Topum

Takk, Norge!

2024-05-09T19:24:46Z

Moldovan flag proudly waving in Oslo as I start my state visit to Norway, at the invitation of Their Majesties King Harald V and Queen Sonja.

Norway’s solidarity is helping Moldova navigate through turbulent times, strengthen resilience and improve lives of people. Takk, Norge. pic.twitter.com/jZgW1WMqSE
— Maia Sandu (@sandumaiamd) May 6, 2024

Norway has been there to help for a while now:

Russian insurrection

2023-06-25T03:20:41Z

I am kinda not buying this whole Russian "insurrection" spectacle. It is weird and things do not quite add up. I don't know what they were doing or trying to do but I don't feel like buying it at its face value. I feel something else is going on.

Buttered myself up

2023-05-07T22:38:15Z

I've just had 1 pound of clotted cream in one go. I ate it with a spoon. The kid loves it too, his version of having scones is basically clotted cream and jam with a couple of scone crumbs sprinkled on top. He is like me, he goes straight for the good stuff.

It is sad that there is no clotted cream in the US (I think it is because unpasteurised milk products are banned there since 1924) and it is basically classified as butter there. The dieticians say that men should not eat more than 30g of fat per day and that clotted cream alone had 250g of fat in it. I think the dieticians are full of it or they never had clotted cream or good butter. I do not care how much the cows fart, I would rather die scorched by the sun or swept away by the rising ocean than live in a world without butter and clotted cream.

PS: Also, "diary free ice cream" is not ice cream, "plant-based milk" is not milk. Skimmed/semi-skimmed milk is an abomination.

God save the king!

2023-05-06T13:54:17Z

This coronation reality show is not nearly as good as the US presidential election, and it is not even close. The costumes are more elaborate, but there is no suspense and the drama is a couple of notches down. This to US election is what a quaint well-known British soap rerun on channel 4 is to a world premier of a huge universally anticipated Hollywood blockbuster.

Helga is not fond of the monarchy but she is still too British to deal with me making constant fun of all this. And my very English mother-in-law (who is not generally a fan of the royal family either) won't have any of it at all now. So I remembered that I also still have LJ. How have y'all been, LJ gang?

Do you want to make your blood boil? Check this out.

2022-06-19T18:34:15Z

At a wedding in Uzbekistan (one of the former Soviet republics) the bride and the groom were playing a game on stage in front of the guests, they had to unwrap sweets as fast as possible (fun, I guess). The bride was faster and she won. And this is the price she paid for winning:

The wedding went on. The bride forgave the groom (she was asking for it anyway and was grateful to her husband for teaching her a lesson I guess). They are together, that girl had to leave her parents' house and is now living just with that guy in his house.

That girl's father who raised her from a baby and all her relatives were there in front of that stage and watched it. And nobody went up on that stage and broke the groom's every single limb in at least 3 places and then punched him in the face until it turned black and his toothless mouth was just a pool of blood. That's something I just do not get.

Slogans

2022-05-05T02:43:49Z

One of the stupidest things of our time is the hysterical unity around slogans that seems so pervasive these days, as well as repeating them ad nauseam as if they are magic spells and something can be achieved by just chanting them. I switch off the very moment slogans come into play, they are not making anyone think, they don't invite questions or answers and they are sooooo boring. I stop listening as soon a slogan is used in a discussion.

Mette has landed in Kyiv

2022-04-21T15:58:15Z

Mette has landed in Kyiv.

https://www.thelocal.dk/20220421/danish-pm-mette-frederiksen-in-kyiv-for-talks-ukrainian-president-zelensky/

Biden

2022-04-20T15:25:11Z

Do you think Biden should run in 2024? Will he be fit to run the U.S. and the West till 2028, especially in these trying times?

I miss top performers at their peak leading the free world. I miss the Obama / Bill Clinton vibe a lot.

War

2022-04-02T18:21:24Z

The preparations for the battle for Donbass has been underway for a couple of days on both sides. This battle will be the biggest and the bloodiest battle in the 21st century. Ukraine's army will have close to 90,000 people there and will have some limited help from NATO (not its direct involvement though). The Russians have redirected their Kiev/Chernigov people there as well and will have at least as many people as the Ukrainians there to face them and probably more.

The world has not seen a battle on this scale in this century and Europe has not seen anything like this since WWII. A lot of people on both sides will lose their lives next week. The outcome of this battle to a large extent will determine the course of this war and the future of both countries.

PS: I went to Ukraine and back three times now. We were taking some people who got trapped there out and bringing them here to safety. That involved bribing a lot of people there, getting robbed at gun point and having to lie on the ground while bullets were flying around us. On that second trip I thought at some point that I would not make it back. I have never seen human tragedy and the collapse of civilization on that scale (obviously) and the war felt very different than I thought it would (and I was just barely on its outskirts and not in the thick of it of course).

WTF?

2022-03-24T22:52:02Z

European champions Italy will not play in the 2022 World Cup after being stunned by North Macedonia in their play-off in Palermo.

By North Macedonia....

Italy is out 2022 World Cup because they lost to North Macedonia.

What is happening to the world?

Kamala

2022-03-13T12:55:33Z

Is Kamala Harris really as bad at her job as they say she is?

Transnistria

2022-03-04T16:24:22Z

Transnistria has just urged the world to recognize its independence. It is their reaction to Moldova's application to join the EU. They have asked Moldova to start the negotiations to finalize the divorce peacefully and go their own ways.

Transnistria is Moldova's pro-Russian break-away region that has been de-facto separate from Moldova and self-governing (border, own currency, etc) for more than a quarter of a century. It's population is mostly Russian-speaking and Slavic. They broke away from Moldova in a short war shortly after Moldova became independent and a significant resurgence of pro-Romanian nationalism among Moldovans including some extreme anti-minority, ethnocentric and chauvinist positions calling for minority populations, particularly the Slavs (mainly Russians and Ukrainians) and Gagauz, to leave or be expelled from Moldova. Historically, Transnistria is not Romanian/Moldovan land and was given/annexed to Moldova by Stalin after he annexed Moldova itself to the USSR in the WWII aftermath.

I spent quite a bit of time in Transnistria and I have the impression that in a free referendum the majority of the people there would vote to leave Moldova and join Russia.

Nothing from autonomous region of Gagauzia (a Russian and Turkish speaking autonomous region in the south of the country) so far. I think there is a provision in Moldova's constitution that Gagauzia can ask for a referendum to leave in case Moldova joins Romania or its independence/neutrality status is otherwise changed. They are ethnically distinct Turkic people with very close ties to both Russia and Turkey. I spent less time there than in Transnistria and do not have a good understanding what's the current mood there.

Europe's largest nuclear plant is on fire

2022-03-03T23:59:50Z

It has just been reported that Zaporizhia nuclear plant, the largest nuclear plant in Europe is on fire. Bloody hell.
Are you ready for a bit of radioactive rain fellow Europeans?
Live feed:

Not Russia

2022-03-01T23:09:11Z

The Ukrainians staying with us are constantly in a state of extreme anxiety which is bordering on a total breakdown at times. They try to find and stick to various routines to distract and calm themselves down. They bake, they garden, they help me in the vineyard. And they also got hooked on this video, it helps them calm down. This is Norway friends, the most beautiful place on the planet, aka NOT RUSSIA. It has a border with Russia but it is still decisively and totally NOT RUSSIA in every way, in all respects and on all levels. I never thought that this clarification would be necessary but apparently it might be.

Second

2022-02-28T21:27:05Z

Norway to send weapons to Ukraine, in change of policy https://t.co/xcKswk000t pic.twitter.com/aypUcvcPQa
— Reuters (@Reuters) February 28, 2022

First

2022-02-27T22:46:41Z

BREAKING: #Denmark 🇩🇰 becomes the First European Country to let volunteers join foreign brigade in Ukraine 🇺🇦. #Ukraine #Russia #UkraineRussiaWar pic.twitter.com/si50GJHYe4
— IT Army of Ukraine (@ITarmyUA) February 27, 2022

Big guns

2022-02-27T13:55:19Z

To cheer up the Ukrainian women and children staying with us (they have been separated from their husbands/fathers/older brothers because Ukraine doesn't let men over 18 to leave the country), Helga wheeled out the big guns:

ENGLISH. AFTERNOON. TEA.

We learned a while ago that it works all the time with the locals here. They do not have anything similar and they love it. They do not have clotted cream here so Helga makes our own, luckily our neighbours have two cows. Helga asked me to unfriend and ban anyone how goes "ooooh, but butter is good enough, it's tasty too" on the spot (but I probably won't). I will allow some discussion of the relative merits of Cornish (first jam then cream) vs Devon (first cream than jam) way though.

If you ever are in this neck of the woods, remember proper English afternoon tea can get you very far with the locals here.

We are doing something right

2022-02-26T17:20:07Z

We were surprised by the willingness of our kid to share his most prized toys and possessions with the Ukrainian kids who are staying with us. He gave his most treasured treasures to them before they even asked and without us asking him to share either. And he is usually super protective of his treasures. I think we have been doing something right.

I don't want the truth

2022-02-26T12:59:15Z

I spent the night driving to the Ukrainian border, picking up the refugees who made it through the border and bringing them to our house. It is mind-blowing how different the reality is from what we see on Twitter and in the media, how much more complex, nuanced and tangled it is then the black-and-white propaganda and Twitter activists' outrage from both sides. Some of the refugees are on the Russians' side. Most of the pictures and videos that went viral do not represent what they went viral for (and sometimes even the opposite). It is mind-blowing how much more complex the reality is than the media news feeds carefully curated to feed their respective audiences what makes them feel right. And how happy those audiences are about it and how readily they would filter out anything that might challenge the reality they have constructed for themselves. I am the same. None of us want the truth, I certainly have had enough of it for today.

Borscht and marigolds

2022-02-25T13:00:19Z

We took in two families of Ukrainian refugees. The kid is ecstatic to have five more kids in the house, they are now a gang and are running around in the garden wrecking havoc. The women are teaching Helga to make a proper Ukrainian borscht. One of the women found marigold seeds she bought to plant in front of her house in her pocket and she planted them in front of our house instead. Our neighbours took in a family of refugees as well and we will all have dinner together at our place tonight. Ok, I am taking the kids to the lake now.

PS: Oh and yeah, we are not leaving. We have work to do here, we are staying.

War knocked on our window

2022-02-24T19:05:03Z

Helga woke me up just after 4 AM today. "Bjorn! Bjorn! Our windows are shaking! What is this sound? What is happening?".

Explosions. Massive explosions in Ukraine woke us up here today. Our windows were shaking for more than an hour and we could even hear the explosions. They must have been enormous if we could feel them here.

War in Europe shook our windows and woke us up here today. The kid did not wake up. Helga made us some coffee and we went online.

We have lost our fucking minds

2022-02-10T23:23:57Z

LOL, we have lost our fucking minds.

For the woke, there is nothing that cannot be problematised. pic.twitter.com/RvnHIkf1NB
— Andrew Doyle (@andrewdoyle_com) February 10, 2022

PS: As many of you know I strongly oppose factory farming (but I recognize that we cannot just give it up now), but this shit is so insane and unnecessary.

No to vaccination but give me triple masks and lockdowns instead

2022-01-28T05:05:34Z

I met a very rare breed of human today, the guy was firmly against the Covid vaccines (but not an anti-vaxxer in general), but a staunch supporter of masks and strict and total lockdowns.

Usually, the people who are against the vaccine are also against masking and lockdowns. There are also plenty of people who are pro-vaccination but do not support masking and lockdowns, but I have never met anyone who thought that vaccination was useless (and dangerous) but give me triple masking at all times and the strictest lockdowns possible forever instead. It was weird for the first five seconds after he voiced his views because my brain could not pigeonhole him (and yes, our brains do try to pigeonhole and categorise everything and everyone all the time).

Mother England take us back!

2022-01-18T14:56:41Z

We are going to St Ives in Cornwall this summer. We have been away from England for so long that we cannot wait to be back. I am not British but I like the British way so much that I decided it would become my home when I was still a teenager. And I did make it my home even though I have remained decidedly un-British (but the Brits, including my wife are very much OK with that).

I love England's coast and Cornwall in particular, it is very underrated. And I miss the food so much. Yes, I think that the British food everyone loves to hate is awesome and I am not a fan of the French cuisine everyone loves to love at all. Also, the French language is pointless and ridiculous and should be abolished except in the menus of pretentious overpriced restaurants nobody goes to and romantic arthouse movies nobody watches. And while we are on it, the best thing that can happen to Paris is its total destruction and rebuilding by the Brits so that it is more like London. Just saying.

But I am spending way more time on Paris than it deserves, so back to Cornwall. I am going to take the kid surfing too. It is going to be weird for him to be a native English speaker finally surrounded mostly by other native English speakers, that's something he doesn't get much of here. It is going to be awesome.

I liked it

2021-12-22T04:02:13Z

Devil: And this is the lava lake you will spend eternity in.
Man: Actually, we are underground so technically this is magma not lava...
Devil: Do you realize that this is exactly why you are here?

One of the people we had over for dinner today told me this joke and I liked it a lot.