Me like.

Labels: humour, time wasting

So we were going to Tesco to buy some lunch and two guys who looked scruffy and as if they'd lived on the street for a while were sort of talking on the top of the stairs to the subway (Americans beware: "Subway" i British English is not quite the same as the "Subway" you're used to). I didn't pay any attention until one of them pulled out a camera and I thought "hey, now THAT looks weird, why would he want to stick a digital camera close to the face of this guy?" At that moment I saw that it was in fact the Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, out and about for some reason. The strange thing was that he was not surrounded by anyone. He was there with another guy who didn't look very official or business-like either, and although he was pointing a bit most people easily went by them without noticing one of them was the leader of one of the biggest cities in the world.

Oh yeah, and he was really good about being taken a picture of. Imagine that, on your way to work every day, people stop you several times to say something (usually silly), ask for your autograph, take a picture without really asking...remind me not to become a celebrity.

Labels: personal, time wasting

...this is even worse. I took the Election Guide/Test thingie on VG and not surprisingly scored the highest (82%) for SV. But look at the rest of the list:

Venstre: 79% (which is just fine; I think they are closest to the Green Party over here)
KrF: 69% (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) (I am not Damien after all! I am, in fact, even MORE evil! Because these guys just claim they are led by God, but actually (and not very secretly) are led by the Devil in disguise)
AP: 68% (Fine, they're still a bit on the socialist side)
RV: 66% (Not surprised there, the commies have very interesting, yet unviable ideas)
SP 65.5% (This should warm Torill's heart. Must be my farmer genes springing forward)
FrP: 31.5% (Bit of a gap there, fortunately. But these people are more or less the same as KrF, so all in all I am 100.5% EVIL!)
Høyre: 31% (After all, I'm not a capitalist pig. :p )

I am so ashamed of myself. I apologise to you all and if I were Japanese, I would have brandished my katana right now, directing it towards myself.

Labels: current affairs, personal

Not quite like Brideshead Revisited, for which I am grateful. But anyway, a couple of weeks ago I bought the first three series of A Country Practice on DVD and started watching it from the beginning...something which I'm afraid I hadn't done before. I know this is a great disappointment to you all, but I have obviously been lying when I've said I've seen every episode of this series before. Apparently, there is at least one, perhaps two series I missed completely, because there are people there I don't remember having seen before at all and also a few of my questions from the first time around have been answered (background stories etc.). It's a thrill watching the show again; unfortunately it will take me many years to gather all the episodes, as--basically--they haven't released more than the first three series yet, and I think there were ten or so in total.

Of course, the most important episodes are in the fourth series (read: the ones with Philip Quast in them), but I have also managed to expand my Quast collection with a few hard-to-find gems from the eighties lately and don't really feel the urge to see yet another clip of him in his late twenties right now. I watched a bit of Around the World in 80 Ways the other day and had to turn it off when he started jumping around in his yellow shorts shouting something about his 'nana. That's just disturbing.

I had an awful dream last night; it was very eventful and also very difficult to cope with once I woke up, but the funny parts were when I shouted abuse at some Swedish actors who were performing in Oslo, because I apparently thought they should "keep their filthy sense of humour in the Swedish gutter" (the actors in question were in fact mostly known for being in a popular soap/drama in the nineties (in real life), and that show was only unintentionally funny), and when I was stalking Anders Hatlo for some bizarre reason. The funny thing was that he knew I was stalking him, and didn't really bother. But when I inherited a London house from someone who had hanged themselves the dream turned very nasty indeed and I must say I'll probably remember this one for years. Dream interpreters are more than welcome to just look away, really.

In other news we went to see The Bourne Ultimatum on Monday and this is the first time I think an action film like that would be better to watch on a smaller screen. The filming was so restless and difficult to follow that I became dizzy in places and had to look away. It was definitely action-packed, though, and I loved the fact that David Strathairn was in it a lot.

I have also become the official Norwegian voice on our company's automated telephone system, so when people phone us, they will always hear my voice. Poor things! It was all very weird recording it, especially as my voice is even darker than I thought it was! I sound horrible! Help! But it's weird at the same time, as I've always been told that I sound like my mum on the phone, but she certainly doesn't sound like that! Hmmmmmmmmm...

Labels: anders hatlo, david strathairn, dreams, film, personal, philip quast, TV, work

Once again my "local" paper (I haven't lived there since 1996, and I haven't felt at home there since 1993, but it's still "my" town) has outdone itself with excellent journalism. I quote from their report from the football match between local 3rd division team FK Tønsberg and a team from across the Oslofjord, Sarpsborg:

"Stian Nikodemussen ble dagens mann med fire scoringer for de røde. Etter en halvtime fikk Sarpsborg Fredrik Henriksen utvist etter at han skallet ned Anders Skarbøvik. Etter utvisningen var det kun ett lag på banen. Øvrige målscorere for FK Tønsberg var Andreas Moen (3) og Kim Nysted (2)."

Translated into:

"Stian Nikodemussen became MoM with his four goals on behalf of the reds (FK Tbg, that is). 30 mins into the game Sarpsborg's Fredrik Henriksen was sent off after headbutting Anders Skarbøvik (captain, FKT). After the sending-off only one team was left on the field. Other goalscorers for FK Tønsberg were Andreas Moen (3) and Kim Nysted (2)."

First of all, don't the rules say that every team should have at least eight players on the field, otherwise the game is forfeited? Technically, if Sarpsborg had no players left after Fredrik Henriksen was sent off, they actually started with just him, which means the referee must have been bought to let them play at all. (No wonder Henriksen attacked their captain, then; he must have been terrified and really stressed out after having to cover the whole field by himself.) Or, Sarpsborg were really sore losers and left when they lost one of their players. Once again, the ref should not have let the match go on.

By the way, the match ended 9-1, which means Fredrik Henriksen should have been MoM, managing to score a goal on his own against 11 other players.

Labels: humour, sport

Labels: humour

My last post was actually the 666th of this blog. Now, I know that recent studies have unveiled that 666 isn't actually the devil's number, but it's still imprinted in our collective mind as such and thus I felt the need to point it out.

Now, what I logged back in here to do, was to be mean. Yesterday was a chaotic day at work. My colleague had decided to take the whole day off just as we implemented a new security feature on our site. We were bound to get contacts, but we had never anticipated as many as we did. So I was basically swamped all day and worked overtime (not paid for, of course, because their O/T policy sucks big time) to get through everything. Managed to steer clear of a catastrophe by having the people in charge revert the security feature. So today has been fairly quiet in comparison.

However, I thought I was going to be really tired when I finally got back home. The last two days I have gone to bed rather early (two nights ago I was about to go to bed at half past eight, but then I persuaded myself to stay up by putting on a film...followed by another one), so I was certain I would fall asleep on the tube and then just continue that after I got home. But no. I took a detour to the local supermarket and bought some food and then felt rejuvenated when I came out of there. This feeling stayed with me all evening.

The mean part was meant for my Norwegian friends. OK, so most of my regular, Norwegian readers (have) live(d) abroad, but I want to do this nevertheless. I have lived here for more than two years now and am still not getting used to the low price of food (among other things). Yesterday's shopping trip, I ended up with half a guadaloupe melon, a quarter of a honeydew melon and likewise of a water melon, two large peppered burgers (I love these, by the way), half a kilo of chips (as in pommes frites) and four buttered pain-au-chocolat. I was ready to use my card when the lady said "that'll be five pounds twenty-five, please". How much would this have cost me in Norway? Well, I remember frequently paying at least a couple of hundred of kroner for a meagre shopping bag of groceries. The two burgers I bought cost less combined than one would have cost in Norway's cheapest supermarket chain (which would be...Rema 1000? Or Rimi?). It's insane.

Then, of course...who knows what the current threat/beginning of an outbreak of foot-and-mouth will bring. Fingers crossed.

PS! 10 pounds on Aug bringing up the even lower prices where he usually hangs out. :p DS.

Labels: current affairs, personal

The brand "Ball" was very popular among Norwegian teenagers in the 80s, and now it has arrived in Japan--only they wanted to add their own little touch...

Labels: humour

Wulff Morgenthaler 1
Wulff Morgenthaler 2
Wulff Morgenthaler 3
Wulff Morgenthaler 4

Labels: humour, time wasting

So the Norwegian local elections are nearly upon us, and since I am interested in politics and love doing tests online (come on, it's fun), I took the political party affiliation test at the Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten's site. Guess what the results were? Well, this is going to leave everyone who doesn't follow Norwegian politics bored, so you might as well do something else. :-)

My not very surprising results were:

SV - 67%
RV - 60% :-)
Venstre - 48%
AP/DNA - 40%
FrP - 37% (tsk, tsk)
SP - 35%
Høyre - 21%

And best of all:

KrF - 19% = yay! You may call me Damien.

HOWEVER, I think I was more SV-oriented during the last elections. Something must have changed somewhere.

Of course, this is but a bit of fun; I always read through the different parties' profiles and statements before an election, and I keep up-to-date on local and national politics all through the year in order to make a proper choice. For some reason, though, I doubt I will ever find the KrF manifesto to be closest to my own beliefs. ;-) And Torill, my apologies for apparently agreeing a wee bit more with FrP than your own party, but it seems not wishing to reduce rural subsidies wasn't enough to bump it up a few notches. Darn.

Labels: current affairs, personal

I suddenly thought of this ad today at work. It is the only ad I have liked watching in the cinema for years (I usually don't watch ads on telly). I actually like it so much that when it starts I lean back and just enjoy it.

Labels: personal

After spending most of the day waiting for the postman, who apparently was on strike, I went to see Hairspray. It was silly and exaggerated just like I had expected, and I loved it (of course, having listened to the music for weeks, I was biased to begin with). The make-up and costume departments must have had a lovely time on this film. Unfortunately there were a couple of people sitting behind me who kept chatting (as opposed to whispering) throughout most of the musical numbers, but I knew the songs by heart anyway and did my best to ignore them.

Yesterday I went to see The Pain and the Itch at the Royal Court, and it was very good. The point of the play was reportedly to make the audience uncomfortable about their own often bigoted life situation. One thing which stuck with me was when they discussed upbringing and the middle class man defended his child-rearing by stating that he only wanted the best for his children, to give them an advantage in life, at which the working class man said "An advantage over my children?"

Anyway, I thought Matthew Macfadyen was good in this play. Quite different from how I have seen him portray people on-screen lately (not a fan of his Spooks character, for instance, but at the same time that particular style suited his character in Secret Life). However, my favourite was Peter Sullivan. I remember him from the film Conspiracy and it was a real treat to see him on stage.

Tonight we saw the end of the brilliant True Dare Kiss on telly, and I must say it had an excellent plot, through which the progression was perfectly paced. I would have loved to read the actual script. Good actors, too. Paul Hilton is currently playing in the West End, but since it's against Orlando Bloom available tickets are scarce and therefore I would rather wait until there is another chance to see him on stage, as I thought his portrayal of Dennis in this series was inspired.

Labels: film, musicals, theatre, TV

This is probably the funniest (and saddest) photo I have seen all week: Bee strapped to a metal tube. It's just funny, surreal and cruel at the same time.

Labels: animals, humour, science

I like making fun of Bush...until I remember he is supposed to be the leader of the Free World. We are all doomed.

Labels: humour, time wasting

Wouldn't this be fabulous, everyone?

Labels: film, musicals, theatre