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Basking in the almost subtropical temperature of minus three degrees in Oslo this is an odd beginning to the New Year for me.

Much of Europe is freezing and without gas heating as relations with Russia hit another bump. It's a real test of the European Union whether it manages to gets its act together and deliver a single message.

I should, I feel, be in Bulgaria or Austria, sharing their pain and reporting on the problem. But this is also the year of parliamentary elections in the EU and the News at Ten want a big-picture curtainraiser on the subject that delights so many contributors here - the benefits and disadvantages as a whole.

Norway has voted twice to stay outside the EU and opinion polls suggest people are now even more firmly in favour of keeping outside the club. Partly perhaps it's because Norway is rich in oil and gas - so no danger of the heating being turned down here.

But the constant haunting dilemma of this job is where to be and what to cover.

I have another tough choice as well. Whether or not to try "Luttefisk". In a Belgian supermarket just before Christmas I was intrigued to hear a Norwegian woman trying to find a wine match for a delicacy she was having some difficulty describing. She told me it was cod coated with "the same thing you paint the walls with". After a baffled couple of days friends told me the wall-coating substance was caustic soda. They had tried the end product and were less than enthusiastic about this jellified fish dish. I am constitutionally in favour of experimentation and inquiry, particularly when it comes to food, but I may vote "no" on this occasion.

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