I said cucumbers

I am sure I have mentioned it before, but the summer lull that often results in rather bizarre news coverage, and which is known as the silly season in the UK, is called Cucumber News in Norway. Since almost everyone along the news supply chain has their numbers depleted by holiday leave, a certain laziness sets in, and a corresponding satisfaction with space-filling nonsense.

A bit like what moose news hunters feel like year round. So for me, this is in fact the high season for weird and wonderful news,

A (weird) taste of home

Sitting in my hotel room channel surfing for some background noise while I catch up on e-duties this afternoon, I stumbled upon a surprising bit of vintage entertainment. The 1942 film The Day Will Dawn, which IMDB neatly classifies as a ‘British WW2 flag-waver’, where posh journalist of sorts Colin Metcalfe grapples with the Germans – in Norway.

Amusing to see how Norway and the Norwegians are portrayed,

Recycled cucumbers

Back after my annual week-long summer break with no technology. Now, sunburnt, I can resume my deskbound, keyboard pounding ways.

As recent posts indicate, Norway’s silly news season (cucumber news) is in full swing, and today not only provides a great example of the state of the national newspapers, it also marks the last time I use my hard-earned kroner on one for the foreseeable future.

While I may debate and lament the state of old media,

Silly season

Or ‘cucumber news’ (agurknytt) as they call it here. The time of year when you don’t have to feel a twinge of guilt for putting something odd out on the ‘net or in your newspaper.

So police and and the local doctor are dispatched when a fisherman in Sand in Western Norway lands what appears to be a human penis. Perhaps the scariest part of that story

It is the heat

Just a quick update, to counterbalance the effects of summer laziness and sweltering heat – Oslo has been hotter than Mumbai in recent days.

News has been thin on the ground lately, the death of Michael Jackson pushing everything off the map. Leading tabloid/Norway’s bestselling newspaper Verdens Gang (VG) had an amazing concentration of stories on their web site; at one point it was difficult to find anything else to read about,

All the moose

After a period so quiet they were upstaged on the Norwegian news scene by the virtually non-existent llama, the ‘King of the Forest’ was back in action, charming or terrifying people around the country. Here are the latest moose highlights.

Much ado

Norway’s remarkable string of big international headlines continued with a major role in the massive publicity around the 47 million year old fossil dubbed ‘Ida‘ by Norwegian paleontologist Jørn Hurum.

With an orchestrated media campaign more typical of the launch of a Dan Brown film than a scientific discovery, the amazingly preserved fossilized skeleton was hailed as one of the missing links in man’s evolutionary chain.

The hype around the discovery even included comparing the find to

Still quiet

Despite having been in Mexico and having the Influenza A H1N1, the Trondheim woman’s tests came back negative for Mexican swine flu, leaving Norway still without a case of the feared disease. The woman ‘only’ has

An ordinary Sunday

Despite being a Sunday, I’ll check in and this time try a real headline sampler, rather than a small assortment of short stories. Not just a strategy for a lazy day, but as mentioned earlier, to pique interest by providing a running menu of what’s happening over here is one possible job for this blog.

It’s also quite an intriguing snapshot of the major news outlets in general, and it might also be fun

17 April – a headline sampler

The big news in the region today is without doubt the Pirate Bay verdict in Stockholm.

Here in little Norway the raging feud between the Labour-led majority coalition and business tycoon Kjell Inge Røkke continues to dominate headlines. For insight into this intricate squabble, check out Nina Berglund’s site.

Norway has gotten larger and