I have to admit that I love dresses in the summer, but my favourite everyday garment is nevertheless a pair of jeans and a sweater. Here are a few suggestions that can be found at the current summer sale: a spotted short sleeved jumper from Red Herring, and two knitted tops from LaRedoute Creation, a white one and a black one at very affordable prices.

This past weekend has been wonderful. Birthday celebrations, plenty of good food, nice company, an outdoor game or two, amazing weather, and several interesting as well as relaxing outings have made this year's summer solstice truly memorable. My mother-in-law brought the beautiful peonies shown above. A huge thank you to everyone who visited us!

The weekend has definitely not been hurried or stressed out, but life is even slower right now as T. and I are relaxing on the sofas, enjoying the left-overs and watching Time Team.

Mid June. The days are long and the sun hasn't even set yet, but the moon is up and it looks wonderful against the clear blue sky.

We've had a lovely day today, which can be summarized like this: a small outing in the surroundings, picking up bricks at the local hardware store, then coffee at our neighbours', a huge thunder storm, a nice but uncomplicated dinner, a bit of photo editing as the weather improved tremendously, and now a bit of blogging. Wonderful.

Our kind neighbour provided us with some rhubarb yesterday, and last night we were busy making lemonade. Isn't it beautiful? It tastes good too.

H&M online has begun their sale and I decided to take advantage of that by buying some bedlinen I've been pondering since I first saw them. In general, I think the quality of H&M's home collection, especially the bedlinen, is high with a rather "crisp and cool" feel and I'm looking forward to checking these out as well. The prices are certainly affordable at the moment and the colours are very summery.

Yellow and blue are fitting colours on a day such as this one. It's the Swedish national day, marking the anniversary of Gustaf Vasa's coronation as well as the 1809 constitution. Until 1983 it was called "Svenska flaggans dag" (Day of the Swedish flag), and since 2005 it has been a national holiday. Since the holiday as such is so young, it's clear that many Swedes don't know what to do with it and we have no real traditions when celebrating it, but for our family it has been a wonderfully sunny and warm day, which we have spent primarily in the garden and with driving lessons for our oldest son.

I've also taken a bunch of photos today, of which the above is one. Yellow and blue, like the Swedish flag.

Two debate articles published in DN discuss feminism from two very different angles. The first one, "Kære svenskere" (Dear Swedes) written by Danish extreme liberal and anthropologist Dennis Nørmark, who argues that Swedish feminism has gone too far and that Sweden is the feministic equivalent of muslim Saudi Arabia. This article was published yesterday and today Swedish feminist Nina Björk responded with the article "Vi tolererar inte dansk sexism" (We do not tolerate Danish sexism) asserting her view on the issue. The two articles were a collaboration between the Swedish newspaper DN and its Danish equivalent Politiken and the two authors had been invited to write them. The articles have attracted a lot of attention and initiated a heated debate. Almost racist remarks are common and the cultural divide between Sweden and Denmark is accentuated.

I think this is very, very sad and I decided to write the following:
"Quite naturally there are cultural differences between Denmark and Sweden, but the fact that DN and Politiken invite two writers who are positioned extremely far apart with regard to feminism (seemingly for the sake of debate itself) accentuates the wide gap between their political views more than their cultural origin. This gap would, most likely, also be visible between Nina Björk (and those who sympathise with her) and Swedes who sympathise with Dennis Nørmark's opinions, subsequently making it a completely Swedish issue. In general this discussion has very little to do with Sweden and Denmark as countries.

To make my own viewpoint clear: Dennis Nørmark's ideas are very far from my own, but I also think that Nina Björk is not entirely correct in everything (although I sympathise with her arguments to a far greater extent).

Ultimately, it all began with a heavily criticised Danish TV show in which two men were supposed to prove that they could discuss various topics while a naked woman was present in the studio, thus refuting any argument that men would be unable to do so. Personally I think it's a stupid idea, but I can easily avoid watching it (as many Danes have done as the number of viewers have dropped significantly over the weeks). The show was debated in Denmark, and the reactions were even stronger in Sweden (although the show wasn't aired there) when feminists heard about the concept.

In the article, Nørmark seems to take the TV show, and the Swedish reactions to it, as an excuse to trash Swedish feminism and Swedish debate, which might seem natural when considering his political affiliation. Nevertheless, I wouldn't view his article as any more than one man's annoyance with regard to feminism. A chauvinistic attitude can be found among individuals in Denmark and Sweden alike, but I have also met many men, in Sweden as well as in Denmark, who are highly sensitive to gender-based injustice and are willing to work for increased equality. In my opinion, the fault line on this issue doesn't necessarily run between women and men — or between Denmark and Sweden.

The public debate in each country rests on different foundations to some extent (since it evolves in different ways in different cultures), but in this case it seems as if DN and Politiken try to accentuate the differences (not the similarities) between Sweden and Denmark by setting up the two extremes against each other — as if to see what happens — and encourage the readers' anger and resentment towards that which seems alien. Media has a tendency to highlight that which they know will initiate a debate, and the debate itself is usually not a bad thing, but to make it seem as if every citizen of an entire country is in agreement with someone (or a few) who in fact is/are fairly extreme in a political sense, is not correct either. A parallel would be that a foreigner might believe that all Swedes have become racist just because Sverigedemokraterna (the 'Swedish democrats' — an extreme right-wing racist party) are visible in the public debate. Let the responsibility lie on those who express these idiotic views."

We have just watched the second episode of Secret State with Gabriel Byrne as the main character, British prime minister Tom Dawkins. Good actors in general, an interesting and engaging story, power struggles and the battle between honesty and deception spiced up by various urgent political incidents. We'll no doubt watch the next two episodes as well.

UPDATE: And so we did. We watched all four episodes and at the end of it all we felt that we as viewers were left hanging. There is no real conclusion and most of the plot lines simply dissolve. The storyline feels hurried, but, on the plus side, acting is good throughout the whole series.