February Pieces Of My Mind #2

• I’ve one thing to say, and that’s Brad, I’m mad for you too!
• Reading Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go. Surprised to find that it’s in the genre “adult Japanese man super interested in emotional relationships between English school girls”.
• Movie: Robuste (2022). Young black woman wrestler gets a temp job as personal assistant to an aged spoiled emotionally needy movie star. Grade: good!
• The white-tailed eagle has made a strong recovery in Sweden from its 1970s nadir thanks to a focussed long-term project of feeding and nest guarding. Meanwhile the most damaging pollutants have been phased out.
• At this time of an evening I prefer to wander about in the setting sun pruning the roses. What’s this dark and cold and drizzle!?
• A Swedish gangster rapper just out of jail is releasing a new song about a famous footballer. Now, I would be quite pleased if a) criminal gangs, b) rap music, c) spectator sports disappeared completely. So I don’t expect I’ll listen to the tune.
• My nephew/fosterling once asked me a little shame-facedly about the Bourne movies his school mates watched on their phones. Had I ever watched a Bourne movie? No, said I, I had never seen any of the films about super agent Jason Bourne. But I had heard that they were pretty good! Nephew seemed confused. Eventually it turned out that he was referring to p0rn in a Chinese accent.
• Did a full dental x-ray. The dentist pointed at the muscle adhesion points at the angles of my lower jaw and said “You do some pretty serious jaw grinding in your sleep”.
• Movie: Mars Attacks (1996). 1950s alien invasion spoof. Grade: OK.
• Helped my daughter update her CV. It’s growing more and more impressive!
• 30 years ago I watched a TV commercial for a skin lotion whose big selling point was that it contained ”nanosphere complex”. Since then I have never heard of nanosphere complex again, even though it was clearly extremely important. I take this to mean that none of the lotions on the market today have this crucial ingredient. And I find that it is an excellent reason never to buy any brand-name skin lotion.
• The boardgame Raiders of Scythia has a dedicated type of counter to represent kumis, fermented mare’s milk. Also it is competive solitaire.
• Three Chinese ladies are having an animated and (to me) incomprehensible conversation over tea at our kitchen table. I feel really privileged to have married YuSie, someone from a wildly unfamiliar culture who is nevertheless completely fluent in my own language and culture. Taught me so much! (Not the language though, as she speaks better Swedish than I do.)
• There’s something called Beria’s Beauty Clinic in Hammarby Sjöstad. Hello?!

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