Another Puzzle.....

[DavidWW]

On a similar vein, as my west coast father said about Edinburgh where he lived for thirty years, "its a good place to come from".

Having just spent a week working in the Faeroe Islands, with the wind never dropping below force 8, and heavy horizontal rain to boot, I was tempted to echo his sentiments; the inhabitants are great though! The infamous Icelandic weather seemed marvelous on my return.

Thrall

Hej Thrall

Without wishing to hijack Ted's thread I'm absolutely fascinated to know what took you to Føroyar

One of the places in the Western world where it's even more difficult to buy alcohol than Sverige , - that is, outside the hours that Systemet, the state alcohol monopoly shops are open ........

Even after 6 years in Sweden I still hadn't totally integrated to the extent of, should I fancy a bottle of wine Sunday lunchtime, then realising that you had to remember to have bought it before Systemet closed at 6pm on Friday for the weekend, truly

Heard the (apochryphal?) story of the panic telephone call from the import agent at Riyadh airport to the British Embassy, - "Please come quick, your piano is leaking"

David

[Thrall]

Hi David, to satisfy your curiosity, I spent the week in Føroyar playing four concerts with Blásarakvintett Reykjavíkur (which I'm sure you can translate!), being it's oboist; the odd chamber music tour makes a challenging alternative to the Symphony in Reykjavík.

As to the difficulties of obtaining alcohol in Scandinavia, things have moved on, and though one cannot buy wines or spirits yet on Sundays except in bars or hotels, generally things are much more relaxed and we had no problems in Torshavn buying lubrication at Rúsdrekkasøla Landsins using the ubiquitous Visa card. Different it was thirty years ago on my first visit, when one had to be a registered guest of a member of a social (read male drinking) club to have a beer, where the supplies were ordered individually, resold by a steward to the members, who incidentally could not owe any income tax to be eligible for entrance!

We now even have that dangerous potation, beer, here in Iceland after many years of prohibition, so teenagers don´t have to start off experimenting on the hard stuff any more.

Anyway, good quaffing,

Thrall

Whisky may not cure the common cold..
but it fails more agreeably than most other things.