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it could accompany him and help him to tackle obstacles and challenges. I’m speculating, naturally. But I know he read a lot. And what he read, by and large he kept to himself. He read classical literature. And there’s a lot of death in that, I have learnt, and not so little about various kingdoms of the dead and what you have to do to get there, and so on. But I’m sure there are very few egg shakers in classical literature. No egg shakers in ancient Greek literature, I’m guessing. And not a lot in Roman. So where my father got this idea from is nothing short of a mystery. But now they’re both under the ground. Dad. And the egg. I hope they can work something out, given time.
    Before going to sleep, both Bongo and I go for a piss in the usual place and look out over the town and the fjord. The night is cold and clear and I notice that there are lights in some of the windows at the Meteorological Institute. They must be busy day and night, I suppose. The weather has to be tracked and analysed and models have to be made. There’s no end to it. The weather never finishes and never has a break. And the snow is long overdue. Last year it came early and stayed. It stayed from back in October, but this year there’s not a snowflake in sight. Just sun and unmitigated glee for everyone. But I would rather have snow. Snow is the only weather I really like. Nothing makes me less grumpy than snow. I can sit by a window for hours watching it fall. The silence of snowfall. You can use that. It’s best when there’s background lighting, for example a street lamp. Or when you go outside and let it flutter down on you. That’s real riches, that is. That’s more fun than anything you can do yourself. And, what’s more, I enjoy shovelling snow. Can’t have enough of it. Furthermore, I like the fact that there are people who don’t like snow. Who become irritable when the snow arrives. Who, after a whole life-time in Norway, haven’t managed to accept snow and still allow themselves to be riled by it. So I gloat when it snows. There is an element of schadenfreude in it. But now the buggers at the Meteorological Institute are taking the snow away from me. The snow has become fickle and I’m not even sure it will ever come back, and that’s hard to bear. I would have preferred snow to almost anything. To most people. Perhaps even to you, Bongo, I say as we shake off the last drips. But it’s a hypothetical question, so let’s not dwell on it, I say. Don’t think too much about it. Yes, I like you too, Bongo. You’re OK. But you’re not exactly snow.

DECEMBER

As a teenager I found it intolerable that so many people in Africa lived in poor conditions while I had it so good. I sat listening to The Wall and felt this on many an evening. Most things seemed depressing and unjust and I saw no end to them. But then this phase passed. As suddenly as it had come. And nowadays I hardly give it a thought. Nowadays I’m as hard up as most people in Africa, I suppose. I live from hand to mouth. I’m a hunter-gatherer. I spend just as much time fetching water as your average African. If I’m very thirsty I might dip my bottle in the marsh up here, but the water is brown and stagnant and must have been here for a thousand years, so I prefer to go to one of the streams in the area. But you can’t rely on streams. At times they dwindle to nothing and I can’t collect water in any practical way. Nowadays I’m the one who’s in Africa, I muse. In a sense, I’m under-developed, apart from my organ which is more on the over-developed side, and while the world around me may consider that I need help, I’m proud, just like Africa, and I would prefer to cope on my own. The biggest difference between Africa and me, I suppose, is that I don’t like people, whereas Africa likes them a lot. It’s a characteristic trait of Africans that they like to be surrounded by people, by friends and family, whereas I shy away from people, from