May - the beautiful fresh month is here and Skåne is looking as its very best now with yellow rape fields everywhere. This year we had high summer temperature (+25 degrees) early in April, so the Japanese pink cherry trees and magnolia has had its glory and now instead all lilac bushes are in full bloom, which used to be about ready to blossom when school finishes. At least this was the case when I was a child - times and seasons are indeed changing. Global warming again?
We just have to enjoy the beauty and the flowers while it lasts, whether it is in April, May or June. Only sad thing is for all the young girls who usually pick seven different flowers to put under their sleeping pillows the night of Midsummer Eve - to dream about the boy they will marry. What is left for June 19 this year in terms of wild flowers to pick? - Well, we just have to wait and see.
The strawberries are the most important to get, the Swedish ones (not the imported ones from Spain or Holland) and of course before the berries you need the fresh potatoes, sour cream, cut spring onion, the important herring and last but not the least the little "nubbe" (Skånsk Akvavit) . That makes the long and bright Midsummer Eve and night for a Swede - just about perfect.
Neutron scattering does not only enable important research to be carried out, which helps us to understand materials and life a bit more, but also brings people to nice countries. Being part of the ESS Scandinavia team, I'm based at ILL in Grenoble, the capital of the French Alps. I'm preparing for the future, working with world-class leading scientists from all over Europe in the fields of materials science and neutron instrumentation.
Today was an "Analyzing data day" at ILL. Numbercrunching you might say. Digging too much into data made my senses continue analysing even on my way home to our place in the outskirts of Grenoble. I, as always, had first to face the stochastic motions - the origin of quasielastic scattering for a neutron freak - in French traffic. By this I mean a more or less "amorphous" behaviour in car-driving here, where red lights and parking spots appear to serve only as guides for strangers like me. However, the opposite (the ordered structure) exists as well - here in France you need to fill in loads of papers and they may even ask you about your shoe size if you, for example, are about to buy a radio. These are just some of my observations of everyday life in France - and I like to make the comparison to Sweden, where you probably can buy a castle without signing a single paper and without telling the seller who you are.
Passing by the grocery store on my way home, I purchased the essentials for this weekend's activity, walking. My skis were stolen a few weeks ago, but the scenery is nevertheless magnificent on foot! So what did I buy? - Baguettes, cheese, wine and yoghurt of course!!! I'm still amazed about the thousands of different kinds of yoghurt you find here!. But then again a foreigner in Sweden would marvel at the hundreds of different kinds of milk we seem to need to survive. Does anyone know what "långfil" is for example...
Posted by: Johan Långberg in usa, sweden, oxford, knoxville, icns, garden of eden, exhibition, ess scandinavia, denmark, colin carlile on
May 7, 2009
ESS Scandinavia team have had a successful week at the International Conference on Neutron Scattering, ICNS, in Knoxville. Our exhibition material first got stuck in the US customs but when it finally arrived and was set up, scattered visitors gathered around our booth refrESShing themselves with our Swedish spring water. We've been talking to a lot of visitors, promoting the multilateral European ambition to develop and build the world's next generation neutron source. We've 
handed out all our publications and booklets describing ESS Scandinavia's work to achieve this. People also showed great interest, turning the pages all week, in the new book "Experimental Neutron Scattering" written by Colin Carlile and B.T.M Willis (Oxford University Press).
Numerous apples of ESSS knowledge were eaten and the ISIS director Andrew Taylor seemed amused by the ESSS Garden of Eden atmosphere. Even the conference T-shirts, worn by our Swedish/Danish ESSS staff, have caused people to queue and sign up on a list in order to get one.
Something's coming, something good!
Lund is an ambitious city when it comes to the development, renewal and expansion of its cultural life. The “city of ideas” have produced both a cultural strategy for the city authorities to use as a guide for improving cultural activities in a municipality which has already been voted for being the best place to live in Sweden(!). Lund has also produced a monumental “bid” as the application in the competition for becoming European Capital of Culture 2014. The city has invested a lot in this complex development work, started in 2000.
Out of four Swedish cities - Gävle, Lund, Umeå and Uppsala - the selection panel have now appointed Lund and Umeå to the final round. The jury is composed of six Swedish jurors and seven from the rest of Europe.
The application should function as working material and inspiration for the more in-depth work which will begin in January 2009, if Lund goes on to the next stage in the selection process. That is when the fundamental and strategic guiding principles that have been set out will begin to be turned into concrete projects and programmes.
