By Maria Smedstad

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The baby-craving gene seems to have bypassed most female members of my family and has instead been replaced by a dog-craving one.

Consequently, when my ageing mutt Jake had to have an operation one New Year’s Eve a while back, it put an anxious dampener on my holiday. Luckily the operation went well, although it left Jake a pretty sad sight to behold, with his shaved patch, and his nose miserably poking out through a buster collar.

But it was a huge relief to have him home, just in time for our village church bells to start their festive pealing. In this village – as in countless other parts of the country – the church serves not only as place of religious ceremony but also as a general meeting place, an art gallery, a music venue and occasionally an outlet for the locally made ‘champagne’. Even heathens like us were welcomed.

And so as our neighbours started sliding past our house, wine bottles in hand, making their way to the church, we joined them. I couldn’t bear to leave Jake and snuck him with us, only to find that the church was full of dogs. This included our neighbours’ Dalmatian, and Jake’s firm enemy, Spike. Strangely, on this particular night, Spike and Jake politely exchanged sniffs and then sat calmly, as the rest of us ‘sang’ along to Auld Lang Syne. It felt like being part of a magic Christmas tale where all of us, heathens, Christians, Dalmatians and mutts alike, managed a moment’s truce.

Or maybe Spike just thought Jake looked too daft to mess with. Or possibly I was just drunk. But in either case, I will remember this New Year’s Eve as a triumphant moment of British tolerance. And with that, I (& Jake) wish you all a Very Merry Christmas!

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Maria Smedstad moved to the UK from Sweden in 1994. She received a degree in Illustration in 2001, before settling in the capital as a freelance cartoonist, creating the autobiographical cartoon Em. She writes a column on the trials and tribulations of life as a Swede in the UK.

By Mette Lisby

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Who has any respect for December weekends?

No, of course nobody does. Any sane person will shiver at the sheer thought of weekends in December.

They imply Christmas drinks. And of course the inevitable Christmas party at work. You know all too well what that means: At some point in December, you will wake up, dazed and confused, aware that yesterday involved bucket loads of alcohol (probably literally) at a party with your co-workers, but the details keep evading you. It’s all hazy… What you did… What you ate… When you came home… How you got home… and maybe even WHERE you work.

Fear kicks in. Fear of what you did exactly. Fear if you even HAVE a job anymore? You have reason to be afraid. You are dealing with your worst enemy- yourself! Countless Christmas party incidents have shown that you cannot be trusted.

And then the hammer of guilt hits you. You probably did something stupid! Maybe you blurted out a profane secret – possibly on the public speaker system at work.

Guilt gives way to a sudden bombardment of flashes. Painful images hit you: you on the dance floor. Your arms are raised unnaturally high above your head because the drunken version of you KNOWS that you’ve got rhythm! And it’s all in your arms. Shake them. You can’t entirely dismiss the possibility of your having begged the DJ to play Macarena and forced everybody to dance through it.

Thanks to technology a whole new level of embarrassment is possible: digital guilt. Who did you drunk-dial? Why are there 163 photos on your cell phone of a shawarma meal? Why is the last photo of Brian and Elsie from accounting eating the shawarma meal? Why are there scraps of sharwama on your chin?

And you hit rock bottom, when, in your pocket, you find a photo copy of a hairy bum. And it isn’t yours. Even if all of the above match exactly how you feel, don’t panic! Everyone was just as drunk. Everyone has the same photo copy. Maybe even yours.

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Mette Lisby is Denmark’s leading female comedian. She invites you to laugh along with her monthly humour columns. Since her stand-up debut in 1992, Mette has hosted the Danish versions of “Have I Got News For You” and “Room 101”.

By Annika Åman-Goodwille

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Internet transparency? I’m both scared and excited about its benefits and dangers. I remember keeping a lock on my personal, well-hidden diary when I was young, so I gasp when I see how young people expose themselves on Facebook. Nowadays it seems to be increasingly difficult to communicate confidentially, even to be in danger of being seen as having something to hide if one tries to do so.

Transparency is necessary for democracy to minimize government corruption. Along with that goes freedom of speech. The Freedom of Information Act is Britain’s attempt at transparency; the parliamentary expenses scandal highlighted its need. On a personal level, it makes life easier to live with colleagues and friends when one has no hidden agendas. Yet I’m sure we all have things we’d rather not publish to the world if only because they may be misconstrued out of context.

So, I have been struggling to get to grips with WikiLeaks. Their assumption is that publishing information supplied by anonymous whistleblowers will make the world a better place; information, much of which, written candidly in confidence, can easily be misunderstood. Yet is the WikiLeaks process democratic in itself? Isn’t Julian Assange acting as judge and jury? Given that only1% of the files leaked have been published, isn’t he acting as our censor? He says the names of anyone in danger of reprisal have been redacted. Yet has Wikileaks got enough knowledge to ensure innocent people don’t get hurt? What has been achieved other than newspaper sales? Some diplomatic red faces? Yet has it so far suppressed injustice?  I doubt it.

Despite the efforts of the world’s most powerful governments to control it, transparency on the Internet is here to stay. It will be more difficult to hide corruption, injustice and blatant disregard for human rights. Though I cannot help but wonder how government communications will be amended by the knowledge that WikiLeaks is out there. Back to handwritten notes, locked diplomatic bags and the old shredder?

Though we should be sceptical about the com­mercial interests of the likes of Google and Facebook and of ‘eaves­dropping’ through government Internet surveillance, on a personal level it is still relatively easy to control what we allow to be published on the Internet about ourselves. Mark my words, be wary and use those controls.

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Blog: godigitalordie.blogspot.com
Twitter: @agoodwille

By Maria Smedstad

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Soon after moving to England, I made myself two promises: one was that I was never to display multicoloured fairy lights in any home of mine; the second was that I was NEVER to have ANYTHING to do with net curtains.

I’d look at these strange rags with scorn, pitying the fools who actually believed that they would prevent people from seeing into their homes and disregarding what I felt the curtains said about their homes in the first place.

Luckily since then I have come to see that what I confused with being good Scandinavian taste is just, well, Scandinavian taste. And so when my English boyfriend and I recently moved into a house that backs directly onto the street, I found myself agreeing to having my very first pair of net curtains put up. Just like I found myself stringing up epilepsy-inducing multicoloured fairy lights in our last home because my boyfriend liked them. Just like we both stared at some Swedish decorative pieces, pulled from one of my boxes during our latest move. My boyfriend looked into the face of a troll figurine, reluctantly stating: “It’s got a willy-face.” And true enough, there it was as clear as the day – a face crafted in the unmistakable fashion of male genitalia. Only I’d never seen it before. With my Scandinavian-taste eyes, I’d only seen a pleasant little woollen troll.

Our house is now not so much a mix of two countries’ tastes as two people’s tastes. I still enjoy white walls and birch furniture. But as our neighbours pass our window and – due to a flimsy barrier of nylon – pretend not to see me slouched on the sofa in my pyjamas and writing this, I can finally say this: Net curtains aren’t so bad.

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Maria Smedstad moved to the UK from Sweden in 1994. She received a degree in Illustration in 2001, before settling in the capital as a freelance cartoonist, creating the autobiographical cartoon Em. She writes a column on the trials and tribulations of life as a Swede in the UK.

By Mette Lisby

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Who at this time of year is under a huge amount of pressure from ski-enthusiast friends and family-members?

Ski-enthusiasts insist with almost religious ardour, that their “truth” is the same truth for everybody else. You don’t find that kind of insistence from people who figure-skate, play volleyball or occasionally vacation in Brighton. The latter respect the fact that each of us have our own acquired taste and they would never insist that you “MUST go to Brighton ­instead!” when you happily inform them that you have just bought tickets to Thailand.

Ski-enthusiasts are immune to the fact that the rest of us have made other plans: they see this as a challenge. They urge us to try skiing because they know we would “LOVE it” if only we “gave it a chance.” Should you sneak in a modest “It’s just not for me” it makes them explain that you only THINK you don’t like it – your ignorance, of course, stemming from the fact that “You haven’t REALLY tried it”.

Well, I HAVE tried it. It is not my kind of thing. I don’t see the point of travelling in order to freeze. But as with religious believers, disagreeing only seems to entice ski-enthusiasts to try harder, to the point where they lower their voice in a suggestive “There’s also After-skiing.” As if it was something wildly spectacular.  It is not.

After-skiing is people attending bars after they have been out skiing. Guess what? You can go to bars anywhere. Also in countries that boast warmer, inviting climates. There’s absolutely no need to humiliate yourself with eight hours of skiing (or falling, for my part) to have a gin and tonic. And again – it’s typical for people of religious-like devotion to separate time into “before” and “after” the holy event. But they forget you can also have “before-beach” and “after-beach” in both Thailand and Spain.

Truth is you don’t even have to travel! For instance, today I might have a bit of “after-work” I need to attend to. Cheers!

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Mette Lisby is Denmark’s leading female comedian. She invites you to laugh along with her monthly humour columns. Since her stand-up debut in 1992, Mette has hosted the Danish versions of “Have I Got News For You” and “Room 101”.

By Lena Adelsohn Liljeroth, Minister for Culture, Sweden

Moderna Museet (The Museum of Modern Art) situated at Skeppsholmen in Stockholm. The above exhibition includes, from the left: Alfred Leslie NY 10 NY, 1961; Andy Warhol, Mao 1973; (on the wall, partly hidden) Claes Oldenburg Model Medicin Cabinet, 1966; John Chamberlain MAAB, 1969. Photo: www.imagebank.sweden.se © Nicho Södling

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Sweden is a country with high cultural intensity – and density! A country widely known for its natural beauty and vast landscape scenery, Sweden is also prominent in cutting-edge urban culture.

In our heritage, we are often connected to the adventurous Vikings (who were also great shipbuilders and original craftsmen). But it is far richer than that. Today, we are the home of globally active entrepreneurs in furniture and fashion, computer games and popular music. People in our cultural industries receive their inspiration and skills from an early introduction to the arts in school. And this continues: from a national perspective, Sweden has one of the highest levels of citizen participation in cultural activities in the world.

Why is this? Maybe it has something to do with our strong democratic culture, where  civil society for more than a century has played an active role in engaging people in the arts. Or is it because of the openness to all things new, the curiosity that has built so many fertile relationships across cultural and geographic borders?

We travel a lot, and our society has historically been both a nation of emigrants and of immigrants, crossbreeding and developing our cultural life. Today, almost all citizens have access to the Internet and are known as early adapters in the world of fashion, design and communication. Contemporary art prospers, and our artists participate on the international arena, as does theatre and dance, classical music, opera, crafts and architecture.

Tourists never miss a visit to the famous Vasa Museum, the amazing recovered warship from the 17th century that sank at the very beginning of its maiden voyage. And you should not miss the regional or international music festivals, like the Baltic Sea festival with initiators and classical superstars like Valery Gergiev and Esa-Pekka Salonen; or Bingsjöstämman, a meeting-place for traditional music in a wonderful Dalecarlia setting – not far from the unique Dalhalla stage for concerts and opera.

You can also experience the Moderna Museet, with its exceptional collection of modern art, or the Cullberg ballet, often performing at the International Scene of Contemporary Dance. One of the most famous Swedes throughout history is undoubtedly Carl von Linné, the Father of Botany. You can visit his rural home outside Uppsala – not far away from the great medieval cathedral in the centre of the town. Well, there is so much more – who could grasp it all in such a short space? We just hope to see you!

P.S. You shouldn’t miss the white nights of midsummer either, far out in the archipelago… but that’s only pure nature.

By Helena Whitmore, McGuireWoods London LLP  | Photo: Yiannis Katsaris

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There are many reasons why someone who lives in the UK may have an ownership stake or influence over a non-UK company. For example, offshore companies as well as companies incorporated in countries such as Cyprus, Malta or Luxembourg are often in tax planning structures. It may also be the case that the owner lived in another country before coming to the UK, and set up the company in that country before moving. Also, it is not unusual for people to accept appointments as directors of companies which are based in other countries.

Having an involvement with an overseas company can provide many potential benefits, but is also accompanied by a number of tax and other risks. In particular, HM Revenue & Customs (“HMRC”) in the UK are currently focussing a fair amount of attention on the question of corporate residence. This is a very important question, because a company which is resident in the UK will be taxable in the UK on its worldwide profits, whereas a non-UK resident company will only be taxable in relation to its activities in the UK.

A company which is incorporated in the UK is resident in the UK for tax purposes. A company which is incorporated outside the UK will also be treated as resident in the UK for tax purposes, if the company’s central management and control is located in the UK. The central management and control test therefore needs to be considered for any overseas company which has a connection to the UK. The UK has a wide network of tax treaties, which often include a residence “tie-breaker” test. This test needs to be reviewed in cases where the company may be regarded as resident in more than one country (for example in country A because it is incorporated there, and in the UK because it is centrally managed and controlled in the UK). The treaties usually refer to the place of “effective management”, but there are some treaties where the residence status needs to be settled by agreement between the two tax authorities involved.

HMRC have recently issued new draft guidance to indicate cases where they would not normally look into the residence status of a particular overseas company. Unfortunately, this offers little or no comfort to private individual shareholders who own investment companies outside the UK.  The 2009 case of Laerstate BV v HMRC is also an example of where HMRC managed to persuade the court that a Netherlands company should be treated as resident in the UK, because of the amount of influence over the company which was exerted by the shareholder (who at the time was no longer a director of the company).

There is not enough space in this article to go into further detail on the concept of central management and control, other than to say that those who ignore these risks do so at their peril.  It is essential to take professional advice. Those who are interested can also find further information on HMRC’s views on this topic in their International Manual at: www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/intmanual/INTM120000.htm.

It should also be noted that even if the overseas company cannot be said to be resident in the UK, other tax liabilities can still arise in the UK in relation to UK based profits, as well as payroll, social security and personal income taxes on individuals who may be working for the company in the UK.

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Further information is available on HMRC’s website www.hmrc.gov.uk, or by contacting the writer. This column is intended to provide information of general interest to the public and is not intended to offer legal advice about specific situations or problems.

Contact: Helena Whitmore, McGuireWoods London LLP
Email: hwhitmore@mcguirewoods.com – Web: www.mcguirewoods.com

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On July 6 the Swedish pavilion at the World Expo 2010 in Shanghai welcomed its one-millionth visitor. The huge interest in our exhibition – with the theme innovation by Sweden – is just one example of the curiosity about Swedish ideas, solutions and culture that I have met here at home and around the world during the last years.

Another example is, of course, the royal wedding this summer. When our Crown Princess Victoria married Prince Daniel in June, thousands of journalists and tens of thousands of visitors gathered in Stockholm to take part in the celebrations. Millions of people could follow the events simultaneously by television, or read about it in the newspapers. What a wonderful festivity it turned into!

People often ask me how Sweden succeeded in becoming the “small country with the big companies”. Our spirit of innovation is one of the most important reasons. Sweden is ranked as the most innovative country in the EU, and one of the most innovative countries in the world. Positive publicity during large events such as the royal wedding, the Nobel Prize awarding ceremony and the World Expo in Shanghai is also important, as well as the cooperation between the public and the private sector to make such events successful.

Our traditional openness to trade, investments and influences from around the globe is, however, probably the most important reason why Sweden remains at the forefront of business, culture and creativity. Over the past 150 years, our development, from poverty to a welfare society, is the history of deregulation and free trade. This is the foundation of our success, and the core values that we fight every day to protect and expand.

Our Swedish companies are known around the world for products and ­ser­vices characterized by quality, innovative technology and modern design, but also for being forerunners when it comes to social and environmental responsibility. In this way, they are contributing to building the Swedish national brand, while at the same time benefiting from the image of Sweden as a country characterized by equality, sustainability and transparency.

For more information, please visit: frihandelsministern.wordpress.com or www.sweden.gov.se

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Or is there something odd in our attitude towards the economy?

I get that the financial situation is tough, but for some reason we keep referring to the economy as if it was a person. A human in its own right – and, may I say, not a very stable one. Usually this honour of “humanization” is strictly reserved for animals who have had their own Disney-show, but somehow The Economy managed to wedge itself in there with Willy, Lassie and Bambi.

The markets get “depressed”, the FTSE is “overreacting” and stock prices are “overheated”. Stock prices “overheated”! That’s something the teacher might say when you pick up your 3-year old daughter from Kindergarten. “She was a bit overheated around lunch. Someone stole her tricycle.” Markets get “depressed”. Oh dear. Maybe the markets would like to lie down before dinner? And you can just hear the FTSE “overreacting”, like a self-absorbed teenage girl: “Of course I’m depressed! NO ONE has any confidence in me anymore!”

On top of this, financial markets are always referred to with a special deference. Voices go respectfully to a lower tone, foreheads wrinkle up, even at the slightest mention of The Economy. As if The Economy was some kind of mysterious, supernatural enigma.

We are skeptical towards religions, spirituality, and the mere thought of any kind of God or all-encompassing power, but “The Economy” and the stock markets – which are created by and controlled by none other than … ourselves – are constantly subject to a respect and humility that usually applies to forces of Nature. Like Tornadoes, Tsunamis and Earthquakes, The Economy is considered unpredictable, almighty, fierce and we humans merely pawns at its mercy. Except Tornadoes, Tsunamis and Earthquakes ARE forces of Nature whereas The Economy is just a manmade Drama-queen – apparently in need of stimulus. Wouldn’t that count as Viagra for the Economy? Because that would make it a different kind of Queen.

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Mette Lisby is Denmark’s leading female comedian. She invites you to laugh along with her monthly humour columns. Since her stand-up debut in 1992, Mette has hosted the Danish versions of “Have I Got News For You” and “Room 101”.

Before starting school in England, I found myself trawling through the shops of my nearest town in an apprehensive daze, as I tried to gather the garments needed for my school uniform. If anyone reads this who is in fact English, you may frown in bewilderment at this thought, but as no one had exactly explained to me what the official rules of a school uniform were, I genuinely found the whole thing to be a mystery.

Having purchased an ill-fitting grey skirt and a horrific shirt, I turned up for my first day of school. I was taken to an office, where one of my future teachers looked me up and down dispassionately, then dug around in a drawer until she found a crumpled old school tie, which I sort of wrapped around my neck a few times before being sent on my way. I won’t mention the shop from which I bought my skirt and shirt, but I can tell you that I left a small trail of static sparks in my wake and that everything itched. Stuffing the itchy shirt inside the itchy skirt seemed idiotic, so I didn’t. Around day four I got cold during a lesson and put on a jumper. The sight of me with my shirt untucked, wearing a non-school jumper became too much for one of my teachers, who stopped the lesson to tell me off. You may shake your head in disbelief, but I still didn’t understand what I was doing wrong. (Largely because, unfortunately, the teacher had a severe case of lazy eye, so I didn’t know she was talking to me.) Some of my newly found friends, more sympathetic towards a clueless foreigner, gradually filled me in, until I finally felt I understood the rules. That is until charity non-uniform day arrived. My friends again patiently tried to explain, but in the end snapped in exasperation. ‘Just turn up in your jeans and bring a can of tinned beans.’ Which I did – still not completely understanding why.

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Maria Smedstad moved to the UK from Sweden in 1994. She received a degree in Illustration in 2001, before settling in the capital as a freelance cartoonist, creating the autobiographical cartoon Em. She writes a column on the trials and tribulations of life as a Swede in the UK.