So you’re British. Or American. Or something like that. Welcome to Norway. No really, we mean it. We’re glad to see you.
Now, never ever:
- venture an opinion about Norwegian politics. We’ve been very patient with you, but you clearly don’t understand.
- buy a round in a bar. Alcohol is expensive enough anyway – why waste it on other people?
- drink on a Tuesday. Marks you out as an alcoholic.
- expect good food outside Oslo. If you don’t go looking for it, you won’t be disappointed.
- forget that social class doesn’t exist here. It just doesn’t, OK?
- suggest that nynorsk isn’t really a language. It just is, OK?
- ditto bokmål. Nothing like Danish or Swedish at all.
- point out that samisk actually is a separate language.
- ask why it’s OK to laugh at the Sami people and their culture.
- argue that it’s pathetic that you can’t buy wine outside the vinmonopol. If you let people choose for themselves our carefully-constructed society will collapse into anarchy.
- point out that the murder rate is the same as in the UK.
- ask why you can’t buy alcohol on an election day. You just can’t, OK? Look, we’ve been very patient with you, but you clearly don’t understand.
- suggest that Carl I Hagen is a racist. He’s a lovely eccentric old man who should be invited on to talk shows on a regular basis. There is no racism in Norway. And none of it’s Carl I Hagen’s fault. See point 1 above.
- ask why no one talks about what Grandpa Torbjørn did in the war. Let’s just stick to Grandpa Ornulf, who was a war hero, OK? Leave Grandpa Torbjørn out of this. In fact, get out of my house.
- What do you mean, no one remembers the Winter Olympics in Lillehammer? I told you to get out of my house.
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