Researchers say the system could be a powerful aid to security services.

It successfully discriminates between truth and lies in about two-thirds of cases, said lead researcher Professor Hassan Ugail from Bradford University.

The system, developed by a team from the universities of Bradford and Aberystwyth in conjunction with the UK Border Agency, was unveiled today at the British Science Festival in Bradford.

This new approach builds on years of research into how we all unconsciously, involuntarily reveal our emotions in subtle changes of expression and the flow of blood to our skin.

We give our emotions away in our eye movements, dilated pupils, biting or pressing together our lips, wrinkling our noses, breathing heavily, swallowing, blinking and facial asymmetry. And these are just the visible signs seen by the camera.

Even swelling blood vessels around our eyes betray us, and the thermal sensor spots them too.

Real-world test

Traditional lie detection depends on the venerable polygraph, first developed in 1921, a much more invasive apparatus with a set of wires attached to the skin. This new device promises non-invasive, even covert truth tests in real time.

“We bring together all this well-established work on expressions, these recent developments in thermal imaging, techniques for image tracking of subjects and our new algorithms into one operational system,” said Professor Ugail.

Click to play

A computer programme is used to monitor tiny changes in facial expressions
So far, the team has only tested its lie detector on willing volunteers rather than in a real-life, high stakes situation. Later this year, though, they plan to deploy it in a UK airport, probably running alongside experienced immigration officers as they conduct security interviews. The algorithms can then be tested against the verdicts of these officers.

“In a real, high-stress situation, we might get an even higher success rate,” noted Professor Ugail, who believes he’ll eventually be able to detect around 90% of those who are lying, which is similar to the performance of the polygraph.

The researchers acknowledge, though, that these tests can never be 100% accurate.

What they detect are emotions, such as distress, fear or distrust, and not the act of lying itself. Fear can sometimes be the fear of not being believed rather than the fear of being caught.

Mrs Merkel told the RBB radio station: “The top priority is to avoid an uncontrolled insolvency, because that would not just affect Greece, and the danger that it hits everyone – or at least several countries – is very big.

“I have made my position very clear that everything must be done to keep the eurozone together politically. Because we would soon have a domino effect,” said the chancellor.

At the weekend, German Economy Minister Philipp Roesler suggested that Greece would need an “orderly default” on its debts, a comment that sent global share prices tumbling on Monday.

European stock markets initially fell on Tuesday, with France’s Cac index down 1.8% on fears that its banks, which are heavily exposed to Greece, have most to lose from a default.

However, markets ultimately closed up, with banks leading the gains.

France’s Cac added 1.4%, with Societe Generale adding 15%.

The UK’s FTSE 100 closed up 0.9%, with Royal Bank of Scotland rising 5.3%.

Austerity measures

Mrs Merkel noted in her interview that there was currently no formal procedure in the eurozone for an “orderly default” of a member state.

She said that Greece was getting its public finances on track. “Everything I hear from Greece is that the Greek government has hopefully seen the writing on the wall and is now doing some of the things that are required,” she said.

Despite her attempt to soothe the markets, fears of an imminent Greek default pushed interest rates on the country’s 10-year government bonds to over 24% on Tuesday.

Greece has received two international bailouts each worth about 110bn – although the second has still to be implemented – yet its financial health remains critical.

In recent days the government has promised several times to accelerate plans for public sector cuts.

On Sunday, Athens imposed a new, two-year blanket tax on property.

While the disease is not new in Pakistan, experts say it has spread fast and may reach crisis proportions.

They say that the illness is thriving because of poor hygiene, an absence of control measures and the fact that recent heavy monsoon rainfall has lowered temperatures and provided lots of water – ideal conditions for dengue-carrying mosquitoes.

Dengue fever is a tropical disease caused by mosquitoes that breed in stagnant water.

‘Choked’ sewage system

According to the World Health Organisation, the incidence of death among infected patients is 4%.

The first case of dengue fever in Pakistan was reported in the southern port city of Karachi in 1994.

Lahore is a large city with poor hygiene – all of which adds to the dengue problem
The province of Punjab – particularly its capital, Lahore – have seen a growing number of cases since 2007.

Punjab Health Secretary Jehanzeb Khan said that this year more than 4,000 cases of dengue fever had been reported, a significant increase over previous years.

The eight people who have died so far include Ataullah Siddiqui, head of the provincial department for minerals and natural resources.

Mr Khan said more than 3,500 infected people live in Lahore city.

The head of the city’s Jinnah Hospital, Dr Javed Akram, told the BBC that there are several reasons why the virus is concentrated in Lahore.

“It’s a large city with poor public hygiene,” he said.

“We have also had heavy rain for the second year running. In many areas the sewerage system was choked, creating water ponds.

“The city also has vast open spaces and public parks where water has accumulated. In addition, the rains have brought down temperatures by several degrees, creating ideal conditions for the dengue mosquitoes to breed.”

Dr Akram says the spread of the disease to other parts of Punjab province has been caused by the government’s failure to announce and enforce travel restrictions and its failure to quarantine affected people.

“In the absence of these measures, we expect a greater epidemic next year,” he said.

Officials say the provincial government has set up a telephone helpline and issued pamphlets to create awareness about the fever.

The government has also banned morning assemblies in schools for two months to prevent children’s exposure to mosquito bites.

It is now considering a 10-day closure of schools.

Meanwhile, a team of doctors from Sri Lanka is expected to arrive in Lahore today to help combat the epidemic.

Mr Perry labelled Social Security a “Ponzi scheme” and “monstrous lie” in last week’s lively encounter.

This time he faced his rivals in Tampa, Florida – the US state with the largest proportion of elderly voters for whom pensions are a vital source of income.

A poll on Monday gave Mr Perry a wide lead over the other contenders.

Some 30% of Americans said they would support him to be the Republican nominee, compared with 18% for former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, according to the poll by CNN and ORC International.

In Monday evening’s fifth debate, hosted this time by CNN, Mr Romney went on the attack early against Mr Perry over Social Security.

Bachmann attacks

He challenged the Texas governor on whether he still believed an assertion in his book, Fed Up!, that the programme was unconstitutional.

Mr Perry, a conservative Tea Party favourite, countered that Mr Romney had labelled Social Security’s finances – in his book, No Apology – as criminal.

“You’ve got to quote me correctly,” Mr Romney responded. “What I said was taking money out of the Social Security trust fund is criminal and it’s wrong.”

Protesters gathered outside the Republican debate’s venue
The two rivals accused each other of “trying to scare seniors” with their rhetoric on entitlement.

The Texas governor also sought to reassure current retirees that their federal pension was “slam-dunk guaranteed”.

Former US House of Representatives Speaker Newt Gingrich said he was not worried about Mr Romney and Mr Perry frightening seniors “when President Obama scares them every day”.

Mr Romney also sought to cast doubt on Mr Perry’s economic record as Texas governor, suggesting that he was merely lucky.

“If you’re dealt four aces, that doesn’t make you, necessarily, a great poker player,” Mr Romney said, referring to Texas’s Republican-dominated politics, oil wealth, zero income tax and conservative labour laws.

Minnesota Representative Michele Bachmann – who has slipped behind since Mr Perry entered the race in August – also attacked him.

She said an attempt by the Texas governor to vaccinate schoolgirls against a sexually transmitted infection, HPV, had been “flat-out wrong”.

Mrs Bachmann also suggested that a drug company, Merck, could have stood to benefit to the tune of millions of dollars.

“If you’re saying I can be bought for $5,000, I’m offended,” Mr Perry responded, citing a campaign donation from Merck.

Also participating on Monday were former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman, businessman Herman Cain, former Senator Rick Santorum and Texas Representative Ron Paul.

Perry booed

On the issue of immigration, Mr Perry was briefly booed as he defended his policy of allowing in-state tuition for some illegal immigrants in Texas.

He said it was better to let immigrants become contributing members of society, rather than “on the government dole”.

Mrs Bachmann was cheered as she resumed the attack, saying: “I think the American way is not to give taxpayer benefits to people who are here” illegally.

Mr Huntsman also took aim at Mr Perry, for opposing a border fence, saying: “For Rick to say you can’t secure the border I think is pretty much a treasonous comment.”

Mr Santorum attacked Mr Paul over an “irresponsible” blog post he had published on Sunday, arguing that America’s unpopularity in the Muslim world was down to its foreign policy.

Mr Paul stood by the blog, saying it was “just not true” that radicals wanted to attack America because it was free and prosperous.

He attracted possibly the loudest boos of the night when he made reference to al-Qaeda’s complaints about US bases in Saudi Arabia and America’s treatment of Palestinians.

The Tampa debate was co-sponsored by the Tea Party Express and more than 100 state and local Tea Party groups.

Mr Perry sought to explain his remarks on Social Security in an op-ed article in USA Today on Monday.

He said he did not envisage changes to the system that would affect current and soon-to-be retirees, but called for unspecified reforms.

Hours ahead of Monday’s debate Mr Perry and Mr Romney both received campaign endorsements.

Mr Perry was backed by Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, while Mr Romney won the support of former rival candidate Tim Pawlenty.

The next debate will take place on 22 September in Orlando, Florida, ahead of the Florida Straw Poll, a non-binding vote that tests candidates’ popularity among the party faithful.

The field is expected to narrow in the coming months as the Republican race heats up ahead of primary season early next year, when the party will select its nominee to run for the White House in November 2012.

Mr Obama’s payment plan includes limiting tax breaks, removing loopholes for oil and gas firms, and higher taxes for hedge-fund managers.

The American Jobs Act, unveiled in an address to Congress on Thursday, must pass a divided Congress to become law.

Mr Obama called on voters to demand that Congress pass the bill quickly.

‘Massive tax increase’

The jobs package centres on cutting payroll taxes for workers and employers, and new spending on recruiting teachers and infrastructure projects.

Mr Obama has repeatedly said his plans “will not add a dime to the deficit”, and on Monday the White House began laying out the details of how the extra funding will be raised.

Continue reading the main story
“
Start Quote
This tax increase on job creators is the kind of proposal both parties have opposed ”
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Brendan Buck

House Speaker John Boehner’s spokesman

Obama gambles on jobs plan

White House Budget Director Jacob Lew said President Obama would propose a series of tax increases to fund the bill.

The bulk of the cash – some $400bn – would be raised by limiting the tax deductions and exemptions for individuals earning over $200,000 and families earning over $250,000, Mr Lew said.

Tax loopholes for oil and gas companies would be closed, and there would be changes to the way corporate jets are taxed as well as taxes on the interest earned by fund managers.

Mr Lew said that the president would build a “cushion” of $20bn into the cuts in order to ensure the whole programme was paid for.

Many of those proposals were rejected by Republicans in Congress outright during the summer debate over raising the debt ceiling.

“It would be fair to say this tax increase on job creators is the kind of proposal both parties have opposed in the past,” Brendan Buck, a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner, said on Monday.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor said: “I sure hope that the president is not suggesting that we pay for his proposals with a massive tax increase at the end of 2012 on job creators.”

Before the details emerged, Republican leaders had responded to the jobs proposal in cautiously receptive tones.

Mr Obama’s plan will be submitted to the new congressional “super-committee” tasked with cutting $1.2tn in federal spending.

The super-committee will have the option to accept Mr Obama’s proposals or offer new ones.

To Boehner’s backyard

Speaking in the White House Rose Garden on Monday, the president was joined by teachers, firefighters, veterans and small-business owners, all of whom stand to benefit from the American Jobs Act, he said.

He held a copy of the bill as he urged supporters to lobby Congress for a swift passage.

“If Congress does not act, just about every family in America will pay more taxes next year,” Mr Obama said.

Under the current plans, state and local governments would receive $50bn for transport projects, $35bn for school, police and fire department payrolls, $30bn to modernise public schools and community colleges, and $15bn to refurbish vacant and foreclosed homes or businesses.

While Mr Obama has seen his poll ratings fall in recent months, Republican leaders are also aware that Congress’ approval rating is currently even lower than the president’s.

They have sent the proposal to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office to be scored.

Mr Obama is due to travel to Mr Boehner’s home state of Ohio on Tuesday to promote his jobs plan, after he visited Mr Cantor’s electoral heartland of Richmond, Virginia, on Friday.

On Wednesday, Mr Obama will try to rally support for his jobs plan in North Carolina, a traditionally Republican state he won in 2008.

The president’s re-election prospects next year could well hinge on his efforts to revive the US economy.

The Smurfs make their first trip to the big screen in Columbia Pictures’/Sony Pictures Animation’s hybrid live-action and animated family comedy.

Smurfs movie 2011

Smurfs 3D

Organisers of the Venice Film Festival are promising a glamorous event

The Venice Film Festival gets underway shortly with the world premiere of The Ides of March, a thriller directed by and starring US actor George Clooney.

The film, which also stars Ryan Gosling and Philip Seymour Hoffman, is one of 22 films in competition for the top awards at the prestigious 10-day event.

It is up against new films directed by Roman Polanski, David Cronenberg, Andrea Arnold and Todd Solondz.

Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow, Madonna and Al Pacino are among the stars expected.

In The Ides of March, Clooney plays a presidential candidate whose campaign becomes embroiled in sexual scandal and dirty tricks.

The film got a lukewarm reception from critics in Venice, though it did receive a four-star review from the Daily Telegraph.

Keira Knightley and Michael Fassbender star in David Cronenberg’s A Dangerous Method
“I don’t actually think of this as a political film,” Clooney told a press conference on Wednesday.

“I figure you could literally put this in Wall Street, you could put it pretty much anywhere and it’s all the same sort of issues.

“It’s issues of morality… of whether or not you are willing to trade your soul for an outcome,” he continued.

Among the other films in competition are a new adaptation of John Le Carre’s Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, starring Gary Oldman and Colin Firth.

Andrea Arnold’s entry is a new version of the Emily Bronte classic Wuthering Heights, while Cronenberg’s – A Dangerous Method – tells of the relationship between Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung and stars Viggo Mortensen and Keira Knightley.

Polanski is represented with dark comedy Carnage, starring Jodie Foster and Kate Winslet. Elsewhere, Carey Mulligan appears in Steve McQueen’s brother-sister drama Shame.

‘Great privilege’

This year’s jury is chaired by Black Swan director Darren Aronofsky, with his fellow judges including the musician David Byrne.

“I can’t remember looking at a catalogue of films that has been so exciting,” Aronofsky said. “To actually have to watch every one of the movies is a great privilege and a thrill.”

A number of films showing out of competition will have high-profile world premieres at the festival.

Pacino has directed Wilde Salome, an exploration of Oscar Wilde’s work, while Madonna will unveil WE, her second film as a director.

The film, which has its premiere on Thursday, is a drama loosely based on US divorcee Wallis Simpson and her relationship with King Edward VIII.

Irene floods in North Carolina and New York 'disaster'

US President Barack Obama has declared a “major disaster” in North Carolina and New York state, as cresting rivers and floodwaters threaten communities in the wake of Tropical Storm Irene.

Mr Obama’s move allows the two states to tap extra funds for relief efforts.

Raging rivers along the eastern seaboard have given way to extensive flooding and prompted new rounds of evacuations in states like New Jersey.

The storm has been blamed for at least 45 deaths in 13 states.

Irene barrelled along the east coast over the weekend, delivering hurricane force winds in North Carolina and torrential rains in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Vermont, which forced rivers to swell and prompted extensive flooding.

Mr Obama earlier signed an emergency declaration for Vermont following the storm, which caused damage estimated at more than $10bn (£6.5bn) and forced a shutdown of New York City.

About two million people on the US east coast are still without power after Irene wreaked havoc on both small towns and major cities, some far inland.

New Jersey and upstate New York have been badly affected by floods
Rescue operations continued on Wednesday in the north-east, clearing roads and delivering supplies to stranded towns – where mud-coloured floodwaters had earlier washed homes and businesses away from their foundations.

President Obama will view the damage from Irene on Sunday in Paterson, the third-largest city in the state of New Jersey.

Emergency teams in Paterson have been rescuing residents after the Passaic river reached 13ft (4m) above its banks late on Tuesday – its highest level since 1903.

In Connecticut, the National Weather Service has warned of moderate to major flooding on the Connecticut River, which peaked in the city of Middletown at 15.4ft on Wednesday morning.

Some areas are still at risk of flooding as a series of rivers are still expected to crest, the National Weather service says.

Help requested

Irene swept up the heavily populated eastern seaboard after making landfall as a category one hurricane in North Carolina.

By the time it reached New York, it had been downgraded from a hurricane to a tropical storm.

Nonetheless, the New York subway system was closed for the first time in its history, while 370,000 people living in low-lying areas were ordered to leave their homes.

Continue reading the main story
“
Start Quote
Immediate federal assistance is needed now to give New Jersey’s residents a helping hand at an emotionally and financially devastating time”
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Chris Christie

Governor of New Jersey

The governors of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut requested disaster declarations on Tuesday.

In a letter to the president, Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York said that he had seen “hundreds of private homes destroyed or with major damage and an enormous amount of public infrastructure damage”.

These sentiments were echoed by Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey, whose state has not yet been designated a recipient of disaster funds.

Mr Christie wrote to the president saying that “immediate federal assistance is needed now to give New Jersey’s residents a helping hand at an emotionally and financially devastating time”.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano is expected to visit the state on Wednesday to survey the damage.

President Obama had already declared a major disaster in the US territory of Puerto Rico, which felt the early force of Irene as it moved through the Caribbean.

Earlier, emergency declarations were issued for states along the eastern seaboard from North Carolina through the Washington DC area and onwards to New York and the New England states.

A disaster declaration is granted by the president upon request from a state when the cost of damage is so great that the state needs additional funding for relief operations.

Emergency declarations apply in less severe situations but must still be requested from the president on a state-by-state basis.

In Vermont on Tuesday night, more than 200 roads were blocked or had been washed away, hampering rescue efforts to as many as 13 towns.

However, roads to all but one of the towns have now re-opened, although most are passable only by emergency vehicles.

National Guard troops flew in food, water and other emergency supplies to cut-off areas in the rural, mountainous state.

They also brought in some provisions by road, using heavy lorries.

A Sunset horseback ride at Grand Canyon West Ranch, near Meadview. (Holger Leue/LPI)

Cowboys and miners, plus a few mountain men, were the first to eke out a living in Arizona after the Spanish. The Old West history remains current in Arizona, where cowboys still ride the range and old-timey saloons still serve the road-weary traveller.

•Related article: Arizona’s top five scenic drives
If you are willing to brave a little dust and tumbleweeds, you can practice your lasso technique in the shadow of a towering saguaro, poke around old mining towns and drive dusty roads with a cinematic red-rock backdrop.

Wrangling at a Wickenburg, Arizona dude ranch
At a dude ranch (aka “guest ranch”), you are more likely to play golf, get massaged or sip cocktails than rope yourself a steer. But many, like the Flying E Ranch, do focus on horseback riding, cookouts, line dancing and other cowboy/girl fun. When planning, be aware that many ranches in the desert lowlands close in summer. To book your dude ranch adventure, visit the Arizona Dude Ranch Association.

Practicing your fast draw at the OK Corral, Tombstone
The famous shootout at the OK Corral took place in 1881, during which the brothers Earp and Doc Holliday gunned down three members of the Clanton cowboy gang. The fight lasted about half a minute, but its place in Western lore was enshrined forevermore. Fights are re-enacted at 2 pm (with an additional show at 3:30 pm on busy days). Also check out the Boothill Graveyard for some twistedly poetic headstones.

Saloon-hopping on Whiskey Row in Prescott, Arizona
Before a devastating fire in 1900, 40 drinking establishments supplied suds and entertainment to rough-hewn cowboys, miners and wastrels on Whiskey Row. The Prescott scene has calmed down since the 1800s, but there is always a party to be joined within its scrappy saloons. The chamber of commerce prints its own “Prescott Pub Crawl” handout, and there is live music at clubs downtown every night of the week.

Driving through John Ford country, Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park
Monument Valley is the iconic landscape of the American West. Become the star of your own Western on a 17-mile loop (on Highway 163) past cinematic red rocks, sheer-walled mesas and grand buttes in Navajo Country. It is a dusty, bumpy ride but well worth it.

Exploring abandoned Vulture Mine
Saguaros, cattle guards and a handful of cyclists mark the lonely drive from Wickenburg to the 147-year-old Vulture Mine. Town founder Henry Wickenburg discovered gold nuggets here in 1863. The mine itself spat out gold until 1942, but today it is no more than an embalmed ghost town. A self-guided tour loops past the main shaft, the blacksmith shop and the Hanging Tree, where 18 miners were strung up for stealing chunks of ore filled with gold.

Geirangerfjord, one of Norway’s most dramatic fjords, and the dramatic Seven Sisters waterfall. (Justin Foulkes)

Slartibartfast, a planet designer in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, won an award for his work on Norway and it is not hard to see why. Skewered with a thousand still, blue fjords and stacked with the sort of pointy, snow-topped mountains you do not often see, outside children’s drawings, it is a huge and empty land inlaid with a host of scenic riches.

•Related article: The perfect trip Norway
I first went there as a freshly certified ex-student, on a camping trip in an ancient Saab, and every morning I unzipped the tent to blink at a new wonderland. I did not know it then, but that trip was my initiation into friluftsliv – the peculiarly Norwegian fixation with “open-air living”. Friluftsliv lies somewhere between a hearty pastime and a state religion, the word celebrating Norway’s boundless natural splendour and its inhabitants’ active appreciation of it, across snow, through forest and over fjord. A backpack is generally involved.

Not much has changed since that trip. The countryside in the central-western province of Møre and Romsdal does not roll but rears, in magnificent staccato blurts. Mountains shoot up out of a fjord, then slam straight down into the one behind. Waterfalls vault from towering precipices and glaciers cling to steeply pitched highland valleys. The towns in this part of Norway, such as Ålesund where my journey begins, play a cameo role as a comely scatter of roofs at the foot of a sweeping mountain-top panorama. The town of Volda is trim but bland and, at the moment of visiting, almost eerily quiet.

Randi
“The magic is in new experiences, so do something you’ve never done – go out in a kayak, camp in the wild.”

In her two years at Volda’s university, Randi Ødegården has not seen a great deal of the town. Her bachelor course has largely involved hiking, skiing and paddling through its surrounding mountains, forests and deep blue waters. At 23, she is just one exam away from qualifying with a degree in friluftsliv.

“It means different things to different people,” says Randi, a cheerful farmer’s daughter who hails from the southern municipality of Vang. She pours black coffee into our Moomin mugs. “For me, friluftsliv is about simplicity in nature, about getting away from it all,” she says. “Going out for a week with everything I need on my back. It’s emotional and spiritual as much as physical.”

Friluftsliv begins on Randi’s doorstep. Her wooden cabin stands at the steep edge of town, backed by birch and fir woods brightly speckled with flora, and fronted by an expansive view of the fjord and its facing mountains. As we talk, I watch them being slowly claimed by the leaky low cloud that will hang above for days, decapitating many of the loftier vistas and obliging me to borrow clothing and footwear from more sensibly prepared people. “But bad weather makes the best friluftsliv,” says Randi, brightly. “You learn more and get better satisfaction when you take a bigger challenge.”

As Randi explains, spending time in the outdoors was not a choice for generations gone by. At the turn of the 20th century, Norway ranked as the poorest country in Europe – a far-flung rural nation that did not stride out into the wilderness for fun, but from agricultural necessity. 2Everyone lived outside then, so by instinct we knew how to make a difficult hike or a skiing journey. Then Norway became industrialised and those skills were lost.”

It was not until the 1960s that time-rich, cash-rich Norwegians began to pine for the fjords and the old outdoor ways, but when they set off into the valleys with a tent on their backs, they found they didn’t know what they were doing. “A lot of people were getting lost and having accidents,” says Randi. “The government saw the need to re-educate, and now, even from kindergarten, children here learn how to cook outdoors, how to dress right, how to navigate.” Randi and many of her fellow students are aiming for a career in this sphere of education.

Stein
“Don’t take a camera, and don’t post about it on Facebook – just climb a hill or do a walk, and keep the experience for yourself.”

The practicalities of friluftsliv might be hardwired into the Norwegian psyche but, as I discover, it was the British who encouraged the concept into their hearts. A ferry over the Hjørundfjord takes me to the foot of the becoming (though presently invisible) peak of Slogen. In 1872 a young Yorkshireman named WC Slingsby spotted it while travelling through the area and in a popular account of his experience, rhapsodised the view from its summit as “one of the proudest in Europe”. Almost at once the area was thronged with wealthy British tourists, who saw in these peaceful, grand valleys the bucolic idyll they had lost in smoky, crowded Britain. The Victorians loved highland scenery, and this was the hard stuff: Scotland turned up to 11. Back then, the locals could not begin to understand why would ever scale a mountain unless you had lost a goat up one.

In Isfjorden, a tidy, silent little town a couple of hours to the north, the scenery has been cranked a few notches up the Tolkienometer – the mountains are taller and bleaker, crowned with jagged crags that rip at the sky.

I pull over when a slim and sprightly man beckons from a wooden porch. “I guess you can see why I live here,” says Stein P Aasheim, nodding at the near-vertical topography. He’s 60, with a gentle and unassuming manner that belies his status as one of Europe’s very hardest men. In 1985, Stein stood beside Sir Chris Bonington atop Everest. Later this year, he is to lead a Norwegian expedition to the South Pole, marking the centenary of Amundsen’s flag-planting triumph. In 2003, Stein, his wife and their two daughters – then aged six and 13 – spent a year in a trapper’s cabin in a remote, inhospitable corner of Spitzbergen, hunting seals and reindeer, and fending off polar bears. This is friluftsliv extreme, outdoor living at its ragged edge.

We drive to a snow-speckled plateau halfway up one of his favourite peaks, the witch-hatted Romsdalshorn. This is where Stein generally delivers his welcome address for the week-long mountain festival he holds every July. “We get about 10,000 here – a lot of families, people doing guided climbs and hikes,” he says. ‘”There are some easy mountains and some demanding ones.” A modest uphill scrabble offers us a view of the hugest and most demanding – the great black flank that is the Trollveggen (Troll Wall) – at 1,100 metres, the tallest vertical rock face in Europe. We are a good couple of miles away, but it still makes my innards lurch. No one made it up there until 1965, and since then dozens more – nearly all of them foreigners – have died on its precipitous slopes. Stein was once winched down 300 metres from the top to rescue an American climber marooned on a tiny shelf with a broken leg.

“A hundred years ago, the British taught us to love our mountains, but I think now we enjoy climbing more than anyone else,” says Stein. “A lot of guys from other countries won’t go up a mountain unless they can come down with some big drama to tell, like they almost died. We don’t get that. Friluftsliv is about having fun and avoiding those situations. And doing it for yourself, not to show off to the world about what you’ve done.” These people are as laid-back as their scenery is not.

Jostein and Åshild
“You can have an adventure right outside your door – if there’s a tree in your street, climb it.”

If Trollveggen is the challenging face of friluftsliv, the Herdalssetra Summer Farm is its old, weather-beaten one. “We still follow the Viking law,” says Åshild Dale, who every June, with husband Jostein Sande, leads 130 goats up from their village farm to this lonely pasture high up behind the Storfjord. “If you allow your animals to graze on the lowlands in the summer, they will have nothing to eat in the winter. It would be grass robbery!” The summer-farm tradition has lapsed in most parts of Norway, but the Dales have been taking their goats up to Herdalssetra since 1790. “Nothing has changed here for 1,000 years,” says Åshild, walking among the turf-roofed sheds and cottages. Some are built on Viking foundations, and there is still no electricity and no running water save for a stream that babbles through. “I want visitors to learn that this isn’t just how Norwegian life used to be, it’s how everybody’s life used to be.”

Herdalssetra is shared by half a dozen farmers, who from June to September transform the bleak highland valley into an idyll of cheery communal activity. By day there is goat-milking and cheese-making: the sweet, intensely calorific brown stuff that is the default fuel of friluftsliv. “And of course, it doesn’t really get dark,” says Åshild, “so at night we never stop singing and telling stories.” The only downside, as Jostein explains, is rounding up all the goats come autumn. “Some years I’m still up here on skis on Christmas Day, chasing a lost goat across a mountain. My job is a mix of agriculture and extreme sports.”

Moods of Norway
“Make sure you put some outdoor time into your daily routine. Also: wear good shoes and 80% wool socks!”

Amore profound contrast between the humble, timeless way of life showcased at Herdalssetra and that led by the three young men I meet next is hard to imagine. Their favourite words are “aloha” and “pretty cool features”, and they are wearing enormous red sunglasses and snowsuits decorated with multi-coloured tractors. Stefan Dahlkvist, Peder Børresen and Simen Staalnacke are the brains behind Moods of Norway, founded in 2003 and now a $40 million business selling extremely loud clothing through stores around the world. “But we’re still nice Norwegian country boys at heart,” insists Peder, who, like Simen, was raised in Stryn, a fjordside town that’s downbeat even by regional standards. Sure enough, their first indulgence when the big cheques came in was an old trawler. The second was an investment in Stryn’s summer-ski resort, 1,000 metres up on a glacier behind the town, outside whose clubhouse we’re now standing. Admittedly, both boat and clubhouse were swiftly painted pink.

“We love international fashion, and we love rural Norway,” says Peder. “It was such a cool challenge to mix them up. Tractors are everywhere in Norway, but what if the tractor was pink or gold?” Every pair of Moods of Norway sunglasses comes with a pretty neat feature: a cleaning cloth imprinted with Simen’s granny’s recipe for waffles. Stefan, who manages the firm’s flagship store in LA, marks every homecoming with “some heavy-duty friluftsliv”. He has just spent the night in a cave outside Stryn: “This famous medieval outlaw lived there for three years. It was cold and a bit scary, but what a buzz!” It is fair to say that Norwegian fashionistas are cut from a different cloth.

Ruben
“Burn your TV, fill your pockets with chocolate and ham, and go for a big walk.”

Fifteen miles and a world away is mainland Europe’s largest glacier. Ruben Briksdal’s family has lived in its cool shadow for 500 years – his surname is actually borrowed from one of the Jostedal’s icy fingers, Briksdalsbreen. His grandfather began guiding tourists and travellers across the crevasses in 1966, and at 22, Ruben has already been doing the same for almost a decade. “I could do something else,” he says, “but my grandmother would kill me.” Ruben captures the sense of friluftsliv, combining a young spirit with old traditions. He has got a boy-band haircut but chews tobacco. “One Monday in school,” he says, “our teacher asked us what we’d done at the weekend. One kid said he’d played a video game and got to level six. So I said I’d got to the top level, and pointed out the window to the highest mountain.” These days, Ruben’s pastime takes him to friluftsliv’s lunatic fringe: he spends his winters climbing frozen waterfalls, “hanging from an ice axe with one hand while you screw in an 18cm bolt with the other”.

Our original intention was to paddle a boat up to his namesake glacier, but Ruben has decided we can do better than that. He unlocks a shed and begins pulling out ropes and crampons. I ask him where we are going. “To the top level,” he says, and nods at a great toothpaste-blue tongue sticking down from the clouds behind us.

And so, three hours later, we are 1,400 metres up the Bødal glacier, surrounded by billowy ice hills and giant slitted ice caves like the frozen Eye of Sauron. Ruben spots an ice shelf he simply has to climb, and before setting off, he twists a screw into the glacier and leaves me tied to it, like a dog outside a shop. Frigid gusts flap my trousers. I feel cold, slightly daft and a little terrified. Then suddenly, the sun shoots through a blue porthole behind my head, and at once the horizon is thronged with rows of stupendous side-lit peaks, marching off to the end of the world. It barely looks real, more like one of Slartibartfast’s preparatory dioramas. Twenty-three years ago I beheld such scenes and wondered if I would ever find a more beautiful country. I am still wondering.

Tim Moore is an acclaimed travel author and regular contributor to Lonely Planet Magazine.