Englund on Nobel rumors

       Just as the Nobel betting season starts in earnest (well, as earnest as anything that ridiculous can be -- see yesterday's lengthy discussion), the Swedish Academy's point-man on the Nobel Prize in Literature, Peter Englund, finally posts at his weblog again, hoping to dispell some rumors that have apparently "bubblat upp" (yes, bubbled up -- though, alas, none I'm responsible for).
       First off, he notes that the Swedish Academy hasn't even re-assembled yet after their summer break, and that he and many of the Academicians are still in the: "slutspurten på Nobelläsningen" (the end-spurts of their Nobel-reading -- a subtle suggestion that they're still wading through all those damn Joyce Carol Oates works ?).
       But what he wants to make clear is that the Swedish Academy makes no effort to sound-out potential winners about their attitudes towards the prize (since a few -- Jelinek, Pinter -- haven't shown up in person to pick it up, for example ?), and that they also don't collect information about the finalists (references and the like) either. (Apparently these rumors have been 'bubbling up' in two unidentified southern European countries -- where fakes with Swedish accents have perhaps been pestering the local literary lights, pretending to be making Nobel inquiries ?)
       I was hoping for spicier rumors, but I suppose we have to take what we can get.