A short 15 minutes drive North of Copenhagen is the world’s oldest amusement park, Bakken. It is located in the middle of the forest and thus the location is wonderful for a visit any day. There is always entertainment and happy days, and to many Danes Bakken is the symbol of genuine Danish culture in line with allotment houses and cold beer.

Bakken has attracted people from the city for over 400 years. Originally as a Mecca for believers who thought that Kirsten Piil water source had a life-giving force. Soon all sorts of street performers and bag players lured to the pilgrimage place and eventually the numerous tents became permanent.

Pierrot was a sort of ambassador of Bakken since he arrived in 1800. Pierrot appears in front of his little green house every day in season and on Sunday he has guests on the outdoor stage.

Bakken has many of the amusement machines that other amusement parks have – like roller coasters, 5D movies, haunted house, race-cars, archery, darts, football, handball and many more things.

It is also possible to buy a picnic basket in several of the restaurants, and walk or ride a tour in the park (Dyrehaven/ deer park) with one of the horse carriages.

It is definitely worth a visit.

Price: There is no entrance fee to Bakken. But you have to pay for the amusement park rides that you would like to try.

Opening: This year Bakken opened with the big motorcycle parade on March 25 and close again on August 29. Bakken is open most days from 12 o’clock midday – midnight.

To get there: You can take the s-train from Copenhagen to Klampenborg. It is a short walk from Klampenborg station.

The official website: http://www.bakken.dk/

But more lives can be saved and the infection rate reduced if treatment start earlier according to the World Health Organisation WHO.

Compared to the total number of HIV-infected. assumed to be at least 33 million, the 5.2 million is far from enough. But it is 12 times as many as in 2003, when WHO launched a special effort against HIV. In 2008 there were 4 million infected in ARV treatment.

WHO now recommends that treatment is started even before the immune system is weakened and HIV develops into AIDS.

” An earlier treatment allows people to live healthier and longer with HIV,” said Dr. Gottfried Hirnschall, Head of WHO’s program on HIV / AIDS.

According to WHO, it would be possible to reduce AIDS mortality by 20 percent between 2010 and 2015 if these guidelines for early intervention is implemented.

Early treatment will also make it possible to prevent many infections, including tuberculosis (TB), which is the leading cause of deaths among people living with HIV and AIDS (PLWHA).

According to WHO deaths from TB can be reduced by as much as 90 percent if people with both HIV and TB gets treatment earlier.

‘In addition to saving lives, the earlier treatment also helps in terms of prevention. The treatment reduces the level of virus in the organism, and this means that HIV-positive people are less likely to infect their partners with the virus.

WHO guidelines will expand the number of people who should be on ARVs from 10 to 15 million.

The AIDS epidemic was discovered in 1980/81. In the first 14 to 15 years there was no effective treatment and an AIDS diagnosis was basically equal to a death sentence.

The big breakthrough in the fight against HIV and AIDS came with the introduction of combination therapies (ARVs) in the mid-1990s. Several different drugs used simultaneously were found to have a good effect.

The change was so great that AIDS in large parts of the western world was transformed from a deadly disease to a life-long infection.

But the HIV treatment is expensive and it requires both money and a relatively well-organized health system to establish and maintain lifelong treatments against HIV and AIDS.

It is still my hope that one day ARVs will be available to everyone who needs it.

He stressed, however, that it remains important to continue the fight and prioritize efforts. If the international community chooses to spend less money on the fight against AIDS, there is “a risk that we have reversed the progress of a recession,” said Ban Ki-moon as a comment to that one result of the global financial crisis is that some governments now choose to spend less money on the fight against AIDS than ever before.

But you don’t have to look out into the world to see that there is less money spent on combating the spread of HIV and AIDS. We can just look at Denmark and the capital Copenhagen which has already budgeted less money in this area.

Copenhagen Municipality health and care Committee has decided to entirely abandon the continued support for counseling for HIV-infected and their families (400,000 DKK in 2010) from 2011 – an advisory work performed HIV-Denmark.

This decision is completely counteracting a study from 2009 which shows that Denmark and Copenhagen in particular has had particular success in preventing a massive increase in the number of newly infected due to the personal counseling of the people potentially infected with HIV.

However, it is said that the politicians in Copenhagen in 2011 will continue to support distribution of free condoms. But seriously, I work within the field of HIV/AIDS and I have never noticed free distribution of condoms in Copenhagen and even if they exists it is the personal counseling of HIV that causes us/reminds us to use a condom.

I urge the politicians in Copenhagen to eradicate its decision on HIV-Danmark’s 2011 counseling work. The health of our people is a stake. Do you care?

The UN estimates that 2.7 million people became infected with HIV in 2008. This corresponds to 225,000 every month – or nearly 7,400 new infections every day or just over five every minute.

Worldwide 33.4 million people are infected with HIV. That’s why I still work in this field!

Copenhagen Carnival is a cultural event being held every year at Fælledparken in Copenhagen. Copenhagen Carnival is a three-day music festival organized by the Fonden Copenhagen Carnival.

Copenhagen Carnival is one of Copenhagen’s largest cultural events, with the three-day festival in Fælledparken and its impressive parade, every year offers a wide and varied selection of music and experiences.

Copenhagen Carnival was expanded in 2009 with several new initiatives. Among others a club-oriented scene with a wide range of exciting names from home and abroad.

Carnival was first held in 1982 with the theme “The street is the stage and you’re the entertainer”, the time of unification “Carnival in May” (KIM). The event was later taken over by the National Association Carnival in Copenhagen (KIK), which organized the carnival until 2007.

Carnival in May was started by the resident British artist John Little in 1981. He had experienced carnival in the Caribbean and was impressed by the joy and imagination it expressed. In Denmark John started Carnival in May, (KIM) as the group was called, got a small office in Krystal gade to raise money, do PR and start local groups that were trained in samba by Simba, a carnival dancer. PR effort included the small local parades, such as the football game in the Sports Park and around the streets and a compilation of press.

The PR group expected 200,000 participants to carnival in Fælledparken in 1982, and it made all the headlines. Since the weather was good the carnival was a huge success. Aside from cleaning up which ended up costing the city a fortune due to the many broken bottles that had been used to beat rhythm with.

The following year was purchased large quantities of cheap rhythm instruments in Brazil, which the inner circle of the Carnival Committee had sponsored tickets for inspiration, take pictures, make movies and shopping together with magasin and the Brazilian airline VARIG who flew the purchases to Denmark for free.

The carnival got an explovsive growth and this culminated in 1986 when around two million people, according to police and newspapers, visited Strøget and the inner city.

In 1994 new people took over and and formed the National Association KIK (Carnival in Copenhagen), which was an umbrella organization of the samba schools, carnival groups, stage bands, entertainer troupes and other groups and associations that deal with popular culture in Denmark.

The National Association Carnival in Copenhagen, however, had difficulty in making the ends meet and had to close down in 2008.

Long it seemed that there would not be be organized carnival in 2008, but the Copenhagen samba schools entered into a collaboration and hired a professional management, with Morten Sørensen in the front, to run the carnival.

This decision proved to be vital for Copenhagen carnival. For the first time in several years the carnival came out with a surplus, despite the new leadership having had less than two months to get everything in place.

The great result created optimism in the carnival environment and to ensure continuity in the organization of the annual carnival in Copenhagen, they decided to create Fonden Copenhagen Carnival.

Fonden Copenhagen Carnival is also working to publicize the music and culture from all countries of the world through various musical and cultural events – but with special focus on Brazil and samba.

Children’s Carnival is also in Fælledparken with workshops, play areas etc. Saturday and Sunday until, at 18:00. Friday is the institution carnival with workshops and children’s performances on stage.

Over time the carnival evolved to be Denmark’s biggest festival of world music. More than 100 orchestras, groups and artists each year make a contribute to the festivities. The event is free for all, and you can experience music from a variety of scenes in Fælledparken.

This is an event you should absolutely not miss. Whether you are into music or not -it’s a perfect opportunity to meet with your friends in the park and just have a fun day out.

NB: Information about the carnival was found on Wikipedia and the picture above is from the electronic scene in Fælledparken.

In the meantime the news broadcasts hundreds of articles and TV programs about people being stuck who are going to- or leaving from cities in Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Latvia, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Poland, Slovakia, Sweden, Switzerland, and the UK.

Obviously a lot of the stories focus on sensation – like four French business men who were stuck somewhere in Denmark and "had to" hire a taxi to get home to Paris for 15.000 crowns (2700 USD). But really my question is: What happened to people’s logic? Did it disappear with the availability of cheap flight tickets?

Before the days when we were all able to pollute the atmosphere with CO2 (from flights) on a regular basis, we used to travel on buses and trains: OVERLAND TRAVEL. Doesn’t anyone remember that?

There are still regular buses and trains connecting all the capital cities in Europe!!! I understand that you can be "stuck" if you are travelling to or from Asia and South America. But to say that people, who are "merely" travelling from Paris to Copenhagen, are "stuck" is ridiculous.

Google "bus Europe" or "train Europe" and you will get thousands of entries. I went to the following website: http://www.bahn.de/i/view/GBR/en/index.shtml This website combines all train travel all over Europe – from the very South of Barcelona to the north of Norway.

I decided to figure out how long it takes to go from Copenhagen to Paris. Well I can leave tomorrow morning at 07.45 from Copenhagen and will get to Paris tomorrow evening at 20:53. The trip takes 13 hours and 8 minutes. That’s 10 hours more than flying. But honestly – we are NOT "stuck" in Europe. It’s such a small area that being stuck is for the most part more a question about comfort.

Thomas and I travelled for 9 months in South America. We did all our travel overland. This often meant 20 hour bus journeys and as you can imagine travelling from Guatemala to Bariloche in Argentina overland takes many hundreds of hours in buses. I never thought about flying.

I do sympathise with people who have engagements to attend to etc. But why not use this opportunity to reduce your carbon footprint and get back down to the ground – take the train or the bus in Europe

I have not had a TV for many years already and this has led to the funniest comments from friends and acquaintances over the years. The most common comment being: “What do you do with your time?”

While living together with Thomas in Thailand I used to answer “we argue”. It was an ironic joke to illustrate that there are many things to do besides watching TV. Instead of watching TV we used to have long dinners and talk, hang out with friends, write articles for the website or make pod-casts and videos, do sports, read books, go on trips on the motorbikes and many other things. Needless to say we would have had even more activities if we had children with whom I am sure we would have wanted to spend as much time as possible.

In Denmark I get exactly the same question when people visit me for the first time. They enter my living room and say “Where is the TV?” and are very surprised when I say that I don’t have a TV. I rarely find enough time to do all the things I want to in a day – I really don’t need a TV to clutter up more time.

But I do often wonder how people find time to watch TV? Most people I know tell me that they are really busy and it is normal in Denmark to arrange to meet up with friends at least a week in advance – to make sure that both parts have the time. Interesting.

According to statistics from 2009, Danish people watched TV on average 3 hours and 2 minutes a day: http://www.dr.dk/Nyheder/Indland/2009/10/14/180601.htm

The article suggests that people watched more TV in 2009 than 2008 because the selection of TV programmes were bigger and that the financial crisis kept people at home instead of spending time out.
But I honestly don’t think this is the reason. I think it comes down to habit. Danish people are simply used to being entertained by the TV instead of spending an evening playing games with their spouse and children, reading books, going for a walk, talking, creative activities like painting, listening to music etc.

And really I think it’s fine that people entertain themselves with the TV – I just hope it is not at the expense of other things.

I guess the best way to evaluate an activity is to ask “Does this activity enrich my life today and will I look back at it in 10 years and think that it enriched my life?

And in the case of TV – “Does watching TV enrich my life today and will I look back at it in 10 years and think that spending more than 1095 hours a year (10.950 hours in 10 years) watching TV enriched my life?

Enjoy life.

Aktivering – hvad er det egentlig?

Som arbejdsløs har jeg virkelig svært ved at forstå rationalet. Hvert halve år skal jeg minimum i aktivering 1 måned. Men som akademiker skal jeg ifølge loven “varetages” af en 2. Aktør. En anden aktør skulle efter sigende være en konsulentvirksomhed der kan hjælpe mig med at komme i arbejde ved at sende mig på et såkaldt “jobsøgningskursus”. Jobsøgningskurset består at nogle korte foredrag med råd om skrivning af CV, jobansøgning osv.

På mit jobsøgningskursus blev vi også på det stærkeste rådet til at sende uopfordrede ansøgninger. Men da jeg bad om jeg ikke kunne få en skabelon/eksempel på en uopfordret ansøgning – ja, det havde de ikke. Hvordan skal jeg så lære at skrive dem (hvis jeg ikke kunne det i forvejen)??

På ovenstående billede ses et af de lokaler vi var tvunget til at sidde i fra kl. 9-15 hver dag i op til 13 uger. Når jeg siger i op til 13 uger, så er det helt afhængig af om det er 2. aktør der sende dig på jobkursus eller jobcenteret. Loven siger at man minimum skal aktiveres i 4 uger. Alle kandidater der skulle være på kurset i 4 uger var sendt der af jobcenteret, mens kandidater med længere “dom” selvfølgelig var blevet sendt der af den 2. aktør der arrangerede kurset. Hvorfor? Fordi en 2. aktør er en virksomhed. De får 500 kr per dag per deltager (betalt af jobcenteret). Så selvom deres kursus turnus kun tager 3 uger – ja så giver det god mening for dem at sende folk på kursus i 6 uger (som de gjorde ved mig). Jeg fik intet ud af det, da jeg godt kan skrive en jobansøgning, men min 2. aktør virksomhed fik 15.000 kr i kassen. Så simpelt er det.

Og når du så ser på billedet taget fra kursus lokalerne – så vil jeg gerne have at du lige tænker over om du ville kunne koncentrere dig i det lokale? Til orientering sad der ca. 25 mennesker i lokalet. Der var et vindue, ingen bordplads ved siden af computeren til at ligge ekstra papirer, der var en konstant gennemstrøm af mennesker til de bagvedliggende lokaler, en konstant snakken og en ekstrem varm og dårlig luft i rummet (ikke så overraskende med kun et vindue). Derudover blev man skrevet ned i protokol to gange om dagen for at sikre at man var der – både kl. ca. 9.30 og igen kl. 14.30 – hvilket jeg kun kan sige gjorde at man følte sig endnu mere ydmyget og umyndiggjort. Ville du kunne skrive jobansøgninger i dette klima??

Jeg har flere gange forsøgt at få bevilliget et kursus i projektstyring, som jeg ved vil kunne gavne min jobsøgning idet det opkvalificere min uddannelse. Men selvfølgelig vil 2. aktøren ikke bevillige det til mig for det vil jo koste dem penge. Jobcenteret derimod betaler 500 kr per dag uanset hvad jeg gør.

Jeg kan tage et kursus i “Projektledelse” på Niels Brock. Det koster 9000 kr for 6 ugers intensivt kursus, der på enhver måde vil forbedre mine chancer for at få et job. Dvs det er meget billigere end endnu et “jobsøgningskursus”, men jeg kan ikke få det, fordi jeg som akademiker skal “håndteres” af en 2. aktør og de skal tjene penge…ikke hjælpe mig i arbejde!

Mit forslag: 10 dages intensivt jobsøgningskursus til alle ledige. Dette kursus påbegyndes senest 2 uger efter man har meldt sig ledig. Derefter bør man have mulighed for sparring med jobcenter eller anden aktør efter eget ønske og hvert halve år kan man (efter eget ønske/behov) deltage i et opkvalificerende uddannelseskursus (der dog skal godkendes af jobcenteret som værende af relevant kvalitet og emne). Dette vil være en langt billigere og bedre løsning end den formålsløse aktivering (jobsøgningskurser o.l.) der finder sted i dag.

Jeg kan kun konkluderer at aktivering som akademiker (pt) intet har at gøre med opkvalificering, men derimod er ren opbevaring! What a waste of time and money!

With temperatures as low as -22 Celsius, and a decent covering of snow: 10,000 schools are shut, the economy is losing 600 million pounds a day, old people are burning cheap second hand books to warm their houses (it’s cheaper than coal!) and the RSPB is regularly publishing warnings about imminent irrecoverable bird deaths.

So what did I do (apart from feeding the birds)? I tried to get back to Spain, on Easyjet, from Gatwick. Not a very sound plan. I ended up wasting the day in queues of people whilst waiting for the inevitable “Flight cancelled” confirmation. In the end it came, and I headed back to Oxford, only to try again another day…

You’ll perhaps be pleased to know (I was) that I made it back to Spain having rescheduled my flight for 3 days later. I got to Barcelona, wasn’t as pleasantly surprised as I’d hoped by the ‘warm climes’ here, and have promptly set about sorting out my crap Sony Vaio (sounds like it has chronic wind) so that I can get on with my IVOZI audio work soon.

On that note, I finally got my hands on the Zoom H2 Recorder and will be starting recording again in a couple of days.

I’ll leave you with a photo of my mother’s back garden in Eynsham, England where I stayed during my weather related incarceration. I tried to feed the birds, but my nuts promptly froze.

In brief, the government of the region of Extremadura in Spain has launched a campaign based on the slogan “pleasure is in your own hands“, which gives advice on masturbation.

Of course, with the large Roman Catholic population in Spain, it has got a few people’s backs up. Pilar Rahola, a columnist in the Barcelona-based La Vanguardia newspaper, wrote:

“Extremadura should be pleased with itself…It may have the most unemployed young people in Spain but they will be the best at masturbation.”

Full Story on the BBC Website