Erik Hamrén

Sweden’s national team (and that is in soccer, in case you were wondering. If someone uses the term national team they mean either that or hockey, the only two sports really worth following) has a new coach! His name is Erik Hamrén and everyone has high hopes for his leadership. After the last couple of years with detrimental losses, like not making it to the World Cup, we are desperate for positive news and surely this handsomely dressed man will make us believe in ourselves again? Personally, my favorite thing about him is his impeccably matching scarves.

Huntington beach pier

Ernst Kirchsteiger

A man that became a phenomenon that became a figure of speech - by now, the man Ernst Kirshteiger is nowhere near as big as the image his name invokes. He is a former chef that works with interior design and has hosted a number of remodeling shows, making him a household name. This handsome middle-aged charmer is a soft-spoken, metrosexual man that says things like “when a cat is sleeping in a room, there is nothing a designer can add to it” and “have you ever fallen in love with a rock?” He is known to walk around with bare feet.

Calling someone or something “Ernst Kirschteiger” means it is touchy-feely, cuddly and non-threatening. Video evidence: Watch a parody of Ernst Kirchsteiger by Swedish comedy trope “Hey Baberiba” on YouTube. I think you will get the gist of it even if you don’t understand Swedish.

Or you can watch the real thing in a clip from “Summer with Ernst”.

SoCal so far

Engla-mordet (The Engla Murder)

A young girl goes missing while biking home. There are no leads, nothing to tell where she might have gone. A passer-by happens to take a lot of pictures while driving around trying out his new camera. On one of those pictures you can see the little girl, and in one taken a couple of minutes later a car. The license plate is legible and the police find that it belongs to Anders Ekholm, a truck driver from a neighboring town. 

He turns out to be at least a two time killer, having captured and murdered the ten-year old girl as well as another woman ten years earlier. A lot of people try to tie him to other murders as well. He admits to nothing but the murder of the little girl, whom they found in the forest. He is sentenced to life in jail but there are some doubts as to what happened with the earlier murder investigation and some cops have been questioned about not doing DNA checks. However, no police officers have been found guilty of misconduct.

E-legitimation

We don’t use a lot of IQ-testing in schools here, but if you manage to get an e-legitimation you should probably be put in the gifted class. This program was supposed to make it easy to do things like file your taxes online and apply for student loans, but even the smartest people I know have banged their heads against the table in frustration when trying to make it work.

Basically, you download it to your computer and log in to your bank account or something similar to verify your identity, and after that you can go to government website and sign papers using your e-legitimation. Some advocate for using this to open up online voting in future elections and I kind of agree with them. People who are smart enough to figure that stuff out should probably be the only people voting, anyways.

Efterlyst

Criminals and outlaws, beware! This weekly show is some strange collaboration between the police department and a private television channel, dedicated to describing all the gruesome crimes committed in the country and urging witnesses to step forward. Intent on solving and analyzing crimes, they walk a thin line as Swedish law is pretty fuzzy when it comes to “naming and shaming”.

The guidelines say to keep all victims and perpetrators anonymous for as long as possible, otherwise those who have been exposed may have grounds to sue, but publishers can always invoke “the public’s right to know” and hope to get away with it. It is an incredibly popular show and the longest running one on Channel 3.

Ebba Grön

Ebba Grön is a punk band from the 70’s with some serious issues with capitalism. Their concerts were sometimes violent and their lyrics encouraged the working class to arm themselves against the bourgeoisie and revolt. They disbanded in the early 1980’s but the singer, Joakim Thåström, went on to have a rather successful solo career.

Du gamla du fria

The Swedish national anthem, which I was told is the only one in the world that does not mention a country at any point but instead speaks vaguely of “the Nordic region”, leaving it open to interpretation. I think this is mainly because we are always prepared to reinvade Norway, should they get too annoyingly condescending towards us. You were once poor, remember that! And we can take away that statehood just as quickly as we gave it to you!

When trying to find a version to link to on YouTube, surprisingly (?) many were interpretations by different “nationalist” (read: racist) bands. Sadly, that is what the national anthem usually stands for these days. That movement has tried to hijack it and they have done a pretty good job.

I love it when the mountains are out...