Doppler

I have been mildly surprised by the statistic that there are 283 other bloggers that list 'Doppler' by Erlend Loe in their favourite book list. This is not surprising in itself. Doppler is a fantastic book and deserves more appreciation.

For those of you that don't know, Doppler follows the life of an overly competent chap in Oslo who gets fed up with modern life. He has a breakdown of sorts and goes out and lives in the woods. He's sick of life and the interminable childrens television that his young son watches. He also has a large male member. In the woods he kills an elk and the calf follows him around. He strikes up a friendship with a neighbour who is absorbed in a model reconstruction of the last minute of his Nazi father's life. He also builds a totem to his own dead father.

That's a very paltry synopsis, but as a skeleton it shows that this book is, amongst other things, concerned with modern masculinity and paternity. The surprising thing is most of the bloggers who list this as one of their favourite books seem to be female and in their mid 20s. I'm glad that this book has a wide readership and that the young women of today appreciate the tanins that are woven together in this indomitable masterpiece.

There's a lot more Danes drinking around town. I was out with my daughters at around 10:30 and ran into two families on Stor torget who were drinking and sightseeing.

That's fine by me. But it is somewhat ironic. There used to be a much used Danish aphorism, something along the lines of, 'Do your country a favour and escort a Swede to the ferry [back home to Sweden].' The ball is now in the other court.

Beckett's Wagner putdown

The unnecessary and arbitrary nature of this putdown rouses me rambling but irate from a years blogging sabbatical. Why does Beckett think that his two cents count after invoking Rick W? It's not a put down; it just shows a lack of fantasy:


I cannot explain very well to myself what they have that distinguishes them from the rest, something arborescent or of the sky, not Wagner, not clouds on wheels; written above an abscess and not out of a cavity, a statement and not a description of heat in the spirit to compensate for pus in the spirit. -----Beckett, trying to explain some of his better scribbling, 1932

Caroline and Henrik

Went to a great wedding on Saturday. Caroline and Henrik got hitched in Bosjökloster, just a few kilometers away form the summer cottage. Henrik is a tennis player from Ystad and is as charming as they come. Caroline is more charming than they usually come.

Martin produced a quote about her at the reception from som old fool who once said that Caroline (like Monica Zetterlund) like a fig of lingon in a cocktail glass.

I went up earlier to cut the grass at the summer place and am just glad we made it to the wedding on time.

For more videos of Caroline see her: Caroline in Widex Passion commercial

Pik street and drinks like cousins

Last weekend I subbed in on a trip for a pregnant colleague to Estonia. I must report that it is rather bleak over there (sorry Will).

We did manage to find a humorous street sign (see below Danish speakers), and later on Saturday night we had a talk to a little drink that has an unpronounceable name, but the descriptor is memorable: it's like kissing your cousin; it tastes good, but you know it's wrong.

Otherwise I've got a stomach bug and therefore have had my face down the toilet for the last 24 hours. I must clean the toilets in our apartment. . .

Cheap Vodka and Kitty

On Saturday night I was part of a scientific experiment. I wanted to see if a technique that I had read about in an article on Dave Arnold (a moleular gastronomy prime mover) had legs. The hypothesis was that cheap vodka would taste better if poured a few times through a coal filter.

I bought a coal filter at Clas Ohlssons, some cheap vodka in Denmark and invited Renzo over (as a guinea pig). We poured the vodka through the filter and noticed a faint discolouration that became more pronounced with the next filtering. I made a martini out of it. I took a careful sip, but when Renzo refused to drink the grey martini, I also backed out. . . afterall he is a chemist.

Although we might not have drunken much of the carbon filtered vodka martini, we did notice some subtle behavioural changes and the evening wound up in a late morning in the corner bar of KB with Kitty Jutbring djing (at least I think it was her).

Kitty has really good taste in music, and I really don't know why she is involved in that crap-ahh-I-think-my-sisters-friends-cat-is-gay-but-what-should-I-do-about-it-television.

Galatasaray 1 Fenerbahçe 0

Take a mega city and divide it into a European side and an Asian side by a narrow strait.  Cast an historical hotch pot of religions in there and you wind up with Istanbul.  Give the European side one football team (Galatasaray) and the Asian side another (Fenerbahçe, and let's leave Besiktas out of the picture) and let them go at it on the football pitch.  The local derby that results can only evoke some rather strong reactions.

I was watching the match in a pub in Ismir.  Hang on, I hear you say.  An Australian watching football - or 'soccer' as we use the new world diminution  What is wrong with that picture. . . ?!?

Well, nothing.  When I landed in London they told me to never trust a man who didn't like football, so I quickly joined the Arsenal fanclub.

Anyway, and more to the point, who does an Australian cheer for in such an alien match - the underdog of course.

Go Fenerbahçe!