Sweden has her own Fear Factories and has no need to import fears from the Politico-Legal-Media (PLM) Complex. Last week Swedes were being encouraged to dive into ditches whenever a storm was brewing. It took me back to the Duck & Cover Campaigns of the early Cold War Years. Lightning can strike you down at any time. Be Prepared!

Ever since reading Ann McCaffrey’s books about Life on Pern I have had a rather benevolent attitude to rain. I really like it. On Pern every few generations threads fall from the sky destroying all life on the planet if they are not prevented from reaching the ground. It is a brilliant piece of invention…Harry Potter standard…and enables Ann McCaffrey to introduce thread-devouring dragons that need bonding when first emerging from the egg and harnessing by elite teams of Dragon Riders to create aerial assault squadrons to attack the threads when they are big.

Even Nils Palmgren…editor of Dagens Nyheter…could not resist adding his two-öre by advising readers that ditches, cars and homes were the safest places to be in a thunder storm. The worst place is under a lone tree, aboard a yacht or on top of a high mountain. The irony is that what prompted the hysteria was the bizarre and tragic death of a knight on horseback at a medieval tournament in Mariefred near Stockholm. He took a direct hit on his helmet and died instantly…with a smile on his lips. Just make sure the car has a metal chassis…and that nobody is on the phone when shepherding your flock to the safety of the family villa. Sweden gets struck by lightning 100 000 times a year.

At 0952 every day this week I have walked to Sundbyberg Library for use of their printer and scanner. You have doubtless noticed my skills at gluing images together with Adobe Photoshop. My one-hour session ends at eleven…but normally I do not arrive home until four in the afternoon. I go out around town gallivanting on my free travel pass. Nicholas and Mischa used to do this when they were nine so my regression back to childhood is beginning. The two things about the Boston subway that appealed to the boys were the escalators and the fares.

Michael Dukakis ran against George Bush for the US Presidency in 1988 and lost. Before this he was Governor of Massachusetts so he did the honours when the Porter Square MBTA Station opened. It was just two minutes walk from Forest Street so I went along. Dukakis was a short man but like many famous Short People…Robert Redford, Tom Cruise, Pierre Trudeau, Dolly Parton…above the waist he was the size of a bigger man so he looked OK on TV.

The Dukakis dedication went like this. ‘I hereby declare this station open…and hope to hell you have enough maintenance engineers for the escalators.’ This showed great foresight. 20 years later the Open Guide to Boston website would say: ‘Porter Square is one of the deeper stations in the MBTA subway system. To exit one must ride either 2 or 3 escalators and typically at least one is out of order being repaired or worked on.’ The fare was a Franklin Half Dollar…so once the boys were through the turnstiles they stayed. Mozambique is just another subway ride.

Ode to the Common Man was my first poem but I have another one entitled Ode on Man Thinking.

Before the beginning
There was living
And the transmitting of life
For that God made woman
And woman gave to man leisure.

From this leisure arose conviviality
Which the women filled
With the good life
Both for themselves
And for their men.

From amidst the good life
Some few men emerged
Preferring honied indolence
Over love or ambition or poesy
Or the pursuit of triviality.

These few men were as gods
And in their conviviality
Their minds found words
And they made conversation
And their hearts were animated.

Conversation gave birth to the idea
And the idea was spoken
And being spoken
Was tried and tested
Back and forth.

And the idea was heard in disproportion
And was stripped of the trivial
And adorned with value
From whence in juxtaposition
Wisdom recognised humour.

And the men laughed
And joined with one another in earnest debate
The idea was argued
With reckless bias
For and against.

Until from those few men gathered together
From the conviviality that gave rise to conversation
And from the conversation that gave rise to humour
And from the humour that gave rise to debate
There came truth.

And the soul of Man
Determined that it was good.’

John Keats wrote his Ode on Indolence in the spring of 1819.