Five hours I'll never get back

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

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.