Bill Koch and Why I Suddenly Feel Bipolar ....Skate Skiiing

Skate skiing was always there for me, since my first awakeneings to the the idea at least, of skiing and of biathalon.


It looked both easy, elegant and Natural but at the same time I realised it might be hard to learn.


I do get a Natural High from all forms of snow sport, be it a Sledge With the kids, Snowboarding in days gone by, or now classic "kicking" XC skiing.


However skate skiing kind of coincides With other difficult Things to get past and learn in life, It reflects my personal sttruggles With relationships and career.


I started a little on my usual skis, on days when it was Cold blue waxing which tends not to grab on the snow,


Eventually after a job interview, the thought of some spare cash lured me into buying a super special offer on Madshus ultrasonics or whatever they were. The skis were light and medium 'spenn' ie spring or Arch pre tension. I managed to break the back of one of the pair on icey conditions a couple of seaons in. Also I didnt get the longer poles, which although not absolutely necessary , do help promote correct technique.


Two years in and With a bad repair job not holding, it was time for a New pair of skate skis and proper length poles,


I wathced endless Youtube videos on technique, but am hardly very good at See Do, However, as With my last potential New love of my Life, a lass called Heidi, I percievered, I went back again and again to a simple floodlight ski centre and round and round I went, Taking time to practice the Three main elements . Single Dance, Double Dance and Paddeling,

My Left Foot

There were two main problems With my propulsion . Firstly lifing my heels too much and secondly my weak left side.
Lifting my heels could in part have been to do With the first pair of skis I had not having their bindings quite in the right Place, I think they are the fancy New type too, which can be slid back and forth for Balance or conditions.


However my New skis showed that I had the issue on the left side, and once i got good on my right, the Whole kind of 'stroke neglect' type thing which stroke patients get around partially affected areas plinged a bell.

Riding a Fixie

Skate skiing is the slidey Snowy equivalent of riding a fixed cog track, erstwhile Courier or hipster cycle. You have to keep going like a metronome in order to make progress otherwise you grind to halt, You have to actually learn then how to take in more oxygen With a lighter recovery effort,  and when to gas off to avoid oxygen debt and lactic acid, especially in the shoulder or arm muscles.


This year I really had to deconstruct and go back to basics. Like classic, or downhill, it is absolute best to learn in fact without those overly long dangly poles, and every time you take out to the tracks, do a few minutes and some trials here and there Without them.


You can see some would be skaters or rather even some who have been at it for years, doing the sort of MC Hammer, flat doll on string legs out to the side, The motion is very similar to ice skating and rollerblading though, so you only go out the side a lot, when going uphill. Like tacking a boat, when the resistance is straight Ahead you zig zag, In Skate skiiing as in the other related sports mentioned, yiou do zig zag a little until in pure coasting or Down hill mode, THis is in order tha tyou can propell off one ski or skate, onto the other, The lighter the terrain and faster the conditioons, the less angle is needed, and the herring bone pattern becomes more acute downt the ski track,


Weight transfer and timing are the two key Things in being able to hold the Wheel rolling. You can have other elements right, such as the poling, but if you dont get Your weight over the centre line, then you will never ski efficiently.  It becomes most obvious in paddeling, where if you neglect to slide Your pelvis and weight over, you end up With Your legs scrambling under a middle set weight placement, which is far less efficient and usually leads to haste and stumbling,


I realised my left foot was exiting badly without a good propell phase because in fact it wasnt being Place well Down at the start of the Whole left side phase, and because I wasnt committing enough weight over to the left side in the phase, The Cure for this is the heel to heel tap and also trying to ride as far out to the left on a neutral knee and almost straight leg as possible until you feel you will fall on the outside edge (which you can do!)

Heavenly But Hell to Pay After

I had starte practicing this in said Field, but for the last two days when I happened to have time after work, I chose the more challenging local forrestry road, Yesterday I had some issues With paddeling, especially on the left side, and kind of strining the Whole thing together while remembering to breath and avoid oxygen debt


Today I took it a little easier, armed With all my experience and knowledge of weakenesses to date, I did a lot more Without poles and turned Down the work rate in order to achieve what I wanted, a non stop run to the end of the road and back. Apart from one or two small stop ups and a usual pole inside ski fall, whcih all the best pros have done in the final 100m of the world championships in their day I saw on NRK recently anyway.


In dancing I concentrated on landing the ski, weight balancing and transfer, straight leg glide, compression for kick, and cycling the ski over the snow again to glide on the opposite and recover for the NeXT landing, I went from a weakish left to a left side which is eighty or ninety percent as strong and effective as the right!


Conditions were what you could called easter holiday morning, Corn snow, packed and hardish With little free water in it and most of the air squeezed out, Pole sticking through to ground in some Places, more like concrete in others, It was fast. Really fast.


With this speed and accomplishment in mind, I completed my two laps, and elected on the way in to do some couple of extra CLICKs (km) to warm Down, What the heck, do the Whole 6 km again.


I took it a little easy and tried some slow but sure paddelind With focus on weight over on one side, It went well, and completed the Learning maybe for the season, With a high




I reached the turning point and was literally elated, This is why I moved to Norway! To get out on skis and learn New Things.


Rewards and a Low


I live alone for the first time now in five years, and althoguh percieveance has paid off big time in skiing and skate skiing, Those moments up at the far end of the ski trail were true happiness, and self realisation,


Then I drove home, eat a TV dinner and felt lonely and isolated, and thought how Nice it would to be able to see Heidi, But my perceiveirance didnt pay off there, in fact it had the opposite effect, She got fed up With me beign too Coward to defy her Lets-just-be-friends play, or maybe I was too on or what ever, Six months of getting to know here Down the drain after she decided on someting I am not quite sure why or how, but to push me away, and now back into say hello, wave goodbye maybe talk about the weather Territory,


I came back to my Hybel and eat, drove over to the Ex and the kids for a short visti and Exchange ofwashing and supplies, and came back home to hitting-an-all--time-low. Few beers and this blogg to reflect on skiing and I feel a lot better, but there is a bigger hole than I expected left by being out skiing alone and coming home to an empty Apartment than I ever thought possible before.

'La oss bare være venner' - Lets-Just-Be-Friends, Norwegian Style

La oss bare være venner!

Lets-just-be-friends....Norwegian style.

For Young men and women out there, LJBF is actually a defeat you should just walk away from, if you are at all romantically interested in him or her. It means two things most often amongst the youinger generations. Firstly that they are not very attracted to you, but prepared to enjoy your Company, and often in this case too they just like the conspicuous attention they are getting after maybe some time being single. Secondly it is a plain and simple, polite brush off. Leave me alone for that type of romanti attention.

Cultural Differences

In Norway women are actually most often a little more direct and will brush you off more assertively and walk away from those situations in which a anglophonic woman would use LJBF. Men in Norway are a little harder to read I would guess, they tend to be a little terse and not show any emotions until they are sure, which is often after a drink fuelled passing over the threshold in outset anyway


. In contrast to many anglophone cultures,  as soon as Norsk women even get the slightest feeling a conversation and body Language is going a defined way towards a pass, they are 'rude' enough to be a little, well rude and stop it happening. However the reverse is also true that they can be more forth right about getting to know you on a romantic basis. So there we are at a big advantage , but there is always that 'valued guest in Our country' thing which confuses Things a little as an invanndere, because they may feel they need to be the friendly host and are inquisitive. Very often interpreted incorrectly, especially amongst african men here.

For the Youth Amongst You.......Back Off, Move On! 

If you are under 32 then take LJBF as a brush off. At any age though, it is best to qualify it rapidly - there and then, face to face., and Norwegians are honest enough to reply. So say Things like, oh I am sorry I am not Your type, I take it you dont find me attractive? Or are you seeing someone you are romantically involved With? Are you a lesbian? is an old cliche, and harsh bit of repartee but in the right circumstances yes it can be a little naughty and fun, if you have that kind of tone with a girl and come to make a pass at her here.

Qualify Anyway, LJBF May Mean Lets Date Without Stress

Far better in qualifying this at any age, is to ask ok, does this mean then that you would like to get to know me a bit but are interested , or are you just being polite? Or do you really like having male friends? Tell me about Your life and why it may be difficult for you to have a new dating boyfriend now?

Personal Example

The former of these propositions will be a wise route and perhaps I should have used it recently. I have known a girl ( well god voksen dame as they say here) for a good few years and we have always had a Nice neighbourly chat, and she has often, a bit mysterioulsy, asked me to help her With this and that around her house. I have avoided it, because I didnt want a complication or to let someone down, or to get my hopes up for a romance - this is Norway, and she just happens to be a beautiful, interesting and outdoorsy brunette who is more than just my type, she fits the bill to exact five course order! Finally since I am single now, I decided I had time to help her with some woodwork and also maybe hang out With her and get to know her, since I really like her and it is a LONG time since I dated last a girl who was a serious proposition.

After a pass which was not a pass, just lets do some activities together, she ran a mile from me and acted like I had asked her to travel on a "dirty weekend" as we call it in Blighty! Eventually I bumped into her and just had the gall to ask why she was avoiding me. She said straight out " I just want to be friends, I was in doubt on what you wanted" And we have become quite Close pals, but her eyes and actions contradict her LJBF, she looks to me as to be as much in love With me as any of the five other big relationships I have had in life. She is super generous and chatty and smiley and has a kind, long stare at me often.
So  I needed to qualify after a few months of nice contact, if this LJBF is actually just let me get to know you better first. Also not in the least , let Your situation change a little so it is more obvious you are not together With Your ex, because you spend so much time With her and stay there often to look after the kids. However now she is pushing me away because well, she can read the signs you know and does not quite want to be put on the spot yet I believe. Alternatively she is being a strict LJBF or wanting to revert to avoiding the embaressment of seeing me in the undefined zone, and wants the Whole thing to disappear back to being a hello once in a while. And indeed that is where we are heading, it is kind of clumsy to keep on being in the friends zone.

A Spark That Never Ignites a Fire in Your Hearts ???

The big risk with saying yes to LJBF is that the spark of attraction is snuffed out, and time to get to know each other in a somewhat awkward half way house of semi dating,  does not ignite romance, Rather it blows over. So you need to qualify that reply, and the other person's situation. Perhaps they are secretly dating already, but kind of prefer you? Perhaps they are very hurt from a previous relationship? Perhaps they are busy and just a little exhausted With their career?.
There is more subtlty here too. In Norwegian they just say ' to become in love'. where as of course we always say " fall in love" because on our cultural side of Things, it is a very subjective experience and we are more open to showing Our emotions on the outside. It is a trip wire and a pit trap, we fall into, we maybe dont really want to give up Our gaurd and be vulnerable but we do it. In Norway a lot of women are cooler of temperament and more calculating, Or they appear to be. Given the right guy they too will fall-in-love. Being a hmm, maybe maybe guy is not the right guy usually.

LJBF is Different in Middle Age Here

All this said about walking away from LJBF, here comes the Catch when you are older about this Lets-Just-Be-Friends (jeg vil bare være venner, when we are over say 37. There are thousands of lonely 40 somethimg seperated and single mums in Norway, who put all their time into Three Things - kids, career and training for stuff like Birkebeiner. They have been hurt. Often by an affair, or often that rather cool Norwegian style of relationships prove to be just that, a non chalent sexual partnership on one of the spouse's sides most often the man's. Once sex gives up, often after two kids come on the scene, so does the interest in the other partner. It becomes a very difficult Place to be in love again With Your partner  or someone new, because the whole proposition is in doubt. You dear Lover boy, or lover girl, are a Dangerous prospect because once bitten means twice shy! So LJBF can be a saftey Catch before not only YOU move forward but THEY can move forward.



In divorce here as in anglophonic countries,  there are the practicalities and the Financial and house work expectations, through to the limits on romantic time together due to Family, job and stupid Flock activities like Birkebeiner. House work is often quoted as the major quarelling point here which leads to  break ups, but it is probably just symptomatic of a deterioating relatiionship where (most often the man) has lack of housework used against him as a sparring weapon for a woman to get her other emotional frustration at the lack of romance out on him. It is a viscious circle which leads to break ups, and People Wonder why they broke up over hoovering and making dinner, but in fact they fell apart because they failed to nurture romance With time alone together. In fact they should have forgotten the house work, sent the kids out to the grand parents and gone out to do somethign romantic.




As an aside  It is too easy for a woman to have just motherly love and expect a well prepared, spotless nest to live in, in which the man kind of disappears as a domestic Assistant and pay cheque.It is a man's job then to . nurture romance and demand that time to go out, away from the spotless nest, and do fuin Things alone. If like me he was a little lazy and thought all was landed anyway, why bother pushing so much for 'dates', then you will most likely be divorced and wondering about that hoovering. So when New love comes for me, and other divorcees, DONT MOVE IN!!


Back to the meat of the dinner, in some few cases then  with middle aged women, and of course in a younger lass too with difficulties in life, LJBF does not just mean let us ALWAYS just be friends.


It is a difficult staging post where you have to get to know them. But it is SO IMPORTANT in outset to qualify LJBF subtely but persistently until you get the answer you definetly need as aliving, emotional being - Is this  a qualification period for a potential romance, or no, this is just face value and take it or leave it ?


You are in the lap of the Gods here, and have to consider if it is worth investing time in this person, because you risk losing that romantic spark and that moment you throw yourselves at each other is indefinetly postponed.  It can simply go too long in that limbo state, as I have personally maybe experienced.

More from personal experience of late.....

From my side now in fact too much time has gone, and if she did hold a flame for me, it seems like it has flickered and gone out. I was in a zone of being about 90% LJBF for her maybe, I dont know. But it didnt feel right to qaulify it in outset, I was actually jsut wantign to get to know here, but realised when she ran a mile, that in fact I cared about her, really fancied her and could see her as someone I did not want to lose contact with.

 Then my rought old, rusty gear Wheels in my heart started rolling round and crashing this big old machine forward and I had to brake up and she helped me too. She has of course given out mixed signals in body Language because she is very unsure, and now she has chosen the safer route to just being good neighbours and I am afraid that this will actually be too tough for me to be bothered With, and I'll either walk away or make a clumsy, drunken pass at her.

Be Prepared to Yeah, Be Just Friends ?

As a good girl friend of mine said to me, if she says LJBF then be absolutely prepared to be just that. She may be Worth waiting for, But what you have to avoid is LJBF in which one of you behaves like you are in a romantic or closer relationship. Then you really are being Cathy's clown, because she isnt interested but likes the attention and help she gets, and of course the Control which is important to these middle aged ladies who have lost Control over a previous relationship.
-


So on the positive side of the 10% times when it is more than it is verbalised to be, LJBF can be a rather nice prolonged means of getting to know someone and of flirting over time, and building the bridge to a shy or dammaged person who needs a slow introduction.
 But the ground rule for the persuer is play a little hard to get. You should be non exclusive and make that a little Clear. Jealousy is a strong motivator for shy Girls and guys who otherwise wouldnt say boo, because they have come this far getting some attention but risk it not going that way. FOMO too is to be used, making it Clear that some fun situations and activities are out of bounds in the LJBF zone to her.
The acid test though is the hardest ask. Let some time go and cool off into LJBF though, before asking yourself "Can I cope With her (or him) getting a lover?"
If after several months of LJBF, this still makes Your heart strain a little, then it is time to put up or get out I am afraid, you are supressing Your feelings otherwise and this question brings it into the light of day,

A Word of Caution for Ladies Recieving an LJBF

I would say on the reverse side for Ladies here chasing men, that if you give out a romantic advance then you are very unlikely to get an LJBF unless the man is unsure of his sexuality, or in a relaitonship. There are of course situations where a man too will say LJBF because of his life situation, but unfortunetly men will rarely say no to a romantic advance if they are single unless they do not find you attractive. THe other situation they will use this line is the same as for women: you have to see each other again, through social circle, neighbourhood or workplace. Then it is a polite brush off, business as usual. The only thing a girl can do then is to dress provocatively at a party and try and get his attention if she thinks he is shy and being a little stand off and self defensive. It is a Dangerous area for both sexes and has to be taken With the less than just pinch of salt, that 90% of the time it IS a brush off.

As a parting little tool from my Box, I have a little get out of jail free card for you if you have come Down the line a few months or so With a LJBF proposition. This, will get a response from the Lets Just Be Friend proposer, and will help get rid of the unwanted extra attentisions from a persistent persuer on the other side, you are fond of as a pal, but is clearly wanting more. This little card will help you make a veiled but obvious pass, and Clear up any uncertainties without necessarily destroying a Nice friendship or in my case, meanign I have a neighbour who avoids me in the same cul de sac where it is hard to avoid anyone.




" Du, tusen takk for at du bruker så mye tid med meg, det har vært gøy og veldig koselig å bli bedre kjent med deg.


Men kjære venn du må heller bruke litt mer tid å finne  en kjæreste og en som ikke er bare en venn. Jeg ser at du har my kjærlighet å gi, og er kanskje klar for et nytt forhold med noen du egentlig finner tiltrekkende.


Du er en flott dame ( /sjekk mann) , morsomt å snakke med, glad i livet , slank og veltrent ...(blah blah what ever is Your true opinion of her or of course him) . Jeg ser det er kanskje tid for deg å komme ut av skallet i den retningen og finner deg en kjæreste"


There you have it. Reverse Pyscholiogy you could say.  It demands a reply, either way. It makes it a little obvious that time has run out on LJBF for you, or if in the reverse situation, STOP making passes at me, find someone else for that!


 On the other hand it flatters and is an obvious pass to a woman or man who is interested in you, and an obvious BASTA, now you have to make Your mind up, because I am backing Down the energy and time I use on you as being just pals.

Norwegian Social Highway Code Part II - Revisiting and Moving On

Of my bloggs, one of the sticky-ist of all time is the blogg on the Norwegian Social Highway Code, Perhaps a lot of people wondering about driving conditions and regulations in Norway land there from google, but it has its' share of interested ex pats.

Now I wanted to move on with a look at some of the faux pas and oddities again, but from a rather different perspective. That of a newly seperated man!

In celtic and latin influenced countries, Flirting is an art form. It is a means of communicating humanity to each other, of entertaining and of offering a little love in jest but in fact would be seriousness.

 In Ireland it is a national sport, where flirting in some counties is almost a prerequisite of being served at the bar. The more Gregarious a people, the more they flirt with the opposite sex. We are used to what an innocent flirt is, and by in large I think all these cultures would appreciate that the flirt as a species, is just that. If a flirt leads to a come-on, then we are in deeper water. That is the trouble with scandinavia, the flirt is seen as such an intrusion on personal space as to be synonymous with the come-on. The pale, beautiful faces they turn to the cold when they leave their safe social circles, have often stoney eyes, or are good at half smirking when eye contact from the opposite sex is encountered, or alternatively, the scared mouse, looking down and away and scurrying off to their next socially comforting hole-

Flirting in the frozen, thin lipped north?. It is widely frowned upon by those short, practical hair and square glasses fifty somethings who work in administration and the public sector. It is 'sjekking' and 'sjansing', which translate pretty directly of course. Many younger Norwegian wives abhore flirting too - either upon themselves, by their husbands or especially towards their husbands. Just where does the line go? When does an innocent flirt become a heavy handed, and oft' unwanted chat up ?

Well the boundary is much lower in Norway it seems, for a flirt to become a come-on. This depends though on the situation, and the amount of alcohol consumed. 

Mirroring drinking, flirting gets a bit ridiculous some Saturday nights with everything from boys trying to seranade their potential beaus on Karl Johans Gate, to balding middle aged, married men slinking up to girls in pubs and saying ' du er så fin, kan jeg bli litt amorøse med deg?". Like the Saturday night binge drinking, all restraint and otherwise cultural norms are thrown to the wind, as a deep routed need to be, well, sexual,  expresses itself via well lubricated body language, and anaesthetised inhibitions.

Flirting otherwise is frowned upon. Foreigners try to use the eye contact approach, and then the direct you are the most beautiful and so on, but that is equally as heavy handed as the usual late saturday night mating ritual played out in most towns and cities in Norway. Flirting as we know it has a lower boundary before it is socially unacceptable. The population rate is declining for ethnic Norwegians, and this could explain it. Couples seem to either meet now via drunken nights out, or Tinder. On Tinder one or other party can snake their way into to seeming to be the perfect partner by profiling the other and telling them what they want to hear. Norwegians just dont flirt enough, and end up in unhappy long term relationships which are sometimes more or less financial mergers centred around nicer houses and holidays to Gran Canaria. Or they end up in disposable Tinderland relationships, where their consumerist lifestyles now can be lived out through sexual encounters as well. Three a month or more.

They are deeply unhappy because they cannot flirt sober, or after the usual cocktail party couple of drinky poos. While with one safe partner at a young age, they never experiment enough with eye contact to find out that someone else may actually have a massive biochemistry for them, and they are together with a fish as cold as Lofoten cod.

However that is not to say flirting stone cold sober does not exist at all. On the contrary. But is in some special circumstances. I had noted that while working in a largish company that married ladies where a lot more flirty than I had ever experienced eslewhere. Finally at m iddle age with kids of independent movements, they train a bit more and look nice once again, and like to have it confirmed. Some even dont wear their wedding rings to work (BTW worn on the RIGHT hand) . Now is the time that confirmation that they still are something of a catch, over comes their inhibitions, driven hard in and years of indoctrination by mothers and prudish friends.

Feminists are deeply divided about flirting. Some see it as romantic paff, and a mere preamble to a mans right to sexual domination and date rape. Others see it as empowering the woman with a use of eye contact and body language which maintains a distance, challenges the man to show both masuclinity and diplomacy, and can intimidate the conquerors.

There are though then two methods of actually dating a Norwegian woman, and this goes for the reverse in hetero relationships (sorry, dont know much about LGBT stuff) One is simply the direct approach, say it as it is, no fluffy word flirting. Use some light flirty body language, looking for some receptiveness by mirroring or other signals, and then ask them if they would like to get to know each other better ' Vil du treffe meg en annen gang for å bli bedre kjent med hver andre'. Norwegians will usually give a straight answer at this point, and it does save a lot of those lead ons and vague maybe, want to be nice, responses  you get in Blighty. The Date is not much I know a lot about first hand, but I have mates who still date regularly, Tinderlanders, and they say that girls get either quite flirty and quite positive body language or they dont. If they seem stiff AND start asking a lot of financial questions, they are credit card max'ed out gold diggers apparently. Alcohol in minor quantities is acceptable, and here you actually want to be really near to the bar or have table service, because when Norwegian men, or even women sometimes in the reverse situation, see a foriegner going out and enjoying a drink on an obvious first date, suddenly they are interested in flirting! As if national pride is as stake, or they want to piss on the fine chips you are obviously consuming.

The other flirt, is the non flirt. Here we use a lot of negative body language and see if the other partner looks uncomfortable yet still interested,. This is the passive aggressive flirt, you often see early doors on a Saturday night, where well preened west side boys try and impress Oslo's finest lassies with their designer clothes and swept back Bærumsveis blonde hair.   Here we can also see a bit of reverse pyschology going on, with there being a passive aggressive denial display between two potential mates, only resolved when enough alcohol to float a row boat has been consumed at each respective corners of the mating ring.

Then there is the other anti-flirt. Here you recognise that a girl is or boy is being a little coy and nervous, but also holding out on you to tease and see you are up for the chase. Now you rush in with the rejection anti flirt. You either suggest you need to be somewhere else very soon, or you start the ultimate anti flirt, asking about one of their apparently single friends. This will get the hackles up on any hard-to-get player and show their vulnerability. Youth use it as a kind of attack against hard to get knock backs and demuring. However in trained hands it is a more subtle and effective tool. It is also not usually a zero sum game either. You stand to win either one mate or the other in fact.

Jævla Bakkeglatte Skøyteski !

Det var bestemt da. Denne vinteren skulle jeg gå over til den mørke siden. Gi blaffen i tradisjon. Kast utgått, gammeldags utstyr i garasjen. Jeg ville prøve skøyteski.

Det er ofte at skøyteski er forbundet med midtlivskrisen. Gubben har fått seg en gummi slanger passendes til en bobblebil og en liten pottemage, og kjerringa spanderer topp karbon Fischer utstyr på ham for 40 års dag eller noe litt senere når magen er enda litt mer rotund og synlig. Ellers er det nyskilt damer med unger som har flyttet ut som vil utfordre seg med den som var en gang en radikal og uvelkommen stilart. Noe nytt skal prøves og noe som er både imponerende men bare krevende nok slik at man ikke bommer på det første forsøket og ser ut som en fjols, eller verre, en engelskmann!

Krevende er det hvis man er ikke født på ski. Men jeg ser at mange Nordmenn ikke er så veldig flinke på langrenns gode gammeldags ski uansett, og de tusler langs løypene uten å avlaste en ski for å få topp glid på den annen. De minner meg om meg selv når jeg brukte altfor mye energi på fremgangen når jeg lærte å gå langrenn på tradisjonelle ski, og hadde dårlig balanse og brukte stavene for å kompensere for å være litt ustø på bein.

Saken er at man nesten aldri ser folk som lære å gå på ski i Norge når de ikke er under 10 år gamle. Det samme gjelder for de veldig, å så veldig bakkeglatte varianter, skøyteski.  Jeg kom en gang på en sjelden gruppe og det var helt typisk at det var en mulighet kun for damer. Som om den 'fairer sex' skal skjermes vekk fra andre klubbmedlemmer og kose seg uten at mannfolk glør på dem og ler av deres forsøk å skli på ski.

Nordmenn liker dårlig å dumme seg ut foran andre. De liker heller ikke å være første mann ut med forsøk eller foreslag. Raskt er de, og vi snakker lynraskt, å le høyt av andre og oversnakker dem som først sier noe i sammenheng med noe gruppe som forsøke å få diskusjon eller foreslag på løsninger, eller kommentarer. Med Sørledinger går det en liten stille stund som føler som en evighet. Hvis noen far Østland eller gudskjelov, utland bryter stillheten  då er det oversnakking med ein gang, ofte ganske nedlatende. Man lære å la en Sørlending ta ordet først og at det skal være en av de 'kanskje-er det- ville det være - kan vi se- nei, men' utgitt med en autoritet i stemme som sier ' slikt trår vi forsiktig frem på Sørlandet' selv om mange har en sterk mening eller godt forslag, en liten innkjøring må asfalteres med sosiale normaler før fremgangen kan begynne. Derfor ser man aldri samlet mannfolk som lære å gå på skøyteski.


Skøyteski for seg er helt jævla. De lover og lyver. De smigrer og skuffer. Man glir som en ballettdanser i et øyeblikk bare for å falle som en nyfødt sjiraff i det neste. Når man tror man har fått til rytme og balanse fra side til side, en knøttlite ujevnhet i løypet kaste man over skien på en side. Ellers blir det plutselig kjempe glid på den ene side og man flyr mot grøfte eller trær med et spent bein som er på magnetisk kurs mot ulykke.

Man sier mer erfaren utøvere har kommet i en avtale med stilarten. Den ene liker godt enkel dans, gjerne høyre mot venstre, og har en litt svak fra spark på den siden da. Jeg lurer på om de utvikler skjeve kroppsform og behov for bokser skjøttet fra to par i forskjellige størrelser? Den andre går som en gammeldags trekkdukke - du husker de kanskje? De man trekket et hissing ned mellom bein og så sparke de ut som fuglskrekk som hadde fått liv i seg? Den typen de bruker mest vekt side til side for å oppnå et nokså raskt fremgang og selv om det ikke er tekstbok, eller YouTube Bjørn Hjelmeset skulle jeg si i nåtiden, det er en bra nok måte som bare ser ut som man er låste i en hypnotisk vrikking side til side. Den siste er dem som mestre stilarten og kan gjør det se ut som de bruker nesten ikke energi på fremgang men heller 99% teknikk og 1% fysisk innsats.

Jeg er vel gal nok å fortsette å lære denne stilarten. Jeg har en liten YouTube se på -liste med Herr Hjelmeset og andre proffer' som deler gleden av skøyting med tips og øvelser for å unngå feil eller å forbedre enkelte punkter der det er svakheter. I år fikk jeg tvinge meg selv til å gi opp stavene for en halvtime og følge rådet lagt ut på internettet. Hey Presto, etter de få minuttene hadde jeg fått et mye bedre følelser - ja, for alt jeg var svak i. Fraspark/skiving på venstre bein. Reise man seg opp på beinet som glir så bøye kneet igjen for å skive og få propulsjon på andre skien. Legg skien så lang foran deg. Skiv sidelengs og ikke særlig baklengs. Føle når gliden gir seg og man skal skive fra den skien.  Ja det var mye små feil. Med stavene festet på plass igjen følte jeg helt konge, og fortsatt å øve uten å bruke dem i blant.

Til og med jeg tok padling opp en liten bakke som var skrå  -som høyre-dreide. Det hadde jeg ikke fått til helt før. Enten en ski på andre siden fra 'festetårn' glid ut for langt ellers fanget jeg staven på innsiden av en ski, ellers glemte jeg å puste og ble helt utslitt halvveis opp bakken. Denne gangen var jeg bestemt, og følsom gjennom føttene for hvor mye jeg skulle bøye meg selv inn mot bakken, og hvilke vinkler fungerte optimale på hver sin side. jeg pustet ut av en side av munnen slike en hval blåser og fokusert som faen ! Vips! Jeg var opp bakken uten å snuble og med bare noen få justeringer  i vektoverføringen og vinkelen mot bakken for ski og kropp. Jeg var glad for å være helt alene i lysløypene på slusjete påske snø. 

  Jeg føler ikke i middelalder heller ikke i krise. Det er bare bra å ha en utfordring som tilbringe litt glede underveis når ting funker på de veldige bakkeglatte skiene. De er faktiske bare fremglatte hvis man bare prøve litt hardere.

The Random Veg Bin Grateng

The fresh veg' shelves of the 'big 4' grocery market chains in Norway are a sorry sight. Variety is poor, and despite appearances, qaulity can also be poor. Yet they do try more exotic veg' , and it is then the consumers themselves who leave such experimental attention seekers to wilt and grow mould. We are alas, often left with broccoli and carrots as items in date and edible for a pauper's budget.

We do though have the 'immigrant shop', oft' middle eastern or thai of main theme, but often they sell much the same eclectic range of fresh fruit n veg as each other. The best value items are often fresh herbs, in gushing bunches for a fraction of the price of the mean little plastic enclosed main stores' offering, or the annoying potted growing versions which often take up room and disappoint any way.  Add to that aubergines, sometimes the mini versions which can be sweeter, and that wonder of the squash family, butter nut.

Shaped like some ancient diety in honour of fertility, the dome headed, pear bottomed squash is truly a mother of all vegetables in her generousity of edible flesh. The hard, seemingly impenetrable skin belies the lush orange contents , which puts its ostentatiouas cousin, the pumkin, to shame for her mean little lining pf bitter sweet promise. A couple of kilos of butter nut gives a full crock of soup which csn be further strethced with cream,  yet still enough for a substantial vegetable content to another dish.

Sad Mrs. Broccoli resides often in the lower veg box of the fridge, bought often out of duty and rarely consumed by kids or even trhe under 40s. There she is very often neglected as a run of italia's fast conscious holders in pasta or outright junk food pizzas are flung out of the kitchen as refuelling  before football training, ballet, kick boximg or marching practice witbh the ' music corps' . Sadly her savoury, bitter yet satisfying branches get overcooked when chopped and left too long in frantically boiling water of a hectic wednesday night, and she becomes a soggy accompaniment for neck chops of pig, a norwegian staple when the national dishes of Taco or Pizza Grandi' are not being served. Alternatively an equally sad fate awaits her when neglect and scorn leave her in the white walled prison in the depths of the fridge, where her flowers burst with false yellow promise and a rotten smell pervades these lower reaches of the modern larder.

There she was tonight, her and her sister, perhaps middle aged already but still with green and youthful portent of vitamins, minerals and perhaps a little crunch if i be not tardy with my attentions of boiling. I elected to base a dish around their dual majesties, and grateng of a grey, snowy winters day sprung to mind. The sweetness of melted cheese and cream a perfect complement to her most brasicas of brasicas vegetable taste.

Blanched. Or small boiled. I cut the stem in a cross to allow it to cook better. Up in a half inch of unsalted water, bring to boil, take off. Cold water over her hot flush for a minute before ahe gets the sauna treatmwnt. Short cut of accomoanyment- grate garlic a clove per head, and a half inch by quarter of ginger. Then dice that vibrant orange flesh of e squash. In butter or margaine with a table spoon of good olive oil, soften, that is fry gently over a mredium heat. Timian and tarragon Then add a good serving sppoon of flour and a couple of tea spoons of corn flour. Coat soak up the oil. Add a small amount of heated water and make the flour pasty, before watering out slowly, stirring all the time 250 ml. Add a stock cube, disolve. Then 250ml single cream, bring to the boil and simmer for 10 mins or when the squash bits are getting soft enough to cut with a tsable knife. I also did chicken, diced and carrot, small diced atr thw early fryi stage to make it an entire dinner.  Salt , pepprer , chilli, cayenne to taste at this point.

Cool the cooked broccoli. It should be al dente, crisp to the tooth stilln that is, place middle of an ovenproof dish, 2 inhes or so deep. Grate 200g cheese. Mix 75 g into the simmering sauce, take off the heat. Once this is melted in, pour over the broccoli. Sprinkle over the rest of the cheese. Bake for 15 mins, or if the veg is fairly soft, use a strong grill until the cheese browns a bit. Rest out of the oven five mins before serving to avoid third degree burns !

An Odd Experience Without the Nordstoga - Telemark

We took upon ourselves to extend what for many is a day tour to Bo Sommarland, a water-fun-park in the midst of Telemark. Boe as I have no oe with a strike through on this keyboard to try and be more precise. A place to live you can translate it as.

Being DNT members only every other year, it fell this year to join up and do something with our limited budget for holiday,  with long standing credit card debts and that other D of cost, decorating, getting in the way of a trip abroad or even a Hardangarvidde cabin tour again. Bo Sommarland however did a very decent package including hotel and breakfast for about 250 euros for all four of us, so that fitted in with budget, but not quite with our style. So a cabin, a hut, a basic over nighting premises was sought.

Like Scottish Youth Hostels, the Tour Society's "huts" in Norway range from shacks and even open lean to's all the way to fully fledged mountain hotels with full board if you so desire. After you join you find out also by experience that in fact the huts out in the sticks are not all that cheap to live in actually per night for a family of four, especially once you've paid for hermetic and dessicated food and drinks. Our last trip I worked out was about the same as shopping around for a hotel or 'pensjonat' with breakfast included, given you can either quite legally make a packed lunch from the 'smorgasbord' of bread slices and various goodies or just pinch one anyway.

So far with our iPad-android kids it has been hard to get them to do any serious cabin trips, They love the cabin experience but motivating them for a 17km hike in, which seems to be a rough average to the first hut in a tour of cabins, is just too difficult. Last time 10km into Kildebu ( Bu being the same meaning as Boe, kilde meaning spring or source) on Hardangarvidde. A spectacular high plateau with glacier in distance experience it was, the unusually high termperatures made for a hot afternoon and evening's tour in over the moor. We had cheated even more the previous days by staying at Hallingskeid which is a DNT hut right at the station. The only other partakers of such idleness were older ladies with bad joints and some Romanian beggars who werent allowed in to help themselves to the over priced larder. It gave them a good feel for the "Hytte" and high mountain experience, but it was only myself who actually made it up to the top of the peak, at 1500m, a cheat too, higher than Ben Nevis but only like a walk in the Pentlands to conquer from the Bergensbane station roof.

This time we cheated even morre just to give the kids a reminder tasting of the finer things of cabin life. Mosquitos and a bad night's sleep in a room with curtains which seem to be phosphorescant is par for the course. 'Kjerringa" my dear other half of the Norsk persuasion,  planned one hut on the Bo side of things, which we could really cheat with by driving up to and then only having a half hour to get to the amusement  park next day. That one was booked, for obvious reason, it is near a lot of good places to walk and visit in a car. The next one looked very near in fact on the map when  at large scale, but we were about to discover some of the ins-and-outs of Telemark and this type of easy access hut.

FIrstly we had to pick up the keys at the region's office in Skien and not out at some petrol station or the likes in the sticks. This however did not look like much of any a diversion, and in fact could be put on the way. Delivering the keys back was then an issue, because it was about 120 degrees and 60 km the wrong direction for Boe. Ok, we could post them. Ah, nope, they were down to emergency last chance key sets because it was high season for their own local members. I didnt even need to bite my lip for once and just went with the flow, the kids had said they love car tours, as indeed I did when I was wee, just give us the chance to run around every couple of hours outside and play a while, plus  some picnicing and chocolates.

Next thing was that no matter the need to deliver keys, our Hut of choice was bound in by the valley system which you find along the whole south of Norway, The valleys run with the direction of the ice from that age which ended 10,000 years ago of course,. That is North-South. Where valleys give way to higher ground, usually there are large barren areas, VIddas, like the famous one in the Hardangar area and east over. which ends incidentally in Telemark. Our Cabin was about as far up the valley as you can get before it is just lakes , stoney outcrops and bogs. Now in places like Hardangarvidde or Dovrefjell and so on, the need to get twixt main cities has driven rail and then road over the tops, akin to Rannoch Moor in dear green Caledonia.  Not for darkest Telemark. A mere 30 km as the crow flies with about an extra 100 to actually get down the valleys and up them again to reach Bo. Keys out of the picture  there was a very slight short cut which follows the Grenlandsbane up the east side of the innappropos 'North Sea: lake up towards Bo.

The cabin was seemingly a very traditional one with cream yellow walls, green beams and blood red edging like many a traditional farm house. One outhouse, the shitter and woodshed as it turned out, was at least a hundred years old, a log cabin, but it transpired from the concrete foundation and damp course that our cabin was in the cosmetic style of a trad hut but completed by Telemark Tour Society TTF in the nineties. Very nice though it was too, with a boat at hand to chill out on the little creek outside, and a morning bathe to be had there in too. The kids had drunken cola, diet variety and after 7pm. After a joyous arrival, fetching of pales of water from the brook, and chilling out with the mandatory installed board game, the kids did  not want to sleep. All the woes of the world and combinations of who would sleep where and get mummy and up bunk bed or down, side room or main 'stua' living area ensued until midnight, and us with a suppioosed 8am departure.

Now I had not mentioned that this road went mostly up from Skien and deterioated into gravel after 20 of its 70 or so km, and had a boom with when the going got really into the sticks. The hut turned out to be at around 1800 ft above sea level, and thus cool in the morning so dips in the creek were quickly forgotten, and good old Norwegain kettle cooked coffee ensued in great volumes. We went down a gear in both mentality and in the car to bring us back down from the high chaparal, and into the valley south. However fate would conspire to give us a yet longer tour back to Skien. For some unknown reason, I could blame 'kjerringa's navigation and presumption or route, we took a 90 cegree wrong turn and ended up bamboozled. The sun at one point seemed wrong to me, being on the right and not the left, but I put this town to the convoluted nature of the roads. Soon we found ourselves negotiating a one in six climb to what surely must be the way out, when we came to a dead end, and a real kind of banjo land feeling about the woodsmans houses we came across. We scurried down ,and retraced our tyre tracks, realising we had driven up a dead end, and had merely missed one crossing and one sign,

Soon it dawned on me that the sun was on the right side now that we had done a 180. We carried on with the name of one road secured as correct, and the solar compass telling me to carry on south., At some point we went over our mistaken 90 degree out junction without even noticing it, until the next junction seemed familiar and the sign to Sommarseter was confirmed as one of many we had really in actual fact seen, Refering to the map one more time at a subsequent junction, I could see we had driven a long way in the wrong direction, But we had a two day pass at the Sommarland and in any case it takes time for the air to warm up, with the mid afternoon being most comfortable for water shoots and river runs., Lost once again, we found ourselfves driving into yet another farm yard, with the prospect of shotguns casually over thighs on rocking chairs, cocked and ready though just in case. We were actually back in Christian civilisation had we cared to scan the tree line for Luksefjell church spire. The chapel could fit ooh maybe fifteen parishoners at a guess. The internet of its day for the remote valley.

The rest of the tour was just boring really with me driving as fast as I dared on gravel tracks down towards Skien and then remembering to keep my license by holding the snails pace town speed limits here. Key delivered, we turned another 180 approximately and headed off up the other side of the North Sea to Bo.

The water-park was really much more than we had expected, given we had two days to enjoy what we wanted there. The first series of flooms are built onto a handy hillside, making for a great deal of walking and indeed, eager running back up to the top., Queues were an issue on all the rides where you could either go with someone or compete against someone. and on the twisty classic floom, which slung a fatish, muscleyish middle aged man like me out of it at twice the speed and considerable more force than kiddie  winkies went on it. The scariest were the straight liners, either the big  drop man and madness test , a 20 meter near vert' drop into a trough with I guess about 50mph being achieved, and even the three lane racer was quite a scare. Corners slow you down, give you a centrifugal thrll and hide the obvious fall to death from your eyes, where as straight down is like a certain death, only like a parachute, the water arrests your descent safely, if a little violently,

Day one I had slept four hours and was not in the mood for much, think I went round the river too, but the long slide twice or three times otherwise was my lot, lacking the will to climb stairs and stand in qeues, I put my reflective sun glasses on and milf spotted away most of the afternoon. Overpriced junk food duly consumed, we started to plan day two with our own packed lunch, and getting a good pitch at the top round river section early.

The hotel was at Akkerhaig in Gvarv, with names to places like Nordagutu it all seemed rather alien to standard Norsk, but of course Telemark is a reknowned source of the wildest of dialects. Our hotel had a lakeside view and you could see the Telemark canal section heading off north towards Notodden and Rjukan. A well kept secret internationally methinks, Norske motorboaters delight in this tour whcih rather like the Caledonian canal, sews together a series of lakes and slow flowing rivers with locks to take you to the finest inside fillet of Telemark and the famous lake where the Heroes of the film, no americans sorry Kirk, bombed the heavy water wagons into the deep., It must rank as amongst the most very scenic canal journeys in the world, and should I coil up my sheets and roll my sails, a stink boater I, those waters would be plied with a putt-putt diesel cabin cruiser.

Day two at the splashy fun park started actually almost as late as day one, a good lie in had until 0830 at the hotel followed by gernerous brekkie al. fresco. Wonderful stay, apart from some rudeness over DIY waffles.  I got rather agitated with a woman making it seemed a hundred of the, patiently and persistently and lying about more mix comng in the bowl. Park reached we felt like old hands, and got on the choo choo train to see the whole park all be it at a snails pace. Being 24 degrees forecast, and being very wet in the west of the country, it seemed half of Bergen had fled the rain there and sat themselves down in a camp for climate refugees, We did not get a decent place to sit, let alone any sun loungers, and ended up on a picnic lawn out of sight of any attractions. This being the missuses decision, instead of securing a as yet shadowy, but strategic sunny spot on the main slope, I buggered off with the kids for an hour, determined to take all the medium tough runs and see If I could build up to the big drop or rubber dinghy rollercoaster. We played and played and thrived in the joy of it all, witth the wee man bounding up a one  in six as if carried by the wind,.I had to 'paddle' ski technique to keep up with him.

:Laterr we try to encamp at the circular river attraction, and after some debate and a false start by the paddling pool, found a nice spot on some rocks which was like being on a the 'Svaberg' so many noggies love to escape to along the coast and rivers. We baked and enjoyed dips to cool down, before endulging in the wave dump they sent round the river on the hour, every hour or more often, Pretty cool it was too!  Clouds gathered, kicked up from the damp north sea westerly wind and the crowds started to thin out. We took a final few circuits  on what proived to be the kids favourie, a triple funnel drum affair with twon man figure of eight bathing rings to go two up in or single donuts to enjoy being slung into a conical flaks on its side, with fate and physics deciding if you would be slung out backwards or not. Time marrched on, with a five minute wait or so each time round, and soon the clouds rolled up more, threatening thunder, and we were a bit cool and ready for a warm car.

Final retail opportunity trap sprung with momentos made in China, we took off through southern Telemark to our next desitnation on the Aust Agder coast. A jig saw puzzle for me to fit the last bits into place, we wanted to avoid the boring main road and take a short cut over some hills, THis prove to have less straights than Bennets night club in Glasgow of a saturday eve. I kept the pace on without scaring the kids and ``
from Lunde over the top and down to Drangedal, The same was true of the road south of there, the 38, which must be frustrating for any 'muist get past' ego., A white van man appeared in my rear view, only to realise that my breaking at chevrons was good common sense and backing off, We missed our magical short cut through Gjerstad somehow. Everything in retrospevctive carotgrapchical review, works in diamonds in this part of the land, with us missing the jucntion on the second of two diamond road patterns, me looking for familiarities on the first. Soon though we were at the Kragero junction to the Main E18 southbound trunk route, and the smooth road and lack of 30mph corners made up for the lsightly longer route. White van man, who was creating paranoic feelings in my other half, backed off at his chance to whizzx pass us in a three lane section, and I hit the gas pedal there after maintaining a crafty 10 percent or so above the signage, my speedometer being oh so very over optimistic,. Home came in the late gloaming for us, a tired and  super satisfied little clan, mini break fully enjoyed,

Companies That Give Up on Norway

Here in South Norway we have a major crisis in the demise of thousands of industry jobs, mainly on shore. This is not just in the oil industry, the trend for companies to outsource abroad has hastened in the last three years, despite many of those companies actually being profitable at the time, or having been profitable for decades and reaching a crisis to sort out.

In some of the companies, outside the offshore oil business, which I have worked with I see that they have actaully quite thin gross margin. This is a big signal for any high wage, high skill economy that things are not going well. Production and engineering services companies need to have high value added products. The issue is that very often they are letting their customers have high margin products by continuing to respond to calls for more competitive pricing. They often loose a focus on cooperative innovation on costs in the supply chain, and instead go back to their workshops and start cutting corners with materials, manhours per unit designs for manufacturing ease rather than long term durability and ease of repair.

There are two alternatives here of course. You firstly offer innovation and not just some flashy USP type 'difference', but something which offers more to the end user. This is often more revolution than evolution! It is then the time to find out which customers are quick adopters and willing to cooperate on new technology introduction, or if you can achieve a branded draw-throuugh in the supply chain where customers down the line are specifying the innovation or brand. You can then command a higher margin, and perhaps in your innovation design you have included process and material savings- more being less, the main goal of margin-management.

The second is to find the customers who truly value your product by putting prices up in line with margin desires, and on a wide product range, reducing to the most sold, and the already highest margin products. High volume, low margin products in a Norwegian SME is just a route to dig your own grave, because you actually incur higher costs through out the company  in the noise of making more stuff. To some this sounds like a viscious and respectless 'creaming strategy' but it is in fact for two companies at least I have advised on other matters, a survival strategy they should follow before it is too late.

Admitting defeat in production and completely outsourcing while having just an office based company in Norway is seemingly all 'knowledge economy' strategy and good stuff, but in fact for either a new innovtator or an  established company it can be a road to hidden costs and crisis in customer confidence. For both companies, the switch to overseas production is usually to low cost countries like Poland, the North of Spain, Portugal, Brasil and the Far East with China being particularly popular a few years ago. In an ideal world you should be able to send a set of drawings, part lists and specifications to a contract manufacturer and let them get on with it, turn key, but for an SME in Norway what they have to understand, even at the larger end of medium size, is that on a world basis they may be a small customer to a large supplier. The reverse can be true, that the SME choose a small CM or one with sub suppliers who are small and do not have in particular the quality assurance infrastructure.

Qaulity assurance is the over riding main issue with outsourcing. Second  to this is project coordination such that they are delivered in time. The two factors above work very much against Norwegian businesses abroad, who are not prepared to pay the cost for having an effective inspection and project management prescence on site. That costs a lot of money per head, per product. The supplier is often in a position in these countries where credit is less available and they live more from cash flow,  and in addition working capital levered short term loans in the author's experience. This means there is a pressure to finish your project and argue about it later, especially when a larger spend customer has new orders or larger orders to be finished.

In essence for the offshore and shipping industries, the demands on quality for GL-DNW of American Bureau of Shiipping certification means that all production systems and all manufaddcturing procedures are qualified by the SME. In some equipment, for each item, every single critical stage of constrcution of every individual product has to be overseen and inspected, such as welding or electronic wiring for example.

Quality is in practice a combination of a quality system, excellent design, ownership, pride in work, experience on the workshop floor. In outsourcing you risk losing absolutely all of these, especially if you have taken several rounds of price negotiations. The negative side of forcing price down with a work shop to the lowest nearest bid, is that you risk being a cheap and quick customer. They operate in the same way as any business, man hours per project per unit, and that is where you risk losing most on the quality side. You also risk being the sacrificial cow for postponements if you are marginally profitable to the supplier.

Quality is one thing that can cost companies very dearly if there are deviation at factory-acceptance-test time, or failures in operation. It is very much related to practical on the workshop floor experience with a documentation system reflecting this. When you outsource, those two elements have to entwine with the supplier and that involves an investment.

One area of Quailty in terms of ISO systematic development and initial deliveries to customers stands very much in favour of domestic production in house or in geographically 'cosey'  workshop. Even when this prototyping and and first-of-type-to-market stands at a loss in a larger serial production of the product or is a risk venture on outset, it is worth keeping production facilties local such that the degree of involvement with the practical realitty of the product is immediate and many employees can contribute with no travel costs. This type of lead engineering also can help integrate further into your customer's innovation processes and set you apart as a higher value partner rather than an also ran supplier on the three bid rounds process.

Quality is an unavoidable cost which in turn should be passed on to the customer in BOTH a higher out price and within that a higher margin than for lower qaulity assured production.

An area which is though a major source for revenue in Norway which is in danger of loosing traction due to the decimation of domestic production is life cycle servicing. There are some companies in specialist areas of safety equipment or other critical items for offshore, who make far more money from a delivery in its' lifecycle than when new, because that work is all then very high margin, up in terms of 50% on labour and travel costs and often quire astounding the matter of 80-100% for parts and other materials. Apart from being an income source from the customer, it is also a point to integrate to the customer on, and discover if they have new purchases, are interested in wider upgrades or innovative replacements. Additionally, if they have stopped buying, to then find out reasons as to why.

In terms of manufacturing experience on site this means that those who built it and designed it are very often best placed to be able to fix it or predict what will wear out on it first. Losing this knowledge base through cross board redundancies can be very costly when highly qualified service engineers with no product history are confronted with the on site complexities of ageing products.

Really quality and life cycle are the two areas which western manufacturing firms in general should be focusing  on in terms of maintiaing about average margins. Instead of letting some customers determine a falling top line while the cost line increases, SMEs in Norway would be better finding not what new product to sell, but which new form of relationship to build and which bad form of relationship, the cost driven one, to walk away from. This may mean  of course finding new customers on a global basis, but it means also better integrating to some existing customers and becoming a supplier who solves problems -at a cost - which then avoid costly mistakes down the line in terms of quality failures and poor serviceablility in the field.