Plan B Forum

It may be a slow burner but will it fire up the audience? Norwegian public TV is broadcasting a programme showing a crackling fireplace - for 12 hours.

The NRK woodathon features firewood specialists providing commentary and advice on subjects such as chopping, stacking and burning the wood.

The transmission, entitled Hel Ved, also features music and poetry.

The head of programming at NRK, Rune Moeklebust, described it as "slow but noble television".

"We'll talk about the very nerdy subjects like burning, slicing and stacking the wood, but we'll also have cultural segments with music and poems," he said.

NRK is no stranger to such programming, correspondents say. In 2011 it broadcast more than a 130 hours of a cruise ship sailing up the Norwegian coast to the Arctic.

Mr Moeklebust said the production was inspired by the roaring success of a firewood book by Lars Mytting, Hel Ved - which translates as Strong Character, and is also a pun on ved - the Norwegian for firewood.

"People in Norway have a spiritual relationship with fire," Mr Moeklebust was quoted as telling Reuters.

"Fire is the reason we're here, if there was no firewood, we couldn't live in Norway, we'd freeze."

One thing that does not divide Norway, apparently, is its love of discussing Norwegian wood. Nearly 1 million people, or 20 per cent of the population, tuned in at some point to the program, which aired on the state broadcaster, NRK.

"We received about 60 text messages from people complaining about the stacking in the program," said Lars Mytting, whose best-selling book Solid Wood: All About Chopping, Drying and Stacking Wood — and the Soul of Wood-Burning inspired the broadcast. "Fifty per cent complained that the bark was facing up, and the rest complained that the bark was facing down."

"I couldn't go to bed because I was so excited," a viewer called niesa36 said on the Dagbladet newspaper website. "When will they add new logs? Just before I managed to tear myself away, they must have opened the flue a little, because just then the flames shot a little higher.

"I'm not being ironic," the viewer continued. "For some reason, this broadcast was very calming and very exciting at the same time."

To be fair, the program was not universally acclaimed. On Twitter, a viewer named Andre Ulveseter said: "Went to throw a log on the fire, got mixed up, and smashed it right into the TV."


Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/tv- ... z2LVwJPXWp