The ongoing Gaza war between Israel and Gaza (Hamas and by extension also Hezbollah) has been impossible to miss or ignore in the daily news since its start in October last year. Equally hard to ignore are the devastating and cruel initiatives taken by all parties whenever negotiations for a cease-fire are approaching. Sticking out like a very sore thumb, however, are the excesses in cruelty that both parties seem to find perfectly acceptable in this war. With the escalations in bad behavior as bad as they are now: where will this go, and when or where will it end? Continue reading →
Category Archives: Paul
The foreign language – A comparison
When Eef wrote his piece on foreign languages, more specific on the French language for non-native speakers, he presented the article to me by email. In this email Eef he asked me on my view on the situations sketched in his article. This is a very fair question indeed as my wife and I left our home country The Netherlands (aka Holland) in 1997 when we emigrated to Sweden. You could say Eef’s and my family share the experience of moving abroad to a country we did not speak the language of. The prevailing language in Sweden being Swedish as it is French in France. In Eef’s defence, they were pensioners, while we were in our thirties. Continue reading →
Aleksej Navalnyj vägen, Stockholm – Beslut
Tidigare i år skickade jag in ett förslag till Stockholm stad att göra en namns ändring på ‘Gjörwellsgatan’ till ‘Aleksej Navalnyj vägen’. Läs mer om det här. Idéen med att ändra just denna gata till minnet av Navalnyj var följande:
- Stockholm skulle äntligen få en gata nämnd efter en viktig politiker/aktivist som mördades av den ryska regimen
- Av en slump skulle den ryska ambassaden i Stockholm få ‘Aleksej Navalnyj vägen’ som besöks och postadress
Efter ha skickat in mitt förslag till Kungsholmens stadsdel i Februari 2024, fick jag ha tålamod i några månader. Svaret kom först nu, i Juli 2024. Continue reading →
Det Svenska valet – 3
Det är inte ett bra tecken om jag ser anledning att publicera än en artikel om det svenska valsystemet, denna gången med löpnummer 3. Se tidigare artiklar kring samma ämne här och här, och mer nyligen här.
Några veckor efter det senaste EU val, bestämde SVT sig för att kolla hur bra det fungerade på en skala från 0 till 1, läs SVT’s inslag här. SVT tittade inte på hur själva valet genomförs, vilket jag själv har synpunkter på, men de kollade om det fanns avvikelser i själva rösträkningen – ett ännu viktigare del av valet. I all enkelhet påstår jag att om det finns avvikelser i rösträkningen så är dessa resultatet av hur valet och rösträkningen genomförs. I ett demokratiskt val påstår jag att avvikelser inte får förekomma.
Några av slutsatser som SVT drar efter granskningen:
- …sprickor i systemet…
- …i nästan hälften av de granskade distrikten går inte siffrorna ihop…
- …riskerar att skada förtroendet för valsystemet…
Det ska inte se ut som NASA!
När jag nyligen besiktigade min Toyota Urban Cruiser, Urban för vänner, blev det ett glad besked – som vanligt.
Nu tänkte du kanske, Visst gick det bra, det är ju en Toyota! Och det har du rätt i.
Men, till skillnad från tidigare besiktningar blev det denna gången en anmärkning. Anmärkningar är inget som man behöver ordna med detsamma, men man bör nog åtgärda det till nästa besiktning om ett år. Mina anmärkningar blev:
- glapp i kardanknut
- spricka i fram fjäder
Självklart ska vi inte åka ett år till med dessa fel, de ska åtgärdas med detsamma! Continue reading →
New book on the way
Just letting you know that I’ve got a new book in the making. The preliminary title is:
The Fifth
The 5th, now what could that be? Here are some ideas:
- The fifth commandment? (‘Honor thy father and thy mother…’)
- A mysterious fifth person?
- The fifth sense? (smell)
- The fifth dimension? (allegedly taken from my blogging mate’s post Graham’s number)
- …
Let me put you on the right track. The preliminary cover page is:
…and may give you a hint on the subject. Continue reading →
Aleksej Navalnyj vägen, Stockholm
Till minnet efter den nyligen mördade ryska aktivisten Aleksej Navalnyj, låter det som att han bör ha en gata nämnd efter sig. Den självklara platsen för en sådan gata är förståss Gjörwellsgatan i Stockholm.
I google maps ser platsen ut så här:
Just anslutningen till ‘Fria Ukrainas plats’ gör Gjörwellsgatan extra lämplig för en sådan namns ändring. Continue reading →
ˈɪnflu.ənsə(ɹ)
Say what…?
The word ˈɪnflu.ənsə(ɹ) phonetically spells the word ‘Influencer’, but what does it really mean? Here are the official meanings according to Wictionary:
- A person who or a thing which influences
- A person who is able to influence consumption, lifestyle and/or political preferences of their online audience by creating and/or engaging social media content, often as a part of a marketing campaign
In my experience, a third category ought to be added. But, for the time being, let’s stick to these two categories as these seem quite straightforward. We’ll tackle my proposal for a third category later. Continue reading →
KDP – How to self publish your book
In the past few years, I’ve managed to write and publish four books. Three of them are in English while only one is in Dutch. But, writing a book is just one of the many steps between the idea and the book being bought and read by someone.
As I live in Sweden, and none of my books are in Swedish, I presume my readers are most likely be found abroad in Europe and the US. Reaching out to established publishing companies abroad to persuade them to publish my books seemed like a stretch for a newbie writer, so I did not pursue this avenue. Of course, it would be easy to have my books printed locally and then sell each copy myself, but that would require a considerable investment in printing. And I’d have to go door to door to sell them, which is not my thing. Thus the idea of self-publishing them came up. Continue reading →
The slippery slope of AI in books
‘What, AI in books!’ you may say. Indeed, with generative AI you can ask your AI application to write a text, given a set of parameters such as number of words, subject, genre, and much more.
When I recently was editing the blurbs of my books on KDP, the publishing platform for the Amazon book store, I was asked this question:
Of course, my answer was a solid No as I do not engage any AI form in writing my books for me. Or do I? Continue reading →
Strong and kind
A well-known Swedish childrens hero called Bamse, has the following motto:
Den som är väldigt stark måste också vara väldigt snäll
…which translates loosely into:
He who is very strong must also be very kind
~
Commenting posts on this site
Yes, you read it correctly, commenting on this site. It is now possible. See the bottom of each page on this site, click this link:
…then, fill out this page: Continue reading →
Riksdagsval – En jämförelse
För några dagar sedan var det val i Nederländerna. Jag tänker dock inte ta upp resultatet av valet. Däremot är det ett bra tillfälle att jämföra den Nederländska valprocessen med den Svenska.
Den Svenska valprocessen har jag skrivit om vid två tidigare tillfällen; en gång innan ett tidigare val här, och sedan några dagar efter samma val här. Slutsatsen var då att jag inte är särskild imponerad av valmetoden som tillämpas i det Svenska valet. Continue reading →
Writing and hobbies
One of the many perks of writing is that you get to incorporate things you fancy in your stories. After all, as a writer, you own the story! I regularly make use of that perk. Readers who know me will recognize these details, while others take them for regular book content.
One of the things that always has had my interest, apart from reading, are cars, motorcycles, and sailing. So I eagerly jump to every opportunity to put in my favorite cars or incorporate cars or sailing in my stories.
Nuremberg:
When I was working on my first book Nuremberg in 2021, I could not resist using a 2CV as a means of transport in the center of Amsterdam in the 80ies. Even if the make and model are never mentioned in my book, when reading the attached text snippets you’ll probably agree the car cannot be anything other than a 2CV. Continue reading →
Cultural dilemma – Country vs Religion
One would think it would be easy to describe or define a country. But its definition in Wikipedia leaves room for interpretation that attempts to describe it as ‘…a distinct part of the world, such as a state, nation, or other political entity…’. Notably, the definition of a country does not include ‘a group of people with a certain religion‘ or even ‘a group of people‘. On the other hand, the Wikipedia article does mention religion in any way but for the use of religious symbols, eg. in flags. Continue reading →