To the cinema this afternoon - nothing better than a matinee on a sleety Sunday afternoon - to see Max Manus, this year's big Norwegian film. It's the biggest budget homegrown film ever, about one of Norway's biggest heroes. The Telemark saboteurs are probably more famous outside Norway, thanks to Kirk Douglas and Richard Harris, but in Oslo? The resistance boils down Manus and the Oslo gang. They blew up ships and railway lines, they sank the Donau, they destroyed government files containing the details of thousands of Norwegian boys, saving them from conscription and service on the Eastern Front.
It was a good film. A little flabby in parts, but the story - and it's a true story - is so good that any quibbles are better coming from a Norwegian.
The thing is, though, that despite knowing that King Haakon (that's him in statue form just up there) was born in Denmark to a Danish prince, was brought up and educated in Denmark, you know what I hadn't realised until this afternoon?
Norway's king - a man who is still universally revered by Norwegians - spoke Danish.
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