Oslo

April 10–11, 17–18, 2006

I don’t know quite how to put it into words. I understood the most important thing about Scandinavia (and also about the Baltics, which Scandinavia has partially privatised) — if a city has panoramic “no entry for vehicular traffic” signs (cf. Tallinn and Helsinki), it is a horrible place to live.

There’s something extra dumb about this desire to show on every side that there’s no entry. At the same time this points to an inability to hang up the sign in such as way that you can see it in advance.

They might start bending the “no entry” signs in Riga sometime soon. In which case I won’t be going there again (over the last five years Latvia has changed for the worse beyond recognition; plus the Latvian embassy is now the only one where you have to go in person to submit and pick up your documents, whereas every other European country will grant you a year-long visa in absentia and without any mindfuckery).

There isn’t really anything to do in Oslo.

They read newspapers at the newsstand.

Some Senegalese guys performing the popular Soviet song “Moscow Nights” on accordions.

There are two red men at every set of traffic lights. Like, nope, there’s no mistake, it’s definitely red, do not cross.

To ensure that some Norwegian granny doesn’t get confused about when to cross there are poles with twin red men to the left and to the right of the zebra crossing. Moreover, to make sure that some slow-witted Norwegian granny doesn’t get mixed up they’ve put in three rows of poles with twin red men on each side. A grand total of six poles with twelve glowing red men on them.

As for the vehicle traffic lights, they’re peachy: there are bushels of them.

Aside from that, the city felt neither pleasant, nor like home, nor agreeable. All of the diversity hotspots bear all of the hallmarks of artifice. This whole European pseudo-modern style is totally and fundamentally faceless (a world away from soulful and scruffy Portugal).

The number of sculptures here exceeds all health and safety limits. The first sign of poor taste, while we’re on the subject, is installing small-scale sculptures every ten metres. It would be easier to dump them all in the sea, at least that would make for a memorable performance.

There was only one nice sculpture. If I had my way it’d be 50 metres high and it’d be the only one in the entire city, in the central square.

The reason being that when anything goes and in the absence anything at all, this is what you get:

I was thrilled to bits to discover a familiar pile of dirty snow, just like back home.

A giant puddle — darling, I wasn’t expecting to bump into you in these parts! — was infinitely more appealing than the imagery reflected in it.