Come Back 2020, All Is Forgiven...
Thanks to all who have signed up so far - I promise, good news is coming...
The Week
I had hoped to start off slowly, easing into the New Year with a post that would be part introduction to what I intend to do here on Substack, part mission statement for 2021.
Then the whole world went fucking mad.
As I planned this debut missive in the dark days between Christmas and New Year, a massive landslide hit a town called Gjerdrum in Norway, some 30km outside Oslo. I had planned to be off over Christmas, but when disaster strikes you buckle down and do your job.
For me, that meant finding video footage to pass on to the world’s biggest news agency, translating what was said and writing scripts to go with the visuals.
Seeing as I was already back in work mode I did some stuff on a secret book project (if you’re signed up, you’ll be the first to know when it happens…). Then on Jan 5 I spoke to Eamon Dunphy for his extremely popular podcast The Stand, about Sweden’s response to the pandemic.
It’s a story I’ve reported on for them for a while, from Sweden’s status as a brave outlier eschewing lockdowns to the current situation where the world has realised that this particular emperor is not actually wearing any clothes. I doubt it will be too long before I’m on there again.
Then the world got got madder.
As the besuited failure of humanity that is Mike Pence prepared to accept the votes of the Electoral College and declare Joe Biden the winner of November’s presidential election on Jan 6, objections were raised. Shortly afterwards, the Capitol was invaded by a combination of militiamen, neo-Nazis and day-tripping goobers in an attempted coup.
Under the cover of MAGA, the most dangerous of the invaders searched for Pence, Speaker Nanci Pelosi and others who they intended to “arrest”. It is to the credit of the Capitol security staff that they managed to whisk away their targets, and that the bloodshed was limited.
As you may know, I tried to fund a trip to the U.S. last autumn with the goal of doing 50 podcasts from the 50 states in 50 days, because I’ve felt for a long time that something like this was coming. I wanted to go through America’s heartland and to talk to the people there to better understand why things would ultimately come to this - unfortunately it didn’t work out, and it’s all the more annoying in the aftermath of Wednesday’s attempt at sedition.
America is a fascinating place, and its slide into a disparate collection of disunited states is a cautionary tale for fragile democracies around the world.
At least what happened this week gave me a chance to talk to Sulome Anderson, more of whom later.
The Pitch
So, about this Substack thing.
First of all, thanks again for subscribing. Essentially, I’ve been looking for a way to stay in touch with people who are interested in what I do for a while now, as well as have a mailing list/newsletter.
Patreon seems to be a bit inflexible, and the moment people see a link they think you’re asking for money.
What you’ll get if you sign up here is a weekly update, some breaking news about what stories and projects I’m working on, and some thoughts about whatever is going on in the world at the time of writing.
I’m open to all of your suggestions too - journalism to me is a conversation, not a broadcast. Tell me what you want, and I’ll see if I can do it for you.
The Podcast
Every week I do a podcast called “Our Man In Stockholm”. In the beginning it was focused a lot on media and journalism, but in recent times it has broadened to cover the kind of interesting people I meet as I go along. Most of them are in Scandinavia or Ireland, but not all.
Every week I’ll include a link to the episode and maybe give a bit more background about it.
For instance, as mentioned above, this week’s episode is me talking to Sulome Anderson for half an hour about what just happened in America. Sulome is a highly-experienced combat journalist who has spent years working in the Middle East.
As you listen to it you’ll hear her use a couple of Arabic expressions, which is not really surprising - her mother Madeleine Bassil is from Lebanon, and she spent a good portion of her childhood there.
Madeleine was six months pregnant with Sulome when her father, journalist Terry Anderson, was taken hostage by Hezbollah. Her book about that incident and its effect on her family is staggering, and you really should read it.
Sulome is one of the smartest and bravest journalists I know, and she has an extremely sharp ear for how a story is being covered. She knows the risks involved in reporting from conflict zones, like the one the Capitol became this week. She’s seen how violent political movements and cult-like leaders rise and fall, and I could think of no-one better-placed to talk to in this momentous week.
If you like what you hear, please subscribe to the podcast on whatever platform you use, and maybe leave a good written review. I’ve heard these things help with the algorithms and I’m told I should pay more attention to that kind of thing.
The Crossroads
The shooting to death of a Black man by Irish police in Dublin has caused an immense amount of trauma in recent days, and all of a sudden the global discourse becomes very local. Black Lives Matter becomes an instant talking point, and for some the idea of race should be central to the investigation - to others, it’s an irrelevance because they have never been, and could never be, subjected to racism themselves.
What is most interesting is how predictable it is to see where the lines in this latest battle of the culture war are drawn. Ireland’s far right is not very powerful, but it is very vocal, and it dedicates most of its energy to heeding Steve Bannon’s advice about “flooding the zone with shit”.
Where America is now is where Ireland could be soon, unless people wake up to the fact that they too can be manipulated. There are Irish people and Swedes and Germans who have been sucked in by QAnon and the like. They may have local differences, but no matter where they are in the world, they all meet at the crossroads of ignorance and misinformation.
The Future
Your first bit of breaking news - just last night I got it confirmed that I’ll be travelling to Abu Dhabi for Conor McGregor’s fight against Dustin Poirier, which will be one of the first big UFC cards with fans in attendance for almost a year. There now awaits a stringent program of Covid tests and quarantine, controlled environments and isolation which will run until Conor gets in the cage. I’ve already had swabs poked into various orifices, but it didn’t make my eyes water half as much as the cost of a flight to Abu Dhabi did.
The six AM flight to Paris and then on to Abu Dhabi on Jan 16 will mark the first time I’ve left Sweden since I returned from Portugal in March at the very beginning of the pandemic.
I’m not worried or nervous. The UFC is being very thorough in terms of how they are handling the whole process, and to be honest I’m looking forward to being able to go to a sporting event again and cover it they way I would have back when none of us had ever heard of Covid-19.
Blowing the dust off my suitcase will be a sign that things are slowly getting back to normal, whatever that is.
The Signoff
So that’s it for the first outing - get in touch with tips, advice, questions, scorn, memes, recipes, whatever you want.
Let me know when you’d like to receive this email - Sunday morning? Wednesday night? When are you most likely to read it? What do you want to read about?
Ask questions, or send me questions to ask others. Be part of the dialogue. Tell your friends. Ask them to subscribe too, and then, when the world’s pubs and bars open up again, I’ll try to give you all something to argue about over a beer.
Most of all, be good to each other.
See you next week, if not before.