LAST weekend was spent in Norway, a country I had never been to before.
If that Scandinavian nation which isn’t in the European Union is what Britain can be like post Brexit, then I’m all for it.
Blue skies, sparkling fjords, bright-eyed smiling people and it doesn’t get dark until gone midnight.
Wasn’t that the kind of place that Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage promised us post-Brexit?
I went away with a group I have known since my early 20s all school friends of a guy who I worked with when I started my first job on a newspaper.
He went on to work for the Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph but it doesn’t appear to have affected him as he still wears dungarees and Birkenstocks.
Another is a top City lawyer, one works in property and another is an engineer, I think.
I say I think because he is prone to random comments that make conversation a trifle difficult.
We all went to see a friend who married a Norwegian and now lives in the southern Norwegian city of Stavanger.
He took us to a couple of bars where I achieved the feat of being the oldest person in one of them and the youngest person in the other.
Needless to say I didn’t want to become the fly in the ointment in the former and so headed to Stavanger’s finest piano bar where a man with spiky hair and a tan tinkled out tunes on a white grand piano while ageing lotharios smooched mature ladies next to the bar.
Well I say smooched, a better description would be snogged their faces off.
One lady approached me and asked me if I wanted to dance.
I politely declined, but said it was a huge compliment to be asked by such an attractive lady who looked like a young Angela Merkel.
I’m not sure what a hard Brexit will look like but her expression got pretty close.
As I left the bar at 2.30am I took the photograph above.
I thought it summed up the beauty of the Norwegian fjords and the land of the midnight sun.
Until I looked a bit closer and saw what the bloke in the bottom left corner was doing.
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THE nation, well the England bit of it anyway, will fire up their BBQs, crack open the supermarket lager and gather around their TVs tomorrow afternoon to watch their football team face Sweden in the World Cup quarter final.
Whether this is England’s last match in the tournament in Russia or they go further, it has been nice to support a football team to feel proud of.
Eschewing headphones and engaging in conversation, they project a much more articulate image than we are perhaps used to from our sporting heroes.
Much of that is down to their manager, Gareth Southgate, who has a unique combination of being both inspiring and down-to-earth at the same time.
I’ve enjoyed this tournament more than any other since Italia ’90 when I was drinking Wards bitter out of plastic glasses in the Huddersfield Poly Students’ Union bar and cheering on Gazza, Waddle, Platt, Lineker and of course Derby County’s finest, Mark Wright and Peter Shilton.
Talking of Derby, I was back there this week and the front page of the local paper reported a disturbance in a local pub in which a man was assaulted and the bar was smashed up.
It happened on Wednesday evening after England’s dramatic penalty shoot out victory over Colombia.
If they do that after a win, what will happen when we lose?
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DID you read the big news of the week?
A crow at Knaresborough Castle has surprised visitors with the greeting “Y’alright love” with a Yorkshire accent.
According to the RSPCA this isn’t your common or garden Yorkshire crow, it’s a pied crow which are usually found in parts of Africa.
The animal charity thinks the crow – which looks like a cross between a large carrion crow and a magpie – is probably an escaped pet given its vocal dexterity.
It brings to mind a memorable scene from Carry On Behind when Joan Sims is unaware her pet mynah bird has a wide range of cheeky phrases and thinks her son-in-law Bernard Bresslaw is responsible for shouting “get stuffed” at her.
The bird then escapes from his cage at a camp site and hapless Bresslaw sets out to recapture it, during which time the bird is flitting around woodland saying “show us your knickers” to attractive female campers.
Thinking there is a prowler, campsite owner Kenneth Connor sets out to track him down and sees Bernard Bresslaw crawling through the bushes looking for the escaped mynah bird.
“What the devil do you think you are doing?” demands Connor.
“Keep your voice down, I’m looking for a bird,” replies Bresslaw.
“You filthy swine,” says Connor, giving him a whack with his walking stick.
Well I enjoyed it.
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IT’S all kicking off on Love Island.
Wes and Megan are now officially a couple, after a dramatic “recoupling” which saw him dump Laura and reject Ellie and Darylle.
The move means the former erotic dancer has left behind new beau Alex (not to be confused with Doctor Alex, who she was once aligned with).
Then Georgia chose Sam, meaning Adam and New Alex are now gone.
Meanwhile Dani Dyer’s dad Danny has set off for Spain.
OMG! It’s so, like, exciting.
I asked an avid Love Island watcher which one was Megan.
“She’s the one with the big teeth and boobs.”
That didn’t really narrow things down much.
Have a like, great, like, weekend babes.