There’s a moose loose aboot this hoose – Lord Rockingham’s XI
Now what has ‘Hoots Mon’, a UK No.1 from 1958 to do with the price of Irn-Bru?
Only that the moose is considered a measure of distance in northern Sweden.
Which we’re all looking at enviously because there’s no lockdown there.
In the region of Norbotten locals are warned to stay ‘one moose length’ away from each other.
While in the rest of the country they’re still eating meatballs, smorgasbords and pickled herrings and highly-priced beer in bars and restaurants.
All the time following Prime Minister Stefan Lofven’s guidance to keep social distance.
The Swedish hinterland
So what is it that Sweden is doing right?
Well, in a nutshell, they believe it is not sustainable to keep its people in open-ended lockdown.
And that they are prepared to accept certain restrictions on movement and interaction over a prolonged period.
Rather than to take the pain today for jam tomorrow.
She and her fellow Swedish politicians recommended this on internal travel at Easter.
The government exhorted Swedes not to travel to their summer cottages or relatives but did not ban them from doing so.
Which was 90 per cent lower than in previous years.
All of which progress and good husbandry focuses our attentions rightly on Sweden…
And talking about husbandry I’m reminded of what a good husband I would have been to Agnetha Faltstog, my first love.
Alas her husband Bjorn Ulvaeus was on the scene… and I was only 11.
ABBA’s Greatest Hits was the first album I ever bought.
And it was my love of Abba that got me innocently into trouble in my Jesuit Catholic all-boys school when I brought copies in of The Sun newspaper.
The ABBA Story
All because they were serialising The ABBA Story… I even used my lunch money to pay for the newspapers.
However my teacher suspected that I was ogling the bare-breasted Page 3 girls instead. All of which landed me with a belting.
I will continue to make it one of my life’s missions to track down Agnetha in her retreat.
And the best starting point is to actually get out to Sweden.
SAS Scandinavian Airlines http://www.flysas.com is your best bet, and they fly out of Dublin, and in the UK from London, Manchester, Birmingham and Newcastle.
A tour around Scandinavia
Now I dipped my toe into Scandinavia when I cruised with MSC http://www.msccruises.co.uk and http://www.msccruises.ie around Denmark http://www.visitdenmark.com.
And Norway http://www.visitnorway.com, getting within touching distance of Agnethaland http://www.visitsweden.com and http://www.visitstockholm.com.
While I’m continuously being tempted by my old Finnish http://www.visitfinland.com and adopted Glaswegian Paula from our Disneyworld http://www.disneyworld.co.uk
And https://jimmurtytraveltraveltravel.com/culture/disney-why-i-love-the-donald/ to go our to her home country, which is more culturally Scandinavian than geographically.
But the UN named it the happiest place on earth so the Scandinavians will claim it gladly.
Iceland for geezers
Heck, so that I’m not accused of not including the other Scandinavian countries, I’ll flag up Iceland here.
With Iceland Airlines http://www.icelandair.com and http://www.inspiredbyiceland.com.
Although again it is probably more culturally Scandinavian than geographically traditionally so.
Greenland in demand
The Faroe Islands http://www.visitfaroeislands.com is a self-governing Danish territory and Greenland which is a Danish territory will also qualify.
Mind you Donald Trump has had his eyes on buying the world’s biggest island https://jimmurtytraveltraveltravel.com/2019/08/22/greenland-americas-51st-state/.
In what he would probably tag a beautiful, beautiful deal.
So we’ll just have to watch this space.
