Saturday, 12 January 2019

On Odd Numbers and the Swedish Question.

It’s an odd fact that while I know without thinking that 8+4 = 12, I have genuine difficulty remembering that 7+4 = 11 and 7+5 = 12. I think it must have something to do with odd numbers clashing with the oddness of my brain. And maybe that’s why I’m feeling ill for part of nearly every day at the moment. My current age is indivisible by 2, and that can’t be a good thing.

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In a little over an hour I plan to settle into my uncomfortable armchair in my cold living room and watch the concluding part of the glum Swedish drama. I’m guessing that Minnie isn’t a loony after all, and that the heavily bearded Viking lookalike who runs the rehabilitation centre turns out be a bit of a bad egg. I never liked him. His excessively self-confident air and staring eyes always seemed like a dead giveaway to me, but I might be wrong.

And, as you might expect, the Viking lookalike has already had sex with dear, supposedly-a-bit-loopy Minnie. No surprises there, then. As Peter Cook famously said in the legendary Bloody Greta Garbo sketch: ‘You know what these bloody Swedes are like!’

Finally, I do hope that all Swedes reading these posts will excuse my apparent calumnies. I’m sure your personal qualities are of a high order, your virtues second to none, and your national characteristics something of which to be justly proud. But you must admit, you can be a bit glum at times.

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