Mikael Fernstrom

>It’s been a fantastic weekend. Weather has been great – blue skies, sunshine, fresh air. Ireland won over Italy in the Six Nations today.

It started Friday evening, when I discovered that they had missed removing a metal staple from Mona’s navel. We went back to the hospital Saturday and it was easily done. Although both Friday and Saturday, I was feeling increasingly i’ll / a hundred years old / ready to collapse, after some serious rest on Saturday, Sunday turned out great and I feel much better.

The To-Do list is endlessly getting longer but at least I’ve started to give it a serious workout.

>So, this was the end of the Autumn Term. I’ve just finished marking exams and assignment.

As usual, most students don’t know or understand enough maths.

Some may believe they’d get away with anything, others despair.

Still, we have to put marks and grades on their efforts.

>So, today it was the 60th anniversary of Auschwitz. I watched the news, read the papers, and I cried. Many years ago, a friend of mine committed suicide. He was a great guy. Before this, he wanted to investigate his past. I’m not sure if I have the right story, but as far as I know, he’d been adopted. His real parents were killed in the Final Solution. A year or so after he had visited the sites in Germany, Poland, etc., he was quite depressed. Suddenly, he came out of his depression with, what appeared, new positive energy. Next, he was dead. The killing goes much further than you think.

We, humankind, have learned NOTHING! People are still killing, exterminating, torturing and starving each other – for what?!

I guess the Western world had a shake-up with the tsunami in the Indian Ocean, as some white people perished. What about the rest of the world, where this happens every day?

Why don’t we start with a Be-Good day all over the planet? Next year, we’ll have two Be-Good days, the year after 3. In 365 years, we might get somewhere. If people start to notice the difference, it might come sooner. If you have – give. If you need – ask.

If you read this: tomorrow, when you wake up, think, “today I will be nice to everybody, I will help everyone, I will forgive everyone”.

Johnny Be Good – Tonight!

>For Christmas, my mother sent me a VHS-tape with selected highlights from Swedish television. One of the programs covered the street kitchen (gatukök = chipper) in our old home town. Apparently it’s known to have the best mashed potatoes (potatismos [short] mos) in the world. Since then, we’ve been talking about this as probably the only thing that we really miss. But as a keen chef I decided to try to replicate the recipe and – sic – this evening we had Halv Special (half special) for dinner!



The design of this Swedish speciality is:

1 oblong piece of white bread

1 really good sausage

some mustard

Mashed potatoes

Prawn salad

Pickled cucumber salad

The really adventourous might even add some lingon-berry jam on top.

Bon Apetite

(or Bonnaptit as it’s said in the local Swedish accent;-)

>We had a great Christmas, or rather, Midwinter. Some time off, and the weather was quite pleasant. Then we got to West Clare for a week over the new year and a bit. Still very nice, but the weather was slightly more hostile (but not bad. There is no bad weather – just the wrong equipment). Standing out there, on the Atlatnic coast, makes you think more deeply about the power of nature. There’s no way you can outrun a wave. If you’re in the wrong place at the wrong time, it’ll kill you. If anybody reads this, please make donations to teh Red Cross.

This evening, Sweden is off-line due to one of the storms we had a few days ago. Nuclear power plants did shut down due to too much salt water. Networks collapsed. Also telephones. I bet you, the Swedes will use this incident as an argment to go more nuclear (which is the wrong strategy) instead of trying too figure out how to design sustainable living (wich is something completely different).

>Yesterday, while walking down the fields to the river Shannon, we observed that several trees apparently believe (do trees have faith?) that it’s spring! Today, some of the smaller birds seem to follow suite, judging by their general behaviour and singing. Is this a good sign, or is it really bad?

As it’s Midwinter today, let’s celebrate the shortest day of the year and that all Gods in Valhalla will help us to set things right in the world.

>Still in pain. X-rays didn’t show that it would be justified to start drilling today. But, I had a very interesting experience. The dentist knocked on the teeth trying to determine which one was the actual problem, taking both my feedback (Ouch!) and what she heard from the impact between steel instrument and tooth.

A little research clue like this makes life more bearable when one is told to Go Home and take Two Painkillers every four hours.

>We had a great night out yesterday evening. Most of IDC showed up. The Tailrace Bar in Parteen has the most horrible old piano I’ve seen in a long time. We had a great session anyhow. I felt increasing pain in my lower jaw throughout the evening and today I finally got down to getting an appointment with a dentist. Yuk! Better get it done before Xmas…

>I’ve neglected my blog for some time. Sorry. I’ve been too busy with non-cyber life, including travelling to Glasgow and back. The last week seems to have just disappeared in meetings. Well, I’m back – writing and scribbling. My to-do list is almost endless with research reports long overdue and gazillions of people requesting help or a response. Today, Sunday, I’ve written a list prioritising things, hence if you get my response over the last few days, you’re one of the lucky ones. If not, you might as well forget it, as I intend to do.

After thinking about things this way, my blood pressure is better than in a long time and I intend to keep it that way.

Mona is gearing herself up to surgery, hopefully in January. It’ll be tough but if her quality of life improves that’ll be great.

>This evening we went to the opening concert of Sionna, the Irish and international festival for music, dance and performing arts. We heard Sabreen (from Palestine) a really great band playing very exciting and interesing music; and radio Tarifa (from Spain) who were good but working more on showmanship than music.