FAR18.1: OK!

I’ve mentioned on this blog before that now and again I stop and think: ‘How did I ever end up here?’

I had another one of those moments this week, as I was standing on a hill holding a Danish-English dictionary, with one hand on my chin and a man taking a good twenty photos of me. Surreal.

One of the two big Faroese newspapers, Sosialurin, decided to write an article about me and about what I’m doing in the Faroes. The fact I’m from England, have come to the Faroes, have learned Faroese and am now writing about their language situation is apparently a little unusual. Pretty nervous, I walked down to the Sosialurin office in downtown Tórshavn. The guy who interviewed me was really nice and we were talking for a good hour or so. At the end he told me ‘We’ll need to get a picture of you’. That had come as a slight surprise, as I had assumed what he was going to write was just going to be a side column somewhere in the paper. But fair enough, I guessed a little picture would add a nice touch (I can’t say I was completely surprised. One of my friends had warned me that might be the case, and I’d worn my Faroese jumper specially).

What was a surprise was when I walked into the local supermarket on the day the paper came out, to see myself, my dictionary and my chin on the front page, accompanied by the words ‘pages 28-29’ – two pages?! I opened the paper up and saw that my article had indeed taken up two pages, including a huge photograph of me almost covering one entire side. OK! I have to say I was pretty chuffed with the whole thing – the article was really good, and made everything sound quite interesting, which is cool, because often when doing a PhD there are moments when you stop and think: ‘Why?’

That evening I went to a party, as one of my friends had completed his apprenticeship, and another friend said to me, ‘We heard about you on the radio!’ I smiled and said ‘You mean in the newspaper?’ ‘No, they were advertising the newspaper on the radio and mentioned you and the article’. OK!

The next day I checked online to find that, not only was the article also there, I was currently second in their ‘Most read’ column. Two places above ‘Deaths and Funerals’. OK!

Home (and Eurovision!)

London, baby! (Even got a black cab in there!)

I’ve just been home for ten days, and it was great – and unbelievably tiring. In those ten days I managed to fit in five choir rehearsals (three different choirs), a trip to the cinema (the new Star Trek film is really good), a visit to my godson, a meeting with my supervisors, the most productive week I have EVER had in terms of my PhD (with several very late nights up studying, but well worth it) and the Eurovision Song Contest (viewing, not taking part yet). I came back to the Faroes absolutely shattered.

It was nice to be home again for a little bit – although I kept accidentally referring to the Faroes as ‘home’ (‘When I get back home, I can...’) which didn’t go down too well with my mum... But then she did it too (‘We can post that when you get home...’) so we’re even.

Now it wouldn’t be mitchenstein if I didn’t say something about Eurovision, although I would just like to point out that not being able to vote in the Faroes wasn’t my reason for coming home.

So let me just say that I thought it was the best Eurovision yet – the songs were much better and the staging was jaw-dropping. It was great to see the ol’ United Kingdom doing so well!

But the night belonged to Norway, and in particular, Alexander Rybak:
The dancer closest to Rybak looks like he’s been dropped.

So I’ll finish with a few comments:

1. The French entry made me feel sick. Wouldn’t you clear your throat out before singing?

2. The Russian entry was the worst thing ever. And not just on TV (hat-tip Chandler).

3. I thought Iceland were really good – but I reckon quite a few Icelanders were glad the Norwegians were there...

4. No Terry Wogan! Finally that moron’s out of the picture. Graham Norton was so much better. The funniest line of the night was when the woman from Montenegro was giving her country’s points (‘That’s either a national dress... Or a horrible dress’). But you had to be there.

On my way home, I had a few hours to spend in Copenhagen – unfortunately it was really hot (not usually a problem, but I was dressed for the Faroes), and all the shops were shut as it was some public holiday (Ascension Day, I think). But it was nice to have a look around:

And somebody has obviously spent a lot of time and effort on these trees by the Danish Parliament (unless they grow like that), so I thought they deserved a photo:

FAR17.3: Driving in My Car (Part Three)

FAR17.2: Driving in My Car (Part Two)

PS. It's 7,000 (You'll see what I mean).

FAR17.1: Driving in My Car (Part One)