A kinky ending!

Spending most of my time in RL this XMas, I want to give you a short peek into how to be a real Norwegian: You have to watch the short move "Dinner for one" on TV the night before Christmas Eve. And do try to get the rather kinky point at the end:-)



To understand the cult-like status this piece have in Norway, you have to know that prior to 1992 (when we got TV2), we only had 1 - one - national TV channel. Some lucky few could get the two Swedish channels, and there where those with huge satellite receiver discs in the garden, but for most Norwegians, watching television at night meant watching the one government-supported channel available.

Of course, this meant that the probability of hitting a show you really liked was often slim. The upside, however, was that everybody else was forced into the same TV evening, so you had some common ground to criticize the channel during lunch the next day. It's kind of telling that when Norwegian TV started to show "SOAP", we had a hard time following the sarcasms because there had been no soaps aired in Norway before:-)

Anyway, since here in Norway we celebrate Christmas Eve (that's when the kids gets their presents), December 23rd is a kind of "last evening" to get everything done, so often enough one ends up wrapping parcels and decorating the tree while the TV churns out expert advices on how to best prepare the classical Norwegian Christmas dinners.

During the 80's, these shows was particularly dull, mostly consisting of elderly retired people listening to old artists doing sing-a-longs of old songs. So dull, actually, that the one bright spot the entire evening was Dinner for One, or "The Countess and the Butler" (my translation) as the film is named here. So, around 9:15 in the evening, most Norwegians would gather their families in front of the TV to enjoy a 1o minute break in the Christmas preparations.

While the talk shows the night before Christmas has gotten better, national television still has "The same procedure as every year, James".

I will do my very best:-)