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Navigating Sweden with Basic Language Skills

From Thursday to yesterday, I was on a trip to Sweden with a pal, staying at a hotel in Stockholm. While we largely stuck to that city, we took a trip to the city of Malmö on Saturday, primarily to see the bridge featured in the drama series The Bridge and to explore the area in general.

I was advised before visiting the country that English is widely spoken there as a second language. Conversely, it tends to be the norm in the English-speaking world that we don’t learn supplemental languages, with the possible exception of French in Canada. Still, I was determined to break away from the typical tourist stereotype, so I embarked on learning some useful phrases.

My first purchase was a Berlitz phrase book from Oxfam, which was originally published around 1990 and has an accompanying cassette. It’s great as a pocket reference guide, and it sometimes proved to be the quickest and most authoritative way to find the right phrase. Amusingly, some sections haven’t aged well, including how to ask for an ashtray and giving advice about where to have photos developed.

I’ve also employed more modern resources. For one, there’s an app called Clozemaster. This presents sentences with one word blanked out, and – as the name suggests – you need to close the gap. Additionally, Microsoft Translator offers free but powerful interpreting, including optical character recognition for printed text, and speech-to-text for parroting an overheard phrase.

To gain a feel for the language in general, I’ve been tuning into a speech radio station called SR P1, which is similar to BBC Radio 4 in its mixture of news, documentaries and occasionally comedy.

After three months of preparation, how did this work out ‘in the wild’? Well, the results are mixed.

For meeting people in enclosed spaces like shops or trains, it’s been useful to have a few stock words on hand, including: hej (hello), tack (thank you) and förlåt (sorry). Transactional conversations can usually be conducted with phrases such as Jag vill… (I want…) and Det har (This here) while pointing in the right direction.

In the last case, there are grammatical rules about genders and plurals that I’ve yet to master, but these weren’t a hindrance for such short conversations. Besides, people rarely speak in full sentences except for formal contexts.

I knew before I arrived, however, that my listening skills were limited. When I’m tuned into the radio, it takes a few minutes to figure out the topic of conversation, with most of the words bypassing me.

There were a couple of conversations where I opened with Talar du engelska? (Do you speak English?) because I knew my question would be too complex to explain in Swedish. The one time I should have deployed this was when the security scanners at Stockholm Arlanda airport started beeping at me. In my defence, it’s hard to think what to say in any language when uniformed personnel are telling you something at 100mph – or 160kph for my European readers.

By contrast, my pal hadn’t been learning the language and always initiated conversations in English. I was consistently impressed by the ability of the other party to switch immediately.

The learning was most useful for reading signs and directions. The larger transport hubs contained bilingual signage, and some staff even greeted us in English. However, self-service tills and kiosks are quite common in Sweden, and not all of them have a language selection button. In these cases, it’s been useful to know words like inte to indicate a negative and avbryt to cancel an action.

It’s been doubly helpful that Swedish has a similar word order to English. Some phrases even map word-for-word, and I’ve found it harder to grasp when they break away from that format.

The big question is whether to keep up the learning after the need for it has passed. At the moment, I’m considering keeping it up.

Figures aren’t readily available for how many native Anglophones have Swedish in their back pockets, suggesting the figure is low or negligible. Maybe it’s because around three-quarters of Swedes have some level of English proficiency, so there’s little practical need, but I would find it appealing to be one of this assumed minority.

One reason I chose Clozemaster over the more popular Duolingo is that it doesn’t pressure you to maintain a streak, even though I have actually maintained one by consistently completing sets each morning. The free version offers up to 30 sentences per day, up to ten of which can be listening practice.

And I reckon listening will be key to progress, as well as nailing the prepositions, conjunctions and genders. Speaking with a native regularly would help me move forward, but the closest I can find right now is the aforementioned SR P1.

One unexpected discovery is a programme on the station called Tolvslaget. This is broadcast at 12pm Swedish time, which is 11am in the UK, and features a recording of a church clock striking 12, followed by a different poem every day. On the days when I’m working from home, this sets me up perfectly for morning break.

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Ideas Happen Outdoors, Writing Happens Indoors

I’ve realised there’s a contradiction in my writing process, and I’ve been struggling to reconcile the two sides of the coin.

On the one hand, I occasionally pepper into my entries that many of my writing ideas happen while walking. There’s something about the constant motion that brings these to the surface.

On the other hand, I realised a few years ago that I consider writing to be a strictly indoor activity, not an outdoor one. I examined this in a short entry titled Inside the Box from 2022, and I still agree with the points made.

The recent streak of sunny weather has brought this duality to mind. It’s provided a good incentive to go for these walks and think about recent projects.

I will, of course, always write down an idea when it occurs. Yet even on the warmest day, I hadn’t once considered intentionally taking my computer or notepad outdoors.

I entertained the thought that it might be down to practical issues like screen glare, spitting rain or unexpected gusts. Annoying as these are, it doesn’t fully describe my aversion to outdoor writing. I can be anywhere with walls and a ceiling; I’ll happily write on public transport, and I even jotted down the beginnings of a poem in a club this weekend.

In short, it simply feels wrong to write anywhere but indoors, and there’s no concrete reason for it, especially when I like to be outdoors to form ideas.

If you’ve any clues or insights about why this might be, I’d like to hear from you.

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A Morning in the Library Archives

Thanks to an invitation from the Amps network at Creative Dundee, I was invited to explore the archives at the city’s Central Library on Saturday morning. This should have happened back in March, but plumbing problems forced the place to close for the day.

While there is a wealth of historical documents on public display, there is far more behind closed doors, viewable only by appointment.

It proved challenging to squeeze ten people around the tightly-packed shelves, and it’s just as challenging to describe the breadth of stored material. It spans three centuries of historical newspapers, self-published poetry, local maps, building plans, posters for pantomimes, &c. Each piece tells its own story and can’t always be slotted neatly into one category or another.

A narrow aisle lined with red shelves filled with historical documents and bound books at the Central Library, with a cart containing various bound materials in the foreground.
Some of the shelves at Dundee Central Library.

My pal Dr Erin Farley led the tour, giving answers to every question posed throughout the two-hour visit. When booking the tickets, Amps members were invited to request any special documents they wanted to see. I seized the opportunity to mention my interest in railway infrastructure.

In response, I was rewarded with the original proposal for the first Tay Bridge, bound in a booklet of broadsheet-sized paper and listing Thomas Bouch as the author. As we know from history, the structure collapsed in 1879. Meanwhile, another member enquired about whether there was an LGBT+ collection. Erin explained that efforts were actively underway to develop one.

After the visit, we were treated to coffee and an overdue catch-up with others. Since most Amps events take place during office hours, I’m rarely able to attend, though this scheduling suits many of the self-employed creatives with more flexible routines. I especially miss the wonderful virtual breakfast events at 9am on Tuesdays, so I was keen not to miss a rare Saturday outing.

There’s so much more I could add about the organisation, but I’ve written so much over the past there years that it’s easier to read the relevant back-entries. Indeed, if you’re local and you think this might be for you, here’s how to sign up.

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Cramming in the RAM

I don’t upgrade my computer regularly, preferring to wait until the current one is on its last legs before considering a replacement. This is partly because the setup is highly customised for my particular requirements, such as the many hotkeys that trigger useful writing shortcuts like the en-dash,

Three years ago, the fan on my old laptop gave out. I can’t recall whether I looked into a repair, but I ultimately opted for a new device – one that serves me to this day.

Before buying it, I knew it wouldn’t pack quite the same punch, with 4 GB of RAM and 128 GB of hard disc space, only half that of my previous laptop. However, I reasoned I could cope with the loss of computing power because I’d only use it for writing and for watching the occasional 1080p video.

The trouble is that the actual writing is only one part of the equation. If I want to type into a Google Document, the browser takes up a chunk of RAM. If I want to listen to music for concentration and/or talk to other writers via Discord, that’s extra memory in use. Meanwhile, Windows would increasingly use the hard disc as temporary storage to compensate for this.

A couple of weeks ago, I attempted to take off the back cover of the laptop to check whether extra RAM could be fitted. It was too thoroughly screwed on, so I took it to a repair shop last week. They tripled the memory for a reasonable price, bringing it up to 12 GB.

Part of me feels this is a ridiculously high specification for a computer primarily used for text, especially since I can recall using a family computer from 1998 that contained a whopping 4 GB of total hard disc space.

Yet it really does feel like a new machine. Even typing out this entry into WordPress, I haven’t felt the usual lag. I can even switch tasks without my video buffering or the screen blanking out.

So until this device is beyond repair, I’ll happily keep it in service as long as possible.

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Answering the Prompt ‘Morning Rituals’

Many weeks ago, my laptop charger stopped working. While I acquired a replacement, I instead used the Jetpack app on my phone, which suggests a different prompt every day. I decided to keep that one handy for a slow week. That slow week has now arrived, so here’s the prompt:

What are your morning rituals? What does the first hour of your day look like?

I won’t go through everything I do in the morning, as much of it is keeping up-to-date with pals, but let’s look at some highlights.

For the past seven years, I’ve updated Instagram nearly every day with a themed picture. I decide on a different theme each month. We’re just coming out of April Angles, featuring pictures that contain adjoining or intersecting straight lines, including wall buttresses, a railway signal and a set of swings.

I also tackle two puzzles. The first is the classic Wordle, and I’m pleased to report I’ve now retrospectively caught up with all the puzzles. You need a paid subscription for this, and it’s now cancelled. The second is the seven-letter Full Rainbow anagram. Unfortunately, there’s currently no way to catch up with missed puzzles, but it’s a lot of fun.

Thirdly, I’m off to Sweden with a pal at the end of next month. It’s only for a long weekend, and I hear English is widely spoken as a second language, but I’d like to learn a few handy phrases for emergencies. Another pal recommended Clozemaster, which shows sentences with one word blanked out, and you close the gap by clicking on the correct option or – for advanced users – typing it in. The free option offers up to 30 sentences per day. Later on, I intermittently listen to a Swedish talk radio station for extra listening practice.

However, I rarely write prose or poetry in the morning. One piece of writing wisdom you’ll likely hear is to keep a pencil and paper by your bedside for ideas that strike during the night. This simply doesn’t produce work for me. I need to be up and about before ideas start to emerge.

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Problems with Printers

I have two wireless printers used for different purposes. The larger one takes A4 paper and is for ordinary documents like manuscripts, while the smaller one prints onto a roll of thermal paper and can be used to create typed stickers. As they’re both made by Brother, they’re distinguished by the network names Big Brother and Little Brother.

A few weeks ago, I started to experience problems with the first of these, particularly when trying to print off documents from Outlook. Last week, the connection completely broke down, and it was the very worst time for this because I needed to print off a proposal I’d written for a writing class.

As such, I spent a chunk of Good Friday fixing the problem. The problem somehow fixed itself after I removed the printer from Windows and added it again. It happened just in the nick of time to commit that proposal to paper, and I hope to bring further news

At around the same time, Little Brother was up to the capers. This always had a quirk where the software sometimes says it’s offline, yet it spits out the print a few seconds later. More recently, the printing has become more hit and miss before failing completely.

It’s only by good fortune that I didn’t urgently need prints from that machine, since it took a lot of time on Saturday to fix it. It proved necessary to remove the existing installation, then use a temporary wired connection and disable the VPN while setting it up again.

I don’t fully understand the problem, but it’s probably not unrelated to a recent Windows update that won’t install for me, and it seems many other users are in the same situation.

What I now have, however, is a USB cable on standby in case this happens again.

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Putting a Full Stop to Scams

I watch a YouTube creator who goes under the alias Kitboga. In 2017, he discovered his grandmother had fallen victim to several scams, costing her hundreds of dollars every month.

Inspired by this, he now produces content aimed at exposing phone scammers and educating viewers about how to spot their tactics. At the very least, he wants to waste hours of their time that might otherwise be spent scamming others.

The style of the channel took some time to grow on me, as it’s rather chaotic. He typically uses a voice-changer to make scammers think they’re talking to an elderly person, before making up nonsensical stories to tell them, often on the spot. Between calls, he explains to the viewers what he’s doing and why.

On Sunday, Kitboga posted a video where he spoke to a scammer who claimed to represent the publisher Penguin Random House. Unusually, the other party agreed to a meeting via Zoom. I won’t give away the outcome, but I promise it’s worth watching the entire 36-minute video as he explains the scam and considers his next move.

This isn’t the first time a publishing scam has been featured on the channel.

Back in October, the channel exposed a group targeting self-published authors with screenwriting deals. At around the 27:45 mark, he even gave a shout-out to the Writer Beware blog, which had been documenting these cases over many years.

Most of us want to see our writing out there in the world, but we also need to be careful. One of the best ways is to be very dubious about anyone who reaches out with an offer regarding your work.

If you’re ever uncertain whether a contact is genuine, be sure to check with the company. You can often find details on their official website, in the indispensable Writers’ Handbook, and/or in the Companies House database. When in doubt, hit the Block button and move on.

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NaNoWriMo – The Last Word

It was quietly announced last week that the organisation behind National Novel Writing Month was to close. Universally known as NaNoWriMo, or even NaNo, this was a challenge to draft a 50,000-word novel during November each year, later expanding to include smaller challenges in other months.

The announcement, made on Sunday 31 March, was so quiet that only those on the mailing list received it. There also exists a corresponding video from the Interim Executive Director, which has not gone down well with the commenters.

And yet, at the time of writing, the official website remains unchanged. So when I heard the news second-hand on April Fool’s Day, I had to double-check it, missing the chance to include the news as last week’s entry. Still, the week-long gap has allowed some time for reflection.

I joined NaNo in 2010. It had been around for 11 years at that point, and was arguably at the height of its popularity, as illustrated by Google search trends over the years. There were dozens of affiliate groups around the world, including one in Dundee city centre. At my very first meeting, my laptop ran out of battery, so I rushed out to buy a notepad and a mechanical pencil. The graphite rods kept breaking, rendering it next to useless.

Fast-forward five years, and I’d graduated from member to organiser in the natural flow of people leaving and joining. I stayed in that role for nine years alongside several different co-leads until we withdrew our affiliation in 2024 over the nonsense that had been happening.

By this time, I’d fallen out of love with the central November challenge, as I found myself with an increasing series of started but incomplete novels. I didn’t fall out of love with bringing writers together, so I’m pleased still to be co-leading the independent group we created to replace it.

So the big question: what caused the closure? It’s a complex story that can best be told by the NaNo Scandal website, which has documented the problems with the organisation from December 2022.

However, the simplest analogy is that of a Fortune 500 company, which will typically act to keep its stakeholders satisfied. In the case of NaNo, the stakeholders were the organisers on the ground who encouraged members to keep writing and to keep donating. After alienating these folks, the cash dried up.

Speaking of cash, search information from the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) website makes for interesting reading. From what I can gather, the nonprofit National Novel Writing Month should be filing Form 900 annually, which then becomes a matter of public record. However, the last document at the time of writing dates from 2021.

A screenshot from the US Internal Revenue website illustrating the points mentioned in the plain text.

I’m absolutely no expert, so perhaps there’s a genuine reason why the last four years are missing from this list. But if you’re an accountant or you’re connected with the IRS, you can access the search function and enter the Employer Identification Number 65-1282653 to find out the details.

I really don’t want to leave this entry on a sour note. I was involved with the organisation in some capacity for 14 years, so more than half of its 26-year history. I had some wonderful experiences, and I still speak to so many former participants. So here are three memories that stand out:

  • I held a couple of midnight launch parties at my home, with the plan to start writing in the first hour of 1st November. I had only a two-seater couch at the time, so every chair and cushion was taken up with people, who were also dodging electrical extension cables. As the clock hit 12am, the entire room fell silent for an hour, aside from the tapping of keys.
  • I’d met someone in real life and was chatting to her via Facebook Messenger. I wanted to take a gamble and ask her out, so I enlisted the members of that week’s NaNo meeting for advice, all of whom were in long-term relationships themselves. They helped me to steer the conversation and figure out what to say next. She still turned me down.
  • A local organiser used to be known as a Municipal Liaison or an ML. As the pandemic was easing, the government was permitting people to meet up again, while NaNo was still warning MLs to hold only online meetings. To circumvent this, I told the group I would be in our usual venue at a certain time, and there were spare seats if anyone happened to be passing, but that this was not a meet-up. I even wore a sticker reading NOT ML, which became an in-joke for a long time afterwards.
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Money for Nothing, Join for Free

There are a couple of perennial topics on this blog. One of them is public speaking, and the other is banging the drum about joining the Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society.

The ALCS was founded in 1977 to ensure writers are given fair payments for any of their works that are copied, broadcast or recorded. The organisation is the literary equivalent of the better-known PRS for Music, which does a similar job for musicians.

This year, £35,038,136 was shared between 111,415 members. It’s important to note this is not an equal share, but calculated according to the activity of each author’s work. You can bet that bestsellers like Richard Osman and Julia Donaldson took a sizeable chunk of the pie.

My payment this year was around £133. It’s not enough to live on, of course, but it’ll pay my energy company for nearly two months. What’s more, that’s from just nine publications spanning as many years.

So how does an author grab a piece of the action?

The ALCS has recently suspended online applications for reasons unknown, but will accept a postal version. Visit the How to Join page to download and fill in the form.

You don’t need to send any money. Instead, the organisation will deduct a one-off fee of £36 once you’ve earned that figure in royalties. This grants you lifetime membership. Payments are collected for a variety of different visual works, so check the website for details of these.

To start earning, you’ll need to enter the ISBN of each work you’ve had published. This is the 13-digit string of numbers beside the barcode, or 10 digits if the book was published before 2007. Remember to include every publication where you receive credit, regardless of its age.

After all that, it’s just a matter of maintaining your list of works on the website and awaiting the annual payment.

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Going Off-Script

From 2002 to 2005, I studied for a BSc Music Technology degree at what is now called the University of the West of Scotland. The course taught us how commercial music is recorded, along with related skills such as composition, Web design, and making promotional videos.

Last week, I had cause to rake out a short film I’d made as part of the degree. It dates from around 2003 or 2004, but nobody had thought to write the date on the box.

Although DVD was fast becoming the dominant format, we had to submit the piece on VHS. I wish I’d at least kept a disc-based copy. I can’t say for sure whether the tape has been partially wiped or whether my video recorder is at fault, but the picture is almost unwatchable.

The sound, by contrast, is more or less intact. Hearing this for the first time in years unexpectedly reminded me of the scriptwriting process. I distinctly remember sitting in the student union discussing ideas before someone flippantly said, ‘Why don’t we make it about four students who fall out making a film?’ That flippant suggestion became the backbone of our script.

At this point, I wasn’t routinely writing any fiction, but I recall enjoying the process. This should have been a foreshadowing of where my interest would ultimately lie in the future.

Some of the lines were a little clunky, aside from gems like He’s about as much use as a mic stand, yet the structure was spot-on. Each character blamed one or more of the others for the failure of the film, whether it was the director having a go at the others for not understanding his vision, the technician who kept forgetting to charge up the camera batteries, or an unseen ex-girlfriend who split up with one character to date another.

It really does leave the viewer guessing, and I’d be pleased if I managed to pull off that complexity in a current piece. What’s more, the action takes place in a span of well under five minutes. I vaguely recall our brevity cost us some marks, but it was a self-contained story.

I haven’t yet returned the tape to the cupboard, so my plan is to find someone with another video recorder to test whether my equipment or the tape is at fault. At a minimum, it would be prudent to make a safety copy of at least the audio portion and figure out whether the drama could be adapted into a longer piece.