Niklas' blog

We just came home from having visited Marie, Jesper and their quite new-born baby, Tove! It was really nice to see the whole family, as I haven’t seen their little bundle of love before. It’s so strange, seeing your oldest friend…being a father! Wonderful feeling though, as Jesper and Marie make me absolutely certain (by just being themselves) that Tove will grow up to become a wonderful individual with a mind of her own, ready to take on the world. And before anybody who knows Jesper asks: no, she is not birthmarked with “666″. Hee, hee.

We had a lovely lunch with falafel, rice, yoghurt-based sauce, baba ganoush, hummus, beer and finished off with coffee, tea and cake that Mikaela had made. Mmm good.

We left the new-found parents and then quickly scattered on to Mikaela’s parents, as we celebrated Mikaela’s up-coming birthday. There, we had a wonderful lamb-dinner, with assorted grilled vegetables, ranging from aubergines to tomatoes and garlic-cloves, which had been chucked in whole, clove by clove; when they’re ready, you just pop them out from the shell and eat it. Every ready-to-eat clove (sans shell) is quasi-mushy and wonderful to eat. The taste is a much-loved experience. This flavour blended ever so nicely with the very finely roasted lamb, which Mariette picked up from a delicatessen at Bredäng today; the skin was crispy and the meat tender, yet succulent with exquisite taste.

The dessert, consisting of a strawberry cake, creme brûlées and chocolate biscuits were extreme. Mind you, the dinner also consisted of a couple of home-made breads, salad, Jerusalem artichokes grilled with parmesan-cheese on top – which were grand – we basically rolled out from there when we left.

Meeting Mikaela’s family was fun. Alex has grown incredibly. He’s prone to health and exercise, and will probably continue to build muscles, mass and decrease his body-fat for a while.

Before going to sleep, I ponder why I like taking little films more and more, and I’ve even thought of what it would be like to create a little film that runs a few minutes using better equipment. I may lend a little hand-held camera, but until then, making little mobile-phone-based films will do. Here’s one from the Fruängen subway-station plus footage of a traveller who’s deep into singing along to whatever he was listening to…or just making weird noises while listening to nothing at all – he was, mind you, wearing head-phones.

Yesterday, I saw “New York Doll“, a documentary about Arthur “Killer” Kane, the bass-player with the New York Dolls. It proved to be a great documentary, very into portraying the soul of Kane, the attraction of the Dolls and the life of an individual haunted by demons, who somehow found some solace in becoming a mormon. The documentary captures Kane in 2004, the year that he, after 30 years of estrangement from New York Dolls, once again stands with the band playing at the Meltdown festival in London, only to die a month later. Tragic, yet, as Morrissey says in the documentary, “They’re a blighted band.” The remaining band will release their third studio-album in June.