Spent five happy days in London as a birthday present for myself. Urban vacations are so much more fun now with Google Maps! And a cotton tote bag was my entire luggage.
- Desertfest 2022, a three-day doom metal festival in Camden Town. Well organised, good venues in fun surroundings, enthusiastic musicians, friendly and polite audience. There were about 80 bands to choose from, most of them quite obscure. I heard at least a few songs by 14 bands, but I only really enjoyed five: 1000 Mods (Greece), Earthless (California), Elephant Tree (UK), Parish (UK), Truckfighters (Sweden). My main complaints about the other nine bands was a) a lack of variation in tempo and loudness, b) tortured screaming. Part Chimp made me curious to hear some of their recordings, but their gig was so loud that I had to flee.
- Visited Cousin E who is studying maths at Imperial College, going to lots of classical concerts, playing the piano, playing Magic the Gathering, making friends and generally enjoying life!
- Enjoyed Regent’s Park, Hyde Park, Kensington Gardens, Battersea Park and (for the first time) the magnificent Kew Gardens with its Victorian glass houses.
- Checked out the little UCL Art Museum, the Museum of Freemasonry and the overwhelmingly vast Victoria & Albert Museum.
- Visited book stores and DVD stores: FOPP, Forbidden Planet, Waterstones Piccadilly, Foyle’s, Skoob Books. Bought a single book and three DVDs, about which more in future blog entries. Strictly stuff that I can’t get easily online.
- Bought a cap at Laird for this autumn.
- Drank lots of tea and had many nice meals.
- Stayed in a tiny worn room at an affordable hotel, conveniently located near Paddington Station, with nice breakfasts.
- Walked a lot, rode the subway, rode a double decker bus.
Aardvarchaeology - by Dr. Martin Rundkvist 
It isn’t a subway, it is the underground. Resist cultural imperialism!
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How well does the letter to *Nature* from March 2022 reflect your own experience of the COVID pandemic in Sweden? https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-022-01097-5
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(Swears loudly, gnashes teeth)
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Birger, does that mean “it matches my experience, but talking about the details would be bad for my blood pressure”? (It could also mean “it is wrong, but explaining all the ways it is wrong would be bad for my blood pressure”)
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The early management of the pandemic response did not follow “the precautionally principle” as well as it could. Later, it got better but a lot of people died while the authorities were catching up.
And I am furious over the lack of PPE stockpiles.
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“The Swedish people were kept in ignorance of basic facts such as the airborne SARS-CoV-2 transmission, that asymptomatic individuals can be contagious and that face masks protect both the carrier and others.” I knew these things quite well.
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Martin, you have a PhD, you post on two wordy social media platforms, and you read large amounts of English for fun. So your sources of information are different and much more diverse than those of most people in Sweden!
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I hope you took many photos of yourself standing in front of signs using the phrase “United Kingdom” – in a few years the Scots are likely to break off, telling Whitehall a long string of specific Scottish swear words.
And Ctulhu knows I will not blame them.
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Ah, London’s glorious parks, and an English fry-up every day for a birthday treat – delightful! And a civilising counterpoint to your Festival of Doom.
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