OVERVIEW

The millions of viewers around the world, who watched trolls emerge from clouds of freezing mist at the ceremonies marking the 1994 winter Olympic games at Lillehammer in Norway, must have thought that this is a fairy-tale country. Indeed, anyone who has visited it, or still more lived there, will agree that here is indeed an earthly paradise. That is exactly what I thought after living in Norway for ten years. It is a marvellous place in almost every regard. Its natural beauty is truly outstanding: from its mountains to the fir-clad islands and channels of its rocky, protected coast. Its towns too with their neat, white clapboard houses and tidy gardens, with the immaculate Volvo parked outside, are pictures of quiet unostentatious dignity. But most of all, it is the fine people with their striking pure features, reserved manner, stalwart and simple characters. They are, or were, almost universally honest: if you dropped a gold watch on a train and advertised its loss, the finder would telephone to tell you at which police station it was to be found. I am an enthusiastic admirer of Norway. Why then do I say that the finger points at this marvellous country?

Every country faces a dilemma over its policy towards developing natural resources, especially oil: Who will benefit and when? This generation or the next? So far, most interest attaches to the issue of who?, but at the end of the day it is when? that matters more. Apart from