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Norway gives green light for children’s free time activities

Children and young people in Norway have been given the green light to restart a range of sports and free time activities, so long as they can find a way to stick to strict social distancing and hygiene guidelines.

Published: 21 April 2020 09:59 CEST
Norway gives green light for children's free time activities
Culture Miniser Abid Raja announced the decision on Monday. Photo
Culture minister Abid Raja told the NTB newswire on Monday afternoon that sports teams, choirs, bands, and other group activities for children and young people could now restart, although he stressed they should only take place “so long as the infection rules are upheld”.  
 
Andreas Borud, Secretary-General of the Norwegian Children and Youth Council, said that the decision would be welcomed by young people across the country. 
 
“I think it's very positive,” he said. “Over time, I think we will see a careful increase in the selection of activities that they can offer their members.” 
 
But he warned that which sorts of sports or other pastimes could resume would be limited by what is possible under infection guidelines.
 
“It's going to be a very limited list of activities if you have to keep to groups of five people and keep a distance of two metres,” he warned.  
 
 
The Norwegian Guide and Scout Association has already analysed their normal activities to better understand which of them can be restarted over the next couple of weeks, with youth political movements undergoing a similar process.
 
“Activities that don't involve much physical contact are most likely to start first, together with activities that are outdoors,” Borud said. “A lot of the political youth organisations will soon be able to hold meetings at their local branches.” 
 
Football, and other team sports will also restart training, although normal matches remain out of the question. 
 
“The sports movement was very early in creating their own guidelines for how you could have training, and they have made guidelines for this together with the healthcare authorities, so a lot of sports clubs are also arranging activities now.” 
 
The marching bands which play such a big role in the country's National Day celebrations on May 17 will also soon restart rehearsals. 
 
“Marching bands and choirs will be able to restart some of their activities not far from now — but it won't be a full marching band standing in a usually cramped space,” Borud stressed. 
 

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CULTURE

New songs mark sixth anniversary of French star Johnny Hallyday’s death

Fans of the late Johnny Hallyday, "the French Elvis Presley", will be able to commemorate the sixth anniversary of his death with two songs never released before.

Published: 17 November 2023 09:05 CET
New songs mark sixth anniversary of French star Johnny Hallyday's death

Hallyday, blessed with a powerful husky voice and seemingly boundless energy, died in December 2017, aged 74, of lung cancer after a long music and acting career.

After an estimated 110 million records sold during his lifetime – making him one of the world’s best-selling singers -Hallyday’s success has continued unabated beyond his death.

Almost half of his current listeners on Spotify are under the age of 35, according to the streaming service, and a posthumous greatest hits collection of “France’s favourite rock’n’roller”, whose real name was Jean-Philippe Leo
Smet, sold more than half a million copies.

The two new songs, Un cri (A cry) and Grave-moi le coeur (Engrave my heart), are featured on two albums published by different labels which also contain already-known hits in remastered or symphonic versions.

Un cri was written in 2017 by guitarist and producer Maxim Nucci – better known as Yodelice – who worked with Hallyday during the singer’s final years.

At the time Hallyday had just learned that his cancer had returned, and he “felt the need to make music outside the framework of an album,” Yodelice told reporters this week.

Hallyday recorded a demo version of the song, accompanied only by an acoustic blues guitar, but never brought it to full production.

Sensing the fans’ unbroken love for Hallyday, Yodelice decided to finish the job.

He separated the voice track from the guitar which he felt was too tame, and arranged a rockier, full-band accompaniment.

“It felt like I was playing with my buddy,” he said.

The second song, Grave-moi le coeur, is to be published in December under the artistic responsibility of another of the singer’s close collaborators, the arranger Yvan Cassar.

Hallyday recorded the song – a French version of Elvis’s Love Me Tender – with a view to performing it at a 1996 show in Las Vegas.

But in the end he did not play it live, opting instead for the original English-language version, and did not include it in any album.

“This may sound crazy, but the song was on a rehearsal tape that had never been digitalised,” Cassar told AFP.

The new songs are unlikely to be the last of new Hallyday tunes to delight fans, a source with knowledge of his work said. “There’s still a huge mass of recordings out there spanning his whole career,” the source said.

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