The Girl With The Dragon Tatoo

As one can find (almost) anything on Youtube, I (and many with me) found this non-official, that now has become the official trailer of David Fincher's realisation of Stieg Larsson's books, beginning with this episode.

As being related to Stieg Larsson at distance (our common 'origin', the village Bjursele mentioned in the first book, chapter 19) and having participated in the Swedish films as an extra (the first two ones doing voice overs and in the third at a party at the editorial office), I was, however, not impressed by the Swedish versions.

I think that Fincher is a director able to make something very interesting out of the material.

Zdzislaw Beksinski

Zdislaw Beksinksi is an artist I found through FB and one I like very much, the little I've seen of his works. Take a look and make up your mind about whether or not I'm 'right'!?

Almstriden/The Elm Fight

For those of you not familiar with the above Youtube-sequences from the 'Elm-fight', I can tell you that this is one of the cornerstones in the Swedish environmental movement.

When the politicians in Stockholm in 1971 decided to build an entrance- and exit to the new subway, situated in the park of Kungsträdgården, they faced a unanticipated protest storm.

People 'occupied' the trees and police was called in to deal with this but the protestors did not surrender and in the end, the politicians had to change their decision.

The incident got worldwide coverage but some people around the world found it hard to understand the engagement displayed by the people living in Stockholm and Sweden concerning this issue.
It became a proof of the fact that the environmental movement was marching ahead and that issues around our daily environment, was becoming more and more important.

Even if you don't understand Swedish, the short sequences above speaks for themselves.

The School in Finland - Best in the World!

According to one of PISA's (Programme for International Students Assessment) studies about schools in the world and their quality, Finland recently came in first place.
Different studies use different variables and I don't know the exact ones used in this case but the list looked like this:

1. Finland
2. South Korea
3. Japan
4. New Zealand
5. Australia
6. The Netherlands
7. Switzerland
8. Estonia
9. Germany
10. Belgium
11. Poland
12. Island
13. Norway
14. Great Britain
15. Denmark
16, Slovenia
17. Irland
18. France
19. OECD average
20. USA
21. Hungary
22. Sweden
23. Czechia