Scandi noir gives me the blues

Scandi Noir’s star is rising quicker than you can say Skol. It’s the latest greatest TV genre and it seems that TV land cannot get enough of it

Further proof that Ikea is plotting a world takeover.

As usual, I’ve missed the bandwagon but done a little telly catch up and recently have seen Borgen, Wallender and something else where someone is viciously killed and a group of blondes in woolly jumpers sit in meetings trying to find the perpetrator, aka The Scandi Baddie.

The result is usually so unbelievable that you’re meant to believe it. 

Scandi Noir is bleak, depressing and no amount of svelte neo Vikings with cute little noses and perfect cheekbones changes a thing. These people have no sense of humour and why is it taking eight weeks to solve a crime? They are inefficient! NSW cops could have knocked some of these crimes off in three weeks and then gone to the pub. Bugger sitting in meetings wearing turtlenecks! 

Scandi Noir may sound like a new and lethal cocktail but after a block of Scandi Noir TV watching I’m ready to drink my own body weight in Finnish vodka.

I’d like to see Scandi Noir put back in its box – eine kleine relaxation for Scandinavians at the end of their 30 hour week. Skol to that.

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Paris homewares obsession leads to ennui de maison

Whenever I go to a homewares shop, there’s a row of pretend Eiffel Tower vases retailing for $25.99 plus a bookcase load of Eiffel Tower bookends, Paris notepads, Paris pens, Essence of Paris room spray (I mean COME ON), pictures, candles, cushion covers and anything at all really that is big enough to plaster the word Paris on it.

Paris itself I have nothing against: great art, architecture, food. Sure the people could do a few rounds at charm school; c’est la vie. But I don’t understand who started this faux French homewares explosion, why, and more importantly, when it’s going to end.

Because if I have something in my living room advertising Paris or a French provincial farmhouse, I want to be able to say – I got that in Paris. Even if it’s made in China, I still want to be able to look back an think, ahh, that 1997 Paris trip. I want memories, even bad ones will do, as long as they’re mine. But if I buy a Paris cushion cover in Sydney I only have a memory of going to Bed Bath and Table and parking at Westfield. Those are memories I can do without.

The French have an expression for when they have absolutely had it up to HERE – it translates as “my bowl is running over”. Yes, c’est vrai, my bowl is running over and I don’t want to have to go to a faux French homewares store to pick up another one.