Stop The Millenium

This post makes no sense if you have not seen the films I am discussing or read the books upon which they are based.

This week I have been watching the "Millenium Trilogy" of films adapted from Stieg Larrson's novels (The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played With Fire & The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets Nest). The films are very good, well paced and with plots that sit together nicely.

There is one quibble that I have though- the investigative magazine that features throughout the trilogy "Millenium" seems to be the most tedious publication ever committed to print. Obviously it is a fictional magazine that I cannot actually read but just consider the following:

• In the second film the magazine's big story that is going to be the focus of their next issue is that men are using prostitutes. I know this is feminist Sweden but is that really news. There is dramatic talk of them confronting the punters with the kind of bullying prurience that makes them seem like the house organ of Iran's Revolutionary Guard investigating couples for holding hands.
• It is almost always out of date, despite one of the characters being an ace hacker, the Internet is unheard of among magazine staffers. They have to get their rapidly developing story to the printers a week in advance of printing it in order to get it out.
• As you would expect of earnest socialist Swedes, they don't believe in being pithy. As the journalists discuss writing up the big story in the 3rd film, you realise that they are talking about writing 30 to 50 pages each. For a magazine this seems excessive- a Private Eye special might run to 20 pages in total, yet they are talking about 200 pages of prose just on one story.
• Being socialists and Swedes they all come across as being devoid of a sense of humour, so this is 200 pages of an out of date story with no laughs in it whatsoever.

Of course being in a fictional universe, this magazine appears to actually sell to people beyond the friends and family of the staff whereas in reality it would be as widely read as Roundabout Enthusiasts Monthly.

The Real Danger Posed By The Swedish Suicide Bombing

It might play into the hands of the EDL.

In fairness in this instance I can see why Muslims might be aggrieved by the coverage of the self detonation- Muslims are frequently criticised for not integrating into their host societies and adopting local culture so when someone does something as quintessentially Swedish as ending his existance in a desolate Nordic landscape shouldn't he be praised?

Fair Enough

What could possibly drive someone to detonate themselves in a Swedish street?

Suicide bomber lived in Britain: Islamic fanatic in Stockholm car blast was radicalised while studying in Luton

Ah Luton, enough said.

Mission Accomplished

A Swedish cartoonist who has received death threats for depicting the Islamic prophet Mohammed was attacked as he gave a presentation to a Swedish University. He is keen to go back and give another speech to uphold free speech, however:

Officials said they would "not likely" invite Vilks again because of the incident. In some quarters, the university's reponse is adding to concerns that violence and threats from some members of the Muslim community are effectively muzzling free speech.

Another victory for militant Islamism over free speech.

Viking Rampagers Not Good Law & Order Role Models.

why is it that Finland, Sweden and Norway in particular, have much lower rates of imprisonment than other European countries?

Don't know, probably because they are populated by earnest Nordic types who believe criminals need to be understood. I'm not sure why we should consider them to be role models in crime prevention though, Finland has the highest murder rate in Western Europe, Sweden has the most crimes per capita in Western Europe. Norway is arguably a low crime country but a one out of three success rate suggests that the Nordic model isn't better than the system we already have.

Hot Swedish Model.

When it comes to education the Swedish model* could make a big improvement into the standard of education:

When Daniel Lundquist and his wife Ulrika moved to Ingaro, 30 minutes' drive east of Sweden's capital Stockholm, they immediately started looking for schools for their three young children.

Like many British parents they worried that the local state schools were either too far away or not quite what they wanted.

However, rather than complaining or simply going private, the Lundquists decided on a route currently not available to most British parents - they actually set up a brand new state school themselves with other local parents and helped run it just how they liked.

I'm glad that the Conservative Party are considering this, although it is depressing to see that Cameron is so scared of the Conservatives' being seen as right wing that they feel the need to insert a needlessly meddlesome spanner into the works of their own proposal:

There is one big difference between the Conservative proposal and the Swedish system - profit will not be permitted.

David Cameron does have to appeal to the centre ground so I understand the some of the positioning that he has done, but being outflanked on the right by Swedish socialists is ridiculous.

* As Tim Worstall points out on his blog fairly regularly, commentators like Polly Toynbee who salivate over the Swedish way of doing things generally don't actually know what Sweden does, just that they have high tax levels.