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Rupert Goodwins' Diary

Rupert Goodwins ZDNet.co.uk

Published: 26 Jul 2002 13:40 BST

Monday 22/07/02
It's the sixth day of my sojourn in Sweden -- camped on a Neolithic burial mound, on a farm near Katrineholm in Sörmland. The occasion is the 40th birthday party of pal Chris and his charming Swedish wife Nina: some while ago, they bought this farm and have since been reversing the ravages of a decade or so of neglect. However, the immediate past has seen a weekend of raucous partying, and it's now your correspondent who's feeling ravaged and in need of re-roofing, painting and making good. The music's still playing in the barn across the field, the rain is still pelting down on the tent in time to my hangover: and there I was thinking I'd missed Glastonbury this year.

Although it's only about an hour's drive from Stockholm, the farm is deep in the rural, lake-strewn countryside and as far from the mod cons of my London life as can be. No, there's no Internet access. No, the mobile phone doesn't work. About my only high-tech items are my shortwave radios, an LED torch (Get one. They're fab) and a mosquito-proof GPS satellite navigation receiver -- taken with me on the grounds I might go yomping through the forests in search of elk and chanterelle mushrooms. Rain-induced lassitude saw that off, in short order.

At least the shortwave radios work. Although I'm not normally perturbed by things that go bump in the night, at three this morning what sounded like a very large bird perched in the tree immediately above my tent and started an unearthly screeching. It stomped around a bit, the screeching increased in intensity and pitch, and then there was what sounded like another large Something crashing through the thicket behind me. The night was dark, wet and thoroughly disconcerting. I mentally cursed ever seeing the Blair Witch Project, and found myself at a dilemma. Should I exhibit the mental and spiritual strength to leave the monsters outside to their own devices and just try to sleep, or should I give way to my primordial fears and employ whatever weapons were at my disposal? What could a life in thrall to technology give me, here in this soaking, spooky and very isolated place?

Seconds later, the World Service rent the air asunder. I think it was John Peel, but the combined might of Sony, Bush House and disgruntled guitar noise merchants soon saw my metaphysical fears -- together with the bird and whatever its friend was -- put firmly to flight. Comforted by this evidence that silicon saves the sodden soul, I drifted into a sound sleep.