That was part of the headline of a story I read in today's Advertiser - Is it a new Commodore? No, it's a bloody Volvo. Apparently, the new Volvo S80 is being heat and dust tested in Adelaide. Hmmm... I wonder why?



Anyway, so as not to reveal the actual car itself and to blend in unobtrusively, the Swedes disguised it with plastic moulded panels to resemble an older style version of the popular Australian car, the Holden Commodore. However, it seems to have backfired a bit as the petrol-heads of Adelaide, spotting the car cruising along the beachside suburbs assumed it was the new prototype of a Commodore, with a retro look and have been bombarding Holden with questions about it. So much for the idea of blending in.

I have also seen that tonight marks the big Chinese new year celebrations. It will herald 2006 as the year of the dog. Lambi of course is overjoyed, though she doesn't realise yet that we will be ignoring it and it will be the year of the humans in this house once again.

Earlier this week, I watched the third episode in a series on SVT2 about Swedish dialects. I've always had an interest in language and I have enjoyed previous series and books by the presenter, Fredrik Lindström. This week he dealt with the dialect of southern Sweden - Skånska. I personally loathe that particular dialect and cringe whenever I hear it spoken. The first time I heard it was when we dropped in to Ystad on our way home from Göteborg with our new boat in 2001. An older woman approached us, drawn by Lambi being cute and fluffy and she rabbited on to us for a few minutes. When she left, I said to Lars-Göran that I thought 9.30 a.m. was a bit early to be pissed as a newt. He looked puzzled, so I imitated the woman's slow, whiny, slurred Swedish and he roared with laughter and said "Welcome to Skåne!"

And absolutely nothing I've heard since from that area has changed my opinion. It's kind of like speaking Swedish with a peg on your nose, mouth full of porridge and a whining, gnällig tone added in for good measure. It's no wonder that Skånska is consistently voted as Sweden's ugliest dialect year after year. The root for that may lie in the fact that it is actually a Danish dialect that has been forced to conform to Swedish by force after the area was reclaimed by Sweden in the late 17th century. I don't care what the historical reason is - it's incredibly hard to listen to without wanting to claw your ears off.

I'm often really surprised at the diversity of speech in this country. Earlier in the week, I came across this link with sound clips of people talking in their own dialects from various parts of Sweden. It was quite amusing to hear how different Swedes can sound. In area, Sweden is about half the size of New South Wales and just under twice the size of Victoria. So we are talking a small country of around nine million people. But what diversity of speech.

I realise when I say this, that it is not so unusual in many countries, even where English is spoken. When I travelled in Britain, I found the English they spoke to be less and less intelligible the further north I went. By the time I was in Scotland, I couldn't understand a word they were saying. And in America, a country similar in area to Australia, you encounter wildly different accents from places like Boston, New Orleans, New York, Dallas, Memphis, and Los Angeles.

It is only in Australia that we speak an English that is remarkably uniform, with pronunciation that is very similar. While I can hear some slight regional differences in the way people say key words like school and film and you can often hear if someone is from the country rather than the city - we all sound pretty much the same.

Are we legends, or what?