Feel sorry for the cleaners

I’ve never been particularly sporty, so have never participated in sporting celebrations, which appear to be emptying champagne over yourself, your competitors and anyone else in range.

I’ve always felt that the correct place for Champagne is in a glass and then shortly after down my throat, not all over the floor.

So I’ve never experienced what the aftermath of these celebrations is actually like.

Wandering back through town from the restaurant this evening I wandered past the area where the prizes for the rowing competition had been handed out.

The winners had been given trophies and medals and then had done the customary champagne spraying ritual.

A couple of hours later and the area absolutely stank (and I’ve had to walk through Car Parks in Croydon on a Saturday morning before, to put it on a scale). It was also incredibly sticky.

I’m assuming that they are going to clean it up the same way they prepared the area last night, by getting the fire brigade trucks to blast it with their hoses.

However it was a bit of an eye-opener (or more a nose-opener) and I now can only feel truly sorry for the poor person who has to clean up the podium after a Formula 1 race or other Champagne fuelled celebration.

Góða Ólavsøku

Good St Olaf’s Wake!, today is the eve of Ólavsøka, a national holiday in the Faroes and as with all good eves, it’s when all the boozing and celebrations take place before the serious business of the day proper including religious ceremonies and the opening of the parliament.

The population of the Faroes is around 48,000 people, and it looked as though every single one of them and quite a few more had crowded into Tórshavn today to celebrate.

The streets were filled with people wandering around in national dress (including young kids), and everyone was in a party mood.

I couldn’t help but notice a couple of interesting points:

• I think the Faroese must have a target of smashing the 50,000 mark as the number of babies was amazing. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a large number of buggies in the same place at the same time.


• The big sound of the event was the very Faroese Vuvuzela, and the Irn Bru stand appeared to be doing a roaring trade, but apart from those small examples of Globalization the rest of the celebrations were very much Faroese.

Interesting interpretation of day

The Faroese appear to take a different approach to the concept of a day.

For most people a day lasts for 24 hours. Here in the Faroe’s they appear to have made that up to at least 60 if not more.

Of course, it’s not every day, just on particular day.

Thursday is the Faroese national day – St Olav’s day.

Except today is Tuesday afternoon and the national day celebrations have already started with the town centre completely closed to traffic and bands playing live in the streets.

Then again, perhaps the Faroese have a slightly more mature attitude to dealing with their national day than other people.

The really heavy party is tomorrow night, so the hang-over’s from hell take place during National Day and not on the day afterwards.

Of course, that’s assuming that it doesn’t just turn into a 60 hour drinking marathon, in which case the hangovers won’t strike until Friday.