If that is right, if she wants some time to herself, that is fine I just wish she would get in touch to let us know ... well, what every parent wants to know, that she is still alive.". In a land where nights are long, drink is impossibly expensive and beating yourself with birch twigs is recreation, it probably makes perfect sense. In a land where nights are long, drink is impossibly expensive and beating yourself with birch twigs is recreation, it probably makes perfect sense. The Norwegian Army conferred one of its highest military honours on a penguin at Edinburgh Zoo yesterday. Nils Olav, a King Penguin who is also a Regimental Sergeant Major, was promoted to Honourable Regimental Sergeant Major of Norway with all the pomp expected of such an occasion.The Royal Norwegian Guard, in Edinburgh for the Military Tattoo, performed at the 10-minute ceremony to bestow the honour on Nils Olav.Nils Egelien, a retired major, told the penguin: "I am here to promote you from Regimental Sergeant Major into the first Honourable Regimental Sergeant Major in the country."Nils Olav proudly showed off a silver badge on his right flipper to the 200-strong crowd but ignored a request to inspect the 18 guardsmen who patiently stood to attention.Nils Olav was originally sponsored by the Norwegian Army after a lieutenant in the King's Guard, Nils Egelien, was enraptured by the zoo's penguins on a visit in 1961.. Forty-one British troops departed for Macedonia last night as part of a Nato force to oversee the disarmament of Albanian rebels under a Western-brokered peace process.

Forty-one British troops departed for Macedonia last night as part of a Nato force to oversee the disarmament of Albanian rebels under a Western-brokered peace process.But even before they arrived, the fighting continued in Macedonia and Nato postponed a decision on whether it was safe to send the full British-led force of 3,500.The 41 mainly logistics staff from the 16th Air Assault Brigade who departed for Macedonia yesterday from Suffolk's Wattisham airbase are part of an advance party to set up a headquarters in Skopje and determine whether it is safe to deploy the full force.A further 360 troops from the brigade are due to depart for Macedonia today. Nato has stressed the task force will only supervise the collection of weapons voluntarily surrendered by the rebels, under an agreement with Nato last week, and will not forcibly disarm anyone or act as peacekeepers.Nato yesterday said the 30-day limit it has imposed on the mission will not begin until the full force is deloyed. The alliance still insists the full force will not be deployed if a ceasefire does not hold. Yesterday there were disturbing signs that it was not holding. A 70-year-old man was reported to have been killed in fighting, and the rebels accused Macedonian air force helicopters of firing rockets near the village of Radusa on the Kosovo border. The Macedonian government denied the helicopters had fired, claiming they were only making reconaissance flights.On Thursday a Macedonian policeman was killed by sniper fire in the main Albanian city of Tetovo, much of which is under rebel control.British troops will dominate the full task force, if it is deployed. A further 680 troops from the 2nd battalion, Parachute regiment and engineers are on stand by to fly to Macedonia next week.Nato ambassadors meeting in Brussels delayed making a decision on whether to deploy the full force "The meeting did not make any decision...

because the delegations are still expecting to receive more information to assess the ceasefire on the ground," a Nato official said.. I spotted the first one at an altitude of about 900 metres. We had left civilisation – if the Norwegian tourist cottage with a latrine that defies the Geneva Convention qualifies as such – hours ago. And here it was, a strange animal with golden fur and black markings on its back, skittering along the path just ahead. I spotted the first one at an altitude of about 900 metres.

We had left civilisation – if the Norwegian tourist cottage with a latrine that defies the Geneva Convention qualifies as such – hours ago. And here it was, a strange animal with golden fur and black markings on its back, skittering along the path just ahead. The creature looked like a common-or-garden chick and certainly ran like one, always slightly off-balance, a comical character straight out of a cartoon; an implausible cross between Tweety and the Road Runner.Anne, my Norwegian wife, who exudes wisdom about her native wildlife and even claims to be able to distinguish between footprints of the local wolves and bears, said I was hallucinating. There were, of course, no chickens in these parts, but I was adamant that what I had seen was no grouse.The argument resolved itself very soon. Another of the creatures turned up just a few strides ahead, still looking like a fat chick from behind, but very obviously a rodent in its facial appearance.

We were entering the realm of the lemming, Anne declared, in the year of the lemming.The last lemming year in Sylan, the gloomy mountain range that straddles the Swedish-Norwegian border, had been 1981, we were to be told at one of our stop-overs.Our four-day hike, through the wilderness where a Swedish king tried to invade Norway in 1718 and lost his entire army, filled us with deep foreboding. We had budgeted for reindeer, storms, twisted ankles, inflamed joints and blisters, but for a plague of lemmings we were totally unprepared.For years, they are invisible. Then, a happy constellation of mild winter, a dearth of predators and an abundance of food triggers a population explosion in the mountains Now the bogs of Sylan are teeming with lemmings. In the autumn, they will be streaming down in search of dry land, armies of lemmings crossing rivers, roads and fields. Into the towns they will go, as though lured by a mute Pied Piper, invading schools and hospitals. No doubt some will even be spotted falling off cliffs, thus perpetuating the myth of the only member of the animal kingdom programmed to self-destruct.They don't really commit suicide, professional lemmingologists insist, but from what I saw of their weird habits I am prepared to believe that lemmings thoroughly deserve their reputation for eccentricity. First, they did seem to be trying very hard to be squashed under our boots.