Don't you agree birthdays seem to come round faster and faster with every year? And it seems to apply to official celebrations as well as personal anniversaries...
I think I have been blogging about my town's anniversary celebrations on 29th June almost every year - well, the last few anyway. Today it was time to appreciate that 396 years have now gone by since Borås first received its town charter back in 1621.
Besides free cake for the attending
public, the ceremony in recent years has included announcing a new
"ambassador" for the town for the year to come. Usually somebody already rather famous.
The person chosen this year might even be known to some of my readers here, as he has reached some international fame as a crime writer: Hans Rosenfeldt. Among other achievements, he is the creator behind the Swedish-Danish TV series The Bridge which has become quite a huge international success. (There have been two seasons so far and a third is coming. I know there have also been adaptations of the series made in the US and in Britain. I have only seen the Swedish original, though.) In Sweden Rosenfeldt is also very well known from various popular radio and TV shows.
His connection to Borås is that he was born here. He doesn't still live here, though - and just now he isn't even in Sweden! So alas there was a little bit of a "Dylan moment" about his appointment as ambassador...
Hans Rosenfeldt
(Photo from Wikipedia)
He appeared only on a big TV screen on the stage to say hello from London; and sent his brother to attend the ceremony "live".
I heard a few mutterings among the audience ("why not choose someone actually living here") ... But then the real reason most of us were there was brought out - and we all got busy queuing and chewing instead. ;)
... and then the gulls discovered what was going on, and came noisily party-crashing...
