More toil

Now, don't get me wrong: I don't hate my job. It is as good a way to earn a living as anything else. But this is what it is - a way to earn a living. It does not fill my life with meaning, or make me jump out of bed with a song on my lips wondering what lovely things will happen to me today. The answer to the question "Would you quit your job if you won 20 million?" (not likely to happen in my case as I don't play the Lottery) is, for my part, "YES OF COURSE. Are you crazy?"

Surely I'm not the only one to feel this way? So how can one explain the current annoying fashion of glorifying work? As week follows dreary working week, I feel insult is added to injury when opinion makers buy into the "work ennobles" fad. Measures that may make perfect pragmatic sense but are bound to raise a few grumbles are pitched with a mixture of enthusiastic "work for work's sake" rhetoric and lofty incomprehension of the fact that anyone could actually mind working more, sometimes for less. A more modest "I know this sounds crazy, but this is why it's a good idea" approach would have more chance of persuading me. I have a pet theory that a lot of conflict is caused by the gulf between those who love their job and those who don't and their mutual failure to see each other's point of view. There may be something in it - or I may just be tired and wishing all-too-chirpy-seeming PMs/mayors/newspaper columnists would shut their face. To quote Ariel: "Is there more toil?" (and I certainly don't blame him for his low level of job satisfaction).

Sorry for straying from the vaguely-cultural blog theme a bit. I'm not going to have another Slackbridgeian attack - I just need a holiday.

Not much is happening book- and TV-wise. I promised myself to read more books in the Swedish language this year, as my daily speech has become ever more crowded with anglicized words. The project started well, with a vivacious novel about an old Swedish scandal and the dire consequences of a king taking a lover so unsuitable he makes Piers Gaveston look like Jackie Kennedy. The book even starred an enjoyable villain in the shape of a ruthless (and of course vice-free) court official. Heartened, I over-ambitiously decided to follow up with a novel by Strindberg: his autobiographical tale The Son of a Servant. Let's just say I haven't progressed very far. It is a very good depiction of a troubled childhood, but I'm just not that fond of childhood depictions. Please give me the adult world of gossip and love affairs instead - and of course brainy villains.