Gå som katten kring het gröt

Loosely translated, the above title says 'walk like a cat around hot porridge', which is a Swedish figure of speech for 'beating around the bush'. See, you didn't know I was a cunning linguist did you?

Beating around the bush, i.e. talking around the issue, but not really getting to the point is a bit like blogging. You talk and talk, but what point are you actually making? Does there need to be a point? Well my discussion point today is neither bushes, cats or hot porridge, but Sweden.

I love the country and spent a very happy study year living there back in the mid-90s. I also love the food and in fact I pulled together a favourite dish last night, Toast Skagen,  an elegant combination of shrimp and other ingredients on a small piece of sautéd bread. Jamie Oliver does a great version.

Sweden has been on my mind of late because, as per the rest of the world, I have just read Stieg Larsson's Millennium Trilogy. I just love the way he wrote, going in to intricate detail about who did what, what they ate, what road they took, what they bought. Nora Ephron wrote a wonderfully humorous piece for the New Yorker magazine, which is a pastiche of Larsson's writing style.

Does the Sweden depicted in the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo reflect the Sweden I remember? Yes and no. I don't remember any bisexual, cyber-punk, multi-tattooed riot grrrls, but I did do my food shopping at Konsum. Actually I could write a whole book about my experiences on the rather limited gay scene in Linköping, the small university town I lived in. Here I was, young, fresh faced, newly out, taking my first steps into Joy, Linköping's only gay bar. Knowing that Swedish women were quite beautiful, I had high hopes for a feast of feminine fantasy made flesh. Imagine my horror to discover that every rough woman in Sweden had convened in Joy that night and for some reason they all seemed to share the same leather waistcoat. Actually, so did the women in Telia, the place where you went as a new resident to set up your phone line. As my friend Julian said at the time, "you don't have to be a lesbian to work at Telia...but it helps!"

Well the evening wore on and I settled myself in the company of the gay boys. Then I received a tap on shoulder, and there stood one of the many waistcoated women. "Dansa med mig, dansa till Nordman". Basically she was asking me for a slow dance to what was Sweden's equivalent of Phil Collins (the singer whose music would play in my version of hell). Well I had to oblige and my fate was better than my friend Anna, who had been the target of a waterfall of vomit from a waistcoated one...from the top of a spiral staircase.So I had my dance, which was ok and then made a hasty retreat.

The other thing that amused me about Joy was that the same song was always played at the end of the night, 'This is it' by Melba Moore. Suffice to say the line "this time I know it's for real" never did ring true for me during my forays onto the Swedish gay scene. I certainly made up for it when I got back to London ;)

On a final note, did I partake of the wonderful Swedish cuisine when I lived there? In short, the answer is no. I didn't have a pot to piss in money wise and the money I did have went on beer. The following outlines the food I did eat:

• Pasta, made with cheese and tomato ketchup
• Packet noodles with tinned sweetcorn and cucumber
• Potato chips and dips
• Goument rulle - basically a piece of flat bread filled with mashed potato, fried onions, sliced beef and burger sauce.
• Hot dogs
• Kebabs with an unknown, but delicious purple sauce
• Pizza and pickled cabbage salad -yes together!
• Herring
• Semla - a cream bun filled with an almond paste

How I was only nine stone when I lived there and even thinner when I left I have no idea!