That lot singing “Amanda” in the last post appeared to be a real band with a hit. (Well, in Norway, anyway!). It seems they may have disbanded though.

It is called (roughly) Blame on me.

When I lived in Stavanger, I went once or twice to a club near the Quay called the Red House. It held a “shrimp night” where they dragged out a boat onto the dance floor and you helped yourself.

They had a good house band that played all of the early 80’s hits. As the night wore on, they moved onto Norsk favourites, two of which stick in my mind. The first was called Amanda fra (from) Haugesund and everyone sang along to the chorus, which went:

Ja, ingen ga meg en sådan stund
som Amanda i fra Haugesund.
Og ingen har slik en deilig munn,
den er som en rosenlund.
Jeg har hatt i mine arme
forskjellige deilige, varme,
men ingen var dog så god og rund
som Amanda i fra Haugesund!

(Source- Haugesund Council)

At the time, I didn’t know what it meant, just that it was a good tune vaguely reminiscent to “Tulips from Amsterdam”.

I’ve just translated it online:

Certainly , neither donated my a sådan while as Amanda in at Haugesund.
And neither has so a delicious morsel , that is paternal rosenlund.
I’ve had in mine the arm different delicious , ardour , but neither stayed dog saw plump as Amanda in at Haugesund!

Maybe it lost a bit in the translation, but she sounds a right dirty girl!

You can see a statue of her here, the Amanda is Norway’s Oscar award.

There was another song which involved a horse and cart delivering the milk round the mountains. The chorus went:

Humpa Titten- Humpa Totten, Humpa Titten Hoya…

which was onomatopoeic- it was the noise of the bottles rattling together, as explained to me by my friend Hans who had to think about it and listen to the verse before he worked it out.

Update- YouTube has some Norwegians singing a bit of Amanda!

Today, we went to Harewood House, north of Leeds, with the promise of a new science attraction. We have previously been Harewood Card holders (annual passes) but like all these things, the novelty wore off with extensive use and we eventually balked at the renewal price.

We gave the house a miss on this occasion and even with basic grounds admission and declining the 10% gift aid deal we didn’t get much change from £30.

Passing the house, we headed for the new Yorkshire Planetarium, housed in three geodesic domes…

…but we are disappointed to find that they aren’t finished yet. You could go into the middle one to find out about it and the estimated opening is for three weeks time. It looks promising, and their website has a blog that tells some of the challenges they are facing.

We then headed down to the bird garden, which is located behind the stable block.

The courtyard area is part of the cafe with gift shop nearby along with various corporate rooms.

On the way in to the garden, I noticed the zoo license, note the serial number. I saw the Blackppol Tower one too (for the aquarium) but the photo didn’t come out for that one! I am saving up various animal photos for another posting.

There is an extensive play area which kept David amused for a while.

On the main lawn, there was the chance to practice circus skills.

Eventually, we began the long walk back to the overflow car park for the trip home.

We will go again to visit the Planetarium, but on a low season day or tied in with a bigger event.