NORWAY CHEESE FIRE!

Yes, it needed CAPS LOCK. This is important!

According to the Huffington Post:

A truckload of burning cheese has closed a road tunnel in Arctic Norway for the last six days.
Some 27 metric tons of flaming brown cheese (brunost), a Norwegian delicacy, blocked off a three-km (1.9 mile) tunnel near the northern coastal town of Narvik when it caught fire last Thursday. The fire was finally put out on Monday.

Yes, apparently the high fat content of brunost means that it loves to burn. But despite the fact that the cheese is a popular dish in Norway, it seems that it doesn’t ignite on a regular basis:

“I didn’t know that brown cheese burns so well,” said Kjell Bjoern Vinje at the Norwegian Public Roads Administration.
He added that in his 15 years in the administration, this was the first time cheese had caught fire on Norwegian roads.

And when someone with as much experience in Norwegian Public Roads Administration as Kjell Bjoern Vinje has never seen cheese catch fire, you know that this is far from an everyday occurrence.

Thankfully.

a-ha receive Cross of St. Olav

And, as many of you who have tried and failed to get your own Cross of St. Olav, that’s a pretty big deal in Norway.

Morten Harket, Magne Furuholmen and Paul Waaktaar-Savoy will be awarded the Royal Norwegian Order of St. Olav, during a special ceremony in Oslo on Tuesday, November 6. The Order of St. Olav is awarded for distinguished services for Norway and mankind. The members of a-ha are receiving this Royal Order for their outstanding musical contribution.

And local newspaper Aftenposten pulled no punches in their adulations at the band’s achievements.

Du kan gå hvor som helst på kloden og plutselig høre en a-ha-låt fra en kafé, en bil, et hus. Du sier navnet Magne Furuholmen, og du blir bedt med inn på te i Bangkok, du nevner i forbifarten Morten Harket og drosjesjåføren i Buenos Aires slår av taksameteret. På en parkbenk i New York kommer du i snakk med en person om Waaktaar-Savoys «Velvet», og du har en venn for livet.

Or:

You can go anywhere on this planet and suddenly hear an a-ha song at a cafe, in a car, a house. You say the name Magne Furuholmen and suddenly, you are invited for tea in Bangkok; you mention Morten Harket in passing and the Buenos Aires cab driver stops the meter, you discuss Waaktaar-Savoy’s song ‘Velvet’ on a bench in New York and you find yourself a friend for life.

I have to admit that even as a big fan, none of these things have ever happened to me. Maybe I’ve been listening to classic 80’s synthpop in all the wrong cities. I’d love to be invited for tea in Thailand or get a cheap ride in Argentina. To be fair, I’m less interested in a friend for life in America, but that’s just a personal thing. Anyway, I don’t generally discuss specific pieces of music with benches or any other form of street furniture.

After that incident while chatting about Bohemian Rhapsody with the cycle rack it’s safety first for me.

Insane. (Volume II)

Not too long ago, we brought you the insane video of three French blokes doing pull-ups from the boom of a crane in Paris. And if that wasn’t enough of an adrenalin rush for you, while I was out at dinner with in the same restaurant as Matthew Booth last night, The Cement Man told us about this video.

My favourite line:

At the beginning of wingsuit Base jumping, we were trying to get as far from the wall as possible, basically clearing out the whole thing. And now it’s getting boring so we play around.

Watch this.

It all looks very cool, but it’s not for me.
And while it seems very controlled and almost serene when you’re watching from their “onboard” cameras, the shot from the road just after 3:20 shows you exactly how fast they are going.

Ridiculous.

Thanks Huge