All Things Swede-ish

I’m sure everyone has wondered this at least once in their existence but I was pondering life’s little mysteries the other day and a profound thought suddenly struck me - why is a swede called a swede? I mean, a swede doesn’t look a lot like a Swedish person does it? (At least not anyone I’ve met. Although, being from up north, they can be kind of pasty and some might have a penchant for merlot hair dye I suppose...)

The rather uninteresting answer to this king of all conundrums is that swedes come from Sweden. I know, I know, it’s not particularly inspired. It seems we Brits originally called them Swedish turnips and then got a bit bored with the turnip part and decided just to plump for ‘swedes’. Our friends across the pond decided to get all fancy on us and called them rutabagas instead, which, it seems, is an anglicised form of the Swedish word Rotobagge, or ‘root bag’. From this I think we can all conclude that Brits, Swedes, Americans, and possibly swedes are all just about as imaginative as one another.

So, the Swedes gave us the root bag. But what else can they be held accountable for?

Well, in no particular order of merit and with absolutely no sense of completeness, they have:

· Helped us blow up the world more efficiently. (Thanks Alfred!)

· Given us a prize to celebrate clever people. (Again, thanks Alfred!)

· Blessed our airwaves with truly amazing musical exports. (I’m thinking of you Neneh Cherry*.)

· Helped maintain the international quota of blonde people. (Without the help of a packet - we all have our eye on you, Essex.)

· Invented the zip. (Buttons are so fiddly aren’t they?)

· And the Tetra Pak. (How did we ever carry orange juice without it?)

· And the three-point seatbelt. (Slightly boring but it does save lives.)

· Spotify and Skype are theirs too. (Well, Skype is half Danish but we’ll give them the benefit of the doubt.)

· Wowed the world and startled a few badgers with Life Paint. (Look it up.)

· And, of course, given us a place to eat meatballs on a Saturday lunchtime while the wife buys furniture. (Thankfully that’s not a regular occurrence in our house.)

So, please join me in a rousing chorus of ‘tack så mycket’ to the nation of Sweden for all they’ve brought to the world in the last however many hundreds of years. We really do appreciate it... (perhaps not the swedes so much, you probably could have kept those, but thanks all the same... )

Anyhoo, time to go again.

Godnatt och Gud välsigne dig.

(* ABBA, I know, this should have said ABBA.)