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: 

1. venture an opinion about Norwegian politics.  We’ve been very patient with you, but you clearly don’t understand.   
2. buy a round in a bar.  Alcohol is expensive enough anyway – why waste it on other people?
3. drink on a Tuesday.  Marks you out as an alcoholic.
4. expect good food outside Oslo.  If you don’t go looking for it, you won’t be disappointed.
5. forget that social class doesn’t exist here.  It just doesn’t, OK? 
6. suggest that nynorsk isn’t really a language.  It just is, OK?
7. ditto bokmål.  Nothing like Danish or Swedish at all.
8. point out that samisk actually is a separate language.
9. ask why it’s OK to laugh at the Sami people and their culture.
10. 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.
11. point out that the murder rate is the same as in the UK.
12. 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. 
13. 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.
14. 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.
15. What do you mean, no one remembers the Winter Olympics in Lillehammer?  I told you to get out of my house.

A blog for the P3 Generation.  From a man from the Radio 4 generation.