I’m back in Linköping and the strangest thing has happenened. Linköping has become cool. In the month we were away it seems to have transformed from a negative, nay-saying, conservative town to a funky, happening city where stuff goes on.
I’m still suspect that we may have misread the map and ended up in a different country, or that somebody slipped something in my drink and these are just hallucinatory side effects, or that aliens landed and replaced the entire population with happy, shiny versions of the former inhabitants, who now have the added ability to say ‘YES!’ and have fun.
This weekend was Linköpings Stadsfest with fairgrounds, children’s activities, live music on several stages, including a huge stage featuring some of Sweden’s best bands. The streets were abuzz, and while it was no Spanish fiesta or Notting Hill Carnival, it was certainly a step in the right direction. Hats off to Linköping, it really feels like a corner has been turned.
I managed to get somewhere near the thick of it as I was asked to co-host a live broadcast on the local channel 24Corren. I did two shows as sidekick to regular presenter Anna Lindberg, where we interviewed local candidates who are standing for the local kommun. My role was to play a sort of idiot-savant (naturally) and ask the stupid questions that no-one dare ask. The idea was to throw the politicians off their guard with a dumb question from a dumb foriegner and then follow it up with a a more cutting attack. I’ll be honest – with the combination of live broadcast and politics, I was slightly nervous.
The first broadcast went much better, partly because the politicians (V, MP, F and KD) we were talking to were too ensconced in ‘the party line’ to realise that I was playing with them. I got in a few nice shots at each of the parties but I was most proud of a line asking the Christian Democrat candidate which party he thought God was in… My suggestion was that God was a Social Democrat, as whenever Mona Sahlin appears on TV everyone screams ‘Oh God!’.
The next programme was a lot harder as the three politicians (C, S and M) interviewed were all fantastic, coherent speakers who all seemed to care passionately about the city and their politics on a personal and philosophical level. To be honest, I’d be happy with any of the three of them in power regardless of their political colours. I tried to niggle Muharrem Demirok about his comparison of Linköping with Barcelona, which two months ago seemed hilarious. In the light of his eloquent defence of the statement and the ongoing stadsfest I can sort of see his point.
On the whole, I am happy with broadcasts. These things are all about finding your feet so I’m going to pitch a couple of ideas to expand upon this ‘naive’ character as I think I could expand upon it quite a bit in another format. Watch this space.
The stand up club leaps into action next week (Thursday 26/8) at Café M with Gothenburg genius Martin Krantz as the headline act. I’m only going to run it once a month over the autumn, but the good news is that I am talking to some big players about taking it to a bigger better venue with bigger better acts at the beginning of 2011. In the meantime, if you are in Linköping, come along on Thursday!
One last thing… I’ve finally got meself a smart phone, so will spend hours trying to come up with witty and amusing Tweets. If you want to follow me, I can be found at 110percentlagom
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