Publife seen through the eyes of a Norwegian girl

It is fascinating in a way, how the great people of England seem to love their time at the the pub so much. It appears to be a sacred time for the Englishman, and anything interfering is seen as an evil.

At the pub, a place that could be referred to as their second home, they all seem to know each other. They meet up with old and new friends, share stories and laughter over a pint of something that to me both look and taste like urine. I am not going to sugar coat it, it really does! Most conversations will at one point turn to sport, and football, rugby and cricket in particular are popular topics.

As a girl of foreign upbringing I don’t feel like I belong in this setting. Sitting in a dark pub, surrounded by old men and their pints, whilst getting hammered on urine and talking the latest England squad is not what I consider a time well spent. I just can’t seem to grasp what’s so magical about it. Let’s face it, the pub is a dirty place. It stinks of ale and piss, and seventy percent of the people in there are old, lonely men drowning their sorrows. It is not a place for a fragile girl.

However, I don’t mind the pub all that much if we are heading up town afterwards, as I know better things are to come, like shaking my behind to some cheesy ’80’s music. I just don’t understand how people go there for hours then back home again when the pub closes at night to sleep off the piss, for then do the same damn thing the following night. To me it feels like going to the cinema to watch the trailers and then leave before the feature film. Pointless.

Unfortunately like mentioned, the Englishmen seems to love it, including my man. Many a night have I lost his company to his Nirvana. Instead I am left to my own to write stories about how boring pubs are. It is actually more fun writing this than joining the man and his fellow pubers (does that look too much like pubes?). When I am there I often find myself without anything to contribute with in the pub conversations. Strangely enough, I seem to find a million things to say about the pubs itself.

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A childish mind have more fun

I am of the kind you would call easily entertained, and the silliest things can have me laughing for ages.

I remember the first time I watched the following scene from ‘Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs‘. I was crying with laughter. In all honesty the sceen had me cracking up the second and third time I saw it as well. Actually, it still has that effect on me, as I am laughing now posting this video on my blog. It is such a brilliant scene, childish humour is by far the best. Oh, how I wish I will never truly grow up.

Yesterday I experienced another brilliant moment in film that had me entertained for hours. I bought this new film (not in making, but in possession) called ‘Despicable Me‘. Another animated little treasure of film, perfect for a 20-something girl with a childish mind. After the scene you can see below, me and the man kept walking around saying “It’s so fluffy!“, something that would seem extremely random to anyone else but us.

If you’re not amused, your mind might need retirement.

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A false sense of talent

In my University class there was a girl who, like most of us, were dreaming of becoming a photographer. The only problem was that she had no eye for it unfortunately, and the images produced often resembled the snap shots my mum would randomly take on a family holiday. Sure, in the creative world most things are accepted, and photographer’s, such as Martin Parr, have made a name for themselves creating snap shot style photography. The only difference in this case was that this girl was not purposely taking pictures to look like snap shots, but she was instead trying to create high end fashion images. Through my three years at University she didn’t seem to progress much either, and knowing how brutal and cruel the photography industry can be there will not be a break for her, especially within fashion photography.

Another girl I know has this dream of becoming a model. She is constantly paying for photo shoots and actively building up her portfolio. The images are often tacky and badly executed, if I may say so myself, and the editing process has been more or less skipped by a lazy photographer. I am not saying all images needs to be edited, but it is a known fact that a visually pleasing and/or interesting photograph will sell more. A little touch on the light and some colour correction could proper get a picture to pop, it doesn’t take much. Unfortunately the poor poses and, as much as I hate to say it, the girl herself does not fall into the norm of a model. Not in today’s society. The poor girl seems to think if you are willing to undress in front of a camera, then that is the way to success. I’m sorry to say it girlfriend, you ain’t got what it takes.

I agree as much as the next person that everyone should be allowed to follow their dreams and pursue a career of own choice. It is just sad to see when people have quite clearly been told how good they are at something, when in reality, they’re not. We are all so afraid to say what we actually think when it comes to people we care about, because we don’t want to hurt their feelings. After being told time after time “oh darling you are such a great singer” by a loving mum, of course you will start thinking “I am a great singer”. Before you know it you will be arguing with Simon Cowell on The X-Factor because he is claiming you can’t sing.

Would it not be kinder of the loved ones to have been honest all along, to spare you the humiliation of always ending up on a ‘worst of pop-idol 2012’ highlights. Wouldn’t it be better knowing from an early age, instead of a constant no after every job opportunity you apply for. Of course, some things can be practised and perfected, and we would probably never know half of the amazing athletes out there if they stopped because they didn’t run the fastest in 2nd grade. I just think the lying part is wrong. We could all do with being more honest to the ones we care about. Not to break their spirit, but to 1. make them work for it harder or 2. stop wasting time on something that would never happen, and find another passion more suitable for their capacity.

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A better way of living has begun

Not too long ago (a week to be exact) I decided enough with the fast food, enough with out of the freezer straight into the oven food me and the man I live with far too often choose when it comes to tea time in our little home. The closest thing we came to vegetables was when the man asked for Coke-vegetables, in hope I would allow him a glass or five of his favorite beverage. And even though the man himself was fairly pleased with our diet, I knew I had to be smarter for the two of us, as he would not take to his senses anytime soon.

Our first week of planned dinners + more vegetables + homemade meals has just passed, and I am surprised how well we did. Monday started our new and improved diet with a lemon & herb chicken on a bed of fruit in the form of a tropical salad. Tuesday was my longing-for-Norwegian-food day, so we had the closest thing I could find in the deeps of our kitchen cabinet. I served Swedish meatballs with new potatoes, a Norwegian meatball sauce and cranberry jam. A Scandinavian party on a plate! The following day we had a stir-fry, possible not the healthiest of options, but I ensured to have a lovely mix of fresh vegde in there, and the man ate it with few complaints.

Of all the lovely meals we had over the week however, my favorite must be the meal I cooked up for us on this very fine Sunday. Ovenbaked Salmon with lime, homemade potatoe mash and a cucumber salad, similar to the one my darling mother makes. This turned out to be a great success and the man ate two pieces of Salmon. Surely must’ve been a tasty meal then.

I am now making up a new list for the upcoming week, and I have found a very interesting recipe on Fotballfrue‘s blog (when I was writing the previous blog entry), which I might try out. It is a Moussaka recipe, and I think this will be either our Saturday or Sunday tea this week. Check out the recipe here. Now I only need to come up with 6 more meals. Hmmm…. Any ideas?

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Caroline Berg Eriksen

One of the most known bloggers in Norway is Caroline Berg Eriksen who writes the blogg Fotballfrue. On her blog you can read a lot about exercise and her low carb lifestyle. Due to the massive blog success and smooth running business Treasures, Caroline is able to live a fairly comfortable life with her husband. It doesn’t make things worse by the fact that he happens to be a football player either. She is in other words a Norwegian type of WAG. Once that has been said, compared to many other WAGs living the sweet life on their man’s paycheck, she has indeed made a name for herself and been successfull in the things she’s doing.

With such success comes a lot of responsibility. The blog, Fotballfrue, has a great number of readers and Bloglovin shows an amazing 13,081 followers. Many of the readers are said to be young girls looking up to this pretty, slim and privileged woman, so the responsibility that falls on Caroline would be to to stand as a good role model for these girls.

As all well-known bloggers, Caroline has experienced a lot of harsh critique, mostly rooted in body image and health. Especially one blog entry has created a huge amount of publicity for the young woman, in where she is showing off her bikini body. The entry has received 850 comments and is a mixture of critique and positive feedback. One comment reads «You have got to have a problem, that is not the body of a healthy person... You need help Caroline!» Nutritionist Tine Sundfør has openly shown how critical she is to the blog entry; “She is abusing her position and creates hysteria in terms of fitness, diet and food” a direct quote from the Nutritionist who believes that the images in the worst case can encourage anorexia.

This storm happened last Summer, so it’s not something new and exciting. The reason I decided to write about it now however, was due to the fact I just came across an article about Mrs Eriksen having been chosen to promote Bikinis for Porto Br. Someone has put fuel on the fire, and the endless battle of whether she’s a bad role model or not goes on, something both Caroline Berg Eriksen and Porto Br are fully aware of. This has been a very smart move really from the company’s side, the amount of free PR they will receive because of this, and I highly doubt that those who decides to bad-mouth her will affect the sales numbers much. The faithful young girls reading her blog (and doesn’t really know better anyway) will love and buy.

The question still remains tho; Is Caroline Berg Eriksen aka Fotballfrue a bad role model? Does she really encourage anorexia, and is she promoting an un-healthy lifestyle? There are people loving the low-carb, whilst others only see problems with it. Surely this would be the case of any diet there is. She says she’s working out 5-6 times a week, a number than might seem high at first look, but compared to the remaining hours of the week, maybe isn’t so bad?

Would we scream as loud about bikini picutres if she was bigger? If she wasn’t talking so much about exercise and diet? Wouldn’t it be worse if she was promoting a lifestyle filled with wearing out sofa after sofa, eating a ton of chips and not more exercise than getting up to use the rest room? Truth be told, I have never really liked her much. And I have been sceptical to what sometimes could come across as an obsessive way of life. But writing this down I have somewhat changed my mind. She has after all, at no point, told anyone else how to live their life. She is trying to live a healthy life in a fashion that suits both her and her husband. And more so, they are happy.

Surely it must be seen as a better role model being one that takes care of herself, than someone who’s at risk of a heart attack at 30? Just make sure it doesn’t take over your life Caroline, remember to enjoy yourself with the goods of life as well, which in all honesty it seems like you are; just have a look at this great recipe on her blog for Cakepops!

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