Robington Smythe

Ponchos all round

2011-05-25T23:06:00.005+01:00

I blinked at the weekend, and missed Bergen's Gay Pride march. Bergen is not conducive to such outdoor activities, it rains all the time. Some people are probably aroused by the thought of ranting, wet lesbians, but I can take them or leave them myself. Bergen is not particularly large and neither are its gay and lesbian residents particularly radical, relatively speaking, meaning that from the photos I saw, it looked rather more like a bus queue then some sort of resounding declaration of one's sexuality and the edge was rather taken off some of the leather hotpants and feather boas what with the inclement weather. Someone had given out those disposable water-resistant hooded ponchos that Americans wear when caught unawares by the British weather. Most unfortunate. I have never really felt the need to become involved in such things, although I certainly think they're very important. I, as you know, am not one to make sweeping generalisations or place too much emphasis on physical appearance, but really, why are radical gays always as ugly as sin? One has an image to protect.

The tourists have arrived in Bergen in the last couple of weeks. It is most bizarre seeing one's own countrymen almost as a foreigner sees them. The number of middle-aged British couples who wear identical waterproof jackets is terrifying. I can spot British people from 1oo paces and in Britain I can spot Norwegians at 200. I'm not sure what it is. Something about their facial expression. Bergen is absolutely chock full of Spaniards all summer long. It doesn't seem like an obvious choice, really. They certainly look cold and never have the appropriate clothing with them. It's water-resistant ponchos all round. They're all on cruises. Who, in their right mind, would go on a cruise? It's like Bognor Regis afloat. 1500 couples from the Midlands called Carol and Steve with matching waterproof jackets? I'd throw myself off the poop deck before you could say "Bon voyage".

My italics have stopped working. I can no longer communicate. This is major.

Eurovision Blues

2011-05-16T23:41:00.005+01:00

Well, nothing but another year of endless waiting ahead of me. Ever-shortening days, those cold, empty feelings inside, the deep yearning for my favourite night of the year to approach once more - yes, Eurovision 2011 is over.

I endured an evening of terrible picture quality and a drunken friend from Woking in order to stream it online from the BBC just to get Graham Norton's commentary. He was, as always, hilarious.

I didn't only go for the English coverage to see Graham ripping everything and everyone to shreds, but also because I am off Norwegian commentary after their coverage of Wills's and Kate's wedding. I can't remember the names of the commentators, so I'll improvise. It went something like this.

Archbishop of Canterbury "Dearly beloved...."

Bjørn Olsen: "Well, Hilde, the crowd are scintillated, aren't they?"

Hilde Larssen: "They are indeed, Bjørn - but then they have to grasp at this seldom opportunity to be happy, being that they're British.

Wills: "I, William Archibald Godfrey Plantagenet Tollemach-Tollemach James Harold Fortinbras..."

Bjørn Olsen: "You're right there, Hilde. I mean, a glimpse of a white frock and a trumpet fanfare is probably all they have to hope for as a respite from their bleak, debt-ridden, indigent credit-crunch-ravaged existence, I would imagine.

Kate: "I, Kate Sharon Kylie T'quesha Paris Britney..."

Hilde Larssen: "Indeed, Bjørn. Of course, I suppose Kate might have had to run up her own dress -I mean, I wouldn't have thought anyone in Britain could stretch to a whole dress right now, would you?"

Bjørn Olsen: "I wouldn't have thought, so, Hilde, what with all that money being spent in Afghanistan whilst the economy nosedives and the whole country languishes in a pit of destitute pestilence. Still, it seems as if she has managed to cobble a half-decent frock together, doesn't it?"

Hilde Larssen: "Well, it's reasonable. I think perhaps if she'd lived somewhere, like, say, Norway, she'd probably have managed to jazz it up a little - look how thin she is, I imagine she's had to eat gruel for the best part of three months to pay for it. She even had to borrow a tiara."

Bjørn Olsen: "My, what a big cathedral."

I, of course, loved every moment of both the wedding and Eurovision. The Eurovision presenters were actually rather less embarassing than the norm. I mean, still buttock-clenchingly awful, but not quite chewing your own arm off behind the sofa because you can't bear to watch any longer as per usual. I loved the Hungarian song, I thought she should've done much better.

I was, however, hugely underwhelmed by the interval act. Never, in my many years of near-constant underwhelmment, have I been less whelmed, now I come to think of it. As Graham said, it would've been alright for a wedding, but for an audience of 120 million I think they could have managed more than a man in a sequin suit with a kazoo and a ukelele. It was like something from Great Yarmouth's Got Talent. To be fair, he did have rather a lot to live up to, what with the Norwegian flash mob affair of last year. I mean, I found it so moving just to think of it makes come over a little queer from the knees upwards. Here it is, if you haven't seen it. (Try to ignore the crap Alfaz del Pi bit and move on).

http://http//www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsuPqiCjyag

I mean, all of Europe (practically) dancing to the same song? A video link to a homely Eurovision party in every participating country (including that of Crown Princess Mette-Marit of Norway). Crown Princess Mette-Marit! I mean, it was as if all of my gay Christmasses had come at once! You wouldn't get Beatrice and Eugenie doing that, would you? Whilst I think of it, what were they wearing to the wedding? Eugenie looked like she'd just inexplicably woken up in the excess fabric bin in the BHS upholstery department. It was as if she'd been planning to run up her own dress but hadn't actually got around to running it up.

Speaking of upholstery, I can't say I'd have liked to have been at the Albanian party (look at that three-piece suite) but otherwise I think it is one of the most heartwarming pieces of television I have ever seen and I don't care how naff anyone thinks it is (or I am) for that matter.

Well, that blog entry wasn't really about anything, was it? Still, I'm just getting back into it and it's half past one in the morning and I have just finished watching an online lecture about Common Principles of Primary and Secondary Share Issues. And nobody is reading this anyway. Throw me a f***ing rope here.

A-carb-adabra!

2011-05-09T08:16:00.002+01:00

Not one slice of bread has passed my lips in two weeks. I have given up carbs. This is partially in order to develop the body of hopes and dreams, and partially to cure the hideous bowel disease of hell and death which has plagued me recently. I am glad to say that the disease of hell and death has all but gone, but sadly the body of hopes and dreams is yet to appear.

I now work for a company called Attack! Actually there's no exclamation mark per se but I think it adds a little spice. Anyway, Attack! is a Norwegian marketing company and we have a collection of holiday properties of which we organise the letting out. The company is rather taking off (I like to think that this is my influence) so unfortunately we have neither the data management nor telecommunications systems needed in order to support such an influx of enquiries. Whenever my colleague is away from her desk I have to answer her telephone within three rings. This happens quite often. She sits in another room. This means I have to fling myself across the office and answer the telephone whilst in mid-flight. It's almost balletic. My Norwegian skills on the telephone are not quite tip top, meaning that half of the time I can't deal with the query being presented anyway.

Not everyone knows that Norwegians, Swedes and Danes can more or less understand one another in speech when speaking their respective languages. Not only this, but Norwegians are better at understanding Danes and Swedes than Danes and Swedes are at understanding Norwegians. This means that Danes and Swedes know that they can be understood but that they don't know what is being said in reply. This in turn means that they generally just launch into conversation assuming that the person on the other end will get the gist of what is being said. It also means that they don't know that I am not Norwegian, they just think I am from the mountains and have an odd accent. Well, when there is a British person on the end of the phone I can categorically advise that they do not get the gist of what is being said. Usually, such conversations ensue.

Robert: "Good morning, welcome to holidayhomes.no, this is Robert speaking"

Danish Customer: "Akjd aius sifn holiday property dkfjw#$ Crete dasfij#$# towels!"

Robert: (with sense of rising panic) "Sorry, I'm afraid my Danish is a little hit and miss, could you possible speak more slowly? Thanks awfully"

Danish Customer: "Asigu adi#$( towels SDifu wife injured sfijs chafing soifss unhelpful Cypriot holiday reps akfuwe9erf "#$#Js gsjjs!"

Robert: (while gesturing in order to attract attention of colleagues) "Gosh, I'm sorry to hear that. Could I possibly take your number and get my colleague to call you back?"

Danish Customer: "#($ snf now! AKFjdi hideous scarring #)$fFj little hideaway in the Cotswolds FFJEr348 deathtrap dFK948#$(#$ on your head be it!!!

Robert: (flails widely at colleagues, mouthing Help me! For the love of god help me!) "Yes, I've taken that down, the person responsible for towel-related injuries will be in touch with you shortly."

Danish Customer: "#$$djskj absolutely unacceptable! D434FFIdf 98 Cheryl Cole fdjfd#($ hostage situation *æøfddfer#$ how dare you say that about my mother! #$(44 bloody yokels why don't you piss off back up the mountains where you belong???

Robert: "Thanks for calling, then! Bye!"

Nine times out of ten it turns out it was someone wondering when they can expect their deposit back. Sometimes I wonder if I'm offering the best level of customer service.

All of this on no carbs.

I don't believe it!

2010-04-16T17:31:00.003+01:00

There I was, sitting in an empty classroom in an emptier secondary school wondering what manner of assorted freaks were about to arrive. Would someone be wheeled in strapped to a crate in a Hannibal style mouthguard? Would I shortly be joined by conjoined ginger lesbian triplets with dandruff and halitosis? Yes, that's right, I've enrolled at a course at the Open University. Well, the Norwegian equivalent. This is a course in Norwegian, so a necessary evil if I am ever to anything other than a barmaid.

Well as it turned out, my new classmates are relatively normal and most of them are quite good at Norwegian. There are two Germans, one Spaniard, three Poles, three Lithuanians, a Chilean, a Tunisian, two British people (including me) and an Australian. When I told the boyfriend's mother this she said "Gosh, it's very international, isn't it?". Yes, it's a Norwegian course in Norway, think about it.

I say most of them are good at Norwegian. This is with the exception of course, of the native English speakers. The other British person speaks Norwegian with a Yorkshire accent and says everything precisely as written (even though he isn't from Yorkshire) and the Australian has been studying Norwegian for two years can't string a single sentence together. He speaks so slowly that time actually speeds up. I mean, you can rely on him to be wrong. Nobody in the history of mankind has ever been less right. He makes George W. Bush seem fairly on the money.

The only other exception the the general level of competency is one of the Lithuanians, who speaks Norwegian at the speed of sound and with an astonishing Lithuanian accent. I think that the less able members of the class think that they can't understand her because she is really good and therefore speaks really quickly like a native. Well no, it's that she mutters a unwavering stream of conscious gibberish until the teacher (who, incidentally, is from Bosnia) physically restrains her. Honestly, it's like sitting next to a Virginia Woolf novel. In Lithuanian.

Well, I'm now a homeowner and have been for three weeks. The reason I only write this blog now is, of course, because setting up wireless broadband was a tortuous uphill struggle of eternal misery and hell. I did, however, manage to receive telephonic instructions in Norwegian and get it to work, for which I will be patting myself on the back until the end of time. It still doesn't work properly, though, so of course I have to stay at home from 7am to 10pm from tomorrow until next Friday week when an engineer might come and look at it.

Oh god, I'm Victor Meldrew.

Sade's fine silhouette

2010-03-01T23:55:00.004Z

Someone has potentially replaced Cheryl Cole in my affections. It's Sade. She's unbelievable! Anyone who can sit around in Stroud for ten years and then nonchanlantly think, I know, I'll make an amazing album and sell about ten million copies of it deserves respect in my book. As it happens, it's not the music that has lead to this new-found Sade fascination, it's her timeless beauty. I mean, look at this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhcGcfnMaC8

The woman is 51 years old. That's three years younger than my mother. Not only does she sound the same as she did in 1984 she looks the same too. If one compares it to the video for By Your Side from ten years earlier she doesn't look any different. Incredible! So, I have decided to emulate her in every way. I mean, we look fairly alike, I'd say.

I was thinking about this whilst at the gym earlier (one is going to have to work out a lot if one is to freeze time like Sade). One gets so distracted and involved in daytime television at the gym that one is locked in a quandary of (a) wanting to stop exercising as one is about to start coughing up blood but (b) staying on the treadmill long enough to see the end of Quincy.

Norwegian television is second to none for re-runs of 1980s detective and drama serials. The only problem is that my gym is rather run down (not as good as the British equivalent) and thus most of the headphone sockets don't work. So, I have to watch Quincy only half understanding the Norwegian subtitles but knowing that it was recorded in English and that I just can't hear it. It's most frustrating. I'll be able to lip-read by the time I move back to civilisation. Did I say civilisation? Sorry, I mean England. Still, it's probably best that one can't hear Quincy, he does shout rather.

The other distraction in the gym is the one Norwegian thing that is better than the British equivalent, namely the severe hotness of Norwegian boys. I'm not talking about quite cute and better than the local totty down The Red Lion on a Friday night, I'm talking about blistering, boundless, ethereal levels of hotness. During commerical breaks in Quincy I often expect Calvin Klein to mince through the gym at any moment, scouting for models for his next advertisement campaign. I'm half tempted to take a camera in and sneak some shots but fear my membership may be terminated.

Speaking of commercial breaks (referring back to the one during which I was looking at the blisteringly hot boys), how do Americans cope? (Not with being American, a trial in itself -but with the sheer number of commercial breaks they have to endure). I was watching Oprah's Book Club the other day and spent more time watching advertorials for bizarre ab crunch machines than I did watching Oprah herself. Combined with the way in which Americans tend to end conversations abruptly it made for rather bizarre viewing. It went something like this.

Oprah: Hi, this is Oprah's Book Club, I'm here with Douglas Kennedy, we'll be right back.

[10 minute advertorial for Stairmaster]

Oprah: Welcome back, I'm here with Douglas Kennedy, Douglas tell me about your new book, The Big Picture.

Douglas Kennedy: Well, Oprah, it's a searing examination of my own love affair with sketching and watercolours.

Oprah: We'll be right back.

[12 minute advertorial for incontinence pants]

Oprah: I'm on the sofa with Douglas Kennedy. Douglas, what first made you want to write?

Douglas Kennedy: Well, Oprah, it was those halcyon childhood days amongst the cornfields up in Iowa.

Oprah: We'll be right back.

[Adverts for protein shakes, Slim-fast and Ymea Menopause and Silhouette]

Oprah: I'm chatting to Douglas Kennedy. Douglas, what can we expect from you next?

Douglas Kennedy: Well, Oprah, I think a slap round the chops and a strongly-worded letter from my agent if you can't speak to me for more than three seconds at a time!

Oprah: We'll be right back.

Over Leona; Ready for Tweedy

2010-02-28T10:26:00.003Z

I can't believe I'm going to say this, but I'm getting a little sick of Leona Lewis. Yes, she was lovely and sweet and had a powerful voice at the beginning, yes, I got a lump in my throat when she turned on the Christmas lights on Oxford Street, yes, I braved the hoards of girls from Hertfordshire to hear her sing at Westfield on its opening day, but I can't help but feel she's something of a one-trick pony. Whilst on the equine theme, she is a torch horsey isn't she? Not a description that one often has to apply to girls from Hackney, but, I mean, that's quite a chin, isn't it? I'm mean, we're not talking about Céline Dion territory, but it's close. So now Leona has done an Oasis cover, and the video is just the same as all of her others. Anyone can stand around in a grey, floaty dress in a strange, desolate landscape that has been oddly bleached of colour and warble on interminably in a low, husky voice with heavy vibrato. At least I know I can.

Whilst we're on the subject of girls from rough neighbourhoods, Fight for this Love by none other than Cheryl Cole has been released in Norway and is receiving heavy rotation on NRK P3 and Radio Norge. Hurrah! Perhaps they are being dragged slowly into the civilised world after all. I wonder if she is going to change here surname back to Tweedy? It was bound to happen, of course, that she and Ashley would split after her singing a song (I almost said writing a song then, let's not get carried away) about sticking together through thick and thin. Mind you, why she stayed with him for five minutes after he put it about whilst his wife who is a goddess of incredibly beauty and joy was waiting at home is something none of us will ever understand. What a plonker.

Volvos, Vienna, Vaterproofs

2010-02-15T11:23:00.006Z

So, the Norwegian Boyfriend has got a ritzy new office, and thinks he's the dog's proverbials as a result. He manages to slip the fact that he's got a desk at the corner of the building with a sea view into most conversations. The one boon to be gleaned from this state of affairs is that he's got a coffee machine with a very wide selection, which includes none other than Wiener Mélange. Well, it's mocha. What a disappointment! No battered sausage floating in it or globules of fat bobbing along the meniscus but a plain old mocha. The mélange aspect would be the mixture of chocolate and coffee, and the wiener an indication that this is a practice originating in Vienna. I'd love to go to Vienna. Anyone fancy a citibreak?

People often ask me what Norwegians are like. I have more or less conditioned the Norwegian Boyfriend now so that he thinks like a British person, so he's perhaps not the best example. After wracking my brains (there wasn't a lot to wrack) I can only conclude that Volvos and Waterproofs are their two most striking qualities.

They love Volvos. On my second date with the Norwegian Boyfriend he took me on a romantic drive (to Portsmouth - don't ask). Well, we popped into his flat to pick up the keys (he had a ritzy apartment at the time, this is how he lured me in to going out with him in the first place, I'm sure) before going down to the underground car park (I did think he was going to garotte me and put my torso in a suitcase and throw it off the seafront at Portsmouth, but he didn't). Well, having been impressed by the ritzy apartment I was secretly thinking to myself "Ooh! I wonder what his wheels are like?" and lo and behold he sidled up, distended with pride, to a blue Volvo. Well, the bottom fell out of my world, I can tell you.

The thing is, cars are expensive in Norway. When I say "expensive" I don't mean moderately overpriced, I mean they cost more than your house. Some friends of ours have just bought a small, used Volvo, and they're going to pay for it in monthly installments of £400 for the next seven years. The upshot of this, then, is that cars in the UK are a steal to Norwegians. So, if they relocate to London for a couple of years it's 'passport control, baggage reclaim, customs, Volvo dealership'. Not only did the Norwegian Boyfriend have his own Volvo, he also had access to a company Volvo, so he drove two! I think he got out of bed every morning feeling like he'd just woken up underneath Cheryl Cole with a winning lottery ticket in either hand.

There's no such thing as a pleasant stroll in Norway. There's a polar expedition, or there's nothing. This means that even the simplest task is some sort of military operation, and therefore involves an awful lot of equipment (compass, map, hot chocolate, sticky buns, apples, Kit-Kats, rifle, rucksack) and most importantly, hiking footwear and waterproofs. This results in conversations such as this:-

Robert: Are we going for a walk to the beach then?

Norwegian Boyfriend's Mother: Yes, I think so - are you going to get ready?

Robert: Yes, I'm ready when you are.

[Silence; pause; look of disbelief; look of incredulity; hidden snigger from all other Norwegian family members]

Norwegian Boyfriend's Mother: Well, are you going to go, erm, like that?

Robert: Like what?

Norwegian Boyfriend's Mother: Well, it's just that you've got [hides snigger behind hand]... trainers on!

Robert: Oh. Erm, is that not OK?

[Pause; tumbleweed rolls through sitting room; clap of thunder; funeral cortege parades through sitting room; elephant waltzes into sitting room and sits down to watch television; neighbours come out of their houses to look at the funny British person they've heard so much about]

Norwegian Boyfriend's Mother: Well, don't you want to borrow some hiking boots? And take three spare pairs in your rucksack? And where's your apple and your Kit-Kat? For God's sake it's a jungle out there!

The thing is, any sort of outerwear is hugely expensive in Norway. When I say "expensive" I'm not saying there's a little bit of a mark-up on it, I'm saying you have to sell your Grandma if you want anything made by North Face. This has its benefits. I walked into a bar in Bergen Sentrum during a torrential downpour in a pair of North Face waterproof trousers and a Helly Hansen waterproof jacket, both of which I'd picked up on Amazon for less than £15, and the entire bar stopped and stared because I was the best dressed individual they'd ever seen.

Perhaps the best and most noticeable thing about Norwegians is that they get their 'v's and 'w's mixed up when speaking English. Nobody is really sure why this is. There is a 'v' sound in Norwegian, but when speaking English, Norwegians tend to convert all 'v' sounds to 'w's. A typical conversation might go like this:-

"Hello Wictoria, I haven't seen you in a wery long time!"

"Sorry Wiolet, I've been tied up vatching Vimbledon; hardly time for a conwersation!"

"Really? Vell, Tim Henman vas a bit of a vanker"

"I know! Still, at least Wirginia Vade still does the commentary"

"Yes, she's wery good. Actually, I'm just on my way to buy a new tennis west and some vaterproofs. Can I give you a lift in my Wolwo?"

"Oh wery kind of you - so conwenient! Gosh, this car is nice..."

For and Against Cheryl

2010-02-14T13:11:00.002Z

Isn't a shame about Cheryl Cole? Don't get me wrong. She's a living legend. I mean, if I were to go there, with the lady bits and all, then she'd be very very close to the top of the hypothetical list. She's so lovely and northern and open and warm and beautiful, it's just that she can't sing. This doesn't stop most people soldiering on (Britney Spears, for example) but Britney at least has the good sense not to sing live. Being somewhat unnaturally enamoured of pop princesses in general, I'm usually more forgiving of these things. There's many a late evening I've espoused the validity of Kylie's vocal talents to a cacophony of scoffs and snorts, but really Cheryl, give it up.

I am locked in an agonising battle of wallpaper decisions in relation to my new home in to which I will be moving in six weeks. There are only two rooms which are going to be treated to wallpaper. It's difficult, when one isn't made of money, to pull bold style statements off. I mean, the distance between a searing example of contemporary interior design and bogging and hideous clashing mish-mash hell is but a step.

For the hall I had thought once more of sumptuous rococo splendour but the difference between the way things look online and the way they look in one's sitting room is incredible. With said splendour in mind I ordered samples of such delights as Bamboo Flock Emperor's Garden and East Albany Castaway Mettalix only to realise that (a) it would cost about £1000 to wallpaper the hall with them and (b) Bette Gilroy would be proud of my handiwork if I did so. Norwegian Boyfriend is, in his Scandinavian way, erring more towards exotic ferny glade and I think perhaps he may be right - or at least I may compromise somewhere between the two, along the lines oriental ornamental garden. It's splendour but it's not Beverley Callard's Leotard in essence. I have never actually watched Coronation Street, I don't know where I'm getting these references from.

Then there's the bedroom. I had thought understated far-flung ambassadorial residence chic but it's a trial trying to work out a suitable colour palette. One's bedding is currently white and grey, generally, but does one really want an entirely grey bedroom? Being that one lives in Norway the sky is grey 99 per cent of the time anyway, and one doesn't want to wake up every morning feeling as if one has been transported to a wet weekend in Great Yarmouth, does one? What goes well with grey? White? Black? See my point?

The Norwegian Boyfriend and I have become somewhat dependant upon Dynasty. They've been showing reruns on Norwegian television, and we became so addicted that we bought three DVD boxsets. It's strange how five years ago we would've spent hour after hour giggling at the outfits, but the way revival is so acceptable these days most of it looks rather nice. There are some really extreme get-ups (usually on Krystle) which still defy all sense and logic, but on the whole, 1984 fashions weren't as bad as I thought. I rather wish that chunky costume jewellery would become acceptable for men, for the sole reason that I want to have to remove my clip-on earrings in order to take telephone calls.

Perhaps the most alarming aspect of Dynasty is the way in which any sort of physical intimacy is depicted. Kissing, for example, in 1984, was completely different. It didn't involve any sort of mouth opening or tonguing action, but rather a pursing and light touching of the tips and then a strange, frenzied, jerking of the head from side to side, all the while maintaining lip contact and clinging to another desperately.

Even better is Dynasty sex. This entails both parties keeping on their underwear and the bottom halves of their bodies firmly away from one another. The top halves of the bodies, however, are rubbed sideways against one another, whilst the man, on top, grunts into the pillow, and the woman (usually Joan Collins) gazes with wild, staring eyes at the ceiling, presumably to maintain the flawless finish of her full make-up. Which she also wakes up in every morning.

Perhaps the most important lesson we can all learn from watching Dynasty is how to argue. I am hoping this will be a valuable key to the longevity of my own relationship. The key, it seems, is to speak as passionately and emphatically as possible, without (a) raising one's voice or (b) including any content or meaning in what one says. I often imagine myself in such a scenario with Cheryl Cole. I am hoping it will go something like this:-

Robert: I hate you, Cheryl!

Cheryl: Hate? You gave up the right to hate me years ago!

Robert: Right? Right? What do you know about rights, Cheryl? How dare you stand there on that pedestal and tell me about rights? What do you know about rights? You gave up the right to tell me about rights years ago!

Cheryl: That's just it, isn't it? Anything, anything which threatens to break down that icy facade is an enemy to you. Isn't it? Isn't it?

Robert: Well, when all things come to pass after the way you sent me packing it's all water under the bridge, isn't it?

Cheryl: And so much water has passed under the bridge, since then, hasn't it?

Robert: And yet still those demons haunt you.

Cheryl: Demons, Robert? You gave up the right to tell me about demons when you walked out that door all those years ago!

Robert: Well, we'll see how well you stare those demons down next Friday week, won't we?

Cheryl: Friday week? Next Friday week? Oh, no, Robert, you haven't...

Robert: Yes, my Geordie princess....I have...

Six pack for summer

2010-01-26T11:46:00.002Z

I've got bloggers block. It happens to the best of us. The only things I have to write about are snow and property ownership.

Re snow. There has been about a foot of snow on the ground since about the 20th of December. It was wildly exciting at first, and then I fell over. It wasn't terribly amusing. Thankfully no-one saw. Well, I think not. Honestly, it's an icy deathtrap. I imagine that most people will have scrolled through my endless snow photos on Facebook. Isn't it pretty? Yes, but you take your life into your own hands every time you go to the postbox. Not that I ever go to the postbox, but it was a quaint thought.

My new property. Isn't it nice? I suppose it's rather cheeky referring to it as mine per se, being that in reality I'm paying for about one fifteenth of it, but hey, my name is on the contract terrifyingly enough. It's also on a thirty year mortgage. Oh well, the bank are welcome to my soul, it's not in a very good condition anyway.

Perhaps the best thing about my flat is that it is opposite the gym. I mean, it couldn't be any closer. If I can't get a six pack by this summer under such circumstances then I'll never get one, and I shall thenceforth give up going on about it and accept a life of eternal flab gracefully and gradually feed myself contentendly into a seething ball of unending blubber. And that will be an end to it.

Sausage mix with sugar

2009-11-25T11:43:00.003Z

Have I already harped on about how appalling Norwegian supermarkets are? Well, they are. They're about the size of a newsagent, in dire need of refurbishment and ready meals have not yet been invented. They just don't exist. Imagine! The worst aspect of all is the fresh produce. Firstly, if something is off season, you just can't get it. Correct me if I'm wrong, but in Sainsbury's if one needs something off season it's still there but general not as good quality or rather over-priced. Oh, not so here! I won't see rhubarb again for nine months! Not that I have pressing need for rhubarb, but still. This is not the worst of it. The fruit and vegetables that are here, well. I've seen mouldering oranges, green potatoes and black onions and strawberries, on display, in a supermarket (one of the ones which claims to be upmarket) writhing in aphids. Even the fruit and vegetables we get delivered at work are mouldering half of the time. The most irritating aspect is that everyone just seems to accept that this is alright and puts it down the fact that Norway is a long way from anywhere else. Rubbish! Cleethorpes is a long way from the Cayman Islands, they've still got decent bananas! Well, I've never been to Cleethorpes, but I imagine they have decent bananas. Actually, I used to have a boss from Cleethorpes and she did say it was rather backward. Her old friends didn't appreciate her fancy London ways when she went home. She pointed out that she'd been locked in a fascinating conversation with one of them about continental breakfasts and she realised halfway through it that her friend didn't know what a croissant was.

Well, to further compound the frustration of shopping, not only do the supermarkets not really contain anything you might want to eat, but once you get to the checkout there are so many pointless and unfathomable vending machines that half of the time one ends up leaving without paying anyway. In Spar for example, if one wants to buy cigarettes (which I don't, incidentally) one picks up a card with a picture of the cigarettes one wants before one gets to the checkout. One hands the card to the cashier, pays, and gets another card. Then, one queues up at a large blue machine and sticks one's new card in it and is presented, hopefully, with one's purchase. Why? Why? Why?

Not only this, but in Spar they have some sort of automated system, if, heaven forfend, you want to pay with cash. One is told the amount one has to pay by the unhelpful cashier, and the coin element of one's payment is slotted into a small blue box in front of one, which makes a number of buzzing and whirring noises and then showers one's change out all over the floor in front of one. If one has any notes one hands them to the cashier. She slots them into the top of something behind her which looks not unlike a pinball machine which proceeds to make a number of buzzing and whirring noises and then fires different notes by way of change back out at her. Why? Why? Why? Isn't cash the basic element of how we trade in western society? How is any of that easier than a till drawer? How?

Well, alongside these various inconveniences there are a number of vending machines in and around checkouts in larger supermarkets which after six months I still have no clue as to what their purpose is. They're generally about the size of a skip and have pictures of smiling, healthy blond children or smiling, healthy, young blond Scandinavian couples standing by mountains on the front and a very large opening at the front, but no indication of their purpose. The only one I thought I understood was the drinks vending machine in RIMI (a sort of ASDA equivalent, although about one twentieth of the size of an ASDA). Well now, I can generally understand Norwegian menus, and as I was waiting four people in front of me to be served at the checkout (all of them purchasing frozen pizza and that three-flavour neapolitan ice cream that everyone in the UK stopped eating in 1986 but which is still all the rage here, I'm afraid there's no hope of Ben and Jerry's) I perused the choices which could be vended from said machine. There was, unlike in RIMI in general, an astonishing array of choice. There were all the usual suspects - tea, coffee, hot chocolate with various degrees of powedered milk and artificial sweetener. But about two thirds of the way down my eye stumbled across an offering neither I, nor anyone I have asked since, has been able to explain. Wiener mélange. Wiener mélange. What, in the name of all that is good and holy is wiener mélange? My initial thought, not unreasonably, I'm sure you'll agree, was that it was some sort of sausage mix. In a cup? Perhaps a slightly lighter equivalent of a cup of hot Bovril? But, to the right of wiener mélange was the choice of wiener mélange med sukker. Those language experts among you will have deduced that means with sugar rather putting paid to my Bovril theory. The only solution, of course, is going to be to get one. I'll report back.

Five hours I'll never get back

2009-10-21T21:59:00.002+01:00

I join you from Cheshire. I have just returned from the most calorific dinner you can possibly conceive of, from a gourmet burger establishment with the unlikely name of What's Coooking? A heart attack, that's what's cooking tonight.

I'm so in to prescription drugs. I hurt my neck a couple of years ago. I woke up on a Friday morning in agony and I could not get my head straight (I mean literally not metaphorically, for once). I had to mince into the doctor's surgery with my head cocked to one side and demand immediate medical attention. Anyway, the nice doctor (not the one with whom I am infatuated, but another, very pleasant one) gave me some Cocodamol. As it happened, I was working in Sheffield (ugh!) that weekend and not looking forward to it. Best weekend of my life. I wasn't high, but everything was wrapped in a beautiful warm woollen blanket. Everything was just alright. I think perhaps I should do a Kelly Osbourne and just take them all the time.

Incidentally, I popped in Casualty in Bergen a few weeks ago as I had a brief health paranoia moment. Bit of a tired joke about waiting rooms having old editions of Good Housekeeping, I know. However, in Accident and Emergency in Bergen there was a copy of Bonytt ('Live New') from November 2003. Is that not taking the Michaela just a little? If one has a broken leg or rectal prolapse or a nasty case of syphilis and is waiting for seven hours in some hellhole with strip lighting the last thing one wants to look at is a dated chintzy throw.

Anyway, back to the main thrust of these inane meanderings. I was feeling a little stressed earlier and I thought hang and blast it I've had a bad year so I popped one of my mum's Valium tablets in an attempt to cheer myself up. I waited half an hour and didn't feel any different. I didn't have much on today, so I thought well dash it I'm going to have another. I did, I waited for half an hour and nothing happened. This was at about 1pm. I waited another ten minutes or so then woke up at a quarter to six. I understand that they're supposed to reduce anxiety - that's why I took them. It seems to me, however, the wrong approach. I mean, it's all very well and good not being anxious, but being totally comatose for an entire afternoon makes it a little difficult to achieve anything. I mean, I wasn't anxious any more, but I was, well, asleep.

Vague attempt at light cultural insights

2009-10-14T20:53:00.010+01:00

We miss out, in the UK, on foreign culture. As I was perusing the best-sellers section in Platekompaniet (the equivalent of HMV) I pondered this thought. The best-sellers, you see, were from all over the world. Sitting down to an evening of television in Norway (or any non-English speaking country) one is presented with an array of subtitled choices. It's different in the UK. One has to be in a particular mood for world cinema. Sometimes I do get a little queer feeling all over me, and think to my myself 'I know, I'll watch a foreign film'. The beauty of this is that one feels like one is being edgy and cultured and alternatif, when one is, in fact, just sitting on one's behind eating popcorn, as one would be if one were watching Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistlestop Cafe. Not so up here. I feel it's a good thing. Unfortunately most of the subtitled television available is Midsomer Murders but you've got to take the rough with the smooth.

On the opposite foot, I have a restricted choice of literature. I do tend to pick things up when in London, but going to a bookshop in Norway and their having only fifty titles in English is actually rather a boon, because one is forced to make choices that one perhaps wouldn't otherwise. The only novels that I can read in Norwegian feature Miss. Marple and the only reason I can manage those is because I am familiar with every intricacy of each plot, so even if I don't understand a whole paragraph I still know who had hidden the revolver in the aspidistra in the library. Consequently I have recently read Shantaram and The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, neither of which I normally choose but both of which were, in their own way, rather moving and both featured in Oprah's Book Club. I fear that Oprah's Book Club is the sole criterion upon which imports of English paperbacks are decided in Scandinavia.

Talking of things that are moving, I'm going on a train on Friday. Across Norway. Norway is a very narrow country, but being that there are so many mountains and lakes and fjords it takes forever to get anywhere. I'm told that the first of the snow will be on the mountains. It's October! When I last saw the inland mountains it was June, and the last of the snow was on the mountains! It really is three months of summer and nine of winter, with very little in between. I rather like chilly weather, but not all of the time. Where I live in Bergen is relatively mild, but everywhere is absolutely brass monkeys. I am getting the train to Oslo. Last time I was there I didn't take my longjohns off for the entire weekend. Not even in the shower. I shall manage. Anyway the mountain journey is supposed to be beyond breathtaking in its romance and scenery, so I'm very much looking forward to it. I shall take some photos and place them on le livre de visage.

To round up on the culture (these are the only cultural references you will ever find in this blog) there is an amazing sculpture park in Oslo to which I will pop. I'm not one to come over a little queer just because of a sculpture. I'd like to be that sort of person, but I'm not. I'm dead inside. However, these scultpures. Amazing. They really put the willies up one. I can't even describe it. I mean we're talking pant-shittingly good. I'm going to try to insert a picture, hang on.

Well there you have it. Two, in fact. Never have I seen such emotion conveyed in stone. It's all about, you know, universal suffering and shared humanity transcending physical barriers and what have you. There are hundreds, perhaps thousands of people depicted. Amazing. Well, I'd love to give a detailed analysis but I'm dead inside. Perhaps those of you with more intelligent blogs will step in on my behalf. But anyway, all I'll say it that it's worth braving the sub-absolute zero temperatures in Oslo just to see it.

Well, after that little cultural exposé I'm going to have to go and do the Daily Mail crossword by way of counterbalance. I've done it again. It's even worse this time. Not only did I buy it, but I paid £3.20 for it, I used my credit card as I didn't have any cash with me and I only bought it to read about the riddle of Stephen Gately's final hours. I feel so dirty. I have nothing left to offer the world. Nothing.

Murder on the Gatwick Express

2009-09-24T22:29:00.003+01:00

Here's how it's going to work. I'm going to do a lot of pre-emptive explanation and miscellaneous commentary before revealing a shocking confession. You're going to do a 'methinks he protesteth too much' affair at my dull ramblings, realising that I'm just procrastinating and trying to make myself feel better about said shocking act and then we'll both know what the deal is. I am glad we've got that cleared up.

This thing, then. It's not something I agree with, or approve of in others, but rather something that I did because it reminds me of cozy mornings drinking coffee with my grandparents before a brisk walk up a hill with a fine view of the Dee estuary and later coming back to a lunch of ham salad sandwiches and Kit-Kats and the One o'clock News with Moira Stewart. Surely a little souvenir to remind myself of those days wouldn't be too much to ask, would it?

I should right this blog more often. The point of a blog, I suppose, is that it is amusing and interesting because one follows the events in another's life. If the said blogger does not blog often enough, then the whole point is lost, or most of it. So, I'm going to do it more often. Even if nothing happens to me. I'll just ramble on about nothing. As I am now.

The reason I have not been blogging so often (or the main one) is that I am still having trouble with my wireless internet at home. Why, why, why, why is it so difficult? It's not as if we've even got a laptop! I don't need to be wireless, but it seems as if there's no choice! I'm sure it's frying my brain somehow and the constant exposure to wireless networks has impaired my problem-solving skills to the point where I am no longer capable of working out how to set-up wireless networks. Why can't we just get a cable? I suggested this to Norwegian Boyfriend yesterday and he looked at me as if I'd just suggested we go on a weekend's morris dancing course in the Peak District. Norwegians like to think of themselves as modern, you see, even though the supermarkets are like something out of the ark and they haven't even got digital radio! Gah! Bah! Humbug!

Whilst we're on the subject of ranting, I was in London at the weekend and everywhere, everywhere I saw posters for Calendar Girls from the moment I alighted the Gatwick Express. Why, why, why, why, why in the name of all that is holy??!! It's hideous! Yes, some arthritic northern women got their Bristols out in 1998, it was very amusing, but for the love of God let it go! I don't want to see those posters! My eyes! My eyes! Jerry Hall's faff on display to every Tom, Dick or Harry is one thing but Dot Cotton's is quite another! PUT IT AWAY! Her face is enough to deal with! I'll never eat another cherry bakewell again!

I soldier on as a barmaid. I am going part-time. Five days a week making lattes and freshly-squeezed orange juice is enough to make anyone wear their trousers with elastic around the ankles. Isn't it funny how breast-feeding in public is now totally acceptable? Being that I work in a rather snazzy and yet laid-back establishment, we're frequented by an awful lot of trendy mums. They're everywhere. I've seen more pairs of breasts in the last six weeks than I have in my whole life. Not that that's saying much. There I am, innocently handing a customer a cortado and they've whipped a mammary out before you can say "are you enjoying your toastie?". Unbelievable! I swear one of them almost took my eye out with the clasp of a nursing bra last week. Incidentally (dull linguistic point coming up, feel free to skip) Norwegians always talk about food in the past tense whilst they're still eating it. It's most disconcerting. You'll be sitting there, tucking into porridge for lunch (don't ask) and in a break in the conversation someone will look you and say "was it good???" I generally reply "was what good? President Obama's inaugural speech? The weather forecast? Kathy Bates's performance in Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle-Stop Cafe???" before realising that we're talking about the here and now. And no, it's not good, it's porridge and it's lunchtime! What the hell is wrong with you people???

Trendy mums employ a variety of devices besides whipping their knockers out at every available opportunity. The most notable would be the papoose. You can't move for them. The poor baby can't move in them, as far as I can tell. It's not just trendy mums. A bearded gentleman approached me for a skim-double-shot-extra-hot-no-foam-half-steam-decaf-soya-hazlenut latte to go only yesterday and I was just thinking to myself 'he's a bit of a salad-dodger' only to hand him his drink and find that the protrusion from his midriff was not an acre of Prescott-esque lard, but swaddling and in fact he was wearing a papoose. It really is the limit.

Oh, those lazy days, poring over the crossword with Grandma and Grandad, looking forward to an evening watching A Question of Sport before a game of whist or gin rummy, before sipping a cup of cocoa and retiring to bed with an electric blanket and an Agatha Christie (to clarify - retiring to bed with an Agatha Christie, not with Agatha Christie, it wasn't that long ago). Such happy memories that almost anything is excusable if it reminds one of them, wouldn't you say?

I bought a copy of the Daily Mail earlier. Bad enough in itself, even if my grandparents have been reading it since 1956 and I have fond memories of helping them with the crossword. I think what makes it even less forgiveable is that I bought yesterday's copy of the Daily Mail, and it cost me £3.20. Have I no dignity left?

Lazzie ankles and a Chamois d'Or

2009-09-03T21:49:00.004+01:00

I'll tell you something. I've got buns of steel. I live up a mountain, you see. I wouldn't be surprised if I have become acclimatised to the thin air. I'm like a wild mountain goat. Or a gazelle. Do gazelles live up mountains? I think perhaps they don't. Alright then, a Chamois d'Or. There is no doubt that they live up mountains, I saw one in Alpe d'Huez. Well, I saw a hotel called the Chamois d'Or but that's besides the point.

I have buns of steel because I walk up hills a great deal. I am actually not bad at the whole uphill struggle thing, it's more the descent that I find problematic. I just don't feel footsure and I'm sure I'm going fall headlong into a passing Norwegian. I have developed something of a downhill phobia, in fact, and therefore spend even longer at high altitude than is strictly necessary. The result is that when forced to descend to sea level I shuffle forwards with small steps with my head held low and my eyes focused firmly on the spot in front on me, looking not unlike Sadako from The Ring in the process. I spent hours this morning choosing what I thought would be the most appropriate footwear, only to have to have some Norwegian woman (who was sixty if she was a day) skip down past me in a pair of rather garish ballet pumps. Ballet pumps! Like a gazelle, she was.

Let's talk Bergen fashion. All of of the cute lil' Scandinavian boys wear their trousers either (a) tucked into their socks or (b) with elastic bands around the ankles. Has this caught on in London? It's taking a bit of getting used to. Still, my motto when it comes to fashion has always been if you can't beat them, join them. The trouble is, it seems that to pull it off one requires white towelling socks, of which I am in short supply. I tried the elastic band approach the other day but could only find one lazzie band so gave up. Perhaps I'm too old. I am a barmaid, mind you, so mutton dressed as lamb should be par for the course. (Did I really just write that? I'm turning into my mother. And father. Oh God.)

Let's talk Bergen weather. It rains. All of the time. It never stops. Never. Not only does it not stop, it's really heavy. I mean, we're not talking about a wet weekend with a bit of unfortunate drizzle in the Peak District here, we're talking about toe-squelching, thigh-chaffing, headache-inducing, ankle-elasticating downpours. Apparently there might be some brief respite in February when it rains less but is bitterly cold (super) but apart from that faint glimmer of hope it's like this until the end of May. Do queue up to visit.

I had so many things to say. They've all gone. I'm now online at home. Expect more updates. Did I mention I got a distinction for my Graduate Diploma in Law? One of about only ten people in two thousand candidates. I hate to blow my own trumpet but I had a brain tumour in the middle of it, to boot. A woo, a woo, a woo hoo hoo. (that was my trumpet)

The Mountain Way

2009-07-27T18:29:00.002+01:00

Well, it's been a month since I wrote anything and absolutely nothing of interest has happened to me. Perhaps the only development is that I am now a health and fitness guru. I am not sure how this has come about, but I've been slaving away at the gym, day in, day out, in order to perfect my physique. Needless to say, I don't look any different.

I blame Men's Health magazine, which costs £3.60 and is exactly the same every month. The headlines are always something along the lines of GET ROCK HARD ABS FAST or FILL YOUR T-SHIRT WITH ABS or GET YOUR ABS OUT IN BED AND MAKE HER SCREAM. Frankly any scenario involving me being in bed with a girl with my abs on display would result in my screaming, not hers. Well, I say abs, my abdominal region where my abs would be if you could see them through the acres of wobbling lard.

Not only are these magazines the same every time, but the article regarding the amazing fat loss from abs plan is never actually in the magazine. It's just pages and pages of advertisements for protein powder, disgusting low-fat recipes and advertisements for Davidoff featuring Ewan McGregor in a slightly effeminate scarf on a wind-swept mountain.

The problem with trying to be a health guru is that everyone tells you something different. Currently, I am being told not to eat any carbs in the afternoon, but always to eat some carbs immediately after cardiovascular exercise to afford burning muscle tissue rather than fat. So, what happens if I exercise in the afternoon? Carbs or no carbs? This, combined with the fact that Norwegians have dinner at four o'clock in the afternoon means that I have had four meals today already and it's only seven o'clock. I mean I'm trying to trim up, not emulate the physique of Eamonn Holmes and layer myself in undulating mounds of whale blubber. You know he's sneaky-fat. I've met him in person. He doesn't look that big on TV but my god he's a whopper in the flesh. You may wonder why I've met Eamonn Holmes, but you wouldn't believe me if I told you.

Things were going well in the gym today, until I came over a little queer, emotionally. The thing is, I always find myself getting involved with songs in the most inappropriate of situations, my mind wanders and I forget where I am (which can be dangerous on a Stairmaster). There I was, on the treadmill, when Lollipop came on by Mika and found myself reflecting, philosophically, on the lyrics. 'I went walking with my Mama one day, when she warned me what people say, live your life until love is found, or love's gonna get you down'. The thing is, that is what my mother used to say, and often it was when we went walking. To clarify, my mother does not say gonna. Nor is she dead, which I now realise that speaking about her in the past tense suggests. 'Robert,' she used to say, 'don't get married until you're thirty. Don't make the same mistakes that I did' (ie you). It's funny how we remember such pearls of wisdom from our parents. I still find myself repeating them now, and often I find myself bitterly reflecting on the fact that I followed their advice when it wasn't always terribly sound. Oh well, we live and learn. Oh, also to clarify, when I say walking we're not talking about cagoules and mountains. We're talking about a little promenade along St. Asaph Road and back down Coventry Close in the summer, around dusk, when everyone has their lights on but has not yet closed the curtains, so we can nose in people's windows and criticise everyone's wallpaper (it was the nineties, everyone had wallpaper).

Well, talking of decor, I am no longer homeless, or at least I won't be as of Saturday when I move in to my new flat. Woohoo! It's on a road called Fjellveien which means The Mountain Way in Norwegian. How poetic is that? It is, actually, halfway up a mountain. I'm hoping the daily walk to and from it is going to give me buns of steel. I'll show Men's Health. I show her my buns and make her scream.

Well, how to decorate? Clearly, when one is in rented accommodation, one is in a predicament. One doesn't want to spend too much and yet one wants it to be nice. I have been told that my taste in interior design is Kelly Hoppen Uber Luxe, but sadly I don't have a Kelly Hoppen budget (although I do have some Kelly Hoppen room spray). So, how to strike the balance? (Laura, if you're reading, I have already discussed some of this with you, but it's always good to get a range of opinions). Due to the presence of various items of furniture in the flat already, there are only really three rooms in issue.

Guest Bedroom.

I had thought of nautical for the guest bedroom, as Bergen is a port and one can see the sea from The Mountain Way. However, I don't actually have anything nautical, and it's best to work with one has got. Also, if one is going with such a specific theme, one has to do it properly, and a ship's wheel from a charity shop on the bookcase just isn't going to cut it. Frankly, all one would need would be tin of Rover biscuits and it could end up being redolent of a council house from the 1970s. Kirstie did nautical on Kirstie's Home-Made Home and I don't think she pulled it off at all well. I mean, there's New England beach house and then there's a half-arse attempt with blue and white Ikea bedding and a manky bit of driftwood and I just don't think it's practicable. So, given these considerations, and the fact that one can see trees from the guest bedroom, I think I'm going to go with woodland hideaway. This has two particular boons. Firstly, my spare bedding is a suitable shade of forest green, and secondly one can employ any old bit of tat one picks up on a woodland walk without slipping in to council territory. We all know a bowl of pine cones and a liberal spray of Kelly Hoppen room scent speaks volumes and is virtually free.

Main Bedroom

I had thought of sumptuous Rococo splendour but once again Mr. Budget stepped in my way. I think the only way forward is airy Scandinavian tranquility. Perhaps some sort of patterned white bedding and a sheepskin rug over the exposed floorboards. Floaty calico curtains. It can't fail.

Balcony

Well, once again, I'm going to wrestle with the age-old rustic/urban conundrum. It comes up every time I even think of balcony decor. Which way to go? Weathered Kath Kidston prints and tarnished yet sturdy pieces, or some sort of pebbles/babbling water/striking palm plants with architectural fronds splaying across the crisp dewy morning like eternal shards of turquoise crystal? I would say that the character of the apartment would be suited more to the former.

Time will tell. I am rather looking forward to going to IKEA (for some fabric essentials, I'm so over flat-pack. It seems more authentic, going to IKEA in Scandinavia. Although having meatballs and lingonberry jam in the cafeteria will be something of a Busman's Holiday, I can tell you.

It's six months to the day since they whipped my brain tumour out. Hasn't time flown? Isn't it remarkable to think that I've done almost nothing in that time? Alright, I've moved to a a new country, but I've been a complete dosser since I've been here and was a complete dosser before. This is all set to change. It doesn't seem so long ago, emotionally, so I am engaging myself in various projects hoping to move on, grow, be a better person and learn from the experience. It is amazing the thoughts that go through one's head at times. It really doesn't matter where one is the world, one's feelings always follow. Wouldn't it be good if we could put them in to storage somewhere? Perhaps I'll call up Big Yellow and see if they have any facilities for emotional baggage (appalling joke, sorry). I've been watching Lance Armstrong in the Tour de France. I knew that he was a cancer survivor but what I didn't know was that he'd had tumours in his testicle, lung, abdomen and two in his brain. I feel rather out-done. Anyway, he went on to win the Tour de France and is completely recovered, having been given a 40 per cent chance of survival. Seeing this as an opportunity to grow/learn I have ordered his book It's Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life which I am hoping will lead me too some sort of emotional awakening. And there I was, thinking he was some All-American Homeboy Big-Jawed Bleach Tooth Ivy League Jock Celebrity Girlfriend Toss-Pot.

Perhaps once I've read it I'll get a celebrity girlfriend. It can't be that difficult. I mean, I think I'm a bit over the whole gay thing anyway. It all seems rather old hat these days, doesn't it? Maybe even a bit nineties. Who would I have though, that's the question? The obvious choices (Beyonce, J-Lo, Jessica Alba) are all taken. I'm not fussy. All she needs is (a) fabulous wealth (b) no crack habit and (c) no lady's bits. I'll see if RuPaul is available.

Photographic Evidence (iffy)

2009-06-28T23:00:00.006+01:00

Here it is. Ozvald. Proof that I haven't been making it up (although I have been spelling it inconsistently).

This, my friends, is a pub. Authentic, isn't it? Just like your local Lamb and Flag. Sorry about the shonky focus, I was a bit squiffy. They'd actually made rather a good effort indoors, I thought. Sadly the shots I got inside were useless as it was throbbing and therefore just looked like a room full of people. Well, it was a room full of people, I suppose.

As I say, eight out of ten for effort. Almost atmospheric. A pool table and everything. A lot of heavy wood and garish carpet. Below is a wider shot of the exterior. This was about 11:30pm, as an interesting latitudinal aside.

In other news, the sheep have been located. Right next to the car park. The cyncial among you would think that they had been there all along. However, what in fact happened is that they hid and then moved. Cunning beasts. One of them, which looks like a goat, has a shifty eye, and if you ask me she led the others astray.

It's sweltering. One doesn't ever think being too hot will be an issue in Scandinavia, does one? 28 degrees yesterday. Alright, not that hot, but hot enough to be, well, hot. I'm getting a Scandinavian tan. That sounds rather like the title of a gay porn film, does it not? Scandinavian Tan.

Best not to let the mind wander.

Where've Ewe Gone?

2009-06-18T21:37:00.003+01:00

The sheep have vanished. Two of the Adoptive Norwegian Family went to check on them yesterday in highly inclement weather and found only one ewe and a little cute lamb (which is called Greyfoot, incidentally). Visibility was so bad, however, that they weren't too concerned. Little sheep, big mountain, and all that.

So, Adoptive Norwegian Mother went for a look this evening to see if they could find the elusive flock and nothing. They've completely disappeared. It's like the Bermuda Triangle. Well, actually it couldn't be any less like the Bermuda Triangle, but you know what I mean. Apparently she passed a lone mountain walker (sounds suspicious if you ask me) and he said that he thought he just seen a flock of sheep but he couldn't be sure.

I know you're gripped. I'll keep you updated.

We are still unemployed, although the boyfriend has two very promising interviews next week. He has to do an online personality test tomorrow. Houston, we have a problem.

Here's Looking at Ewe

2009-06-16T22:24:00.006+01:00

What has my life become? I spent most of today in the company of sheep. I'm not talking in the metaphorical sense here, I'm talking about real, woolly, bleating sheep. I'm shocked and appalled that I'm about to write an entire blog entry about sheep, but I have nothing else in my life these days. Those of you who know me well will know that this sort of thing really isn't my scene, but there aren't any other scenes here, so it's like it or lump it, I'm afraid. Actually, I don't know why I'm defending myself, it's left me feeling rather wholesome. And these things aren't even uncool in Norway.

It's all terribly quaint, the world of sheep, apart from the unfeasible amounts of urine these things seem to produce, usually when one is standing right behind them. I've ruined my running shoes.

At this time of year, you see, the sheep are moved from the field to the common grazing land, which is essentially a mountain. I was enlisted to help in this process (a thinly veiled attempt at shirking by saying that I had some important sections of Gloria Hunniford's autobiography to re-read sadly did not wash).

The ram (Torle, or Jarle as he is called) did not go up the mountain as if he were to encounter another ram he would kill it or be killed himself. Most barbaric. He has been left in the field with one ewe who was ill earlier in the year and thus can't be left in high mountain climes, poor lamb (sorry). Being that she is now the only female left in the field with Torle (or Jarle) she is presumably in for a right old porking, so I worry about the wisdom of leaving her behind, but I'm told there won't be any ramifications (sorry).

Getting sheep up a mountain is no joke, even if you like sheep. One drives half way up the mountain and then herds the sheep the rest of the way to the common grazing land. I was told this area was not right at the top. This is what we call a half-truth. It was about thirty feet from the top, and I made my second encounter with the tree line in as many weeks. So I and the adoptive Norwegian family scrambled up the mountain trying to get the sheep to climb it rather than wander off7stop and eat/stop and pee/stop and poo, mainly by shouting/cooing/clapping at them and/or enticing them in the right direction with (a) slices of stale bread (b) wild, flailing arm gestures and (c) empty threats about Lancashire hotpot and mint sauce. Thankfully they were particularly unfit sheep, as one has to be able to run and overtake them at a moment's notice and if they'd been any quicker the only way I would've left that mountain would have been in a rescue helicopter.

The problem, of course, with enticing sheep, is that once one has enticed them into the common grazing land (which is not fenced in any way) one then has to leave the sheep there. As irony would have it, they are more than happy to gad and skip in all directions when you're trying to herd them, but when you're to leave them somewhere then they try to stalk you the whole way back down. The only solution, then, is to try to give them the slip. This entails everyone standing in a group looking nonchalant and slowly and discreetly peeling off one by one in different directions so that the sheep don't notice you going - not unlike a sketch from a very dull agricultural Carry On spin-off. Then, one scrambles back down the mountain post-haste so that one's cunning escape isn't discovered by any of the wily flock. I did so, so scared of tripping over forwards that I fell over backwards twice, grazing my buttocks. My balance has always been a bit woolly (sorry).

Still, the view was nice. I'm told we've got to pop up there twice a week to check on them, so will provide photographs. I may even take some snaps of the flock, if they're not camera shy - I'm told at times they can be rather sheepish.

I'm Every Woman

2009-06-14T18:36:00.006+01:00

I have not been to Oswald's yet. I have, however, been past it. It looks about as much like an English pub as I look like Chaka Khan. Not only is it in a modern building which looks like some sort of municipal administrative facility, but also it is in the same building as the Synsenteret - the Sight Centre, ie the only optician within a four hundred mile radius. So far I have managed to resist the temptation to saunter up to the bar with a wry smile and say"Two pints of lager and a bottle of saline solution please, love", but I may not be able to for much longer. It is, also, in fact, called Ozvald and not even Oswald's, so sounds neither like a genuine English pub and nor like a nineties wine bar in Romford, which was about it's only other angle of attack in terms of being authentically British. The windows are blacked out so I am unable to check for rattan furniture, but will do so at the first available opportunity.

I have so far managed to shirk the majority of my farm labourer duties and haven't been back on the Volvo tractor. I did fulfil a lifetime ambition and have a go on a ride-on lawnmower, which is something. I'm not sure if I'm the hearty farming type. Everyone else seems to laugh at a little run in with the electric fence or think a tustle with a ram protecting his (rather paltry) flock is all something of a jolly jape and a bit of a giggle. I, however, prefer to keep live electrical railings and virile sheep (it's either called Torle or Jarle, I can't remember which) at a safe distance and hold on to the majority of my body parts, for at least the immediate future.

They're all terribly outdoorsy and fit around here. The problem with beautiful scenery is that it tends to be rather hilly. On the advice of the in-laws I took myself off on a pleasant bike ride around the local area with a view to exploring a bit and generally improving my level of fitness. It was, indeed, very picturesque, but alas it was so strenuous that I had to stop about every ten minutes because I thought I was going to be sick. I went on a pleasant evening stroll on Thursday with similar consequences. Our little jaunt up what I was promised was a small mountain took us above the tree line. I swear I had to step over the corpses of several British people who had not made it.

I have just had a little nap as I am still recovering from the Wedding of the Year. I did my very first heckle ever. What a yobbo I have become. That's being a Brit Abroad for you. Said heckle was directed at the Mother of the Bride. That's champers on tap for you. It was an encouraging heckle, but a heckle nontheless. I might go and have another one. A nap, that is, not a heckle.

Down on the farm...

2009-06-05T16:25:00.004+01:00

As I type, I am sitting in a room with three people, all of them asleep. I am scintillating company, it seems. I join you from Norway having been on some sort of latter day Thelma and Louise-esque flit across continental Europe in a ten year old Peugeot. Brad Pitt didn't take advantage of me and run away with all my money, but there were a couple of close calls.

It has been something of an emotional whirlwind, I can tell you. We went to a fake beach in Amsterdam, a strange hippy commune in the centre of Copenhagen and to an authentique Swedish restaurant in Gothenburg to eat meatballs. They were not like the ones you get in IKEA. The waiter was so hot and blond I almost threw myself at his feet and begged him to whisk me away to a log cabin and take me roughly but tenderly and then to have his babies and do his laundry with a washboard in a pristine mountain stream. Sadly I soon realised that not only am I not capable of producing his babies but also that (a) he was a straight as a Canadian pine and (b) there aren't any mountains in Gothenburg. One can dream, can't one?

You wouldn't believe the breathtaking scenery in Norway as we drove over the mountains. Frozen lakes (yes, in June) snow-capped peaks, signs saying 'beware of elk crossing'. The real deal. It isn't actually very far across Norway but being that the roads are so small and the speed limit so low and the mountains so well, big and numerous, that it took eight hours. I'll say that again. Eight hours. Well. I didn't know what was more numb by the end of it, my buttocks or my brain. One even becomes immune to incredible scenery after eight hours. You could've told me that Barbara Cartland was swimming up the fjord with Orville on her back and I wouldn't have given two hoots, as they say. I shall reserve time to go back to said picturesque mountains and appreciate them at a more leisurely pace.

Norwegians are most odd. They have a tendency to (a) get enthusiastic about extremely plain food (e.g "Hmmmm! Boiled potatoes! My favourite! These are just like my mother makes them! (i.e. no seasoning and not peeled properly so they've still got the black bits in)) and (b) break in to song at every possible opportunity, usually at family lunches or dinners. More often than not it's the House of the Rising Sun or Over the Rainbow. Nobody has done the Mull of Kintyre yet but there is time. The other thing they tend to do, following the age-old maxim of 'there's no such thing as bad weather, just inappropropriate clothing' is (c) get entirely cagged and bagged for even the simplest expedition. I tried to go for a walk in the woods earlier in a pair of canvas trainers and the whole family looked as me as if they were about to make some sort of collective citizen's arrest.

The reason I am not asleep is that I'm giddy with excitement as the prospect of going to the new local English bar later, Oswald's. I am told that this is a modern building which has been kitted out with the traditional English pub essentials and that a slight clash of styles has ensued. I can imagine that they have not managed to recruit a throng of bearded local crustacea to prop up the bar from 11am until 11pm every day, for example. How a hardwearing floral carpet in burgundy and taupe is going to sit against Scandinavian pine cladding and Velux windows, I don't know. How sitting with a pickled egg in one hand and a pork scratching in the other shouting 'Get your tits out, Helga!' at the passing local totty is going to work against the backdrop of crystal clear fjord waters lapping at a shale beach as the waning arctic sun slowly drifts towards the horizon it's hard to say. One could go on. All I know is that it's got to better than the other Norwegian attempt at an English bar I have been to, rather more authenically called The Halfway House. If my memory serves me correctly it had been an apartment and had had a somewhat hasty makeover. It was not unlike one of those IKEA mock-up apartments they have in the corner of the showrooms with a makeshift line of optics in one corner and a couple of beers on draught. There was still a shower fitting in the men's lavatory and the only indication that it was supposed to be English was a collection of postcards displaying shots of famous London landmarks, all of which had been placed in those four-for-99p IKEA photo frames and stuck on the wall. Something of a half-hearted attempt, I'm sure you'll agree. Its one trump card was that some dog rough Glaswegians were present last time I was there, filling in nicely for the local crustacea contingent.

I drove a tractor today and moved some wood on a farm. And dismantled a fence. Well, you know what they say, when in Rome...

Houmous? Humous? Houmus? Hummus?

2009-05-18T22:37:00.003+01:00

I don't do topical rants, not being sufficiently in touch with current affairs. Tom, I leave that to you. I'll tell you something I don't appreciate. the Daily Mail, that's what. Every time I read it I experience either rage, disbelief, or disgust. or all three. It wasn't the usual narrow minded short-sighted hideous bigotry this time, mind you, it was the article about Farah Fawcett, who is, by all accounts, on her death bed.

Now, the public's new-found cancer awareness in the light of the late Jade Goody's demise is no bad thing. It really isn't. But I resent coming across pictures of celebrities drawing their penultimate breath when all I was looking for was the free packet of lavender seeds and the Classical Brits CD which were the only reasons I bought the Mail in the first place (note to self, never be sucked in to Daily Mail purchase by rubbish freebies again). I know Farah is in desperate straits. I was saddened to read about it. What possible benefit is there in seeing a photo? The caption was even something along the lines of 'Farah Fawcett in her Charlie's Angels Heyday, and (inset) on her death bed'. We know what happens when people have incurable cancer. They fight for a while and try to keep going, then they spend months on end lying in bed in hideous agony, then they die. What possible benefit does a picture of a dying Farah confer on anyone or anything, juxtaposed with her blow-dried, roller-brushed 1970s self? None. I feel physically sick. I haven't been able to get it out of my head ever since. Gah.

I've been thinking what I'll miss least about London, besides the Mail. Is it Crest of London souvenir shops? Is it the scent of the 46 fried chicken outlets I walk past on my way home? No, it's the omnipresent pool of sick in the bus stop outside Argos in Shepherd's Bush. The last three times I've been there someone has seen fit to spew copious amounts of what appears to be a melange of strawberry McDonald's milkshake and houmous (is that how you spell it? - the Greek cold garlic porridge gritty sloppy stuff that people started having with dips in 2002 and thought they were very vogue). That particuar spot, outside Bagel Bite, Argos and Exclusive Jewellers (I'll be the judge of that) is the most depressing place in the whole of western civiisation. I've spent many a delightful 25 minutes freezing my knackers off there waiting for the 94 bus, wondering if there is any more to London life than bus trips and pinkish vomit. In a way I understand. I mean, standing outside Argos tests the gag reflex in the best of us, but really, of things I won't miss. that particular pool of vomit is certainly in the top five.

I'm a great believer in the old maxim 'if you haven't got anything nice to say, don't say anything at all', but we can't all be chipper all of the time, can we?

Gloria in Excelsis Deo

2009-05-18T09:52:00.003+01:00

Well, Monday morning. What could be better than the notion that I'm waiting to go in to my land law exam. Sigh. Only moderately shitting a brick. A half-brick, you might say. Four hours of misery. Being a learning support student I am in a different building - in fact in an entirely different area of London to all of the normal people. Worryingly, the room number I'm in is 2:2. Let's hope that's not an indication of what my performance is likely to be.

It's at times like these I look to Gloria Hunniford for guidance and support. I had thought of bringing her autobiography to the exam, but as far as I could see it wasn't in the list of permitted materials. Let's just hope that the fact that I have copied her hairstyle will be enough to get me through any low moments should the question on co-ownership be a challenge.

Ruby Explosion

2009-04-15T11:38:00.004+01:00

What a relaxing Easter weekend I had!

A pleasant trip to Cheshire on the train, leafing through a murder mystery paperback, gazing out at rolling pastures and rocky peaks, revelling in the prospect of Easter eggs and roast dinners with a possible country stroll.

I arrived home, crossing the familial threshold, not into my Mother's welcoming bosom, but into a sitting room in complete disarray! All of the furniture oddly crammed into the middle of the room like some sort of Turner Prize entry.

What can be happening, I thought? A spring clean? A 'welcome home Robert ' game of musical chairs? An orgy? All was revealed when my eyes fell upon eight roughly equal squares of paint on the wall by the window, all of which were almost identical shades of cream. Decorating.

Well, I managed to spend Good Friday and most of the Saturday holed up in what I rather pretentiously refer to as the Music Room pretending to study but in fact chatting to Norwegian gays online. Eventually, I could stand neither the suspense nor the Norwegian gays any longer and joined the debate as to precisely which identical shade of cream to go for. My sister joined in, and thankfully can always be relied upon for constructive input. It went something like this.

Mummy: "The buttermilk is too dirty from this angle. It's alright from where you're sitting, but from where I'm sitting it's dirty.

Daddy: "I like the buttercream not the buttermilk."

Mummy: "No, that's too insipid. I'm not sure what you can see from where you're sitting, David, but from where I'm sitting it's insipid."

Caroline: "They're all bloody awful."

Daddy: "I still like Barley Glow."

Robert and Caroline: "That's exactly the same as you've got already!"

Robert: "Why don't you do a feature wall of the buttermilk, and then the buttercream, everywhere else, like in the sample book?"

Daddy: "Yes! That's what I've been saying all along!"

Mummy: "No. Not nice. I've seen sitting rooms done up like that. I've been to sitting rooms done up like that. I've sat in sitting rooms done up like that. It wasn't nice."

Robert: "They're both magnolia anyway. Why don't you for for Lunar Falls or Daffodil White, brighten the place up a bit?".

Daddy: (adopts patronising tone) "Because, Robert, they're only available in matt finish I'm not putting bloody matt on, it's a bloody nightmare."

Caroline: "They're all bloody awful."

Robert: "But a matt finish is much more contemporary, clean lines and all that. If you're thinking about saleability it's worth going for matt".

Daddy: (adopts tone of rising anger) "I'm not putting bloody matt on."

Robert: "But..."

Daddy: (adopts tone of apoplectic frenzy) "Do you want to do it? Do you want to do it? Do you want to do it? Do you? Do you? Do you?"

Robert: "Not if you're going to speak to me in that tone".

Mummy: "Let's not fall out about this!"

Robert and Daddy: "Too late."

Mummy: "I still think the buttermilk is dirty. What about a feature wall? I like the way they've combined the Ruby Explosion and the Ivory in the sample book."

Caroline: "They're all bloody awful."

Daddy: "Yes! That's what I've been saying all along!. I think the Ruby Explosion is too dark. What about Roasted Red?"

Robert and Caroline: That's exactly the same as you've got already!

Mummy: You'll have to go and get some more samples.

In the end, after two trips to B and Q, which were conducted in stony silence, Ivory was selected with a Mud Hut feature wall. Both of which were my suggestions.

I rest my case.

Shit shit shitty shitting shit.

2009-04-06T16:18:00.004+01:00

Isn't England shit? Well, Britain. Well, the United Kingdom if we're going to split hairs, although I have never been to Northern Ireland and it may not be shit, but I imagine that it is.

You see, I am relatively bright. Not massively bright, but relatively. Alright, I think I'm massively bright but my need to outwardly suggest some degree of modesty made me qualify the brightness statement.

Anyway, I am bright. I am relatively hard-working (that really is relative) and and have been relatively hard-working since I started a paper round when I was thirteen. I have never stopped working since then, in fact. I worked in Littlewoods cafe in Chester (albeit for one day). I worked in Marks and Spencer, where I was attacked with a spade by a violent drunkard whilst manning a Portacabin full of chilled perishables (I shit you not). I worked in Racing Green, an awful clothes shop which never had any customers. I endured levels of boredom which you will never understand. I worked in Pizza Hut, for four years. I worked in a call centre. I worked in a hideous gay bar in York. I worked in Marks and Spencer again, in Wood Green. I worked in the glamorous world of TV. I work in a relatively snazzy law firm, even if my office is still like a doctor's surgery even though we've been here for four months. It even smells like a doctor's surgery.

I have qualifications. A masters degree, no less. I vaguely speak a number of languages. I have life skills - hell, I can even touch type.

And yet, I am still poor. Well, alright, not poor, but not comfortable, either. No prospect whatsoever, for example of buying my own home. Not even a studio. Isn't that shit?

I am the first to admit that I have sometimes made the wrong decisions. Choice of degree, for example. Doing a pointless master's degree, for another example. Yet, I might add, I gave up on all my dreams of being a world class flautist and/or opera singer because of the shitty careers advice at my shitty school (bit of fruitless ancient bitterness creeping in there).

So, what I'm saying, is. I'm 30, I'm relatively bright, I'm relatively hard-working, I still have student debts, I'm still not financially comfortable, I live in a flat that isn't big enough for my stuff and I spend my whole life waiting for the bus with Morrisons shopping bags because I can't afford to go to Waitrose, like some latter-day Shirley Valentine. Even she had nice house, albeit a bit surburban for my tastes.

The point of this uninformed rambling, to coin a phrase, is that this country is shit.

NB - I promised myself I would never use any expletives in this blog, but decided to allow 'shit' to creep into this one.

Fatness First

2009-03-16T23:17:00.003Z

The dynamics of the gym never fail to perplex me. I was contemplating this earlier whilst panting away on a stationary bike watching Cash in the Attic which, unusually, was presented by the lovely Gloria Hunniford who spent the entire programme inferring via the medium of sniping sideways remarks when the contestants weren't listening that Milton Keynes is a hellhole. No flies on Gloria.

It's just that everyone else seems to (a) be fitter than me and (b) know exactly what they're doing. Whenever I'm on the stationary bike I have to glance at the person next to me to see if they're on a higher effort level than I am. If so, then I have to increase mine accordingly. Trying to concentrate on Escape to the Country when you're heart rate is 185 beats per minute is no laughing matter. On the rare ocassions when I am fitter than someone (generally a fatty) I get a barely controllable urge to turn to them and engage them in chit-chat regarding whichever daytime offering the BBC has on offer at the given moment, purely to demonstrate that I, unlike them, am still capable of conversation. The fusion of daytime television and gymnasia could be the subject of a doctoral thesis. I mean, as Homes Under the Hammer reaches its gripping peak am I burning more calories? A couple of minutes of Angela Rippon in a pair of fawn slacks and a piqué polo gets me far hotter under the collar than any cross trainer ever will.

Who are these people who work out in the day? There is a surprising amount of totty in there (for Shepherd's Bush) and they look like the sort of people who hold down regular jobs - which came as a surprise being that it is only Fitness First. And Shepherd's Bush. I knew there must be a reason it is so cheap. No membership limits. It's so woefully oversubsribed I spend half of the time in there loitering in between the leg abductor and the chin-up assistor trying to look as if I am casually stretching or engaging in some sort of yogalates manoeuvre, whereas in fact I am desperately waiting to pounce on any one of the three machines I need, all of which are occupied by either (a) men who look like Dolph Lungdren's slightly beefier younger brother or (b) the aforementioned fatty from the stationary bike who has excreted enough sweat on the shiny seat of the lat pulldown machine to make sitting on it about as appealing as spending the evening sellotaped to Jeremy Beadle (before he was dead). At least one gets the smug satisfaction of being able to move the weight up. On the flip side, if one follows Dolph Lungdren (who has just bench pressed the equivalent of Michelle McManus) one feels the need to overstretch oneself. I made the churlish move of attempting this with the calf raise machine last week and spent the best part of four days walking like I had just found a broom up my arse.

There is no point to this rambling. To end on a high, if unrelated note, here's the Postman Pat theme tune dubbed in to Norwegian. More amusing than it sounds.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3uLukpgDjOk&feature=related

I just can't help myself

2009-02-27T00:21:00.003Z

My doctor, with whom I am moderately in love, (he's a sort of mysterious Iranian type - I keep expecting him to whisk me away over sand dunes on a magic carpet and then feed me Turkish Delight whilst presenting me with beautiful treasures which have been facilitated merely by the rubbing of a lamp) is sending me to a Guided Self-Help Counsellor. This is to expunge any negative thoughts about braintumourgate and help me to grow as a person and move on. I am rather hoping that I will morph into a new and scintillating comedy guru or the like once all trauma is released from my life. I don't actually like Turkish Delight. Perhaps cuddling up on a cozy rug in front of a crackling fire whilst wearing chunky cable knit sweaters and drinking Horlicks would suffice.

One doesn't know what to expect, does one? I did think the Mysterious Iranian Doctor (he may not be Iranian, incidentally, this is pure fantasy) handled the whole business in a somewhat offhand manner. After my appointment I had the pleasure of sitting in reception trying to fill in a questionnaire about my state of mind with nothing but posters about incontinence and mouth cancer as inspiration. Rating on a scale of 1-4 whether one has suicidal thoughts or if one feels like a failure (neither of which I do) whilst sandwiched in between a whiffy pensioner who is hacking up every Woodbine he has smoked since 1976 and a lactating expectant mother is rather a tall order. It's not the sort of thing one dashes off whilst leaning on a copy of Good Housekeeping from November 1997, is it? One of the questions asked me how often I found myself speaking too slowly or too quickly. Well, it rather depends upon what one is using as a yardstick, doesn't it? I had half a mind to peer, wild-eyed, at the lactating expectant mother and say 'Do I speak too slowly?' but thought perhaps she had enough of her plate as it was. I think I put 'not often' but am now concerned that this not emphatic enough. What if I have now slotted myself firmly into the manic depression category? Or Asperger's Syndrome? Or Attention Deficit Disorder? Or Tourette's? Or Legionnaire's Disease? Oh god.

Standing Room Only

2009-02-25T21:48:00.003Z

At what point does one become less able to stand? I was considering this on the 94 bus on the way home, sitting in the seats reserved for those less able to stand. I am not in peak physical condition owing to the recent surgery, but I'm not exactly a snivelling mess who can't be let out of the house alone. Public transport is still something of a mission, however, as I still have iffy eyesight and tend to walk into seats/walls/Albanians when alighting public transport vehicles.

Well, fate dealt me a blow earlier as I was pondering this question whilst trundling along the Goldhawk Road aboard the 94. As I was smugly cozying up in the said less able seats a partially sighted gentlemen got on the bus and sat next to me in the seats of the people who are less able to stand, thereby pinning me most uncomfortably against the window. He then proceeded to eat very slowly and noisily (and being partially sighted, not very accurately) what appeared to be a battered sausage and a portion of greasy chips from a paper bag whose scent and grease insulating properties can only be described as woefully inadequate. There you go. Karma. I'm taking it as a sign that I am perfectly able to stand.

Lack-a-day!

2009-02-22T19:06:00.005Z

Yes, it's been a long time and I know my public await me with a frenzied fervour. Now the whole humourless tumorous episode is over it seems rather difficult to come up with anything profound. I received some information putting it very plainly that recurrence is rare and total resection is generally considered curative. Really better than I had ever hoped for. Perhaps because I hadn't really taken in the whole drama of the situation now I can't really let it go either. I am trying, however. Goodbye Ganglion! Part of me still dares not be relaxed and lackadaisical about the whole thing, so I won't. It's over but it wasn't cock-a-hoop, as they say.

Notwithstanding all this, I had rather hoped that my life would be imbued with a greater sense of profundity and material goods would be nothing but meaningless folly, but to be brutally frank I'm still as interested in hats, shoes and bags as ever. Incidentally, I am still not entirely back to my cool and collected self. I was trying to buy some Yves Saint Laurent L'Homme Healthy Look Moisturiser in House of Fraser earlier and I completely forgot my PIN number. I mean, completely forgot it. I had to walk away empty-handed. I was saved from myself, really.

So, I'm about two years behind on my law course and it's only a two-year course. Bit of an issue.

It looks more or less certain that I'll be moving to Norway. Looking at the weather forecast I am questioning the wisdom of this decision. It's not even as if one can do the British thing and say to oneself "never mind, let's just get through January and February and it'll be balmy by the end of April". Oh no. A lifetime of ceaseless drizzle and humid bone-chilling cold is all that awaits, with perhaps one Thursday afternoon every other July where it might touch 17 degrees for a quarter of an hour if you're in a sheltered spot and your back is to the wind. It's not that bad really, but I always thought that if I were to leave this country it would be for warmer climes. It's only temporary. What's two years when you're young, free and the whole world is your oyster?

Moving abroad is also a logistical nightmare. How does one house-hunt abroad, for example? The internet has made it somewhat easier, although www.finn.no is no Rightmove, I can assure you of that. Lots of lovely properties with wood-burning stoves and loft rooms and mountain views and under-floor heating, but going to view them involves a schlep via the Place Where The Scum Amoebae Of Every European Nation Gather To Travel (Stansted) and then you only really have one attempt to find something unless you want to spend an absolute fortune and can face another sojourn toing and froing amongst the velour-tracksuit-clad peasants. How does one get one's furniture to a country to which one is not connected by land? One drives onto a pikey ferry in a Transit van and then spends a couple of hours trying to work out whether the rising nausea is seasickness or the primal horror of being entirely surrounded by French teenagers with no visible means of escape. One then proceeds to drive for about two thousand miles through a further five countries for four days at great expense, overnighting in motels with bedsheets that seem to have been woven from Ryvita. That is how one does it. Then one has to drive the van back for another for days when one has deposited the furniture. Not a walk in the park.

Scandinavia's saving grace is its music. I'm just discovering more and more. I might try to be clever and post a video of Maria Mena's Just Hold Me. Hang on. OK I tried I'm not clever enough, here's the link. I think she's miming but you get the idea.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yV3YYV1kpkI

Yes, all of the women do look like this in Norway. Most of them more towards the blonde end of the spectrum. Unfortunately quite a lot of the men look like the drummer and the pianist. You can't have it all. Actually here's To Let Myself Go by Ane Brun who I'm going to see on Thursday, in fact, in Islington, of all places. She recently did an amazing cover of Cyndi Lauper's True Colours which was used on the Sky+ HD advert, FYI.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7tQiDHSe5E

The video is nothing to do with the song, but both are rather good, independently. So two singers, both good, both Norwegian. It bodes well. And my new Nano arrived today (woo-hoo! thanks Mum!) so I've got plenty of excuses to sit around with a vague expression on my face feeling dreamy and pensive whilst listening to doleful Scandis, wondering if I'll ever see the northern lights or the midnight sun. I suppose if it's too depressing to go outside there's nothing for it but to sit around writing doleful music (the television isn't really an option, it's just endless subtitled re-runs of Midsomer Murders).

Well I had so many thoughts that seemed scintillating, but I've honed my prose style enough for one evening. I've got to listen to an e-lecture about Co-Ownership of Land. Given that prospect, I could quite possibly be back later with more musical revelations....

Gangly Ganglions

2009-02-12T17:19:00.003Z

Eyesight continues not to improve. Sigh. I wouldn't mind a blind spot, I really wouldn't, but a swirling distortion is quite another prospect. What to do? I'm going to have to consider a career that involves not using the eyes. Any thoughts? I could become a rent boy, I suppose. Partial blindness would probably help. Hell, I'd do anything for £4.50 and a packet of Frazzles. as long as I couldn't see what I was doing.

As every day passes it becomes harder and harder to convince oneself that everything is going to be alright on the eyesight front. I've still got bruises all over my arms, mind you. If they're like that imagine what the brain is like. Poor brain. I did one of those brain training things on my sister's Nintendo DS (can you believe I am related to a person who has such a thing?). Anyway I was 60. Pleasing, no?

Some good news is that the Thing In Head was not even an astrocytoma, but even less dangerous than that, a Ganglioglioma. That's a mouthful, isn't it? Or a head full, depending on how you look at it. Hardly anything is known about them, it seems, but they're not dangereux. Phew.

Right, so I'm moving to Norway, as if the weather isn't cold enough here. It's snowing as I type. Brrrr. It's amazing just how Scandinavian all the flats we have looked at online are. I mean, it's as if IKEA have built the thing, let alone been responsible for the interior design. Norwegians put their washing machines in the bathroom. It's most irregular. What I'm going to do job-wise I don't know. It would be rather chilly walking the streets and terribly impractical to service clients whilst wearing Helly Hansen. Do they have Frazzles in Norway? I wouldn't have thought so.

The Cheshire Set

2009-02-09T11:53:00.002Z

I'm off to Cheshire, to my place of birth. It really is a hellhole. I mean, Chester itself is alright, if we're talking about the city centre, but the outlying areas from whence I hail are Scouser-come-good lower middle class hell. There you go, I've just defined myself as lower middle class. Actually, Tomos defined me as lower middle class at Claire's 30th birthday and it's been echoing around in my head ever since. It really is like Footballer's Wives. Although my parents aren't rich. They're lower middle class. Apparently. Although they're not Scousers-come-good. To clarify.

Talk about brain dead (people in Cheshire, that is, not Tomos). BJ and I were actually shouted at in the street last time we were there even though we were walking along minding our own business - not like we were even holding hands or anything like that. I'm all for making a political point but I wouldn't dare in the environs of CH66.

Still, I'm staying with Laura, whose parents live in a rural idyll as opposed to my parents who live in dreary suburbia. Phew. Furthermore, the weather is so appalling our plans revolve entirely around eating. My plans always do. I need fattening up, for the love of god!, I was subjected to more than a week of hospital food! So, we're going to don our Barbours and perhaps venture out for a tiny gentle stroll. Perhaps Laura will take me on another trip to look at the council houses. We'll see.

So strange reading the blogs below from before the operation. It all seems like a dream...

Gay cliché

2009-02-08T13:01:00.003Z

I'm a gay cliché. I have known this for some years, although I was reflecting upon this when I exclaimed in a tone of voice not unlike that of Lil' Jimmy Osmond at dinner last night that my lips were terribly chapped and I needed to borrow some lip balm.

Here's the thing. Where does it come from? Not being gay, but the associated gay characteristics alongside the obvious liking boys rather than girls thing.

I brought my LPs down from my parents' house a couple of months ago (showing my age here). There was a period of about three years when I was, say, aged 11-14 where I only had a record player and no CDs. I didn't have any money when I was 11-14, so had five albums during all of this time - my paper round didn't pay all that well. They are, in no particular order; Kylie's first album entitled Kylie Minogue, Love Hurts by Cher, Like a Prayer by Madonna, Madonna's first album just called Madonna and Boomania by Betty Boo. Not only that but the only other three albums I have acquired since are Results by Liza Minnelli, Barbra Streisand's Guilty and Shirley Bassey - Live at Carnegie Hall.

How gay is that? Very. Here is what puzzles me. Pop princesses like Cher, Britney and Madonna, gays love them all, but why? It would but easy to think that it's just some gay bandwagon that everyone jumps on because they're a bit cheesy, but it's not true. I didn't know I was a gay when I bought all of those albums and Kylie and Cher were not cheesy and gay in 1991. They were serious artists. Love Hurts was a serious rock album. I still like it. They must have some essential quality that appeals to gays. I mean, why do we love them? Even now I can remember every word of the rap from Success by Dannii Minoque. But I didn't tape it from my friend Felicity (my best friend at primary school was called Felicity, that's even gay in itself) because it was ironic. I did it because I loved it. It's not because everyone else liked them, I spent years sitting in my room listening to I Should be so Lucky on vinyl whilst everyone else had Pump up the Jam by Technotronic on cassette. Actually I had that too. Actually I've still got it.

Oily goodness

2009-02-07T08:58:00.004Z

As you can see, I am not dead. Hurrah for that. Going through these situations makes one appreciate how much life has to offer. How short it is. How one must strive to enjoy it because it's not here forever or some hideous illness could come along and make it painful and difficult. I just feel so different about so many things. I could go into great deal and write thousands and thousands of words but I have still got dodgey vision. Very dodgey. That's my only problem now, though. It was a benign astrocytoma if you want to look that up. The other thing they thought it could be was a cancerous oligodendroglioma. Look that up if you want to see why I was a little concerned. They also got rid of the cyst that was pressing on my brain so my eyes should slowly recover. I have felt like death all week but every day I feel more human again. I'm going to be a new, improved me. I'll let the thousands of words come out over the next couple of weeks. That'll be fun reading for you.

It wasn't that bad, all in all. My head ached like a bastard, to put it ineloquently. Let me tell you now, you've never had a headache. Nothing like a headache. We're talk about someone from Black and Decker popping over and testing their new range of tools on your head. I could feel the nerve in every tooth screaming for mercy, or morphine, which thankfully was forthcoming. The downside to that was that the morphine gave me weird hallcinations which have not yet gone away. I was lying on the ward watching blond, elfin children beckoning me to follow them and reading strange elvish language written on the walls. They've almost gone. I won't miss them, beautiful and serene
as they were.

I've had some sort of huge emotinal releasse. After ten years of being dead inside after Painful First Heartbreak and then the last four months dealing with the brain tumour debacle, or not dealing with it, I have spent most of the last two days crying. Not in a bad way. It's high time. I've got lots of catching up to do.

I made some muffins yesterday, which for some reason came out covered in a layer of oil. I thought it was strange to put sunflower oil in cakes, but it was in the recipe. I'll leave it out next time. Continuing on the grease theme, I haven't been able to wash my hair for ten days. I will be able to tomorrow, when the gaping hole in the back of my head will no longer be there. Soak up the oily goodness.

Snubbed by the Hub

2009-01-26T16:33:00.002Z

My Home Hub still does not work. It is a hub of nothing. Setting up wireless broadband is singularly the most stressful aspect of 21st century life.

So, not long until the big op. I won't be writing here for while, unless I can face another call to Mumbai to attempt to fix the Hub. I have no idea when I will be capable of devastating wit and scintillating repartee again. I may be in a morphine-induced haze, or at the very least high on gas and air, so perhaps I'll be more interesting than usual. I'll be a veritable font of grandiose prose and highfalutin philosophical assertions.

Another beautiful sunset from the window of the Posh New Office, still no means of uploading it as I am officially offline at home. Hubless. Snubbed.

I will be starting the next blog with the immortal words 'As you can see, I am not dead'. Just so you know. Unless I am in fact dead. Fingers crossed, hey?

Delightful

2009-01-23T11:36:00.004Z

So, five days to go before they whizz the top of my head off and whip this brain tumour out (see how light-hearted and jovial I am about the whole thing?). Needless to say I'm not entirely light-hearted but bathing in a pool of flippant whimsy is always the best coping strategy, I find. Still no dressing gown. I'm beginning to think I'm going to get away with it.

The onset of panic today is largely caused by the copy of a letter I received last night, written from one consultant to another. Talking about these things is one thing, but seeing it all written down strikes something of a note of deep terror. The fact that they still don't really know what the thing is doesn't help either. Is not knowing anything better than knowing something bad?

The approach I'm taking at the moment, mind you, is to continue panicking about the results of the test when they send the Thing off for analysis. That way, the whole whipping the top of the head off thing seems like a jolly jape by comparison. Then, once I'm through the other side of that, all I'll have to worry about is the results and I've waited for terrifying results before so I can do it again. The compartmentalisation of fear, that's the ticket. Things are always easier when you break them down into smaller pieces.

One consolation is that the letter described me as 'delightful'. That's something, isn't it? Another is that A Place in the Sun - Down Under is on tonight. Amanda Lamb will see me through alright.

Post Offices and Printers

2009-01-21T15:43:00.004Z

I thought to myself not long before Christmas, that I need to be a More Giving Person. You reap what you sow, I thought, you only get what you give, all that jazz. What's more my birthday cards and presents have rather begun to tail off being that I haven't sent any out myself since about 1996. Two birthdays of close friends have since passed and I am yet to send cards or presents, although I do have them on my desk. Have you ever tried to send anything when you work in the City? Jesus. Not only are post offices the most depressing places ever invented and situated at intervals of six miles from one another, but they also seem to be frequented only by women wearing velour tracksuits with muffin tops on display to all and sundry or really posh men in late middle age with no social skills and Burberry overcoats, most of whom are probably Colonels from the War. Were this not bad enough the queue always has at least 700 people in it and the desk has precisely one cashier behind it who has a moderate motor skill deficiency and an appalling personal hygiene problem. So, I hiked all the way to Liverpool Street for the second time and failed to send parcels again. Being a More Giving Person is not turning out to be all it's cracked up to be.

All of the printers in my office are named after French celebrities. This is the world I live in. The IT Manager approached me last week to tell me that we were getting a new one, as in the Posh New Office we are too far away from a half-decent printer. We're within striking distance of Coco Chanel and Thierry Henry but share with people from another department and frankly I don't want them rifling through my important documents. I was given the huge burden of naming it. You wouldn't think it would be that difficult, but found myself agonising over the decision. There could be some terrible faux pas. There are the obvious choices, such as Edith Piaf, but then I thought the French people in my office could see this as a terrible stereotype. I mean, if it were the other way round and they chose Cilla Black, for example, I would probably take it as a personal affront. My colleague, in an attempt to be helpful, suggested Oscar de la Renta and Frederic Chopin, neither of whom are French, so was really no help at all. I ran Juliette Binoche past a French colleague and it seems that she has no bad associations in France - hasn't gone the way of Kerry Catona or anything like that. He replied saying 'good idea', although I did ask him in French, in which I'm not exactly proficient, so I could well have asked him if he fancies a menage a trois with Juliette Binoche next Thursday week. Let's hope not.

Self-pity and Poppycock

2009-01-21T12:11:00.006Z

A little more gloom has descended today. Let's hope it's not a downward slide to my surgery which is in fact on Thursday although I have to go in on Wednesday anyway to be scanned and probed and all that. Have my blood pressure taken again. Asked how important my religion is to me again. The one upside to this is I will at least get to watch Relocation, Relocation and the new series of Grand Designs in hospital the night before. Perhaps they'll give me some Valium too. Prescription drugs and property programmes. I'm almost looking forward to it.

I read a blog of someone else who has had a brain tumour whipped out today. It wasn't as detailed as I had thought. Just wait for my self-pitying, tortured poignancy and expressions of the innermost depths of the psyche.

I am knackered. I have been sleeping nine or ten hours every night, possibly because being asleep is better than being awake, although I think that's overstating it a little. The mornings are unpleasant as I lie there with my eyes closed waiting to see how bad the weird distorted vision will be when I open them. I'm almost used to it now, mind you, and I am told they'll go back to normal. That will be a joy. I had to look at a document at work earlier that I had put together a couple of days before the whole debacle kicked off. It's as if there is a dividing line between my life before finding out and the time after. Everything following that day is coloured by the existence of this thing in my head. Discoloured, in fact. Bleached, you might say, as if it drains the warmth out of experiences. Life in sepia.

The bright side, of course, is that once I come through the other side I will be a much stronger person. I already am. One also has a rather different sense of perspective. That irritating couple on Relocation, Relocation last week pulled out of a sale because they just 'couldn't go through that heartbreak again' and I thought 'you haven't even the slightly morsel of a clue of what life is really about, have you?'. Heartbreak? Heartbreak? You don't even know what it is. Have a look at my heart love, if you can find it. I'm not sure if it's still there, let alone broken.

Anyway, that was supposed to be the bright side. Cynicism for the problems of others is not the way forward. I have still not resolved the dillemma of my hospital wardrobe, but aim to do so shortly. It's the most important aspect of the whole scenario.

So that's the first bit of self-indulgent drivel which isn't bad going for three days, I don't think. This blog is about my sanity, anyway, rather than purely Bridget Jones style wit and frivolity. Not about how many followers or comments I get. Although that would make me feel fun and popular.

He's in, for the love of God, he's IN!

2009-01-20T17:09:00.004Z

That's it! Obama is in. A joyous moment indeed. What a sight all of those people watching in the brass monkeys conditions. I'm moved by Aretha's presence too although her performance was a little wayward and her hat was extraterrestrial. I have read The Audacity of Hope and I too am very hopeful. That's what we (almost) always have to hang on to, anyway. My only concern is that everyone (me included) will let the elation obscure the reality (still vaguely Victor Meldrew-ish even at this hour - sigh).

I'm listening to his speech as I type. He's talking about enduring the lash of the whip. It's been very rousing so far. What I found even more rousing was this...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/world_news_america/7838941.stm

...it brought a tear of inspiration to my eye, although that could very well have been caused by the tinkling, floaty piano music in the background.

Tuesday Blues

2009-01-20T09:34:00.003Z

My Grandma telephoned last night telling me she was sending money so that I could buy a new dressing gown. She wouldn't let it go and of course took it as a personal affront that I didn't want one, as if the years of bacon sandwiches in bed and emergency rescue cheques at university were all for nothing. So now I'm going to have to lie or give in to the dressing gown pressure group, which is steadily growing. She actually thinks I'm about 12 years old. I should be more charitable she is 83 years old. And has some very nice etched sherry glasses and an East African bonewood standard lamp I've got my eye on. I'd have to have the shade reupholstered but the carving is really very special.

Not wanting to sound like a Victor Meldrew in the making, my BT Home Hub continues to be nothing but a source of anger and irritation. I took some photos out of the window of my Posh New Office of the Florida style-hurricane/twister/tropical storm that advanced upon London yesterday with the intention of dragging my blog into the realms of multimedia and couldn't get online again. Then I was disconnected whilst talking to Mum on the phone and then I saw an advertisement for said Home Hub in between the Channel Four News and Fifth Gear telling me how reliable it was. The ridiculous flashing blinking thing may look very modern but is certainly not the the hub of my home because it doesn't work. Trying to connect and sustain successful wireless broadband has been the singularly most stressful aspect of my existence over the past five years, across two addresses and two service providers. That and losing all my credit cards every three months and never being able to find my glasses. The one consolation is that I don't have to read or have any involvement in the publication of Trademark World.

Ode to Claire

2009-01-19T11:41:00.004Z

Boss's Boss did not reply. Being that I didn't have the cunning shoelace-tying pretext I found myself hovering outside my Boss's office with the poise and gravitas of a lemon. Boss is having a baby, which will may or may not be named Henrietta or Edward.

I have a deep aversion to dressing gowns. This is not an obstacle I have to grapple with on a daily basis as one doesn't often run across people in their dressing gowns unless one is staying at someone's house and when one is staying at someone's house it's often as one is on some sort of weekend visit and there are plans to go on country walks/have fashionable brunches/generally gorge oneself and therefore the scope for lounging around and the possible appearance of a dressing gown is kept to a minimum.

The problem is, I've got to go into hospital a week tomorrow and will have to stay for a week. A whole week. Thankfully I have had only a fleeting and perfunctory relationship with hospitals to date, but when I have had to grace them with my presence it seems that all of the patients walk around attached to drips in dressing gowns, not unlike the Walking Dead. Being that I will not be on top of the world as is, what with the hole in head and such, the wearing of dressing gown (and slippers, for that matter) could well tip me over the edge. Discussing this over carb-heavy dinner the consensus was that some sort of velour tracksuit was the only alternative. Not having felt the need to emulate Jodie Marsh (who I have met, incidentally), Jordan or J-Lo (actually I do want to emulate J-Lo) the cold light of day makes me think this is not the best or only alternative. Would really like to wear tiny little gay Aussie Bum vest and Y-fronts to shock nurses but am currently skinnyfat and not up any display of flesh. Any suggestions would be welcome.

Suddenly Monday

2009-01-19T11:18:00.000Z

Here's the thing. I spent the entire weekend in the company of Bridget Jones. I watched both films on Saturday and am still reading the first book which I bought for 69p from a dodgey charity shop last weekend when it was -3 degrees and it was the nearest place I could find before hypothermia kicked in.

The thing is. I actually am Bridget Jones (apart from the fact that I have a relatively successful love-life). Whilst it's hilarious she also descends into ramblings which actually just describe the way my mind (partially) functions. She says, for example, 'Why is it, that whatever I'm doing, I get the feeling that I ought to be doing something else?'. I have that feeling non-stop. Now, for example. I'm at work. I should be working. Alright, this is the Credit Crunch and there's no work to do as all of our clients have gone bust. So, I ought to be studying. But I don't want to. I might. But then everyone will know I'm studying and not working and I'm supposed to be a motivational Team Leader.

Went for a very romantic (if chilly) walk in Hyde Park yesterday. Was lovely, but ought to have taken champagne and rowed around the lake. Ought to have nice little children called Henrietta and Edward and taken them for hot chocolates in that little floating gazebo coffee shop (which had shut down, incidentally, probably victim of the Credit Crunch too). Ought to have spent the whole studying. Didn't.

Just emailed my boss to tell him how much money we didn't make in December owing to Credit Crunch. Have had no reply. Am going to walk past his office and tie shoelace pointedly near door in an attempt to elicit a response. He's actually my boss's boss. V. important. Perhaps such tomfoolery would be unwise. I'll just walk past his door without shoelace fannydangle.

2009-01-16T17:14:00.001Z

Blog on?