Greta Garbo's Eggs.

Dr Gregory Goodwin Pincus was the doctor who made his name in 1937 by artificially fertilising a rabbit egg. The idea was already controversial with the rabbit, so Dr Pincus continued to research in his spare time throughout his life to achieve artificial insemination in humans. Mainly by experimenting at home with his own sperm and eggs from a neighbour's wife who, in return, received free treatment for her varicose veins.

Dr Pincus' secret medical records were found in 2013 behind a loose plank in a closet in his former home in Boston. They revealed that Greta Garbo had visited him on several occasions to freeze eggs. The experiment with the rabbit had caught her attention in an article in which Dr Pincus suggested that in the future women would be able to freeze their eggs and then fertilise them at their convenience. Greta was 36 years old and had already decided that the flop 'The Twins” would be her last film. She had also long since given up the idea of having to live with a man and assumed that she would remain childless. Dr Pincus kept Garbo's eggs with the promise that when he solved the secret, her eggs would be the first in the world to be inseminated. He continued his research until it ended with him in 1967.

When Dr Pincus' house was further searched, a General Electric household freezer was discovered in a hidden part of the house's crawl space, still switched on and on maximum cooling. A dismembered deer and a large number of test tubes were found, four of them marked with the initials G.G, just as stated in his journals. The find was quickly moved to the Massachusetts General Hospital and taken care of by doctors who eventually found the eggs to be in perfect condition and fully viable. Since Greta became a US citizen in 1951, it was thought that ownership of the eggs was a non-issue. But when Garbo's will was re-examined, the somewhat heavy-handed lines demanding that her body be shipped and buried in Sweden took on a whole new meaning. The eggs belonged in Sweden.

The then Swedish government literally had the eggs on its table when they were flown home for storage at the Karolinska Institute. The government chose not to publicise the find because they didn’t know what to do with it. The Minister of Culture proposed a Greta Garbo museum where a transparent freezer containing the eggs could be the epicentre of the museum. The Minister of Finance agreed that Garbo's eggs were a cultural issue but also recognised the political opportunity. They all knew that an election loss was imminent and that only a miracle could save the government from losing power - Greta Garbo's unborn child.

Through secret contacts with the Writers Guild and the National Writers Union, the search for a suitable husband began. Unfortunately, the rumour spread quickly and a horde of self-proclaimed men of culture got in touch and gave long monologues about why their particular gene sets were most compatible with Garbo's. Many prominent men stood at the front of the line with their fly open. Even some men from the Sabelskjöld family, to whom Greta Garbo was related, thought they should have the right to fertilise Greta's eggs. When someone pointed out that kinship is hardly classed as an asset in the context of fertilisation, they got touchy and replied that parents with kinship was completely natural in their family. A number of younger cultural women also came forward and offered their wombs for the fertilised egg. Many brought letters of recommendation from their gynaecologists, attesting to the excellence of their reproductive organs.

When the rumour of Garbo's egg reached the tabloids, the entire government was forced to hold an emergency meeting. The Prime Minister agreed that Greta Garbo's children could be the deceptive manoeuvre he needed to hide the fact that the party had completely lost all ideas and any will to change. But he didn't want to contribute to cultural elitism, meaning that the semen issue must be decided more democratically. The Minister of Culture agreed and suggested that all men who wanted to contribute should be allowed to do so and that everyone's donation should be mixed in a pump pot thermos, which created a short but interesting discussion about the different types of thermos on the market. When the Foreign Minister suggested that semen could then be taken from an existing sperm bank, the female Minister of Agriculture got angry. She said that men who were so vain as to want to spread their seed indiscriminately, should not be allowed to have children at all.

The whole issue was naturally resolved when the Karolinska Institute suffered an unexpected power cut. The freezer with Greta Garbo's eggs died and so did the dream of the perfect child.

Penetrated and misunderstood.

There is a medical examination that we men need to do after a certain age. Something we joke amongst ourselves about with horrified delight. Anyway, my wife pushed me to make an appointment in the end. I didn't sleep well the night before and worried about the examination and the results.

When I get home after the appointment, I feel relieved and therefore also a bit happy. My wife is waiting anxiously when I (with a slightly shuffling gait) enter the kitchen and sit down.

-How did it go?

-Well, it was disgusting of course.

-Then you might understand how it is for us women to go for a mammogram or to the gynaecologist.

-It's not the same thing, is it?

-Why is that?

-Well, you do it all the time so you get used to it somehow.

-No, we don't.

-Alright, but this was all the same very hard for me. Even though she said everything was fine.

-She?

-Yes, it was a female doctor.

-Really? My wife looks at me long and searchingly.

-Well, that explains a lot.

-What do you mean by that?

-Nothing. But it was a bit convenient that it was a woman, don't you think?

-Well, the hospital chose who would examine me, not me.

-But you did get a name of the doctor before you went?

-Yes, of course.

-And it was obviously not Dr Lennart?

-No, and it didn't matter. I might even have preferred a woman to examine me.

-Yes, I can imagine that. That's why you didn't say anything to me before?

-Are you jealous...?

-Because a woman sticks a finger up your arse? I don't think so.

-Then there was the ultrasound too. A long fucking rod ....

-There you go. Like a dessert.

-Oh give me a break! Maybe I should have ignored the examination and suffered an unstoppable cancer later?

She just shakes her head in response.

-It was you who pushed me to go! I say.

-But I didn't expect you to come home looking like you got a refund on your taxes.

-Maybe I'm relieved that it's over? Isn't that a pretty normal reaction?

She thinks for a moment before she laughs and looks at me a little tenderly.

-Yes, sorry. You're right, you're right. Maybe I'm just a bit nervous about my own visit to the gynaecologist next week. Although Magnus is very good and easy on the hand.

-Magnus?

Rebel without an audience

Recently, I watched a man set fire to one of the world's most read books in the centre of Stockholm. He shouted that he had freedom of speech and was exercising his right to provoke and question things. No one stopped or cared, even though it was on a busy street. And, striking: Not a single one of the most devoted, who know the book by heart and have seen the film adaptations countless times, cared. The police came, of course, but that was because of the fire ban in the city. They stamped out the fire and told the man to pick up after himself and go home.

I happened to meet the man's downcast look as he threw scorched book scraps into a rubbish bin. Naturally he started talking to me. Maybe I look friendly? Or perhaps I emit a scent that narcissists and conspiracy theorists can smell for miles? Like flies to poo, I thought and realised simultaneously that I needed to work on my self-image.

-What kind of believers are they? Who don't get furious as I desecrated and destroyed their holy book?" he asked me with something resigned in his voice.

-They are not provoked because they are enlightened people who can distinguish fiction from reality. They are secure in their love for the hero and are fully aware that "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" is a fairy tale where nothing has happened in real life. And if an occasional fan believes that it did happen, they also believe in a powerful figure capable of punishing people.

-Dumbledore? the man asked dejectedly.

-More like Lord Voldemort.

-Damn, how am I going to do to get attention now? sighed the man.

-I'm no expert in the field, but maybe you should focus on a different target group than children and teenagers? They haven't learnt to be offended yet. I would target men. They are the worst at school, don't read anything and are by far the most easily offended people on the planet. They tend to get violent when you disagree with them or when they don't understand.

-So in concrete terms, what do you think I should do?

-Fight for a total ban on wolf hunting or for football clubs to take full financial responsibility for the social costs of their huligan supporters.

He looked at me in disgust.

-Are you completely insane? We're not letting the wolf population take over and kill animals randomly, are we? And the clubs shouldn't be penalised because they have supporters who love football? Bloody idiot! he concluded and walked away.

I couldn't tell if he was upset, sad or angry. In the end, I decided that he was probably offended.