Hi! I'm Roger - that is: Viking Roger

It's a great site I have created, and Ted converted my great ideas into this technically PHP-stuff - whatever. I'm a celebrity. I did 6 miles of the Dublin Marathon in October 2000 - which in comparison with a human being would have been 65 miles! I was honored for this run - what else could you expect for an incredible achievement like this - and from this I wrote "Following My Star". It was a success, and Steven Spielberg asked if he could make it into a movie. I was nominated for an Oscar, but Julia Roberts - even though she was in my movie - supported Denzel Washington, which meant that he got the Oscar instead of me! I have written another book, "Before I was a Viking". It's about my life as a polar bear on the seven seas.

Before I was an athlete I was an alcoholic, but with my strong personality I recovered. Once I wanted to become a buddhist monk, but as a celebrity I haven't really got the time...

Name: Roger O'Tall (that's my birthname)

Origin: I was manufactured in China and my human bought me on a tall ship in Dublin in August 1998

Baptised: I'm not really baptised, but the day is said to be 20th August 2000

Best friend: Teddy McBear

Likes: Dinner at D'Angleterre or Waldorf, whichever - oh, and don't forget I'm a bear of 4 continents, I like travelling!

Dislikes: Wimps and narrowminded people - and cats constantly looking for attention - oh, and silly dogs!

Skills: Well... I'm me!

I enjoy writing books, working with movies, talking to moviestars (well, not Julia Roberts)

Travelling Experiences:
Oh, there are so many, but if you look at McBear's page, and add these shots, you've got a list of my travels - more or less...

Here I am having coffee at the Royal Dublin Hotel.
Or was it The Gresham? It's hard to distinguish,
when you visit so many hotels...

The Birth of a Viking

For as long as he could remember, Roger had been called Roger O'Tall because he had been bought when the Tall Ships were in Dublin. That suited him fine since he was, after all, a sea bear. He had loved his years at sea, being a ship's mascot but it did have a down side. He had developed too great a liking for his daily tot of rum. Now he was a land bear he found it difficult to give up.

His drinking bouts became more frequent and his owner was frequently woken up at night to the sound of Roger singing 'What will we do with the drunken bear'. The crisis came the day he was thrown out of the d'Angleterre Hotel in Copenhagen, having fallen while attempting cartwheels along the bar. While he could live with this, having got used to occurrences of this nature, it was the embarrassment he caused his friend McBear that day, that forced him to address his problem.

Roger does nothing by half. The transformation was total. On his return to Dublin he joined AA for Bears and never looked back. Soon he could be heard advising all in his presence about the evils of alcohol. On several occasions his owner arrived home after a hard day at work, looking forward to her well-deserved glass of wine, only to find Roger had thrown it down the sink. 'You will thank me for this' he said. She didn't and started to hide the wine. But Roger knew all the tricks. He had become expert at them himself. To him hiding bottles of booze was proof of her problem.

One teetotal night, watching TV and longing for the good old days of 'What will we do with the drunken bear', she decided he needed something to distract him. She bought him 3 month's membership of a gym. It worked. Within a week Roger was pumping iron, step aerobicing and tredmilling on a daily basis. At night he was too exhausted to care what she did.

That year he decided to run the Dublin City Marathon. He registered online and on the big day, he arrived at the start. The organisers had severe reservations concerning his participation but as Roger pointed out, the regulations did not forbid entry to the marathon by bears. After listening to Roger for 10 minutes they decided to let him have his number and off he went.

Roger has tiny legs and 26 miles is a long way even for human legs. Soon Roger was a little behind the rest; in fact he was a lot behind the rest. The day wore on and people finished the marathon. By 3 pm Roger was at the 4 mile stage. By 6 pm he was at the 5 mile stage and there was only him and a 79 year old man left in the race. By 7 pm the old man had finished and Roger had done 5 miles and was being followed by an ambulance. At 8pm he was brought home in the ambulance. He had run 6 miles.

Roger's running of the marathon had made the main TV news of the night. All over Dublin people went out onto the marathon route to catch sight of the first bear to run a marathon. They lined the streets cheering as the ambulance passed by. Roger sat in the front seat waving a small Danish flag. He had stolen it from the d'Angleterre on that fateful night and this was his way of atoning to McBear for the great injury he had caused him.

Afterwards no one could remember who it was that night who first named him Viking Roger. Many people were to claim that honour. What is certain is that by the next day he would never again be plain Roger O'Tall. The Irish Times carried the headline 'Viking Star' over a photo of Roger. And indeed a star was born. This was just the start of Roger's stardom and he played the IT bear to perfection. Within 6 months the Irish Times would carry another headline 'Brian Boru, where are you when your country needs you?'. But that is another story.