The kicksled!

The other day, me and my girlfriend visited some friends of ours who had just come back from a little holiday in Norway (they even brought us some nice goat's cheese and bamsemums.) They are planning on moving to Norway not too far into the future, and while visiting, I had a brief look in a book they had lying around - Living in Norway: A Practical Guide. This seemed like an excellent reference for anyone planning on going to Norway, almost like the Huey, Dewey and Louie's Junior Woodchucks' Manual - it seemed to have an entry for anything you'd want to know, from car registration to dress codes to marriage rules.

One of the entry's I noticed was about the kicksled (spark or sparkstøtting in Norwegian). The kicksled is basically a sled made of a light wooden frame with metal runners (see picture). You ride it standing on the metal runners, holding the handle bars on top of the wooden frame or chair, pushing/kicking with one leg to move forward. On the right surface, you can easily get to speeds of 15-20 km without too much effort. And you can even place your kid, friend or groceries on top of the "chair".

Although it's not very common in larger cities (mostly due to the fact that the surface rarely is suitable), it is very common in more rural areas. Where I come from, almost every family has got one of these sleds. Everybody uses them, from old grandmas to little kids. It's very handy for grandma to go around with in the winter (she can place her shopping bag on the front and support herself on it so she won't fall on slippery winter surfaces), and loads of fun for kids to race downhill in the streets with. And it gets you around a lot faster than walking with not much more effort.

The history of the kicksled is a bit blurry, but it's got a recorded history of some 140 years - it was first mentioned in a Swedish newspaper around 1870. At that time the runners were wooden. The first metal runners, which made the sled a lot more flexible, came in the 1900s. From the 1890s on, the sled has been used for races, which it is very suitable for. In the 1990s kicksled racing was revived in Finland, with races up to 100 km and racers averaging 30 km/h.

A die-hard myth - the paper clip..

Since I recently did a blogpost recently on the cheese slicer, I wanted to write something about another wonderful Norwegian invention, namely the paper clip. According to our childhood learning, this is one of many Norwegian inventions that we can be proud of. But, alas, as I did some quick research, I soon discovered - to my great shock - that the paper clip is not a Norwegian invention, at least not in the sense we long have claimed.

According to the myth, the paper clip was invented by Johan Vaaler at the end of the 19th century, was patented in 1899, and soon spread to the rest of the world. This has been a very strongly held belief in Norway, and as late as 2005 the Norwegian lexicon Norsk biografisk leksikon (Norwegian biographical lexicon) presented Johan Vaaler as the inventor of the paper clip. And in 1989 the business school BI in Sandvika, Oslo erected a monument of the paper clip in honour of mr Vaaler. In fact the myth has not only been believed in Norway, but has held some ground all over the world, most strongly it seems, in the USA.

Actually, the first patented paper clip, was by an American by the name of Samuel B. Fay in 1867. The next one, which is very similar to the most common current one (as seen in the top picture), was by Erlman J. Wright in 1877.

The one invented by Johan Vaaler was significantly less practical than the one we use today, as can be seen in the illustration on the right. It did not have the extra bend that makes the paper clip so easy to use. Because of the lack of that extra bend on the wire, it was harder to actually put on the pieces of paper to be held together and at the same time did not hold them together as strongly as Wright's design. Still, he got his invention patented. For obvious reasons, it never became any commercial success - or any other kind for that matter.

For more on the paper clip and the Norwegian paper clip myth, check out the Norwegian or the English version of Wikipedia.

The wonderful cheese slicer..

I don't think there is a single Norwegian kitchen where you cannot find a cheese slicer. It's such an integral part of our Norwegian food-culture, that we sometimes cannot understand how people can live without one, let alone live without missing one.

Whenever I have lived outside of Norway, I have had great trouble finding a cheese slicer, which at first came as a great surprise. How is it possible that this great piece of kitchen equipment is so hard to find? It is possible, but you have to search really hard and long. I remember that I did manage to locate one in Germany once. I haven't been able yet to find one in Liverpool, but I have great hope that I might find it at IKEA. The Swedes are also aware of the existence of the wonderful cheese slicer.

The cheese slicer is in fact a Norwegian invention, and of quite recent date. It was invented in 1925 by a carpenter by the name of Thor Bjørklund from Lillehammer. Since then it has become a much-used utensil in every Norwegian kitchen, but surprisingly not achieved much recognition abroad. With all due modesty - it is a great invention.

The virtues of the cheese slicer are many, but the most important ones are that it cuts the slices to perfect thickness, and it's ability to bring out the flavour and aroma of the cheese. You can of course get cheese pre-cut into slices from the shop, but that does not compare at all to the taste and flavour you get when it is freshly sliced. The cheese slicer works best with a slightly hard cheese, like a good and nice gouda. Obviously it doesn't work at all with soft cheeses like camembert or brie.

Zoon politicon and new revolutionary inventions

This blog of mine seems to have turned out to become a lot more politically oriented than I envisioned when I first created it. That is fine, though. Maybe I am more of a zoon politicon, or political human being, than I thought.

This time, though, I am going to write about something completely non-political. Today, I read about a "new" "invention" in one Norwegian newspaper, Dagsavisen. This new thing is a toilet whose users will not even have to wipe themselves. Instead you will be getting an automatic wash down there when you`re done. I really didn`t think that this was such a new invention, but maybe it is. And maybe it`s good for the trees as well - we don`t have to cut down as many to wipe our asses. Nevertheless, supposedly it is much better and much more sanitary than what we have now.

This article really reminded me of a banner I saw in Indonesia when I was studying there in 2000. This banner was a commercial for a brand new invention down there, and this invention was even, obviously, seen to be even more revolutionary than the recent one here. It was nothing less than the "toilet for the new millenium", and I even think there was a couple of exclamation marks after that. Still, I had to laugh a little at the time, because this toilet for the new millenium was just a regular WC. A white ceramic toilet which flushes when you push the button on top.

I guess things can always be put in some kind of perspective..