 | |  | | | | | | | | | Edinburgh skater Mark Thomson has been staying in Sweden recently and has been good enough to write us these musings about his journey to work:
It's hard to imagine that only a thousand years ago, the Swedes were raping and pillaging their way up and down the east coast of Britain (that's where you got your blond hair, my friend). Time, and damn cold weather, have, however, worn them down to a very direct and serious set of people; their language reflecting the national character to a tee. In a country where nipples are 'breastwarts' and the umbilical chord is the 'navel string', it's been hard to get used to the poker faced rhetoric of these reformed hooligans.
Yet the true nature of this blunt approach to language is gradually becoming clear . Every day on the way to work, my tram stops outside a graveyard to pick up passengers. With their Monday faces betraying less emotion than those entombed a skull's throw away, my gaze often strives to avoid them. More often than not, it wanders towards the inscription above the graveyard entrance:
"Tänk på döden"(think about death)
So I do.
It may seem a little strange to consider this a more appealing fixation than the herd of drones on the tram, but it's not as morbid as it first appears. In typical Swedish fashion, the more direct the language, the more the beauty of simplicity shines through its thin veneer. In this inscription, there is both honesty and perspective.
As the tram rattles on through urban tundra, my mind flickers in the void between thought and memory, as is wont to happen in the pre-coffee haze of early morning.
I think about skating, and the memory of sun-kissed sessions from Mexico City to Monifieth. I wonder if it's the only thing that makes me feel truly alive; those grinds and pops in the archives of my mind. Every trick landed. Every trick smooth.
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