Thursday, April 15, 2010

The Local, Sweden's only English newspaper

I don't know why I feel depressed every time I read Sweden's only English newspaper, The Local. Today's top news reports about 40 percent of apartments in Stockholm are sublet illegally. As I now need to move out of the current sublet apartment and find it difficult to find a desirable one to move in, it just makes me depressed. (For the stupidity of rental apartment market in Sweden, see my previous post.)

Then this article reports a proposal of banning cash in small retail stores so that shopkeepers won't face a threat of robbery. Why does the Swedish authority love banning everything such as paying in cash to the bus driver (which has already been enacted, leaving the bus travel inconvenient to tourists), the sale of alcohol in the private sector (because Swedes drink too much), electric socket converters (because Americans in Sweden used it without knowing the difference in voltage between Europe and America, resulting in explosion), drinking bottled mineral water for employees in the municipal government of Göteborg, Sweden's second largest city (because tap water in Sweden tastes good and bottled mineral water is a waste of resources)?

Then The Local's guide to moving in Sweden begins with how to recycle what you want to throw away when you are moving. A very noble-minded way of starting the preparation of the moving... But the immediate concern for any mover is something else, isn't it?

The remaining articles talk about a benefit fraud (Sweden is a welfare state), child sexual abuse, and a serial killer incident.

But The Local is the only source of information on what's going on in Sweden for those foreigners who do not speak Swedish. I still have to read it every morning...

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