110% LAGOM

Fun gig the other night. It was for an EU funded meeting, just the kind of thing Sweden loves to play host to, for adult education policy makers. A rather dull subject, but fun for me as my only brief was to take a group photo which would commemorate the meeting. Other than that, I had carte blanche to create a character to spice up the last night of the meeting.

I decided to play the part of a hack journalist (see photo) from a regional Swedish paper and I went round the ‘mingel’ (I love that Swedish has a noun for ‘mingling with drinks’) with notebook in hand. I asked stupid questions as the newshound  who had done zero research and on the whole everyone played along.

There were several clues to the fact that I was not a real journalist – other than the ridiculous questions about asking them why they were planning to teach fish to use computers, I was wearing a trilby with a card saying press and a woman’s mac which was too small for me.

These clues, however were not enough for one delgate from Malta, who insisted on telling me that she was a candidate in the upcoming European election. She gave me her card… just in case I knew anyone from Malta. I felt like a baby being kissed to win votes. The election slogan of her party was ‘for more democracy, transparency and accountability’. As political slogans go, it hasn’t got much on ‘Workers of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your chains’… but you know, good luck to them.

I generally mistrust politicians and like most politicians that I have met she was something of an egoist. I have met a few British politicians and while self serving, they are also (generally) sharp, witty, charismatic and highly intelligent. This Maltese politico was charismatic and I’m sure highly intelligent, but failed to cotton on the fact that I was not really writing about the conference. She felt it important to try and electioneer to me, a comedian in Sweden, to try and win votes for a European election in Malta! She was also rather gullible. I can only thank her as she became the centre of the performance and drew laughter from the other delegates. Our ‘double act’ went like this:

Where are you from?

Malta.

Which country is that in?

It’s an independent country!

Is it? I’ve never heard of it. What country does it border with?

It’s an island!

Oh. It’s in Ireland… Do you speak Irish then? 

When I took the group shot, I asked the delegates from ‘the more important countries’ to stand at the front. Laughter. Irony…. needless to say, MEP candidate for Malta stood right in the middle at the front with a pose that said ‘democracy, transparency, accountability’

As a footnote, I asked the delegate from Turkey what she thought of Sweden.

‘Nice trees and libraries….’ She told me, earnestly.