Skivvies... Are... Back!!!

as Rob Sitch once sang, back when those guys were funny, but it's never been truer than it is now, and nowhere more so than in Sweden. Except that I have a sneaking suspicion that in Sweden they never really left. (Skivvies, that is, not the d-generation).

I'm speaking, of course, about Reglermöte, the biennial meeting of Swedish control scientists, which was in Stockholm this time.

People on the Steve's wedding mailing list will already have heard of my encounter with a Robbie-Williams-lookalike in a skivvy, I swear I've seen him somewhere before... Cardrona rings a bell...



That's the best photo I could get of him. He definitely noticed that I was trying to take sneaky snaps of him, and gave me some really strange looks. But what does he expect, wearing a skivvy like that? Hopefully he's not some mega-important guy who will one day decide my career.

Also of note was a disturbing number of twenty-somethings wearing brown corduroy jackets. What up wid dat?

Highlights of the trip:

1) This shop:



and its selection of viking helmets:



I seriously considered getting one, but at nearly $1000 a pop I decided against it. For now.


2) Almost all the talks were in Swedish, which made for exhausting listening, but on the upside there was a product demonstration booth for Dymola where they were giving out free yo-yo's. I took two.

Pederito on the streets of Stockholm:



3) They treated us really well, with a dinner cruise on stockholm harbour (stunningly beautiful) and all the meals were fantastic. It was all small-servings-on-big-white-plates stuff. Except that during one of the dinners an ear-piercing burglar alarm kept going off and random intervals. I mean really deafening.

A pic of stockholm harbour:



and a random street in the old city (Gammla Stan)




4) A colleague, a Swede, a guy who often takes a long road to a simple thought, told us about an absolutely perplexing drinking game called "the closet". Here's how it goes, I think:

1. A group of people get together, and start drinking
2. At some point, one of them leaves and goes and sits in the closet
3. The people remaining have to try to guess who it is that is in the closet.

Apparently it gets difficult with large groups of people, if everyone is so hammered they can barely lie down straight. It is most difficult when, somehow or other, people get knocked out of the competition and there is only one player left, and he has to try to figure out whether or not he is in the closet.

Don't let the word "closet" throw you off-course, it is nothing to do with guessing who is harbouring secret enthusiasms for musical theatre. Otherwise the obvious rampant gayness of the whole game would lead all the players to the conclusion that they are all in the closet.

Bloody mystifying.