Stig's Musings

If I live at a geographic point A and you live at a geographic point B, it helps to have a little road between A and B if you want to drop by for a cup of tea and some buttered scones. The people in Norway who make that possible are Twinings (really english, but they have norwegian resellers) for the tea, scones from the local baker and Mesta for the roads. Others also build roads in Norway, while some prefer to use planes. But Mesta likes roads, and this nice gentleman is a classic example of dedication to the engineering qualities of road-building. We would be separated by fjords and mountains if it wasn't for roads. Thank you guys!

Back from Vegas. So I decided to start blogging again.

Where Berlin has gone for homoerotics and thai massaga ala Stalin, the city of Bergen in Norway has tried self-irony as an approach to bring in more tourism. Instead of being miserable about 320 days every year of rain (4000mm rain every year), they have turned it into a slogan: "Regn med oss".

Every year they celebrate autumn (6th of august) and the first rain as lifegiver and catalyst for the umbrella, rainwear and wellie-industry. Kids of all ages go to celebrate and dance in the rain. Tourists dance naked in the warm rain at 'Festplassen' and a random convict is pardoned. People give each other gifts and slap each other with norwegian salmon. Bergen's enthusiasm for all things, have attracted tourists from the rest of the world ranging from Sotra to Askøy and even Voss.

As mentioned in a previous article, eastern europe built a wall in Berlin to keep all the tourists out. These days Berlin is an open city where all visitors are welcomed by the mayor's office. In this shot we see the two assistants, Heike and Udo, welcoming us when we arrive at the airport.

The new policy in Berlin has made Berlin the trendiest place in Europe, even more trendy than Borat's hometown Glod. Berlin wants to fight for eurotourists against more established tourist cities like Paris, Murmansk and London. Berlin's strategy is to be two cities in one, so they have embedded a communist theme park in the eastern part of the city. The theme park sports cool features like Trabants, Lenin Horror Tunnel and Stalin's Pink Thai Massage Centre. We can recommend Berlin.

As we have learnt, the rise of tourism has caused big and vast changes in many societies. Not least in the country famous for Noel Gallagher, Margaret Thatcher and Postman Pat. Due to the increased number of tourists and the crime wave that follows, all the english police officers are too busy fighting crime to care about the real issues. Issues like terrorism, slavery and low quality street performers have not been prioritised during Tony Blair's reign as Prime Minister. Dr Livingstone, the mayor of London, has found a solution to spite his old friends in the Labour party. Child Labour.

British children have been eager to join Dr Livingstone's troops to combat poverty, terrorism, dandruff and sloppy street performers. In this shot we see Special Officer Rowlins of West Yorkshire inspect a Covent Garden street performer. He cleverly feigns enthusiasm to lull the street performer into a false sense of safety. This street performer was sentenced to 30 years of hard physical labour, the strongest punishment available in british law. Soon-to-be Prime Minister Gordon Brown has voiced that he will introduce "Guantanamo Holiday" as an option in british law.

Tourism is a direct side-effect of "hanging out". After chilling in a spot for a time we grow tired and we go to other places to hang out. The advent of the horse cart and later the charter jet, both contributed to the tremendous rise of tourism. Today tourism is a huge industry complete with child workers, rude french waiters and state-intervention. Sometimes governments hijack tourists in other countries, like Iran recently captured fifteen british tourists on a cruise in iraqi territory and gave them a luxury stay and tailour-sewn suits.

This picture shows a famous spot, Snack Charlie, which was the tourist gateway for western people visiting eastern europe during the cold war. To stem the commutourism to eastern europe, eastern europe built a wall to keep the tourists out. It failed because tourism is stronger than communism.

About 6000 years before The Big Easter, there had become too many people hunting too few animals. So people decided to build farms ('I'rrigate in Civilization), to have food on the soon-to-be-invented table. Farms were a success, and soon hunting became a hobby for people who work in an office. Farms led on to the next concept in human evolution; more people. Due to limited area on this planet, people ran into each other for other purposes than making babies and killing each other. "Hanging Out" was invented, and is illustrated in this photo from Portugal.

(This is not the same shot as in me and Fay's 2007 calendar)

The brochure for being an artist is fantastic. Red wine, long nights, women and financial insecurity. Add terpentine allergy, depressions and venereal diseases and maybe the occasional cut off ear. But if you look past the brochure, it would be great to make a work that would make people cry, make people think and make kids smile. Maybe then it's all worth it. In the end.

Some people are driven by an innate desire to make kids smile, old men cry and busy yuppies put down their mobile phones for a minute. It's hard work to be an entertainer, and especially a street entertainer. The audience easily include whiny kids, depressed chav mothers, drunk swedish tourists all called Sven and italian mafiosi with bad childhood memories of clowns killing dad. Hand the entertainers a coin, it's not an easy life to make you smile.

One of the greatest inventions of the 20th century is consumerism. It replaced materialism because there wasn't room for all the things. Consumerism is brilliant because all the space it needs is that of a plastic card. A swipe of the card and you feel so much better. Some people even think it is better than a quick snort, generally prepared by a good card. Both will liberate your wallet, like any good hobby.