Love Thy Neighbour

Our neighbours below us (Janne, Lotta and their two year old daughter, Edla) came for a first date at our place tonight. As usual, Jo had been the one to make first contact with them a while back, but it took some time to get a date sorted that suited all.

Freya and Edla hit it off immediately, and played wonderfully until they grudgingly fell asleep at 12 o’clock. Much more of a surprise was Freya’s speditious acceptance of Janne, and she was soon sitting in his lap, playing with him. We don’t see Freya’s cautiousness with men a problem, but it’s always nice to see her involving male company in her world.

We adults got on well together, too. Whilst the girls sat on the balcony, drinking and talking, Janne and I did the stereotypical thing, and played Pro Evo Soccer 5 on the PS2. I hadn’t expected him to be into games, only because nearly everyone else I know of our generation has a completely neutral opinion about videogames, so it was excellent to find someone with a similar interest to my favourite past-time.

As it turns out, all four of us seem quite compatible. I only hope Jo and I are not some sad couple who overestimate other people’s opinions of us, and we end up happily ringing them to invite them to all kinds of things, while they try their best to avoid us and eventually move cities to be rid of us.

Freya In Luxembourg

We spent the last four days visiting some friends that we got to know when we were living the small but beautiful Duchy of Luxembourg some ten years ago.

The first two nights were spent in Suzi and David’s house, who now live just over the border in Germany. Freya had no problem acclimatising to her new surroundings, especially since the house is also home to a rabbit (Venus) and a guinea-pig (Blitz); the last two evening’s we stayed at Corrinne’s and Carlos’ house, which offered a very large balcony. Thanks to the relatively nice weather this was utilised on both days, and almost made up for the lack of pets.

We got to do so much in the four days we were there: Parc Merveilleux is a really good Animal Park with decent children’s playgrounds fairy tale themes splattered around the place; a small, unhealthily warm, but well-equipped butterfly gardin, Jardin des Papillons in Grevenmacher; visiting various pubs in the city, including paying a visit to see a DJ acquaintance, Marino.

All in all it was a marvelous break away, and it was fantastic catching up with old friends.

I’ll Drink To That

Apart from the occasional, hypocritical moaning, I don’t really care that my t-shirts may well have been made by some 7-year old girl in Pakistan. Earning a risible wage, Bob (not her real name) prostitutes herself during the hour a day free time she gets, probably and pathetically to the kind of people who own the sweat-shop she calls work.

While far away echoes of “Come on Bob, just do it!” ripple over the continents, I’m quite willing to support the regime if it gives me a good feeling in my wallet. I support this type of injustice, not because I’m callous, but because if I didn’t, I wouldn’t buy the product.

It was a nice surprise, then, when Jo turned up this afternoon with our usual bag-in-box red wine, Ecologica. Not only has it been one of the very cheapest three-litre boxes one can find in Sweden, but, as its name implies, it’s made from organically-grown grapes.

Now the wine has become one even more of a bad-conscience mollifier, since the new packaging also displays the Fair Trade moniker, meaning untold riches to the Argentinian workers involved in giving us (almost) daily pleasure and the occasional headache/temporary regret.

So, with the balance redressed I can finally get those Nike trainers I’ve had my eye on.

Posted in Jon

A Feeling Of Eruditeness

I was recently asked by a colleague at work to look through his first, very rough, draft of a piece he had written in English. I’m still not sure exactly what it was, but he mentioned something about it being a film review, being seen by his class, and for the parents of the pupils. Or something.

Anyway, it was incredibly basic, and caused me to giggle a fair number of times. The layout and, in particular, the spelling were atrocious, giving me a tittle of an ego boost.

I had a few minutes today to give the text another quick look, when I came across a mistake neither I nor the other “qualified” English teacher had seen at the first reading. The first sentence recounted the basic situation of the film, revolving around the “horrifying” lives of some school students.

Whilst I have never given it much though before, probably because I, like many others, use this word incorrectly, it suddenly occurred to me that horrify is a transitive verb. Transitive verbs need an object (e.g. I am horrifying the children at school with my outlandish behaviour), and there was no object in the text to be horrified.

What is needed here is the adjectival form of horrifying, which is “horrific”.

The film is about the horrific lives of some children…

is now how the text is formulated. I cannot say just how much joy I experienced by realising this mistake and rectifying it so that it is without error.

I apperceive that I am far from becoming an aptitudinal proof-reader, as I flounder often in the face of correct grammar, but it really felt an accomplishment to experience such an epiphany.

Now I think about it, can horrifying be used as an adjective? Nuts! I am befuddled. Oh, well, it’s back to my usual state of confusion until I can find out the correct answer to this conundrum.

Comparing Those Who Compare

When trying to obtain good deals on videogames I used to use the time-consuming method of opening every shop I wanted to search in a different tab and manually searching. With the amount of shops being around ten, this was a soporific procedure, but was warranted because of the limitations that the mainstream price-comparison sites afforded.

I have been rather unmoved by Pricerunner, with its plain, yet untidy, layout, and limited range of shops that it searches. While there is nothing inherently wrong with the set-up, I often felt there were bargains out there that I’d missed, and the additional information about the products was perfunctory.

An uncelebrated gem amongst the crowd is the Swedish site, Prisjakt, that sets itself above its competitors by a plethora of information. The search criteria function is well-implemented (though unused for the most in my case), and there is a nicely thought out, unintrusive pop-up window for every game’s price-development over the last 60 days.

There are a few other helpful functions, and, while these may not seem to set it apart from Pricerunner and the like, it makes for a more complete approach, especially with a larger database of shops used when searching. I do not get the nagging feeling that somewhere, just somewhere there is a shop which could save me an additional amount of money on my desired purchase, even if there quite possibly is.

I have already saved myself a tidy sum on the 10 or so products I’ve bought through Prisjakt, and its presence in the market is welcome.

Posted in Jon