Small place

For those of you that don’t know Norway, let me try to tell you how small Norway is. OK, the surface area is a respectable 68th in the world (while trailing Vietnam in 66th, it beats the tiny UK into 80th :-), but the population is only creeping up towards 5 million. This means that if you mapped out all friendships and acquaintances and accidental meetings in Norway, there would not be very many intermediate steps before everybody in Norway was connected to everyone else. The tight web of human relations in Norway makes the grieving a truly national exercise.

If you wander around a Norwegian town you will quite regularly see local and national celebrities. Twice I have seen the sitting prime minister close up. Stoltenberg rushed into a bar I was drinking in, and dragged someone from a table into a waiting dark-glassed car. Bondevik, on the other hand, wandered past our chalet on Gran Canaria, playing crazy golf! Neither time did anyone around us make a fuss, or even raise an eyebrow, as I recall. This reflects the open and easy relationship between public figures and the public in Norway. They aren’t hidden away. Will Norway manage to react in a measured way to the shootings? Will politicians be removed from the public? So far the signs are for the balanced, measured, sober reaction to win the day.

 

Utter shock

We left Oslo airport in the morning, got to Heathrow and picked up the rental car, and then listened to the reports of the bomb and shootings that have changed Norway as we drove around the M25. Surreal.

I like the initials reactions of the Norwegian powers that be. There will be more democracy, not less. Be determined not to get blown off course by this.

We have heard that two youngsters from Nesodden are missing. We hope that they are safe. Oh the pain of the families is hard to conceive.