Norse trading

While England slept, Norway was exporting record amounts of seafood last month:

The Norway Post: Record seafood export in October
The value of Norwegian seafood exports in October totalled NOK 7.3 billion, the highest ever for a single month, according to the latest figures from the Norwegian Seafood Council.

It's all down to their burgeoning salmon, mackerel and fjord trout trade, apparently.

Don't look for this story in any of the UK-based newspapers. They don't like success stories—especially Norwegian success stories. They would rather fob you off with tat about invading Romanian hordes, Miley Cyrus (no, me neither) smoking a suspicious-looking fag, and the Duchess of Cambridge's hair at a Remembrance Day parade. OK, when I say they, I mean the Daily Mail.

Far be it from me to give Gruts's competitors free advice, but the Mail is missing a trick, here: Norway is not an EU member, you see—so of course business is booming! If the Mail had reported this story, they could have ranted about the shameful state of the British seafood trade, no doubt blaming it on the Spanish for sneaking into our fjords under cover of dark and making off with all our trout. As it's the Spanish, they could even have referred to it as an armada (do you see what they could have done, there?). It's damned unprofessional, if you ask me. The Mail is letting down its core readership.

Me? I'm delighted for the Norwegians. They're a good bunch. They never seem to kick up a fuss; they just mind their own business, catching their trout and selling it to the Russians and Belarusians.

Go, Norway!

Norwegian flag

Richard Carter

A fat, bearded chap with a Charles Darwin fixation.

4 comments

  1. They've also played an important low-key role in mediating disputes around the world. Would be interesting to see what they do with the Olympics if they win 2022.

    And, yes, they are outside the EU, but they comply with almost all EU trade rules in order to thrive, as the UK would need to do. Maybe that's why the Daily Mail didn't beat up the story.

  2. That was a bit of a joke. But we do have fjords of a sort. They're in Shetland, and they're called voes. (I spent three weeks excavating an archaeological site on the shore of Dales Voe in 1985.)

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