away then Nicoline went home, because, of course, it was time for the France v Morocco game, and I’m 100% certain that watching it would be anathema to her somewhat worse than simply reading about it.

I should add here that Mirinda called at the beginning of the second half, most of which I watched with the mute on while listening to her relate her day. Which sounded delightful and a lot less full than yesterday. It included a boat ride, something we both dearly love.

Tomorrow she is off to Aarhus, a place she’s never visited. Not the Danish one, anyway.

Speaking of boats, The Bob’s engine has been fixed. So we may be back on the Baltic next week. Hopefully without any rowing from me.

But, heading off to America…Back to 1907, France conquered Morocco, making it a French protectorate which, of course, is a nice way of describing colonialisation. I am pretty sure there was no football played between the warring factions back then but there certainly was tonight. They were playing in a massive stadium in Boston and it looked packed to the rafters, of which there were none.

Nicoline can stop reading now

From the kick-off, it was obvious that France was easily the better team. After only ten minutes, they had already notched up 12 attempts at goal, five of which were on target. This was in stark contrast to the Moroccan figures of zero and zero.

And so the game continued, with both teams threatening but only one making it through the defence. That team, obviously was France.

One moment of joy for Morocco was when French striker Kylian Mbappé took a penalty which their goalie saved, but that was it, really. A lot of the time during the game, when the camera swung around from the action, the fans looked a bit morose.

On the other, on the blue side of the divide, the French fans were delighted with their team as they struck twice to win 2-0. Of course, there was the usual over-abundance of falling about, rolling on the floor with fatal injuries which magically disappeared once the referee awarded a free kick, but generally, the game was played with great skill and lots of passing play.

In fact, the game was most enjoyable except for the Moroccans, I guess.

Tomorrow night, it’s Spain (the beaters of Portugal) v Belgium (the slayers of America), a game that should be a little more equal than tonight’s offering. And it even has an early kick-off time of 9pm. That’ll be well worth watching.

Oh, and before I finish, sadly, Bonnie Tyler (Total Eclipse of the Heart) died yesterday aged 75 following an illness. The radio was full of her big hits all day today so I couldn’t really miss the fact that she had died.

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Raphael, Hamlet, Freya and no football

Posted on July 8, 2026 by Gary

If the last few days were anything to go by, it would seem that Freya is on the long and winding road to recovery. She is eating normally, happy to go for walks, all be they short and today, when I returned from the ICA, she did her quokka dance, greeting me at the door. It was pretty joyous.

This was in stark contrast to how I left her when I went shopping.

Once she woke up, however, there were no wobbly legs or disinterested ambling round the house. She was engaged and, dare I say, happy. In fact, on our walk, she actually walked past me and went a little way in front. She has not done that for yonks. So, all good on the Freya front.

While we were traipsing around the mountain, Mirinda, Lisa and Jack were visiting Elsinore, Hamlet’s castle. I’ve not been but have wanted to go. One day, maybe I’ll do a round of trips to places mentioned in Shakespeare.

Speaking of great actors, not that I was really, guess who turned up as a guest on Curb Your Enthusiasm today? None other than Suki Banes’ dreamboat, Clive Owen*.

Excuse his weird face. It was the angle from which I was watching the TV. He, obviously, normally looks a lot sexier than the photo indicates. For those that don’t know, Clive is the one on the right. The other one is Larry.

Then, of course, being a Wednesday, this evening was all about art.

Tonight, Dr Amy Mechowski took us through the advent and advance of Impressionism.

Okay, I should admit straight away that I am not a big fan of the Impressionists. To be fair, there are a few individual works that I quite like but, overall, I find it all a bit wishy washy.

One thing about my art classes, however, is discovering new artists and tonight was no exception.

The critic for La Figaro, Albert Wolff wrote of the Impressionists following their 1874 exhibition that they consisted of “…five or six lunatics of which one is a woman…[whose] feminine grace is maintained amid the outpourings of a delirious mind.” That woman was Berthe Morisot.

Detail from Berthe Morisot with a Bouquet of Violets (1872) by Édouard Manet (1832-1883)

And, for a change, she didn’t suffer a life of denial or torture or non-recognition or any of those things usually reserved for struggling artists. Mainly because she was a member of an affluent bourgeois family. She was also very talented. She had been accepted to exhibit by the Paris Salon before she joined the Impressionists.

Then, of course, the art establishment turned its collective back on her and she exhibited outside the Salon.

By the way, the Impressionists didn’t originally call themselves that. The name came from an art critic who, upon seeing their paintings for the first time, declared the style the worst he’d ever seen; unfinished and mere impressions of subjects.

Berthe posed for Manet and ended up marrying his brother and had a daughter. Sadly, she died of pneumonia aged only 54.

The painting that Dr Amy devoted time to was Summer’s Day.

Summer’s Day (1879) by Berthe Morisot (1841-1895)

The use of swift, zigzag brush strokes indicating movement, as seen in the painting above, is one of the things that pissed off the establishment, as well as the fact the subjects of Impressionism were everyday people doing everyday things. There was also the unfinished element of the works.

Anyway, the lecture was superb, as usual, and I was left with a new appreciation for most of the Impressionist ideals if not all their works.

We then had a guest lecture from Dr Jenny Graham. She took us on a deep dive into the Pre-Raphaelites, a subject she is very knowledgeable about. Mirinda would have loved it. Actually, given she loves both the Impressionists and the Pre-Raphaelites, she would have probably enjoyed the whole two hours.

I went to bed, awash with dabbed paint on canvas, painted en plein air and unfinished.

* People would have to read my book to get this reference.

Posted in Art Course 2026, Gary's Posts | 2 Comments

Numb to the natural world

Posted on July 7, 2026 by Gary

Today when I took the girls up to the path and along to the ski slope, I saw three people. This is not unusual. In fact, this time of the year, I generally see more. Well, actually, I saw more than three really because there was a large group at the adventure park, squealing and shrieking as they navigated the ropes high up and between the trees.

Still the three I saw stuck out to me.

The first one was a fragile man who looked a bit older than me but less agile, which says a lot. He had two walking poles which were helping to propel him across the ground at a very slow rate. He clearly had mobility issues.

Anyway, he suddenly stopped up ahead of me and slowly looked up, into the eyes of a stationary Emma. I think she was trying to work out whether she knew him or not. Clearly she didn’t as she resumed walking and went right by him. He continued walking and we exchanged cheerful ‘hejs’. Which was good because I thought he was going to tell me off for having the girls off lead.

Shortly afterwards, and from behind us, there came a guy who looked to be about 35/40. He was short – shorter than me anyway – and he was dressed in far too many clothes. Okay, the temperature has taken a bit of a dip, but it was still quite humid out. He was also wearing earbuds and was walking quite quickly with his head bent down, presumably to avoid glimpsing any nature. Of which there was plenty.

I have no idea what he was listening to but he missed a lot of birdsong. I figured he didn’t like birdsong.

Of course, I could just be maligning him. Maybe he had had some really bad news and was Misery Walking in order to try and forget it for a while.

Anyway, the third person we saw was a jogging woman who smiled as she went by and said “Hej!” like any civilised person should.

In the meanwhilst, Mirinda was walking all over Copenhagen (17,000 steps apparently) with Lisa and Jack. She managed to visit the National Museum of Denmark which I visited twice last year. So, when she called me tonight, we talked about the wonderful collection they have.

She also told me that, after she told Jack that I’d given up alcohol, he was shocked, declaring that I was the best drinker he knew. That he was amazed at how much I could drink and yet show no discernable difference in my cognitive powers. That made me feel like I’d let him down. Sorry, Jack.

Mirinda also said it rained a bit in Copenhagen which reflected the weather here. While it was dry up till lunchtime, not long afterwards, the rain started falling and didn’t stop for a while. It even got cold enough for me to lose my shorts and return to trackies.

Then, at 18:00, it was time to relax on the lounge with the girls for a bit of World Cup action.

Nicoline can stop reading now

It seemed to me that Argentina misjudged Egypt tonight. They played their usual smooth football with quick clever passes, but the Egyptians just bowled through them. By half-time they had two goals to the good and Messi messed up a penalty which was saved by the keeper.

When they scored, the crowd went totally mental.

Both times.

Actually, three times but their third goal was disallowed.

On the other hand, the Argentinian fans went madder when Messi scored their second goal to even things up 2-2. The stadium at Atlanta was booming.

(Speaking of Atlanta, which is in Georgia, every time the camera picked up the state name, I was reminded of the Georgian ladies from the Retreat, something that made me smile.)

But the biggest roar was saved for the end when Argentina finished off the Egyptians with a final, lethal blow. It was all over and Argentinians were through while Egypt was not.

All in all it was an exciting game of football. I enjoyed it very much.

Something I didn’t enjoy was the way that FIFA sucked up to Donald Trump. It seemed he didn’t like the fact that football rules state that if a player gets a red card then he (or she) misses the next game. It has been this way for a long time. Not that he’d know that.

Anyway, the thing is, American star striker Folarin Balogun, was given a red card in their last game which meant he wouldn’t be playing against Belgium in the early hours of this morning. So the president of the USA, clearly at a bit of a loose end, rang up Gianni Infantino, FIFA president, and suggested it might be nice to let him play. And, of course, the brown tongue was pretty active as the red card penalty was changed, and the missed game would be served ‘some other time in the future.’

Talk about pathetic. There were a lot of calls to dump Infantino (ironically, even from Seth Blatter) as well as other teams who had players on red cards asking to have theirs postponed as well. And so, the USA’s best player was allowed to play after all.

Not that it mattered. The USA football team was destroyed by Belgium 4-1. A delightful conclusion to a somewhat disgusting little affair.

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Wearing the painted face of defeat

Posted on July 6, 2026 by Gary

Mirinda headed off to Denmark this morning. There was time for a coffee together before she headed for the station to board the first of three trains to Copenhagen. Her trip was uneventful and she arrived in the Danish capital in the afternoon to rain. She had planned to visit the harbour but, given the weather, decided against it.

Tomorrow morning she’s meeting up with Lisa and Jack and, hopefully, will visit Rosenborg Castle after a morning coffee.

As for me, I spent the day mostly recovering from the early hours of this morning watching the football (see below). In fact, as soon as Mirinda left the house, I retired to bed for a couple of hours of much needed sleep. Not that it was enough.

I found myself involuntarily drifting off to Napland whenever I sat down. This was most frustrating during Reading Hour, particularly given I was returning to my five books rather than concentrating on finishing Goliath’s Curse.

I did some admin type work at the laptop but even then my eyes kept closing.

Eventually, I took the girls for a walk.

We have decided it would be a good idea to slowly increase Freya’s distance as she improves. Today she was very much like her old self, so I took her a bit further, up to the first level of the ski slope. I think she enjoyed it very much. She didn’t flag at all, sniffing and investigating and following close behind Emma most of the time.

Okay, the shaking is still there whenever she has been inactive for a while, something I am convinced is arthritis though, it’s important to remember that my years spent at veterinary school were completely non-existent.

Suffice it to say, she enjoyed herself and didn’t falter for the whole walk. Hopefully she’ll be okay tomorrow morning.

As you can see by the photo above, the day was glorious. It was also not too hot, unlike the UK which, according to Charles at FATN is making them swelt in the studio during recording sessions. So much so that he has recommended that the recording groups get reduced from three to one. Having spent many summer days in the studio myself, I can only agree with his assessment.

The only other major thing I did today was let Louise’s cat in and out of the house next door. Louise is on holiday and asked if we could give the cat daily food, freedom and nightly security. Mirinda was doing it but now it’s my turn.

The cat is very, very black. It was curled up on the sofa when I went over this morning. It opened its eyes and stared at me. I returned its stare. It was like peering into the dark gaze of a witch’s familiar. I let it out of the house and shivered like I had glimpsed the devil’s lair.

It was not as bad when I returned in the night to let her back into the house, something she happily did.

But, of course, there was also a very early game of football…

Nicoline can stop reading now

I was somewhat anxious when the England v Mexico game began. The crowd was very much pro-Mexico, the Azteca stadium loud with their cheers. It was almost as continuously loud as the vuvuzelas of the 2010 African World Cup. The awful noisemakers that I called silly buzzy trumpet things. The ones that were banned.

Still, what can you expect when 87,523 football fans start singing and screaming, and 87,000 of them are Mexican.

Anyway, the game was very exciting and full of drama. And I wound up enjoying it very much.

It was especially notable for the two goals scored by Bellingham, within 90 seconds. Given kick-off was at a delayed 3am, I was a bit snoozy but was quickly completely alert with his first goal and the second happened before I could drop off again.

The Mexican players got it together and scored not long afterwards before England was awarded a penalty in the second half, making the score 1-3. The Mexicans made it 2-3 before the final whistle declared that England were through to the quarter-finals for a game against Norway.

The Mexicans were on their way home. The one consolation was that they didn’t have far to go.

Then, tonight, there was the game between Spain and Portugal.

I was really looking forward to this clash. I like both teams, a ‘like’ that is tempered by my dislike of Ronaldo. I have said before how much his constant need to showboat and fall over at the slightest breeze created by an opposition player passing near him, annoys me. I feel a man of his natural football talent should be able to keep on his feet. Maybe he has some undiagnosed medical condition that forces him to buckle and fall.

Anyway, I was quite pleased that Ronaldo didn’t manage to come even close to scoring for Portugal. Actually, not many Portuguese players did. In fact it wasn’t until 91 minutes that anyone managed to get the ball into the net. And that was Spain.

I do have a question though: Why do the Spanish give the ball away so often? It’s super frustrating for a viewer so it must drive the players mad. It happened so often that it made me wonder whether the Spanish players were having difficulty discerning the red shirts of the Portuguese with their own white ones.

And so it ended, Spain going through and a downcast, almost sobbing Ronaldo (sad because he didn’t fall enough times to warrant a goal, I guess) leading his team off the pitch and home while the fans bore the sad painted faces of defeat.

The only thing to add is how wonderful it was getting to watch the football on the big TV rather than our small, UK one in the Football House. I felt like I was there. Almost.

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Noll esse mentula

Posted on July 5, 2026 by Gary

At today’s BookBusters meeting, we discussed the mammoth, doorstop of a book, The Goliath Curse: The History and Future of Societal Collapse by Luke Kemp. Not everyone finished it. I, for one, was eight pages short of the end. And, to be fair, I would have finished it if we didn’t have an emergency run up to the ICA because I had a kitchen fail.

I had decided to make Geraldine’s French apple cake given it was such a success last time I made it. Unfortunately, the timing was out and I removed it from the oven too soon. The centre of the cake never got beyond being a cake mix.

I thought it was a cooking disaster but, proving me wrong, everyone tucked into it, saying how much they loved cake mix.

Anyway, food aside, the book discussion was interesting. To begin with, each of us had to describe the book in three words. I volunteered “Too bloody long.” While Jonas said “Boring!” When KSPO told him that was just one woird, he corrected himself and said “Boring. Boring. Boring.“

We were a full complement this time with a much improved Mårten and Amelia visiting our house for the first time.

As usual we had a delightfully disorganised and chaotic discussion about the book, complete with much laughter, agreement and dispute.

Basically, there was a lot to talk about the book, some things for and others against, Kemp’s thesis. When everyone started going on about the phrase “Don’t be a dick,” I was a bit lost. Then I switched my book on for another reason and realised that the Don’t be a Dick section was on the next page.

Obviously I read it later.

It was another successful BookBusters event and, just before finishing we chose our next book and the date for finishing it. And, I’m happy to day, the book is Eager by Ben Goldfarb.

Nicoline can stop reading now

I managed to catch the Brazil v Norway game tonight. It was a good, fast game. Both sides fought hard but, eventually, and in the dying moments of the game, Norway scored twice. Haarland scored both excellent goals.

The Brazilian team started getting a bit frustrated as the game gradually approached a delayed full time (there was a lot of injury time to play) and there was some argy bargy but, otherwise, the game was pretty fair, I thought.

Very late on, Brazil was awarded a penalty which they scored, making the final score 1-2. This was in direct contrast to a Brazil penalty in the first half that the Norwegian goalie managed to save.

The Norwegian fans were very, very happy.

Then I stayed awake for the Mexico v England game, a delayed two hours later…but more on that tomorrow.

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Not being a tour guide

Posted on July 4, 2026 by Gary

A couple of days ago I had a text message from Sandra asking me if I’d be willing to show a friend of hers around Stockholm one day this weekend as she was visiting from Texas. Sandra who I met at the Cooking Retreat. I said I’d be delighted to volunteer for the task on Saturday. Sandra set up a connection between us and I sent off an introduction.

I was tempted to work out an itinerary but then it occurred to me that I had no idea what the friend would be interested in. I also didn’t know how old her kids were, which would make a difference. I finally decided that I would find out where they were staying and suggest we meet for fika first thing and then plan from there.

As it turned out, I didn’t hear anything from the friend. We assumed that she (and her family) was already booked up on touristy things and didn’t require my services. It was all good, I said to Sandra as the day drifted into night.

As it was, I didn’t go to brunch at Emil’s Backe with Mirinda and Roger, just in case I got the call to duty. And, while I waited for the call that never came, I frantically tried to finish our latest BookBusters volume.

I managed to get to the most depressing bit of the book so far. As I said to Mirinda, I am so glad I’m old. If I was a late teen, just starting out in life and I read this book, my future would be bleak indeed and I have no idea how I would cope with the knowledge laid out by the author.

I am really hoping that for our next book, we choose something shorter. These mammoth reads are getting harder to complete. Which is a shame because, while it has been somewhat depressing, the book is fascinating.

I didn’t finish it today. It looks like tomorrow is going to involve quite a bit of frantic speed reading.

Strangely enough, I learned speed reading at school but it was so long ago I think it has become a forgotten skill.

I didn’t watch any football tonight. However, in case Nicoline is dying to know the results of last night’s games: Canada was knocked out by Morocco (0-3) and France beat Paraguay (1-0).

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When Thor gets really cranky

Posted on July 3, 2026 by Gary

Today the gods made up for all the long, hot, sun-drenched days we have been suffering under. Today the drenching came not from the sun but from great ferocious torrents of rain. At times, the rain was so loud, I couldn’t hear myself think. And to think, I narrowly missed being out in it. I walked into the house having been shopping, around five minutes before it all started.

Of course, there were brief periods during which the clouds parted and the sun was spotted, vaguely, but, generally, it just rained. It was so bad that, at one point, I had to race around closing the doors because the kitchen was in danger of flooding.

I was hoping that Mirinda was avoiding it given she was out having lunch with Christina, her uni professor. Their original plan had been to go to Emil’s Backe. Now that would have been interesting given the al fresco nature of the place. Given the weather early on, they decided to shift to Tre Små Rum. That was a very good move.

Speaking of Christina, first thing, at the ICA, I noticed a woman giving me a strange look. She was just finishing up at the cash desk as I was leaving my shopping trolley for later retrieval. I didn’t know who she was but she clearly thought I was someone she recognised.

Then, shortly afterwards, once I’d ordered my morning latte she accosted me, asking if I was Mirinda’s husband, in Swedish. I was so shocked, I understood what she was asking. It was then that the penny dropped. She made it particularly easy when she told me she was Christina, Mirinda’s uni professor. She then introduced me to her daughter, who is working at the ICA at the moment.

Apart from that moment of human interaction, generally, for me, anyway, it was a day of pottering around the house and attempting to finish the latest BookBusters tome, The Goliath Curse. A book, incidentally, that has caused a paradigm shift in my thoughts about the Romans.

Mind you, I managed to record my latest Letter from Sweden during a brief quiet, dry period.

But then, most importantly, there was the World Cup game between Australia and Egypt to get through.

Nicoline can stop reading now

What is it with the Egyptian football team? Why do they keep falling over and grasping their legs? I don’t think they should be playing at World Cup level if they are unable to remain upright.

One moment of high comedy in the first half was when an Egyptian player fouled an Australian who fell over and went tumbling and, consequently, sent another Egyptian player flying.

Such a shame that the Egyptians are like that because, otherwise, the two teams were very well matched, both defensively and in attack. So well matched that at the end of the 90 minutes then after the extra 30, the score remained at one apiece. Then came the penalty shoot-out which Australian failed miserably at.

And to think that this lot were absolutely, deliriously, over the top joyful when Australia scored. I can only assume that they were headed for the airport shortly afterwards.

And, can I just add that, with regard to the referee’s head camera, it’s yet another case of just because you can, does not mean you should. It just makes the viewer feel ill. It should be stopped.

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