Det er mange Nordmenn som vil at 'Mulla' Krekar blir utvist far landet. ;Mange påstår at det latterlig at et vestlig land gir han havn fra rettsaker i Iraq, og at han er på frifot her tross han er anmeldt som en terroristleder.
Men, jeg mener tvert i mot. Han bør forbli her i Norge. Til og med han kan tiltales under rettferdige behandling, forsvar og åpen domstol og dessuten, uten trussle av henrettelse. Hvorfor ? Fordi foreløpig er han i helvete!
Han er vel på frifot. Men han er egentlig fengslet i hans privat helvete.
For det første er det slikt at etteretningstjenster fra antakeligvis flere land, følge hver eneste bevegelse, samtale og e-post. For det andre er han ikke fritt å reise til utlands pga muligheter for utvisning til Iraq eller andre land, og angrep fra Mossad eller unevnte assasiner.
Men tenkte på dette: her er et land som betyr helvete til ham: det er djævlens ilder: Tar likestilling- Norge er blant de meste fremmkommet land i verden når det gjelder skjønnslikhet og kvinner er frie å utale seg, ha en karrier, velger partner, velg å være lesbiske, tar høye offentlige stillinger, bestemmer over sine egne liv, og selvsagt klær seg som de mener er passerlig, tiltrekende eller provokerende!
Norge er et land med både juris prudence og mye av det offentlig grunnlagt på kristelige rettningslinjer og tradisjoner. Shahira lov kommer aldri å ha mye å si i det offentlig, og dessuten hvis det er en høyre regjering snart, så skal bruk av shahira lov istedenfor eller til tross for norske lover blir like ulovlig som tvang ekteskap.
Min siste punktet er at det er hypokritisk å vurdere ham som så stort et fangst og mulig gevinst i kampen mot terror i midtøsten. Han var opprinelig en "freedom fighter" for de kurdiske islamiske folk. Jeg tipper på at han eller hans oganisasjon, IMK, fikk opplæring og våpen fra vestlige land imens de kjempet mot den Ba' thie regjeringen i Iraq. Men vesten er raskt å snu ryggen : Den Mujihadeenen, populært med CIAen tidlig på 80 tallet i deres kamp mot kommunister. Det var et forbilde for Al Qaeda. Og sjøl dem som førte til den største tap av amerikansk og allierte live siden 1960, Ho Chi Mihn. Han var opplært i guerilla krigsfaring, lederskap og strategi av CIA og den amerikanske militær under andre verdenskrig når han kjempt mot Japanere.
Dermed mener jeg at han er i faens egne ilder her på landet, at etteretningsfolk har bra oversikt, og at det er umulig for han å drive med noka mer farlige enn å irritere Siv Jensen og noen av hennes følgere.
fredag 28. januar 2011
søndag 23. januar 2011
Forth Language of the Norsk Force
There are actually four publically accepted language groupings in Norway.
Firstly we have pooko nuiko plokko to get out of the way , Samisk - what the misnomer "Lapps" speak: seems they struggle to find a phrase for "surplus mountain of reindeer meat because it is over priced" however, so they must go to Norsk to ask for more subsidies.
Then we have Bokmål: measured by the book norwegian, really written Danish with a bit of swedish in pronounciation. In Oslo many speak nearly this, but assume some kind of comic impression of a crow " Dææ varr ikka dææ daaa"
Then we have the Norwegian away from Danish and Swedish reign, perhaps nearest Norron or evolved longest, yes that's right Old Norwegian....sorry...erm, new norwegian "Ny Norsk" : much hated by the inhabitants of that geographic arm pit 'Oslo Akershus' who try to avoid learning it and will ignore speakers often like the French ignore the English....Actually the vast geographical majority of land areas speak this, it's just that the parasites with most power always infect the nerve centre of any body.
Both Bokmål and Ny Norsk are approximations, the latter taking larger liberties with vocab' and grammar due to who and how it was lexiconised by....
A much more precise language is however, adhered to by most Norwegians.....Langrennsk.
This is the common word use and semi formal conversations, which are repeated almost ritually between two Norwegians who meet each other on X country skis and care to talk. The ritual involves breaking the ice: if you are them whom shall partake in donning skis, it is customery to ask "good slide today?" as in good forward sliding on skis. The respondent will then answer in some fairly set ways: if they want to terminate the conversation, then a quick, "yes, yes not so bad" or "blinding, totally! " with little eye contact and continue right past #1. However they may decide to share their experiences further: the qeue for this is usually
a) The would be ski-er has the right gear on
b) The would be ski-er looks in need of advice.
So here we segment the society on snobbish verus egalitarian lines: or inverted snobbish.
Very quickly the conversation on the snow and the gliding forward moves to the heart of the matter: Wax, and waxing. More wax than a Manicurists shelf in Rio. You see in order to go forward on the level or uphill, you have to use a grippy wax on the mid part of your ski, and this unfortunetly needs to be
a) re-applied and rubbed down
b) changed in type and consistency for different temperatures and conditions.
Wax has evolved over the years, so now the range of conversation can spread out into discussing the precise type and range of conditions it was found ideal for.
I quite enjoy waxing actually: you do notice the difference in "kick" and glide, you get a nice extra minute or two breather and of course it is a good Ice Breaker, speaking langrennsk breaks down some of the usual Xenophobia here.
Eventually wax subsides into a tube of UHU called "klister" which is bloody awful shit to get off your skis: so much so that many a good pair of skis is destroyed by leaving it on through the summer. It is applied for slippy, wet conditions, usually easter and the end of the season, but right now we have rock hard ice : I am using a lillac coloured wax, well it seems half glue half wax, and rubbing in on every 4km or so to avoid having bloody UHU to chemically scrub off each time.
Now also I feel myself falling into a meta- use of Langrennsk, or actually a sub set of its use, neigh a dialect: "unskyldnings langrennsk" - the language of excusing your performance on wrong choice of wax or the wax going bare on the soles of your skis. I feel myself sliding into this when ever a grand mother goes past me now.
Firstly we have pooko nuiko plokko to get out of the way , Samisk - what the misnomer "Lapps" speak: seems they struggle to find a phrase for "surplus mountain of reindeer meat because it is over priced" however, so they must go to Norsk to ask for more subsidies.
Then we have Bokmål: measured by the book norwegian, really written Danish with a bit of swedish in pronounciation. In Oslo many speak nearly this, but assume some kind of comic impression of a crow " Dææ varr ikka dææ daaa"
Then we have the Norwegian away from Danish and Swedish reign, perhaps nearest Norron or evolved longest, yes that's right Old Norwegian....sorry...erm, new norwegian "Ny Norsk" : much hated by the inhabitants of that geographic arm pit 'Oslo Akershus' who try to avoid learning it and will ignore speakers often like the French ignore the English....Actually the vast geographical majority of land areas speak this, it's just that the parasites with most power always infect the nerve centre of any body.
Both Bokmål and Ny Norsk are approximations, the latter taking larger liberties with vocab' and grammar due to who and how it was lexiconised by....
A much more precise language is however, adhered to by most Norwegians.....Langrennsk.
This is the common word use and semi formal conversations, which are repeated almost ritually between two Norwegians who meet each other on X country skis and care to talk. The ritual involves breaking the ice: if you are them whom shall partake in donning skis, it is customery to ask "good slide today?" as in good forward sliding on skis. The respondent will then answer in some fairly set ways: if they want to terminate the conversation, then a quick, "yes, yes not so bad" or "blinding, totally! " with little eye contact and continue right past #1. However they may decide to share their experiences further: the qeue for this is usually
a) The would be ski-er has the right gear on
b) The would be ski-er looks in need of advice.
So here we segment the society on snobbish verus egalitarian lines: or inverted snobbish.
Very quickly the conversation on the snow and the gliding forward moves to the heart of the matter: Wax, and waxing. More wax than a Manicurists shelf in Rio. You see in order to go forward on the level or uphill, you have to use a grippy wax on the mid part of your ski, and this unfortunetly needs to be
a) re-applied and rubbed down
b) changed in type and consistency for different temperatures and conditions.
Wax has evolved over the years, so now the range of conversation can spread out into discussing the precise type and range of conditions it was found ideal for.
I quite enjoy waxing actually: you do notice the difference in "kick" and glide, you get a nice extra minute or two breather and of course it is a good Ice Breaker, speaking langrennsk breaks down some of the usual Xenophobia here.
Eventually wax subsides into a tube of UHU called "klister" which is bloody awful shit to get off your skis: so much so that many a good pair of skis is destroyed by leaving it on through the summer. It is applied for slippy, wet conditions, usually easter and the end of the season, but right now we have rock hard ice : I am using a lillac coloured wax, well it seems half glue half wax, and rubbing in on every 4km or so to avoid having bloody UHU to chemically scrub off each time.
Now also I feel myself falling into a meta- use of Langrennsk, or actually a sub set of its use, neigh a dialect: "unskyldnings langrennsk" - the language of excusing your performance on wrong choice of wax or the wax going bare on the soles of your skis. I feel myself sliding into this when ever a grand mother goes past me now.
tirsdag 18. januar 2011
Skjafted
Outside the Oil Industry, being a foreigner in Norway with any ambition of a career is a frustrating and in fact scarey place to be.
Having had more time to organise myself before wife decided Norway was where unexpected bairn #1 would be born, then I would have explored what careers a non engineer can follow in Oil.
Anyway, here is my story, anonymised to protect the guilty, by means of another warning you may recieve: this is echoed by other people I have spoken to, but most are not A) as paranoid as me B) Any good at internet detective work. The main piece of advice is that if you have a spouse/girl/boy who wants you to move here, and you are not an engineer, then make them agree that you should have a good job offer BEFORE you emigrate. Here is why, by proxy, given my experiences as a man with a bit of a career at least:
When I first landed on these shores I had just decided to make a clear break and knowing even a shop job paid 14 quid an hour, I was okay with this. The fact it costs anout £12.50 an hour to eat and breath under a roof here was lost on me.
However, best foot forward, and after the initial stress of the move to a very hot summer with very long days, I found work within the magical five weeks of being in the land as an EU /EØS citizen: unbenkowingly this entitled me to get on the social security ladder which has had to bail us out when jobs evapourate. More on that soon.
In fact I got not one job, but I was industrious enough to land a non skilled labour job through my brother-in-law, and a 50% positioin as an internal business consultant in a university spin out still struggeling with the real world. Coupled to doing evening school in Norsk, I must have been a model "invandere".
Hmm, "invandere", norsk for immigrant : It kind of suggests to the english listener, that you are either an invader, or that you just casual wandered into Norway, a bit aimlessly. This is somewhat ironic, because in my experience and that of others, you are treated either like an "interloper" or a curious oddity, hopefully transient in nature.
Now both these jobs were contract, and that was hunky dory, becuase they paid well and let me window shop. The consultant job went 75%, the other one dried up with the potential work, and BINGO I should have cottoned on to this a lot earlier. As an "Invader" you are often offered wing-and-a-prayer contracts which are not seriously intended to go permanent. This is the same for many sectors, outside oil, but especially building and services.
Is there any truth or correspondence to my experience and this happening here? Well I was driving through Aust Agder, a region / state / district here, and I hear on the Arendal radio station that while unemployment had gone up by around 6 to 9% in the population as a whole, immigrant unemployment had risen by nearer 30%. Relatively speaking here, a lot more immigrants lost their job when the finance crisis hit than locals. This was largely explained as being the Polish/Baltic state construction workers who had been both a source of good margins and a top up labour force in the last little property bubble up to sept 2008.
So I digress to put the personal in conext of the bigger picture here.
Now the thing about these jobs being temporary, and I heard the word "Use" in pretty much the same "used and abused" tone of voice from managers in both firms, was actually not that bad. What was bad was what happened next, which also shafter a Norwegian cow too, but she was such a dry-shite that no one wanted to work with her.
There was a job through the university in helping start ups, I take it no further than that description to protect the guilty, and I and aforementioned PITA woman were invited to apply, coerced in my case. I was apparently in pole position, and now could speak a bit and read a lot of norsk. But a recruitment consultant got involved, I was told it was a formality, but it turned out to be very bad. They chose a girl, a 23 year old, for a job with masses of responsiblility which was looking for 5 years experience and a business masters, yours truly, almost over qualified. They then discuss some BS marketing comms temporary job for me, which evapourates anyway.
I went out with a bit of a shat on feeling from the whole thing: this job turned out to be the GOLD DUST that careers can be made of. The girl that got the job had some family connections to either the manager or the recruitment asshole, who called me an opportunist in an interview once too. What contract or favours were secured is unknown to me, but the PITA woman was buggered because she could not claim sexual discrimmination. She should have walked the job, but no one liked her. She should have complained and got a lawyer.
I then spent 14 fucking months unemployed! Okay I did get myself through a higher level of Norwegian, but I wasted huge amounts of energy hunting for jobs. Eventually I got a hot interview in the "smoke" that is Oslo, and after a bit of an uneasy feeling in the interview, I actually got the job: It fell on the right side of the summer- another topic for a blogg one day.
12 months was hard, but I had the interview in late April and the offer in June. A bit of waiting.
Now unfortunate my bidie-in (wife) decided I wasnt going to be allowed to weekly commute, and that rather she and kid #1 would also move, at once, before my trial period was even started. Also, against all advice from my friends, I accepted a loan instead of full relocation.
The first few weeks were weird: half the office still on holiday, and an manic boss who just talked alot and always said things of any problematic nature for any issue, woud sort itself out. The job turned out to be more admin than expected, and I had a really dumb assistant who thought she was my boss by virtue of long service at her shitty level. I tried very hard and kind of got a long for a while. She unbeknown to me, started on the same day as the MD, oops. A little ear to bend there.
Anyhows things went well, I got into the swing of it, but there was not ever going to be enough work or responsibility to keep me happy, but happy I had to be. The job was a lot smaller than advertised. But it was a permanent position.....after the trial period.
Here came the rub: the section boss seemed to like me, but he then postponed my three month review to four and half. This just seemed beneficial to me then, and I would actually show some fruits of my labour to the US sales specialists. But no, this was a symptom of shoving me out of the door.
Long story short: the review actually happened at 4 and a half months in, and was bad news: improve on your communication, attention to detail and enthusiasm. Now I was getting my head into attention to detail okay, it was slower than I would be as a young buck, but hell!
The follow up to this was just a carbon copy, they had checked with the coworkers and I still couldn't talk right to them, I couldn't get things that were 100% correct right, while other people made some mistakes around my product launches with no comments made.
Now this all seemed very unfair to me, and I blamed myself for it all. I went away with about 7 months wages and my tail between my legs and a lump in my throat. Until that is I decided to investigate a little....
I got in touch with a friend at the company, and got the name of my replacement and discovered she started 3 weeks after my demise. That was a bit hasty after the fact. So two minutes on the internet, I had her blog, and then I had who her father was.....on the board of non executive directors.
Couple this to a freexe on new positioins at the time, and I was WHACKED. Also I had signed a disclaminer on future legal action and anyway, was not angry enough about it until after the usual legal dispute period of currency.
After this I spent about 10 months, half on whcih just in a daze. I got a shitty PM job in a shitty little company, which actually was quite a good opportunity to be entrepreneurial in some new market sectors. And it paid less.
So we trooped on out to the sticks when we could no longer justify our 740 000 NOK pa being enough to survive the Oslo house market, both to buy or let. I let the job go.
Here then eventually I get into a little IT firm about an hour and a half away, and they not only give me a shit position, they dont let me be myself and do project management: this is what I do! Boo hoo, but anyhows, as far as "stacking shelves" went I got the back end of the shitty sticky which was triple dipped in the brown. A crap analytical project with a prick of a couple of bosses, one of whom saw me as a threat and wanted me out anyway. All this funded 50% by NAV, on the back of training, which boiled down to a day, hamburger-university would blush at, and a couple of ad hoc days and some hours here and there. When the wages support dried up, so did the job.
Now I am on the outside, and I need to drop my suspicious mind and just get on with it all: get a new job, and probably a new "career". I can postulate away about all the petty racism and jobs.for.the.boys here, but you know I just have to ignore that now. What I do need to do, is fight for a reasonably paid, permanent posiition: as do you if you have just landed here.
Having had more time to organise myself before wife decided Norway was where unexpected bairn #1 would be born, then I would have explored what careers a non engineer can follow in Oil.
Anyway, here is my story, anonymised to protect the guilty, by means of another warning you may recieve: this is echoed by other people I have spoken to, but most are not A) as paranoid as me B) Any good at internet detective work. The main piece of advice is that if you have a spouse/girl/boy who wants you to move here, and you are not an engineer, then make them agree that you should have a good job offer BEFORE you emigrate. Here is why, by proxy, given my experiences as a man with a bit of a career at least:
When I first landed on these shores I had just decided to make a clear break and knowing even a shop job paid 14 quid an hour, I was okay with this. The fact it costs anout £12.50 an hour to eat and breath under a roof here was lost on me.
However, best foot forward, and after the initial stress of the move to a very hot summer with very long days, I found work within the magical five weeks of being in the land as an EU /EØS citizen: unbenkowingly this entitled me to get on the social security ladder which has had to bail us out when jobs evapourate. More on that soon.
In fact I got not one job, but I was industrious enough to land a non skilled labour job through my brother-in-law, and a 50% positioin as an internal business consultant in a university spin out still struggeling with the real world. Coupled to doing evening school in Norsk, I must have been a model "invandere".
Hmm, "invandere", norsk for immigrant : It kind of suggests to the english listener, that you are either an invader, or that you just casual wandered into Norway, a bit aimlessly. This is somewhat ironic, because in my experience and that of others, you are treated either like an "interloper" or a curious oddity, hopefully transient in nature.
Now both these jobs were contract, and that was hunky dory, becuase they paid well and let me window shop. The consultant job went 75%, the other one dried up with the potential work, and BINGO I should have cottoned on to this a lot earlier. As an "Invader" you are often offered wing-and-a-prayer contracts which are not seriously intended to go permanent. This is the same for many sectors, outside oil, but especially building and services.
Is there any truth or correspondence to my experience and this happening here? Well I was driving through Aust Agder, a region / state / district here, and I hear on the Arendal radio station that while unemployment had gone up by around 6 to 9% in the population as a whole, immigrant unemployment had risen by nearer 30%. Relatively speaking here, a lot more immigrants lost their job when the finance crisis hit than locals. This was largely explained as being the Polish/Baltic state construction workers who had been both a source of good margins and a top up labour force in the last little property bubble up to sept 2008.
So I digress to put the personal in conext of the bigger picture here.
Now the thing about these jobs being temporary, and I heard the word "Use" in pretty much the same "used and abused" tone of voice from managers in both firms, was actually not that bad. What was bad was what happened next, which also shafter a Norwegian cow too, but she was such a dry-shite that no one wanted to work with her.
There was a job through the university in helping start ups, I take it no further than that description to protect the guilty, and I and aforementioned PITA woman were invited to apply, coerced in my case. I was apparently in pole position, and now could speak a bit and read a lot of norsk. But a recruitment consultant got involved, I was told it was a formality, but it turned out to be very bad. They chose a girl, a 23 year old, for a job with masses of responsiblility which was looking for 5 years experience and a business masters, yours truly, almost over qualified. They then discuss some BS marketing comms temporary job for me, which evapourates anyway.
I went out with a bit of a shat on feeling from the whole thing: this job turned out to be the GOLD DUST that careers can be made of. The girl that got the job had some family connections to either the manager or the recruitment asshole, who called me an opportunist in an interview once too. What contract or favours were secured is unknown to me, but the PITA woman was buggered because she could not claim sexual discrimmination. She should have walked the job, but no one liked her. She should have complained and got a lawyer.
I then spent 14 fucking months unemployed! Okay I did get myself through a higher level of Norwegian, but I wasted huge amounts of energy hunting for jobs. Eventually I got a hot interview in the "smoke" that is Oslo, and after a bit of an uneasy feeling in the interview, I actually got the job: It fell on the right side of the summer- another topic for a blogg one day.
12 months was hard, but I had the interview in late April and the offer in June. A bit of waiting.
Now unfortunate my bidie-in (wife) decided I wasnt going to be allowed to weekly commute, and that rather she and kid #1 would also move, at once, before my trial period was even started. Also, against all advice from my friends, I accepted a loan instead of full relocation.
The first few weeks were weird: half the office still on holiday, and an manic boss who just talked alot and always said things of any problematic nature for any issue, woud sort itself out. The job turned out to be more admin than expected, and I had a really dumb assistant who thought she was my boss by virtue of long service at her shitty level. I tried very hard and kind of got a long for a while. She unbeknown to me, started on the same day as the MD, oops. A little ear to bend there.
Anyhows things went well, I got into the swing of it, but there was not ever going to be enough work or responsibility to keep me happy, but happy I had to be. The job was a lot smaller than advertised. But it was a permanent position.....after the trial period.
Here came the rub: the section boss seemed to like me, but he then postponed my three month review to four and half. This just seemed beneficial to me then, and I would actually show some fruits of my labour to the US sales specialists. But no, this was a symptom of shoving me out of the door.
Long story short: the review actually happened at 4 and a half months in, and was bad news: improve on your communication, attention to detail and enthusiasm. Now I was getting my head into attention to detail okay, it was slower than I would be as a young buck, but hell!
The follow up to this was just a carbon copy, they had checked with the coworkers and I still couldn't talk right to them, I couldn't get things that were 100% correct right, while other people made some mistakes around my product launches with no comments made.
Now this all seemed very unfair to me, and I blamed myself for it all. I went away with about 7 months wages and my tail between my legs and a lump in my throat. Until that is I decided to investigate a little....
I got in touch with a friend at the company, and got the name of my replacement and discovered she started 3 weeks after my demise. That was a bit hasty after the fact. So two minutes on the internet, I had her blog, and then I had who her father was.....on the board of non executive directors.
Couple this to a freexe on new positioins at the time, and I was WHACKED. Also I had signed a disclaminer on future legal action and anyway, was not angry enough about it until after the usual legal dispute period of currency.
After this I spent about 10 months, half on whcih just in a daze. I got a shitty PM job in a shitty little company, which actually was quite a good opportunity to be entrepreneurial in some new market sectors. And it paid less.
So we trooped on out to the sticks when we could no longer justify our 740 000 NOK pa being enough to survive the Oslo house market, both to buy or let. I let the job go.
Here then eventually I get into a little IT firm about an hour and a half away, and they not only give me a shit position, they dont let me be myself and do project management: this is what I do! Boo hoo, but anyhows, as far as "stacking shelves" went I got the back end of the shitty sticky which was triple dipped in the brown. A crap analytical project with a prick of a couple of bosses, one of whom saw me as a threat and wanted me out anyway. All this funded 50% by NAV, on the back of training, which boiled down to a day, hamburger-university would blush at, and a couple of ad hoc days and some hours here and there. When the wages support dried up, so did the job.
Now I am on the outside, and I need to drop my suspicious mind and just get on with it all: get a new job, and probably a new "career". I can postulate away about all the petty racism and jobs.for.the.boys here, but you know I just have to ignore that now. What I do need to do, is fight for a reasonably paid, permanent posiition: as do you if you have just landed here.
torsdag 13. januar 2011
To Wax or Wax-Free Skis for X-country
Waxing Ski-ryrical
Today was a new first for me, out on x-country skis which require waxing to both grip and glide properly. Until now I have been content with the one-way-pattern "waxless" skis.
Should new beginners go straight in for waxed skis and cut out this middle man?
Fish-scales as some people call them, save of course guessing the temperature and you are guaranteed fairly good grip on herring-bone ascents. They do slow your glide down though and there are limits to their effectiveness of grip, at below -9 and above 2'C. However you can actually combat this by using ....glide wax and "klister" wax, akin to UHU glue in consistency and adherence. Kind of defeating the purpose, but in fact in winter conditions and in the high hills at easter, wax free can give you a trouble free day and some good training.
Waxed x-country skis, ie normal, glide faster and you just adjust the wax to optimise the kick. However you do have to wax and re-rub off and occaisionally rewax the "sole" to a base wax. Problems come when conditions under foot are very variable, and this is the case where the sun or mild winds get access to part of the ski runs. Combine this with a gradient against you and it's time to stop up and do some major cosmetic surgery on the soles of your erstwhile sliding-shoes.
Incidentally, the very best wax free skis are available in carbon fibre, and are intended for both such tricky conditions in racing and training. So they're not just for poosies and lazy gits who can't read a thermometer.
Waxing is not only its own language and currency of conversation, it is its very own culture of excuses and denials. Like we brit's talk about the weather to break-the-ice with strangers, so Norwegians ( at least, if not scandinavians) will suddenly engage you in warm conversation which otherwise would, as is par for the course here, be lacking ( "No Banter" said one mate who lives in Oslo and works for GE Healthcare). Also any bad performance, slow progress on one part of the course or general bad mood can be explained away under the "wrong wax, failed wax" book of excuses. I find myself reaching for the first chapter now, unwittingly....
In general, wax less skis give you better kick but less glide: I think this is probably an area for debating their overall value to beginners: if you kick but don't glide enough then you are not learning the complete technique and you are wasting energy. If however, you ski in variable conditions, prepared and just ski-made-tracks, and have more of a walking style than "Jogging" then waxfree are all you will most likely ever need.
If you want to get the most exercise out of the sport, then in fact wax free can also help you in the beginning because of the rather unique "stride and hold" gape. If you are fit already, then you may find , as I did actually on carbon wax frees, that you end up injuring yourself because your quadracepts will be strong enough to work really hard while your little crotch and knee muscles engaged in x-country are not ready for the punishment your major abductors are giving them. Waxfree makes it easier to "hold" because the ski grips on the back foot better and the glide is somewhat "on the brakes". You could of course over-wax with higher temperature wax applied to a longer area under the ski onto a normal ski.
Waxing will allow you to really get into the swing of things, literally, because you will get the full benefit of the more jogging-come-striding style. This is faster and give's you argueably a better work out, both forcing you to keep a rythm and also rewarding you with faster progress.
There is one other good reason to buy an entry level set of waxfree skis is that even if you just get one holiday', course' or season's use out of them before you feel, like me, that they are braking your speed and limiting your technique. Keep these as your reserve skis for those difficult days, for those tours in certain hill and moor ski tracks but not prepared runs, easter, summer glaciers and when you venture to terra nova not knowing if the conditions and availability of tracks.
Today was a new first for me, out on x-country skis which require waxing to both grip and glide properly. Until now I have been content with the one-way-pattern "waxless" skis.
Should new beginners go straight in for waxed skis and cut out this middle man?
Fish-scales as some people call them, save of course guessing the temperature and you are guaranteed fairly good grip on herring-bone ascents. They do slow your glide down though and there are limits to their effectiveness of grip, at below -9 and above 2'C. However you can actually combat this by using ....glide wax and "klister" wax, akin to UHU glue in consistency and adherence. Kind of defeating the purpose, but in fact in winter conditions and in the high hills at easter, wax free can give you a trouble free day and some good training.
Waxed x-country skis, ie normal, glide faster and you just adjust the wax to optimise the kick. However you do have to wax and re-rub off and occaisionally rewax the "sole" to a base wax. Problems come when conditions under foot are very variable, and this is the case where the sun or mild winds get access to part of the ski runs. Combine this with a gradient against you and it's time to stop up and do some major cosmetic surgery on the soles of your erstwhile sliding-shoes.
Incidentally, the very best wax free skis are available in carbon fibre, and are intended for both such tricky conditions in racing and training. So they're not just for poosies and lazy gits who can't read a thermometer.
Waxing is not only its own language and currency of conversation, it is its very own culture of excuses and denials. Like we brit's talk about the weather to break-the-ice with strangers, so Norwegians ( at least, if not scandinavians) will suddenly engage you in warm conversation which otherwise would, as is par for the course here, be lacking ( "No Banter" said one mate who lives in Oslo and works for GE Healthcare). Also any bad performance, slow progress on one part of the course or general bad mood can be explained away under the "wrong wax, failed wax" book of excuses. I find myself reaching for the first chapter now, unwittingly....
In general, wax less skis give you better kick but less glide: I think this is probably an area for debating their overall value to beginners: if you kick but don't glide enough then you are not learning the complete technique and you are wasting energy. If however, you ski in variable conditions, prepared and just ski-made-tracks, and have more of a walking style than "Jogging" then waxfree are all you will most likely ever need.
If you want to get the most exercise out of the sport, then in fact wax free can also help you in the beginning because of the rather unique "stride and hold" gape. If you are fit already, then you may find , as I did actually on carbon wax frees, that you end up injuring yourself because your quadracepts will be strong enough to work really hard while your little crotch and knee muscles engaged in x-country are not ready for the punishment your major abductors are giving them. Waxfree makes it easier to "hold" because the ski grips on the back foot better and the glide is somewhat "on the brakes". You could of course over-wax with higher temperature wax applied to a longer area under the ski onto a normal ski.
Waxing will allow you to really get into the swing of things, literally, because you will get the full benefit of the more jogging-come-striding style. This is faster and give's you argueably a better work out, both forcing you to keep a rythm and also rewarding you with faster progress.
There is one other good reason to buy an entry level set of waxfree skis is that even if you just get one holiday', course' or season's use out of them before you feel, like me, that they are braking your speed and limiting your technique. Keep these as your reserve skis for those difficult days, for those tours in certain hill and moor ski tracks but not prepared runs, easter, summer glaciers and when you venture to terra nova not knowing if the conditions and availability of tracks.
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