tomment

holiday of the absurd

and so i return from 2 weeks of cycling in norway with sarah (who, by the way, has a lot of pictures to illustrate).

perhaps my favourite holiday chore was absurdity spotting. we did a lot of it.

some examples:

My first road traffic accident, cycling under 10mph I killed a bird. It crunched.
Lone Camping: a campsite just outside Bergen, which has an onsite zoo.
Waking at 3am to find a badger eating cheese in our tent.
Little Italy: an Italian/American crossover restaurant aboard FjordLine‘s M/S Jupiter. The restaurant was filled with food items, which had been attached to various surfaces using adhesive. Items included a tin of Co-Op chickpeas and a tin of spaghetti in tomato sauce. Don’t forget the Weetabix box.
On the subject of Weetabix, Scandinavians are creative with their breakfasts. They like to mix and match, and particularly enjoy open sandwiches. We saw a woman eating a Weetabix (or is the singular a Weetabik?) like a cracker, with some random assorted topping (it probably involved herring).
The staff at the port of Bergen and their complete inability to load a ferry.
Tyneside.

more may be added.

1mr_h
July 13th, 2005 @ 20:58

> Waking at 3am to find a badger eating cheese in our tent.

that old chestnut !
2sarah
July 14th, 2005 @ 09:29

I’m still not quite convinced it was a badger. It was badger in shape but didn’t have the badger stripes, it was just brown. Do brown badgers exist?

What Tom didn’t say is that he expertly drove it away by throwing socks at it. The badger just looked a bit confused.
3tom
July 14th, 2005 @ 10:13

it has been suggested to me that it could have been a porcupine.
4sarah
July 14th, 2005 @ 11:00

With a brief bit of wikipedia research I think we might be dealing with a kind of hedgehog. “hedgehogs are lactose intolerant and will eagerly eat cheese products and drink milk, making themselves sick”

I thought it was a hedgehog to start with but it wasn’t very spiky.
5tom
July 14th, 2005 @ 12:36

Porcupines in search of sodium sometimes encroach on areas inhabited by people and eat tool handles, clothes, and other items that have been coated in salty sweat.

if it was a porcupine it would have liked my socks.
6tom smith
July 18th, 2005 @ 21:55

was it sick then, after eating your cheese? maybe you should capture one and let it loose backstage at ashton court – that’d take care of those cheese-wastrels.