Låt den rätte komma in by John Ajvide Lindqvist

Behind the perky teeth and healthy children and universal dentistry and free housing for all and trams and no nuclear waste and Mamma Mia there’s urban decay, neglected glue-sniffing kids, violence, drunkenness, wasted lives and compellingly unpleasant vampires. And Abba too! Is there no end to their tall blond pretty perfection and their warm fuzzy wraparound social democracy? But now, one grungy vampire tale Let the Right One In let’s me know in no uncertain terms that Swedes suffer too. They have high taxation and a better standard of living which means everyone feels they should contribute”īlah blah blah. “If you want my answer, I think we should look at how they do it in Sweden. Sweden has gradually given itself a fairly sound spelling system.” (Yes, spelling reform is important too! Admittedly this didn’t make me as furiously jealous as the other stuff. “Sweden and Denmark show most clearly what spelling reform can do. “In a survey of the 26 most industrialised countries, only Sweden came out better.” (Better at what? Oh… life…love…happiness…) “Sweden says it aims to completely wean itself off oil within 15 years, without building new nuclear plants.”

“BBC's Joe Wilson on how Sweden became a top athletics nation. But as a parent, Sweden seems the perfect place to have children.” “Sweden has one of the best staffed health services in the world. “Sweden has probably the strongest freedom of information law anywhere in the world.” Here’s some random quotes from the BBC news archive :

For most of my life I’ve been bombarded with newspapers and radio telling me how Sweden is so much much very much absolutely completely better than Britain at practically everything.

Låt den rätte komma in by John Ajvide Lindqvist