How to learn Swedish in 1000 difficult lessons

There is no middle ground with Björk for most people, it's either love or hate. Me, I like the idea of her. Brilliant, intellectual, primal, uncompromising, challenging, musically sophisticated. But she's more fun to listen to than to listen to - I mean that what she says about what she does is easier to take than what she actually does, mostly.

"Mediterranean passion has been well documented, but nordic passion hasn't," she has said. She says Nordic passion is like a submarine, it runs deep.

A fascinating thought, that. My friend, the guy from the Goethe Institute, claims that it's hard to pick out gay Swedish men passing on the street because Swedes as a whole act so terribly asexual - his gaydar is useless here. Which doesn't contradict what Björk says, although apparently the passion runs too deep for my friend's tastes (or abilities).

I think what's so confusing for the outside world is that Swedes are just practical about sex, there's nothing mysterious about it to them. Which isn't to say that they can't be passionate. It's just a different kind of passion, as Björk says.

The Swedish word for the day is andra. It means second or another.

- by Francis S.