Implicit fitness

Sweden is a country that puts its money where its mouth is regarding fitness and providing access to easy exercise for people.

I'm talking about biking and how this country has bike paths all over the place that are built in a complete system (like regular roads almost). They have their own traffic lights and the bike paths are well paved and maintained. They all connect to one another and it makes riding a bike really easy.

Today I decided that because the sun was shining, I would go for a 19 km bike ride to the Burlov Center, halfway between Lund and Malmo. All the way there I had special bike paths that had proper signposts.

This sort of investment is something that Australians could only dream about. There are a few bike paths in Perth for example, but these are disconnected and follow routes that no one actually takes. For example, there is a bike path that follows the train line, but you can take your bike on the train for free. Of course if you don't really want to ride 20 km out to Midland, you get on the train and the whole point of the exercise is lost.

Here it is a bit different: the bike paths run where people want to go in the city and between towns and they are situated between the road and the footpath. It means you can safely ride your bike anywhere without some hideous bogan moron trying to scare you by driving too close in their V6 Falcon while simultaneously telling you to fuck off the road.

Often in dense European cities it is faster to get on your bike and ride than to take the bus or to walk or even drive. Whats great is you can really do it without compromising your safety.

A tacit benefit of all this is that you are doing moderate exercise every day, something that we all need to do in the modern age in order not to be unhealthy. Just by moving around, you get healthier and it is of course free.

I would not be able to back this claim up with numbers, but I even suspect that the health benefits caused by enabling people to cycle everywhere (Swedes do) would somehow cancel the costs of extra doctor's bills that need to be picked up by the state. Being fit naturally protects your body, so you don't need to go get that consultation from an overworked GP to tell you that you should really move more and eat less potato chips.

Its how a government should spend tax money, by making cities more livable.

EU publishing

If you take a bunch of bureaucrats to work with a bunch of academics across six countries and cultures, you will get a bad product that is late. Its natural that people are just incapable of working unless there is some sort of great motivation.

That was the case with our new course book (published by the EU), which was in the words of my new lecturer 'rescued' from the hands of The University of Palermo. Because of the EU's bureaucratic deadlines and the squabbling between universities, the book was never edited, so its got a lot of crap in it.

For example, on the first page, there is a sentence that beings "Since a small business is not a little big business..." Um...WTF?

Then in the back cover there is a leaflet that asks if you are having trouble reading the text in the program on the CD that comes with the book. No problem, just change the language into Italian and it will be in English. Simple, right? Or as the leaflet in the book says: "Isn't it magic?"

Pizza party

Sunday heralded the class' first communal dinner, which was a pizza party at my house - about 16 people turned up.

Making dough isn't that easy nor quick, so I asked everyone for a solid RSVP. Lots of guys who went out on Saturday night were pretty happy to say they would take part and have some pizza, but after a few beers they chickened out. Pussies... ;-) In any case we had a lot of fun. No photos unfortunately: the photographers were on holiday.

For those who asked me earlier, here are the recipes I used:

Dough (for 4-6 people)

500 g flour (I used rågsikt, which is a mix of rye and wheat flour)
350 mL water
7 g dry yeast (I used 25 g of live yeast, but these are more or less equivalents)
1.5 tsp salt
2 tbsp sugar
4 tbsp olive oil


Red sauce (matches dough recipe quantity)

1 chopped onion (optional, but onions are the best thing ever invented, aren't they?)
2 tbsp olive oil
4 cloves of garlic
1 x 400 g can of tomatoes
0.5 tsp sugar
1 tbsp oregano
salt (to taste)
50 mL water
Balsamic vinegar (to taste, perhaps 1 tbsp - add at the end)

Bank bullcrap

Its always interesting to get used to a new culture, but I'm always surprised how much bank culture changes in every country. I had always assumed that the same bank in different counties would more or less operate in the same way. Its not true however. To this end I have constructed a how-to list for getting paid in Sweden.

1. Get informed by employer (university) what your bank is (Nordea).

2. Go to Nordea to open account. Get told you aren't able to open account. Open account after insisting that its actually possible for you to open an account (its possible). [NB: you open an account so you don't have to pay an 80 kronor (~€7) fee for making transactions]

3. Get cheque in mail (yes thats a real paper cheque in the snail mail. Yes it is 2011, that wasn't a dream).

4. Go to Nordea where you have an account in order to avoid fees to deposit cheque. Be informed that depositing a cheque in the bank costs 50 kr for members.

5. Be informed that if you take a special envelope, only available from the teller (as far as I can tell) and send your cheque to the bank by post (pre-paid by the bank) then you won't pay any fee.

Seriously.