Young Swedish school kids prance about in Halmstad in Easter costumes, while U.S. adults wait for the next great YouTube video sensation

TV4 -Nyheterna Halland: Påskfirande på Trollberget i Halmstad, April 21, 2011

http://www.tv4play.se/nyheter_och_debatt/nyheterna_halland?title=paskfirande_pa_trollberget_i_halmstad&videoid=1607328&utm_medium=sharing&utm_source=permalink&utm_campaign=tv4play.se

This past week, in anticipation of Easter, TV4 News in Sweden's Halland bureau -not Hallandale Beach!- sent a crew to the town of Halmstad to watch a bunch of cute kids at school dressed up for Easter -the Superman outfit confuses me, I'll admit, but it's better than a Chade Henne Dolphins jersey.

As if on cue, the kids acted genuinely amusing, precious and droll the way that little kids can do for years before they get older, harder and bitter about the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.
But for now, they're just proving that the only thing cuter on TV than a bunny is a cute kid dressed up as a bunny, with or without floppy ears.

(Given the current state of corruption here, I'm going to guess that those smallish school buildings depicted in the video at the top would cost about $5 million a piece if built in Broward County!
You have to charge a lot for everyone to get their share of the payoffs!

BrowardPalmBeach NewTimes
The Daily Pulp blog
School Board Construction Chief Tried to Give Contractor $100,000 Break
By Bob Norman, Thu., Apr. 21 2011 @ 3:54PM
http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/pulp/2011/04/school_board_tom_lindner.php)

I discovered this otherwise obscure video late Saturday night while perusing the TV4 Play website and watching some TV4 news segments while waiting for the videotape of last night's episode of Körslaget to be uploaded so I could watch it.
More on that infectious singing competition show later in the day.

Speaking of music, I expect to have some musical surprises here on the blog later in the day, including a triple dose of some video of Robyn performing that I know with certainty that most of you living outside of Sweden the past six months have NEVER seen.
In it, she is -shocker- AMAZING and AMUSING!
You will be very pleased!

Happy Easter/Glad påsk to the thoughtful and well-informed readers of the Hallandale Beach Blog all around the world!

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http://www.nyheterna.se/

http://www.tv4.se/

http://www.tv4play.se/

http://www.tv4play.se/nyheter_och_debatt/nyheterna_halland

Photos of Halmstad, Halland's largest town, where this video was shot:
http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=172084

2011 Valentine's Day video #2: TV4 Sweden news reporter in Halland län looks for love in a place named LOVE - Kärleken

In an otherwise unremarkable place called Kärleken -pronounced like "shar-lik-kan"- located near Halmstad, the capital of Halland län, on the Swedish west coast south of Göteborg, there are the usual assortment of retail stores and businesses with the area's name in them: pizza, pub, church, corner store, et al.

But on Valentine's Day, enterprising TV reporters, especially those with a yen for asking questions about looking for love in all the wrong places, are keen to flock to a place whose very name means love - Kärleken.

It's about what you'd expect in such a story on such a day, with lots of puns, but TV4 reporter Anton Svendsen is thorough about getting responses from young and old -and very young- about LOVE.
http://www.tv4play.se/nyheter/lokala_nyheter/halland?videoId=1.2016658


What better place to pair that video with than a place as diametrically opposed to the life in Kärleken as the fictional Houston in the 1980's of Bud and Sissy Davis, John Travolta and Debra Winger in Urban Cowboy?

That film was the cultural tsunami that rolled across America and presaged the Country Western music phenomenon that led to a New York City radio station being the number one C&W radio station in the country.

It's weird that in all the various media stories I've ever seen on TV or read about regarding what the 1980's were really like, that sudden shift in musical tastes ALWAYS gets shortchanged, or is shown in a ridiculous fashion.

No Urban Cowboy then, no Shania Twain years later.
Just saying...



Johnny Lee - Looking For Love (from the "Urban Cowboy" soundtrack, 1980)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MnU6p3sGSw

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News stories from TV4 Halland
http://www.tv4play.se/nyheter_och_debatt/nyheterna_halland