Norway Out

‘WHAT’S the point in going to Norway, we ask? And, quick as a flash, the comic genius within you says there isn’t one. Norway…nul points.

I’m A Norwegian…Get Me Out Of Here!

But you’d be wrong to dismiss the land that pop music forgot because, if you’re down Norway way, you might just catch a glimpse of Prince Haakon and Princess Mette-Marit chilling out in their country pile in downtown Skaugum.

Now, we must confess that, having never been to Norway, let alone the regal retreat, we were forced to look up the idyll’s location on a map.

And working with callipers and charts, we can say with no little authority that, yes, it is in the dead centre of nowhere.

And that’s how the princess and his wife, her seven-year-old son Marius and their baby daughter Princess Ingrid like it.

‘This place is so secluded,’ says she, ‘that it makes you feel at peace. It’s much quieter here than in town.’

‘It’s a fantastic place,’ chips in Haakon, ‘and we’re thankful for every day we live her.’

And indeed it does look a pleasant enough spot when viewed from the warm comfort of your quilted toilet seat, or wherever it is that Hello! readers perch to view the other half from.

Indoors, there are the colourless wall hangings and the hard wooden floors.

And outdoors, there’s the nearby fjord and the steep hills covered in scree and rocks.

And then it’s time to go. But not before Haakan has made one last desperate bid to get Hello!’s scribe to linger a while longer.

‘We who live in Norway are very privileged compared to other people,’ says he with a knowing look in his eye.

But while the Finnish may well look on with unbridled envy at the fast-paced life, Hello! knows that, however great the view and pale the sky, the world at large is somewhere else.

And just as soon as the flares are lit and a rescue plane flies overhead, it’ll return to it…’

Posted: 9th, September 2004 | In: Reviews Comment | TrackBack | Permalink