Tag Archives: Stockholm

Frying in Norfolk

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Anyone who denies climate change, and more specifically, global warming, is seriously wrong. At the end of August we had record temperatures in Norwich. Fortunately it cooled down in the evenings so sleeping has not been too difficult. However, this summer the rowan tree in the front garden died from a mixture of disease and heat stress. Ailsa has been using the water from the rain butts to keep some of her favourite plants alive, but it is an uphill battle. It presents a dismal picture and I really wonder what the next 10 to 20 years will hold. I am increasingly aware of my contribution to this crisis, particularly through flying, but I do not consider myself to be a flamboyant consumer of other things.

Having said that, I have to begin this blog by reflecting on my travelling over the past month. My final class in Waterloo was on 30th July. I had to complete the marking and submit the marks by 8th August. I was able to do this, and almost all of the students should have been pleased with the outcome. The temperatures and humidity gradually rose in Waterloo, and I was glad to be heading for Norwich. I did not realise how hot Norwich was going to be.

I travelled over on Sunday 11th August, flying via Amsterdam. Toronto to Amsterdam is not all that long, just 7½ hours. This is not long enough to take a sleeping pill, so I sat and watched the film ‘Red Joan’. This was about a British woman who became a Soviet spy in the 1940s and 50s. Oddly I was reading a book called ‘And Is There Honey Still For Tea?’, by Peter Murphy, set in the same time period and covering the same topics. It is hard to believe how much skullduggery there was going on then. I guess it is still happening, with electronic surveillance playing an ever-increasing role.

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From Sledding to Shedding

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When I left Ontario in early May, the snow was gone but the temperature was not reliably warm! This was true of Norwich as well, although during the last week of May there were days when I was able to sit in my shed in the garden, wearing a short sleeved shirt, with the door open. It is actually surprisingly close and humid sometimes in this part of England. In a month the tennis at Wimbledon will begin. In order to meet traditions there should be strawberries available by then. The plants outside my door are in flower, so I will be able to watch the berries develop and ripen.

When I am here the dog comes and invites me to kick tennis balls across the lawn for her every few hours. This is a good way of giving her exercise. The other options are to drive to the forest, which takes time, or walk along hot and boring pavements. She is elderly now so she gives up the game before I do. Her sign that she has had enough is to go the side of the garden, have a drink, and then slink off behind the garage. She is getting deaf and a little short sighted. This means towards the end of the game, it is not so much ‘kicking balls for the dog’ but ‘kicking balls to the dog’.

The garden is a riot of colour. I don’t know very many of the plants, which is a pity, but the flowers are amazing and the plantings effective. The birds are singing their hearts out. When we first moved into the house the garden was quite barren, and there certainly was not the birdlife there is now. There are open containers of water placed strategically under various bushes for birds and insects. One was teeming with tadpoles. We have purposefully left ‘wild’ areas, and this is where the frogs hide out, so it is good to see the next generation in the making. A few evenings ago I went out after a heavy rain shower and saw two rather large frogs. Their visibility was due to a combination of the rain and the fact the light outside my office was on and attracting insects, a buffet.

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Circumcised Statues In Oslo

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Over the past ten days my destinations have been Olso, Stockholm, Uppsala and Liverpool. I was invited to take part in an interesting conference in Uppsala on “HIV and AIDS, Political Mobilization and Democracy?” This was organised by Forumsyd a Swedish NGO (forum south in English); SIDA, the Swedish Development Agency and Uppsala University. Given that I had to go to Scandinavia I decided to visit HEARD’s supporters in Oslo and Stockholm.

I flew over to Oslo on Sunday 10th May. Or at least I thought I was flying to Oslo but on getting to Amsterdam I looked at the departure board and saw that there was a plane to Oslo and then mine to Sandefjord Airport. This airport does indeed serve Oslo but is nearly 120 kilometres south! On arrival I had to work out how to get to Oslo – The choices were bus (nearly 2 hours); train but this required taking a shuttle bus to the station; or taxi which would have been impossibly expensive. I asked the driver of the rail shuttle bus which he thought would be my best option and he charmingly and honestly said: “Train of course, it is much nicer”, but then added “but not today we are using buses because there is a problem on the line”. I took the express bus!

I had looked at the weather forecast and it had seemed to be unrelentingly wet and cool, but this was not the case, it was sunny and pleasant the whole time and everywhere! What was striking was the extra daylight. I went to bed at 10 pm it was light; I woke up at 3 am and it was light again! This would take some getting used to if one lived there. In addition the size of the rooms and beds in the cheaper (but still expensive) hotels required a mental adjustment. In all three locations there was only a shower in the room and two had very small single beds.

I had a very useful day and a half in Oslo. Unfortunately my last appointment was in a slightly run down part of the city. Try as we might neither the taxi driver nor I could find the office, so I had to miss that meeting. The driver having taken money for the  trip to the location hung around and helped me look then took me back to my hotel so I could head for the airport without charging for the additional time, which was really decent. I felt so guilty about it though.

I was taken out to a really nice restaurant and told by my host that if I did only one thing in Oslo, I had to go to Frogner Park and look at the Vigeland Sculpture. She kindly put on the right tram to get there. It was a really beautiful evening so this was not a hardship. The sculptures are amazing, the website I found ishttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vigeland_Sculpture_Park and it is worth a look. The sculptures consist mainly of large naked men, with fewer women and some children and animals. They were sculpted in clay and caste in bronze or carved from granite. My favourite was the Wheel of Life. It was also clear that his male models were not circumcised! I walked back to the city and hotel, easy because it was all down hill, enjoying the evening.

From there it was off to Stockholm. This time I went from Oslo airport, but it was still a 65 minute trip on the bus from the city centre! The flight was 50 minutes, the plane was packed and the cabin crew still managed to serve drinks, a meal and tea and coffee in this time, while remaining calm, amazing. Arlanda airport is well seved by an efficient train that runs into Stockholm and I then headed to my hotel for my one night in the city..

Over the course of the trip I gave two presentations in Oslo and one each in Uppsala and Stockholm. The conference was interesting, there were new ideas and a number of people I had not met. It was particularly pleasing to have a chance to talk to a PhD candidate who is looking at the role of media in the response to the epidemic in Lesotho and Namibia. It it is clear to me that we, in Southern Africa and at HEARD, are ahead in our thinking, and that kind of affirmation is much appreciated.

Oslo is a beautiful small city. It was good to finally get there as I have never visited it. Stockholm is much busier. I had a city map for both locations and was amused to do a little analysis of the avertisments in the boxes around the central plan. They have about the same number of boxed adverts. On the Oslo map five of the 23 were for shops selling sweaters or other knitted goods, the balance were for resturants and sightseeing. The Swedes by contrast are more into general shopping including jewelery, there was not a single sweater shop.

Uppsala is a bucolic small town a forty minute train ride from Stockholm. We were housed is quite odd little hotel called the Muttern with only 26 rooms. Their website is  http://www.hotellmuttern.se The wardrobe was on a swivel stand, one side the mirror the other the opening for clothes and hanging jackets. It smacked of Ikea! The cathedral which was begun in 1287 is an amazing brick building.

The town itself is centred around the University, and so had all the standard features of such towns. These included hordes of students riding bicycles; cheap eating places and lots of pubs; and in the evening students staggering through the streets with open bottles and tins in their hands. They lined up at the pedestrian crossings and then eratically weaved the way across. I have not seen men urinating in public in the northern hemishere (except next to roads, and then with the car door as concealment), well in Uppsala brought that experience as well. The other striking feature was the largen numbers of Goths, who seemed to congregate like crows in the open spaces, sitting in circles and passing joints and booze.

I took a taxi from the hotel to the airport, it was driven by a melancholic Swede in his 40s, who unusually, did not speak English. It is, of course, possible that he choose not to speak though. As I  sat in the front I had ample opportunity to study his picture on the licence, and learn his name, Kenneth Lars Lindstrom. I could not decide if he looked shifty or sad, and eventually concluded he was carrying the weight of being Swedish on his shoulders. The driver from the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine by contrast did not stop talking. He said he really enjoys his job because he gets to meet all these interesting people. Quite how he knows they are interesting was unclear as he does all the talking. He has collected me a few times and I know a lot about him, but he does not remember this.

The visit to Liverpool was to attend a meeting on “Strengthening the research to policy and practice interface: Exploring strategies used by research organisations working on Sexual and Reproductive Health and HIV and AIDS”. We had three HEARD, two by Tim Quinlan and one co-authored by myself and Fiona Henry on Swaziland, Fiona gave the presentation which was excellent. It is clear we are punching above our weight.

And my reading:The Virus, Vitamins and Vegatables: The South African HIV/AIDS Mystery, eds Kerry Cullinan and Anso Thom, Jacana media, Aukland Park, 2009, 211 page.
In their foreword, the editors write: “This book is an attempt to document some of the madness, sheer weirdness and despair of a decade with Mbeki and Tshabalala-Msimang. We are doing so to safeguard the future. We want to present this book as evidence to citizens of this country and the world and say, ‘This is what happened and we need to ensure that it never happens again.'”  Worth reading? Absolutely! 9 out of 10 for content; 8 for perception and 7 for writing style, this last because it is an edited collection it is a bit uneven.
Sexuality: A Very Short Introduction, Veronique Mottier, Oxford University Press Oxford, 2008, 160 pages.
This looks at how sexuality is determined, our genes or is it shaped by the social norms and expectations. It claims to provide an accessible, thoughtful and thought-provoking introduction to major debates around sexuality in the modern world, highlighting the social and political aspects of sexuality. It also looks at how governments have tried to regulate sexualities. It finishes by discussing political activism around sexuality. I found it useful however am not convinced of the perspective that she takes at the end. I think there is too much on gay politics. Worth reading? Yes because it is a VSI! 7 out of 10 for content; 7 for perception and 7 for writing style.
Dead aid: why aid is not working and how there is a better way for Africa, Dambisa Moyo, Farrar, Straus and Giroux,, New York, 2009 188 pages
This is a short but powerful book. The author, a Zambian woman, grew up in Lusaka but left to study in the US. She has worked for the World Bank and Goldman Sachs and has a PhD from Oxford. Her credentials are impeccable. Moyo argues the problem with Africa, the reason it is not developing, is the trillions of dollars in aid that has been poured into the continent. Her critique of aid in the first part of this little book is damning in the second part she has policy prescriptions.  Worth reading? Yes because if you are interested in Africa and development aid, otherwise probably not! 8 out of 10 for content; 7 for perception and 6 for writing style.