Channel hopping yesterday I came across a Norwegian journalist interviewing Shakira: “You’ve dedicated your last single to your boyfriend; what is it about?” Well, sheesh, it’s not exactly Kant, is it? Sometimes I wonder whether all these artists that we dismiss as stupid aren’t just victims of stupid journalists. How are you supposed to answer a question like that without sounding pretty lame? (“Well, see, I sing, like, “we’re meant to be together” and that means, like, that the two of us are meant for each other, like, y’know?”)
I love Parkinson (link to radio show – it’s the tv show I’m familiar with, but I think the concept is pretty similar). He’s a shining light of hope in an otherwise pretty dismal universe populated with journalists competing against each other to come up with the most meaningless question.
I got digital cable on Thursday. That is, I got the set-top-box-thingy, unfortunately they’re having technical problems, so it’s not working yet. It’s not working for anyone else in the whole of Oslo, apparently. Am I still paying for these 4, going on 14 days, I wonder? Probably, considering the company’s normal practices. The UPC customer service (using the term very lightly) is quickly becoming the favourite rant subject of a major part of the Norwegian population it seems, and in this case I’m quite happy to jump on the bandwagon. You’ll notice I didn’t provide a link. This does not mean they do not have a website, they do, but I can see no reason why you would ever want to visit it. In a way they’re doing me a favour in this case, as I have rather a lot I want to read as well as quite a bit of work round here (did you notice) that needs to be done. Like putting all the images I’ve spent hours, days, weeks (ok, exaggerating now) scanning someplace where you can actually see them…