I shall have to stop with my Swedish obsession!

This time it's the news that Sir Trevor Nunn is going to bring A Little Night Music, which just happens to be one of my favourite Sondheim musicals, to the Menier Chocolate Factory! I may just have to visit that lovely, little place again before the end of the year!

Labels: musicals, theatre

They must be on drugs.

Went out with some people from work yesterday, first to a downtown casino, then to a nice restaurant (which we decided was almost too posh for us, but then we got really into the spirit(s) and couldn't care less about what the waiters might think). I had a starter! I never have starters. I also had four glasses of white wine (I was aiming for just the one, but they kept refilling them). Then ended the night with an Irish Coffee. One of the guys lives in LA, so of course I had to ask him if it's true you should have a car to get anywhere there. Yes, I was a minute away from asking him if he'd seen Greg Proops anywhere. But then I actually got a grip. LA isn't exactly a small village, hehe!

Labels: food, greg proops, time wasting, work

1. Go to the Amazon site of your choice (I prefer amazon.co.uk for obvious reasons).
2. Choose "Books".
3. Search for "Norway".
4. Choose category "Humour".
5. Repeat for "Norwegian", "Scandinavia" and "Scandinavian".
6. Sulk.
7. Write a book about Norwegian idiosyncrasies.
8. Name it something funny and eyecatching.
9. Publish it.
10. Earn approximately $50/£25 or the equivalent in your local currency (possibly fish) because, obviously, no one cares.

As a proper Norwegian (although I have about an ounce of Swedish blood in me) I now feel so depressed I have to grab my rucksack and go for a walk up the mountain overseeing the nearest fjord (all of which, of course, are within a stone's throw of each other--in fact, you can't see the countryside for all the fjords scattered about, annoying car drivers), so that I can eat some dried fish, play my eight-string-fiddle and possibly end the outing by reading some Ibsen and hang myself.

No, in fact I'll buy a book about Canada instead. Same shit, different continent and language. Which could also be said about New Zealand. Go figure!

Labels: humour, lists, Norway, time wasting

So, IKEA's new ad campaign in the US started yesterday, with the first video of the series starring Illeana Douglas, with cameos from Jane Lynch, Kevin Pollak, Craig Bierko, Tom Arnold, uhmm...Greg Proops (you don't think I'd actually watch an IKEA commercial voluntarily without some huge incentive, would you?) Well, anyway, the first episode is up (6 mins), and I would recommend it for my Scandinavian friends, if only for the last two minutes, featuring Jane Lynch and some annoying guy, pretending to speak Swedish. Let me tell you, Jane Lynch's Swedish is good, but that guy is actually speaking Norwegian with a horrible accent. :) Eejits.

Labels: comedy, greg proops, time wasting

Feels like Sunday.

The doorbell woke me this morning at around half eight. Thinking it was the postman (=fun), I ran out, dressing on the way there, and made some noise to make them realise someone was indeed stirring behind the door somewhere, and please don't go away. However, the glee was short-lived, as it turned out to be a repairman I had completely forgot was supposed to come here today. After barely five hours of sleep, this was not a pleasant surprise. Still, made me get up and actually do something.

Besides, the postman came right after the repairman had left.

I have spent the day moving the rest of my CDs to my hard drive, plus watching a lot of Whose Line (I cannot believe that after having waited for that particular episode for more than eight months, they end up censoring the whole of Greg's dominatrix segment of episode no. 404!) (by the by, Drew Carey's homophobia is beginning to tire me...but then again, he's not a good improviser, much because he is embarrassed too easily), Sliding Doors (because I am a hopeless romantic) and a couple of episodes of A Country Practice (still on series two), plus I've played some Colin McRae's Dirt. This evening I have been laughing a lot during a very nice chat with Lee and Lori, which I believe lasted almost three hours! (Still four more hours to go before we break our old record, but that was a very long time ago, and I have to admit I was younger and less prone to falling asleep at the keyboard then).

This week I have been hooked on a few songs by Alphabeat, Regina Spektor and also Simple Minds's Glittering Prize and, of all things, Summertime by NKOTB. Oh my.

Labels: comedy, film, gaming, greg proops, music, personal, TV

Yes, I say "we", because whomever is going to be elected in the US will have a huge impact on all of us. *bites her nails frantically*

It was only a matter of time. Michael Palin is clearly the best candidate of the two Palins. Thanks to rickfan37 for sharing!

Labels: current affairs, humour, michael palin

I went to see Riflemind yesterday, at the Trafalgar Studios, after a nice meal at the local Garfunkel's. I liked it, but it wasn't too straight-forward a play. Lots of angst-ridden scenes between middle-aged has-beens desperately trying to get back together for one more tour with the band. Or desperately trying to dodge it, all depending on their current mood, state of mind and amount of drugs in their system. I thought it would be more fun, but by all means, it wasn't meant to be a comedy. There were a couple of monologues there that could have been shrunk in my opinion; people started getting restless and drifting their gaze around the auditorium. But hey, these things may be ironed out by the time you may end up going; after all, it was the third preview and both the writer and director were there (Philip "Only one of the Best Actors EVER" Seymour Hoffman, the director, actually spent the whole of the second act looking at the audience's reactions--or he has a perverted side we just don't know anything about). It has to be said, of course, that the actors themselves were terrific. I have a soft spot for Paul Hilton, but John Hannah and both of the Aussie actors (Jeremy Sims and OMG, I've forgotten the name of the other one, please forgive me) were a treat to watch as well. I wasn't too sure about one of the wives to begin with (played by Susan Prior), but I eventually realised that the character she portrayed simply was a neurotic wreck, hehe! Anyway, the ensemble work was very good; they seemed to have been putting a lot of focus on the timing, which was quite impressive after such a short time of rehearsals and performances.

Which reminds me I have to buy the absolutely hilarious Still Crazy on DVD. My VHS copy is almost worn out.

Completely unrelated, but still very important bit of news: I just discovered Sagaen om Isfolket (The Legend of the Ice People) is finally being translated into English! Read all about it here.

Labels: bill nighy, film, literature, Norway, theatre

Oh why, why, WHY? Don't people have other things to worry about? Like poverty, starvation, global warming or even the recent financial crisis? It's about time we get a new ice age, I think, to start things over again, because this world has gone tits-up again. Wonder what the dinosaurs did wrong back then, but it must have been something similar to what we humans are doing now.

Labels: current affairs, gaming

...and not just any kind of hair. A pubic hair was waiting for me when I got back to work after my holiday; neatly placed on my keyboard. I choose not to think about how it got there.

I have to say, the thought of Jason Donovan in drag amuses me, and for some reason it makes perfect sense.

Well, the last Proms concert was terrific, although I have to admit I could hardly choose between all the different parks, because there was a lot of salivating going on when I checked the different line-ups. I guess this digital telly revolution is giving me too much choice after all (even though there never seems to be anything on when you want to just spend the day on the sofa, glaring at the box) (that's the telly, not...something else) (perv!)

Not too sure about the Tess of the d'Urbevilles thingie; the only reason why I lasted beyond the first 20 minutes, was Ian Puleston-Davies (for any Norwegians out there, that's pronounced poll-stn. Perv!) After that, I pulled out my trusty RadioTimes and read up on the story, which proved to seem more interesting as it went along. No, I am not familiar with Hardy to begin with.

Yesterday, after work, I pulled out all my CDs and started sorting them into "have been ripped to mp3" and "have not yet been ripped" (AKA "may have been ripped earlier, but then deleted again from the hard drive for reasons unknown, or actually probably because I never listened to them anyway and needed the space"). And then, guess what? Well, I started ripping them, dumb-ass! Boy, there were a few CDs there that I had all but forgotten. Some of them I sort of wish I had forgotten, but no chance there. Still, to make my collection as complete as possible, plus taken into account the fact that the CDs aren't getting any younger and sturdier and I certainly won't buy any of them ever again, I need to rip them all (ok, with a few exceptions due to their being of too embarrassing a nature--the fact that I have them in the first place). There were quite a few I was surprised to see I hadn't already ripped, too. Like all of my Monty Python records. I mean, OMGWTF??? I love those guys! They're the reason for my anglophilia, nerdiness, sense of humour and accent! (OK, I can't blame them for my Norwegian accent; I mean the accent I try to emulate when speaking English.) They are, in effect, the real reason for my moving to the UK! It all started with poor, old Michael Palin (which means I am highly annoyed these days when the name Palin is mentioned everywhere and it always turns out to be someone else than him...but hopefully this will only last for a couple more months (fingers crossed for a sensible election this time--we've waited slack-jawed for too long now; we're developing nervous tics!))

Where was I? On my way down Politics Lane again? Sheesh...well, I'm not done yet. Still, concentrate on the CDs for now. Let's see...oh yeah, I found an old album by a Norwegian band calling themselves Innocent Look; it's even been signed by the guys. Oooh. The problem is that they're so unknown they don't even have a profile on Last.fm. I mean, I have a profile on Last.fm, and they don't. How sad is that? I also found quite a few compilation albums I had forgotten all about, but I used to listen to them a lot there for a while. They bring back memories. Good and bad, embarrassing and sad, fun and...something else rhyming with -ad, perhaps.

Anyway, back to watching The Daily Show. How tragic is the situation when you have to turn to Jon Stewart to get the latest news from the US?

Labels: comedy, current affairs, michael palin, Monty Python, music, musicals, personal, theatre, TV

I've had a looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong (well, maybe not that long) holiday since the beginning of September, and have enjoyed myself immensely. During this time I hardly ventured online at all. I didn't even check my Facebook account! Wow!

'So what on earth did you do, Ingaroo?', I can hear you saying. Well, a couple of things.

Spore arrived one day early, so I was stuck in Spore-land for four consecutive days until I tired of it (as I by then had realised that the Spore universe is far from endless...twice). If anyone want a copy of Spore, let me know. The replayability is nothing near Will Wright's other successes; Sim City and The Sims. In fact, Spore is rather limited. But it did inspire me to get back to playing Galactic Civilizations II again, which in itself is a good thing.

Other than that, I have sorted my vast Whose Line collection properly, I have watched Braveheart and Gladiator and all of the James Bond films starring Pierce Brosnan (AKA "The Last Real James Bond"), I have started watching Michael Palin's Full Circle for the second time and Against the Wind for the third, I have finished reading just one book (Jack Railton's The A-Z of Cool Computer Games), and I have not left the flat for a whole week. Amazing.

OK, two things:

1. The new Lost in Austen series is fabulous. And, as per usual, Hugh Bonneville is stealing all the scenes (mostly the ones he's in, but a few where he's not present also). After three years of reading RadioTimes I have concluded that editor Alison Graham and I have very, very little in common. She just about hates everything I love, and vice versa.
2. Bonne chance to Sue Perkins for tonight's Last Night of the Proms (well, the Hyde Park bit) - I followed Maestro and am certain it was my votes that gave her the victory. Then again, could be that most people agreed with me that she was the best of the wannabe conductors. Nice concept, by the way. Plus interesting to see Clive Anderson's hair again, since I normally just listen to him on the radio these days (a million repeats of Whose Line from the nineties don't count). Anyway, Prom 76 it is, and it has both Bryn Terfel and Hélène Grimaud in it, yay!

Labels: comedy, film, gaming, holiday, literature, music, personal