Hello and welcome to The Rob Burgess Show. I am, of course, your host, Rob Burgess.
On this, our sixth episode, our guest is The Kingdom of Sweden. Sweden sits between Norway and Finland and is the third largest nation in the European Union by area. This Scandinavian country is home to nearly 10 million people.
Allow me to explain:
A week ago, I stumbled upon an article by Leslie Horn on Vocativ (later in the podcast I wrongly call it “Vo-active”) with the headline, “I Spent My Morning Calling Random Swedes (And They Loved It.)” Here are the first few paragraphs of that story:
“I spent my morning in an an unexpected way: on the phone with several Swedish strangers. Thanks to the the Swedish Tourist Association, there is a phone number, called the Swedish Number, that will connect you with random Swedes. So I called it. It’s a little bit odd to hop on the phone with someone you’ve never met before. But that’s exactly the point. “Calling Sweden. Soon you will be connected with a random Swede,” is the automated message you hear when you dial the number. It’s either +46 771 793 336 internationally or 301-276-0600 for local rates if you’re calling from the U.S."
I then visited the official website for the project, theswedishnumber.com, where I found this introduction:
"250 years ago, in 1766, Sweden became the first country in the world to introduce a constitutional law to abolish censorship. To honour this anniversary, Sweden is now the first country in the world to introduce its own phone number. Call today and get connected to a random Swede, anywhere in Sweden and talk about anything you want.”
According to the most current statistics on the website, more than 82,271 calls from 173 countries have come in since the line opened April 6, and callers have spent more than 161 days total on the phone, with two minutes and 50 seconds being the average call time. Almost a third of the calls are from America, while the United Kingdom, Turkey, The Netherlands, China, Australia and Russia round out the top seven calling countries.
On a personal note, I want to thank all the Swedes who took the time to speak with with me. I would highly suggest calling The Swedish Number to anyone.
You'll hear one of the Swedes ask if I have a YouTube channel, and at the time I said “no.” Since then I've started one, which you can like and subscribe to at: tinyurl.com/therobburgessshowyoutube.
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