The contents of this post: 25% materialism, 75% politics.

Today we went shopping. We went to Slussen, which is a sort of portal to the south of Stockholm, where Mikaela bought me Paul Smith's London. I already owned the deodorant and loved the smell, so I had to try the perfume. The buy was a sort of switch: Mikaela bought me the perfume and I bought her a wok! This sounds as if we've performed an anti-feministic trade-off, but really, the gifts are identical in emotional value. I also bought a book, for my own pleasures: Peter Biskind's "Down and Dirty Pictures: Miramax, Sundance, and the Rise of Independent Film", which seems to be a treat. It's the follow-up to his "Easy Riders and Raging Bulls". Check both of them out for an in-depth look into American movies and how they affected the world, but mostly on how the industry works behind the scenes.

We trotted around the south, and ate at Kalori, a restaurant I've written about before. We all had a dish that Mikaela composed, mainly consisting of beans, sliced potatoes and salmon. It was nice, but slightly sterile. It contained no fats, and very low GI-count.

Mikaela and I went to Samson, a shop in town, where she tried on new glasses, by Prada, Miu Miu and a few else. The shopping attendant was very helpful and good, but Mikaela didn't find any pair she wanted to buy on the spot, so that purchase will have to wait.

Our materialistic booty of the day is displayed here, lubbers.

I also noticed that the people running flicka.orghave published the answers to their questions. This is a campaign run by an organisation whose sole reason for existing is to question (and eradicate) sexism, and is publicly printed on billboards around Stockholm. Some TV-stations refuse to have anything to do with them, which is also quite interesting - mostly because these stations are filled with anti-feministic pap. Anyway, flicka.org has sent letters to all kinds of media: TV, magazines (daily and monthly), et.c., e.g. Aftonbladet and Expressen (the two biggest evening mags in Sweden, both extremely crap, which I've given evidence of previously), to which the companies (that have answered, which not all of them have) have replied with the most fascinating escapist pap.

Bastards, the lot of them. The worst are the ones trying to joke it all away. For instance, Aftonbladet has stated that they won't publish ads for phone sex hotlines. Despite this, one can still find ads with titles like "Hot chicks" and "Cool off with fine women", complete with phone sex numbers. When asked on whether Aftonbladet has changed its stance on phone sex ads, their Editor-in-chief, Anders Gerdin, simply replied "Sara! I don't like telephone sex either. /Anders".

That person's just a bug, but I'll bet he wouldn't let his young kids read "his" mag. If he did, he'd be a sad person.

Another sad, yet self-eradicating, example is the letter from Vecko-Revyn. This is a magazine that targets young girls, and claims to be "the only girl-magazine that is on the girls' side". In their fourth issue this year, they offered their readers Valentine's Day cards, that the girls could give to boys. On these cards were pre-printed messages. For example:

"I want you to give me a shave."

"I want to have a threesome with you and your friend."

"I am your sex-slave for an hour."

flicka.org asked Vecko-Revyn what they were thinking when they they issued these cards. The response is quite remarkable.

"Our cards were thought to be a humoristic thing, not something you forcibly had to follow," replied Charlotta Gustafsson, Editor-in-Chief for Vecko-Revyn. She adds that Vecko-Revyn asked for an apology for some of the cards later on. Here's the kicker:

"We wonder what those of you running the Flicka-project had in mind, as you give the medias you criticize free advertising in public places. The effect can easily become the opposite, e.g. that a lot of dirty old men, who previously didn't know about the site 'snyggast.se' (which you criticized last year), now discovers it with your help. For example, the sales of Vecko-Revyn went up last year when you ran your campaign against us."

OK. So...what Miss Gustafsson is saying, is that flicka.org helps dirty old men find their target audience (which is bad) and then goes on to say, indirectly but explicitly, that Vecko-Revyn is a magazine that attracts dirty old men.

That's just enchanting.

Anyway, cheers to flicka.org. Go on!