In the name of Sport

Had a very nice weekend down in Stockholm the other weekend. Even if it was snowing and someone has forgotten to tell the local kommun that it is actually possible to scrape the snow off the footpaths and roads. Apparently it's much more preferable to leave it there so that it resembles the colour and texture of wet sand. Much nicer. But anyway, we had a nice time doing a bit of window shopping, a bit of proper shopping, and a bit of eating out. The main purpose, however, was to attend the Stockholm International Horse Show in the Globe Arena, neither of which I had seen before. The show was over 3 days, and we watched probably around 12 hours of various horsey type events and competitions. All very interesting and rather exciting at times. There was also a trade fair at the same venue. We were looking forward to doing some browsing there, but it became rather difficult when we realised that all 15,000 spectators would be hitting the stalls during the interval breaks just as we were doing. Difficult really means impossible. After the first day of trying to swim upstream constantly, we decided to wait until we got home and buy on-line again as usual. As most people have figured out by now, I'm a bit of a people watcher. The justice system has another name for such people, but I rather think of of the more tame variety. I do get intrigued watching how people behave in certain situations. Especially when in a new country where behaviour patterns are completely turned upside down from everything I've known in 40+ years. We've all seen those programmes on telly of the beauty pagent mums shoving their kids out on stages week after week in the hope of, well, I'm not really sure what the point is. Damned funny, and a little scarey. In NZ, it was ballet and dance competitions where the parents fought each other like cats to ensure that their child rose above all others. Sweden has decided that beauty pagents, beautiful baby competitions, and so forth, are rather demeaning towards the participants, and are generally actively discouraged. However, parents still need an outlet through which to live the lives that they wish they had. Enter horseback riding to save the day. Horseback riding is the number two most popular organised leisure activity in Sweden, second only to football. So these events are pretty well patronised. Most notably by mums and their 8 year old daughters. I don't know if you've ever tried to get between a sparkly kids jacket on sale, and a mum with daughters in tow. But it should be registered as an official health hazard. Now try to picture 5,000 ambition driven mothers with daughters in each hand, occupying a space about the same size as two normal sized houses. It brought a new meaning to the word Terror. Fortunately for me, and the half dozen other poor males caught up in this insanity, there were a couple of places of refuge. The "horse insurance" stall, who weren't giving anything away for free. We could seek shelter in there. And the toilets. Otherwise I fear that we would have been swept along in the tide, never to be heard from again. Swedes have this rather nice opinion of themselves that they don't encourage competition amongst the youth, that everyone is equal in the eyes of society, and we all love each other. Bollocks. Go anywhere in Sweden where parents have the chance to live their unfulfilled lives vicariously through their kids, and it's just the same as every other country in the world.