Support

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Given my history with attending a-ha concerts in Norway (or rather not attending a-ha concerts in Norway), each time something pops up in my email regarding the Bergen gig, I get slightly panicky. There has been much time, effort, money and emotion invested in our upcoming trip. Plans must not go astray. And, to be honest, there’s no reason why they should.

Here is one of those missives, via a-ha.com and their Facebook page. But it’s news news, rather than bad news.

The first support act for the evening – I say “first”, because there will be more:

We will make a proper party in Bergen. We are working to put in place an international “mystery” entertainers that people have heard about.

Anyway, the first support act for the evening has been announced. And he are dePresno.

No. Me neither.

depresno

Apparently, he is/was a finalist in a Norwegian singing show, which seems akin to Idols or The Voice. It’s called Urørt which means “Untouched”. He looks like a cross between Ed Sheeran and Thom Yorke here, although there’s also elements of Alfred E. Neuman from MAD magazine and a hint of Ron Weasley in other photos. Right, I’m all out of ginger comparisons now.
And while the music coming out of those shows might not be quite my cup of tea, there’s obviously talent there.

[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/229715260″ params=”color=ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false” width=”100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]

Ugh. Bit R&B, ne?

Says dePresno, via Google Translate:

Both me and the band is insanely excited and very honored to have the opportunity to warm up for A-ha! It will be an amazing experience. I’m looking forward to people ocean and A-ha concert! It gets insanely fat!

People oceans and the prospect of certifiable obesity are two of the main reasons I wanted to go into the music business, so I’m right with him there.

A couple of points here. Norwegian for support act is “varmer-opp”. This pleases me.

Also, no-one goes to concerts to just see the support act. Believe me, it won’t be the end of my world if he’s a bit shit. That said, please note my comments on Chris de Burgh last weekend. Live music is live music. It’s an experience, no matter whether it’s your cup of tea or not. I will enjoy that experience.

And what comes immediately after…

Faded Restrung

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This is the big EDM hit of the moment, penned by Northampton-born, Bergen-based music producer Alan Walker.
If you feel the need (and I did), you can venture onto Soundcloud and explore literally several different remixes of this tune – try this one and this one, for example.

This Restrung version is acoustic with piano and pizzicato strings blooming into that soaring, catchy melody.

That breathy vocal is courtesy of Norwegian folk/pop chick Iselin Sondheim, whose pseudo-Celtic 2013 single The Wizard Of Us has a video which showcases wild Norway in the same way that Tove Lo showcased wild Sweden here.

I mentioned back then that female vocalists wandering through woods in Scandinavia seems like a very good way of showing off your country. I stand by that assertion.

First Football

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My boy played his first game of football for his school today. A bit of a rite of passage moment.

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Let the record show that the match was away at St George’s Grammar School in Mowbray.
Playing into the wind in the first half, his side were 5-1 up at the break and finished the game 10-3 winners. Alex played left back and, although he didn’t have much to do, nailed each one of the five important tackles he had to make and didn’t put a foot wrong.

Let the record also show that I’m a very proud father.

Gripen video

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Wow. Just… wow.

You’ll need HD and full screen – the bigger the better – for this.
It’s going on my large Smart TV as soon as I get home this evening.

This comes from SAAB, the Swedish Air Force and production company Blue Sky, and apparently, it’s a big step forward in aeronautical video.

If you want to make a video like this, you’ll need a custom-designed gyro-stabilisation system, a 6k (nice number) Red Dragon digital cinema camera and a $40,000 Canon camera lens.
Oh, and a Saab JAS 39 Gripen multirole fighter at $60,000,000.

But that’s pocket change to make something this spectacular.

Germs, Disease, Infection!

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Three health related things for you to know about:

Firstly: Dead reindeer!
You know that awkward feeling when you thought that chronic wasting disease (CWD) was restricted to deer, elk (Cervus canadensis) and moose (Alces alces) in North America and South Korea, but then researchers announce that the disease has been discovered in a free-ranging reindeer (Rangifer tarandus tarandus) in Norway.
Yeah. Exactly. Bad news for free-ranging reindeer in Norway. Glad I’m not going there any time soon.

It is a mystery how this disease arrived on a mountaintop in Norway. Researchers think it unlikely that it was it imported. They suspect that it might have arisen spontaneously, or jumped the species barrier from a prion disease in sheep called scrapie, although such a jump has never been seen before.

Now that it’s there though, history has shown us that it will be hugely difficult to eradicate.
Not great.

Secondly: A comeback!
Scarlet fever struck fear in the hearts of Victorian-era Americans and Europeans. In the late 19th century, it was a leading cause of death in children—killing as many as a third of those who caught the infection.
Not great.
Then suddenly, <sparkly lights>antibiotics!</sparkly lights> and we humans were saved as the Streptococcus spp. succumbed to Alexander Fleming’s penicillin. But now…

…the disease is making a comeback. In 2011, Hong Kong experienced an outbreak that quadrupled in the number of scarlet-fever cases. And, since 2014, England and Wales has been hit by a big outbreak, too. This season, the number of scarlet-fever cases reached a 50-year high.

And no-one knows why. There is no vaccine for Scarlet Fever, so it’s not foolishly impressionable parents making poor decisions based on dodgy “science”. It’s as much a conundrum as CWD in free-ranging reindeer in Norway.
(That’s my new goto metaphor for mysteries now.)

Thirdly: Talking of crimson!
Science, as an entity, was 0-2 down in this post so far, but there’s hope of a late comeback as we snatch a point against the run of play in the treatment of red scrotum syndrome. I’m no expert on this particular condition, but – if pushed – I think I could come up with a guess at both the area affected and the signs and symptoms on said area.
Not great.

We report two cases of red scrotum syndrome responding to oral pregabalin, an anticonvulsant medication commonly used for neuropathic pain. These two cases suggest pregabalin as an effective means for treating red scrotum syndrome and endorse a neuropathic etiology.

Serendipity with the assist on that one, it seems. But either way, I’m sure that anyone suffering with red scrotum syndrome will be relieved to learn that a potential cure has been discovered – by whatever means.