Political ads allowed on TV

Not very long ago, I wrote a post about political advertising on TV in Norway. During the three weeks since then, things have surely happened.

Despite political ads on tv being prohibited, the small local tv station TV Vest ran three ads for the local branch of the Pensioners Party in 2003. As a result, they were fined 35.000 NOK (roughly €4.500). This they refused to pay on principal grounds and took the case to the Courts of Human Rights in Strasbourg. They claim that the ban is an offense against the rights of free speech. Yesterday, the Court decided in favour of the TV-station. So, the way things are looking, political advertising is in principle allowed...

Interestingly, the British TV station Channel S was fined £40.000 on Wednesday this week for having run a total of 44 political ads for the Liberal Democrats. Also somewhat curious is that this case and the verdict has received very scarce attention in international media.

Check out the blog Word From the North for an interesting post about the ban, the case and the verdict.

Nice things half forgotten

Living away from home, there are always some things that you seem to forget. The little things. Smells, little things you see in your everyday life. Things that are around, that adds flavor to your life, and that sometimes are more 'unconsciously' noticed.

Part of my everyday life right now is my half-an-hour drive to work, driving through an area that is not populated. The area I live in right now is pretty sparsely populated to say the least. Anyway, on my way to work, especially in the morning, I see all sorts of animals running about, flying or doing whatever they do. I see grouse, foxes, eagles, and I've seen otters and lynxes. Some times of the year there are reindeer grazing about.

The last couple of years, I've been living in quite urban areas. I can't say that I have consciously missed all this while I've been away from home. But every time I drive along and I see one of these animals on the side of the road, I keep thinking how nice it is to live this close to nature in this way. You might of course come across a fox or some other animal elsewhere, too, and I've even seen one in the UK. But it's nothing like this, where I seem to pass some wild animal every other day.

Even though I am a bit ambivalent about living up here in 'nowhere', in a small town far away from everything else, this is one of the very nice things about living here. It adds to my quality of life.