Archive for June 6th, 2006
Get Out of Here!
What is the best way to celebrate – eh – is the correct title “Nation Day”, “Day of the Swedish Flag” or something else?
The Swedes themselves seem a bit unsure. After all, June 6 is a new public holiday: It was only introduced as such last year and I’m not quite sure if the real objective was to save a bank holiday by abolishing Whit Monday or to enhance patriotism among Swedes.
In any event, it was a top-down decision and as it doesn’t provide an acceptable excuse for binge drinking (unlike Valpurgis Day, Midsummer Day and All Saints’ Day where the natives make a truly concerted effort to kill any cells that may remain in their brains), June 6 still occupies a rather uncertain place in the calendar.
In any event, the Swedish tabloid Expressen took the day as an excuse to provide us with yet another of those fascinating self-tests, this time on the topic “Are you a true Swede“?
The answer in my case is – not in any way: I only managed to give a “Swedish” answer to two out of ten questions. The paper suggests that I ought to emigrate to Norway.
It may be worth noticing that when I tried the German citizenship test which Süddeutsche Zeitung published on its homepage some months ago, the result was a perfectly acceptable 18 out of 20 corrects answers. Maybe Danes are in fact more Continental than Scandinavians.
And no: I do not entertain any plans about moving to Norway.