Jens Thoms Ivarsson has one of this continent's most fascinating jobs: chief "rain man" for the city of Gothenburg. We chat to the creative director of Rain Gothenburg about the Swedish city's rather wonderful plan to become the best place in the world when it's raining. Also this week: expensive Finnish breakfasts, accidental asparagus, and why Budapest's plans to build a Chinese university campus have gone down so badly.

This week's Isolation Inspiration: "Inside the last matriarchy in Europe", Zero, and "Portrait of a pigeon racer".

You can read about Rain Gothenburg here in The Guardian.

This episode was produced as part of Sphera, a brand-new collective of independent European media. Find out more at sphera-hub.com.

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Senior producer: Katz Laszlo

Producers: Andrei Popoviciu and Priyanka Shankar

Music: Jim Barne and Mariska Martina

This podcast is part of the Are We Europe family. Find more like-minded European podcasts at areweeurope.com/audio-family.

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