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November 30, 2007

More Statistics

"Not Quite the Best", reported Aftenposten in an online English-language article. It's all over for Norway and the annual human development index (pp229-232 of this long UNDP report). Iceland is now the best place in the world to be living in. Norway, which topped the index every year from 2001 to 2006, comes second.

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Posted by barry at 3:36 EM

November 23, 2007

A Farewell to Beamish (part two)

Friday. The first of a million nights in. The start of winter in Oslo; minus one degree according to the thermometer hanging outside my window. Grieg's opus 57 on the record player. Potatoes on the boil. A text message comes through on the telephonic device.

Per Gisle: Guess what I am drinking? Beamish... found two cans at Majorstua. Mm.

Continue reading "A Farewell to Beamish (part two)"

Posted by barry at 9:12 EM

November 12, 2007

A Farewell to Beamish

About a year ago, when it became inevitable that I would take a larger role in running our bar business, I decided I might as well make this life liveable by ordering in the drink that I would be drinking at home in Ireland, i.e. stout. As stout on tap wasn't an option, draught Beamish in can, brewed in Ireland, was a nice and easy alternative (forget Guinness: the stuff you get is brewed here in Norway, like, what's the point?). But now Beamish is no longer being imported, and we can't get it.

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Posted by barry at 5:22 EM

November 5, 2007

GNP versus Life Expectancy

Gross national product (GNP) per capita, to use the Wikipedia definition, "is the dollar value of a country's final output of goods and services in a year, divided by its population. It reflects the average income of a country's citizens." Lets see how Norway's doing compared to other countries in GNP, and see how that compares to a list of countries by life expectancy.

Continue reading "GNP versus Life Expectancy"

Posted by barry at 3:02 FM