Our chum Nigel got me a ticket yesterday to a very special preview of the British Museum's much-anticipated new exhibition Vikings: life and legend - which was an excellent exploration of the truth about the Vikings. Of no particular single ethnic group, "Viking" was more a way of being, a lifestyle of plunder, invasion and conquest - and yet these bloodthirsty Berserkers inadvertently facilitated a huge economic uplift to the way "Dark Age" Europe traded across borders. Loot from both legitimate and illegitimate dealings with communities as diverse as the Arabs, Khazars, Celts, Saxons and Britons reveals the extent to which the Vikings travelled, and the way armed resistance to their much-loathed raids and settlements actually precipitated the rise of nations along the modern, recognisable borders we see in Europe today.
On this Tacky Music Monday - to cheer us up as we trudge back to work on this lovely Spring day, after being soaked and frozen solid all weekend - here's another Scandinavian export (of a far more glamorous kind, needless to say), Miss Lill-Babs, with a song that reads like a particularly high-scoring Scrabble winner - Tuff Brud I Lyxförpackning:
Have a good week, folks!
Lill-Babs on Wikipedia
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