Category Archives: Travel notes

Night train tips

Swedish Railways runs some lovely sleepers which are, I think, the best way to get up to the north; and when you factor in the cost of a hotel room, they are also as cheap as flying and spending the … Continue reading

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Dead elk and minicabs

I spent last week rushing around Sweden, mostly to places I had lived in or visited before, as part of a Radio Four Crossing Continents programme which will go out in early September. The rest of the series is full … Continue reading

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Granny on a mobile

I found through the extremely eccentric google news alerts a lovely clip of a wolf in western Finland, where is was discovered by a couple of schoolboys out for a walk. Being modern Finns, they did not pull out their … Continue reading

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Random resumption

I know I have written nothing here for the last month. I don’t think that’s good. It started off as a consequence of Guardian blogging, where I felt that I had to turn everything that occurred to me into a … Continue reading

Posted in Blather, Journalism, Sweden, Travel notes | 8 Comments

Improbable statistics

According to Spiegel, there are between 8,000 and 10,000 wild boars living in and around Berlin today; according to the Guardian, the Independent currently sells, at full price, 131,566 copies. That’s before they put the price up 25% to £1.00. … Continue reading

Posted in Journalism, Travel notes | 4 Comments

Reversion to the mean

Austrian politics drift, farcically, to the right. Apparently there is a coalition proposed between the Social Democrats and the Freedom Party, as the former neo-Nazis call themselves. This is the outfit that used to be run by Jörg Haider, against … Continue reading

Posted in Blather, Travel notes | 13 Comments

A wonderful tombstone

I was emptying my camera card today and came across these two pictures: front and back of a gravestone in Strethall Church (which itself is rather wonderful, dating back to around 900AD). Here is the Major-General’s daughter: And this is … Continue reading

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A visit to Ammarnäs

The most important thing I saw this trip was a lynx, galloping across the road in front of the car about 40 km from Ammarnäs. The back legs seemed longer than the front ones, which made it look almost ungainly, … Continue reading

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FT review of Fishing in Utopia

Another gratifying review, from the Financial Times, where Hugh Carnegy, the executive editor, likes Fishing in Utopia,a lot, though he thinks, god knows why, that I am “a melancholy soul”. It is the window on Sweden that gives this book … Continue reading

Posted in Journalism, Literature, Science without worms, Sweden, Travel notes | 3 Comments

quick travel notes

I was in Edinburgh on Thursday. When I left my hotel to buy a paper, I found a dozen schoolchildren in the corner shop and the first thing I thought, accustomed as I am to the mores of the Home … Continue reading

Posted in Travel notes | 4 Comments