Fika – what does it mean and why is it so important in Swedish culture?

May 30th, 2025 by Roger Darlington

Fika is often translated as “a coffee and cake break”, which is kind of correct, but really it is much more than that.

Fika is a concept, a state of mind, an attitude and an important part of Swedish culture. Many Swedes consider that it is almost essential to make time for fika every day.

It means making time for friends and colleagues to share a cup of coffee (or tea) and a little something to eat. Fika cannot be experienced at your desk by yourself. That would just be taking coffee and cake.

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A review of the book “Four Thousand Weeks” by Oliver Burkeman (2021)

May 29th, 2025 by Roger Darlington

For many years, Burkeman wrote a column on psychology for the “Guardian” newspaper entitled ‘This Column Will Change Your Life’ which I read often. This work could be subtitled ‘This Book Will Change Your Life’ and it was recommended to me by a friend who works for Facebook. The title rests on the calculation that, assuming you live to be 80, then you will have about 4,000 weeks. For me personally, the sobering implication is that I would have already lived 96.25% of my life or, put another way, I might only have left less than 4% or about 150 weeks.

Burkeman quotes many philosophers but not the one (Marcus Aurelius) whose stoicism is perhaps most descriptive of his approach: “You have to accept that there will always be too much to do, that you can’t avoid tough choices or make the world run at your preferred speed; that no experience, least of all close relationships with other human beings, can ever be guaranteed in advance to turn out painlessly and well – and that, from a cosmic viewpoint, when’s it’s over, it won’t have counted for very much anyway.”

The fundamental message of Burkeman’s book will seem obvious and yet, if truly accepted and embraced, can bring about a transformational view of one’s life: “The core challenge of managing our limited time isn’t about how to get everything done – that’s never going to happen – but how to decide wisely what not to do, and how to feel at peace about not doing it.”

The book is well-written and very readable with lots of insights, aphorisms and tips, but nothing mind-blowingly original. If I had to highlight and summarise three particularly important points, they would be: 1) Decide what you want to do with your limited time and leave the rest alone; 2) Really focus on what you have prioritised and don’t allow yourself to be distracted or diverted; 3) Plan each day and enjoy ticking off what you’ve completed that day. Not rocket science – but, done well, life changing.

Links:
author’s website click here
my advice of “How To Use Time Well” click here

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Would you want to know if you are at risk of developing Alzheimer’s Disease?

May 19th, 2025 by Roger Darlington

In the UK, there are currently around one million cases of people with dementia. Some 60-70% of all cases of dementia are a form of Alzheimer’s disease.

In Alzheimer’s disease, certain proteins build up in the brain. One protein called amyloid forms sticky clumps called ‘plaques’ outside the brain cells. Another protein known as ‘Tau’ collects inside the brain cells forming structures called ‘tangles’. Together, these deposits lead to inflammation of the brain, ultimately resulting in damage to the brain. This process can begin up to 20 years before any signs of Alzheimer’s disease appear (e.g., memory issues, difficulty in decision-making, etc).

There are several tests to help diagnose Alzheimer’s disease. These include checking a person’s memory, ability to make decisions and coping with day-to-day activities. They also look for the presence of amyloid and Tau proteins in the brain or the fluid around the brain and the spine, called cerebrospinal fluid.

One way to see the proteins in the brain is with a special type of scan called a PET scan (positron emission tomography). Before the scan, a small amount of a safe radioactive material (called a ‘Tracer’) is injected into a vein. This helps the scan show where the proteins are in the brain.

Another way is by collecting a small sample of the fluid around the brain and spine. This is done with a needle in the lower back and is called a lumbar puncture or ‘spinal tap’. Only specially trained doctors do this, and it happens during a hospital visit.

These tests (PET scan and lumbar puncture) along with other checks, help doctors confirm if someone has Alzheimer’s disease.

New technology is now emerging which can help to detect Alzheimer’s disease earlier by using a simple blood test. This test looks for special substances in the blood, called ‘biomarkers’. Biomarkers can show if someone might have a disease, how it is changing, or how well treatment is working. In Alzheimer’s disease, the important biomarkers are small pieces of the amyloid and Tau proteins. These can be found in the blood and indicate changes in the brain before any symptoms appear.

If the test is positive, it may mean there is a higher likelihood that the person has Alzheimer’s disease. Finding the disease earlier can help people start treatment sooner, which may slow it down and lead to better outcomes for patients. These biomarkers are now being tested in research studies to see how useful they are in spotting Alzheimer’s disease in people who might be at risk. They are usually used alongside memory tests. In the future, blood-based biomarker tests might be used instead of PET scans and lumbar punctures to help diagnose Alzheimer’s disease.

Research has improved our understanding of Alzheimer’s disease. This has led to the development of newer treatments that can slow down the disease process in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease. These are known as disease-modifying drugs. Two examples are lecanemab and donanemab. These treatments work by helping to remove amyloid from the brain.

Disease modifying drugs are for patients who have early stages of Alzheimer’s disease or have mild cognitive impairment. To receive these anti-amyloid treatments, a person must first have a positive blood biomarker test to show signs of Alzheimer’s . At present these drugs are not approved for use in the NHS.

For seven years, I have been a participant in a programme with the acronym CHARIOT: PRO * which is a series of studies looking at risk factors associated with dementia. Recently I became a member of an Advisory Panel which inputs a lay element into discussions around blood-based biomarker tests. Would you want such a test and would you want to know the result?

* CHARIOT: PRO = Cognitive Health in Ageing Register: Investigational, Observational and Trial Studies in Dementia Research: Prospective Readiness Cohort Study

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A reminder on VE Day:

May 8th, 2025 by Roger Darlington

About 2.5 million personnel from the Indian subcontinent, more than 1 million African-Americans, 1 million people from Africa and tens of thousands of people from the Caribbean fought for the allies during World War Two.

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A review of the new superhero movie “Thunderbolts*”

May 4th, 2025 by Roger Darlington

The hugely successful (over $30 billion in revenues) and massively prolonged (17 years and 36 films) Marvel Cinematic Universe has been looking rather lame of late, but this movie has brought some freshness to the franchise. With the Avengers officially history, a new team was required to save the world if not the universe and the producers have brought to the fore an odd bunch of characters who have previously been minor figures in the MCU world.

Step forward Russian daughter and father Yelena Belova and Alexei Shostakov aka Red Guardian, putative Captain America John Walker, Captain America’s friend Bucky Barnes, Ava Starr aka Ghost, and most bizarre and powerful of them all Bob Reynolds aka Sentry aka Void.

Confused? Don’t worry. It becomes even more bewildering when these individual anti-heroes are somehow required to become a team of superheroes and each of them clearly has serious mental health problems. Not for nothing are the first words (from Yelena): “There is something wrong with me.” But it’s all done with a certain panache with lots of action and humour, even if one never fully understands what’s going on or being said.

The originality of the characters and the narrative are enhanced, rather surprisingly for an MCU movie, by some fine acting, especially from Florence Pugh as Yelena and Julia Louis-Dreyfus as the ‘boss’ of each of the Thunderbolts aka The New Avengers. Don’t try to think about it all too much – unless you’re an MCU fanatic – just enjoy the fun.

Footnote: What’s with the asterisk in the title? In large part, a marketing device to stir up the expectations of the fan base, it suggests that the title is somehow provisional, foreshadowing the evolution of the Thunderbolts into The New Avengers – I think.

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A review of the stunning new film “Warfare”

April 29th, 2025 by Roger Darlington

The word unique is overused and usually misused, but “Warfare” is a unique film. The nearest work to it is Ridley Scott’s 2001 “Black Hawk Down”. Both films depict actual firefights in which American soldiers struggle to stay alive in a messy combat with the cinematography presenting a brutally visceral depiction of the violent conflict. This time, the scene is Ramadi in Iraq in 2006 as Navy SEAL platoon Alpha One stakes out a residential area.

But “Warfare” is different from “Black Hawk Down”: there is no context or narrative, virtually all the scenes are in one apartment building, the action is represented in near real time, dialogue is minimal and mostly military terminology, and one barely sees the enemy. In short, this is an utterly immersive experience. Sound is critical: there is no score, just the cackle of radio communication plus endless and pounding gunshots, explosions and screams at fever pitch.

The film was both written and directed by Alex Garland, who made the recent “Civil War”, and Ray Mendes, who was Joint Terminal Attack Controller (JTAC) in the SEAL team, and the script is based entirely on the memories of the team members. It is a stunning addition to the ‘war is hell’ canon.

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The explosive growth in tourist numbers in Japan

April 22nd, 2025 by Roger Darlington

If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you’ll know that, following a professional visit to Japan in 1998, I’ve just made a return visit as a tourist for a more extensive trip.

In 1998, there were 4.1M foreign visitors to Japan. By 2014, there were 13.4M. By 2024, the figure was 36.9M. This is a staggering rate of growth, but the government is aiming for 60M.

Already I found parts of Japan – especially Kyoto – overtouristed. I find it hard to imagine how the extra numbers will be absorbed.

You can find full details of tourist figures here.

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A review of “Abroad In Japan” by Chris Broad

April 21st, 2025 by Roger Darlington

To be honest, this is not really a biography, instead it is part memoir and part travelogue. I read it while travelling in Japan and found it a very accessible and useful introduction to this wonderful but strange country. It is written in a casual, even conversational, style and it is often quite funny.

Broad – note how he incorporates his surname into the title of the book – went to Japan as a young man straight after graduation when he took part in a scheme to locate native English speakers in schools to assist with the teaching of English. He was assigned to a relatively remote corner of the north-west of the main island, a town called Sakata, where he spent his first three years in this country, painfully managing to learn Japanese.

Increasingly, he made videos for YouTube about the cultural curiosities of Japan and, as a result, moved to the north-east of the main island, a town called Sendai. More and more, he travelled around the country: he writes particularly about Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, Nara and Mount Fuji (each of which I have visited) and he has now been to all 47 prefectures that make up the country.

In short, amusing chapters, he explores the complicated language with three writing systems, the rarity of swearing, the long periods of silence, the formality of the education process, the forbidden-footwear culture, the attraction of hot springs, the experience of an earthquake, a missile from North Korea, the thriving drinking culture, the varied and often odd foods, the role of hostess bars, the commitment to service, the prevalence of cleanliness, the wearing of face masks, the shortage of living space, the introduction of capsule hotels, the efficiency of the railways, the ubiquity of road tunnels (an estimated 10,000), the preference for presentism over productivity, the superiority of group conformity over individualism, the low obesity rate, the extensive longevity, the explosion in tourism, the antipathy to foreign residents, and the obsession with cats – and more.

Towards the end of the book, the tone becomes more serious as he makes videos about the consequences of the devastating tsunami of 2011. The book covers the decade January 2012 to March 2022, but the story continues on YouTube where Broad has now posted over 250 videos.

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A review of “Japan: A Short History” by Mikiso Hane

April 21st, 2025 by Roger Darlington

For the last two millennia, Japanese history has been divided into eras named after the capital or after the shogun or emperor of the time:

the Yamato period (c.300-710) with the political centre located in the area around Kyoto, then known as Yamato; the Nara period (710-784) named after the capital city; the Heian period (794-1185) when the capital was Heian, present day Kyoto; the Kamakura period (1185-1333) named after the headquarters of the shogunate; the Ashikaga shogunate (1338-1573); the Tokugawa or Edo period (1603-1868) when the country was ruled from Edo (current Tokyo); and, more recently, the eras of the emperors Meiji (1868-1912), Taisho (1912-1926), Showa (1926-1989) and Heisei (1989-2019).

Mikiso Hane (1922-2003) was a history professor at Knox College, Illinois, USA and most of his 200 or so pages cover the years from Tokugawa rule onwards. Japan was effectively – and deliberately – cut off from the rest of the world until the arrival of four American warships in 1853, but the Meiji restoration period saw rapid modernisation and the emergence of the country as a major world power.

Japan entered the First World War on the Allied side in order to take over German concessions in China. The annexation of Korea in 1910 and the occupation of Manchuria in 1931 were followed by the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 and the unconditional surrender to the USA after the dropping of two atomic bombs in 1945.

Hane makes a point of covering not just political developments, but social and cultural changes, including the role of women. When covering the contemporary scene, he highlights the increasing longevity of the Japanese and the restrictions on immigration. although his book was published in 2000 before the full effect of the falling birth rate, all of which are dramatically impacting the demographics of the nation.

He is frank about the social situation: “Despite the rise in living standards, problems of overcrowding, housing shortages, poorer sanitation facilities compared to other industrial nations, and pollution continue to plague the populace.”

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