Competition

The Mild Perils - Love Spook (Link to MP3 on page)

"Inadequately marketed" - cornfedpig

So there's this song, which I've had knocking around for a while but only recently was able to get its vocals recorded—by the fabulous Jen from the Priscillas, Priscillas and specifically-Jen-from-the-Priscillas fans—but in all this time I've never come up with a decent title for it. The name it's currently wearing was a last-minute scramble as I had to call it something, but it really won't do.

So you are invited to listen to the song and submit suggestions for a half-decent title, preferably one that doesn't directly mention the first line of the chorus. The winner will certainly get something; I've no idea what, but quite possibly a badge. I'd appreciate any help here, basically, as I'm currently leaning dangerously towards "Love In The House Of Spy".

Commission x 6

Sitcom title: Rachel and Religious Hatred

It will happen, and when it does, I want my share.

(no subject)

Visitors to Norway are likely to come across a free brochure in English providing a few helpful tips about holidaying on the cheap in one of the most expensive countries in the world. It invites you, for example, to wander the banks of the Akers river which runs through the middle of Oslo "with an idyllic park on both sides". ["What they don't tell you," muttered my esteemed colleague, just back from Oslo, "is that under every bridge along that river there's a group of bloody junkies." This apparently disrupts the idyll.]

Page 23 of the brochure, which she kindly brought to my attention, contains a sidebar, which, in turn, contains an untruth. In full:

NO DOG SHIT!

In any European capital city other than Oslo, it's easy to find the Norwegians. You will recognise them by the smell. The thing is, people from Norway are not used to having to watch out for dog shit in the streets. In Oslo, you can just run around the streets at night without accidents happening, because there is no poo here. In Norway, even dogs respect the rules.

(I swear I am not making this up, for the benefit of any of my relatives who may be passing.)

As I mentioned, but will stress again, this is less than true. You might almost say that every aspect of it is a lie. Personally I suspect the writer was a Swede. But the main thing to remember is that this tart slice of disaffected nonsense has sat unquestioned in a brochure seen by countless thousands of tourists for at least a year. This can't be good for a country that's already famously sensitive about how it's viewed overseas. (It's not impossible that a Norwegian newspaper might stumble across that very phrase from this journal and run an agonised article asking "Why do the British think we are famously sensitive about how we're viewed overseas?", or even "How can we improve Norway's image on Livejournal?".)*

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* This insecurity seems to be a wider Scandinavian trait, rather than specifically Norwegian. After the episode of Friends aired where Phoebe's sister says she sold Phoebe's birth certificate to a "Swedish runaway", there were articles in the Swedish press asking why it was a Swedish runaway; were Swedish runaways really a problem in the States; what was wrong with Sweden's image, etc etc. All of this just renders Denmark's inflammatory role in sparking the Great War of the Silly Pictures even more ludicrous and unlikely.