Archive for the ‘Miscellaneous’ Category

Prime Minister Reinfeldt chats with The Local

Miscellaneous: May 23rd, 2012 by OG

If you missed it yesterday, here’s The Local’s editor David Landes snagging Prime Minister Reinfeldt for a chat before Princess Estelle’s baptism. Always nice to know the PM has time for TL!

‘Racist’ cake controversy puts The Local front and centre

Miscellaneous: April 19th, 2012 by OG

Thanks in no small part to reporting by The Local, the whole world seems to talking about Sweden’s minister of culture and her cutting of a ‘racist’ cake.

Indeed, a scroll through articles about the incident listed on Google News shows that major media outlets the world over caught wind of the story via The Local.

Al Jazeera, The Guardian, The New York Times, National Public Radio, ABC News, The Huffington Post, MSNBC all quote The Local in their reporting about the incident.

Of course, this comes as no surprise to those of us at The Local or our regular readers who are accustomed to reading stories about Sweden on The Local a day or two before they hit the international press.

Click here for at a look at a gallery of a five other stories that made headlines around the world after first appearing as a headline on The Local.

The Local reaches 20,000+ Facebook fans

Miscellaneous: April 13th, 2012 by OG

Well, that didn’t take long!

We’re proud to announce that we’ve reached the milestone of 20,000 “likes” on Facebook.

This news came after 60 new followers jumped to the cause after we announced we were nearly there on Wednesday.

60 new followers in two days… suppose that means 50, 000 is just around the corner.

If you’re one of the 20K, thanks for your support!

If not (yet), please click “like” here to keep up to date with Sweden’s news in English (and Germany, Switzerland, Norway and France’s news too!)

And have a nice weekend.

20,000 Facebook fans… almost!

Miscellaneous: April 10th, 2012 by OG

The number of “fans” on our Facebook page has grown to almost 20,000.

In fact, as this is being typed, the figure stands at 19,952.

Will you be the lucky person who takes us over the hump??

If you’re not already a fan, click here, “like” the page, and enjoy the highlights of the news (from all our five European sites).

What are you waiting for?

New Word of the Week – revealed!

Miscellaneous: April 2nd, 2012 by OG

So, did you guess the word of the week this week? Here at The Local, we were fairly gobsmacked that no-one clued on…

You’ll kick yourself when you hear it…

It was…

Gobsmacked

We did have one reader who correctly guessed it, however that was three weeks ago after we slipped a “gobsmacked” in as a red-herring.

So once again, The Local takes home the cake and the scoreboard now reads TL: 5 – Readers: 0

In case you missed them, the articles containing the word in question were:

• Stockholm iPad ‘magic’ a surprise YouTube hit
• 87-year-old woman discovers she is ‘dead’
• Pot growers plead not guilty for ‘organic’ weed
• Sweden mulls shaving products ban for minors

One of these was an April Fools’ story, too.

According to dictionary.com, gobsmacked is defined as an adjective meaning astounded or astonished, springing from British slang.

According to Tyda.se, gobsmacked can be translated into Swedish with the word “chockad”.

As for next week, keep an eagle eye out and you may become the first to guess The Local’s Word of The Week correctly. Simply email us or tweet to us @thelocalsweden – with a #tlwow hashtag.

Perhaps we’ll make this one even easier for you…

Good luck!

The Local list hits YouTube

Miscellaneous: March 28th, 2012 by OG

A reader has made a YouTube version of our recent List of Ten Swedish words you won’t find in English

Thanks to The Swedish Lad for that one! Stay tuned at The Local for more fun lists in the not too distant future.

The latest Word of the Week from The Local

Miscellaneous: March 26th, 2012 by DL

Time once again for us to announce The Local’s Word of the Week for last week, March 19-23 (week 12).

Readers had to search extra hard as last week’s word didn’t appear as often as previous words of the week.

Ironically, this rather sparse showing for last week’s word is more or less in direct contrast with its meaning.

So what was the Word of the Week?

Bevy

According to Merriam Webster‘s online dictionary, bevy is defined as:

1) a large group or collection
2) a group of animals and especially quail

Equivalent Swedish words include “skock” and “flock”, according to Tyda.se.

As it turned out, however, there wasn’t really a bevy of articles featuring last week’s Word of the Week, which appeared in the following stories:

iPad-hungry Swedes make tablet sales double
Swan ‘chaos’ erupts after Swedish rocket attack

Keep an eye out this week for more out-of-the ordinary words which might qualify as the Word of the Week.

Let us know your guesses or your own suggestions by sending an email to news@thelocal.se or tweeting us @thelocalsweden – with a #tlwow hashtag.

Word of the week…. revealed!

Miscellaneous: March 19th, 2012 by OG

The Local wins the third round of Word of the Week, despite more guesses than ever this time.

It seems we caught you out with a few red herrings, such as kerfuffle, and bamboozle.

But, The Local did the final bamboozling, and we can now reveal that the word of the week for the 12th to the 19th March (known as week 11 in Sweden) was…

Oblivion.

Defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary as a noun meaning

: the fact or condition of forgetting or having forgotten;especially : the condition of being oblivious

: the condition or state of being forgotten or unknown

Its Swedish equivalent according to tyda.se is glömska, meaning “The state of being disregarded or forgotten.

In case you don’t remember this popping up every day, or don’t believe us – here is the list of articles containing “oblivion”.

• District court ‘forgot’ child porn crime case
• Swedish woman’s hairy armpit hurrah goes viral
• Swedish comics set to storm Edinburgh Festival
• Volvo ‘in talks’ with NBA superstar Jeremy Lin
• Begrimed baguettes cause bakery battle

In terms of a Swedish word we quite like at The Local – why not try “att harkla” – a verb meaning “to clear your throat”. Sure, not an easy one to slip into a conversation, but no doubt likely to impress someone with your expertise.

Be sure to let us know if you think you’ve seen an unusual word popping up this week, email us or tweet to us @thelocalsweden – with a #tlwow hashtag.

Will you be the first to guess it right, or will we be taking in the honour for the fourth week running.

Sweden’s 15 most influential tweeters

Miscellaneous: March 15th, 2012 by OG

If you’ve already followed the local staff on Twitter and are looking to follow more people, here’s the full list of Sweden’s top 15 “most influential” tweeters, according to Medieakademin’s research. There are 200,000 people using Twitter in Sweden.

1 Jonas Gardell, comedian/author.
2 Carl Bildt, politician.
3 Annika Lantz, journalist.
4 Timbuktu, musician.
5 Magnus Betnér, comedian.
6 Soran Ismail, comedian.
7 Niklas Svensson, journalist.
8 Maria Wetterstrand, politician.
9 Emanuel Karlsten, social media expert.
10 Jan Gradvall, journalist.
11 Fredrik Virtanen, journalist.
12 Hans Rosling, professor of international health.
13 Leif Pagrotsky, politician.
14 Isabella Löwengrip, blogger.
15 Lena Sundström, journalist

The Local’s new ‘Word of the Week’

Miscellaneous: March 12th, 2012 by OG

For the last two weeks, The Local has been including a “Word of the Week” in at least one story on every weekday, in an effort to add a little spice to the news and to keep readers on their toes.

There were a handful of emails and tweet-guesses; however, no-one succeeded again this week, and now The Local has taken home the first two rounds.

The Word of the Week for March 2-March 9 (known as “Week 10″ in Sweden) was:

“Flabbergasted”

Defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary as a transitive verb meaning “to overwhelm with shock, surprise, or wonder”

The word appeared in the following five stories last week:

• Gang of kids suspected of Uppsala burglary wave
• Sword-wielding Swedish teen attacks couple in car
• Ikea ‘not wrong’ to bar a 5-year-old from ball pit
• Gun-wielding threats no grounds for eviction
• Licence confirms Swede’s ‘star’ status

And for those working on their Swedish, here’s The Local’s Swedish word of the week, which obviously never made it into any articles, but has a special place in our hearts:

Att flanera

Which according to tyda.se means “to saunter, or stroll about”. Pepper your Swedish small talk with this one to impress your friends!

So – keep your eye out this week for a word that’s a little out of the ordinary, and seems to be popping up regularly… one’s already up there…

And feel free to let us know your guesses (or provide suggestions) via Twitter at @TheLocalSweden with a #tlwow hashtag or drop an email to news@thelocal.se — Will YOU be the first ever correct guesser?

Happy reading!

Follow us on Twitter!

Miscellaneous: March 6th, 2012 by OG

Here at The Local, we just thought we’d remind you that we’re actively tweeting. For those of you with Twitter, our Swedish journalists are tweeting at the following accounts:

David Landes, Editor: @davelandes

Rebecca Martin, Deputy Editor: @darlinbec

Oliver Gee, Journalist: @TheUppsalaKoala

Of course, The Local Live Feed is available at @TheLocalSweden

Be sure to follow them for the news as it happens, for live-tweeting from Sweden’s bigger events, and we’d even venture to suggest the occasional laugh out loud (all in 140 characters or less, of course).

In the meantime, watch this space as we keep you updated with further online developments.

Let us know if there are other social media networks you think The Local should embrace!

Keeping you in the loop, The Local.

Word of the Week: Feb. 27-March 2

Media, Miscellaneous: March 5th, 2012 by DL

Since last week (February 26-March 2), The Local has been including a “Word of the Week” in at least one story on every weekday.

We’re encouraging readers to keep a close eye on our stories to see if they can ferret out exactly which word has been chosen to add a bit of linguistic spice to our texts.

Following our mention of the Word of the Week in last week’s Fridayemail, a number of readers submitted their guesses via Twitter including “gobsmacked” and “Estelle”, the name of Sweden’s newest princess.

However, the Word of the Week for February 26-March 2 (known as “Week 9″ in Sweden) was:

Blistering

Indeed, blistering, defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary as “extremely intense or severe” or “very rapid” appeared in the following five stories last week:

Football phenom Guidetti set for Sweden debut
Stockholm men ranked ‘world’s sexiest’
Swedish man paid cash to have money cleaned
Sweden beats Croatia 3-1
Teen kills man, 84, over ‘sex blackmail’ plot

According to online English-Swedish dictionary Tyda.se, the Swedish translations for “blistering” include” brännande”, “svidande” or “hastig”.

Be sure to keep an eye out for the new Word of the Week in stories published this week. The word will be revealed here next week.

And feel free to to let us know your guesses (or provide suggestions)  via Twitter at @TheLocalSweden with a #tlwow hashtag or drop an email to  news@thelocal.se.

Happy reading!

God Jul to all our readers!

Miscellaneous: December 22nd, 2011 by PR

Sweden may not be fully clothed in snow but the julbord is most definitely calling and Karl-Bertil is almost ready for action.

But what about some Christmas cheer from our other editions? In Switzerland we have a piece on the Swiss Mr Christmas, who “dresses trees, not women”. Meanwhile in Germany we look at Saxony’s Christmas wood carving tradition.

Slightly odder, but no less cheery, is the news of a Christmas star that lodged itself in a baby’s throat.

It’s bad news from France, though. Santa has been arrested after wielding a gun in a row – over Christmas trees.

A sneak peak at the new Dragon Tattoo

Miscellaneous: May 29th, 2011 by DL

Even though the official release of the Hollywood version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is more than 6 months away, a trailer for the film found its way on to YouTube this weekend

The ‘Feel Bad’ movie of the season, indeed…

BBC puts Jimmie Åkesson in the hotseat

Miscellaneous: January 26th, 2011 by DL

Many Swedes tuned into to Wednesdy morning parliamentary debate about extremism in the Swedish Riksdag. Requested by the anti-immigrant Sweden Democrats, the debate gave party leader Jimmie Åkesson a chance to make his case about the ties between immigration and Islamic extremism.

While Åkesson maintained his composure on Wednesday, he appeared somewhat less polished during an interview with the BBC which aired the day before.

Are British journalists just tougher than those in Sweden, or is Åkesson just less adept at making his case in English?

Why we have removed comments from some articles

Miscellaneous: December 13th, 2010 by DL

Many of you will no doubt have noticed that we are not currently allowing comments on articles relating to Saturday’s Stockholm bombings.

We’re really sorry we had to do this – The Local always strives to encourage a reasoned discussion about events in the news. Yet we know from experience that articles like this attract comments which offend other readers.

When comment threads start to attract a large number of offensive comments, they place unreasonable burdens on our team, whose priority is to bring readers the latest news about the bombings, not to firefight in the comment threads.

Many people, quite understandably, will argue that by removing comments The Local is preventing an open discussion about immigration, integration, terrorism and religion. We have two reponses to this: first, it is not strictly true – any member who is signed in can comment about events in our Discuss section, whether on the Stockholm bombings via The official Stockholm explosion thread or on other articles published on The Local.

Moreover, we will not accept that a small minority of readers (and it really is a tiny but vocal minority) use The Local to spread innuendo and make unsubstantiated allegations about entire groups of citizens, thus offending a large majority of our readers.

It’s worth at this point reminding ourselves what we actually know: so far, only one man has so far been implicated in the bombings. Others may also have been involved; there are certainly plenty of unsavoury people out there who support his actions. But as a news organization, it’s our job to stick to the facts – and we rely on our readers to help us with this in the comment threads. When people fail to stick to this basic requirement, we will no longer allow comments.

When it comes to the bombing, we will report the facts of the case as they are revealed. We will also solicit the opinions of people in Sweden and abroad and we will allow moderated discussion in our Discuss section. Meanwhile, if you have any feedback about our coverage, please contact us directly at: news@thelocal.se

Many thanks for your understanding.

Allegations Tarnish Sweden’s ‘Perfect Monarch’

Books, Design, Film, History, Marketing, Media, Miscellaneous, National, Offbeat, Politics, Society, Sweden abroad, Tourism: November 15th, 2010 by VT

Taiwan’s Next Media Animation, which shot to fame late last year for its animated news clip of Elin Nordegren’s alleged attack against then-husband Tiger Woods, has turned its focus again to Sweden.

This time, it has targeted Swedish King Carl XVI Gustaf following the publication of controversial biography “Carl XVI Gustaf – the reluctant monarch,” which details rumours of the king’s affairs.Just in case you missed it the first time around, here’s the Tiger video.

One Swede’s story of converting to Islam

Miscellaneous: November 4th, 2010 by DL

How does a 34-year-old Swedish music teacher become the focus of recent post on a blog connected to the Los Angeles Times newspaper focusing on “observations from Iraq, Iran, Israel, the Arab world, and beyond”?

By telling a story–referred to in the blog as “intriguing, and perhaps a bit puzzling”–about how an unassuming Swede named Malcolm found his spiritual home with Islam.

“I feel very comfortable as a Muslim…. We’re social creatures and we want to feel a sense of belonging,” he said. “If it’s not a clan it’s a nation or a soccer team. For me it’s nice to have a belonging which is not a nation or a football team.”

He explains that the day he “officially” became a Muslim at the Mosque in Stockholm:

The room became quiet as the blond-haired, blue-eyed Swede got up from his seat and started to read out the text alongside the imam in Arabic. From a stand above in the women’s section, his Muslim wife was watching him.

Malcolm summed up the occasion thusly: ” It felt big”.

Philips unveils latest wake-up light campaign

Business, Climate, Design, Film, Marketing, Media, Miscellaneous, Offbeat, Science, Society, Swedish Life, Technology, Tourism: October 29th, 2010 by VT

Philips’ advertising campaigns for the wake-up light have historically challenged the prestige of the product, testing the wake-up light’s mettle in real life. In this latest campaign, the test is on an epic scale.

Watch the clip for the trailer here.

Philips travels to Longyearbyen, Norway, where winter lasts for four months and the sun doesn’t rise at all in this period. A town where the local people look with dread to the winter months: a time of little enjoyment and confusion. A period when, without the differentiation of day and night, time itself is without meaning.

Enter Philips and the wake-up light with a simple mission: to restore residents Longyearbyen’s daily routine and help them combat the negative impact of living without natural light for four months.

The wake-up light simulates sunrise, allowing users to, perhaps not surprisingly, wake up in an environment similar to a bright summer’s day. The theory behind the experiment is that this will combat the negative effects of waking, living and then going to sleep in darkness and should help the user readjust to a more natural cycle.

The full footage for the experiment will be released in November. Will it work? Wait and see.

Swedish MP calls Islam the enemy

Miscellaneous: October 26th, 2010 by PVS

The Local was among a slew of Swedish news sources that a month ago reported on a local Sweden Democrat politician who called for a ban on Muslims practising Islam in Strömstad in northern Sweden. Last week, Sweden Democrat member of parliament and international affairs spokesperson, Kent Ekeroth, declared that Islam (not Islamic terrorism, not fundamentalist nor extreme Islam, but the religious faith itself) to be the “enemy” of Sweden in a response to an article in Haaratz, the Israeli daily, to which The Local’s David Landes had made a contribution.

While the Sweden Democrats have featured regularly in the The Local and the Swedish press for various statements involving Islam and Muslims, with party leader Jimmie Åkesson once having famously described Islam as “Sweden’s biggest external threat“, Ekeroth’s comments were largely ignored despite appearing to present a new rhetorical standard for the party, and despite their speaker having now taken his place in Sweden’s parliament, the Riksdag.

Could it be that “Swedish MP calls Islam the enemy” is no longer news in Sweden? Here is the response and a link to the article; judge for yourselves.