Pieces of Mind

I'm not very bothered by archaeological interpretations that are proven wrong. I'm afraid of those ideas that have become accepted even though there is no way they can ever be tested. "... it was common knowledge that local witches had killed old Mayor Niels Iversen Scribe by means of performing their bodily functions at his front door during the night." Skalk 2013:2 pp. 13-14. Found a great podcast: Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff. Two very well-read and funny spec-fic guys talk about books, history, gaming, writing. Guy writes me to sell an event to the Swedish Skeptics, calls me lagom…

The Swedish Church lost 54,000 members last year. That's more than half a percent of the country's population. Yay! Eight years after submission, a star-crossed paper of mine has finally appeared in print! I was at this provincial museum in 2004, looking at finds, and the staff asked me for a paper to put in their annual. Then they discontinued that annual and told me to send my paper to a certain national journal. I did, it got accepted, and then that journal stalled for several years. The volume I'm in is for 2009 and appeared in late 2012. Wikipedia and my smart phone turn everything I…

Some Facebook updates. Bolsängen: an Uppland smallhold whose name (thanks to the Swedish method of making compund nouns) means "the sexual intercourse bed". The Poupon mustard brand got its name from the firm's coprophiliac founder, who liked to encourage his staff with a friendly "Poop on, guys! Poop on!" I'm helping Adele Adkins with some revision of her lyrics. Her scansion is OK but the rhymes need some touching up. Here's a sample of what I'm coming up with. Don't forget me I beg I remember, you smeg Sometimes it lasts in love But sometimes it hurts my leg Three great Swedish words:…

Some recent Facebook updates of mine: After four years' living in this house I just stubbed my toe on the bathrooom threshold for the first time -- painfully. Unusually, I was wearing semi-industrial hearing protectors on my way to the john -- because also unusually two people were watching TV at the same time and so the sound was on (I can't write with speech in the background). Now I wonder -- am I unconsciously in the habit of using the acoustics of our rooms to remember where I need to mind my step? To solve the US gun problem, impose a 1900% luxury tax on ammo. Let the people bear arms…

Selected Facebook updates: Dreamed that a podcaster had mixed ham, celery and rice crispies into my favorite tea leaves. Was very angry. Green tea leaves accumulate in our house way faster than we use them. Bothers my logistics brain. Misread a headline on a lady's magazine. "A Retro-Style Wedding" became "A Hetero-Style Wedding". Genital lambada, Sw. könslambada. That's what exceptionally witty Black Metal blogger Hatpastorn calls it. I just realised that penguins are aquatic polar dinosaurs. Darwin FTW! The Mandelbrot set has the nicest ass in all of mathematics. Swedish internet users are…

Selected Facebook updates: John Lennon offers a grammar lesson: "A working-class hero is something to be". It's an adjective and a noun. Not a verb. A friend of mine is rehearsing Orff's Carmina Burana and not loving it: "I'm liking the work less with every rehearsal and we're performing it three times in one week, so pity me in my Nazi-approved quasi-Medieval dungeon where the artistic ceiling is looow indeed!" Kelly Link believes that reindeer have manes. Swedish Xenophobe Party tries to get Parliament fact finders to list MPs with foreign citizenship. You couldn't make this up. The next…

These days I usually stick short updates of things I'm thinking about on my Facebook feed, and use the blog for longer pieces. But some of those snippets make me kind of happy, so here's a selection of recent ones. I never give money to beggars. Instead I make an annual donation to Stockholm's biggest organisation for meals, showers, beds for homeless people. Right about when it starts to get cold and nasty outdoors. Why is a Swedish dance orchestra playing a slow boogie version of "Anarchy In The UK" in my head? OK guys, here's the deal. An elite is a group of people. If you're talking…