Stockholm - From Start to Finnish
Blogging from Arlanda Airport in Stockholm - how fucking supercool and trans-continental is that? While the departure lounge at Heathrow was stuffy, crowded and overheated, here at Arlanda everything is spacious, chilled, air-conditioned etc. and I can blog away the hour before take-off, mouse in one hand and an extra-large stor stark in another, courtesy of a barman called Joakim H (great name, Joakim! When you die you could have a headstone encrypted 'I was only Joakim, my friends!´).
I can't be arsed to go into too much detail about my trip just yet but Stockholm is a fantastic place and not as expensive as you might think, although I did avoid the super-trendy nightclubs. I had a window seat flying in and the view as we came into sun-dappled Stockholm was fabulous and worth the trip in itself. As for the Swedish people, most of the cliches have some basis in fact - there is a surfeit of astonishingly pretty blonde girls and young guys with Abba-style mullets.
Spent most of Friday sight-seeing and taking photographs, some of which I may post online if they come out OK. I definitely recommend taking the ferry to the island of Djurgarden where there is an impressive amusement park and this massive place which is like a living village testament to Swedish cultural heritage, and also doubles as a zoo with some Scandinavian animals like reindeer and these cute and feisty little monkeys. I´m a little ambivalent about zoos as it goes, but I know quite a few humans who´d pay real good money to have all their needs catered for and to be provided with `mates´ on an ongoing basis. Besides which I find watching little monkeys fighting each other pretty funny.
Saturday lunchtime went to O´Leary's bar to watch The Hammers get off to a nervy but triumphant start to their Nationwide campaign with a 2-1 win over Preston. Got chatting to a Preston fan who told me an amusing anecdote about a fishing trip and some members of the Estonian national football team that my legal team have advised me not to publish. I returned the compliment by patronising him about his piddling team - `Of course, no disrespect, mate, but this is a much more important game for us than it is for you´ and what´s more, he agreed with me. Saved me having to make conversation with the predominantly skinhead Swedish Hammers, anyway. Scary. There was a good-looking blonde in a Hammers away shirt in the corner, but on closer inspection it turned out to be a bloke (seriously, with their unisex haircuts and pretty faces it gets difficult to tell here). Good job I noticed before I got too drunk though.
Later that afternoon went to see Larry Clark's Ken Park which we can't see over here in the UK because the maverick director tried to strangle the only person willing to distribute it in Blighty. Ken Park is similar to other Larry Clark/Harmony Korine collaborations - plot is all over the place but there are some stunning moments. Clark and Korine are probably perverts I think, but unusually in Hollywood these days, they do have a few genuine points to make. Sadly in this film those points are likely to be overshadowed by some astonishingly explicit sex scenes which get a bit wearing by the (ahem) climax which finds the leads enjoying some mind-bogglingly graphic three-way sex. The most controversial scene features one of the characters masturbating to ejaculation while throttling himself with a scarf to a soundtrack of grunting tennis players on the TV. Gratuitous, but notable, which just about sums up the film.
All that sex looked like fun so I thought I'd try it out myself and when the cheapest bar in Stockholm turned out be a bit of a lively old pick-up joint come 2am I spent the time with a lovely special needs teacher from Finland by the name of L (name edited to protect the innocent). Never let it be said that Parallax View doesn't do its fair share towards multi-cultural relations.
So, Stockholm then: you really ought to try it sometime. But now I gotta go - got a plane to catch!
Blogging from Arlanda Airport in Stockholm - how fucking supercool and trans-continental is that? While the departure lounge at Heathrow was stuffy, crowded and overheated, here at Arlanda everything is spacious, chilled, air-conditioned etc. and I can blog away the hour before take-off, mouse in one hand and an extra-large stor stark in another, courtesy of a barman called Joakim H (great name, Joakim! When you die you could have a headstone encrypted 'I was only Joakim, my friends!´).
I can't be arsed to go into too much detail about my trip just yet but Stockholm is a fantastic place and not as expensive as you might think, although I did avoid the super-trendy nightclubs. I had a window seat flying in and the view as we came into sun-dappled Stockholm was fabulous and worth the trip in itself. As for the Swedish people, most of the cliches have some basis in fact - there is a surfeit of astonishingly pretty blonde girls and young guys with Abba-style mullets.
Spent most of Friday sight-seeing and taking photographs, some of which I may post online if they come out OK. I definitely recommend taking the ferry to the island of Djurgarden where there is an impressive amusement park and this massive place which is like a living village testament to Swedish cultural heritage, and also doubles as a zoo with some Scandinavian animals like reindeer and these cute and feisty little monkeys. I´m a little ambivalent about zoos as it goes, but I know quite a few humans who´d pay real good money to have all their needs catered for and to be provided with `mates´ on an ongoing basis. Besides which I find watching little monkeys fighting each other pretty funny.
Saturday lunchtime went to O´Leary's bar to watch The Hammers get off to a nervy but triumphant start to their Nationwide campaign with a 2-1 win over Preston. Got chatting to a Preston fan who told me an amusing anecdote about a fishing trip and some members of the Estonian national football team that my legal team have advised me not to publish. I returned the compliment by patronising him about his piddling team - `Of course, no disrespect, mate, but this is a much more important game for us than it is for you´ and what´s more, he agreed with me. Saved me having to make conversation with the predominantly skinhead Swedish Hammers, anyway. Scary. There was a good-looking blonde in a Hammers away shirt in the corner, but on closer inspection it turned out to be a bloke (seriously, with their unisex haircuts and pretty faces it gets difficult to tell here). Good job I noticed before I got too drunk though.
Later that afternoon went to see Larry Clark's Ken Park which we can't see over here in the UK because the maverick director tried to strangle the only person willing to distribute it in Blighty. Ken Park is similar to other Larry Clark/Harmony Korine collaborations - plot is all over the place but there are some stunning moments. Clark and Korine are probably perverts I think, but unusually in Hollywood these days, they do have a few genuine points to make. Sadly in this film those points are likely to be overshadowed by some astonishingly explicit sex scenes which get a bit wearing by the (ahem) climax which finds the leads enjoying some mind-bogglingly graphic three-way sex. The most controversial scene features one of the characters masturbating to ejaculation while throttling himself with a scarf to a soundtrack of grunting tennis players on the TV. Gratuitous, but notable, which just about sums up the film.
All that sex looked like fun so I thought I'd try it out myself and when the cheapest bar in Stockholm turned out be a bit of a lively old pick-up joint come 2am I spent the time with a lovely special needs teacher from Finland by the name of L (name edited to protect the innocent). Never let it be said that Parallax View doesn't do its fair share towards multi-cultural relations.
So, Stockholm then: you really ought to try it sometime. But now I gotta go - got a plane to catch!
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