Swedish News:

Swedish people are happier in the cities.. Diplomats' unpaid parking fines. Swedish actress Pernilla August directs Danish TV drama. Stockholmers take the most antibiotics. Film about Swedish TV anchor Arne Weise. 

• Big city – happy people?
  Two out of three, or 65%, of all Swedes are happy in the city/town/village where they live. But happiest are those living in Malmö, according to a poll by Fastighetsbyrån (a real estate company). The poll shows how people feel about where they live and how eager they are at moving someplace else. 65% are happy where they live (and this has to do with geographical location, not housing), 30% are neither happy nor unhappy, and 5% are not happy at all. Some conclusions can be drawn here, the people living in Sweden’s three biggest cities are the happiest. In Malmö 73% say they’re happy, in Stockholm 72% and in Göteborg 70%. “It’s positive and somewhat unexpected to see people in Malmö so happy, knowing there’s been a lot of negative press about Malmö lately. You sometimes hear that stress and the high cost of living makes for a lower quality of life in the bigger cities, but what people regard as quality of life is very individual. What the poll shows is that on a whole high costs and stress don’t matter or there are other advantages that make up for it,” says Lars-Erik Nykvist, managing director at Fastighetsbyrån. In a smaller town, with less than 95 000, only 62% are happy with life. Least happy are those living in cities with around 100 000 inhabitants – 58%. Bigger cities also have a higher percentage of people who are unhappy about living there. What the poll also shows is that 59% of all Swedes don’t believe they’ll leave the place where they live during the next five years. 26% say they might move. The prime reason for not moving is that one is simply happy about living where one does. The next reason is that friends and family come first, and the third reason Swedes don’t move is that they want to remain because they like their housing situation. Only 12% say that they won’t move because of work. Swedes living in the bigger cities say they won’t move because they are happy about living where they live, and this is most true when it comes to Malmö, compared to Stockholm and Göteborg. 40% say they are staying in Malmö because they like living there. In what seems like a paradox, the poll shows that even if people living outside the bigger cities, aren’t happy in they also aren’t that keen on moving. Those who remain in bigger and smaller towns do so mostly because of friends and family. “Since the sense of well-being is lower in bigger and smaller towns, it is somewhat surprising that the tendency to move away isn’t higher here. Obviously, friends and family is a strong reason to stay. It is also interesting that quite a few chose to remain where they are because they like their housing – and this tendency is the greatest in Stockholm, where housing prices are the most expensive,” says Lars-Erik Nykvist.

• Diplomats’ unpaid parking fines
  Stockholm diplomats park on bicycle lanes, at bus stops and on sidewalks. The first six months of 2012, their sins put together added up to close to 600 unpaid parking fines. The worst are personnel at the embassies of Russia, China, and Ukraine, according to Svenska Dagbladet. Egypt, the US, and Belarus also have some notorious offenders, as have Iran, India, Vietnam and Thailand. Politicians at Stockholms Stadshus now want to make changes in the law, so that it is easier to put pressure on ambassadors who fail to pay.

• Pernilla August directs Danish TV-drama
  Following her success as director of the film “Svinalängorna” (“Beyond”) in 2010, Swedish actress turned director Pernilla August is now investing her talents in Danmark Radio’s next big drama venture: “Arven efter Veronika” (The inheritance of Veronika). The TV-series has been described as a modern family drama about a late 1960’s generation and its children, according to Danish daily Berlingske Tidende. The story begins as the four children of a famous artist, Veronika, gathers to go through the estate of their dead mother. Their meeting becomes a journey into the past. Shootings will begin in September and the series will air in the spring of 2014. Among the actors are Jesper Christensen and Trine Dyrholm.

• Stockholmers take the most antibiotics
  For several years it has been discussed how to decrease the usage of antibiotics in Sweden, in order to avoid resistance. Yet, according to estimates done by Strama (Samverkan mot antibiotic resistance or the Swedish strategic program against antibiotic resistance) up to four of all ten prescriptions of antibiotics are not medically motivated. In Stockholm, the use of antibiotics has increased the past year with 3.5%, and Stockholmers were already the biggest users of antibiotics in Sweden. A campaign is now about to be launched by the County Council. It is directed foremost at parents to young children, since prescriptions for young children are increasing the most. In 2011, 31% of all children under the age of five, had antibiotics prescriptions filled out for them. Åke Örtqvist is a doctor specializing in infectious disease, and says that the use of antibiotics has somewhat declined through the years, but that there is still some way to go. “We must reach out with the fact that many of the infections that are treated with antibiotics today don’t necessarily have to be treated that way. It would be better for the body to heal by itself,” he says. “There are several areas where one could be a bit more careful in diagnosing and tell patients that their specific infection doesn’t have to be treated with antibiotics. Today antibiotics are being prescribed early on, when someone coughs or have sinus problems.” In total 870 000 prescriptions were collected during this past year, and every cure you take increases your risk for resistance. Also, there are no new types of antibiotics in sight either. Add to that the fact that our bodies’ own bacterial flora is affected with negative results whenever we take antibiotics. “It’s not about people not going to see their doctor,” Örtqvist continues, “you might need a correct diagnosis, but it’s important to be open to the fact that most of the infections we get heal on their own. What’s needed is an element of education, both for people in the medical business and people in general.”

• Film about Arne Weise
  For many of us, Arne Weise was part and parcel of Christmas as we grew up. He was the one who introduced, every year on Christmas Eve at the same time, “Kalle Anka och hans vänner önskar God Jul” (“From All of US to All of You”, an animated television Christmas special, produced by Walt Disney Productions). When Weise quit this Christmas gig in 2002, and Swedish Television wanted to discontinue broadcasting the program, Swedish TV-viewers got so upset, that the program was reinstated thanks to a new, expensive contract with The Walt Disney Company. Anyway, Weise has done more than presenting Donald Duck, he has in fact presented a number of TV programs, and is a beloved television personality. And now we’ll get to know even more about the Malmö-born Weise, as he’s preparing to make a film about himself. “A documentary about this strange man Weise,” is how he describes it himself. “I can say this much, it’s about my TV-life from cradle to grave. And I’ve done so much, worn so many hats. Project leader, producer, TV presenter, and boss. All of it will be illustrated using our enormous archives,” he says to TT Spektra. The film will be around an hour long, and will be built on images from SVT (Swedish Television) as well as newly taken photos from Weise’s daily life and interviews with people he’s met through his career in TV. “I’ve met so many people through my life in TV, but I don’t want any saint’s glory over myself with this film, I want only the naked truth.” The initiative to make the film came from producer and director Jokum Sommer and Weise himself, it will be produced by Sommer’s company, but the two hope it will be shown on Swedish television. “This is a project we work on in bits and pieces depending on how Arne feels,” says Sommer.