Helsingbloggin' - Malmö

Tuesday, March 24th, 2009: Recycling (and my strange building) in Malmö

mark@markbase.net (Mark Base) — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 19:59:00 +0000

What I think:

Since I moved to Sweden, I've felt that recycling is a pretty thorough thing here. I even wrote about how it works in Helsingborg a couple of years ago (here). But it appears that recycling is not quite as thorough in Malmö as it is in Helsingborg.

Having just moved into our new place in Malmö, we naturally had a fair amount of rubbish (US/CAN: garbage) to dispose of, so off we went on our first visit to the rubbish room. It's actually in the basement, and along a long-ish corridor.

What we discovered was that, while there are the usual bins for paper, cardboard, clear and coloured (US/CAN: colored) glass, hard plastic, and general household waste, there are none for soft plastic or organic waste (left-overs, peels/skins, bones, rude cashiers, landlords, etc.). So all plastic carrier-bags/wrappers and people you don't like (including rappers) have to go in with the general household waste.

Now, I'm just wondering whether this is an all-of-Malmö thing, whether it's just my building, or whether it varies from building to building, or area to area.

I know that there are a few fellow blogging expats out there who live in Malmö, so I would be grateful to anyone who knows the answer to my query if they would leave a comment for me. Thanks.

Another thing

Something else we discovered was that we actually have a sauna in our basement! Yes, a sauna!

Sounds exotic, doesn't it? Well...

Firstly, it's right next to the rubbish room. The smell leading to the whole experience is not really conducive to what I'd call "relaxing". Think: a very different kind of aromatherapy (leaning more towards aversion therapy, for all you Psychology buffs out there).

Secondly, there's no lock on the door.

When you go through the orange door with no lock, located just next to the rubbish room, you enter what looks like some kind of weird waiting room.There are hooks (on the wall) behind the door which leads to the next area, so one assumes that this is where one might disrobe (US/CAN: take off your clothes). If I remember correctly, I think that door has at least got a lock.

In the next room, immediately to your left, you see this:I have to admit that I'd never seen one of these before, and therefore have no idea as to what it could be for. It's about toilet-height, and almost toilet-shaped, but it's obviously not a toilet. Any ideas?

My guess would have been that it's for a mop, but I didn't see one around, and I somehow can't imagine people heading down to the sauna carrying their mops. But I don't know, maybe they do that here.

After nearly seven years of living in Sweden, I'm feeling like a total newbie again. Thanks, Malmö.

So, if anyone knows what that thing is, your comment is welcome.

Let's continue our tour, shall we?

Turn around from this toilet-like thing, and directly in front of you, at the end of this little tiled hallway, there's a shower.It looks clean enough, and there's nothing particularly nasty about it, but it just somehow feels grungy. Maybe it's just the environment. This whole thing is starting to look like the set of some gruesome horror flick.

Just before you get to the shower, however, there are two doors on your right.

The first one is the toilet.

It's not very clean, nor is it disgustingly dirty either. It's just not somewhere you'd want to sit and do the crossword.

Finally, the second door on the right; the one between the toilet and the shower, which is directly across from the weird toilet-like thing, which is just inside the door from the scary "waiting room", which is just through the orange door with no lock, which is right next to the rubbish room, is the sauna.I am by no means claustrophobic, but this place immediately creeped me out.

I'm not even sure if it was the size - with the prospect of being closed in with loads of steam everywhere - or if it was the thought of several years' worth of sweaty Swedish bottoms having dripped on these benches, but this place didn't appeal to me at all.

Here's the heater thing,

where you dump ladle-fuls of water to make the steam

(as seen from the top bench):

As it stands now, I can't really see myself going down there to "enjoy" a "relaxing" sauna.

But you never know; I may well get drunk enough one evening to want to give it a go. I'll keep you posted on that.

Bottom's Up

OK, so now we've been to my little corner of Hell. Let me now take up, up - way up - to a nice little piece of Heaven (or as close as I reckon I'll ever get anyway).

We have a rooftop terrace! OK, so we actually live on the ground floor, but this terrace is open for all residents to enjoy.

Sweden doesn't really have many of what one would call skyscrapers... I think the nearest thing is probably something called the Turning Torso, an odd-looking building which is apparently the tallest building in Scandinavia.

So this little rooftop paradise above the seventh floor (UK: sixth floor) is a pretty good ways up for this part of the world. And its size could make for some promising parties (although I'm not actually promising any parties).

It's kind of a C-shaped terrace...

Here's a view from one of the corners at the end

(facing the bit where the stairs are):

Here's a view from the other corner of the end bit

(facing where I was standing in the previous photo - you with me?):

And finally, here's a view from the other side, facing the end:

In the photo above, you can just about make out the water on the left (the Öresund or "The Sound" - it's a strait, in geographical terms), behind that building. You can actually see it better from up here, but I didn't take a shot from that angle.

But what's that odd building towards the right?

Yes, it's the aforementioned Turning Torso!

So there's loads of space up on the terrace, some tables that look like they're used for barbecues, and a decent view. Very good party potential. Maybe if I introduce myself to all of my neighbours, one of them might invite me to a party sometime! Or I suppose I could try to get a life and make some friends in Malmö.

What do you think?

Personally, I think that there should be more consistency with recycling in this country. Malmö should recycle all plastics and organic waste as well, so that they can make that fantastic bio-gas to run the buses, like they do in Helsingborg. It's time that the Swedish government did something about it.

That's what I think.

Wednesday, March 18th, 2009: So long Helsingborg, Hello Malmö

mark@markbase.net (Mark Base) — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 16:09:00 +0000

What I think:

It's the end of an era.

Last Saturday, my girlfriend and I moved from Helsingborg to Malmö.

It was a pretty smooth move, although Lucy Fur (the cat) was none too pleased about sitting in a little cat-box for the two hours it took us to get there, only to be locked in the bathroom while the guys moved our stuff in. But she's settled in now - although she has suddenly developed this odd desire to crawl under the duvet to sleep during the day.

Spot the bump.

When I mentioned the move to my friends (all two of them), some of them (Johnny) asked, "But what will happen to Helsingblog?"

Well, here you are - the blog is now Helsingbloggin' - Malmö.

I will still be commuting to Helsingborg a couple of times a week, for band rehearsals and the occasional meeting (I used to travel for the same length of time (about an hour) every morning and evening when I lived in London, so this is really no big deal); in fact, I'm sitting in the basement of the Telegrafen pub in Helsingborg as I write this.

I'm actually "piggy-backing" on the pub's wireless broadband.

(Well, they charge enough for the beer here anyway; that's my justification.)

There will still be many adventures to be had in Helsingborg, so there's no point in stopping the blog just because there's a train ride between the two cities. The main difference is that you will now get some information about both places - sort of a two-for-one blog. Good offer, innit-eh?

Also, there are now a few blogs about Helsingborg for you to look at (have a look in the sidebar on the right). I especially recommend Kieron's An Englishman in the Borg. He's been writing it since he found out he'd be moving here from the UK, and describes what he's learned so far... It's a personal blog, but it has some great insights about the "how's and why's" of moving/living here. Do check it out.

Back to this blog, apologies in advance for any inconsistencies you might find with the title. You may still see it listed as Helsingblog in a few places for a while; it'll take some time to track everything down.

So. It's been a while, hasn't it? What have I been up to since last time (besides moving)?

Well, here's a brief rundown (not necessarily in the right order:

London

My girlfriend and I went to London for a few days in January (I think). This time, we decided to do a bit of a touristy thing, as we usually just go down the pub to meet my friends, or hit the West End, Camden, and/or a couple of other areas. So we did the Big Ben, Buckingham Palace (etc.) thing for a change, just so we could say we'd done it.

Before setting off to the city centre though, we saw this cool ad on the side of a bus in Stoke Newington, paid for by some kind of Atheist organisation(s):

We liked that.

The next bit is pretty surreal...

We went to this place near Baker Street that has all these famous people hanging around, both living and dead. But the dead people seem to look better than the living, so we decided to talk to them.

I spoke to Charles Dickens, and told him about the pub in Helsingborg that's named after him, where I've spent many a fine drunken evening. He seemed quite pleased and generally jovial at first, but when he asked about what I'd been doing in London this time around, and I told him about that bus, he started going into a big rant about "morality today" and "in my day" - blah-blah-blah - and I felt I couldn't relate to him anymore.

Here's me telling Mr Charles Dickens about the Charles Dickens pub.

In Helsingborg. In London.

It started getting pretty ugly when we started discussing Theology in general. He became the Charles Dickens I wish I'd never known. He was waving his hands around like he was going to hit me, but in a girly-fight kind of way. Well, I couldn't stand for that, so I delivered a skillfully-placed left jab straight to his right cheek, and knocked the bugger out. Take that, you Pickwick Papers-pimping parasitic prima-donna.

Charles Dickens recovered rapidly, however, and was back on his little Victorian feet, and about to totally beat my scrawny arse, when Alfred Hitchcock came forward, doing his best Harry Enfield Scouser "Calm-down-Calm-down" routine...

Yes! Saved by the Master of Suspense - and with such brilliant timing!

I remembered then why I've always admired Hitchcock so much. It's the timing, you see.

(OK, I'm back in Malmö now, The dream is over.)

The Demo

On January 17th, I was having a nice quiet drink at the Charles Dickens pub (I'll never learn, will I?), when I noticed that there was a demonstration against Israel's bombardment of Gaza going on.

I had my camera, so I took some photos. Here are two, but I have more (although some are blurry):

CSI: Helsingborg - Live at Punkten

We got another gig at Pub Punkten on February 6th. Here's proof:

So, I took the opportunity to vandalise the southern part of the city.

First, I went to the movies:

Then I went to Helsingborg's cultural

centre - the library - and wrapped

up the fountain:

It turned out to be a great gig, especially since we turned the volume down this time, as requested, and fewer people's ears were bleeding at the end than last time.

Valentine's Day (bless)

On February 14th, I made a cheesecake.

I'd bought this brilliant recipe guide called Everything I Know About Cheesecake off Etsy.com, and it's brilliant. It's only five Yankee bucks, and well worth it.

I had already made the mocha swirl one a couple of times, but I thought I'd try a strawberry thing.

Here it is:

OK, so it may not look great (one has to take great care to make a gorgeous-looking cheesecake), but it tasted fantastic.

Love - Light in Helsingborg

From February 14th until the 21st, Helsingborg's city council had a pretty cool idea. This was to have various different landmarks around the city displaying different kinds of light.

This had varying results; some displays on some buildings just looked tacky, while others looked wonderful.

But I have to say that the projection/show they had on the castle-like-thing in the centre was very, very well done. It was a 10- or 15-minute animated projection display shown on this great landmark, and it was worthy of a few "oohs and ahhs" for sure. Thumbs up for that one.

I tried to take a video of it using my camera, but the result didn't do it justice. So here's a still, shamelessly stolen from the city's website:
Helsingborg Fashion - puh-lease...

While we were walking around, my girlfriend stopped at a shop window, stared in horror, and pointed at the display.

Let me take this step by step:

First, we have the not-quite-shorts/not-quite-trousers (US/CAN: pants) thing happening here:
I know I've mentioned this before (some scrolling involved), but this is something I do not like.

Guys: Keep your legs covered or don't. Make up your minds.

Then we have this:

The bow-tie. It's for the nerdy heroes in the background, who are starting to gain fame in some high-tech crime-solving TV shows. Hurrah for the geeks. Yeah.

I hate it, but OK, it's there; I can handle its existence (just about).

But this:

This... ensemble.... What event could anyone possibly imagine attending in this monstrosity of an outfit?

Write your answers on a postcard, then burn it.

CSI: Helsingborg - Live at Telegrafen

We got a gig at Telegrafen on February 27th. This was cool, as it was the first gig that was closest to the city centre, and one that many of my friends and acquaintances would be able to attend.

So I got busy with the crime scene tape a couple of nights earlier.
This photo was taken outside the Bishops Arms, while I was listening to this couple have a wonderful drunken argument:

Ahh, young love.

The gig itself turned out to be the best we'd ever had. Having mostly people we knew there probably helped, but we were definitely in top form anyway.

My girlfriend's parents even came to see the show. Wow.

She had specifically asked me to try to tone the language down a bit (apparently, I swear more than Johnny Rotten at the dentist's) so, after the first song, I said something like, "Listen up: my girlfriend's parents are here, so do me a favour and keep your f*cking language clean, awright?". Or something...

The show was a great success. We might even be allowed to play again within three miles of the place, within the next two years or so.

No, but seriously, it went very well. Here's a photo of a girl (whom I didn't pay - honest) who liked our show so much that she bought one of our t-shirts, and grabbed some CSI crime scene tape to wrap around her head and wrist:

The restraining order is in effect until August next year.

That's it.

It's almost 3:00 a.m. and I will now be publishing this post without reading it through, so apologies for the mistakes.

I'd like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has been reading Helsingblog. I will continue the blog, but it will be a bit different. Maybe even more frequent than it has been lately.

I would also like to thank the Swedish government for doing nothing about it, as this is what I've come to realise that they're best at.

And welcome to Helsingbloggin' - Malmö.

That's what I think.

Monday, December 29th, 2008: Aweigh with the ferries of Helsingborg

mark@markbase.net (Mark Base) — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 12:50:00 +0000

What I think:

After yet another successful gig at Trappa Upp in Höganäs (more on that later), we in the blues/rock cover band CSI: Helsingborg decided to have a Pissed Rehearsal tonight.

A Pissed Rehearsal is a rehearsal to which we bring loads of beer, and get drunk while playing. The logic behind this is that we will always have a good few beers before (and during) performing live, so we might as well get used to playing drunk.

Having said this, I always drink beer at rehearsals anyway. But the others don't usually drink much. Except for CSI: Nils; we usually meet at Charles Dickens before rehearsals and down a couple there.

We also usually invite friends to our Pissed Rehearsals, and end up having quite a little party. You'd like these things, I'm sure.

In any case (of beer), I needed to pick up a case (of beer) for the Pissed Rehearsal. Rather than go to the state-owned, over-priced, horrible alcohol monopoly Systembolaget, we in Helsingborg have a great little perk: the ferry.

I was hoping to go with a friend, but the Yank was busy, Badlands had already been out and was going to work today, another Yank had a "screaming child and a troublesome vagina" to contend with (I didn't ask for further details), and my new-ish Brit mate was in Gothenburg.

Scandlines operate a three-ferry service. A ferry leaves Helsingborg every twenty minutes, and arrives in Helsingör (in Denmark) twenty minutes later. Which ferry you catch depends on when you get to Knutpunkten (Helsingborg's central station for ferries, trains, and buses), and get your ticket.

Single (US/CAN: one-way) tickets are only 28 kronor (€2.52, £2.44, CAN $4.34,and about US$625.72). You only want to buy a single because you can buy beer on board, and Helsingör is crap this time of year. You just stay on the ferry and wait for it to return to Helsingborg.

You can only buy beer once you're in Danish waters, so buy it as you're either approaching or leaving Denmark. Smokers can buy cheap cigarettes in Swedish waters. You can only buy one pack from the shop (per ticket purchased), but you can usually buy more from the bar. But not always.

The names of the ferries are Hamlet (you can see "Hamlet's castle" as you approach Helsingör; Helsingör = Elsinore), Aurora, and Tycho Brahe. I got on Tycho Brahe.

Tycho Brahe was from this area of Sweden when it was part of Denmark. It's confusing, I know; read up on Skåne's (or "Scania's") history if you're interested, and/or on Tycho Brahe, if you give a hoot about this silver-snooted astronomer.

An interesting fact about the Tycho Brahe ferry: Did you know that this particular ferry has a Servicefart of 14,5 knob?I kid you not. I just learned that yesterday evening when I was on board. Here's proof:

Remember that; it could turn out to be very important information on this journey called "Life".

Tycho Brahe is actually my favourite ferry of the three. This is because there's a nice little closed-off smoking room in the bar area.

Yay.

And before any non-smoking militants start ranting, I'd like to share a quote from the late great Joe Strummer from The Clash: "Non-smokers should be banned from buying any product created by a smoker." There, that's you lot told.

Anyway, after boarding and climbing the stairs to the bar, to my utter dismay, I found it to be closed.

What!? OK, it was a Sunday, but it was early evening, for crying out excessively loudly.

I was not happy. I went back downstairs, bought a bottle of beer from whence they sell those red Danish hot dog things, went back up to the bar's smoking room, and sulked for a while.Then I had an idea: Why not do a "Top Toilet Tips"* about the ferry?

Here we go:

There are a few toilets on each ferry. It's only when it's very busy that you have to wait to relieve yourself. The gents' toilet on the bar/restaurant deck (Deck 5) looks like this:Because it was totally dead on this particular crossing, the toilet was nice and clean. It can get pretty nasty though, so be warned. The stalls are pretty basic.

But do you seen the little metal box in the top-right?

Here:

I like this. It's a special box for the junkies and self-harmers to dispose of their sharp objects, so as not to bring harm to others. I think it's a very nice and thoughtful touch. Bless.

The urinals also have a cool feature.

They're placed over a grill, which is (essentially) a large drain. So if someone "misses", you don't have to stand in their pee-puddle. Hell, you can even just open fire directly onto the grill, if you want to (but make sure you're alone. Trust me; it can be embarrassing otherwise).

So that's it. I can highly recommend the gents' toilet aboard Tycho Brahe, especially if you're a self-harming heroin addict who hasn't quite mastered the fine art of aiming your willy effectively.

So, that was fun. But I was still pissed off that the bar was closed.Then we finally got to Denmark, left Denmark, I went down and bought my beer from the shop (which, by the way, looks like a lot of duty-free shops you see in airports), bought another beer from the hot dog place. Found my way upstairs and had a smoke (see A Day In The Life by The Beatles), and felt much happier.

Mission accomplished.

The Gig

CSI: Helsingborg played at Trappa Upp in a town called Höganäs on December 19th. We weren't really sure whether many people would turn up, as it was the Friday before Christmas.

As it turns out, a British drummer friend of mine (from Mortice - check them out) turned up with his girlfriend. This is what it looked like just before we hit the stage:

Two of the people in that photo are in the band.

We actually ended up having a surprise opening act. One of the barmen decided to hit the dance floor to show us his bottle-juggling skills.

Tom Cruise, he was not.

He kept dropping bottles, but persevered for what felt like an eternity, until one of the bottles finally smashed of the floor. Great, we thought, he's done. But no, he simply went and got another one, and his performance continued for a further eternity-and-a-half.

Eventually, we got on stage and did our first set for our audience of two.It went really well anyway. And we were getting paid a really good amount of money for doing it, so no complaints from us.

More people started turning up just before we started our second set, which was nice. By the end we had a decent-sized crowd. And they seemed to like us as well, which was a bonus.

We ended our set with Neil Young's Rocking In The Free World. Some rather large female took it upon herself to steal CSI: Per's microphone to help us out on vocals during the choruses. CSI: Per is not a big guy, and he'd skipped the self-defense classes that every CSI is expected to take, so he was not going to argue.

She was adorable anyway. It was very cute the way that she sang "Keep on rockin' on the free world" in her extreme Swedish accent.

When we finished, and left the stage, she kept asking us if we know any Melissa Etheridge.

Er, no.

And we're finished. And we're not allowed back on stage. We're done. Finito.

She was not a happy jumbo-bunny.

So I gave her an XL CSI:Helsingborg t-shirt, and made her an honourary member of CSI: Helsingborg. That seemed to prevent any unfortunate squishing episodes.

Another brilliant gig that ended peacefully.

In summary, I think that the bars on the ferries should be open at least until 23:00 (11:00 p.m.), and it's time that the Swedish government did something about it. That's what I think.

* More Top Toilet Tips!

Tuesday, December 16th, 2008: CSI: Helsingborg to play at Trappa Upp in Höganäs on Friday, December 19th

mark@markbase.net (Mark Base) — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 14:35:00 +0000

What I think:

We found out last Friday that the good people at the Trappa Upp bar/music venue in the small town of Höganäs enjoyed our show so much that they want us to play again this coming Friday. Short notice, but yay.

I went up there a couple of nights ago with our bass player, CSI: Per, to drop off some posters for the owner (at the pizza place; he owns both places).

It's not the best resolution here, but

this is what the latest poster looks like:

I thought that this would be a great opportunity to make use of some of our new crime scene tape, so we set about "cordoning off" random things in the central area of Höganäs.

We started off at the bike stand shelter (yes, there's a shelter for the bicycles) right next to the town hall, where we put tape on the sides...Then we did a few bits of some random fences around there, as well as some bins.

Here's one with CSI: Per's official CSI: Helsingborg cap on top. He thought it would be very artistic. Per is Swedish.There seems to be quite a few benches along one of the main roads on Höganäs, and not just at bus stops.

Where there were two or more in a row, we just had to wrap some CSI tape around one of their backs. Resistance was futile.Then we found a nice tree right near, what appeared to be, the central bus depot. Ideal.

We soon found out that Höganäs is a place with an obvious artistic flair.

Yes, it was much to our delight that CSI: Per and I discovered amazing statues of a few small piggies grazing by the side of the road.

One of them looked to me like the perfect little porcine crime scene. Come here, you.

I call it our Gig Pig. Perhaps we'll adopt her as our mascot. Yeah. And we can call her Giggle Piggy.

All in all, I think we covered a good wide area of central Höganäs (such as it is), and it's time that the Swedish government attended one of our gigs. That's what I think.

Friday, December 12th, 2008: The second snowfall and buying silly things in Helsingborg

mark@markbase.net (Mark Base) — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 14:31:00 +0000

What I think:

The second snowfall, errm, fell on Helsingborg. You may remember my post about the first one of this season. Some mystery joker, who probably lives in the building opposite ours, "wrote" in the snow.

It appears that this may now be a regular occurrence, as I just looked out the window a few minutes ago and saw this:

Yes, it's the word SEN upside-down. This is a bit more cryptic than the "STFU OMFG" we saw last time. Sen is Swedish for "late", but it's also commonly used as a shortened version of senare, which means later. (Here's a little Swedish lesson for you: sen, senare, senast mean "late", "later", "latest", respectively. Educational blog, or what!?)

While I did indeed wonder why someone would want to write "STFU" and "OMFG" in the snow, I could almost see the point. I took as a kind of a "No way! It can't be snowing, get outta here!" type of thing. But this one's got me baffled.

Is it some kind of message to one of my neighbours (US/CAN: neighbors) across the way; as in "I'll see you later"? Or could it be something more sinister? Hhmm...

Answers in the comments, please. The writer of the best one will win something. Sometime. If they're lucky.

Moving on...

I made a rather silly purchase recently - but first a bit of background:

My girlfriend and I live in a small flat, but we have a fair-sized glassed-in balcony. We put a single bed and a side table out there, so that we could use the balcony as a spare room during the summer (all 17 days of it), and a little smoking room year-round.

One problem was that it wasn't very attractive. So, my girlfriend decided to do something about it. Here's the "before" photo, with GF starting to do something about it:

And here's the "after" photo, taken yesterday:

Much better, isn't it?

We laid some good (but cheap) carpeting out there, on which Lucy Fur can sharpen her little toenails whenever she pleases (she hates scratching posts, for some reason), and it's more pleasant on one's feet in general.

The balcony's fine when it's not winter, but since this is only for about nine days out of the year, it can get very chilly out there, and the carpet doesn't keep one's feet warm, even with socks.

Since my teen years (i.e. when it became important to be "cool"), I've had an aversion to wearing slippers. Now that I'm in my forties, I don't want to wear them because (unreasonably), I'll feel old; you know, the old man with pipe, slippers and newspaper image. Shudderingly retro, in a bad way. Even if the pipe is now a bong.

BUT, then I saw something I thought would be quite funky. Some slippers that you stick in the microwave for 90 seconds before slipping them on.

Yes, I bought a pair of Slippies.

That's all my years of accumulated street cred destroyed in one fell swoop.

But they do work.

I have to say that I will normally only wear them when I go out on the balcony for a smoke, or when I'm sitting at my desk (which is right near the balcony door, so my feet do get cold).

But that's not because they're extremely uncool, but because they're not made for walking in. The soles are filled with flax seeds and some lavender essence (so your feet smell like an old lady's blue-rinsed hair), and walking in them feels like you're walking on a beach wearing socks & sandals. In fact, the text on the packaging indicates that they're not designed for walking in, as they don't have any grips on the soles.

While these Slippies are quite comfy, and indeed ideal for sitting out on a cold balcony for the duration of a cigarette, they're otherwise pretty useless items of footwear for wearing around the home.

So I nominate Slippies my silliest purchase of the year. I may just ask the Swedish government if they have any ideas for next year's silly purchase; they seem to be good at spending money on useless things as well.

So, what was YOUR silliest purchase of the year? Please do share.

Monday, December 8th, 2008: Music and mayhem in Helsingborg

mark@markbase.net (Mark Base) — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 16:21:00 +0000

What I think:

Well, it happened again today. Somebody came up to me, asked if I was Mark Base, and mentioned that she reads this blog. While this most often happens at PL13, this time it was at a bus stop in the south of the city. I had just finished rehearsing with a Christmas Choir (my former workplace has a few people who sing some songs at Christmas and Midsummer, and I agreed to continue playing guitar for them), and I was waiting for a bus to go home.

Meeting this girl made me realise that I haven't written anything for a while, so I thought I'd take this opportunity to bring you up to speed with things over here in the south of Sweden. Oh, by the way, "Hello girl from the bus stop!" (I do remember your name, but I'm not sure of how to spell it). Plus I'm not sure if you'd want to see it published here, even if I happened to get the spelling right.

Work-wise, I'm still mainly getting jobs from the company I used to work for, but I've had a couple of other things as well; most recently some voice-over work, which is fun. I'm actually going to Malmö tomorrow to do a bit more of that.

OK, that's work out of the way.

The end of October and the first couple of weeks of November were an exceptional time for music in Helsingborg. I'm hoping that this turns out to be some kind of trend; perhaps some decent bands won't always necessarily skip Helsingborg when going to do other gigs in the bigger cities elsewhere in Sweden, like Stockholm and Gothenburg. One can always dream.

CSI: Helsingborg in Höganäs

But first, a bit about my band, CSI: Helsingborg. We had a gig at a place called Trappa Upp (Upstairs) in a town called Höganäs, which is about a 20-minute drive north of Helsingborg. Trappa Upp is an odd place right in the middle of some sort of industrial estate. And, as the name suggests, it's up a flight of stairs. But once inside, it's actually quite a nice venue.

"Good evening. We're with the crime lab."

It turned out to be a really good gig, even though there were only about 20 people there (including bar staff). A bit odd for the Friday after pay day, but nevermind. It was great to see my burger-stabbing friend there with his girlfriend. They'd recently moved to Höganäs, and thought they'd come and check out the show. So, M. (the girlfriend) was the official photographer for the evening.

The Pink Floyd Project at The Tivoli

The following evening my girlfriend and I went to The Tivoli to see a Danish tribute band called The Pink Floyd Project.I can definitely say that this was the best show I'd seen during my time in Helsingborg, so far. The music, the visuals, everything was just... wow. I almost felt stoned watching/listening to them. Check them out; they got some stuff on YouTube. After the show, we went into the adjoining bar within Tivoli, the Vinyl Bar. It turned out that my bass player from CSI: Helsingborg (CSI: Per) was there with his lovely wife and a mate. So we had a few more beers.

After the show...

Then this guy suddenly appeared wearing a tiny Borat-style thong swimsuit, and with his hair in bunches.

Bless.

Apparently he was wearing it for a bet, but he was quite embarrassed for a while. But then he got used to the attention and decided to shake his exposed booty.No, it wasn't pretty.

I don't remember much more about that evening, and the photos remaining on the camera didn't give me much of a clue, but I don't think it was anything more exciting than this. Because this really looks pretty exciting, doesn't it?

A birthday party

The following week, I was invited to a party to celebrate the birthday of the drummer of my other band, Suckerbucket. I went with The Yank and another friend.

It wasn't exactly a surprise party, per se, as Mr Drummer's wife had made about 14,682 hors d'oeuvres, and had bought 687 bottles of bubbly. But we gave him a bit of a surprise when he opened his front door to find about 50 people singing Happy Birthday to him.

And there was another surprise in store for him anyway. Some of the guests had organised a little band to play Stevie Wonder's Happy Birthday. They even got some funky costumes together, and got Mr Birthday Drummer Guy to join in and bang a snare drum as well.

Quite an impressive performance. And visually, it almost rivalled The Pink Floyd Project.

But not quite.

Afterwards (i.e. after we'd polished off the 687 bottles of bubbly), The Yank, the other friend, and I went to Pub Punkten for a couple more beers. Then I went home, eventually.

Detektivbyrån

The following week, my girlfriend and I went to see another band at The Tivoli. This one was called Detektivbyrån (which translates to The Detective Bureau). They only play instrumental stuff, but it's pretty cool. It's sort of electronica mixed with vibes and accordion. It was impressive to see someone who could make an accordion actually look cool.The drummer had a funny bit as well... He was talking about how he had been taking sax lessons, so we thought that he'd be wowing us with his newly acquired saxophone skills... But sax is also Swedish for scissors, so we were treated to him using a pair of scissors as a percussion instrument.Believe it or not, he was pretty good with those things... And it was kinda cute when he came out from behind his drums to play them; there was a little tiny microphone attached to them. Bless.

All in all, a very enjoyable show. Apparently I'd have enjoyed it even more if I'd have understood the banter between songs.

The Cat

For no reason whatsoever, here's a photo of Lucy Fur, with her leg in the air, like she just don't care:

The Futureheads

OK, now I started to feel as though we were getting spoilt here in Helsingborg. The night after Detektivbyrån, the UK band The Futureheads played at the Tivoli.

To be honest, I hadn't heard much about them before. I moved to Helsingborg in 2002, and I think they really took off at some point after that. I don't listen to radio here, and have had very little contact with the music scene anywhere, really, besides doing stuff with my own little local cover bands, and anything people would randomly recommend.

It was an English guy from my old workplace who mentioned that The Futureheads were coming, and that they'd be worth checking out. He'd seen them a couple of times already, and said that they're worth checking out. So I watched a couple of things on YouTube, bought some of their stuff on iTunes, and yeah, liked them.

So why not?

The show was an absolute blast. These guys were here to play some great tunes, to party, and just generally have a bloody good time. MIssion accomplished.They enjoyed chatting to the crowd and talking absolute bollocks to/about each other. The bass player's tambourine bit was magic, and the lead singer's urgent exit for another bottle was sheer class. (OK, I may have a slightly different definition of class to some others'.)

Check these guys out; they do a brilliant version of Kate Bush's Hounds Of Love.

Have a look/listen to the video below:

CSI: Helsingborg at Pub Punkten

On November 28th, CSI: Helsingborg played at Pub Punkten, which is a little bar in the south of Helsingborg.

One thing I was pretty excited about was that I had ordered some proper crime scene tape; you know, the kind that they use to cordon off crime scenes? Well, I had some custom-made and sent over from some place in the UK.

So anyway, this CSI: Helsingborg crime scene tape arrived about a week before our gig, so I got to wrap it all over the place. I've got four rolls of 250 metres each; I could cordon off a whole kilometre if I wanted to. Haha! Brilliant!

Here's the door to Pub Punkten:

This was a great gig. There was quite a large crowd, and everyone seemed to enjoy it (with the exception of one drunken old lady with red hair (sponsored by l'Oréal) who claimed that it was too loud. I bought her a white wine; that shut her up for a while anyway).

There's this new-ish English guy in town whom I've started hanging out with a bit (another I met through this blog). I gave him my camera to take some shots, but the battery was pretty much dead, so he didn't manage to get many. Plus he left about fifteen minutes before we finished, as he felt that he was starting to get very drunk. Ah well. Anyway, great gig, great fun.

Our next confirmed gig is at Telegrafen pub on February 27th, but we may play in Höganäs or at Punkten again before then. We shall see.

Another blogger in Helsingborg

By the way, before I forget... A while ago, I mentioned another Helsingblog reader who was thinking about moving here from Manchester. Well it turns out that he is indeed moving here. Coincidentally, I mentioned him in my post about Helsingborg-based bloggers; it turns out the he's started a blog as well. Be sure to check out Kieron's An Englishman in the Borg, where he gives us a weekly update of what he's learning about moving to Helsingborg.

I think that when CSI: Helsingborg play, any old ladies with fake red hair and seriously crap attitudes should be banned or, better still, imprisoned - at least for the duration of the performance. It's time that the Swedish government did something about it.

That's what I think.

Friday, November 21st, 2008: The first snowfall of 2008 - no snowmen in Helsingborg

mark@markbase.net (Mark Base) — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 14:31:00 +0000

What I think:

Well, it finally happened.

It snowed today.

Winter is well and truly here in Helsingborg.

It was odd though, because it was actually a sunny day when it started snowing.

I took a few photos from our balcony to show you the progress over about a relatively short period of time (although I can't exactly say what it's relative to).

Here's the first one:

See? Sunny!

But not for long.

You can see the ground really starting to get covered here...

And then it turned into a little blizzard.

Try this at home: go to a mirror and say the word "blizzard" over and over again for five minutes and forty-three seconds. An amazing thing will happen. (Not really, you'll just look and sound like a total lunatic.)

Finally, it stopped, leaving a nice white layer. Even without the sun, it feels slightly brighter when there's a bit of snow on the ground, don't you think?

But when I looked out a while later,

I discovered that we have a comedian in the area:

Yes, someone had taken the liberty of writing OMFG and STFU in the snow. For those of you who may be unfamiliar with abbreviations on the Internet these days, OMFG stands for Octopuses Make Funny Gargoyles (I would have said Octopi myself, but this is the official thing, OK?), and STFU stands for Stubborn Tortoises Fart Upwards.

Even though I'm by no means a big fan of winter, the first snowfall is always nice. I think it's disgraceful how some people go and ruin the moment by scrawling animalistic nonsense in the beautiful purity of the freshly fallen fluffy stuff, and it's time that the Swedish government did something about it.

That's what I think.

Tuesday, October 28th, 2008: Back in time in Helsingborg

mark@markbase.net (Mark Base) — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 09:27:00 +0000

What I think,

The clocks went back this weekend.

Yes, I suddenly decided I didn't like our clocks, so we brought them back to the Clock Shop.

But when we got our fancy new ones home, we found that they were all exactly one hour slow. Modern technology, eh?

Being the hyper-intelligent, mega-brainy guy that I am, I decided to just live with the erroneous time shown on my clocks, and turn up for my various appointments an hour earlier than agreed, as per my clocks' time. Smart, eh?

Being the mega-intelligent, hyper-brainy guy that I am, I have many large, complex, and difficult books (with lots of big words in them) to read anyway, so I don't mind waiting; in fact, I enjoy waiting sometimes. Because I like to read books with many big words in them. Because I'm intelligent, brainy, and mega-hyper.

And because I usually like to turn up about ten minutes before any appointed time, I was actually an hour and ten minutes early for my first meeting.

But within ten minutes, when I was just finishing reading my fourth word, other people started turning up as well. This was a bit frustrating, frankly. But since I'm nearly as tolerant and agreeable (not to mention generally very nice) as I am vastly knowledgeable, I ignored this apparent ignorance of the other participants, and went along with the impromptu earlier meeting time.

But at the end of our meeting, when I mentioned that I was surprised that everyone else was nearly as early as I was, they said, "Didn't you know? The clocks went back."

So I said, "Yours too?"

I think it's outrageous that there's such widespread shoddy craftsmanship of clocks in this country, and it's (well beyond) time that the Swedish government did something about it. That's what I think.

Sunday, October 19th, 2008: Blogging about bloggers in Helsingborg

mark@markbase.net (Mark Base) — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 13:06:00 +0000

What I think:

The darkness came early this year. And I don't mean that a British glam rock band popped up to Helsingborg and ejaculated prematurely; it's almost pitch-black by 7 p.m. these days, and we haven't even put the clocks back yet. Bummer.

I was at PL13 last night (which remains the coolest little bar in Helsingborg), and this British guy came up to me and told me that he had read this blog before moving here a couple of years ago. I always seem to meet people at PL13 who've read my blog. It's obviously where all the grooviest people go in this city.

Then I went outside for a smoke, and met an Irish girl who lives in Copenhagen. We were chatting a bit, and I told her about that guy inside, and she told me that she's read my blog as well. Wow.

I've come to realise that quite a few people actually read this blog to get insider information about what it's like to live in Helsingborg. So it's "mission accomplished" for me.

But there's still so much to write about. Do you ever get this feeling where you have so many ideas, and you feel all inspired and creative, and you just want to sit there for hours and hours and write loads and loads of stuff? Me neither.

But there are more pub toilets to review, more anecdotes about little bothersome things about life in this little city to tell, and more fun to be had.

I thought I'd say a few words about some fellow bloggers here in Helsingborg. I met one of them last night, as it goes.

Meet "Amy".

Amy has a blog (in Swedish) called Sweet Things in Life. She writes about things she likes. Having had another look today, it appears that Amy likes recipes, furry animals, and beauty products. She's sweet.

Oh, by the way, I had a visit from another of my readers the other week. Kieron might be moving here from Manchester for work. He got in touch so that we could go out for a few beers and chat about life in Helsingborg.

No visit would be complete without a trip on the ferry, so off we went.

Kieron says that Helsingborg is pretty much everything he expected. I haven't quite worked out whether this is a good thing.

Back to bloggers.

A good Yank friend of mine here has started a website with a buddy of his who lives in the States. If you're into American Football, and especially the jerseys the players wear, you'll simply adore Football Fasion Fanatics. Ken and his pal Rich are total nutcases, and their site/blog (what they call a slog) is an absolute hoot and a half. Ish.

Here's a photo of one of Ken's ears, taken at the Helsingborg festival this summer: Anyway, do check out their slog. It's funny even if, like me, you don't know your quarterback from your jock strap.

Another amusing Helsingborg blog is Screaming in Sweden. It's worth a look. The girl who writes it has some pretty special views on things.

The girlfriend and I went to Stockholm a couple of weeks ago. We went to attend an "After Work" party that was organised by the people at The Local (Sweden's news in English). We stayed at John and Sofia's place - two other regular posters on The Local's discussion forum. Another friend (and fellow blogger), Miss Kitten, stayed there as well. It was good to meet up with a load of people up there, most of whom I only know through the forum and facebook.

Here's Miss Kitten being a total tourist in Stockholm:

Isn't she nice? She lives in Gothenburg, which about three hours north of Helsingborg, also on the west coast. Do check out her blog: The Further Adventures of Miss Kitten.

There was much partying going on in Stockholm. While my girlfriend was doing all the shops, Miss Kitten and I sat outside a pub, and I think I had about 7 beers.

A bit tipsy was I, oh yes.

But later on, we met up with Seventiesdreamer for a bite to eat. And more alcohol.

Here's me with more alcohol:

I don't now how the topic came up, but we started talking about mushroom picking. Seventiesdreamer lives near some woods where you can find some nice mushrooms. I told her about my experience of magic mushroom picking in Wales.

There was a large field with loads of magic mushrooms scattered around. After about an hour of walking around hunched over and picking these things some of the psilocybin got absorbed through the pores in the skin of my hands, and I started to feel slightly odd. But I just carried on in a trance-like state, until I looked up and saw this enormous cow's head right in front of me. MOO! Gave me a hell of a shock.

For some reason, Seventiesdreamer found this completely hilarious. She laughed for six minutes and forty-three seconds. I actually managed to snap a photo of her laughing at my misfortune. And she wasn't even drunk. Bitch.

The next day, girlfriend and I went for a wander in Gamla Stan (the old town). We found a nice little place and had a coffee and cake. We thought the menu outside was quite interesting.I'm not so sure I like the idea of smelling like a mushroom.

So then it was back to Helsingborg and the "real world".

Here's another photo of Helsingborg's City Hall,
with the obligatory bloke on the horse in front
I like that building.

In other news, CSI: Helsingborg have a few gigs lined up!

Yes, we're playing in some crap little town called Höganäs on October 31st, on November 28th we'll be at a bar called Punkten in Helsingborg's beautiful south, and at Telegrafen pub on February 27th.

Oh, and my foot's fine now, thanks. I'm limping a bit, but the crutches are gone, and the beer looks after any residual pain I sometimes have.

I think that more people should be encouraged to blog. It's a lot of responsibility for one 5'-7" British-Canadian to have to bear the burden of educating the rest of the world about life in Helsingborg. It's time that the Swedish government did something about it. That's what I think.

Saturday, September 6th, 2008: Eventful gigs in Helsingborg and Bjuv

mark@markbase.net (Mark Base) — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 10:03:00 +0000

What I think:

After coming back from holiday (US/CAN: vacation), I had a few gigs lined up, so I was kept busy with rehearsals.

I was to play at an IKEA party in Helsingborg with Suckerbucket on the Thursday, September 28th (with a guest appearance for a couple of duets with Twisted Systems - the other IKEA band here in Helsingborg).

I also had a couple of gigs with CSI: Helsingborg in the tiny town of Bjuv; one as part of the festival, and one at a restaurant/bar which is located right in the middle of where the festival was taking place.

On the Thursday evening
Twisted Systems were first to take to the stage, and they did a great job. They're all good musicians, and are pretty tight.

Here's a photo (Left to right: Boy, Boy, Girl, Boy, Girl):

I think they're actually the better band, but they had to go on first, as Sven (our lead guitarist) was just coming back from a business trip in Stockholm (doesn't sound very Rock 'n Roll, does it?), and couldn't make it early enough for us to open.

But eventually Sven turned up, and before long we were all tuned up and ready to rock. Yay.

The set was going pretty well.

Here's a rather unflattering photo of the set going pretty well:

I was really getting into it; having a great time. During the guitar solo on "Hard To Handle", I even hopped off the stage to dance around a bit. Loads of fun..

But then disaster struck. When I went to hop back onto the stage, my foot didn't quite land flat on it; it kind of hit the edge.

Crack. Oops. Ouch. Agony.

I'd done something to my right foot. But I managed to hobble back onto the stage, and continued the set.

I'm not sure if this was taken before of after the big snap!

Marcus, our bassist, kept saying that we should stop playing (bless him), as I kept whispering to him that I was getting these intermittent waves of nausea, but I was determined to carry on.

So we carried on until the bitter end. I think we went over quite well, but I was in a bit of a world of my own by that point, so I couldn't be sure.

Luckily, Claudia (the singer from Twisted Systems) managed to find me some pain killers, and my girlfriend was there to get me to the hospital.

I know I've got only myself to blame (I was a wee bit tipsy, of course), but there's one thing that I believe was another contributing factor:

At this party, they were selling beer and wine, both for 35 Kronor each (about US$5 / £3 / €3.70). Normally, I find that four beers is a good amount to have before going on stage; I lose any nervous edge I may have, I'm feeling confident and energetic, and I'm nowhere near drunk enough to screw up.

So I had a beer. Then I had another. By the third one, I realised that I wasn't really feeling much, so I checked the bottle: 3.5%. I was drinking piss-weak beer!

I found this quite annoying, because when I have a beer, I have certain expectations of what that beer will do. And it wasn't happening. So I decided to go for the wine instead... Look at it this way: for three quid, they were offering a coice between 3.5% beer or 12% wine. Yes, of course the quantities were different (you weren't getting half a litre of wine), but the alcoholic proportions per volume were way off.

Anyway, needless to say, I went onto the wine. And perhaps in a bigger way than I would have done if I'd have realised from the start that the beer was crap. So, while I'm by no means making excuses or blaming anyone else for my folly, it's all their bloody fault.

So.... My girlfriend brought me to the hospital. Because it was fairly early on a Thursday night, it didn't take too long to get seen. The doctor felt my foot in different places; some hurt, some didn't so much, and I was able to wiggle my toes, so she established that I had broken a few small bones in my foot. She said that I should rest it a bit, but try to keep putting some weight on it, if possible.

They wrapped a bandage around it, and sent me on my merry way.

Friday
On Friday morning, I was in pain. My foot was swollen, and there was lots of weird bruising (which, I was later told, is normal). The bruising is still there as I write this; mostly on my toes, for some reason.

My girlfriend stopped by the hospital on her way home from work to get some crutches for me. I had been told that I should try to put some weight on my foot, but this was proving impossible, and I had a gig to get to.

The CSI: Helsingborg team picked me up at about 6 p.m. (SWE: 18:00), and we went to our rehearsal space to pick up our equipment. I sat outside (drinking proper beer) while they heaved everything onto the trailer.

Bjuv is about a 20-minute drive from Helsingborg (with a trailer). When we got there, a couple of the guys went and found me a bar stool to use on stage, as there was no way I'd be able to stand for the whole performance

CSI: Helsingborg was supposed to start at 8:00 (20:00), but the band before us took their time, so we didn't actually start on time. But there was a good atmosphere...

Here's CSI: Bengt, CSI: Me, and CSI: Per

And here's CSI: Nils, CSI: Bengt, And CSI: Me

Bjuv is the home of Findus Frozen Foods, and they usually have a Miss Pea contest. Last year, I asked the question: When Miss Pea is crowned, do we actually call her "Miss Pea", or are we expected to use the more formal "Your Royal Pea-ness". I asked again this year, and again this year, no one got it. Bjuv is not exactly a bustling cosmopolitan metropolis, so English is not such a big thing there.

Bjuv does have some quirky and fun people though. I was thrilled and amazed to see our Number One Fan from last year there. He was the old guy (our only dancer, for the most part) in the blue cowboy hat with the nicely coordinated socks in his sandals. See photos here and here.

And there he was this year as well! Brilliant!

Sorry about the blurry photo; he was boogying far too much to get a decent shot. Cool effect on his companion though, don't you think?

As you can see, he'd swapped his cowboy hat for a baseball cap, and he was wearing proper shoes as well. I must say, it looked much better. Took years off him.

This year, we also had a few younger fans who were hanging out by the stage. My girlfriend snapped this little cutie for us:

Bless.

We had a great show, everyone was happy, blah-blah-blah.

Afterwards, I sat with a few friends who'd come to the show, and got down to some (more) beers. There was a good friendly vibe all round.

At one point, someone from our entourage suddently pointed to a table behind me, where a couple of ladies were dancing on a table, doing a bit of striptease thing. Oh, dear.

Again, sorry about the blurry images; it was a bit dark, and these two were gyrating rather frantically:

Yep, those Bjuvians know how to have a good time.

Saturday
On Saturday night, we were to provide the music for Bjuv's Restaurang Hörnan (The Corner Restaurant), from 7:00 p.m. to 1:00 a.m. (19:00-01:00). This meant that we'd perform five sets over the course of the evening, and have my iPod running a specially-prepared playlist in between (the preparation of which was how I spent my Saturday afternoon).

It was rather a strange set-up, actually. They had a wooden deck/terrace outside the restaurant, over which they'd made a kind of tent out of white tarpaulin stuff. At one end of this tented terrace, they had a sideways-parked trailer, with tarpaulin and lights on a structure they'd attached to it. That was the stage.

Here's CSI: Bengt setting up, with CSI: Nils in the background:

Here's one of the guys setting stuff up on the "stage":

And here's one of me not helping them with all this:

OK, this gig was really fun. Obviously the crowd changed throughout the evening, and I had to make several announcements about us not doing requests.

Having said this, there was one sweet girl who came up and asked if we could play some kind of birthday song for her sister's boyfriend who'd just turned 21. So we made an exception and attempted "Birthday" by The Beatles, which we'd never tried before. The one verse we managed was OK, and everyone was happy.

There were a few people I knew there, and a Blackfoot Indian harmonica player, "Ironman" (who'd played with very famous people like Gordon Lightfoot and James Taylor) came up and accompanied us on a couple of numbers. Good stuff.

Oh, and at one point, during applause between songs, a young lady sitting near the front made some kind of gesture I didn't really catch at first. Initially, I thought she was trying to indicate that she wanted a cigarette. Or a beer. It was only after I actually asked her if she wanted a cigarette or a beer that I realised that she was actually offering me something. It dawned on me that I was being offered something that a White House intern might offer a mid-90's American President.

That was a first. And a pretty interesting one at that.

It was a very good evening; loads of fun, free pizza and beer, and we got paid 5,000 Kronor between us. Yay!

I got home at stupid o'clock in the morning, and woke up in agony. My foot was sore, and my arms and shoulders were aching from the crutches; it had never occurred to me that they were such a workout.

And I couldn't speak.

I'd never lost my voice before, and it was a weird feeling. Later in the evening, I could just about squeak a bit (much to my girlfriend's amusement - oh yes, there were indeed many moments of sheer hilarity. Bitch), but it wasn't until Tuesday that I had any semblance of my former self.

Now, about a week later, my voice has fully recovered, my upper torso isn't aching anymore, and I'm able to walk using one crutch. Thanks to my great friend (The Yank), I also have some decent pain killers (something that's very difficult to get in Sweden).

Would I do it all again? Well, losing my voice for a day or so wasn't such a big deal. I'm not so sure about the breaking of the foot. I think that if places are going to sell beer and wine at the same price, the beer should be of a strength that one would expect to find in bars and not your local supermarket. This should never happen, and it's time that the Swedish government did something about it. That's what I think.

Monday, August 25th, 2008: Helsingborg to Glasgow to Montreal to London

mark@markbase.net (Mark Base) — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 07:13:00 +0000

What I think:

I just got back last Thursday night after a two-week trip. The main purpose of the journey was to attend a 26th-year high school reunion in Montreal, but I had been incessantly nagged by a friend to visit her in Glasgow for the past few years so, since I had to fly via London anyway (no direct flights to Montreal from Copenhagen), I thought I'd take the opportunity to make a detour up to Glasgow, as I had never been, and was pretty much passing by, and boy-oh-boy this was a long sentence (*stops for breath*).

My girlfriend and I got on the ferry from Helsingborg to Helsingör (that's Elsinore, home of Hamlet's castle, for all you Shakespeare buffs) with our backpacks, went up to the sun deck, sat down and started eating the sandwiches we'd bought. So far so good.

Then there was this bloody wasp buzzing around. I waited for it to land on the table and swatted it with a napkin. Got him. Or did I? Nope. There was a bit of a gap between my fingers, and the little bugger crawled out, stung me, and flew away. Great start to the holiday (US/CAN: vacation).

I couldn't remember if I'd ever been stung by a wasp before, so I became very conscious of all sensations; waiting to go into anaphylactic shock or something. As it turned out it just, well, stung. And burned a bit. And it cost me most of my sandwich, as I'd freaked out and frantically swatted the air with both hands, flinging bits of cheese and lettuce everywhere. Oh what fun. My girlfriend laughed sympathetically, a talent which I believe only she possesses.

By the time we got to Helsingör and boarded the train to Kastrup (Copenhagen airport), any pain I felt had all but disappeared; it was just a bit uncomfortable.

Glasgow
To get to Glasgow, we had to fly from Copenhagen to London Stansted, then board another flight. All in all, it was nicely uneventful; no major delays, and a pretty seamless transfer between flights.

We got to Glasgow fairly late, and were collected by my friend and her boyfriend. When we got to her place, we sat up chatting and drinking beer until about two in the morning before going to sleep on a comfy sofa-bed.

Over the next couple of days, my friend, the perfect hostess, guided us around Glasgow. Between the 4,693 shops my girlfriend visited, we saw some pretty interesting buildings. We also saw restaurants with some pretty interesting claims.

One would expect to see places claiming to have "the best":

... but there were also some other, rather different, claims.

This one was reassuring:

... and we admired the honesty of this one:

I mean, everyone has a bad day from time to time, right?

We saw a type of busker that you probably wouldn't see very many of outside of Scotland:On the Friday night, we went out to a restaurant owned by a friend of our hostess. He had a nice smile, and an even nicer t-shirt:Then we went to a couple of pubs until closing, headed back, and went to bed.

The next day, we were going to see Glasgow's impressive Necropolis (a fancy word for an extravagant graveyard). On the way, I went into a shop to buy a lottery ticket; something I do when I visit the UK - you never know, right? (I didn't win, by the way.) When I came out, girlfriend and hostess were admiring the window display of this rather ordinary little shop:We thought that the amount of care and effort that went into this was quite charming, in an endearingly silly way.

We then paid a visit to an old house:

Inside, there were old things. There were also a couple of musicians dressed in costumes of the period. But we caught them during their lunch break. It was quite amusing to see people from the 15th Century munching away on hot dogs.

There was also an old pub (the Crystal Bell, Gallowgate):

The Necropolis was indeed very impressive. Have a look here ->

Here's a statue of some bloke called Charles Tennant:

He was an industrialist and chemist, who apparently discovered bleaching powder. Wannabe blondes the world over owe him their gratitude.

We also visited Glasgow's Cathedral, which was very grand, and walked past the university.

At one point, I saw a sign that I just had to pose next to, being a Base myself.After that, we went back to my hostess's place, where she started to prepare a nice roast chicken dinner for our final evening.

We managed to distract ourselves for a while by messing around with a wig belonging to Morag, a long-lost mannequin. Here's me looking oh-so-groovy, don't you think?The beer and wine were flowing, so it wasn't long before we started humiliating her cats as well. Inspired by the I Can Has Cheezburger? phenomenon, we took a few photos and made up silly captions:OK, so this type of humour is not to everyone's liking, but we found it hilarious.
Nothing like beer, wine and guffawing at silly cat pics to get the party going, eh?

Our hostess had also dug up some old photos.

Here's one of us from 1982:

We decided to try to recreate the moment, as best we could. After much direction from girlfriend - and several tries (we love the age of digital photography), here's what we came up with:After a lovely meal, it was soon off to sleep, as we had to catch a plane to London Gatwick at stupid-o'clock in the morning.

Once again, the flight from Glasgow and the transfer to the Montreal-bound plane were pretty smooth. There was a delay of over an hour, but that's pretty much what I expect these days. Bastard airlines.

Montreal

So we got to Montreal a bit later than expected on Sunday evening, but my mother and brother were at the airport to meet us. Cool...

The plan was to stay at my parents' place on the West Island on Sunday night, then go to our friends' place in Verdun ("Dr Trinidad" & fellow blogger Maggie's - closer to downtown) the following day, as my friend Terence (of The Vestibules and On The Spot Improv) was going on holiday on the following day, and Monday night was the only chance we'd get to see him.

It was also a good opportunity to celebrate Dr Trinidad's birthday, which had taken place over the weekend. The waitress had kindly taped a birthday candle to the side of a pint glass for him. Bless.

Here's a rather scary shot of us goodfellas from the night:

Since we didn't have too much time in Montreal this time round, the girlfriend and I decided to do a few touristy things. She'd never been to the Olympic Stadium, so we thought we'd pay a visit.We took the cable car to the top of the tower and got a nice view of Montreal's skyline - even though it was a bit far off.

We'd planned to grab a beer at one of my favourite bar/clubs, Foufounes Électriques...

... but it was a bit early, and they were working on a mural on the outside wall, so it was closed.So we continued along Ste Catherine Street.

We liked the name of this sex shop:

... but we didn't bother going inside; we can make our own romance, even after 96 weeks together (it's true!).

A couple of nights later, I was walking to the train station to head back downtown, and spotted this estate agent's sign:Did you know that in 2007, Cowboyd was "#29 out of 3,001 REMAX agents in all of Quebec" ? And that his son "JAMES" is now an agent too? Well, his helpful website tells us so.

Although I can't quite work out why he felt the need to name his son all in capitals and with quotation marks. I wonder what "JAMES" 's birth certificate looks like.

And here's the luxury property he's selling now:

Truly everyone's image of a dream home, to be sure.

On the Friday, we were walking around in Old Montreal, and spotted the Amphi-Bus stand. It's basically a bus/boat, which drives around Old Montreal (with a guided tour) then goes out onto the St Lawrence River. We couldn't resist. Even at the costly price of $32 CAN each (which is about, oh, around $450 US these days, I guess), it had to be done.

It was actually quite fun, although it started raining just as we were about to hit the water... But at least it was covered; the other vehicle was an open-topped thing. Suckers.

Actually, it's worth mentioning that we were extremely lucky, weather-wise, during our stay. There were some fierce storms, but we always seemed to be sheltered whenever they hit - and they never lasted very long.

The big high school reunion thing was nice. It was a fairly informal affair, mainly scraped together by people hooking up through facebook. Quite fun. I guess there were about 50 people there. Some people had changed quite dramatically, but many had hardly changed much at all.

Here are some mandatory photos... Ladies first:

... and here are some chaps I'm very reluctant to call "gentlemen":

It was held at a restaurant/bar called Babaloo on the West Island, right next to a bar/nightclub called Bourbon Street West . If you do check out their websites, they both have cheesy music (just to warn you).

After the meal, many of us went next door to continue with the festivities. There was a band there called Hit Parade. They were really good (technically), but they played all the stuff you thought (and hoped) that you would eventually forget. Thanks guys.No, actually it was quite good.

So, all in all, Montreal was a great time.

Next stop: London.

London

We arrived at Gatwick pretty much on time (around 10-ish on Tuesday morning). Our London hostess was out of town, so we stopped by at our host's (her friend/tenant's) workplace in Highbury & Islington to pick up the keys. Then we took a cab straight to the house in Harringay, and had a nap for a few hours.

We were only in London for a couple of days, but I wanted to see as many people as possible during our stay. So we went to eat at a local restaurant/bar (The Garden Ladder) owned by some friends, as I knew there would be some of my old friends there. Sure enough, there were. It was nice.

Then we went to a pub which is run by another friend, where we met up with a few more people, including one of my hosts (who's also one of my bestest friends in London). A good evening.

During the walk back to the house, girlfriend was impressed with how neatly the fruit and veg were stacked at this particular shop.

Nice, innit?

The next day, we went to Brick Lane, as I wanted to get some cheap Doc Martens at a shop just off there, and the girlfriend wanted to go to Rough Trade records. We walked around a bit there, I had a few pints at a pub while she went to some retro clothes shop, and we headed to a Wagamama (Japanese restaurant) in the West End.

We'd arranged to meet up with a couple of other friends, including Roland - the guy who likes stripes - at the new Intrepid Fox in Soho. It was an OK place, but nothing like the original one.

After a while, we found it a bit loud in there - just not conducive to chatting - so Roland suggested that we go to the Pillars of Hercules pub. It was a good choice.

There was a guy there called DeeJay Wheelie Bag. This guy:

He has to be seen to be believed. Check out his website ->

He plays old 45's of all kinds of strange and unusual music; mostly "Authentic RnB, Rockabilly and Jamaican Ska" from his "original shopping trolley sound system". Another good night.

The next day, we had planned to go to Camden, but we slept in until after 1:00 p.m. (oops) and just had enough time to go for breakfast before heading off to Stansted.

We got to Copenhagen after 9:00 p.m., took the train and ferry to Helsingborg, stopped at 7-11 for milk, and cabbed it home. Phew.

We spent the weekend recovering, and now it back to work for both of us. I've also got some gigs coming up next weekend, so it's going to be quite hectic.

I'm playing with Suckerbucket on Thursday night at some kind of IKEA party - as well as doing a couple of duet songs with Twisted Systems (the other IKEA band).

Then CSI: Helsingborg return to Bjuv to play at their festival there on Friday night. We're returning to Bjuv on Saturday night to play at a restaurant/bar between 7 p.m. until 1 a.m. We'll be doing five sets, but bringing CD's to play between them.

Estate agents should not be allowed to wear cowboy hats, and the Swedish government must ensure that this never happens here.

That's what I think.

Sunday, August 3rd, 2008: Doggy do's and don't's in Helsingborg

mark@markbase.net (Mark Base) — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 14:19:00 +0000

What I think:

Well, it's been two whole years since I've written about dog poop in Helsingborg.

It's time for an update.

I was walking to the Charles Dickens pub before a band rehearsal the other day, and saw this amazing thing on the pavement (US/CAN: sidewalk):

Glömt nåt? is Swedish for "Forgotten something?"

I thought that this was very well done, but I would have preferred to get a photo of a dog pooping on the representation of poop. Now that would have been classy.

That's what I think.

Friday July 25th, 2008: Letting it all hang out at Helsingborg's Festival, 2008

mark@markbase.net (Mark Base) — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 15:10:00 +0000

What I think:

Just about every medium-to-"large" town and city in Sweden has a festival at some point during the summer months. Helsingborgsfestivalen started last night, so the girlfriend and I went to check it out.

During the festival, many streets are closed off, and there are several stages dotted across the city, with all sorts of different music - something for everyone. They're not all brilliant, but depending on what you're into, many are worth checking out. It's really the only time that Helsingborg really comes alive, and has a good sparkly atmosphere. People are relaxed and chilled out; they just let it all hang out.

There were a few bands/artists that my girlfriend specifically wanted to see last night, so off we went. It was a great evening for it; pleasantly warm, and not a nasty cloud in the sky (just a few of those nice white fluffy ones).

The first gig we were to see was Mikael Wiehe and Ebba Forsberg. They're kind of folky. My girlfriend's parents also wanted to see it, so we had arranged to meet them - and a couple of friends who were visiting from Motala - at a monument nearby.

Unfortunately, by the time we made our way to the makeshift "venue", the band was just finishing their last song. But they did a three-or-four-song encore, so that was OK. It wasn't really my cup of tea, but it was nice anyway.

Because the evening had just begun, there weren't very many people around, as you can see from this photo:

When this finished, we decided to get something to eat. One of our visitors, the Pregnant One had a craving for something called Langos. I'd never heard of these before, and I'm always into trying new things, so we walked to a stall that sold them.While my girlfriend, her mum (US/CAN: mom), and the Pregnant One went to get their food, Girlfriend's dad (US/CAN: the same) , the Not-Pregnant Guy and I found some seats at a picnic bench.

But them something caught my eye. Sitting in front of me, to my left, was this guy.Now there's a guy who really knows how to party and let it all hang out. He was sitting there sipping from a can of strong lager without a care in the world, bless him.

When it was our turn to get our food, I couldn't resist snapping a closer shot of this magnificent specimen of bottom-cleavage.I know it's terribly juvenile, but I can't help "cracking" up at the sight of this. I particularly like the little strand of underpant thread on his right cheek. I consider this composition to be a genuine work of art.

Surprisingly, I was not put off my food after having witnessed this public display of grotesquery. I went for the langos deluxe. It tastes much better than it looks:It's basically some kind of flat-but-puffy bread-like stuff, with a similar texture to that of a plain deep-fried doughnut with a choice of toppings. Mine had prawns (US/CAN shrimps), crayfish (US/CAN: crawfish), and what the Swedes call "Kaviar". It is in fact caviar, but I guess it comes from cheaper fish than sturgeon.

Afterwards, we said goodbye to my girlfriend's parents, and headed of to see someone called Tingsek. Technically, the band was pretty good and tight, but we all thought that it sounded like they were trying to sound like Jamiroquai. We were sitting quite a distance from the stage, in an enclosed beer & food area, but I managed to sneak off for a moments and get close enough to take a few good photos. Here's one:After that, the Pregnant One and her Not-Pregnant boyfriend decided to call it a night, so the girlfriend and I went to another gig at a marquee that was constructed on Gröningen, which is sort of a grassy beach area near the water.

There we saw Pelle Ossler and his band. I thought they were brilliant, even though Ossler was born in Bjuv. Very unique, in kind of the same way that The Pixies are unique, if you know what I mean. My girlfriend reckons that his style would go down well in German alternative music clubs. I think that means she thinks it's good.

I spotted another fine example of Swedish fashion, and I know that a number of readers depend on me to bring them the latest trends from Scandinavia, so here you are:I think that this is the best time of the year to be in Helsingborg. I would recommend coming over during Helsingborgsfestivalen to anyone. But I wish there were more carefree people here exposing their hairy bottoms; it would make the Festival complete. The Swedish government should do something about it; maybe promote this way of dressing in a poster campaign, and maybe offer prizes for the most imaginative uses of underpant thread.

That's what I think.

Tuesday, July 8th, 2008: A Swedish Wedding - not in Helsingborg

mark@markbase.net (Mark Base) — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 10:43:00 +0000

What I think:

Last Saturday, I went to a wedding with my girlfriend. It was the matrimony of a couple of friends she's known for a number of years.

The wedding itself was to take place in a church in a town with an unpronounceable name, near a town called Höör, which I would wrongly (and very inappropriately) pronounce Whore.

But first, we stopped off to visit the bride-to-be, so that my girlfriend could help her get ready, and offer moral support on this most important, yet stressful, day. This was in a town called Hörby (which is pronounced rather unlike Herbie), which is located just over an hour's drive away from Helsingborg.

When we got to the church, we parked about a short walk away, and made our way to the grounds. This is where I learned my first lesson about Swedish weddings: you have to shake hands with, and introduce yourself to, everyone. There were about a hundred people there, so this took some time. I don't think I've said "Mark" as many times in all my life as I did on that day (and I'm forty-three-and-a-third today).

While we were waiting to be summoned in for the ceremony, we were being entertained by a quaint quintet of musicians. Aren't they adorable?

They played good old Swedish folk songs, like Staten & Kapitalet by Ebba Grön, and The Look by Roxette.

The ceremony itself was nice, and just the perfect length. A few songs were sung; one by the bride, and a couple more by a guest singer. a few psalms were also sung, but they didn't make much sense to me because a) they were in Swedish and b) they apparently had something to do with religion.

Afterwards, we all followed the newlyweds back out to the church grounds. As we exited, some guy at the door had a basket of sunflower seeds, handfuls of which were being offered to the guests walking past. Somewhat baffled by this, I declined. When we got outside, I discovered that these were, in fact, not for eating.

It's apparently customary to form an orderly queue to where the newlyweds await congratulations and well wishes from the whole congregation. So people patiently wait their turn to chuck sunflower seeds at the couple - and wish them well straight after the assault.

Luckily, my girlfriend had picked up on this (it was her first church wedding), and had taken a handful of said seeds. We agreed that she would throw the seeds, while I would simultaneously do an impossibly fast watercolour painting of the action. Voilà:Next, we were herded around to a courtyard next to the church to have a glass of sparkling wine and a delicious little nibble. Because of the sheer number of guests, there appeared to be a fair bit of queuing for whatever we'd do, but it was all very laid-back and good-natured. It was a nice day, and everyone seemed very happy.

The buildings were nice as well. I think they were built a very long time ago; possibly even a few years before ABBA.

But wait! What's that on the left of the image above?

Yes, it was that folk band again, this time really getting into it with Take A Chance On Me by ABBA, coincidentally.

My girlfriend really wanted to get a nice photo of me in a suit, as I only usually wearing black t-shirts with black jeans. But I was feeling a bit mischievous, so just as she was taking the shot, I stuck out my tongue and inflated my head. She wasn't terribly impressed, it has to be said.

From there, we were instructed to grab a pen and a bit of paper on which we were to mark our answers to a number of multiple choice questions. The questions were hung along a trail leading to where there would be another glass of bubbly, and where the bride and groom would join us, so that we could toast their happiness for the first time.

A note about Swedish multiple choice question and the corresponding answer forms: The questions are numbered as they should be, but rather than have e.g. a, b, and c as answers, the choices are 1, X, and 2. I don't get it.

In any case, soon after all this, it was time to adjourn to the reception hall, which was in a building in an adjoining courtyard.

Charming, isn't it?

The dinner was very nice, but it seemed as though there were about twenty different speeches, and some confusion over which platters of potatoes belonged to which sections of which tables (same with the sauce), and the guy who was serving us forgot my girlfriend's alcohol-free wine a few times...

I'm not really a very dinner-party-friendly person normally, and this was quite a long one, so I was rather fidgety, and had to go out several times to stretch my legs and smoke ciggies. But it was definitely a nice one, and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves thoroughly.

Unfortunately, we couldn't stay for too much of the actual partying part of the reception, as it didn't really get underway until about midnight, my girlfriend was driving, we were in the middle of nowhere (and it was pitch black), and we weren't sure of the route home. Shame; it would have been pretty easy to party until sunrise.

I had a great time, but I think that multiple choice quizzes here should be a lot more straightforward, as they are confusing to non-Swedes, and therefore discriminatory and downright xenophobic. It's time that the Swedish government did something about it.

That's what I think.

Saturday, May 31st, 2008: Swedes and Stripes, and the kids are alright in Helsingborg

mark@markbase.net (Mark Base) — Sat, 31 May 2008 13:09:00 +0000

What I think:

Before I get into this, I'd like to share the end of my African scammer story that I wrote about last week. I'd gotten yet another e-mail after my last, somewhat convoluted, response. It read:

Dear Mr Mark Base,

Please i can't understand you and did not know what you mean by this mail, I ask you for your full informations so that i can give you the bank contact and you are now writeing to me what i don't understand, so please if you cab help send me your contact informations before i can send you the bank contact and the document ok.

Your's.
Miss Ibrahim

Here was my reply to that:

Dear Miss Ibrahim,

I'm sorry for any misunderstandings. My understanding was that you understood, but I guess I misunderstood. I can now say that I fully understand your misunderstanding.

Now that we understand each other, maybe you can help me to understand what it is you want from me exactly.

Correct me if I misunderstood but, in your last e-mail to me, you asked me some questions which, to the best of my understanding, I have answered. If you didn't understand the answers, I am sorry. It can be so difficult in this world to make sense of things, and we often lack harmony and understanding. There's no sympathy or trust abounding. I think we both understand that this is most certainly not the Age of Aquarius, if you understand what I mean.

I'm so glad that we now understand each other, and I look forward to hearing from you again, to find out why you have chosen me, a lonely Swiss man with a wife and twelve children, to help you to realise (and understand) the fate that has befallen you with the passing of your beloved Father, amen.

May Jesus live in your heart, and fill it with even more righteous understanding.

Understandingly yours,
Mark Base

Finally, I got "her" final e-mail:

You talk out of senses.How am i sure i have not gotten to a mad someone.
Anyway.
Keep Talking Rubbish Ok.
But do not be mad cos as i see i think soon you will go crazy.

That was that. But I couldn't resist getting the last word in:

I'm not crazy, just ask my camel, Stephen.

All the best in your quest to find the right person to help you.

It has been fun.

Warm and fuzzy regards,
Mark

Now on to the main post...

Although I'm certainly not a fashion-conscious guy (I always wear black), I do sometimes notice what other people wear. In Helsingborg.

I went to Hamnkrogen last night to meet up with a friend I hadn't seen for quite a while, and started to people-watch (as I do). It's nice here in Helsingborg, when the sun comes out. People finally decide to come out, shed their big coats, and proudly display their summer-wear.

I've reported on the socks-and-sandals-as-office-attire thing way back in February '06 (wow, was is that long ago?!), and the show-off-your-underpants craze in February last year (over a year since then?!).

One thing I've always hated is those not-quite-shorts/not-quite-trousers (US/CAN: pants). Those are still around in abundance here. Oh look! Here are some guys with them on now:

But what I discovered a while ago, and what was very much in evidence yesterday, is that many Swedes like stripes. For example, look at this guy (whom you'll notice is wearing both stripes and those short-trouser things):
Many Swedes will go for the casual v-neck, with a more understated contrast between the stripes:
Others will attempt a slightly more subtle, stylish approach:
Some will go to seemingly great lengths to disguise their affinity with clothing of the lined kind, by trying to camouflage their stripes with intricate patterns:
But they're not fooling us, are they? Oh no. Sorry Love, those are stripes.

This gentleman would probably try to have us believe that his shirt is actually plaid; perhaps his family's own tartan:
Nice try mate, but I'm not buying it. Even though some are going in different directions, you still have multiple sets of parallel lines, a.k.a. stripes. Deal with it.

Something else I noticed, quite by accident, is that the age of the Swede can sometimes be determined by the width of the stripes. Look at this photo:

As you can see, the chap (US/CAN: guy) in the foreground has rather wide stripes. The stripes adorning the upper torso of the man on the right are considerably thinner, while those that the older gentleman on the left is donning are very thin; barely perceptible.

But this is, of course, a grossly exaggerated generalisation (US/CAN: generalization). Have a look at this photo, in which a younger fellow knocks my theory down in one fell swoop:
Yes, he is wearing very thin, subtle stripes. But wait! Look at his hand - he has actually tattooed stripes onto his skin; albeit cleverly disguised as a skeletal hand. This pierced, goateed, tattooed (trust me) trickster is fooling no one with his sly and deceptive tomfoolery. He is a stripe addict.

At this point, six beers later, I decided that it was time to go home and get something to eat.

While walking towards the bus stop, I was absently looking at the photos I had taken, trying to decide how to formulate any hypothesis I may have, umm, formulated... or something. Look, I was a bit tipsy, OK?

While I was approaching, I looked up from the screen on my camera, and noticed a group of teenagers, a couple of whom posed in a silly way, thinking that I was about to take a photo of them.

So I thought, yeah why not?

No sooner did I raise my camera purposefully, letting them know that yes, I am taking a photo, when the lot of them jumped into what appeared to be an incredibly pre-meditated pose, in all of about two seconds flat. Look at this:

I thought that was pretty impressive, but not as impressive as when I walked a bit further, turned, and let them know that I would take another photo. The pose below took (I swear to your favourite deity) no longer than three seconds to strike.Amazing, isn't it?

(By the way, have you noticed the stripes in the photo?)

I'm not usually into chatting with teenagers, but these kids were a good laugh, keen to practice their English, and an amusing way to kill a few minutes while waiting for the bus.

Now I have nothing against stripes. If you're into them, more power to you, I say. I'm definitely not stripe-ist in any way (some of my best friends, etc.), but when people try to disguise their obvious obsession with them, it just gets pathetic and sad. Closet stripers need to be hauled from their checked closets, and it's time that the Swedish government did something about it.

That's what I think.

Friday, May 23rd, 2008: Scamming scammers from Africa from Helsingborg

mark@markbase.net (Mark Base) — Thu, 22 May 2008 23:08:00 +0000

What I think:

OK, so I haven't been the best blogger for the past year or so. I haven't provided my adoring public (of four people) with the regular, constant, entertainment they had come to expect from me.

And for that I apologise.

At this point, I really don't want to make any promises I can't keep, so I will say this: I will massage any grandmothers from Boise, Idaho, who see this blog entry and answer within the next two days (offer valid from May 23rd until the 25th, 2008). And I will make an effort to blog a bit more frequently. OK?

At this point, however, I would just like to share with you a little e-mail conversation I had with an e-mail scammer today, probably from Nigeria (in Africa), but I can't be sure.

It touched my heart. You wanna know what it said? It said:

I am Miss.Hamiya Ibrahim the only Daughter Of Mr And Mrs Aziz Ibrahim from Ivory Coast.

I am an Orphan being that I lost my Parents. My Father was a serving director of the Cocoa exporting board until his death. He was assassinated by the rebels following the political uprising.

Before his death he made a deposit of Eight Million USA Dollars ($8,000,000.00) With a BANK. This fund he intended to buy a cocoa processing machine. I want you to help me for us to retrieve this fund and transfer it to your account in your country or any safer place as you will be the beneficiary and recipient of the fund.

I have plans to do investment in your country, like real estate and industrial production.This is my reason for writing to you. Please if you are willing to assist me, indicate your interest in replying soonest.

Thanks and best regards.

Dearest Miss Ibrahim,

And this is what I replied:

Dearest Miss Ibrahim,

It would be my great pleasure to help you with this.

All I ask is that you tell me:
- how you got my name,
- what country it is that you are thinking of investing in, and
- The names of all four members of The Stranglers, BEFORE the original guitarist left the band.

If you are unable to comply with this simple request, I must assume that you are insincere, and will kindly ask you to go directly to the fiery depths of the Netherworld.

With warmest regards,
Mark Base

I thought that was the end of it. But no.

I got a further e-mail. The audacity level was brilliant. Take a few moments, and

look at this:

Dear Mark Base,

I thank you for answering my call,How are you today hope all is well.I must tell you that i benefit noting to be insincere with you since i know i this problem with me before i contacted you to see that this money which i inherited from my late father is save and be invested by you in any country you may like to invest this money on my behalf...

This money in Question was Deposited in this bank with my name as next of kin and as only child by my late father so i have all evidence and prove to tell you that i have this money in the bank deposited with my name by my late father..

Because of what i am passing through,Coupled with the problems giving to me by the relatives of my Dad i decided to get in contact with you so that you can give me the assistance by contacting the bank as my late father's foreign business partner so that they will tell you how and when my money will be transfer to your account but that should be after when i have received your contact Informations to enable me Introduced you to the bank as my late father's foreign business partner before i will now give you the full contact information of the bank for you to contact them
on my behalf for the transfer of my money to your account..

Some more questions for you please,

1. Are you married, tell me more about your family?
2. Can you manage the funds for investments in your country after its transfer?
3. Tell me a little about economic regulations, taxes etc in your country?
4. Can you send me an invitation to come to your country after the funds transfer?

These few questions is not meant to embarrass you, but because I have to be sure of certain things, before making any further moves on this issue.
God bless you.
Yours Miss Hamiya Ibrahim.

And so, I had to answer with this:

Dearest Miss Ibrahim,

Although I am disappointed that you were unable to name The Stranglers' original members (for your information, they were Hugh Cornwell on guitar, Jean-Jacques Burnell on bass, Dave Greenfield on keyboards, and Jet Black on drums), I feel that your sincerity shines through like a bright star on the horizon of my existence.

I thank you for contacting me again, and I am happy to answer your questions, even though I do indeed find them a little bit embarrassing and extremely rude, in the most loving and beautiful way that you can imagine in your most vivid and colourful dreams.

I am married. I have twelve children, and I have named seven of them George, after the late great George Harrison, the guitarist of The Beatles (who were the best Country & Western band since the Sex Pistols - don’t you agree?). Georges number 3 and 5 are not very pleased with being called George, as they are girls, but they are happy that I don’t beat them if they call themselves Georgina instead.

I manage money very well. I’m an expert in money laundering and tax evasion, and have been blessed to be able to use my talents with the names of my twelve children to further my necessary greed-mongering. I sometimes wish that fewer of my children were called George, as I feel that I could have made more than my $400,000 a year if all my children had different names.

The tax regulations in Switzerland (my home country) are quite strange and complex. Each year, I have to provide the government with proof that I have helped people in either Yugoslavia, Australia or Guam with their tax returns, and also answered a minimum of seven e-mails from African nationals asking for money. But I have no problem with this, as my cousin Bruce Schmidtski is a top-class top-class Australian-Swiss-Yugoslavian accountant with connections in high places in Guam, and he helps me to establish which requests are sincere, and which are scams.

Once I see that glorious cash in my account, baby, I will definitely send you loads of invitations to come to my home country. And not just for you, but for six of your closest friends as well. This in on the condition that they don’t mind being called George.

If you are like me, and enjoy the sound of cuckoo clocks in the morning, then I think we can do business.

I like you, and I trust that your request is an honest cry for help.
Please get back to me with more details, so that we may make further progress on our already burgeoning financial relationship.

May God appear in his best underpants for you.

Love and peace,
Mark Base

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

At this point, I'd like to thank you for your patience. I will be back shortly, with more concrete stories of Swedish underpants (but not of concrete underpants in Sweden - that's my secret) and more pub toilet reviews.

In the mean time, I hope that the Swedish government does something about those horrible topless girls we keep hearing about. We need more.

Wednesday, March 26th, 2008: Rest in peace, John Aherne - A day of sadness in Helsingborg, Stockholm, and Wicklow, Ireland

mark@markbase.net (Mark Base) — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 13:36:00 +0000

What I think:

I'm very sad to relay the news that John Aherne, an Irish tourist who went missing in Stockholm over St Patrick's Day weekend, has drowned.

His body was recovered just before midday in the water at Norra Hammarby harbour, in the southern part of central Stockholm.

I'd written a couple of posts about John's mysterious disappearance, and had been hoping that he would be found safe and well. This is truly tragic, and my deepest heartfelt condolences go out to John's family and friends.

The events, from when John went missing, to when the news broke, and leading right up until I sit here writing this, are covered quite touchingly on the discussion forum on The Local (Sweden's news in English).

It starts with Karl (John's host in Stockholm) explaining the circumstances surrounding John's disappearance, and the other regulars then offer help, support, hope and prayers (which they maintain throughout).

The forum is then visited by many, many people from Ireland, some of whom take the opportunity to post comments to offer their gratitude, and to add to the voices of hope.

A good few of these "newbie" posters are from John's hometown of Wicklow, and some spirit-raising anecdotes about growing up there are shared, while the agonising wait continues.

And then...

I went to a meeting this morning, and got back at around 2:30 p.m. I went straight onto the computer, and over to thelocal.se for an update. I was immediately saddened to see the headline "Body of missing Irish tourist found" staring back at me.

I went to the discussion forum, and decided to read from where I'd left off last night (on page 59 - it was now up to page 69). Knowing what I now knew, it was unbearably sad to read what had been written late last night and earlier today. And reading the comments from around the time when the news started to come through became heart-wrenching.

So, now I'm grieving for someone I've never met, and feeling so very, very sorry for others I don't even know.

If it can be said that anything at all good has come out of this very sad and tragic loss, I think it would be the fact that John's disappearance has brought two communities very solidly together: one "cyber" community on The Local, and one very real, living, breathing, remembering community, in Wicklow town, Ireland.

And it goes to show that, even though most of us in the cyber-world will go to great lengths to protect our anonymity, no one can deny that the "regulars" on The Local are indeed very real, very caring individuals.

Once again, deepest condolences to John's family and friends (special regards to Karl), but also a huge hug to the totally amazing people on The Local - you guys are great.

Finally to John Aherne: Rest in peace, mate.

From what I hear, we would have gotten along well. That's what I think.

Sunday, March 23rd, 2008: Pools of sorrow, waves of joy in Helsingborg

mark@markbase.net (Mark Base) — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 21:48:00 +0000

What I think:

Firstly, it's with a heavy heart that I update you about John Aherne, the Irish tourist who went missing in Stockholm last Saturday night.

John is still missing, and the Stockholm police revealed on Friday their fear that he may have drowned in a nearby harbour.

The Local (Sweden's news in English), wrote:

"Police conducted a dive in the Norra Hammarby area Södermalm in south-central Stockholm on Thursday and confirmed that something, as yet unidentified, has been found."

Today, police conducted another dive - for five hours - which, sadly, proved inconclusive. A further dive is due to take place on Tuesday. Another long, worrisome wait.

Police intend to contact the coastguard, and make use of their Remote Operated Vehicle to help with the search.

Family and friends are praying that police fears are unfounded, and that John is safe somewhere else.

And the online discussion forum on The Local, on which John's mate Karl is a regular, has been host to a number of John's friends from his home town of Wicklow. Many people are stopping by to express their worries and frustrations, but also their gratitude for the positive thoughts and prayers that the regulars are maintaining for John's safe return. Do have a look ->.

Here's John:

We want him to be found, alive and well.

My thoughts remain with John's family, with Karl, and with the many Irish visitors to The Local's forum.

About last night:

After this past week of worry, I decided to go out with my girlfriend to let off some steam. Turns out it was a very good idea. We ended up going to The Tivoli to see T.V. Smith, a punk legend who was with the band The Adverts in the late-Seventies. This was easily the best show I'd ever seen at The Tivoli.

It was held in the tiny "Backstage Bar", which is a very cosy, intimate venue. T.V. chatted to people before and after his performance, and was more than happy to sign copies of his CDs and books.

Here's T.V. in action

(skinny bugger, isn't he?):

The performance itself was very cool. So much power and energy, both in his vocals and in his lyrics. His delivery, and his intelligent banter between songs, had the audience absolutely captivated.

I've now got another claim to fame (to go with my "I had a beer with Marilyn Manson in Montreal - and didn't even know who he was" one): I had some beers with T.V. Smith of The Adverts, and I also bought him a couple, thus allowing me a discount on a CD. And we chatted like old mates for ages.

T.V. Smith (formerly of The Adverts) and

Mark Base (of CSI: Helsingborg and Suckerbucket)

reunite after more than 43 years.

Check out T.V. Smith's MySpace page.

Why do so few artists like T.V. Smith come to Helsingborg? It's time that the Swedish government did something about it. That's what I think.

Thursday, March 20th, 2008: Desperately seeking John Aherne: Irish tourist missing in Stockholm

mark@markbase.net (Mark Base) — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 14:56:00 +0000

What I think:

OK, I know I haven't blogged for a long while, and I will get around to doing a "normal" post at sometime in the near future (I promise), but I want to take this opportunity to spread the word about an Irish tourist who went missing in Stockholm last Saturday night.

John Aherne was over from Ireland, visiting his friend Karl.

During an evening out together with a group of friends, John decided to leave the group and head back to Karl's (Karl had given him some spare keys). He stopped for a nightcap at the restaurant on the ground floor of Karl's flat. While he was there, he just popped out for a smoke - leaving his coat and mobile at the bar - and has not been seen since. This was in the southern part of the city, on Katarina Bangata.

I "know" Karl through the discussion forum on thelocal.se (Sweden's news in English). See the links below for more information, and if you know people living in that area, please pass this on.

The Local's discussion forum:

http://www.thelocal.se/discuss/viewtopic.php?t=13777

Wednesday, January 23rd, 2008: Företagsrock - Corporate Battle of The Bands in Helsingborg

mark@markbase.net (Mark Base) — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 15:05:00 +0000

What I think:

Every year, The Tivoli, Helsingborg's main music venue, hosts a Battle of The Bands competition, in which employees from different companies compete. It's called Företagsrock (or "Company Rock").

Last year, I had joined a band with some IKEA people, and we decided to enter this year's contest. Because two of the other guys work in a building called Sockerbruket (or "The Sugar Refinery", as it used to be), I half-jokingly suggested that we call ourselves "Suckerbucket".

And so it came to pass that Suckerbucket was created, an application was made to enter the competition, and there was much rejoicing (and some rehearsing).

We were to play in the very first contest of the first round, against two other bands, on January 17th, 2008. Here's the poster:
I would have preferred some kind of photo showing all four of us, but it was decided that this was too cool an image not to use.

On the night...
As it turned out, one of the two other bands cancelled for some reason, so it was just IKEA Retail and TetraPak to play.

(TetraPak: You know those clever milk carton things that we now all take for granted? Did you know that they were a Swedish invention, and come from Lund, a smaller city not even an hour away from Helsingborg? Educational blog, or what?)

The TetraPak band, a four-man Hard Rock/Heavy Metal outfit called Metal 7 (presumably they lost the other three from lead poisoning, or something), were on first, and they did a brilliant job. They were very tight, and did these amazing dualling guitar bits (as in "The Boys Are Back In Town" by Thin Lizzy).

They rocked, and their accents when singing in English were even passable.

They played for about 20 minutes, which is one of the rules of the competition. You can get penalised for playing longer.

Another thing worth mentioning is that two bands can potentially make it through to the next round; there's a jury vote (based on points for different criteria), and an audience vote (based on how many people from work you can convince to come watch you, make a lot of noise, and act like crazy teens with their libidos on steroids).

Then we took to the stage.

The photo below shows Martin Goldberg on drums, Marcus Bällgren on bass, there's me doing the vocal thing, and Sven Larsson on lead guitar on the far-right:
Here are a few other photos, in some of which you can get a glimpse of a couple of our kind and obliging screamers:

In the end, we made it through to the Quarter Finals, which will be held on February 28th.

In case you're wondering, we did:
- Rocking In The Free World by Neil Young,
- Should I Stay Or Should I Go by The Clash,
- Something Else by Sid Vicious/Sex Pistols,
- Sunshine Of Your Love by Cream,
- Rebel Rebel by David Bowie, and
- All Right Now by Free.

Metal 7 won the jury vote (by just two points), and we won by a landslide on the audience votes. There were, admittedly, quite a few IKEA people there.

But I also won an extra award. I was voted by the judges as the "Best In Show" (sort of a performance of the evening award).

Mental note to self: Totally spazzing out on stage can sometimes be advantageous.

Unfortunately, I was out having a smoke when they announced this award, so I missed the heaps of praise that was bestowed upon me in my absence. A photographer guy ran outside to let me know that I was wanted on stage, but when I got there, I was unceremoniously handed two little bits of paper.

I only found out later that I'd won something. When I checked my pocket for the bits of paper I'd received, I found out that they were actually free tickets to see someone called Caroline af Ugglas. Apparently she does Janis Joplin songs in Swedish. Should be interesting.

If you're reading this, and plan to be in Helsingborg on February 28th, be sure to make it to The Tivoli to see Suckerbucket battle on.

I just hope that I happen to be indoors when prizes are announced. I certainly would be if this stupid smoking ban wasn't in place. It's time that the Swedish government did something about it. That's what I think.

Sunday, December 30th, 2007: Happy New Year, and Helsingborg - The Video (introducing a local celebrity)

mark@markbase.net (Mark Base) — Sun, 30 Dec 2007 17:04:00 +0000

What I think:

Firstly, let me take this opportunity to wish all Helsingblog readers a Happy New Year; this includes the occasional and accidental, as well as the regulars.

Here's looking at you:

Now that that's out of the way...

I realised today that this blog is now two years old. Hurrah! Two years of memories and idiotic observations immortalised here. I love this big webby thing.

I know I used to write a lot more than I do these days, but please bear with me; I'm still kind of distracted with starting up my business here. So far, I've managed to get officially registered, I've received one of the tax documents I'll need, and I've got a logo.

Check this out:

What do you think?

Yes, the company name is We Can English; kind of an ironic play on words. You see, I've noticed (more than once) that some Swedes who are misguidedly confident about their English proficiency will say, "I can English". This is because, in Swedish, the "speak" or "write" that you'd think should be in this statement is considered unnecessary; it's understood.

My colleague Helena did the logo for me. Cool, innit (US: huh / CAN: eh / AUS: G'day, Bruce & Sheila, more shrimps on the barbie) ?

And I've bought the domains: wecanenglish.com, .se, and .co.uk as well. No actual web pages yet, but I can deal with that a bit later.

I start all on my own in mid-January, and I'm well-excited about that. And terrified; I'm not the most organised and methodical person alive, and it will be difficult to discipline myself (I'm used to paying someone else to discipline me. I will miss the smell and the luxurious textures of PVC and hot leather).

Ahem.

Moving right along, as a special New Year's treat, I'd like to present to you a fantastic little video - a ballad about this fine city. The artist's name is Rolf "Beme" Gilleberg - more about him later. But now, without further ado, please take a few moments to enjoy a lovely song, and some great views of Helsingborg. Here is Helsingborgsvisan (The Ballad Of Helsingborg):

Affects me every time.

Rolf - or "Beme" as he's known, although I really don't know why - is a bit of a local celebrity.

I've taken the liberty to roughly translate this song (with much help from my girlfriend). I hope that Beme doesn't mind. I've put a few little explanatory notes in brackets along the way. Here we go:

The Ballad of Helsingborg
Helsingborg, it's my dream
By the sound so tender (The "sound" is Öresund, sort of a narrow strait between Helsingborg and Helsingör, Denmark.)
I saw you there
My friend Helsingborg
Come into my embrace
Helsingborg's harbour and Pålsjö's pond
Kärnan's height and Jordbodalen's depth
Everything's wonderfully delightful.

Myriads of people on Hamntorget (Harbour Square)
A warm summer's day
Magnus Stenbock on his horse (A statue in front of City Hall)
He can see everything best
And the old town with Maria Church's glory
And Bruksgatan's charm
I love it all.

Helsingborg, it's my dream.

The summer wind by the Öresund (The sound - see second line, above)
The sun always shines clearly
On the girls on Fria Bad (a beach)
With the scent of the salt of the sea
I love it all.
My friend Helsingborg,
My faithful old treasure.

Helsingborg, it's my dream.

Beme owns a music store in central Helsingborg. It's quite a nice place. And along with all the guitars, keyboards, amps and other stuff you'd expect to find, he's got an assortment of more exotic intruments - things like sitars, tablas, and a didgeridoo (US/CAN/UK/Rest of world: a big painted wooden pipe that you put to your lips and make farty sounds to produce something like music).

Check out Beme's shop, see clips from more of his videos (he seems to be very much into birds (fåglar) and love (kärlek), if the videos are anything to go by), and look at loads of his personal photos on his extensive website ->

I've been there a few times, bought a few things, and even had some restoration work done on my acoustic guitar there. When I went there just to browse once, I found Beme on the floor, in the position just prior to standing on his head. Kind of a scary sight.

He explained that it was his Yoga time. I thought, yeah, fair enough, but you're in the middle of the shop.

Maybe he should close the shop when he's doing Yoga; perhaps have a special sign to put on the door, like "I'm having my Yoga time, please come back when my chakras are aligned with my karmic awareness - usually about fifteen minutes, on a good day", or something.

In any case, he's a very kind, easy-to-talk-to, nice guy. We need more people like him in Helsingborg. It's time that the Swedish government did something about it. But maybe we don't need any more videos about Helsingborg; let's not overdo it.That's what I think.

Sunday, December 9th, 2007: An update and a Helsingblaze

mark@markbase.net (Mark Base) — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 20:10:00 +0000

What I think:

OK, time for an update. Sorry about the lengthy pause. As a fellow blogger, Kellypea from Kellementology, said in a comment on my last post, "There's no vacation in bloggsville."

I know this is no excuse, but I have been rather preoccupied over the past couple of months. I promise to be more prolific in my posts...soon.

"So, what have you been up to, then?", I hear you ask, in a most charmingly apathetic manner. Well, grab a coffee and/or some amphetamines to keep yourself awake, and I'll tell you.

Firstly, I've been looking into starting my own business here in the south of Sweden. That's right, after working with the same company for over twenty-one years, and in three different countries, I'm leaving IKEA.

I'll be a freelance copywriter, and I'll mainly be working, I think, with copy-editing and improving English texts. You see, most Swedes can (and do) write fairly well in English, but not all write that well. For some global Swedish companies based here, or even different cities' tourist information departments, some of the English being produced is quite frightening.

So I'll be seeking these out and offering my services. Wish me luck; I'm on a mission here.

IKEA have been kind enough to offer me at least 6 months' worth of part-time work (20 hrs per week) to get me started - so they'll actually be my first "customer", which is nice. I think having IKEA on my list will look good.

Besides that, I'm still waiting for my flat to get sold. The housing market here has been very slow, which is a pain in that area just below one's lower back.

A Gig at Charles Dickens
In other news, my band, CSI: Helsingborg, played at the Charles Dickens pub last Thursday night. Finally.

They hadn't been terribly impressed by our "demo CD" (can't say I blame them), so I had to offer to play for free, so that they could get to see us live. So we picked a date, and it was to be a Thursday, which is usually a very quiet day of the week.

But about a week or so before the gig, they found out that there was a big football match (US/CAN: soccer game) happening on that night - and they always show Helsingborg's football matches on about six TV screens. This one was taking place in France, between Helsingborg and Bordeaux.

This actually worked out well, as it happened. We had planned to do two sets anyway, so we did one before the match, and one afterwards.

The real challenge for me was to remain relatively sober (or at least not to get too sloppily squeegeed) during the football match. This was indeed a challenge because I'm not into football, so I'd be drinking & chatting while many were gawping at screens.

So I started on the Red Bulls when the match started (with only one measure of vodka per drink), and that seemed to have done the trick.

There were loads of people for the first set anyway. Helsingborg lost the match, so the place cleared out considerably for the second set (folks not in a celebratory mood, apparently). But there was still a larger crowd than at the Bjuv Festival gig.

It turned out really well, in the end.

An Evening of Mayhem
About a week and a half ago, I took a ferry trip, mainly to get a case of cheap beer, but also to catch up with The Yank. We'd decided to meet on the ferry (he was coming back from Copenhagen), and just go back and forth from Helsingborg to Helsingör (Elsinore to all you Shakespeare fans) a few times, and enjoy a few beers and a chat.

Here's The Yank enjoying a beer, with a newly-purchased case of beer next to him: Also joining us on this occasion was a friend we know from work. In order to preserve his anonymity, I won't reveal his name. All I will say is that it starts with O, ends with E, and has two L's in the middle. And it's got four letters. And he looks a bit like this:After a few round trips, with accompanying beers, we got off back in Helsingborg and decided to go to the Bishops Arms pub for a decent pint.

But there had just been a football match between Helsingborg and Vienna - which Helsingborg had won - so that pub was absolutely packed. So we went to the nearby Utposten instead.

Utposten ("The Outpost") wasn't too busy, so we ordered a beer and stood at the bar there. They've got this cool new-ish popcorn vending machine that I had to try out. It's really cool. You put money in the slot and stick this cardboard cup in a little compartment, and it makes fresh popcorn. OK, so it's probably really old hat now, but this is Sweden and I'm easily amused, alright?

But suddenly, we heard loads of commotion outside. There was a huge mob of people marching by chanting and lighting flares and fireworks.

I had to go out and snap a few pics. It was surreal; loads of firelight and smoke, with dozens of people marching by making some serious noise.

Besides being resized and sharpened a bit, the photos below are unaltered. I think they look phat. Is that the right word? I can't keep up these days. My teenage niece in Montreal thinks something that's really cool is "sick". OK, so here are some really sick photos of a mob of Helsingborg football fans for you:

How was that then, eh? Sick enough for you?

The rest of the night was pretty uneventful. We just finished our beers, and went our separate ways, with our cases of ferry-bought beer.

London and Paris
At the end of October, my girlfriend and I went to London and Paris. She'd never been to Paris, and I'd never been on Eurostar (the train between London and Paris), so off we went. Plus I wanted to catch up with my friends in London as well.

So we went to London first, and stayed there for a few days. We visited a friend of mine who lives near Harrow in Northwest London. We went to a cool place called Trinity Bar. We had beer. And we smiled.
On October 31st, we went to Paris. As I mentioned, we took the Eurostar train. Unfortunately, this was a couple of weeks before the high-speed rail service opened at London St Pancras; we had to go from Waterloo. It still took less than 3½ hours, but apparently it's now less than 2½ hours. Hhmm.

So here's my mandatory Eiffel shot from Paris:With that out of the way, we did loads of walking, drinking, eating, etc. You know, the Paris thing. We found a nice restaurant/bar called La Fourmi (The Ant). We liked the food, the wine, the clientèle, and especially the wine bottle chandelier: Sick, isn't it?

Oh yeah, Gothenburg...
At some point before the London/Paris trip, we went to Gothenburg to visit my girlfriend's brother, his wife, and their baby boy. It was his first birthday party, and he was partying like the little rock star that he is (I'm sure you've heard of him, but I'm too cool to name-drop here).

I have to admit, we were having some difficulty keeping up with the pace, so we decided to visit a couple of friends who (coincidentally) live right across the courtyard.

We had a few beers with them (actually a case of beer I'd brought up from a previous ferry trip), then we went for a quiet few drinks at their local pub. Here are VikingHumpingWitch (an English girl), and WitchHumpingViking (a Swedish guy):Besides being resized, recoloured, brightened, sharpened, pastelled, film-grained, paint-daubed, and canvas-textured with the light coming from the left, the photo above is practically unaltered.

We had a few drinks, I danced with some dreadful old drunken woman, and we threw peanuts at the DJ (whom they know, and he kind of expected it anyway). It was just another normal evening out, but it was fun. It's always nice to catch up with the Humpers.

So that's pretty much it. With the housing market as it is now, it's about time the Swedish government did something useful for a change and bought my flat. The bastards. That's what I think.

Saturday, October 6th, 2007: Movin' on up (?) in Helsingborg

mark@markbase.net (Mark Base) — Sat, 06 Oct 2007 21:01:00 +0000

What I think:

One of the many excuses I have for not not having been so very present in the blogosphere these days is that I was busy moving.

You may remember that I mentioned some time ago that there's a definite north-south divide here in Helsingborg; many people living in the northern part of the city can be rather snobby, and think that the people living in the southern part are all criminally insane foreign people. That's only partly true.

But I've now moved to the north, so that should even things out a bit.

There's a bit of a twist to this though, so bear with me.

When I first started seeing my girlfriend, nearly a year ago, she had recently rented a flat (US/CAN: apartment) in Stattena (pronounced Sta-tay-na), an area in the northern part of Helsingborg.

She's very much a southern Helsingborg girl, except for the fact that she's not foreign. And that her criminal insanity is barely perceptible.

But she'd found this nice little place, it was exactly what she was looking for (although not in her preferred area), so she took it.

Very soon after we hooked up, she started living at my place, but kept renting her place. It was a good idea at the time, as we didn't know how our relationship would work out. A safety net thing, in a way.

Pretty sensible for crazy people, eh? (US: huh? / UK: innit? / SWE: eller?)

Where was I? Oh-yes-I-remember, that should even things out a bit.

We recently decided to sell my place and move to hers.

My project contract at work was ending soon, and I wasn't really sure of what my next career move would be. A mate of mine had told me of some possible job in Malaysia, so that was one of the factors, at first; I didn't want to have to hang around to sell my flat, if that opportunity actually came through.

There were certainly other factors involved, of course, but the bottom line is that I was going to sell my flat.

So there we were, about to move from the nasty south to the idyllic north.

But wait, what's this?

A few weeks before we moved, we went back to hers to get some stuff from out of the storage area in her basement. Her storage locker had been burgled by someone with a blow-torch or something.

Look at this:

Hhmmm... We'd never had this happen to us in the nasty south. Luckily, there wasn't too much of any value in there, so most of it was pretty much untouched.

We had a look around, and every single other storage locker in the basement had the same burn marks on their latches - although it seemed as though many others didn't give way as easily as hers.

But we moved here anyway. The peaceful, law-abiding north.

While most people in most countries are clammering to get up the property ladder, I just went into reverse and decided to rent. Strangely, property prices in the north, including rents, are normally much more expensive than in the south, but ours is cheap.

But as for the quality of life...I guess it depends on what you're after. It's too bloody quiet in the north of Helsingborg, and there's no diversity. No nice criminally insane foreign people to mumble with.

Another thing I found amusing in my new area was a nearby street sign:
Great. So, we'll have our local burglers over-dosing on the street now, will we? Magic.

The move itself went really smoothly. We hired a van for our stuff, and we didn't really have too much to move, since we'd taken a good few car-loads over the previous couple of weeks.

Helping us move were a Swedish mate, The Yank and Visiting Yank, and a friend of my girlfriend's and her boyfriend helped us out, and we were done by 11 a.m.

Amazing.

Then it was off to IKEA to get some stuff, including a 184 cm (US/UK: over six-foot) kitchen worktop. I was determined to prove that this would fit into her Ford Fiesta.

It didn't look promising for a while, but when we put the back seats down, and I put the front passenger seat all the way back, it fit in perfectly, as I'd cleverly predicted.

I just had to squeeze in under the worktop to fit into the car.

That's the car's rear shelf on top of the box, by the way.

I think it's ridiculous that there are so many different ways to say "eh?" in different languages. There sould be a multi-lingual international word for it, and it's time that the Swedish government teamed up with other world governments, and did something about it. That's what I think.

Wednesday, September 26th, 2007: Top Toilet Tips Update - Bishops Arms ladies' toilet

mark@markbase.net (Mark Base) — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 19:51:00 +0000

What I think:

As some of you may remember, I wrote a review of the toilets at the Bishops Arms here in Helsingborg.

I mentioned how it's perfectly normal for guys to use the girls' toilet when it's busy there (honest). If there's a queue and a toilet's free, it's instinctive for guys to go there. You can't fight (Swedish) nature, OK?

But I've recently discovered a few other things as well.

For example, when there's a queue containing both guys and girls, the guys will always let girls go into the girls' toilet.

Very considerate, eh?.

The point being...?

Oh yeah.

So I was at Bishops Arms the other night and I needed to wee, so got into the queue for the toilets. It was an only-guys-in-the-queue thing.

When it was my turn, the first vacant toilet was the ladies'.

Because there were no ladies present, I went in and did my thang. Sorry, I just love the word "thang"; couldn't resist.

Thang.
Boomerang.
Wang.
Ke-chang!
Ourangutan (OK, maybe the first two syllables). Can you tell that I'm a bit drunk? Syllable is a good word as well, but I won't touch it because it's in brackets in the previous sentence.

Yep, drunk.

The füquîng point being???
Yes! OK! The point!

While I was in the ladies' wee thing, I noticed a bin (US/CAN: trash can) next to me. But this wasn't an ordinary bin; it was a closed one and had some kind of sensor above it. With a little waving hand.

It was mysterious.

It looked a bit like this:

This bin seemed to invite me to wave my hand above it. So I did.

The lid of the bin opened and closed gracefully, methodically, and almost clinically. I felt as though I was in a hospital.

A graceful hospital.

But this bin's lid seemed to have teeth or something, and it freaked me out bigtime (like that time I saw a stripping sheep woman).

When opened, it looked like this:

You know, I was a bit drunk, but I managed to snap some shots of this monstrosity when it reared its ugly head. No problem. But what about the old folks, or the immigrants? What would they think?

Not enough thought is given to what could happen to the old immigrant folks, or the monstrous drunks, if they go to Helsingborg pubs. They need to know more about these things, and it's time that the Swedish government did something about it. That's what I think.

Tuesday, September 18th, 2007: Away from Helsingborg to see a weird gig in Lund

mark@markbase.net (Mark Base) — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 16:55:00 +0000

What I think:

Probably well over a year ago, I was visiting London for work, and my mate dragged me out to Camden to see a Japanese synth-punk band called Polysics.

There I was, having escaped from Sweden to a really cool little music venue above a pub in the UK waiting for a bizarrre Japanese band to come on, when all of a sudden, the supporting band come onto the stage and the singer/guitarist proclaims, "We're Quit Your Dayjob and we're from Malmö, Sweden!"

Shit.

But it turned out that they were pretty good, in some odd way.

However, I couldn't resist confronting "Jonass", as he calls himself, at the merchandise stand later. The conversation went a bit like this:

Mark Base: You bastard.
Jonass: What?
Mark Base: I'm living in Helsingborg now, and I come back here for a break from all things Swedish, and here's this bloody band from Malmö. Bastards.
Jonass: Oh, you're living in Helsingborg? Do you know Landskrona?
Mark Base: Yeah?
Jonass: Well that's where we're actually from. We just say we're from Malmö because no one's heard of Landskrona.
Mark Base: I hear there's lots of crime in Landskrona.
Jonass: Yeah, that's because of us.

So, I bought a CD ("Sweden, We Got A Problem"), and left it at that.

Months later, I found out that they were playing in Copenhagen, opening for Gogol Bordello (whom my girlfriend had seen opening for Danko Jones), and decided to go online and book tickets.

But they were sold out.

So I sent the band an email. I reminded Jonass of our conversation in London, and cleverly implied that he tricked me into buying their CD, as I knew he was from Landskrona, and that there's lots of crime there, so I felt afraid that if I didn't buy the CD he would commit crimes against me.

Like mugging, or violence, or drinking on a Monday or Tuesday evening (seen by many as a crime in Sweden), or not paying my TV licence. Or something. Against me. Oh, nevermind.

I told him that he would hear from my attorneys if he didn't put me and my girlfriend on the guest list as recompense.

It worked. He gave me his mobile (US/CAN: cell phone) number, and told me to sms him on the day just to make confirm. It worked out.

Not only did we get in to a really cool sold-out gig, but we were on the guest list and got in for free. Brilliant.

My email must have been well-convincing, eh Readers?

Getting to the point, already...?
OK, so this past Sunday evening there was another gig in Lund, which is somewhere between Helsingborg and Malmö (past Landskrona, thank the Messiah's bloody toenails). My girlfriend had booked tickets and picked them up at a local gambling shop-place-thing (although she's not really the kind of girl who normally goes to those places - honest).

When we got to the venue, it started getting a bit weird. At the door, some bloke with a clipboard practically jumped on us asking if we were on the guest list. Er, no. He looked rather surprised at that. Glancing at his clipboard, it looked like it was about four pages long. With the text at a number 8-sized font.

We walked past him to the guy on the till and handed him the tickets. He took them and just stared at them for ages, reading them carefully, and not quite knowing what he was supposed to do with them. My girlfriend helped him out by tearing off the stubs and handing them over.

So it would appear that we were the only ones who had bought tickets.

When we got in, there was some sort of dinner thing finishing off. Apparently, there'd just been some kind of film festival there, and this was the tail end of that event.

What was odd about this scenario was that, dressed as we were, with me in my "You say tomato, I say fuck you" t-shirt on, and my girlfriend looking suitably luscious, we felt as though we were crashing a posh party, when in fact, were were probably the only ones who had actually bought tickets. (Cue Twilight Zone music.)

We went outside the bar to have a smoke amogst all the well-dressed riff-raff and noticed a little poster with the line-up and times for the bands performing. At that point it was about 9:45 p.m. (Svenska 21:45). Quit Your Dayjob wouldn't be on until 11:15 (Svenskar: work it out, for Christ's sake). We were a bit early.

But it turned out that there were other bands on beforehand.

One was a cool Danish "punkabilly" band, from the Danish part of Denmark, and the other was an amazing band called Sunshine Rabbits, the self-proclaimed "Founders of Furpop". They were strange-but-good. Here are a couple of photos (US/CAN: pictures):
My girlfriend actually knows this girl from the band. Her name is Lotta Wenglén, and she does her own stuff as well. It's pretty cool, and you should check it out. And she's really nice; she stopped to say hello to my girlfriend in the bar.

This one's pretty charismatic. I don't know her, but she seems like the kind of girl who would love to take tea with your mum (US/CAN: mom), and chuck it in her face. In a sweet and friendly way.

Their music can only be described as fun. It's kind of a tongue-in-cheek disco, rock 'n' roll, goth-punk sugar-coated loveliness. Makes you feel all sunny and warm and bubbly and caressingly violent. Nice mix.

Quit Your Dayjob were next. But there was an extra surprise for us. Before the band came one, the song "You Can Leave Your Hat On" began, and out came this:

Told you it was a weird night, didn't I?

Yes, there was a woman, dressed as a sheep, dressed in a red trenchcoat, about to perform a striptease for us. Due to the lack of expertise in this area (honest), I couldn't quite work out whether she was from New Zealand or Wales. But she was hot.

I was going to make some joke about mint sauce, but I think I'll leave it.

This little lamb took off her trenchcoat and her dress, and was left with nothing bit a skimpy bikini.

Which she proceeded to remove as well.

I think it was the glasses that really did it for me. I'm not ashamed to say that my trousers fit all funny for a few moments there.

While the audience was still gasping for breath, Quit Your Dayjob took to the stage.

One thing that's great about this band is that their songs don't generally last for more than two minutes, much like the early Beatles' hits.

Yep, straight to the point, then bugger off. I like it.

Looking at them at first, they seem like just another high-energy punkish trio, bringing joy and happiness to an otherwise deprived world:

But wait, what's this?

Within the space of about five minutes (or about seventeen songs), Marcass has stripped down to his boxer shorts.

But what he lacks in clothing, he makes up for playing funky keyboards and pointing at people.

As for the drummer, Drumass, he plays drums. And he does it well. He also helps to contribute towards what Marcass lacks in clothing. Which is a lot.

Overall, a great gig, but it was a weird evening. Wouldn't you say?

I had sms'd Jonass before we left for the show, informing him that my cat was dancing to their song "Pissing On A Panda" (even though it was just my girlfriend jiggling her legs around), and he replied by saying, "Then we've succeeded!"

There simply aren't enough pandas to piss on in Sweden, and it's time that the Swedish government did something about it. That's what I think.