Crudo

With their prices fixed for now, Systembolaget has a few really good bargains in these inflationary times. One is the Sicilian white wine “Crudo” made with the grape Muscat of Alexandria or “Zibibbo” as it is known on Sicily. Retailing at 43 SEK for a half bottle, I fear the price will go up quite a bit in the fall when the producer is once again allowed to make changes to the pricing. For now, I am enjoying it with an Italian potato salad as I wrap a full day of grading exams.

Iced

After a long winter, few things signal the coming of summer like an Iced Americano in the sun. To the detriment of my coffee budget, I just discovered that our local café Crosta has a pretty good take on this favourite bevarage of mine, so I fear I will come back now and then once the temperature starts to pick up...

Committee

Yesterday, I was on the committee for a PhD in sociology. Biking up to the university between the rain showers, I did not really know what to expect as this was the first time for me at the PhD level, but it turned into a memorable experience with a lot of intellectual substance. The faculty opponent, Malin Ideland from Malmö University, did a really great job and so did Elin Biström defending her thesis.

Today, I started the morning by running down to Holmsjön with Eddie biking next to me. Now when summer is here, it is a bit easier to get him out of the house. As always, I was impressed by the time and effort that people put into their gardens, almost reminding me of when I was driving around Ireland with Ally back in September.

Speedcross

Deep in the wardrobe, I found my signature Speedcross 5 “high risk red” that have been waiting there ever since September and last year’s Umåker. Running with Elin, who was fresh off a 1:35 half marathon PR in Gothenburg on Saturday and Blodomloppet 5k on Tuesday, we decided to take it slow and safe for this year's edition, especially as Elin has Stockholm Marathon and I have Björnfrossa coming up within the next couple of weeks. In the end, Elin and I ran seven minutes slower than last year.

Nevertheless, we had an amazing time out on the trails, in no small part thanks to some unexpected crowd support by Elias and his two boys. As tradition has it, Andreas was also out on the trail with his camera, and like in the past, he took some pretty cool shots.

Altes Land

Today, William completed his first ever race. In an incredible 4 minutes and 22 seconds, he raced 1,000 meters in true River Run fashion, starting and finishing at Skeppsbron. For being seven years old, I must say that this is really impressive, and I very much look forward to running together through the summer as he already has his eyes set on “Lilla Umemilen” in early September.

Back home, I made one of my signature Thai beef salads while Elin is busy running the 5k version of Blodomloppet. With Umåker coming up already on Thursday, and having not fully recovered from my cold, I felt that it was the right decision to focus completely on William tonight and skip any racing of my own. And finding Dörte Hansen’s “Altes Land” in the mail, I look forward to reading a bit in German again once this busy week has come to an end. But first, lots of meetings and responsibilities, starting with the faculty hiring committee tomorrow morning.

Don’t go chasing waterfalls

Yesterday, as Elin raced along the streets of Gothenburg and set a new half-marathon PR, I was having these crazy fantasies of doing an ultra-interval challenge to catch up on this week’s lost kilometres. However, as I was still not feeling 100% when I woke up today, reason prevailed, and I instead spent the morning cleaning the house before going for a lower-intensity ride on Stålhästen.

Being a professional escapist, I was not surprised to find an Avianca-napkin when going through one of the kitchen drawers, a souvenir from a long-haul flight back in November 2018. This year in November, the plan is to again cross the Atlantic, this time to Brazil and Rio de Janeiro. However, given the number of award tickets that we have had to cancel over the last years, I would not count on this happening until we actually take off with Transportes Aéreos Portugueses.

Ghostbusters

Living at 63 degrees North, it is not surprising that the winter has left me ghostly white. As such, I decided to move my reading out on the balcony, which had the additional benefit of letting me wear my new blue espadrilles. Otherwise, my throat is still sore, so no running for Rasmus.

Another Throwback Thursday

With Hong Kong being inaccessible to foreign tourists for now and the territory experiencing one of the darkest chapters in its political history, I was reminded of happier days, in this case February 2013 when my parents came visiting Anna, Eddie and me in Asia for a month. Here we are out hiking in the Sai Kung Geopark and about to head down to our favourite beach, Long Ke Wan (which can be seen in the background).

Strepsils

After staying clear from all the colds circulating around me for the last couple of months, my luck apparently ran out two days ago so now I am spending the remainder of this week at home, consuming Strepsils, making waffles and editing lectures for the fall semester. In my liberalism lecture, I could not help mentioning the book Ett lyckligare år by Jonas Gardell, but otherwise I am sticking to the usual suspects such as Adam Smith, Isaiah Berlin and John Rawls.

Next week, I will be on the committee for a PhD in sociology on the construction of sustainable development in textbooks, a topic that I long have wanted to write about myself so that will be exciting. Two days earlier, my friend Johanna will defend her PhD and in between is the 16 km "Umåker" trail race so I clearly pick the right week to be sick.

Lev Rubinstein

From the seventies of the Moscow conceptualism, I wanted to remind myself of what Russia could have been, and perhaps still can become, so I bought a collection by Lev Rubinstein, onwards and onwards. Similarly, a friend in St Petersburg shared a text by Artemy Magun from March this year on Guilt and humanism:

“Perhaps, an alternative approach—let us say a humanist one—would be better. It would entail believing in the spark of goodness, in the inner force of resistance to evil, in oneself and the others, of resistance, which we trust to prevail ultimately.”

NATO

To the surprise of some of my Russian friends, Sweden today decided to join NATO. While clearly in the cards for some time now, it is still strange to see it printed in black and white. Obviously, three months and one invasion can make quite a difference. 

Considering that Sweden has been deeply integrated in Western military planning and intelligence sharing ever since WWII, the fact that we are now officially applying to join NATO is perhaps mostly symbolic, yet, in the realm of international relations, also symbolic actions tend to matter. And even if fifty years have passed since Sweden was a country of orange telephone booths and Olof Palme sharply rebuked the US bombings in Vietnam, our room for independent diplomatic manoeuvring will probably be even smaller going forward. At the same time, I cannot help to point out the sheer hypocrisy when our prime minister Magdalena Andersson insists that Sweden will continue its work against nuclear weapons. However horrifying that nuclear weapons may be, it is the one factor that has prevented the war in Ukraine from engulfing all of Europe as the threat of a nuclear apocalypse has effectively constrained the actions of both sides. And, cutting through all the rhetoric, it is the protection of the US nuclear umbrella that is the reason that we are seeking to join NATO in the first place.

Summer trails

There is something with the smell of the pine forest here in Västerbotten that immediately makes me think of trail running, of early mornings and long summer afternoons when I have been running with Elin or alone through these forests, chasing CRs or just adding kilometres to kilometres.

Today, I went out for a first longer run along the dog sled trail where I was surprised to find so much snow and ice in the forest.

Likewise, passing through the bogland, the water was freezing cold. Still, the run had a definite summerly feel to it, including going into the water at Nydala beach afterwards to clean up my legs a bit.

Zero-covid

Though probably always unsustainable in the long run, Omicron and its extremely transmissible subvariants have once and for all rendered a “zero-covid” policy untenable. Nevertheless, China continues to insist on its massive quarantine and testing regime with prolonged lockdowns in Shanghai and other cities.

After isolating itself from the world during the first two years of the pandemic, Covid has now officially come to North Korea which, contrary to all reason, appears to want to emulate the Chinese response. Considering North Korea’s extremely limited testing capacity, and the high number of asymptomatic cases, a zero-covid policy is obviously a no-starter and will only bring more harm to its already fragile economy. Were it not for the human suffering involved, one would perhaps welcome this as it might hasten the demise of the Kim Family Regime, yet, given the regime’s utter disregard for the suffering of its own people, I would not put my hopes too high.

Meanwhile in Tomtebo, William has come down with a cold so our plans for a family excursion to Navet were dashed. Instead, I went for a faster run around the lake, managing to just evade the rain, before making an avocado toast at home while Anna went up to work.

Clear-cut

Though I had read about it in the news, it was still a shock this morning to find that my favourite forest trail had been turned into a clear-cut. Even if the purpose may be good (to build a new school), it always makes me sad to lose a forest, especially now as life was about to return after the long winter.

With the afternoon temperature around 15 degrees, I decided to make up for my lost trail run by taking Stålhästen out for a first spin around the Ume River delta. Maintaining an average speed of 27.7 km/h over 30 km, I again got that feeling that road cycling is really a sport for machines more than humans but, nevertheless, I look forward to returning to Stöcksjö as soon as summer is here.

Better days

On one of our river runs, Elin mentioned that Jonas Gardell had written a book about the early days of the LGBT movement in the Swedish city of Örebro. Obviously, this was a topic that resonated with me on several levels. In addition to this history, the book ended up retelling a forbidden love story set in Uppsala a hundred years earlier in the 1870s.

After spending the morning recording another lecture for my new online course in which I brought up different questions about emancipation and determinism, reading Gardell reminded me of the same temporalities, of the hopes that we moderns invest in the future. While never teleological or guaranteed, progress has also been very real when it comes to how we, as a society, relate to sexuality. Staying with Sofi at Axel Hotel in Madrid a couple of weeks ago, I particularly liked how they had turned the table around, stating that they are “hetero-friendly”.

3x Yesterday

Captions

Due to new EU accessibility regulations, all media that I create for my online courses has to be captioned. Thankful, I am able to use speech recognition software to create a first version of the subtitle file which I can then manually go over and revise. Though this new requirement will add several hours of work for every video that I create, I can see the reason behind the new regulations and, who knows, it may even end up helping some students understand my Kalmar dialect better ;-)

Blå Jungfrun

From Arches to Zion, I have covered my share of American national parks over the years. Prior to the pandemic, I have to admit that I was a lot less familiar with our Swedish ones though, with the exception of Stenshuvud of course, but since 2020 I have crossed off a good bunch, including Abisko and Skuleskogen.

In the latest STF Turist, they have an article about one of our least accessible national parks, namely the island of “Blå Jungfrun” located in the waters between northern Öland and the Swedish mainland.  Looking at the dramatic pictures over my morning coffee, I was reminded of a trip that I made there as a kid together with some friends of my family. However, for all the tens of thousands of pictures that I have stored in my Google Photos, that is apparently one time journey too far for Rawls & Me.

Andorra

Having failed twice to travel to Cyprus over the last year, I have not made much progress when it comes to my goal of visiting all remaining countries in Europe. A while ago, a friend at work mentioned that she might be going to Andorra in June for a UTMB trail race, something that immediately sparked my interest since, obviously, every microstate counts. Unfortunately, my schedule for June does not really allow for such a southern detour as I have already booked flights to Newcastle with Anna for the BISA conference and then, directly after, have Miniatur Wunderland and Legoland lined up with the kids. Still, seeing people on Strava running the 2022 edition of the 50k Xterra Gozo Trails earlier today reminded me of what an incredible way this is to see a new country and how much the memories will stay with you over time.

Coast Savers

Taking the boys down to the lake as part of “Kusträddardagen”, I was sad to see how quickly our bags were filled with plastic. After all, I never thought of the area around Nydalasjön as particularly polluted, but this really showed a different side of our neighbourhood.

Espresso in the rain

Though windy, the last week has been really nice with higher temperatures here in Umeå. Overnight however, a cold front has come in from the North Atlantic, bringing rain at the coast and snow further up in the mountains. While I had originally planned to run around the lake in the rain, I decided to instead take a rest day from the running, something that I have not done for the last two weeks. 

Making waffles, I am otherwise alone again with the kids while Anna works. The plan for today is to check out their friend Maj’s cheerleading show and also getting a bit organized at home for the summer season.

Wandel durch Handel

Sticking to my astronaut-early schedule, I went for a run around the lake shortly after 5 am this morning, in time to see the ice breaking up and giving way to blue waves. In similar fashion, I still believe that a world in which we trade and interact with each other is better than one of isolation and nationalism. While buying hydrocarbons from kleptocratic elites may not have transformed Russia, and no scorn seems to be spared on Germany for trying, I am confident that broad economic integration will, over time, make peace more valuable and conflict less likely.

As such, I could not help but create some pins that say “Buy Global”. Considering how fervently the “local” is fetishized in late cultural capitalism, these pins have already sparked several interesting conversations. Often, as with food security, few people seem to have ever challenged the assumption that local is better, and only when one prompts them to think about for instance extreme weather events, do they realize that being dependent solely on local agriculture may not be that smart after all. Still, the main reason why we should “buy global” is to facilitate human development abroad, in particular in Africa, while maintaining competitive pressure at home so that we continue to automatize manufacturing processes and do not tie up sparse human capital.

Mad Canary

Apparently, our local pizzeria “Ruccola” has new owners since some time back. Though I would not say that we are super regular customers, it is the only place here around so, despite hearing some people saying that the quality has gone down, we were happy to find that that was not the case, at least not for us today. Together with one of Brutal Brewing’s IPAs, it was a real treat to not have to make dinner for once, as much as I happen to love cooking.

Meanwhile, Lufthansa finally reached out to me regarding my missed connection in Frankfurt back in December. Instead of offering me compensation according to the EU 261/2004 regulation as they are legally obliged to, they are now offering me a “pragmatic solution” of 250 EUR, probably knowing very well that few people have the energy to challenge them in court. While I am confident that I would ultimately win the case, I am also one of those who feel that it would take too much time and effort to pursue this further, so I am going to accept their offer even if I find it to be sad business practice for an airline that I otherwise like flying with. 

Kamakura

While eleven years have passed since my last visit to the green coastal city of Kamakura, I just invested in a white shirt from there as I am gearing up for many long hours recording lectures for the autumn semester.

However, after marking exams since 5 am today, my plans for filming were temporarily put on hold due to the ongoing bathroom renovation so instead I went for a 16k run to Anumark after dropping the kids off at school. Now at the office, I am looking forward to a month with a lot of work but few fixed activities in my calendar.

Hard work

In apparent disrespect of International Workers’ Day, I spent a couple of hours this morning writing a review for the journal Climate Policy before heading out for ten fast kilometres around the lake. With the sun rising already at 04:14, it is easy to slip into an alternative time zone as the long winter is finally coming to an end.

On my morning run, I had an average heart rate of 163 which clearly was a bit on the high side and not that comfortable. Still, I think there is a benefit to these kinds of tempo efforts as long as they are done with some moderation, especially since it seems really difficult for me to find the time to do longer runs these days.