Afterwards I learned that the piano was too quiet, and that there was no low cut on the vocals. So everything would have sounded 10 times weirder than planned! There's always a different sound on stage than the sound the audience gets to hear, so you usually have to trust the soundman. Next time we'll have to bring our own. Being forced to be professional...

At least I got a free pass to the festival, and saw Grinderman, Sonic Youth and My Bloody Valentine for nothin'.

Free mp3s on www.dacianos.com

Year: 1998. Population of Oslo: 499,693. No. of immigrants: 85,550. Percentage: 17.

Year: 2008. Population of Oslo: 560,484. No. of immigrants: 137,878. Percentage: 24.5.

So what does this mean for "us" and for "them" ?

2. If all the immigrants went on strike, there'd be no-one to tell the Norwegians what to do, because we're all over-qualified for our jobs.

3. The issue of institutional racism will come more into focus. Foreigners' job applications tend to get rejected because of their "foreign-looking" (particularly "Arabic-looking") names. So it's quite hard to get a job you're qualified for!

4. As immigrants interbreed with the Norwegians, beautiful, exotic-looking children will be born.

5. The future is beautiful and exotic.

6. Perhaps Oslo people's tendency to vote for obnoxious right-wing political parties like the FrP will become untenable. Remember: beautiful and exotic, not bad driving, silly hair and fascism.

I've been looking through my uploaded photos of recent art exhibitions and music shows we've put on. There's a lot missing (sorry Jens Hamran, sorry Somadrone) but here's some pics that weren't lost. First off, the Hilmar Fredriksen exhibition. He projected a pretty cool film onto the bar, and you can see a frame from it, with our barman Martin underneath looking, er, arty. Click to enlarge.

(Le clique = L'enlargement.)

At the moment, we have 8 massive self-portraits by Jørgen Emanuel Enger, a young photographer and former "street kid".

(Die Klikk ist Das Enlargement.)

And recently we had an award-winning performance artist, Chris Erichsen, who was suitably mad. You can just about see him behind the veil-like curtain, with masked terrorists projected onto it. This picture actually looks vaguer when enlarged, so I won't provide you with that option...

A hilarious article has appeared in Dagbladet detailing the destruction that occurred on Spasibar's last night. Here's a photo from Dagbladet showing how they trashed the furniture - but even though the business is in a building owned by the art school, it was Spasibar's own furniture, so they were free to do so.

Whether they were free to light a bonfire on stage is another question...

The journalist then asked Maria "The pictures show that the place looks like a battle-field after the party was over."

Maria responded, "Yes, wasn't it great? We should get a medal from the fire brigade for throwing such a good party."

When she was reminded that the fire department actually think they were being irresponsible (the fire alarm was blocked with a teddy bear!), Maria said: "Yes, but maybe they [firefighters] only go to Christmas dinner and boring parties like that."

She finished by saying that "We have always taken our own, free choice," which is something you rarely hear someone say in Norway, a country more used to homogenous culture, social cohesion and a kind of nanny state telling everyone how to live.

She's back in the news! The 'psychic' Norwegian Princess Märtha Louise (pictured above). The controversy this time is that her angel school has begun courses for children.

Obviously there are those who see this angel course for kids as manipulation of the minds of children, while others point out that most children are exposed to religious doctrine by their parents anyway, so what's the difference? Are Märtha's "light-beings" different to the guardian angels that Catholic children find solace in?

I suppose the difference between the angel school and a more traditional religion is that the latter does not revolve around a living individual who claims to have supernatural powers. There is a definite element of the cult of personality in this. Should the Princess's followers be involving their children? Should children be raised in the shadow of Märtha Louise's aura? Where is this all going to end? Another Alice Auma or Joseph Kony?

OK, Norway isn't another Uganda. This is not a spirit medium mixed up with paramililtaries at grass-roots level! No, this comes from the top echelon of society, a wealthy Princess using the glamour of monarchy to draw people into her angel-world. The constitutional position as I understand it is that Märtha is no longer "officially" royal, i.e. she cannot ascend to the throne, but she is still a Princess, and it's time that the Norwegian people divested her and the rest of her family of their unwarranted charm and allure, by doing the decent thing and declaring a republic.

Awaken from the dream, Norway!

A large bar on the posh side of Oslo, in a building connected to the art academy. Toys, mannequins, porcelain dogs, photographs and junk are everywhere. The staff are wearing robes and wigs. Crazy music is playing. At the back of the stage hangs a mosaic of the eccentric owners, who for some reason are obsessed with Russia, and this is a "Russian themed" bar.

That was Spasibar, which closed down on 30 June.

I used to DJ there, and I remember with confusion the scene that greeted me when I came in: the DJ desk upside down in a heap, the dancefloor covered in broken glass that no-one was going to sweep up... Over the years things became a bit more organized. They brought in someone to take care of the sound. We became friends when he built a barrier to keep the audience away from me. And they brought in someone to do the booking. She reached deep into alternative culture and had a booking policy that has been described as everything from "adventurous" to "dreaming". I became friends with her too.

I took a lot of photos on the last Saturday night of Spasibar, but they have all been mysteriously erased from my camera. I was there to see a DJ friend play a set like we used to do, finishing ecstatically with Neu!'s "Fur immer" (twice), then the Russian national anthem.

There was of course a special closing down party on the last day of the month, Monday 30 June, but I didn't attend. The arrangement was to pay 500kr in advance and then drink as much as you like for free.

The day after, I discovered from the news that at the end of the night, when there was about 50 people left, a bonfire was lit on stage, the police and fire brigade came, and there ensued some kind of violent altercation between the guests and the police that ended with 6 people getting arrested!

I heard a rumour that they had burned all the 500kr notes that people paid in with!

Well, what did I expect? The freaks had to go out with a bang, and had to somehow top previous acts of madness. Dressing up as a baby, wearing a nappy, and taking a shit on stage wasn't going to be shocking enough this time.

Anyway, Oslo has now subtly changed, and the West side of the city is more boring than ever.

Update: I found this photo on my camera, mysteriously not erased at all!

Norwegian readers be aware! The book I wrote with Blather.net's Dave Walsh and Damien DeBarra is now available to buy in Oslo.

A Load of Blather: Unreal Reports from Ireland and Beyond is the first book by us that anyone has been nuts enough to publish. This 'magnificent tome' is a 'great heaving cavalcade of paranormal events, superstitions, mysterious happenings, conspiracy theories, hordes of rampaging kangaroos in the Dublin hills, and the previously untold story of General Michael Collins' forays into outer space'. Those interested in Norwegian culture will be fascinated to read about the infamous lake monster hunt that Dave Walsh was on in Telemark in 1998, as well as a re-hash of my opinions about the angel woman, Norway's psychic princess.

Available to buy at:
Sound of Mu, Markveien 58, 0550 Oslo. Price 100kr.
Tronsmo, Kr Augustsgate 19, 1064 Oslo. Price 99kr.

Or directly from us for 9.99 euro, via paypal:

II

There was not one but two concerts that I - injured - played

For June 10th was the birth day of cosmic Anne Bang

The plan for a top secret show was carefully laid...

With Masse Lys and C.O.U. 'twas three acts that sang

III

I flew by plane next day to the green isle, Ireland

Thinking Europe's not so bad, in Dublin voted YES

In the Lisbon Treaty referendum that was held

But Ireland's NO may yet turn out to be all for the best

IV

The night of June the 12th brought the Blather book launch

A co-written tome by me with some writers bizarre

We drank our hundred free pints and held our egos staunch

Stayed up til 9 a.m., although bed was not too far!

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

(click)

V

Leonard Cohen playing Dublin was outside the norm

Those with less good seats than ours could see him on a screen...

'Twas fifteen years ago he last on a stage performed

Said Len: "Then, I was a kid of 60 with a dream!"

VI

But I was away from Norway only briefly

Håkon and I went to the studio Diktafon

Where Ingar knows all about recording perfectly

A piano he did push into an airless room

VII

This poem ends June 17th, my birthday: 35!

I shared a party with Kristin, turning 22

Just the thing, you'd think, to make me feel young and alive

But that feeling came from oldies, partying till noon...

Photo credits (to the best of my recollection):

Me at Musikkfest Oslo by Jonas; Anne and her cosmic partner Kjell-Olav by me; Guinness at the Czech Inn by me; Dave, co-author of A Load of Blather, by me; sleeping Liz by me; Leonard Cohen pics by Dan; piano by me; me at the window on my birthday by Ellen.

What's this? It's the edge of art...

These boxes are artworks by Kristina Müntzig, part of a collection of 'fake' furniture placed in a public park in Skien, Telemark, as part of Skien's public art festival, Tempo. Rather than showing you the art itself, I'm showing you where it meets the harbour. Where it meets 'reality'! Kristina was only one of about a dozen artists who placed their strange objects around the town.

My own 'art collective', Sound of Mu, were involved in our own distortion of Skien's reality, as we upped sticks and moved there for one day, to host Tempo's opening event. So into our hired van went musical instruments, a projector, all our microphones and DI boxes, a frying pan, even parts of the floor (each piece of wood having its own story to tell, apparently)... yes, Mu was packed up and driven to Skien on 31 May.

I'm not sure I have any funny stories about the event... Our cook set off a fire alarm... A leopard man brought us to a nachspiel where there was a free wheelchair and free alcohol provided... hmm... no it was all fairly smooth. We return to Tempo for another event in October.

I can't type anymore tonight anyway: I only have one working hand following a bicycle crash on Wednesday night. I'm supposed to be playing guitar at Musikkfest Oslo tomorrow... Will my left hand recover in time? 'Tune' in to the next blog entry to find out!

Linkages:

Tempo Skien and the artworks
Listen to 3 Øre
Listen to Lasso

Since the last blog things have ticked along nicely but I've been unsure about what to blog about. I've stayed at home and we've been hosting a number of "cultural events", as we tend to do. Here are some pictures, each one enlargeable by clicking. This first pic shows the exhibition of Clas Hansen alongside the banner for a live radio broadcast that Radio Nova did from our bar on 10 April.

17 April. The Siv Bugge Vatne exhibition began. She created collages from the background details of old comic books. There is one of clouds, one of suns, one of flames etc. This is the best one: a collage of waves.

1 May. We opened our back yard to the public. From now on, you can join us for a drink out here.

8 May. American musician Blevin Blectum stayed with us and performed her electronic music and video set.

Blogstyle
When a great music journalist was once faced with reviewing an album she appeared on as a guest musician, she modestly kept it out of the review section and did the review "blogstyle". A new word then entered the popular lexicon (at least in certain circles). Similarly, seeing as I played piano on some of this Hanny album, I can't exactly "review" it for Blather.net, but rather I am, er, blogstyling (?). And I have no new words for you, apart from "blogstyling", and of course "sceneity", and possibly one other (see below).

Time spent listening
The album is just over 32-minutes long. I don't think that's too short. On the contrary, half an hour can be a good thing: Nick Drake's Pink Moon was only 28 and a half minutes. How long is an experience, anyway?

Music on two levels
What does Hanny sound like? You can actually stop reading now and go and listen to them on their Myspace page. It's a warm, aesthetically-pleasing sound with singers (mostly Marie Kvamme) and an array of acoustic instruments: guitar, cello, violin, piano, accordion, flute, handclaps etc. but any chamber music feel is offset by the plethora of instruments coming in and out of the mix, sometimes in rapid succession. And although the music flows along airily and melodically, the music is deceptively complex. When I joined the band I remember I had to play the piano part for the song "Plagiarism", which had previously been developed by Sara Cools Yri (she had left the band before I joined, but had re-joined by the time I left) and I remember thinking I was never going to remember that I had to play the first arpeggio 9 times, the next one 5 times, the next one 4 times, and so on. Sara came to see us play live that first time and I actually told her I was hoping she wouldn't show up! But now, at this album launch, she approached me to say "When I came to see you, you were worried about playing wrong notes, but now I played a lot of wrong notes!" Well, I didn't notice if she did. But we both confessed to simplifying each other's parts in order to play them more accurately. Anyway, Hanny's almost-folk listenabilty coupled with almost-prog chord arrangements is what Vivi once described to me as its "duality". I can't recall if she was talking about just the music, or the lyrics too, but "duality" describes both equally well. The sweet-sounding vocals express words of startling imagery that occasionally veer into the sinister, or violent. It's a collage of night and day.

The neologism reveals itself
That "sceneity" is a made-up word is given away by the -ity ending. -ity is used in forming nouns that express a state or condition (e.g. duality is the state or condition of being dual; ambiguity is the state or condition of being ambiguous). This is true for -ty words in general (e.g. difficulty is the state or condition of being difficult). Now, "scene" is not an adjective, so it cannot be formed into a noun expressing a state or condition. The nearest adjective is "scenic" and the state or condition of being scenic would therefore be scenicity but don't expect to use that word without getting blank stares; I just made it up now. There have been no new formations of -ity in English usage for over a century.

The words
Thinking about "scene" being used as an adjective, I realized that this is comparable and compatible with the actual song lyrics. In one song, "Carried Away En Masse", the word "real" is used as as a noun (in the line "And like a real that is big"). I remember discussing that word with Marie, in fact. I'm always curious about these things. I think Marie has a distinctively musical approach to language in her songs. You'll also find this with the "phonetic" style of Talk Talk and Tim Buckley. Also, Jørgen Skjulstad, who produced the album, mentioned the Cocteau Twins to me in a conversation about the lyrics. It is a shame there is no lyric sheet provided with the CD. I have seen the lyrics written down, and they are fascinating, original, and as with My Bloody Valentine, there is very unusual grammar and syntax. An additional reason to make the lyrics available is the unusual pronunciation. As a native English speaker, I would never have made out "martian", "phonic gaze" or "endlessly no difference" in these songs! Whether the way they're sung is caused by accent or for musical reasons, obviously the vocal sounds should be exactly as they are, but it would be nice if the words were made available at some point, for others to read. Or for cover versions by the next generation...

No words
The album also contains instrumentals. One was constructed out of some of the background piano I played on "Dune". I was asked to title it, but I chose only the words from "Dune" I originally played the chords to (i.e. "Be My Love"). I thought as a writer I could not add words to Marie's self-contained, imaginative constructions, which I felt were at a great distance from myself. Even the songs on the album by Sara and her brother Simon seem to me to come from a superlunary, faraway place. Anyway, the interesting method of using background fragments from the songs to create instrumentals reaches its apex with the final piece, the title track "Sceneity", a rich mix of dislocated arrangements in a new form.

The finite nature of ambiguity
Although we are not given the lyrics, we are offered two pieces of text with this CD. The album is subtitled An account of the influence of scenes on occidental societies, and folded up inside the CD packaging is a poster consisting of one sentence in black on a white background: "If you look at an object for months and months you will assume its visuality."

As a linguist friend was often fond of telling me, the meaning of any words in any language are entirely dependent on the context in which they appear. But as both of these sentences refer to visual information and are presented in the context of a music album, there seems to be hardly any context at all, unless ears are eyes. So there is a certain amount of difficulty in understanding. But never mind that. Let's take the second statement first. I think it's fairly straightforward if you think about it, as long as you don't go and confuse "visibility" (the state of being visible) with the word here, which is "visuality" (the state or condition of being visual). I'll leave that with you.

Now for the album's subtitle. I showed the CD to someone in the bar on Wednesday night, and the first thing he did was point to An account of the influence of scenes on occidental societies and ask me what it meant. How was I supposed to answer? I only played piano. Not only did I not write it, but I have always been aware of its ambiguous nature. The ambiguity lies in the fact that the word "scene" has eight meanings:

1 a place in which events in real life, drama, or fiction occur
2 an incident in real life, drama, or fiction, or a description or a representation of an incident
3 a public incident displaying emotion, temper etc. when embarrassing to others
4 a continuous portion of a play in a fixed setting and usually without a change of personnel, or a subdivision of an act, or a similar section of a film, book, etc.
5 any of the pieces of scenery used in a play, or these collectively
6 a landscape or view
7 an area of action or interest, or a way of life, or a milieu
8 (archaic in English but not in Norwegian) the stage of a theatre

Is one of these 8 meanings of "scene" meant, or perhaps, all 8? From my brief conversations with Marie and Jørgen about this, I am guessing that probably all the meanings are acceptable, as the word has most likely been selected for what it can mean. However, listeners cannot be expected to know this, guess this, or believe this.

With 8 single meanings giving 8 interpretations, plus the interpretation that combines all 8 meanings at the same time, we have nine interpretations of the sentence. But suppose we want to exclude one of the meanings, leading to combinations of just 7 of the meanings?

1+2+3+4+5+6+7
1+2+3+4+5+6+8
1+2+3+4+5+7+8
1+2+3+4+6+7+8
1+2+3+5+6+7+8
1+2+4+5+6+7+8
1+3+4+5+6+7+8
2+3+4+5+6+7+8

That is an additional 8 interpretations. And suppose we decide to exclude 2 meanings, leading to combinations of 6:

2+3+4+5+6+7
2+3+4+5+6+8 1+3+4+5+6+7
2+3+4+5+7+8 1+3+4+5+6+8 1+2+4+5+6+7
2+3+4+6+7+8 1+3+4+5+7+8 1+2+4+5+6+8 1+2+3+5+6+7
2+3+5+6+7+8 1+3+4+6+7+8 1+2+4+5+7+8 1+2+3+5+6+8 1+2+3+4+6+7
2+4+5+6+7+8 1+3+5+6+7+8 1+2+4+6+7+8 1+2+3+5+7+8 1+2+3+4+6+8
3+4+5+6+7+8 1+4+5+6+7+8 1+2+5+6+7+8 1+2+3+6+7+8 1+2+3+4+7+8

1+2+3+4+5+7
1+2+3+4+5+8 1+2+3+4+5+6

That gives us another 28 interpretations.

Next, we should exclude 3 meanings, and look at the combinations of 5:

2+3+4+5+6
2+3+4+5+7
2+3+4+5+8
2+3+4+6+7
2+3+4+6+8
2+3+4+7+8
2+3+5+6+7 1+3+4+5+6
2+3+5+6+8 1+3+4+5+7
2+3+5+7+8 1+3+4+5+8
2+3+6+7+8 1+3+4+6+7
2+4+5+6+7 1+3+4+6+8
2+4+5+6+8 1+3+4+7+8 1+2+4+5+6
2+4+5+7+8 1+3+5+6+7 1+2+4+5+7
2+4+6+7+8 1+3+5+6+8 1+2+4+5+8
2+5+6+7+8 1+3+5+7+8 1+2+4+6+7
3+4+5+6+7 1+3+6+7+8 1+2+4+6+8 1+2+3+5+6
3+4+5+6+8 1+4+5+6+7 1+2+4+7+8 1+2+3+5+7
3+4+5+7+8 1+4+5+6+8 1+2+5+6+7 1+2+3+5+8
3+4+6+7+8 1+4+5+7+8 1+2+5+6+8 1+2+3+6+7 1+2+3+4+6
3+5+6+7+8 1+4+6+7+8 1+2+5+7+8 1+2+3+6+8 1+2+3+4+7
4+5+6+7+8 1+5+6+7+8 1+2+6+7+8 1+2+3+7+8 1+2+3+4+8 1+2+3+4+5

That equals 56 new interpretations.

Inevitably, we come to the combinations of 4 meanings:

1+2+3+4
1+2+3+5
1+2+3+6
1+2+3+7
1+2+3+8
1+2+4+5
1+2+4+6
1+2+4+7
1+2+4+8
1+2+5+6
1+2+5+7
1+2+5+8
1+2+6+7
1+2+6+8
1+2+7+8
1+3+4+5 2+3+4+5
1+3+4+6 2+3+4+6
1+3+4+7 2+3+4+7
1+3+4+8 2+3+4+8
1+3+5+6 2+3+5+6
1+3+5+7 2+3+5+7
1+3+5+8 2+3+5+8
1+3+6+7 2+3+6+7
1+3+6+8 2+3+6+8
1+3+7+8 2+3+7+8
1+4+5+6 2+4+5+6 3+4+5+6
1+4+5+7 2+4+5+7 3+4+5+7
1+4+5+8 2+4+5+8 3+4+5+8
1+4+6+7 2+4+6+7 3+4+6+7
1+4+6+8 2+4+6+8 3+4+6+8
1+4+7+8 2+4+7+8 3+4+7+8
1+5+6+7 2+5+6+7 3+5+6+7 4+5+6+7
1+5+6+8 2+5+6+8 3+5+6+8 4+5+6+8
1+5+7+8 2+5+7+8 3+5+7+8 4+5+7+8
1+6+7+8 2+6+7+8 3+6+7+8 4+6+7+8 5+6+7+8

That's an impressive 70 additional meanings.

Next we exclude 5 meanings, and combine them in 3s:

1+2+3
1+2+4 1+3+4
1+2+5 1+3+5 1+4+5
1+2+6 1+3+6 1+4+6 1+5+6
1+2+7 1+3+7 1+4+7 1+5+7 1+6+7
1+2+8 1+3+8 1+4+8 1+5+8 1+6+8 1+7+8

2+3+4
2+3+5 2+4+5
2+3+6 2+4+6 2+5+6
2+3+7 2+4+7 2+5+7 2+6+7
2+3+8 2+4+8 2+5+8 2+6+8 2+7+8

3+4+5
3+4+6 3+5+6
3+4+7 3+5+7 3+6+7
3+4+8 3+5+8 3+6+8 3+7+8

4+5+6
4+5+7 4+6+7
4+5+8 4+6+8 4+7+8

5+6+7
5+6+8 5+7+8

6+7+8

...and that's another 56 interpretations.

There's no point stopping now. Exclude 6 meanings and you get combinations of 2:

1+2
1+3 2+3
1+4 2+4 3+4
1+5 2+5 3+5 4+5
1+6 2+6 3+6 4+6 5+6
1+7 2+7 3+7 4+7 5+7 6+7
1+8 2+8 3+8 4+8 5+8 6+8 7+8

Yes, 28 interpretations. And we've already calculated how many interpretations you get when you exlude 7 meanings of the word.

So,
Minus 0 meanings, keeping 8 = 1 interpretation
Minus 1 meaning, keeping 7 = 8 interpretations
Minus 2 meanings, keeping 6 = 28 interpretations
Minus 3 meanings, keeping 5 = 56 interpretations
Minus 4 meanings, keeping 4 = 70 interpretations
Minus 5 meanings, keeping 3 = 56 interpretations
Minus 6 meanings, keeping 2 = 28 interpretations
Minus 7 meanings, keeping 1 = 8 interpretations
Minus 8 meanings, keeping 0 = 0 interpretations

1+8+28+56+70+56+28+8+0 = total 255 interpretations

From what I have shown here, someone with more mathematical knowledge than I have could extrapolate the mathematical formula for a sentence with one ambiguous word. In the formula the number of interpretations, in this case 255, would depend on the number of meanings the ambiguous word has in the dictonary, in this case 8. If you can work out the formula, please send it to me and I'll happily publish it.

It looks like I've left the Hanny album behind at this point, so I'll stop here.

A sad London scene: an alcoholic takes his only companion, a Christmas Tree he calls "Rover", out for a walk.

First impression: from the National Express coach coming into London on a Thursday night, the city looked dark, foreboding and full of high-rise buildings and streets with Lovecraftian geometry.

Second impression: getting off the coach at Golders Green, there was a smell of dust, and before me was a scene of red buses and shimmering lights. I felt like I was dreaming. Like when you dream you are in a place doing things you used to do many years ago.

The dream took me to Hampstead, where I was to stay for a few days with my friends Mark and Alyssa. They brought me to a pub around the corner, and we picked up where we left off nearly three years ago. This must have contributed to my third impression, which spread through my mind during Friday. Basically, I felt like a time traveller. My life in Norway began to slip from my memory and I felt like I had gotten into a time machine in 2005 and gone ahead three years.

On Friday I hit the second hand bookshops in the centre of town. Later that night I found myself in a pub in Waterloo, then some friends and I got hungry and went to a Turkish place on the Cut. I think this is one of the big differences between London and Norway. You don't end up drinking as much in London, because you have the restaurant option and it is actually affordable.

Another difference became obvious late on Saturday night. I was at a warehouse party and it became quite disorganized and messy towards the end. In Norway, there is usually a well-organized nachspiel option and I've gotten too used to that. Instead the night seemed to fizzle out, and I walked home in the snow (!) to stay with another couple of friends, Lolo and Willy. The context of this was my "return" to Stoke Newington, my old neighbourhood, which looks pretty much the same, give or take a Tesco invasion or two.

Earlier on Saturday night I had a chance to quiz my friend Julia about the pressing issues of modern UK society. First I asked her about Girls Aloud. She said she was "not a fan". She agreed that good songs were being written for them, but thought that "as people" Girls Aloud "did not warrant" them. As for Boris Johnson, who is running for mayor and might win, she was horrified anyone could vote for him. But on Friday I met my friend David, and he didn't think Johnson could really do much harm, but David is very anti-Ken Livingstone anyway. Especially about the Olympic Torch thing. The metropolitan police were being deployed at enormous cost to the taxpayer, to escort what is an insult to Tibet through London. A newspaper poll stated that 55% of Londoners said yes to "scrap the games torch run".

"That's all that's penetrated outside?" Julia asked me. "Girls Aloud and Boris Johnson?"

Well, there was a third thing. The media coverage of teenage kids murdering each other. It didn't make much sense that this would suddenly happen now, when UK society hasn't changed that much in the last 10-15 years. Lolo pointed out that maybe it's changed for teenagers, though, in a way we don't know. She seemed to think London had become a less tolerant place. "You used to be able to wear a bin liner and a lampshade on your head and no-one would care." Not that I think she's ever done that.

All in all, it was interesting that I was able to fit back in to the "society" with ease. I met 25-30 people I knew from before. Maybe I'll visit again. Someone said I had now "broken the seal".

The time has come for me to introduce you to a couple of very important concepts in Norwegian culture. Vorspiel and Nachspiel. These are in fact German words - I don't know why - but they describe the first and third phases of a night out in Norway. Vorspiel means the "before party" and nachspiel means the "after party". In between, you go out and buy expensive beer in a bar, concert venue or club. Perhaps that's the origin of these essential parties: they reduce the price of going out in the most expensive land on Earth.

Then at about 11pm it's time to go out. Go to the cash machine. If you're hard of hearing there is a minijack so you can stick in your headphones.

Take out your money. Camera wobble.

Then you go out. I didn't take any pictures of that because it's not important. No what's important is...

The nachspiel! Sit around drinking with people you don't even know.

Test your drunkenness. Which of these three girls isn't a twin?

Party till 6am.

The next evening, it's time for the Saturday vorspiel. Another apartment. Some food, beer, wine.

And this is Torstein, a master of the vorspiel and especially the nachspiel. What's he doing over there? Let's move in for a close up.

Aha, he's mixing drinks. Vodka. The broccoli is not strictly necessary.

Come 11pm, we all go our separate directions to different events.

At 3.20am I am in a bar that's closing, and I get the predictable text message from Torstein: "Nachspiel?"

Then I organize that.

Bored, bored, bored of people making electronic music "on their laptops"? Then welcome to the iFolk, the new generation of acoustic laptops.

These are the invention of Norwegian noise musician Tore Boe, and essentially the sound comes from a contact mic placed inside. Touch any item on the laptop and it will make a noise. We are exhibiting five of these at Sound of Mu at the moment:

You can see the brushes, pencils etc. hanging down there. These are the implements with which to play the springs, needles, toy crocodiles etc., and the wooden surface itself. Artists and rock stars come to Mu to express themselves. Here they are playing:

Tore also conducted an acoustic laptop workshop. That's him on the right:

They are easy to build yourself. You just need a wooden box, a contact mic and some household junk. We were very happy to get Tore to come here, as he lives in the Canary Islands, and even better, his visit coincided with that of another special guest, musician Charles Hayward, who was in the legendary late-1970s post-punk / anarchic pre-everything kind of band This Heat and has been active ever since. He played live:

Yes, once again art and music collide. Which is the point.

Apart from being general manager of Sound of Mu, I also occupy myself with analysing what it is we are actually doing. For instance, we run the place as a collective, yet it is not a democracy, so what kind of organization is it? Well, those who put in the most work have the most say in how the place is run. After a little research, I found that the word for this is ergocracy. Like the more familiar word ergonomics, the word ergocracy is derived from the Greek word ergon, meaning "work". And before transliterating, ergon in Greek is spelled eµrgon, which includes the letter Mu. Naturally.

Ergocracy being an uncommon word, I did not find it in a dictonary, but instead found a good definition of it in an online discussion about open source software: "...those who contribute most work to the project, also influence its direction the most."

I was in Berlin this week. Yes, this blog has once again crept away from Scandinavia to have a look at the outside world. And I chose to visit a post-apocalyptic wasteland, as you can see from the above picture.

Jon and John (and could those be Germans in the background?)

During the 2+ years of this blog, characters like "Jomba", "Bjarne" and "Jon" have been casually mentioned. These are in fact the people I met on my first ever trip to Norway back in 2002. The first two live in my apartment building and are involved in the Sound of Mu project, while Jon has recently been recording my band.

Jomba is "involved" in an Oslo-Berlin apartment-swapping project, which means he hangs out there for weeks on end playing in bands and sampling the beer that's available for purchase morning, noon and night. Jon and I flew over and this overlapped with Bjarne's visit, so he was there for our first night. We spent our time exploring, and drinking in bars with American singers.

Berlin seems very post-apocalyptic, like an ex-city. The population is decreasing, apartment buildings are being boarded up, and the only influx is from artists, foreigners and escapists.

Not everything is falling apart though. I noticed some of that same German architecture as we have at home in Grünerløkka in Oslo. This is the building we stayed in.

Berlin was totally different to Oslo in every other respect. It was more relaxed, there were less RULES, music was played quieter, people enthusiastically partied on Sunday nights etc.

Of course, it was not all about relaxation! We are capable of being serious. For instance Jon, who is supposed to be good at remembering numbers, was subjected to numerical memory testing.

I put all these fridge magnets on a table, shuffled them around randomly, took a photo of it and then took the magnets away. He was then tested at various different levels of alcoholic intoxication to see if he could recall this number. In the not so distant future I'll also be asking readers of this blog to remember that number. The consequences for not remembering could be very distressing and de-stabilizing, as you will soon understand.

The most important thing to note about Berlin is its extremely high bioresonance. Yes, you read correctly: bioresonance. This can manifest in unexpected bio-growth, often with dramatic colouration, like this "hair" that resonated from the artist formerly known as Bjarne's head. The antenna you can see protruding behind him only made things worse.

Half an hour later, his bioresonance was oscillating at maximum frequency and we had to de-resonate at 0891255966849 punktows... the correct measurement for bio-resistance. You are advised to remember that if you ever plan to visit Berlin or another highly bioresonant location!!! You don't want to end looking like the map of the Tokyo subway system.