Swedish News

 

  • Silvia’s birthday.
    It’s Queen Silvia’s birthday on December 23: She’ll turn 65 this year, but she doesn’t want to celebrate. Her husband, King Carl XVI, tried talking her into having a big bash but Silvia won’t hear of it. “Nothing’s planned for Her Majesty’s birthday,” says a spokesperson for the Royal Court. “But she is not going to retire.” The Queen is one of the founders of World Childhood Foundation, as children and children in need are matters close to her heart. Although no big spectacles are planned, there will be a quiet family dinner at Drottningholm. Nordstjernan wishes Queen Silvia a happy 65th birthday!

  • Earthquake shakes southern Sweden.
    An earthquake rocked Southern Sweden early on Tuesday morning, which caused a flood of phone calls to emergency services operators from alarmed residents. "The bed shook for about 20 seconds," said Helsingborg resident John O'Leary. O'Leary said the quake woke him at about 6:20am and that the shaking knocked over several items in his apartment. Uppsala University seismologist Reynir Bödvarsson estimated the quake measured between 4.5 and 5.0 on the Richter scale. “It was likely felt in much of southern Sweden. For Sweden, this is a very strong quake,” said Bödvarsson. Seismologists in Sweden estimate the quake’s epicenter was located 18 kilometers underground, beneath a point about one kilometer east from Malmö’s Sturup Airport, about 30 kilometers east of the city. According to the US Geological Survey, the earthquake had a magnitude of 4.7, which would make it the strongest earthquake to hit Sweden in more than 100 years. Back on October 23, 1904, an earthquake with an epicenter near the Koster Islands off Sweden’s west coast reached a magnitude of 6.0 on the Richter scale.

  • Måns Herngren’s thoughts on being 40.
    Swedish actor and director Måns Herngren is in the limelight with a new movie, “Allt flyter”, about some middle-aged men who begin synchronized swimming. “These guys have been looked down upon but now it’s payback time,” Herngren explains, “and they are going to compete in the World Championship of Synchronized Swimming.” A classic underdog story or a new way to have a mid-life crisis? Perhaps both. “When you’re over 40 you can no longer wear T-shirts with prints,” Herngren says. “But I still skate. I haven’t really had a middle age crisis; I feel better now than when I was younger. When I was 19 I felt life was meaningless and I was very lonely. Then I met my friend (and collaborator) Hannes Holm and that was just pure luck.”

  • Bartender turned Garbo.
    We told you the news not too long ago about practically unknown Anna-Karin Eskilsson from Östersund who, beating out stars like Uma Thurman and Rachel Weisz, nabbed the part as Garbo in an up-coming feature film. DN met with 35-year old Anna-Karin, who is still a bartender at the Empire State Building Bar. In spite of smaller parts on TV and in films such as “Sex and the City”, it has taken the Swedish actress 14 years to get a major part. “Of course it’s been hard, but I’ve carried on. It’s no fun being a bartender but it’s easy money behind a bar. But I guess it’s time to quit now. I’m not very nice to my customers!” Now Anna-Karin is readying herself for Garbo, of whom she knew little before this project. “If I could, I’d ask Garbo if she had any regrets about leaving the film industry when she did. If that was a right decision.”

  • No China for Götheborg.
    Götheborg’s next voyage to China is threatened not to take place. The ship, which is a replica of an 18th century wooden sailing vessel, was launched on June 6, 2003. The Svenska Ostindinska Companiet is hoping the state will come up with the 18 million SEK needed for the trip to the World Fair in Shanghai in 2010. But because of the current financial crisis, it looks like Götheborg might have to do with a little tour of Östersjön and Kattegatt instead of more exotic places.

  • Books for Ebba.
    Ebba von Sydow, Veckorevyn’s blogging Editor-in-Chief, wants books and books and books under her Christmas tree. Recently she did an Oprah - that is, started her own book club, and the first book was “L’Africain” by Nobel Prize Winner Le Clézio. She writes: "Thrilling ‘Dödegök’ by Katarina Wennstam, and excellent Åsa Larsson… I read more than usual at Christmas and of course I want books!” She also told her readers that she goes to bed with Johan Theorin’s “Nattfåk”. She’s a bookworm, dear Ebba. Albeit a glamorous one.

  • While we’re on glamorous bookworms…
    Make-up artist and pop star Jean-Pierre Barda is reading two books at the moment. One is about a little girl during World War II, called “The Book Thief”, and the other one is “Going Gray”, about an American woman who decides she is no longer going to dye her hair. Barda also likes giving books away, and his favorite book to give is David Eberhard’s “I trygghesnarkomanernas land”. The best place to read? “In bed of course!”