Lena Johanson

Was it Kim who broke up?

2004-10-23T17:05:00.000+02:00

See article, just out!

If we may believe our Asian friends, it was Kim who broke up, she dumped him over the phone. And Kim apparently had already cancelled her wedding dress weeks ago.
Bye bye big media event.

Ramadan privileges for all of us!!!!

2004-10-18T20:41:00.000+02:00

I got this mail from a friend of a friend of a friend. It's about a person in a company who - as I have been told - has the reputation of doing his very best to find excuses for not to work, with success. He permits himself 20 minutes smoke breaks every hour. He smokes like a chimney, drinks coffee like a giant percolator, and eats the biggest rubbish. Apparently he is also super arrogant, has a big mouth, but accomplishes nothing. And fortunately for him his manager, afraid to be accused for racism, admits with everything he asks. This is a striking example... see what his manager sent out to the department:

Hi,

Just to inform everybody that Ramadan is approaching. During this period I have agreed special working hours with Mehdi so he can work under optimal conditions (considering he cannot eat nor drink during daytime).

As of this Thursday/Friday till October 30th Mehdi will start his working day around 7am (therefore ending around 15h) Form October 31st till mid November Mehdi will start his work around 6.00 am and his day will end around 14h.

Please, whenever possible, keep this in mind when contacting Mehdi, and especially when planning meetings that require his attendance.

Glenn

ps. considering his cafeine and nicotine habits .... be careful till the first withdrawal symptoms have eased ... keep stress balls available :-)

This is a company where people get in between 9 and 10 am, and leave between 5 and 6. So nobody will be there to check if he's there at 6 am. I think I will also apply for a job at this company, I will say I belong to the Swedish "party-party" religion, and I have to sleep in till very late in the morning, so I can only arrive in the office around 2 pm. Of course I will stay till 10 pm!!!

Starbucks coming to Brussels? Please!

2004-10-15T22:20:00.000+02:00

Some years ago in San Francisco I discovered that coffee in America is not that bad as some Europeans might say. On almost every street corner there was a good coffee shop. Some are independent, others are franchises of "Coffee Bean & Tea leaf" or Starbucks. Starbucks is the market leader, they have their HQ in Seattle, not very far from Microsoft. How much I liked to just sit there, reading a magazine while sipping a Latte, a Mocha, or a Macchiato. I read that Starbucks plans to open more than 1500 new coffeeshops next year, many of them in Europe. I hope they also come to Brussels. Not because I cannot find decent coffee in Brussels, but because I like the Starbucks atmosphere and I hope it will be smoke-free, as in the US.

Belgium better country for sex?

2004-10-12T18:56:00.000+02:00

The results yearly Global Sex Survey, organised by Durex, are known.

Here some highlights:
Age of first sex:
Sweden is nr 3 together with Brazil and Holland with 16,4 years old. Belgium is in the middle with 17,2 years.

Number of sexual partners:
People around the world have had an average number of 10.5 sexual partners.
More than a quarter (27%) have had only one partner while 21% have had sex with more than 10 people.
The Chinese have had more sexual partners than anyone else - 19.3 compared with the Brazilians (15.2), the Japanese (12.7) and the Danes (12.5).
Those in Vietnam have had the fewest sexual partners - 2.5 compared with Hong Kong (3.5), India (3.7) and Malaysia (4.2)
Men have had more sexual partners than women - 12.4 compared to 7.2.
Belgium has a low score of 6.1. Sweden is nr. 7 with 12.3. Hurray!!!

Frequency:
Globally, people are having sex an average of 103 times a year with women (106) having sex more frequently than men (101).
35-44 year olds are having the most sex (116) compared to just 91 times for the 16-20 age group.
The French (137), Greeks (133) Hungarians and Serbian and Montenegrins (both 131) are having the most sex, while those in Japan (46), Hong Kong and Singapore (both 79) are the least sexually active. Belgium is above average with 105, while Sweden has a disappointing score of 94.

So living in Belgium will be beneficial for me!!! Although I will have less sex partners, I will do it more often. And, last but not least, 30% more chance of having an orgasm during sex.
I think I'll stay here for a while.

Jacques Derrida is dead

2004-10-10T17:14:00.000+02:00

I was just listening to "Asylums in Jerusalem", first song on the album "Songs to Remember" from Scritti Politti, and suddenly I hear on the radio: "French philosopher Jacques Derrida is dead". And guess what's the 3rd song on this album? Exactly!!!
Am I telepathic???

Quote of the day

2004-10-10T16:50:00.000+02:00

Quote of the day comes from Dutch cyclist Erik Dekker. When a French TV interviewer asks him in French about his victory he responds: "I don't know any French, but in English I don't have any words for it."

Bush was wired?

2004-10-09T11:25:00.000+02:00

Rumour goes that Bush was wearing an earphone during the first debate in Miami, so Rove or another adviser could tell him what to say to Kerry.
Here and here some articles.
It could explain his long pauses and some of his repetitions. When his whisperers realised they couldn't keep up over the earphone, and that Bush was getting confused, they may have reduced it to just telling him stuff like "say how hard the work is".
There have also been many previous reports of Bush using a wireless earphone for speeches. In one amusing incident, they actually somehow picked up the wrong feed, and there were several seconds of two-voice broadcast, with someone else saying the speech a few seconds before Bush.
I propose that next time the two candidates go through a metal detector.

Report: Video shows Bigley killing

2004-10-08T19:17:00.000+02:00

A video viewed by Reuters news agency shows the beheading of a man in Iraq, identified as British hostage Kenneth Bigley. (see CNN)

Blair, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, how do you think it feels to wait while hoping your government will save you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, how do you think it feels to be beheaded? I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you. your head should be chopped, not his.

Museeuw sanctioned

2004-10-08T19:05:00.000+02:00

On some sports events on Flemish TV I often saw the same guy who was invited in the studio. He has the most ridiculous hairdo and the most stupid and fake grin on his face. My Belgian friends told me his name is Johan Museeuw and has been "a great champion". I also heard that he's being involved in a doping affair, but that the verdict from the cycling federation was still waiting. In the meantime he gave a press conference saying that he had no blame at all, like it was official. Now today in the news I heard that he has been sanctioned, together with 3 other cyclists. (see CNN)

It's so scandalous that these cyclists asked that the court session would be behind close doors. When the truth is said, nobody may hear. And when they're on TV, they lie. Shame.

Nobel Prize season!

2004-10-07T08:16:00.000+02:00

Summer has gone, cold chill is coming in the air, leaves are turning brown... that means: Nobel prize season has come!
Today at noon we'll know the winner for literature. As usual it's impossible to predict who will win. Ben Okri? Assia Djebar? Milan Kundera (his "Unbearable lightness" was yesterday shown on TV)? Mario Vargas Llosa? Philip Roth? We don't even know who's on the shortlist. And nobody know's who are these people in the Swedish Academy who choses the winner. We only know that they are very old.

Blair and Bono, so cool.... NOT!

2004-09-30T21:16:00.000+02:00

Blair needs to boost his popularity, and for this he needs "cool celebs". Yesterday he invited Bono at the Labour Conference in Brighton. (see NME article) Where Bono declared the historical words: "I'm fond of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, They are kind of the John and Paul of the global development stage, in my opinion. But the point is, Lennon and McCartney changed my interior world - Blair and Brown can change the real world."
Isn't that pathetic? How low can you go...

I will never forget the day when I discovered my dad's vinyl album "Boy" by U2. It was their debut album, and it sounded so fresh and energetic. Not outdated at all. Big difference with their later work where they sound more artificial, bombastic, crowd-pleasing, even cheesy.
I recently heard their new single, called Vertigo. I think it will be released somewhere in November. It sounds very much like a copy of "I will follow", from this first Boy-album... but lacking the freshness. Anyway, Bono is just not cool. Just like Tony, who is also a cheapo. Last year Bono attempted to give him a guitar, but Blair - who used to be in a band called Ugly Rumours - refused, because gifts above 250 £ he had to pay from his own pocket!!! Yuck.

Go FedEx!!! Go UPS!!!

2004-09-30T07:56:00.000+02:00

I wonder if DHL will commit on paper that they will use less noisier planes. I don't think so. I think DHL has just been playing a game with the Belgian governments. Most probably DHL had already decided to move out of Brussels, but they wanted to play it that way that it was a decision of the Belgian authorities, so DHL itself is not to blame.

I would say: f*ck you, DHL, go to Leipzig, Frankfurt, or even Windhoek. Me and secretaries in my company use FedEx, where the service is fantastic.
FedEx has their European coordination center here in Brussels, plus a huge station near the airport. They don't have flights here in Brussels, but a truck is coming/going everyday from/to Paris, where FedEx invested in a huge hub near Charles De Gaulle airport, an area with very low population density.

So better let DHL (or better "Deutsche Post") move together with their noise, invest more in UPS and FedEx (both located in Brussels but without flights) so most DHL workers can be employed there.
Go FedEx!!! Go UPS!!! F*ck DHL!!!

DHL: infamous founder!

2004-09-16T20:56:00.000+02:00

DHL is in the news, maybe they will move to Leipzig because a possible ban to come on nightflights. DHL was founded in 1969 by 3 Californians: Adrian Dalsey, Larry Hillblom and Robert Lynn (the D, H, and L).
Hillblom, with Scandinavian roots (maybe we are far related!!!), had a funny reputation that I didn't see in any newspaper. He was also known as Larry "Hustler" Hillblom, and was known to have an Asian fetish and a specific taste for teenage girls. He lived on an island in the South Pacific where he imported Asian virgins for his pleasure. He had women on his payroll who were in charge of securing these virgins for him in Philippine go-go clubs and bars. In 1995, Hillblom's seaplane crashed near his home in Saipan and his body was never recovered, but he was legally declared dead.
Several women from the Far East who say they bore his children have come forward to demand a share of his millions. Now the obvious answer to paternity claims is DNA testing. But there was no body to obtain samples from and Hillblom's relatives were reluctant to provide blood samples. At one point, his mother turned down an offer of more than $1 million.
Doctors at UC-San Francisco said they had taken a mole from Hillblom, and the lawyers thought that would solve the dispute. But then it was announced there had been a mix-up; the mole belonged to someone else. Doctors said they did have scar tissue left over from Hillblom's 1993 surgery. But they refused to relinquish the tissue, prompting a legal battle that went to the court.
In the meantime, lawyers for the children commissioned DNA sibling tests to see whether Hillblom's alleged offspring had a common parent. The answer was yes for four children: two Filipino girls, a Vietnamese boy and a Palauan boy. Each received an inheritance of about $ 50 million.

UPDATE: the photo might probably not be Hillblom's, although it looked like on a Vietnamese newsite. Hillblom's photos are apparently hard to find, but there are a few on LVBlog!

Old schooltrip photo

2004-09-03T08:33:00.000+02:00

An old schoolfriend Annika sent me a photo of a schooltrip we made to Gotland when we were in high school. I think we must have been 15 or 16 years old. Do you recognize me on the photo?

My Tajik cleaning lady

2004-08-29T21:02:00.000+02:00

My cleaning lady Tatjana comes from Tajikistan. (see map) I got to know her via a colleague where she also works. In fact she's a doctor but she decided to leave her country. Via Germany she ended up in Belgium. I'm happy with the work she does for me: cleaning, ironing, sometimes cooking, and now and then she massages my back and muscles. She has been living here for 4 years as an illegal, but last month she decided to make herself legal and start the procedure for asylum as political refugee. That's why she now lives in an old casern (Klein Kasteltje - Petit Chateau) near the canal, where she sleeps in a room together with other candidate-refugees. She says that she has been stolen there many times: gsm, wallet, coat. Poor woman. She looks very warm and sweet, but still a bit mysterious to me. She speaks a little French, and so do I, so we can conversate a bit.

Belgium's workers are top performers

2004-08-27T08:38:00.000+02:00

(Expatica)
What I already felt since I work here is now also stated in the 'Global Labor Force Evaluation Report' if the American research institute BERI: Belgium workers are top!
Yes, I also see it around me on my workfloor. Belgians are hard workers, but most of all they are critical in their work and not superficial at all. On top of it, they have this no-nonsense attitude, they don't nag with useless words and get to the point. They're also very good team players. That's how I like it, and that's why it's great to work here!

I'm in the Belgian "press" !!!!

2004-08-26T20:01:00.000+02:00

Via a good wind (thanks so much to the sender) this article from "Pallieterke" came to me, and, believe it or not, it's about me!!!
Can you imagine, just weeks after my arrival in Belgium I'm already in the local press for my weblog! I guess my family would be very excited to hear this, if Pallieterke would not be an extreme right newspaper. This paper finds me a brave girl because of what I wrote (see post) about the Arab gangster and my scare when walking in Brussels.

Dear Pallieterke, please don't use me to justify your racist opinions!
And dear progressive Belgians who find it absolutely politically incorrect to mention complete facts in a story when certain ethnic groups are involved and who immediately think of racism, I just call a cat a cat. If I would tell a story about parrots on the street who constantly call me "pute" (french for "whore"), I will also use the word "parrot".

Gymnastics judging goes broke

2004-08-24T21:13:00.000+02:00

(See Reuters)

The judging of important gymnastics tournaments has lost for me the last crumb of credibility. Yesterday at the Olympics when the jury gave the Russian gymnast Alexi Nemov a low score, the public startet to jeer and chant (some Russians were also jabbing fingers and making the cut-the-throat sign at the judges), whereupon the obliging judges corrected the marks with scores a tad higher. Can you believe this?? What made the jury do this? Realisation of a mistake, scared of the public, or shame?
I also had some doubts before when the Russian Svetlana Khorkina had such an unrealistically low score, which costed her the gold medal. The American Carly Patterson won instead.
Here's an idea for Dr. Jacques Rogge, who says he is committed to reducing the size and scale of the Olympic Games: get rid of these judged sports. All of them. Toss them.

Back from Spa-Francorchamps

2004-08-21T08:40:00.000+02:00

My employer is involved in the Formula 1 racing, and I went to Francorchamps to prepare stuff for the upcoming race. It was a fun trip, but we stayed in a horrible hotel. It's called Pip-Margraf and it's located in St. Vith. Our secretary found it on the Internet (http://www.pip.be), and there it looked okay. When she called for reservations she asked if we could have quiet non-smoking rooms. The owner said that all rooms were non-smoking and the location of the hotel is super quiet, near the forest. Sounded great!!!! On arrival it stroke us that the hotel in reality did not correspond to the picture on the website. It's located near a busy roundabout, and no forest in sight.

Inside the hotel it was the same disappointment. Very shabby, not as the photos on the website. Our rooms were smelly and smoky. I barely didn't sleep at night. The cigarette smoke made me sick. And the street was too noisy to open the window. Even late at night there was constantly traffic, and next to the hotel there is a "friterie" which is frequented by many "Johnnies" with boom-boom- cars who eat their greasy frites in their car on the parking lot near my room with their stereo on full volume. Nightmare!!! And the food in the hotel itself was disgusting. All ingredients were soaked in butter, cream and other unidentified grease. If this is what they call (I quote the website) "high gastronomy and culinary art", well, it made me puke. Dear readers, avoid this hotel.

Myskina nude on a horse

2004-08-21T08:24:00.000+02:00

I was back from a business trip just on time to see the two last sets of Henin vs. Myskina, for the semi-finals tennis of the Olympics. It was breathtaking, though I'm neither belgian neither Russian. Henin did a spectacular comeback in the last set, from an almost fatal 1-5 score.
Myskina was recently in the news. She filed an $8 million federal lawsuit against GQ magazine, claiming it allowed topless photographs of her to appear in a Russian magazine without her permission. The Russian tennis star said she never intended for two shots of her appearing shirtless to be published anywhere.
Two of the pictures in question:

Click on the thumbnail to see the full sized pictures.

New colleague at work: a jerk

2004-08-17T20:36:00.000+02:00

We have a new colleague at work. He's an external contractor, that means he's not on the payroll but has a temporary contract. Most of the contractors we have are great. They don't care about company politics, promotions and career, etc. So they don't lick asses of their superiors, and are just focussed on doing their work well. Most of them have a great sense of humour and they're really cool. They know they're in constant risk of having no income, but they have confidence in themselves that they will have sufficiently work. Me I'm an internal employee... but NOT an asslicker ;-). One day I will make the step to doing contracting work myself, but now I'm too young and I have to gain experience first.
Anyhow, this new contractor does NOT have a sense of humour, and if he has one, it's certainly wrong. On his first day he already tried to impress me by boasting about his big Mercedes with which he does 180 km/hour, about all the business schools he visited, and the prestigious companies he worked for. Poor guy. I bet that 90% of what he says is just lied. I will test him! And he doesn't only act like a dork, he also looks like a dork! Yuk!

Another evening out

2004-08-17T07:45:00.000+02:00

You can say I had a pretty lame evening out last night. After work I went with 2 girls from work, Tessa and Maud, to The Wild Geese. This is a popular after-work drinking spot for Eurocrats, and also a meat market/pick-up place, mostly for ugly English and German women. We only had a few drinks there because we were bothered by a couple of alcohol saturated Brits, who said that they were top executives of Computer Futures (a headhunting company) and they would make us a fabulous working contract at a fabulous company. We said no thanks we already have a fabulous job, but they kept on sticking to us and staring at our tits.
So we left.

Then Tessa wanted to go to a private party of a Dutch friend of hers, so we went there. Again it was full of Euro-employees, but the dullest ones you can imagine. And they danced on stupid music. Now Tessa had her camera with her and started shooting a few, and the people got a bit more excited and went posing for the camera. Here's a photo you may like.

Bonjour Paresse - Hello Laziness

2004-08-16T14:15:00.000+02:00

Corinne Maier wrote a very remarkable book about management and career that is now a bestseller in France. (article FT) (article New York Times)
It's called 'Bonjour Paresse' or 'Hello Laziness', and it's about people who make career by doing anything at all, but just pretending to be important and avoiding any risk. Ms Maier describes how middle managers who have no strings to pull fail to win promotion because all the senior positions in big French companies are monopolised by well-connected alumni of the elite grandes écoles, notably the énarques from the Ecole Nationale d'Administration.

Here are her 10 commandments of how to act in a company and make career:

No.1: You are a modern day slave. There is no scope for personal fulfilment. You work for your pay-check at the end of the month, full stop.

No. 2. It's pointless to try to change the system. Opposing it simply makes it stronger.

No. 3: What you do is pointless. You can be replaced from one day to the next by any cretin sitting next to you. So work as little as possible and spend time (not too much, if you can help it) cultivating your personal network so that you're untouchable when the next restructuring comes around.

No. 4: You're not judged on merit, but on whether you look and sound the part. Speak lots of leaden jargon: people will suspect you have an inside track

No. 5: Never accept a position of responsibility for any reason. You'll only have to work harder for what amounts to peanuts.

No. 6: Make a beeline for the most useless positions, (research, strategy and business development), where it is impossible to assess your 'contribution to the wealth of the firm'. Avoid 'on the ground' operational roles like the plague.

No. 7: Once you've found one of these plum jobs, never move. It is only the most exposed who get fired.

No. 8: Learn to identify kindred spirits who, like you, believe the system is absurd through discreet signs (quirks in clothing, peculiar jokes, warm smiles).

No. 9: Be nice to people on short-term contracts. They are the only people who do any real work.

No. 10: Tell yourself that the absurd ideology underpinning this corporate bullshit cannot last for ever. It will go the same way as the dialectical materialism of the communist system. The problem is knowing when...

Bush: always a fake

2004-08-16T13:17:00.000+02:00

My God, this Bush is such a creep. Look how he's pretending to help the victims from hurricane Charley, and how he feels with them. It's all fake... he just cares about the headlines and his photo in the newspapers. Remember that his dad made himself very unpopular in Florida when hurricane Andrew struck Homestead in August 1992, in the middle of his presidential campaign against Clinton. Bush pumped most of the aid funds in the re-building of the Airforce Base, even though some military officials had been questioning its usefulness before Andrew hit. In the meantime, thousands of people whose houses were devastated, mostly poor minorities, stayed homeless for years.
Later on in that year, Bush lost in Florida, and also lost the presidency. Son George W. does not want to make the same mistake!

Damn, I missed Lou Reed......

2004-08-16T13:14:00.000+02:00

Shit, I just learned that Lou Reed played in Leuven at Marktrock last night. How much would I have liked to see him. How come I didn't meet anybody who could inform me of this??? I think I spend my time at the wrong parties where I only meet assholes who rave about their Porsches and Ferraris, and their musical knowledge is limited to stupid dance music and Mariah Carey.
Pleazzze contact me if you know some cool places in and around Brussels!