I'll never forget when a friend of mine - with whom I've since lost touch - told me about a three-way situation he found himself in with a lecherous couple on a sofa at the end of a drunken party somewhere in Washington, DC.

"It was all fine, the guy was really hot, and I was really going at it, but then all of a sudden I could smell her, and it was like static on a radio, and my dick just wilted," he said. Take it from me, when told with the proper sound effects and jerky movements, it is quite the effective story.

Now, a Swedish researcher has confirmed it: We great big homo types react very differently than non-great big homo types to certain, um, odors.

The word for the day is fräck. It means cheeky.

- by Francis S.

For a 9-year-old in 1970, the height of coolness was having the big box of crayola crayons - 64 colors, with an actual crayon sharpener embedded in the back of the box. Or at least I thought it was the height of coolness, perhaps because during the last year in which crayons were part of the required school supplies that my mother bought for me, she would only pay for the box with 48 crayons.

The names for the colors ranged from the simply descriptive (orange red, very no-nonsense) to the antique (burnt sienna, a color name that Michelangelo Buonarotti would recognize, more or less) to the inscrutable (bittersweet, which I seem to recall was a kind of barf brown).

As I walked to work this morning, surveying the leaves that are at last making their joint appearance thanks to several days of rain, I thought: spring green. An evocative name, the best in the box. With a name like that, it could be no other color than it is.

The Swedish word for the day is pensel. It is a false cognate, and means paintbrush. Blyertspenna is the Swedish word for pencil.

- by Francis S.

The chef came over yesterday evening, taking over our kitchen. With the husband as sous chef, the two of them roasted eggplant and peppers, sauted pine nuts, wrapped salmon in jamon serrano and generally made tasty mayhem. I'm not really a team player when it comes to cooking, so I set the table and waited for them to finish, the rest of the guests sipping whiskey or rioja or breast-milk (well, not sipping, more like sucking - you can't really sip if you're only two months old) and wandering around the apartment, parking themselves here and there.

At last it was ready, and A., the TV producer and C., the fashion photographer, C.'s son, plus the captain and his wife and their two little sons, the husband, the chef and I all found our places in the dining room. In between bites, we took turns walking the baby, first clockwise and then counter clockwise, around and around the perimeter of the guests sitting at the table, or running around like mad with the two-year-old through the rest of the apartment.

All we did was talk food, since the chef is soon to have her own TV show and, pen and paper in hand, was asking what kitchen utensils we thought were cool, what food had we always had trouble preparing, what was our favorite kind of cuisine.

Talking food, eating food. It was a meta meal, after a fashion.

"Hysteriskt gott!" said the captain. (Which means something like insanely good.)

"That'd be a perfect name for the show," the chef said.

- by Francis S.

Mache dich, mein Herze rein. Make my heart pure.

Actually, I'd settle for clean hands and underarms.

Funny how we take soap for granted; the ancient Greeks didn't use it, they rubbed themselves with oil and scraped the oil off with wooden scrapers; the Romans did likewise, although they are more famous for soaking themselves into cleanliness and, if you were, say, Caesar Augustus, into godliness as well. It wasn't until the very end of the Roman empire that someone decided that the bizarre conconction of animal fat boiled with lye was actually good for keeping a body clean.

How come there is no all-natural soap called "lard & lye" available at your local grocers?

The Swedish verb for the day is att duscha. It means to take a shower.

- by Francis S.

Son of Bloggforum is coming soon to a theater near you. That is, if you live near Stockholm University. And, well, it's not really a theater, either, more of an auditorium.

I've agreed to moderate a panel, in Swedish, on how to read and write blogs (the reading part is easy, but how to write a blog is another thing altogether, I suppose). Stefan Geens said to me: "It's much easier to moderate than to be on the panel. All you have to do is ask the questions." Thank god I have a brilliant panel to work with: Anna, Malte, Risto and Sanna.

Go, team!

The Swedish word for the day is nervös. It doesn't take me to tell you that it means nervous.

- by Francis S.

I wonder when I'll grow up and out of my inability to sleep properly on a Sunday night: Unless my week is unusually calm, I invariably spend an uneasy night and if I have anything at all of importance to do first thing Monday morning, the night will be sweaty and greasy and full of my teeth and stomach grinding queasily in unison. It's just like the night before a big test, except I'm 44.

The Swedish word for the day is igen. It means again.

- by Francis S.

Happy International Workers' Day.

Sadly, being that it's on a Sunday this year, I won't get the day off.

I've always found it funny that the U.S. is pretty much the only country in the world not celebrating, on account of the day being a bit too godlessly communistic in nature.

The Swedish word for the day is fånigt. It means ridiculous or silly.

- by Francis S.

When I was a boy, Saturday lunch was tea - Constant Comment, which tasted of cloves and orange peel - poured from a white porcelain teapot with blue stripes, a wedding present given to my parents, the little china cups that had no handles had long since been broken except for one. My father had tongue sandwiches, and the rest of us had Dutch cheese on rye bread with caraway seeds, or maybe bread that my mother had just spent the morning making. Occasionally, afterwards I would watch the Children's Film Festival with Kukla, Fran and Ollie to see the foreign films that made up most of the program, disturbing stop-action animations from Hungary and badly dubbed short features from Russia or Japan or somewhere else exotic and foreign. I always had the most peculiar feeling in a sensitive organ, peculiar to me and me alone, that rests somewhere between my heart and my adam's apple. I felt a great sorrow for the children in the films - the films were nearly always unbearably sad - and I longed to be these children.

The Swedish word for the day is lördagar. It means Saturdays.

- by Francis S.

At noon today, there were pale girls in their bathing suits, laughing and kicking their feet in the water on a dock by the Djurgården canal. The air was maybe 12 degrees celsius, god only knows how cold the water was. It's barely spring yet, the trees are still only thinking about turning green, but girls are in their bathing suits.

I don't understand Swedes.

The Swedish verb for the day is att promenera. It means to take a walk.

- by Francis S.

In 1941, Herbert Matter was the designer for a book - The Crafty Linotyper or the Ballet of the ABCs - that seems to have been a coloratura display of the lost art of typesetting a book with hot type: all flourishes, mannerism, tics, clever references and play. The book is a bit thin on content, though, as far as I can tell by reading about it (as opposed to actually reading it). But the flourishes and play are the real content anyway, the storyline is just a framework for showing off. It all seems so innocent, so Algonquin Hotel Manhattanish. As if people in 1941 were any more innocent than they are now.

Kind of like The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou: a collection of bits and set-pieces, all flourishes, mannerism, tics, clever references and play. The meaning lies in the bits, as opposed to being found in the plot. Exactly my kind of movie.

The Swedish word for the day is regissör. It means director.

- by Francis S.

Seen from an ocean away, things look awfully grim for gays and lesbians in the U.S. these days. From Alabama trying to ban books mentioning homosexuality from all public libraries, to Justice Sunday [sic] with its goal of ridding the country of "activist judges" (As Bill Maher said to Jay Leno: "'Activist judges' is a code word for gay."), to the Pentagon reiterating its stance that it will prosecute soldiers engaging in sodomy (despite the Supreme Court having struck down sodomy laws), to the barrage of mean-spirited referenda "protecting" heteosexual marriage passed on top of "Defense of Marriage" laws already existing in many of these states (most links courtesy the excellent Queerday).

It's difficult to interpret this tidal wave of activity seeking to denigrate gays and lesbians as anything but loathing. As Patricia Todd told an Alabama House committee on Wednesday during a public hearing on the above-mentioned bill: "I feel you all hate us."

I've never before believed that homosexuals have had to face anything near the fear, hatred and discrimination that African-Americans have had to face, but I'm beginning to have second thoughts.

Why aren't there any non-gay groups that deplore discrimination - churches above all - rising up against those who are sowing such divisive hatred and spite?

Now is the time for massive demonstrations of civil disobedience.

Yeah, I know, there are already plenty of people doing this; and yeah, it's easy for me to say this living here in Europe, where gay rights trends are moving in the opposite direction; but it seems that things are deteriorating so rapidly, and I feel so utterly helpless in the face of such power aimed at crushing a group of people.

(I was going to write about going to the Spring concert at Danderyd Gymnasium to hear the son of C., the fashion photographer, singing Irish songs in a choir, but I've gotten myself so worked up about this other issue.)

The Swedish word for the day is förtvivlan. It means desperation.

- by Francis S.

Lars. Anders. Johan. Three common Swedish names that the husband mixes up frequently, referring to Lars as Anders, or Anders as Johan. How is this even possible? I just don't understand and no one has been able to adequately explain it to me.

"They're just the same kind of name," the husband responds when I ask how he can mix them up. It's like mixing up the names Tom, Greg and Steve, I tell him. It makes no sense.

"But what about when people don't look like what their name actually is?" A., the TV producer has also thrown back at me when I've asked her about this apparently common Swedish phenomenon of mixing up names that sound nothing alike phonetically.

Apparently, an Åke looks one way, and a Marcus looks another way; an Åsa looks nothing like an Anja. In fact, some Swedish babies will go without names for weeks (even months, I've heard) until the parents decide on a name that really fits the baby, rather like a tailor-made suit. Although there don't seem to be very many babies whose personalities scream "Ragnhild" or "Hjördis" these days.

I've decided that this somehow has to do with the fact that the pool of Swedish given names seems to be pretty small, so people have cultural associations with many names.

Or maybe Swedes are just funny about names.

(It was Monica who got me going by writing about this, from the Swedish perspective of course.)

The second Swedish word for the day is ansikte. It means face.

- by Francis S.

In the latest blogging popularity contest (link in Swedish, but I think you can get the gist without knowing a word), I received two more votes than Margot Wallström, Swedish EU Commissioner and the woman who could be described as brand manager for the European Union. Whatever that may be. Not a job I would want, that's for sure.

Scary, aint it? Especially since Margot Wallström's blog is actually quite good in that it is personal enough that it feels as if she writes it herself. And there are plenty of comments, many negative. It feels true, somehow. And what she has to say could affect people's lives, well, at lot more than what I have to say at any rate.

The Swedish word for the day is förresten. It means furthermore.

- by Francis S.

She stood, dancing in her vaguely gypsy slash square-dancing sort of adult little girl dress, holding a blue velvet and silver pump in her hand as if it were a mic, singing along zig-zaggedly to her own song, while the extremely drunk guy in the pink sweatshirt who I could've sworn was gay (oh, no, the husband told me), was bouncing against some girl with her hair in her eyes and letters drawn in magic marker all up her arm, the guys in the living room were playing Grand Theft Auto or something, and her former manager, (our own former badboy boarder), was making the rounds and full of the jitters about soon becoming a father, his girlfriend tall and calm and beautiful and about as pregnant as one can be, in the background. I, being oh-so-grown-up sitting in my corner, was watching it all as if it were a show, the husband next to me gossiping with the video director and the woman who did the makeup, empty plates of Lebanese salad in front of us, the long-awaited new CD playing fiercely above and below and around us, the rest of the guests crammed onto the balcony, smoking.

This is what a party is like.

The Swedish word for the day is lansering. It means launch or release.

- by Francis S.

On Tuesday, I arrived home to find a mysterious package lying between the two sets of double doors leading into the apartment; someone had pushed it through the mail slot.

Actually, it wasn't so mysterious. It was a bag from Akademibokhandeln containing a book, The Shadow of the Wind, and having just discussed the book with C., the fashion photographer, I knew it was from him, which a phonecall confirmed. He had seen an English copy of the book and had bought it for me; a true friend, C.

It isn't a particularly profound book, and while it's translated from the Spanish - the book has been a huge success in Spain - I doubt that even in the original is the language terribly compelling. It's a convoluted love story that curls in and in and in on itself. It's a love letter to Barcelona as well as a love story.

That is what gets me, the way it evokes the city, even if the translation uses the Castilian instead of the Catalan names for the streets. Carrer Ferran, Carrer Balmes, Carrer Escudellers, Carrer Princesa, the main post office on Via Laietana, Santa Maria del Mar, Barceloneta, Els Encants flea market, Parc Guëll, Plaza de San Felipe Neri, Mompou and Puig i Cadafalch. It's all there in the book, and it hits me like cold water. I lived in Barcelona once.

Do you have a city that is tied up with all the most difficult and painful and wonderful things you know and feel about yourself, a place that just in and of itself fills you with great yearning and makes your pulse quicken, that you love like no other, and hate like no other?

I have Barcelona.

(The book is making me crazy, but in a good way.)

The Swedish word for the day is längtan. It means longing.

- by Francis S.

A week ago, I spent a long day of endless meetings in Amsterdam, where from the window of the cab to and from the airport I could see that things were starting to turn green. I was jealous, knowing that we are weeks behind. But today, walking past Diplomatstaden, I saw a whole lawn of crocuses.

Spring is here, all sticky fingers and rough manners.

The Swedish phrase for the day is passar mig bra. It means works for me.

- by Francis S.

"Filipin, filipin, filipin," I thought to myself as the husband and I walked from Odenplan down to Dansens hus. We were on our way to meet A., the TV producer and C., the fashion photographer, plus the pop star and a whole host of other people. It was to be a Japanese dance performance, but all I was thinking about was making sure I would say "filipin" before A. could say it to me.

Imagine my disappointment when I was told that A. was home sick with a headache and would be missing the performance. Except, a few minutes later, she came running out of nowhere, screaming the first syllable of "filipin" before I could get the word out myself, me grabbing her so that half of her glass of wine spilled down the front of my overcoat, the whole lobby trying not to stare at us.

"Cheater," the husband said to her.

"There is no cheating in filipin," she said loudly, triumphant.

It would be difficult to adequately describe how very pleased she was with herself. It almost made up for losing the game.

It did not make up for the bad Japanese "dancing," however. When the sound had reached a certain decibel, the walls shaking, I had thought I was going to spit up. But I didn't.

Dinner afterwards did make up for it. There's something to be said for a place jam-packed with people, waiters like ants on important errands scurrying through the crowd, the tension delicious, likewise the food. A much better show than the dance.

The Swedish word for the day is fusk. It means cheat.

- by Francis S.

In low-slung cities, where the apartment buildings rarely reach higher than seven storeys, there is undoubtedly a style of stairway preferred by the many architects that have built them.

In Stockholm, the steps themselves are almost invariably of grey limestone - small children are fascinated by the fossil nautiloids petrified in swarms on the surface of the stone - and curve their way gently in a half-oval up the back of the building in rather grand fashion. In Barcelona, I remember that the stairs tended to be open and rose in a kind of cut-rate Piranesian fashion to the rooftops, more terrifying than elegant.

What are your stairways like?

The Swedish word for the day is steg. It means step.

- by Francis S.

Daisy Fellowes, socialite and heiress to the Singer Sewing Machine fortune, described her three daughters, Princess Emmeline Isabelle Edmée Séverine de Broglie, Princess Isabelle de Broglie and Princess Jacqueline de Broglie: "The eldest is like her father, only more masculine. The second is like me, only without the guts. And the last is by some horrible little man called Lischmann."

Her aunt, the Princesse de Polignac (who overcame, with the benefit of lots of money, the handicap of being given the unfortunate name Winnaretta Singer), on Virginia Woolf: "...to look at [her] you'd never think she ravished half the virgins in Paris."

Could someone who knows Todd Haynes please let him know that he needs to do his first sweeping costume historical biopic extravaganza on the whole Singer family? (I haven't even mentioned the paterfamilias, who lived his later life in France and England on account of he never made it into New York society due to his tendency to have more than one wife, simultaneously and often without knowledge of each other's existance. He had 22 acknowledged children.)

Correction: Feb. 25, 2006 - It seems that I've gotten it all wrong. Singer had 24 children and not 22, Daisy Fellowes had four daughters and not three, and it was Virginia Woolf who made the comment about Winnaretta Singer, Princesse de Polignac, that "...to look at [her] you'd never think she ravished half the virgins in Paris..." and not the other way around. Thanks to Professor Sylvia Kahan for pointing this out.

The Swedish verb for the day is att hälsa. It means to say hello to.

- by Francis S.

Among the awful things that the cynical, arrogant and Bible-thumping Bush Administration is guilty of, and they are legion, undoubtedly the most immoral is its unrepentent use of torture.

It's not just immoral, it's stupid. Any information obtained by torture is likely to be highly inaccurate, and rather than intimidating anyone it gives people reason to hate us and strike back with any means possible; plus, it encourages the rest of the world to treat our own military and mercenaries (who now make up a huge part of the occupation of Iraq) in the most horrendous fashion.

And it just keeps going on and on - with more secretly held prisoners that no one seems to be accountable to anyone for:

"A former senior intelligence official said the main reason for the secrecy was to prevent information about where the prisoners were being held from being publicly disclosed. Such a disclosure, the official said, would almost certainly cause host governments to force the C.I.A. to shut down the detention operations being carried out on their soil."

There are so many things about the story that bother me, I wouldn't even know where to begin.

The Swedish word for the day is avsky. It means disgust.

- by Francis S.