Barbie Soccer Coach

I have been looking forward to reading this. I had hoped that mum would have gone in by now, though. She is sitting opposite me under a framed print of hollyhocks, reading a magazine.

Barbie Soccer Coach is a Little Golden Book, published in 1995. On page one, Barbie is finishing a photo shoot. She looks gorgeous in a big white wedding dress. Off-puttingly, the photographer is named Skovoola. He may be meant to be Swedish. He is blond, blue-eyed and looks quite hot.

Barbie goes off to coach her little sister Skipper's soccer team. She wears cute little red shorts and long white socks. She tells her team, the Tigers, if they win tomorrow she will take them to the beach.

To cut a short story even shorter, they do not win. This is because the other team cheats. One of Barbie's team cheats back and is sent off. Because of this, the Tigers lose. She learns a lesson, and says sorry. Barbie is pleased that everyone has learned the lesson. Now we are all winners, says Barbie, and tomorrow I'll take you all to the beach.

Unexpectedly, Skovoola turns up at the beach as well, wearing a strangely patterned shirt.

I enjoyed that. Largely because of the art. Golden Book Barbie is much more in proportion than the Barbie doll. She looks exactly like quintessential beautiful young woman I spent many hours trying unsuccessfully to capture with my coloured pencils when I was ten.

What time is it now? Five past three. And mum is still here, sitting under the hollyhocks. Time to open up the second National Geographic. Ah! It's all about extinction.

15% Hetero

Well, I think I have sufficiently dug myself out of that hole. Or further into it. Time to change the subject.

Today I'm going to tell you how I learned to say "Oh! That's good!" in Swedish.

Many people turn up their noses at Twitter, but I like it. It encapsulates the comedie humaine, and sometimes gives you a surprise. One of the people I follow is Stephen Fry, who has over half a million followers, and does not follow me.

Yesterday he posted a link to stockholmpride, who will analyse your Twitterfeed and tell you how hetero you are, by looking at the words you use. I clicked on it, entered my Twitter name and was astonished to see the percentage counter fall rapidly to 15 %, and to read, "You're barely hetero at all. Don't you whish you've just got a few more points? To spice things up a bit? No? Alright."

I was very taken with this. The words I'd used that helped me gain that score were supa, Beulah, cabaret, broad and biscuit. These must not be words that hetero people use very much.

I received a black badge with my name, a rainbow, and "15 % hetero" on it, and the option to post it on my Facebook, which I did. It looked good amongst my relatives' Scrabble and Farkle scores, and their family snaps.

So pleased with it was I that I decided to draw further attention to it by posting a comment underneath. But what to say? Obviously something in Swedish. I don't know any Swedish, but you can google "Swedish for that's good", and get an answer. And that is how I learned to say "Oj! Det var bra!"