Luckily Norway won their quarter finals against the host nation, China, but I must say the end was rather embarassing. I have never found the "time wasting" tactics to be fair play AT ALL, and it seemed the ref agreed with me. Still, Heia Norge!

Labels: Norway, sport

Actually, no one else really cares, but there you go.

A 18-year-old girl from Norway is officially Europe's best poker player. Yay. We sponsored the event, so I guess I'm more interested in it than most other people.

And I watched the World's Greatest Elvis or whatever tonight, just because a Norwegian was in it. And I quite ashamedly have to admit that I spontaneously shouted "YES" and started applauding when Kjell Elvis went to the finals. Thank god for that, as he was quite rubbish in last week's The Weakest Link (the poor guy speaks horrible English).

All we need now is for the Norwegian ladies to take home the soccer World Cup. Fingers crossed!

I also watched Ant and Dec's Saturday Takeaway and In It to Win It (Dale's back! He/hey!) tonight. So shoot me.

My trip to Norway was nice; I fell in love with Oslo again, and I must say it's a real treat going there when you've become used to the very noisy, crowded, dirty and run-down city of London. It was even more expensive when last I was there, though. And unfortunately for me, some of the things I bought...ok, MOST of the things I bought, in fact, are only available in Scandinavia, so I sort of had to pay through my nose. And then airport security seized my mustard! The bastards! ;-) I hadn't even considered it to be fluid, so shame on me.

The plays were very good. Arsenic and Old Lace had a quite modern take when it comes to theatricality, and it was of course great fun to see Johannes Joner and Anders Hatlo together on stage again. I still owe them a lot for prolonging my life by several years, I'm sure, after having watched Mysteriet Myrna Vep and Sound of Musvik (too) many times. Breaking the Waves had a modern feel as well, but this was much more in the same mold as the original Lars von Trier film. It got to me, and even though I know the story well, I felt quite cross there at the end, which is actually quite a feat for the actors, especially considering the fact that I was sitting at the very back of the balcony and with my shortsightedness didn't see much of their facial expressions. I had to switch seats because they had made this "interesting" set which basically obstructed the view for most of those sitting at the edge of the first few rows. So my front row seat became a back row one, not quite what I had in mind for the trip, but at least I got to see the play.

And the worst thing is that the highlight of my trip was buying a couple of DVD's I couldn't get anywhere else, and also to FINALLY make use of Torill's great Christmas present from a few years back--a gift certificate for the Oslo cinemas. So I went to see Tatt av kvinnen, a Norwegian film I'm sure they won't screen here other than in arty-farty-way-too-expensive indie cinemas, even though it may become Norway's Oscar contender for next year. I also got to spend seven hours at Gardermoen Airport, which was quite excruciatingly tedious and should not be attempted by anyone EVER! And THEN the plane didn't leave until 50 minutes after the scheduled time of take-off. Since I had checked in four hours before the plane was scheduled to leave, I was also without my quite vital nasal spray, as for some reason they didn't seem to sell anything even remotely like a nasal spray anywhere within the secured zone, so by the time of landing I thought my ear drums were going to explode. The upside was that the plane had caught some tail-wind and thus we didn't land long after the scheduled time. In addition to this, the passport control didn't take more than 5-10 minutes--the queue started moving just after the pessimistic guy behind me had hung up on his wife, complaining about "the joke of a passport control" and how his "ETA now seemed closer to 11 PM than 10". This complaint started literally a minute after getting into the queue, so not a very patient man. Then I had some luck with the luggage as it arrived one minute, tops, after I got through the passport control. And my nose was finally free! All in all a nice trip.

I would also recommend the Thon Hotel Spectrum for a budget stay in Oslo. Well-kept, good service, clean, and they had free internet access downstairs and cable in the room. I even got to see a film I hadn't seen before! Amazing!

Labels: anders hatlo, dennis storhøi, film, Norway, personal, theatre, TV

I'm off for Norway tomorrow. Very early in the morning. Too early, really. But of course, that means more time in Oslo to...uhmmm...well, not do anything special, really. My main goal is to go and enjoy two plays. And do some shopping.

Good news; Peter Serafinowicz gets his own show on the Beeb. Glee.

Went to see Run, Fat Boy, Run today, which was about as funny as expected. Lots of British comedy talent there, with a certain Hank Azaria thrown in for good measure, so very happy about that. Also saw the trailer for the long-awaited Elizabeth: The Golden Age, and I must say it looks very good!

Sorry to hear about Luciano "Pav" Pavarotti and Colin McRae dying; the latter's death was very spooky as I heard about it after having spent two hours playing the brand new Colin McRae: Dirt PS3 game.

Speaking of games; tried the demo of Bioshock yesterday just to test out my DirectX 10 gfx card, and WOW! I spent longer than necessary during the first scene just to take in all the brilliant graphics. The game itself was a bit spooky, well, at least it kept me on the edge of my seat, and I'm sure it's a brilliant game, but not really for me, because I'm crap at first-person shooters. Also tried the demo of Two Worlds, which was a nice addition to the RPG catalogue. I love the idea of being respawned close to where you died, with all your gear intact.

And I bought two new albums the other day; KT Tunstall's newest and also the new album by The Go! Team. I actually bought the latter by mistake (DUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUH!), but it turned out to be really good! It's uploaded to my Zen already, waiting to come with me to The Land of the Midnight Sun and Whale Murderers.

What else have I been doing lately? Don't really remember.

Look out for Clubland, which premieres here in the UK on Friday! Looking forward to seeing Philip Quast on the big screen. Have a feeling I will have to hurry up, though, if I want to see it before it's taken off again. That's the way it usually goes when I notice a film I would love to see.

Well, have fun while I'm away!

Labels: current affairs, film, gaming, music, Norway, personal, philip quast