Faroese elections

There are Faroese elections on Saturday, and the whole world is anxiously awaiting the results.

Participating parties, in descending order of votes according to the latest poll (January 2008) are...

• Tjóðveldi (Republican party, E) - 25.6%


• Sambandsflokkurin (Unionist party, B) - 25.3%


• Fólkaflokkurin (People's party, A) - 19.3%


• Javnaðarflokkurin (Labour party, C) - 16.1%


• Miðflokkurin (Centre party, H) - 6.1%


• Sjálvstýrisflokkurin (Home Rule party, D) - 6.0%


• Miðnámsflokkurin (Students' party, L) - 1.5%

In other words, nothing is going to happen. The unionists and the separationists are equally big, Denmark will continue to pay, and the Faroese will continue to build underwater tunnels and eat dried mutton with whale blubber and potatoes.

One of the main issues appears to be what is known as Grein 266b. This is such a big issue, that the other day, a leaflet was distributed door to door detailing the ‘Christian values’ of all the parties (see here, with the letters in the overview above being the key to the parties on the map). Unsurprisingly, Miðflokkurin is fully supportive of Christian values, while those evil heretics in Tjóðveldi are risking ‘a light and safe future for us all’. (That was the point of the leaflet, see here).

So what is Grein 266b? It is a paragraph in the penal code, and the whole fuss is about a proposed change for the paragraph to read, with addition in bold face,

§ 266 b. Den, der offentligt eller med forsæt til udbredelse i en videre kreds fremsætter udtalelse eller anden meddelelse, ved hvilken en gruppe af personer trues, forhånes eller nedværdiges på grund af sin race, hudfarve, nationale eller etniske oprindelse, tro eller seksuelle orientering, straffes med bøde, hæfte eller fængsel indtil 2 år.

Three things:

1. I'm assuming they want to change more than just the bit in bold, otherwise the current penal code would be severely ungrammatical;
2. I had no idea this was legal in the Faroes still;
3. The code is in Danish.

New Year and its resolutions

Be a nicer person
Apparently I am not a very nice person. In a way, this is probably true. I can be quite arrogant, or at least elitist in a wide variety of ways. And I appear to have a reputation for being bitchy. So the idea for 2008 is to be less bitchy in general, and also to be more careful with the contexts in which I am being bitchy.

So far this one seems to be failing. I don't think I am being significantly less bitchy, elitist or arrogant; and the fact that I haven't made any real faux pas is mostly due to the fact that I've not been in any contexts where such behaviour would have been inappropriate.

Also, this isn't my most popular resolution. People have been saying that I would not be the same person if I wasn't so bitchy.


Be healthier
I weigh 77 kg. This is a healthy weight. Still, there are the annoying chubby bits which really piss me off. In short, legs are rock hard, upper body resembles jelly pudding, especially around the waist area. So stuff needs to be done to get rid of that. The proposed methods are regular exercise and decreased intake of crappy food.

This one seems to be going alright. Of course the first week of January has a lot of candy left over from Christmas, and there's always the supply of licorice that my mum gives me when I go back to Edinburgh. But I have been eating healthy dinners, more fruit than I used to (which wasn't difficult), and I have until now avoided buying large supplies of biscuits and chocolate and crisps.

Also exercise-wise all is well. This weekend was swimming on Saturday morning, then ice-skating for Jen's birthday on Saturday afternoon. Then Jen and I decided we wanted to be able to skate better, so we went back on Sunday afternoon to take skating lessons. I think I want to continue those. And then of course there'll be dancing twice a week.

The only problem of course is that dancing and ice-skating only works to make my legs even rock-harder, and it's only the swimming that would potentially work for the upper body. Although the amount of muscle ache in my shoulders and arms has not been such that it looks like it's working. Yet.


Be less uptight and more open etc. (but not tonight)
This is one from before New Year, but it may as well count as a New Year's resolution as well.

I am still too early for everything and get slightly annoyed if other people aren't, so as far as that's concerned, this one isn't looking too bright either. But if it's also about confronting fears, there was a little victory this Sunday when I managed to do cross-over turns on the ice rink (I can't do the silly little going backwards and forwards exercises from the lessons, but I manage the things that Dutch people consider skating, so it's all good I suppose) even though I didn't want to fall and I didn't have Martina to hold my hand like the only other time I managed to do it.

The trick appears to be being quick and sitting low. At least that's what it looked like the little brats were doing and copying it worked.


Be less stressed
Ultimately being less uptight and more healthy is supposed to make me less stressed (and get rid of the bags under my eyes). Another way to that goal is taking a bath, which is what's going to happen now.