Went out for dinner last night. We thought we would go to a well known restaurant on Kungsholmen which has two versions of everything on their menu, a half and a whole.
At first we thought this was to do with portion size, but when we saw the prices we realised that they either took half of your bank account, or the whole of your bank account.
Instead, we went up a little side-street and went to the restaurant called Salt which was great. It was decorated with lots of little steel Elks everywhere, so I decided to have Elk with homemade crisps and a Lingon-berry ketchup. Maria had Fish and Shellfish chowder with Scampi, Salmon, Nile Perch and garlic bread.
I saw this picture on the BBC website (taken by Paul S.) of the Devils Point in the Cairngorm mountains in Scotland.
It reminded me of something that my family always tease me about.
15-ish years ago me and my Dad and brother were walking the Lairig Ghru and when we passed by this mountain, we decided we should climb up it. After coming down I was trailing behind a couple of hundred yards when I saw this nice soft looking area of green moss. Looked really springy, so I took a run and jump… and ended up to my belly button in a peat bog.
At this point you would imagine my concerned relatives to rush to my assistance. Unless you know my family, in which case you would correctly imagine them to spend the next 5 minutes rolling around laughing while I fish myself out the bog.
Only Sam the dog came to help me in a Lassie type rescue. Anyway, I like to think he was coming to help, probably just coming closer to have a good laugh.
Saw a TV report last night that was about how a Swedish singer is top of the UK charts. The song in English is called “Now you’re gone” and is about young love gone awry and has such touching lyrics as…
“now your gone
I realize my love for you is strong
I miss you here now your gone
I keep waiting here by the phone
with your pictures hanging on the wall”
Beautiful and meaningful…
The Swedish version of the song which was number 1 here in 2006 was called “Boten Anna” and was the romantic tale of a young man who thought that a software robot had been placed on his IRC chat channel and it turned out to be a girl. (How sad are the youth of today?)
I thought the song was about a guy who had a boat and the boat was called Anna. Kind of a Swedish Thomas the Tank Engine. I was wrong.
The Swedish lyrics in English are…
“I know a bot,
her name is Anna, Anna is her name
And she can ban, ban you so hard
She cleans up in our channel
I wanna tell you, that I know a Bot
That always watches everyone here
And keeps us out of trouble
There is no Take-over that succeeds
Remember that it’s I who know this Bot
The bot that no one else can beat
And she kicks even if she shouldn’t
She gets rid of everyone that “spams”
Yes, nothing can beat our Bot
(Ready for take off)
(Are you ready?)
And then came the day I didn’t think was real
The channel was out of control
I never thought I would be so wrong
But Anna wrote and said
“I’m not a Bot,
I’m a really beautiful girl”
Which is, unluckily, now very strange to me
But nothing needs to be explained
Because for me you will always be a Bot”
Yesterday, the Swedish open source database provider MySQL got bought by Sun Microsystems for 1billion USD. (Amazing what being the database provider for Facebook can do).
Seeing this on the news last night brought back a rather painful memory of when Emanuel and I were studying Business Opportunities in a joint class between KTH, Stanford and the National Uni of Singapore in 2005. We had read a case study on the business strategy of MySQL and had to deliver our findings via video tele-link to a couple of hundred people both in Stockholm and in California.
Anyway, we got up and said what we thought and then waited to get some feedback. Unfortunately, the next face to appear on the video link from the U.S was Mårten Mickos, the CEO of MySQL (we didn’t know he was there).
He then spent the next ten minutes ripping me and Emanuel to shreds in a incredibly vicious way because we had suggested an alternative strategy to the one he had chosen. Me and Emanuel sat frozen while we endured this torrent of verbal abuse and then crawled off to claim that we were happy to have received “constructive criticism”.
I think that was the first time we had really been on the receiving end of such a “hard” business manner, but it certainly wasn’t the last!
Have to say that in our current business we use a database called SQLite instead of MySQL as a form or retribution. (Bet you Mårten is really worried about that as he counts his billion…)
At the weekend we were invited by friends of Maria’s to come over for some “julgransplundring”, which basically means to help them take down their Christmas tree and tidy up. “Would they like me to help clean the bathroom while I’m there?” I thought.
Turned out to be fun though and just another Swedish way of getting together, eating, drinking, singing and dancing round a tree. Still trying to get the pine needles out of my feet…
On Friday I was at a graduation party for my two friends Irina and Jessica who had graduated from medical school earlier that day. There was a fine buffet of traditional Swedish and Romanian dishes and a well stocked bar with suggestions for cocktails pinned up on the wall (I especially liked the “Caip-irina”).
As the night got later, I decided that all previously invented cocktails are wrong and that a new invention was needed and that the leftovers from the bar were the perfect ingredients. The cocktail was named “The Vomit” due to it’s distinctive smell.
Here’s the recipe…
18cl Dark Rum
12cl Cointreau
4cl more Dark Rum
27cl Coca-Cola
1/6th of a Lime
Spoonful of suger
Warning: The Vomit may induce wild mood swings, unwarranted self belief, spontaneous singing, use of out-of-date “comedy” catchphrases, a habit of bringing up uncomfortable things that happened in the past and a temporary loss of all motor functions.
Was looking through some old photos the other night and came across this one of me and my brother at Carrbridge in 1986…
If you click on it, you will see two wee figures at the top of the bridge. That’s me and Neil. Can just about remember/imagine my Dad saying, “That’s it lads, just a little further. This is going to be a great photo!”
People didn’t go in too much for health and safety in 1986, did they?
Today I went for my annual haircut. I really hate getting my hair cut. Along with speaking on the phone and shopping for non-foodstuffs, it’s one of my three least favourite activities.
When it comes to the point that I have to get a haircut, I certainly avoid anything with the words “salon” or “unisex” in their name. I like a good old fashioned barber’s shop with sawdust on the floor and a black and white picture of George Best from 1964 on the wall.
Imagine my shock and surprise when I walked into the barber’s today to find that one of the two barbers was in fact… A WOMAN!
A woman barber, next they’ll be wanting the vote and equal pay.
Got to say she done a pretty good job, actually. First she started by washing my hair which was quite funny as I had spent the hour before trying to get the Christmas lights out of the outside tree, so there was probably sticks and feathers and things coming out of my hair.
Next it was a careful scissor cut which compared to the normal attack of the electric shaver was a treat. All in all I was pleased, but then I got the bill, £8 !!!!! What’s going on with the world? I remember when a Beano was only 12p.
Have a great blog entry today with some exclusive video clips!
Me and my Dad went up to Tannadice to see the mighty Dundee United play against Lithuania Hearts.
It was a totally action packed game, with heroes and villains that would have been suitable for a festive pantomime! (It was Hearts that ended up looking like the rear-end of a pantomime horse though ).
Hearts are a team I have a lot of time for as one of the traditionally big clubs of Scotland, but this current bunch aren’t adding to the reputation of the club. They were diving everywhere, fighting with their own team mates, arguing with their own fans and generally besmirching the good name of Scottish and Lithuanian football. Luckily the lean, mean, tangerine dream machine was there to give them a good hiding!
The rout started when Robbie Nielson applied for a place in “The 100 craziest passbacks in the world… ever!” and gave Utd an indirect free kick from about 7 yards out. It’s very seldom you see a goal from these situations, but I thought I would make a wee video on my camera just in-case…
1-0 Utd, but the Hearts came back and got an equaliser before half-time. The game turned when early in the second half a Hearts player tried to punch Lee Wilkie in the box (sounds painful). After about 5 mins of confusion and red cards, it was a penalty to Utd. Up stepped Barry Robson again and out came my camera…
At 2-1 down, Hearts pressed the self destruct button, forgot about the game and concentrated on rolling around on the ground. The telling fact was when a Hearts player went for a roll in the Utd half, one or two Hearts players would actually go over to them and tell them to get up.
With 10 minutes left, Utd wrapped up the points when Noel Hunt rose like a bumper-packed tin of John West to head home Utd’s 3rd. Too fast for my camera that time.
It was all too much for the remaining Scottish players in the Hearts side who decided it would be better if they just got sent off instead. Firstly it was Wallace who cynically hacked down Robson in the box just as he was about to get his hat-trick. Another penalty and oot came the camera again (better than Scotsport this!) .
4-1 to Utd and a hat-trick to Robson.
Michael Stewart had spent the last 15 minutes running around in a small circle, shouting abuse at anyone who would listen. With 1 minute left, he shouted some at the linesmen (or maybe a fan). Off he went for an early bath as well.
All in all, a great day and a great game. Here’s to many more wins for the Terrors in 2008!
Wasn’t too hungover from last night, but I wasn’t in as good shape as Neil who ventured into the capital for the Edinburgh Hogmanay Triathlon (doesn’t that sound like fun?).
Neil was so fast at running, he had finished before I even got there, so no pictures of him crossing the finish line. I thought about trying to climb Arthur’s Seat, but it was getting late and had become really misty, so I just went to the top of Salisbury Crags. The mist really came in and you could just see the odd spire of Edinburgh sticking out.
).
