h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Arghhh - the ham(p)sters ate my preview! I'll have to start over again later on, right now I'm too ed off.

Taking a break in revising Omens of Oblivion after watching an episode of 'Så mycket bättre' ('So much better').

This is the third season of a TV series broadcasted by Swedish tv4 and available on tv4play dot se (for Swedish viewers) here, for seven more days:
http://www.tv4play.se/program/s%C3%A5-mycket-b%C3%A4ttre?video_id=2236439

Plot:
Seven artists (singers) spend a week together in a big house.
Each day, one of them gets to play the host and decided what that day's activities will be.
The other artists pick one of the songs of the host and perform it, interpreting it their own way.
These are performed at main meals, three at lunch, three at dinner and an addition dinner performance where the host picks the artist he/she would like to perform together with.

What has impressed me is how talented everyone is despite quite a difference in age as well as type and style of music.

Olle Ljungström hosted the second day. At first I couldn't place him (I'm terrible with names) but once the other artists started performing his songs, I recognized most of them. Some of you might even remember him from the band Reeperbahn that was popular in the late 70ies/early 80ies.

Magnus Uggla picked a song titled 'Min far och jag' ('My father and I'), kept the refrain but turned the verse into a tribute to his own father, now dead.

Magnus is not one of my favourites, but occasionally he creates something really good. And by the time he stopped singing, everyone around the dinner table was crying – and so was I, sat in front of my computer screen. It was beautiful and full of emotion.

This sounds more interesting than a lot of reality TV. Shame I can't watch it!

Deb

Thanks deb - what touched me most, I think, was that it was as if Magnus Uggla had been singing about the death of *my father - regretting I didn't stay longer the last time I visited him (the day before he died), regretting not being there *when he died.... all those little regrets of 'if only I had'.

22 years ago this summer, and things that bring my father to mind *still make me cry.

Regrets like that are hard, aren't they? I'm lucky because we knew my dad was dying so got to say our goodbyes. It'll be seven years next week.

Deb