The Helmut Post

Our New Home - the First Visit

2007-12-13T13:58:00.001+01:00

Today we had a chance for the first time to visit our future home. Construction works are going very fine despite the winter. Inside walls are only about to be built, so today we visited a large hall (but the identical flat downstairs was more advanced, so we had a chance to compare and we were very satisfied with what we've seen.
Keep your fingers crossed for a mild winter, so we'll be able to spend next Christmas in our new flat!

Cheers!

Gosia at the balcony

Michal seen through the phantom wall (in the middle of a study room)

...and at the future kitchen section (two small rooms behind)

Gosia in our sleeping room (which will look warmer in future, I hope)

...and at our entrance door (Home, sweet Home)

Quick look through the study room window (look out for falling bricks! :) )

The building overlook. (For the future overlook see here and here)

My Mobile Eye #2

2007-08-01T21:28:00.000+02:00

Od Obserwacje te...

Sightseeing Sisters

My Mobile Eye #1

2007-08-01T21:24:00.000+02:00

Od Obserwacje te...

"Venus of Milo 2007"

We've got EURO2012!!!

2007-04-18T18:27:00.000+02:00

Poland together with Ukraine overcame Croatia&Hungary and Italy and won a privilege of organizing EURO2012 Championship! That makes me feeling almost as good and optimistic as when it turned out that we'll join the European Union (you must remember that day, we were in Goteborg, celebrating our joy after the Polish referendum had given a positive answer). I'm happy even though I'm not a particular football fan - it's a gigantic boost of funds for infrastructure and - which is even more important - a gigantic mobilization for the country. Poland needed the latter: this country went so deep into political divisions and history discussions that our decision-makers couldn't have found some time and means for simply building infrastructure. Those of you guys who had a chance to travel by our roads or trains must know what I mean :)
This is also the end of a certain era. Jonas, the forgotten-by-God place you and Kristina visited in Warsaw was once a national stadium. It's a gigantic poor-market right now. It's been called "Europa Market" and was considered to be an East-West gate for Europe. Eastern Europe is starting right in that place and marks a mentality of Eastern Poland inhabitants as well as Ukrainian&Belorussian mentality.
Now, with a symbolic fact of rebuilding the Warsaw Stadium, the situation has a chance to be ceased and we - together with Ukraine (I believe it's even more important for this country) - have a chance to organizationaly and technicaly catch-up to Western Europe.
Celebrate with me, guys, it's an important day!
Cheers!

God Jul!

2006-12-25T19:09:00.000+01:00

Our Christmas preparations started sometime at the end of November this year. Kristina and I don't follow many traditions, but the Christmas lunch is serious business, since we take pride in preparing everything on the table ourselves. A novelty this year was the Polish cooked vegetable salad, which I enjoyed enormously when I had it on Easter 2003. My version of the salad was good for a first attempt, I suppose, but it wasn't quite up to par with the one that Gosia, Michal and Pawel made. We didn't make any Piftie this year, a Romanian meat jelly made from pig's ears and tails, to my great relief. Apart from these changes, we had everything from last year; ham, herring, red cabbage, gravlax, beetroot salad, sarmale, meatballs, sausages... Another tradition is our Christmas photo, taken from the same angle every year. This is this year's version:

After lunch, we watched "Kalle" on TV as all Swedes do, and had a very nice evening. I hadn't noticed how much effort I had put into this day, until the evening came and I literally collapsed in bed. We hope that all of you had a nice Christmas yourselves. God Jul och Gott Nytt År!

Meet Bdziag the Chipmunk

2006-09-05T19:44:00.000+02:00

This is Bdzi?g, the chipmunk, the new companion of ours. More photos at www.wiewior-bdziag.blogspot.com
(in the picture: consuming a pumpkin seed, one of the favourites).

The very last touch-ups

2006-07-25T19:33:00.001+02:00

I've spent a weekend painting our balcony blue, while Gosia was bravely cleaning our windows. Both activities required a dose of bravery, as both of us leaned over the abyss of our 4th floor :) Anyway, when I'm writing those words, Tadek, a friendly carpenter, is mounting our kitchen furniture. The very last stage will be to mount a lighting over a kitchen window and so we're done!

Moving - session two

2006-07-20T20:45:00.000+02:00

Here we are! We had taken a week free from unpacking, changing, driving, and so on and after that I took a week of vacation to do some serious stuff around the flat. The objective was to do something with the kitchen, with the old white wardrobe (the picture on the left) in that short part we call "the corridor" (but it's too short to bear this name :) ). We have ordered some furnishing to the kitchen and I went to a store to ask someone what do I need to paint some things orange :) Equipped with a paint and a set of paintbrushes and stuff I returned home to make the ordeal begin.
That goddamn wardrobe took me a day and a half but here it is (the picture on the right. There were surprises also: I discovered that somebody hid an air vent inside a wardrobe. That explains that fancy silver vent in a top left corner of the wardrobe, which required my crazy dance with a fret-saw (I'm telling you, this is relaxing!).
I took care for an old kitchen cupboard also, as we decided not to threw it away (I guess it has a value of a relic by now...). I needed to add some shelves, to paint it (guess the color). Tomorrow there'll be time for some touch-ups, some minor additions and we're expecting our kitchen cupboard to arrive on Monday :)
In the meantime I decided not to re-paint a bathroom, which is quite fine. Painting rocks, but not when overdosen :)

Moving - day six

2006-07-08T22:13:00.000+02:00

Saturday. OK, we did skip Friday which made me staying till the late night in the office. But Saturday was a fine touch-up day to conclude the first stage of our home-arranging ordeal.
Standard shopping was first, as we needed to fill our fridge with some edible stuff. We, certainly supplied also our wine-holder with some nice Morocco-originated shiraz and merlot (they import it to Poland by a very reasonable prize).
We concluded arranging a room by hanging a nice crossed-rectangle shelf over a computer. Than there was some time for a dinner (tomato salad with pita bread and cauliflower with a spicy sauce) made by Gosia.
Than we've mounted a cool IKEA-made kitchen "something" for storing stuff over a bar window. You can see it in the picture, as it's hard to describe (especially that the merlot is already gone :) ). We especially like a glass-hanger, it works just great :)
Anyway, there's a cleaning time ahead, and after that I'll try to do some painting in a bathroom and some renovations in a kitchen. But until then - we'll keep you informed as soon as we do something worth noticing on this blog :)
Cheers!

Moving - day five

2006-07-07T00:23:00.000+02:00

Thursday. I'm fighting with those f*** roller blinds from the very morning. Our new neigbors must hate me by now for all that drilling I need to do. It's not so easy. I give up and I need to go to work. It's 10 AM when I decide to hang two lamps in the kitchen - just for a sense that I did something right this morning :)
I'm back from work and I discover an interior changed. Gosia is unpacking our stuff. Making a flat into a home. A feeling is soo great.
And thre's our laundry machine delivered. I need to go to a store for some hoses and rubber bands to attach it to those 30 years old sewer systems in this block of flats :) I made it!
Gosia decides to launch our very first laundry and is very brave ordering our stuff, filling shelves and drawers with all those things we took with us. She even managed to clean my computer's casing, which I found impossible for all those years!
I was suddenly illuminated when I was coming back from work and I've found a solution for hanging roller blinds properly. I've attached them to a curtain holder. I hope that Gosia's sister, who's the owner of this appartment, will not realize that those curtain holders will never be the same again :)
Our flat looks much more like a place to live by now. It's a great feeling. That feeling of preparing ourselves a place to live is amazing, bursting and charging.
More to come soon!

Moving - day four

2006-07-07T00:17:00.000+02:00

Wednesday. OK, we need to recover a little bit. It's a good moment to go shopping to a store, buying some minor stuff, like roller blinds :) And we ordered a laundry machine!
We're meeting Patka and Brzezin in the night, being awfully late because of our shopping. We decide to take them to our place. I'm buying some beer and snacks on the way. Wine is already there (on our nice brand-new wine-holder :) ).
They were our very first official visitors. And they liked our orange sofa :)

Moving - day three

2006-07-07T00:06:00.001+02:00

Tuesday. The day that wrote a new brave page in the history of furnishing. The whole delivery came. Half of which we had to drag on our own shoulders onto the 4th floor. Accidentaly we met our new deliric-alcoholic neighbor who was conscious enough to offer his service if we were so kind to help him buying himself a beer. We were so kind :)
Assembling furniture! The whole stuff comes in pieces and there's this instruction which reminds good old days when LEGO blocks assured long hours of fun. It was fun, indeed. At least in the beginning.
Thankfully Gosia believes in a gender-equality approach and she was very helpful with the assembling ordeal. So was my sister Kasia (thanks, Kid!!!).
We obviously had a lot of fun with all that. The hard part turned out to be related to Sweden - because of IKEA, of course. That large bookshelf was a real pain in the a***, therefore I'm even more proud having it assembled :)
That's the moment when the Order appears from Chaos.

Moving - day two

2006-07-06T23:55:00.001+02:00

Monday. We needed to go to work, but I left as soon as possible to go and receive some furniture we had ordered. On spot it turned out there was a slight misunderstanding and our shelf awaits us in a neighbour town. They said it would be delivered for the next day. But that means all our furniture arrive on Tuesday...
Before I had gone to work I've plugged the internet connection. First things first :)
In the afternoon we took a warm-up mounting some lighting and cooking a wonderful soup :) And Gosia has smartly assembled our first do-it-yourself piece of furniture. Which was aparently that small shelf for storing bottles of wine :)
It's almost night when the very first furnishing delivery arrives. There it is! Our wonderful, cosy, ORANGE sofa! :)

We finally move!

2006-07-06T23:40:00.000+02:00

There we go! We finally obtained our new appartment keys and launched a procedure of moving to our new flat we'll be living together with Gosia. The procedure turned out to be lethally tiresome, but very, very joyful. I initially planned to keep giving you a day-by-day log of "what'sgoingons", but it aparently turned out to be impossible as in the end of every day we felt too tired to move any finger, which is crucial for typing a blog contribution.
But I'll do my best to recover the log. Here we go!
DAY ONE:
Saturday/Sunday: We've spent the whole last weekend to pack my old room. I dumped no less but 6 large sacks of garbage out of it, but there still was very much to pack to my car and to move to Traugutta street.
And there we are, opening the door, packing the whole stuff inside, feeling happy, but knowing there's still so much to do.
Thankfully we've ordered some furnishing and stuff before. Now it's time to have that all delivered.
There's almost nothing inside but we decide to stay overnight anyway. It took us to the late night to move all my stuff, happily there's a tesco supermarket opened 24hrs/day and we've found an airbed there. Which turned out to be our first piece of furniture here :)
But before that we went shopping. It was IKEA, of course :) Long live Sweden! :) It turned out to be a nice place for finding some minor stuff, but it was about to reveal how irresponsible is to buy an XXL bookshelf when it's supposed to be delivered in small boxes, disassembled...

Midsummer with the Leggatts

2006-06-25T12:18:00.000+02:00

On Midsummers Eve, we woke up to the sound of rain hammering on the widowsill. The weather has a tendency of disappointing Swedes on midsummer, but this was by far the worst I can remember. Armed with umbrellas and warm sweaters, we drove off to celebrate with the Leggatts and Jarlengrips. "The company will be nice at least", we mumbled as we comforted ourselves with hamburges at our pit stop on our way to Åsa. No need to worry. After some fika with Karin's parents, a midsummer celebration under ominous gray skies that just ended when we got there, and making a hasty escape from a boule death match tainted by the memory of last years defeat, the Gods of Valhalla exchanged their frown for a radiant smile, lasting all the way through the sill, snaps, färskpotatis and eventually the earth-geezers (jordgubbar), when the sun had finally set. What a lovely day it was! A big thanks to Karin and Garth for inviting us!

Anniversary

2006-06-25T11:52:00.000+02:00

After almost a year of making excuses not to post, I finally bought a digital camera together with Kristina. And what better way to christen it than our two-year anniversary? Kristina surprised me by taking us to Heaven 23, a very nice restaurant at the top of the Scandic hotel in front of Liseberg. Everything was perfect - delicious food and wine, a wonderful view of the city, and the best company imaginable. With only days left to midsummer, the sun flooded the city below us with light until almost midnight, when we left the restaurant to start enjoying our third year together.

Eurovision 2006!

2006-05-23T21:56:00.000+02:00

Kalimera!

Time to jumpstart our blog again, it's been too long...

Did anyone see the Eurovision song contest? (what other topic to regenerate interest?)

Athens... the Edinburgh of the South, location of the 2006 Eurovision Song Contest. Did anyone actually see the competition?

I missed it this year, but the result (as always) was predictable from the very beginning.

As always happens, the emerging nations of the former Soviet bloc will dominate the contest by the simple ploy of voting for each other (as was their enforced habit while festering under the Kremlin's wise guidance). I'll be completely amazed if Belarus gives anything other than full marks to Russia; the Big Bear asleep on their doorstep.

The jolly exchange of full marks between Cyprus and Greece is as old as the Odyssey. Germany will award points to Poland, but don't expect it to be a reciprocal exchange. Germany will get the usual votes from Turkey, because the Turkish "gastarbeitern" in Germany will have monopolised the telephones and awarded top marks to their homeland?

As happens most years, nobody will vote for the Brits. As happens every year, the UK will pretend they think it's all a bit of nonsense and wouldn't want to win anyway. The UK can be relied on to award full marks to Ireland, I'll eat the Blarney Stone if Ireland ever gives anything to the Brits!

The Scandinavians will vote for each other, Iceland and Denmark will cement their ancient ties, and Sweden will reward Norway handsomely (though the Norwegians never vote for the Swedes!).

Aside from the actual groups, the presenters are even more amusing. It's always good fun to watch them flirt heavily (and possibly sing to each other), in the manner of the unforgettable Estonian presenters who, six inches apart, bellowed into each other's faces. She was an opera singer, and he a leading Shakespearean actor who also played the accordion in a folk band. There's much to mock, but who couldn't fall in love with it?

Where other than Eurovision would you expect to see Germans in Stetsons and Finns like a cross between Klingons and Orcs and Icelanders phoning God? What about Latvians a capella, all with choreography straight out of the Sixties, bongos, banjos, musical saws... oh what fun!

Disguisting post

2006-01-01T23:10:00.000+01:00

This is going to be a low-profile, disguisting contribution. But the situation itself is low-profile and disguisting. As you probably know, Russia decided to show a strong arm to the Ukraine recently liberated from under her influences represented by a post-soviet oligarch Yanukovytch by what we all called the Orange Revolution (when the people stated strongly that it should be up to the Ukrainians, not Vladimir Putin to decide who should be a Ukrainian president). So there is Gasprom, the Russian gas monopoly, turning the knob down and cutting of gas supplies to the Ukraine. The world expresses its discontent attitude, but as long as no serious steps are performed, Russia will stay feeling omnipotent and the Ukraine will remain abandoned. And the question is: who goes next? Poland, for her clear support to the Orange Revolution? Or maybe Western Europe running on Russian gas, as soon as "My friend Schroder" is no long a German chancellor (nota bene, taking at present a lucrative job in "My friend Putin"'s company) and, let's say, the European Union will finally decide to say a word about Russia's politics toward Chechens...? Understand me well, I have nothing against Russia itself. But autoritarian regiemes should be named and must not be supported from outside. And what is a Putinist, oligarchian system if not an autoritarian regieme?
The funniest thing is that Poland's gas supplies are not diverse - the come from one and only source and it's... guess who. Yap, that's right. Russia. For two decades our Politicians have been too busy arguing around whether secret service files should be revealed or not, to notice the simple fact. Or maybe was there somebody profitably interested in remaining by a status quo? Ukrainian cut-off can already be felt in the whole Eastern Europe. Our new government (obsessively right-winged, Russia-disliking as only a stereotypical Pole could be) claims that there is a Plan "B". I'm wondering what could it be. Maybe we'll all switch from gas to electricity (still produced from old-fashioned, ineffective, expensive and polluting coal in Poland. There is no single atomic plant in this country). Or even better: in 20's Grand Marshall Jozef Pilsudski asked citizens to give their gold to the state in order to support a value of Polish currency in the years of crisis. Why don't we take example from those years? If our politicians couldn't draw solutions for the country's energetic safety, let's launch a National Drawing Gas Campaign! Let's support our energetic system like good citizens, from bottom up, ecologicaly, expressing our devotion to the country and attitude to our politicians!
Stand and fart for your country!

Peace and goodwill to all, except for...

2005-12-30T01:16:00.000+01:00

Dear all,

In case I don't get to post until after the holidays... HAPPY NEW YEAR in advance!!

Yes, sorry I've been so quiet but it's been busy for me over Christmas. I've had Tim D and we've been having a great time painting Gothenburg red this past week. The moment he arrived I cracked open that one litre bottle of Zebrowka (which I'd been saving for such an occasion), and would you believe, we polished it off entirely (perhaps not the best idea in hindsight... at least not in one of my best shirts!). Needless to say, it all went downhill from that moment on...

Now that the Christmas hangover has subsided, it's time to prepare for the NEW YEAR'S EVE drinking session! I always love New Years (the added advantage of being able to double it with a birthday celebration), and when thinking of New Years Day, that leads me to automatically think about New Years Resolutions...

There was a wise man (one much wiser than I) who once said it took 42 muscles to frown and only four to pull the trigger of a sniper rifle. How profound. Therefore, with that in mind I've decided to write a new years list, as I usually do at this time of year. But this time, an exception. Instead of writing an in-depth list of new years resolutions (promises I make which nearly always get broken after the first week... leading to angry stares from the women in my life), I'm writing a list containing a select few things in 2005 which really had my trigger finger itching. Here's praying we can get through 2006 without the following:

1. I'm SICK of all the self-help literature sent hurtling towards consumers over the last year. Therefore, my first peeve shall be directed at any individual who is going on a "journey". This should include a long journey, an emotional journey, a rewarding journey and especially an amazing journey. I advocate anyone going on a journey should have their destination re-routed off the nearest high cliff!

2. Paris Hilton, her gormless boyfriends, her shrivelled dog or her pet monkey. Yes, all young bucks like a rich, young tart... but let's enjoy her for what she is and NOT install her in a position of power an influence. She now intends to focus on her film career in 2006... well, it takes more than a boyfriend with a cam and an imagination to launch a successful film career! Generally speaking, if you're dressed like you're going to fight for the working rights to the local street corner you're not role model material.

3. Hearing Tom Cruise's advice on childbirth. Now God's former gift to women is an expert authority on the matter. Well, let me tell you this much Tommie mate, I've also been "a pregnant father" and I'd strongly recommend any man or woman soon to be a parent to disregard nearly everything you've said on the matter. In fact, hearing anything about Tom Cruise - except that he's died after falling off furniture while cavorting around like a chimp on crack. I wouldn't mind hearing that.

4. Any TV show in which the script relies heavily on the word "evict".

5. Children's books written by celebrities on the grounds that they once actually saw a child who had accidentally wandered into business class (Madonna, this means you)

6. Books which have the word "dark" in the title, or the name "Dan" on the front cover.

7. Designer dogs with breed names that rhyme with "strudel".

8. Offspring of the rich and famous whose names are destined to send them into early therapy. As in: "Cinnamon! You've left the #*@* door open and the #*@!# paparazzi have got in again."

9. The French.

10. Any American in a shiny suit pretending that intelligent design isn't just a rebandaged version of creationism.

11. The word "rebadged".

12. TV commercials featuring singing animals, usually zebras, who are incapable of rhyming "indeedy" with anything better than "seedy".

13. Systembolaget.

And that's about it. Once again, happy new year to all of you and all the best for 2006!!

Romanesque Christmas

2005-12-23T23:55:00.000+01:00

This is a tympanone over a portal of a 12th century romanesque church in Wysocice, nearby Krakow. Besides the triumphant Christ in the middle and adoring saints on the left, there is a Christ nativity scene on the right in it. You can easily notice a Bethlehem Star over it, a pair of oxes, traditionally on the spot :) and there is a Christ Child lying down. Interestingly, you can also find the Holy Virgin lying down in this sculpture. The fact is that a kneeling-and-adoring Mary was invented by later periods of art (in reinessance, for what I guess). The middleage Christmas scene was rather including her lying down.
Anyway, that's all for inthruding Christmas with my personal geek'ism on a point of the romanesque architecture :) More to find at Album Romanski.

Christmas time...

2005-12-23T23:33:00.000+01:00

My mother's kitchen is at present full of those best remembered scents, which - mixed together - mean Christmas atmosphere. There go almonds and poppieseed, yeast dough, sourkraft with mushrooms, dried fruits, fried carp... When the scent of fresh spruce tree will join, I will know it's Christmas without opening my eyes.

Gosia has already gone to her home town to celebrate Christmas with her family. It's all so strange. For me and Gosia it's the last Christmas we are spending apart. That brings a lot of thoughts, very serious, but very warm and joyful.

Christmas is there when there is a feeling that you are on a right way with those people you care most. It's the time when you can recapitulate your relations with them, to think how things can be renewed and restarted. It doesn't actually matter whether one believes in a newborn Christ Child or not, because the key is in the idea of being born new itself. To recapitulate and re-open one's life again. For me, as a Christian, that's what the newborn Christ Child brings.

I wish you warm and joyful thougts, my Friends. Thank you for being there. May it be a blessed time for you. Merry Christmas!

You know you've been in Australia too long when... ... ...

2005-11-25T21:07:00.000+01:00

You understand the expression "the bigger the hat, the smaller the farm".

The shorter the nickname you give to someone, the more you like them.

You know it's not a genuine Australian saying unless it involves a paddock, a lizard, or a rat.

You think a flash sports car driven by a middle-aged man should not incite envy - as in America - but hilarity.

It's not a picnic without a bull-ant climbing up your arse.

You refer to your best friend as "a total bastard", while your worst enemy is "a bit of a bastard".

Whether it?s the opening of Parliament, or the launch of a new art gallery, there is no event which cannot be improved by the addition of a sausage sizzle or a barbecue.

You expect all hamburgers must contain beetroot.

You think it's better to be down on your luck than up yourself.

You interpret the phrase ?we?ve got a great lifestyle? as meaning everyone in the family drinks too much.

If the bloke next to you is swearing like a wharfie, he?s probably a media billionaire. Or possibly a wharfie.

You understand there isn't a single food which cannot be improved by the application of tomato sauce.

People with red hair should always be nicknamed ?Blue?, just as short people should be labelled ?Lofty?.

On the beach, you hide your keys and wallet by placing them inside their sandshoes. No thief has ever worked this out. Australia has some really stupid thieves, (or really stinky sandshoes).

Industrial design knows of no article more useful than the milk crate.

You can't work out why all the best heroes are losers.

You think the Alpha male in any group is he who takes the barbeque tongs from the hands of the host, and blithely begins turning the snags.

You don't think it's summer until the steering wheel is too hot to hold.

You like the beer served so cold it makes your ears hurt.

You think a thong is not a piece of scanty swimwear, as in America, but a fine example of footwear. Thus a group of sheilas wearing black rubber thongs is no longer as exciting as you might once have hoped.

A gum leaf, crushed in the hand, is the best smell ever.

Historians believe that the widespread use of the word ?mate? can be traced to the harsh conditions on the Australian frontier in the 1890s, and the development of a code of mutual aid, or ?mateship?. Alternatively, we may all be just really hopeless with names.

You hope to choose a partner who is attractive not only to yourself, but also to neighbourhood mosquitoes.

If it can?t be fixed using panty-hose and fencing wire, it?s not worth fixing.

All parties, in however grand and well-prepared a house, will be held, cramped and noisy, in the kitchen.

The most popular and widely praised family in the street is the one that just happens to have the swimming pool.

A swallowed fly, while disgusting, must be greeted with the plucky comment: "Um, protein".

We invented everything in the world worth inventing, but then sold the copyright to the Yanks.

You think that smearing toast with a spread that?s black and salty, and which has the appearance of axle-grease, is a good way to start the day.

You think that every older Australian has a bulldust theory involving ants, a Kookaburra laughing and the likelihood of rain, and every theory is the direct opposite of the last one you heard.

If invited to a party, you take cheap red wine, but then spend all night drinking the host?s beer. Don?t worry, he will have catered for it.

If there?s any sort of free event or party within a hundred kilometres, you?d think yourself an idiot not to go.

Every surname, brand-name and motor-car spare part must be shortened to the point of incomprehension, as in the phrase: "If I hadn't stuffed the diff I'd have taken Blacky to Maccas."

You realise the Aeroguard is far, far worse than the flies.

Despite the Geography you think of Australia as being somewhat out of place within the Asia-Pacific region; surrounded by unstable ex-colonial nations who regard you as racist, imperialist, and unfairly wealthy. You regard extreme anti-Australians such as Mahatir Mohammed very irritating.

You regard New Zealanders as basically our naive country cousins, who talk funny and for some bizarre reason, think that they invented pavlova. They are to be pitied and laughed at. They have no hope of gaining the upper hand in the endless sporting rivalry between our two nations.

You think Americans are loud and supremely ignorant of Australia (all they know about us they gained from Mick Dundee); British and Europeans in general are more quiet but pretentious and cowardly.

You've ever mimicked Alf Stewart from the TV show Home and Away's broad, Australian accent, eg. "push off, ya flamin' drongo!"

You've ever had an argument with a friend over whether Ford or Holden makes the better car!

You've done the "hot sand dance" at the beach while running from the ocean back to your towel.

You start using words like "reckon" and call people "mate".

You stop greeting people with "hello" and go straight to the "how ya doin' ?"

You've seriously considered running down to the shops in a pair of Ugg Boots.

You own a pair of ugg boots.

You've been to a day-nighter cricket match and screamed out incomprehensibly until your throat went raw.

You know the national anthem by heart, sing it at every opportunity (sporting events in particular) but don't know what "girt" means.

You have a story that somehow revolves around excess consumption of alcohol and a mate named "Davo" or "Bruce".

You've risked attending an outdoor music festival on the hottest day of the year.

You've tried to hang off a clothesline while pretending you can fly.

You've had a visit to the emergency room after hanging off the clothesline pretending you can fly.

You don't know what's in a meat pie, and you don't care.

You pronounce Australia as "Stralya".

You call soccer soccer, not football.You've ever sucked your coffee through a Tim Tam (for those who don't know, a variety of chocolate biscuit, one allegedly "better than sex").

You realise that lifeguards are the only people who can get away with wearing Speedos.

You pledge allegiance to Vegemite over Promite.

You understand the value of public holidays.Your weekends are spent barracking for your favourite sports team.

You have a toilet dolly.

Your Mum or Nan made it.

You've played beach cricket with a tennis ball and a bat fashioned out of a fence post.

You firmly believe that in the end, everything will be ok, and have told a mate in tough times that "She'll be right, mate".

You use the phrase, "no worries" at least once a day.

You constantly shorten words to "brekkie", "arvo" and "barbie", as well as all names...

You've adopted a local bar as yours.

You know the oath of mateship can never be limited by geographical distance.

You measure a journey in beer, not kilometres or time. (That's a 3 beer trip mate).

We love you Belgium, we do... Ooh Belgium we love you ! Loloo loloo loloololoo ....

2005-11-16T22:11:00.000+01:00

YES!! WE LOVE BELGIUM!!

Who couldn't love this place? Who doesn t love Belgium? Home of the Vlaamse friet (lekker met mayonnaise), unsurpassed handmade chocolates (just plain lekker), and of course the world famous Antwerp cut diamonds. The inventor of the saxophone hailed from there too!
And here she is, little Ingrid wearing the t-shirt that "Auntie Nele" gave her, she loved it so much she cried when we wanted to take it off her at bedtime!

Yes, sweet Belgium... a "country created by the British to annoy the French"... with all it has to offer, I include the following list (just for you Nele...)

YOU KNOW YOU'VE BEEN IN BELGIUM TOO LONG WHEN... ... ...

1. You always stop your car for traffic from even the tiniest little road from the right.

2. You consider breaking the speed limit normal, and honk and flash at people who don't.

3. If you have had less than 10 beers you drive your car home, but you still don't indicate when turning or respect the speed limit.

4. If you have a car, you consider any other means of transportation slightly suspicious.

5. You know the names of at least 10 different sauces for chips.

6. You catch yourself ordering a "Supplement Frites" with every single dish you have in any kind of restaurant.

7. You give other foreigners lectures on the difference between fake and real monastery-produced beer.

8. You don't drink the last two centilitres of a Westmalle trippel.

9. You never wear any colour brighter than dark green. You automatically assume anyone who does is either a. Dutchb. Scandinavianc. American ord. Extremely childish or rude

10. Just one day without rain even in July and August can make you happy.

11. On Saturday morning and Sunday evening of any sunny summer-weekend you accept spending more than three hours stuck in traffic jams on motorways in order to get to and from 100 km's of coastline that are completely cramped with high-risers 20 meters from the beach.

12. You don't mind that bouncers have to be given at least 10 Euros when you leave a disco as a bribe for letting you get in next time

13. You consider it normal that even the train to and from the airport has announcements in both Dutch and French, but not in English. You don't react when all the foreigners storm out of the train at the announcement of Brussels North when coming from the airport.

14. You do all your grocery shopping in either GB or Delhaize, and you don't understand anyone who shops in the other supermarket chain.

15. You consider it normal to go out to a restaurant at least five times per week.

16. You think it is logical that shops are closed Sundays and evenings, but buy the booze you consume in night-shops between 4 and 5 AM Sunday morning. 17. You use and understand abbreviations like NMBS/SNCB, MIVB/STIB and SMAP/OMOB.

18. You only buy the most up-market chocolate brands, and feel sorry for the geeks who buy "white products".

19. You start going to Quick instead of McDonalds and you have actually tasted the Quick Bearnaise Burger.

20. You think it looks nice when the type of pavement tiles in front of each house are different, and you don't mind falling over lopsided tiles occasionally.

21. You take dog-shit on the pavement as just another challenge on you daily walks.

22. You keep three colours of bin-bags for different kinds of waste, and remember which days to put out which kind of bag on the pavement in front of your house.

23. You don't mind when most streets are full of bags that have been put out on the wrong day, not even in the summer when the combination of the sun and intrepid dogs makes it a very interesting experience.

24. You automatically assume that everyone else speaks at least three languages, but refuse to speak more than one yourself.

25. You have given up on any sensible political discussion on the language divide in general and the Brussels Capital Region and the future of Belgium in particular.

26. You consider it perfectly normal when the names of towns on road signs change from French to Dutch and vice versa every 5 or 10 kilometres of motorway.

27. You have understood that the hassle of monthly visits to the municipality to obtain papers or residence permits is reserved for recently arrived foreigners who move every 6 months, and you therefore don't complain over your own annual visit where you wait in line for an hour or two.

28. While you may whinge from time to time, you wouldn't and couldn't live anywhere else BECAUSE YOU LOVE IT!!

LOCUM

2005-11-16T22:01:00.000+01:00

I felt this a worthy contribution to the blog It may be a little risqué, but since it was considered worthy to print in many major Swedish newspapers (and obviously slipped past the prudish newspaper editors), then it's good enough for "The Helmut Post"!

This surely has to be the mother of all mistakes in advertising. Behold this Swedish ad for "Locum" (in case you haven't heard of it, Locum is a large real estate agency/property management firm here in Sweden).

What a clever move their PR mob must have thought this would be... a strategically placed heart replacing the "o" in their long-established logo, which (inadvertently) changed the interpretation of the advertisement completely... for the worse (or for the better, depending on your point of view).

I don't need to say any more. If you tell me you don't get it then you admit to having led a sheltered life! :P

Wolf Creek

2005-11-13T15:50:00.000+01:00

And now, a film review!

Yes, it's time to give the blog a little variety and not just story after story about me getting pissed and falling down the stairs!

Well, here it is. I'd like to recommend the soon to be released film "Wolf Creek" to you all, a new Aussie film which should be screening soon in Europe.

http://www.wolfcreekthemovie.com/

While I've not actually seen the film, I've heard (from reliable sources) that this is one of the best examples of it's genre, a real cliff-hanger, a must see. Apparently, people back home have been so terrified during the preliminary screenings they've been scared out of the cinema (after being "scared in" of course).

While many of you may not be able to stomach horror/slasher type films, this one may prove to be a little different. Said to be "The Australian Blair Witch Project", it's loosely in the Hitchcock style with a completely unpredictable plotline (unlike so many other films which are painfully simple to forecast). Basically, the film is loosely based on a true story... three English backpackers who plunge into a hellish nightmare after meeting and accepting help from a (seemingly) friendly local in a rather isolated part of Australia.

Two other URL's...

A Daily Telegraph news story:

http://dailytelegraph.news.com.au/story/0,20281,17212862-5001022,00.html

And from the IMDB:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0416315/

I hope it hits the Swedish cinemas soon for I really miss Australian films. I only hope that I don't feel TOO much sympathy for the homicidal maniac when watching "Wolf Creek" (personally, I too have experienced violent urges towards British and American backpackers and their relentless "Crocodile Dundee" taunts!).

G