| The one thing that most people seem
to remember about Sweden is the exceptionally high suicide rate, in common
with other Scandinavian countries. Many attribute this to the long
dark winters, particularly in the North where the sun does not rise above
the horizon for months on end. Balanced against this are the
wonderful endless summer days with remarkably large amounts of actual
sunshine. There is something about these seasonal extremes which
make the Swedes rather nutty, but I am altogether unconvinced that SAD
(Seasonal Affective Disorder) is the stimulus for their suicidal
tendencies rather than the absurdly high price of alcohol.
There is a theory, now being peddled by the UK nanny
state, that if only alcohol were expensive and inaccessible enough, then
our kids would stop binge drinking and alcoholism would disappear
overnight. More likely we would end up with Scandinavian suicide
levels and a rather fat exchequer.
My advice is to go in summer and enjoy the
sunshine, failing which go in winter but take plenty of booze! The
strange thing you will find is that the crisp, crunchy snow underfoot,
complemented by the crystal clear moon and stars is actually rather
beautiful and not at all suicide inducing, just rather difficult to
photograph. One amusing consequence of this dramatic diurnal
variation is that the not insignificant Muslim immigrant community faces
something of a challenge when Ramadan falls in the summer and they are
faced with a rather prolonged fast. Fortunately at least they don't
have to worry about the cost of booze as well!
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