bubbe

Dear Mr Fransson,

I'm writing to you to reflect on Arjeplog in general, as you've encouraged us in the latest issue of the popular Arjeplog Times.

I't exactly 10 years ago that I came to Arjeplog for the 1st time, and have spent nearly 2 years of my life here during this period. I've thoroughly enjoyed the weather, the scenery, the hospitality of the friendly locals, the lavish accomodation in the sauna-equipped private houses, the broad selection of "aprés-travaille" activities including the swimming-pool, the gym, spinning classes, skiing and visiting Norway. A community with 2200 inhabitants in my country would be called a village, not a town, and would have very few of the above facilities.

The most sriking feature of Arjeplog, however, is the absence of crime. Leaving houses and cars open all the time was a shock for me first. This marked apathy and laissez-faire attitude of the local criminal classes may have induced a growing dissatisfaction and yearning for action in the circles of the local constabulary. The impending doom was first indicated by the distribution of threatening broshures from the Police in December. The catastrophy did not wait too long to happen, and a few weeks ago a colleague payed a fine of 1200SEK for speeding at the entrance of the the 50km/h zone of Arjeplog City Centre from the direction of Norway. His crime was that at the moment of crossing the dreaded line, he was doing 60 km/h and decelerating.

This nonsense must stop immediately. Where I'm coming from, speed cameras always use a 15 km/h tolerance. Speeding fines are much lower, as well. This zero-tolerance bullshit reminds me rather of the Balkans (Bosnia & Montenegro), where the main objective of the local police-force is revenue-raising, which they perform with uncompromising zeal, even if the victim actually drives below the speed-limit. I just read in the last issue of Arjeplog Times that the number of road-accident-fatalities in Sweden is as low as in 1945. In other words, the problem is non-existent. Don't misunderstand me, I don't have any problem with enforcing the 30 km/h limit on the school-road in Kyrkholmen. But don't try to transform the car-testers into speedometer-watching, sleeping-while-driving fools. When did the last speeding-induced road-accident happen in Arjeplog, involving injuries? Exactly. Why do you want to destroy this idyllic live-and-let-live community by such extravagances? Blast sexual orientation, this is what really matters!

The government of the famous Isle of Man tried several times to introduce a general speed-limit, which was voted against every single time by the citizens. The state of Montana in the US had no speed-limits till 1999, when it was enforced by the Federal Supreme Court. The number of fatalities raised immediately. A very revealing story about the real motives behind speed-limit-enforcing: revenue raising, or less politically-correctly put, robbery. My native language, Hungarian, has a very fine expression, "útonálló", which literally means somebody standing on the road, but actually it describes an armed criminal stopping and robbing travellers. Any similarities with the story described 2 paragraphs above are purely incidental, if you know what I mean...

Another rather strange aspect of Arjeplogian life is the locals' dislike of light. While your cars usually have several kW of foton-emitting power in the shape of 6 incredible headlights, your houses are littered with 25W bulbs. To clarify things, I'd like to inform you hereby that bulbs in the Free World start at 60W. You behave as if there was not enough darkness here. Nearly every morning when entering Kraja for breakfast, we have to beg the receptionist to turn on the lights a little bit more, as we can hardly see our food. You may find dim light romantic or beautiful, but as for us, it's just destroying our eyes, and it's depressing. According to Swedish suicide statistics, just as depressing for you, apparently.

Originally I wanted to limit my comments on 25W bulbs to one paragraph, but an extremely funny incident occured during the famous breakfast-orgy of Kraja a few days ago. The ligths in the inner part of the dining room were completely off. The whole outer part was illuminated by an estimated aggregate power of 100W. As the reception was abandoned for several minutes, I endeavoured to sneak in and turn on the outer lights to full power. Unfortunately, as I was considerably stressed by the dangerous nature of my mission, I cound not find the switch for the inner part of the room. Upon returning to my table, a fine uniformed member of the Swedish working classes emerged from the kitchen and, receiving a severe shock from the incredible number of fotons bombarding his eyes, hastened to the switch and immediately restored the lighting conditions of the beautiful Polar nights.

It was clear that my strategy failed and next time I must concentrate on the inner-part of the room, as well as step in verbal contact with the above mentioned King of Darkness. So I did, asking him whether he would be so kind as to provide illumination in the room. In his reply, he asked me whether I meant candles. I said, no, I didn't mean dashed candles, I meant turning on that famous invention of Edison, the electric lights. This must have been a defining moment of his present formative years, realizing for the first time in his life that the masses from the vast SUN-burnt landscapes of the South actually don't like to perform any daytime-activity in lighting conditions reminiscent of horror-movies. And how right he was! The only timepasse we like to do in darkness, is sleeping. Surprising, but true.

In your filling-stations and souvenir-shops everybody can buy the two symbols of the North, the plush elk and the plush mosquito. But something is missing: the plush 25W bulb. But don't rush! I've just registered a patent at the European Patent Office for them, so if you wish to produce them, I'll require license fees.

Best regards