A country which likes Wife Carrying competitions tells a lot about itself, when the rest of the world have quite enough on their plates when it involves wives, without the extra burden of carrying them and yomping around an obstacle course.
No that's not really fair. Wife Carrying is reputed top be a Finnish sport. The World Championships are held in Sonkajarvi, Finland. The Swedes are just being neighbourly.
So you would think that an Irishman in Stockholm might be an equally interesting proposition. But not in the world of Swedish public transport, where everything runs like clockwork and is comfortable and efficient. But my Irish friend had problems.
In the -16 o cold, he missed the bus one morning. It was 4 minutes early. He spoke fluent Swedish and said, when he caught up with the driver later that his language was about the same colour as his fingers and toes. This was not the first time it had happened. It had happened to him a few weeks before, though he was within sprinting distance of making the bus stop, though being elderly, he got there and was 'ripe for a heart attack', in his words.
'You're early,' he said to the bus driver as he got on.
'Consider yourself bloody lucky that I stopped to pick you up,' was the driver's measured reply.
He must have been watching Bob Newhart's Bus Driver Training http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5TTA4f7Q3E ......
.... or he had learnt his trade in England.
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