A Long Way to Carlisle, part 12: Charged for an answered question

Book store charges for each question that a seller answers. About £3 for a selling contact (and this was in 1998). That is something!

Some peculiar news item I found. A sort of situation that for me as a journalist is a bit fun. That is so obvious that they shoot them selves in their feet when they acting like that.

The company Boktjänst Direkt is not very present on the Internet nowadays, about 16 years after the article, but at that time, in the article, they defended their action with they being flooded by questions, and the customer buying the book wouldn't need to pay that cost.

Okay... some sort of selling technique: I've already paid £3, so if the book costs actually £6, I only need to pay £3 more. Or you can call it blackmail: buy the book, otherwise you pay an asking price. For my own part, I would go to a book store that didn't charged me for asking questions. I could be really tight-fisted in such a case.

A Long Way to Carlisle, part 11: Boxman

October, 20th, a new article was published. This time it was the cd business that I took a look on. It was back then, when people were buying CDs in stores, before file sharing, that mostly killed the music records off.

After my article was published, I received quite a lot of letters from readers telling me, that the delivery time, Boxman did state wasn't correct. I had to write about that too.

Boxman was a Swedish net store between 1997 and 2000, that was selling CDs and DVDs. Wikipedia tells Boxman had logistical problems as well as profitability problems, and the business entered administration in October 2000.

A Long Way to Carlisle, part 10: Book Stores

But at late summer of 1998, I had
a bite for further career as a freelance journalist. It was the consumer desk at the big daily news paper in Sweden, Dagens Nyheter, that took the bait.

My thing here aimed to compare Internet stores - a role I also had at Hästmagazinet (a Swedish equestrian magazine) later on.

In the first article, published September 18th 1998, I compared book stores on the Internet. I also had been commissoned to write about the SET-technique, that was guarantee safe payments on the Internet.

Emphasizing dialects in Northern England?

Right now, I am reading the book Cultures Collide: Managing Successfully Across Cultures by Richard Lewis (1996). In that book I read that Scots and Englishmen from Northern England, emphasize their dialects to be seen as more genuine, more sincere and warmly human. Do you agree with this?

As the link can tell you, there are new editions to this book, but I have only access to the one from 1996. As my copy is somewhat old, I wonder, if you find the use of dialects in the area different today?

:-)

From a quilt in the grass

Sometimes, it is just wonderful, a nice summerday like this. Being in the garden. Do the job outside instead of inside. I mean, I can be inside any other time, when the weather isn't that well. Here are some pictures from my garden.

Have a really nice night tonight everyone! :-)

The new linen cupboard. Phew!

This is our new linen cupboard.

Usually, linen cupboards are quite low under the cupboards. This one... I don't think there will be any problems keeping it clean under it. Most air there. In return, it was quite high, about 130 centimetres. Still quite good space to keep your stuff inside. Good good... it relieves other cupboards in the house, which was the thought.

Candles upon the cupboard looked nice, better than on the dining table in the living room.

The big disadvantage of this cupboard was its weight. It was much heavier than a normal linen cupboard. So it was a bit tricky to get on place. But we did it. :-)

Raped and Linen cupboard

I've been to jumble sale today. I bought a book I found interesting enough to read; a self biographical book about a woman being raped, but not being victimized anyway. Well, well... I will probably return to that book to give you a review, when I've finished reading it.

I also bought some strange linen cupboard. No key however, so we have to fix that. But we do love strange-looking things... why have stuff all other persons have do? Since we did need a new cupboard for some special keeping... so why not? Put a picture up here tomorrow when it has found its place in our house.

A Long Way to Carlisle, part 9: Philosopher's Stone

While waiting for a new affiliate - no, I wasn't a very good seller, I worked as a telemarketing seller, I got a new kid (my fourth one) and was on parental leave, read a lot and wrote on a book - a book that disappeared in a hard drive crash. It was named The Philosopher's Stone, so you could probably imagine what I thought of Harry Potter when I saw that book for the first time. But at the same time, it showed that both me and Rowling lived in the same sort of context. Something inspired her, and something inspired me in about the same era.

I also wrote a reproval letter to the editor of the magazine Natur & Vetenskap, what the shortening IT really was short of. I said informationsteknik, and not the informationsteknologi, as the magazine used in an earlier issue, and as I said was a failed translation of English Information Technology. The magazine said I was right. :-)

A Long Way to Carlisle, part 8: Where to date in Gothenburg

After Titanic and teenager-article, it did pass two weeks until I was ready with a new article. Do you have a date? The idea was to present different propositions of what to do for a date in Gothenburg.

Haha! Have to be one of the most odd articles I have ever written, however, but the idea was creative. :-)

After this, the cooperation with Göteborgs-Posten was over of some reason I don't even remember. Well well, life goes on...

We like the same

Found 4 sorts of energy drinks for causal sale at Lidl. Tested all four of them, but did only like the one on the picture. The other three did not taste very well, according to me. Obviously, I wasn't alone. When I came back today to buy a new can, there were only 2 cans left. Causal sale... what the heck, I buy the both. But there were plenty of the other three sorts. Hmm...

I might be ordinary in my drinking preferences, or quite odd... depending how you see it. Earlier today, I was to a store to buy water, just ordinary non-carbonated water. I found 1 bottle in the whole store, but there were plenty with carbonated water. Well, okay, I just needed one, but gets me to think.

Dead fish disappeared - sorry puss!

My old worn diary from the 80's

Since I am putting all the memories I can find into commemorative hard covers, I came to think of, for a week or so, that I wrote diary as a teenager, 2 diaries are there somewhere. Today I found one of them.

I have read a bit in it. And I realize that I, by the age of 14-15, already was much of who I am today. I didn't write much about feelings. Instead, I documented all sorts of facts. And a bit about what I did during the days.

The most spectacular story so far has to be the one about the dead fish. It rings a small bell, a really small bell.

I had found a dead *small* fish at the beach. So I brought home to give it to our cat Tiger. When I was about to wash the fish, I accidently dropped it and it disappeared somewhere down the sewer. The cat didn't get any sweets as I promised it. WTF... hahaha!

Will see if I found anything else exciting from my adolescence. :-)

First spread: a lot of stickers from the Swedish youth magazine OKEJ

A Long way to Carlisle, part 7: Titanic and teenagers

Week after my first publishing, it was time for more things from me in the paper. Also this time, it was two writings. One of them was a news item about the ship Titanic connected to the premiere of the film Titanic.The other thing was an article about the etymology of the word teenager and several other words for that part of life. 

I found such stuff as history of words quite enjoying. And I still do. One period I had a site about those things: När kom ordet? That was fun! :-)

File or bin bag - not a very difficult choice

At last... this morning I decided to sort all the school things my youngest children brought home from school in June - when summer holiday starts in Sweden. All the relevant things are put into commemorative hard covers. But it got me thinking.

One child's stuff came home in a file, that the child made and had drawn on.
The other child's things came in a big bin bag.

Hmm... I imagine that if a child has to put his or her things into a big bin bag, you (school) tell the child that everything he or she did during the year, everything he or she worked on, everything he or she learnt, is to be seen as litter.

I, as a parent, thought it was more pleasant, going through the file than the bin bag, but that was also due to another factor. A file preserves stuff better than a bin bag does. In a bin bag, stuff just get really crumpled.

Oculus

I have seen the film Oculus. American horror that I found interesting because of jumps in time, relations and Karen Gillan, who I know as Amy Pond in Doctor Who.

To begin with. In Doctor Who, there are also jumps in time between Karen Gillan, as is playing Amy Pond as an adult, and a child actress, who plays Amy Pond as a child. Hmm... seen that before.

Moreover, I'll say, that the film obviously is American. Everything supernatural is made as malicious as possible. I've seen the Swedish tv-programme De Okända (=the unknown), and in that show, they seem to have the attitude that you should help the spirits, because they have gone adrift or something after they died. In a similar show from the US, I met another attitude. Is it unknown, supernatural, then it is absolutely dangerous and is just aiming for scaring the hell out of you and in the end, kill you. I found it really fun with culture differences, so I look for pattern where I can.

Another actor I know from earlier stuff I watched is Miguel Sandoval. He played District Attorney Manuel Devalos in Medium.

The film is about siblings Kaylie and Tim. Their family went from being a quite ordinary family, if there is one, to parents developed into psychotic, murderous madmen. The mother is shot by the father, and the father is shot by 10-year-old Tim - a crime Tim had to spend 11 years on a psychiatric institution. Kaylie goes to a foster home. 21 and 23 years old they are reunited. Problem is an antique mirror. One who look into that will be showed whatever mirror wants him or her to see. That is now going to be destroyed.

Oculus is worth seeing, but not a wow-movie.

Acceptance for Autumn, part 1

As it seems now, I was accepted for 5 university courses for this autumn. Totally 90 university credit points. However, I am only going to study 60 of them this autumn, the rest next spring.

As it seems now, cause there will be another letter of acceptance. Things can change when acceptances of reserves start. But the credit points I will study is most certainly the same.

But this university courses:
* Psychology III, 30 credit points - University of Kristianstad
* Comaparative Literature, Bachelor course, 30 hp - University of Linnae.
* Understanding Food Habits: A Sociological Perspective, 7,5 hp - University of Umeå.
* Literature and Existential questions, 15 hp - University of Linnae.
* Documentary film, 7,5 hp - University of Linnae

Lost by the Jetty

For a couple weeks ago, me and Gorm went to Vänersborg to have a picnic on a jetty. We went as far out as we could - all the way on some sort of big stones; stones we were balancing on to get forward. Could tell that shoulders get a bit exercised when you balancing on stones. At least it is what I feel the most of afterwards. :-)

The picture above is taken from where we sat and ate. Far away from proper land.Right in the water, to the left of the jetty, we witnessed a detective story in the bird world. Suddently, a bird came swimming, big like a wild duck or something, but with a longer neck - don't really know what sort of bird it was, but we have discussed if it could have been a great crested grebe. It swam more deep than a wild duck do, and it moved a bit jagged. Then it dived. And never came up again. We sat, for sure, about five minutes just looking for ut. It didn't come up where it went down, and it never came up within reasonable distance from where it dived. Hmm...

In the literary studies, I learnt during this past spring, that Swedish detective stories are well known outside of Sweden, and I saw several of them when I was in Carlisle last year, as well as in Denmark this year. A small Swedish detective story from the animal world, yes, but with a crappy ending. ;-)

A guy came walking on the jetty right opposite the one we were on. He sat down and took his shoes of, after that his shirt, and then his shorts and underwear. And then, he walked down into the water. And at that moment, a motor boat came and rounded the jetty, and from that, two big waves came and watered our food and us. Hmm... it was probably worse for the naked guy in the water.

So, back on proper land. All the way out, we had our picnic. 

A Long Way to Carlisle, part 6: Remember a bit more

My first article (articles) in official media, was published in Göteborgs-Posten (big newspaper of Gothenburg) January 10th in 1998. Actually, it was two articles. One of them about techniques to remember stuff, so called mnemonics (well, it is not misspelled). That article was however, written for Opus, the school paper. But as there was a schism between school and me, telling me it was forbidden for me to have some time off to visit a Christening in the family. I dropped this education after half.

So, no Opus for me. But Göteborgs.Posten took an interest in my article. I also did get an extra order from them, a smaller article as a complement to the bigger one. And I was happy. All of a sudden, I was paid to write.

A Long Way to Carlisle, part 5: Abortion and illitteracy

ScreenPlace and screenwriting was a period of my life. Instructive and worthwile also, as I think I get more out of life when I know what work that is behind it.

Journalism stayed. In the school paper, Opus, I had two articles: one about abortion and one about illiteracy. The latter one I wrote with a fellow student. I was to visit a lesson in Swedish as a second language for that article, and from that I gained an insight worthwile..

I wrote the article about abortion because I don't like abortion. I am no opponent of abortion as I can see it being needed in some cases. But for my own part it is a no-no. Six children I have, and no abortion I have done. Even if I didn't wish for that to happen all the times, I am very glad that I have all of my kids today.

In this question, I have been challenged since I was 13 - some years before my oldest child was born, however. But at that time I was determined, I was not having any abortion ever, no matter what situation I was up against.

And a picture of me from the backside of the magazine, where the editorial staff was fronted.

Mini fasting can get you a longer life (and less weight)

Bild på artikeln "Nya rön lovar längre liv" av Eva Olsson.

Realized  a couple of days ago that enough is enough when talk about weight. I started with a diet constructed in person: not eating a thing after 3.30 pm - until breakfast the day after. Mini fasting, I learnt this morning from an article.  And this mini fasting could even get you a longer life.

I read that "today, people is terrified being hungry, and throw themselves over food as soon as the stomach is rumbling. But we can actually be without food for 30 days".

Sounds pretty logic. A car should hardly go twentyfour hours a day, seven days a week. That car will probably end up being a jalopy sooner than a car able to rest a couple of hours a day. A stomach is also some sort of machinery. And it shouldn't either go twentyfour hours a day, seven days a week. Fascinating understanding, and it supported my original thought


Source:
Olsson, Eva. Nya rön lovar längre liv. Hälsa 3/2013 (Swedish magazine)

Work harder, and you'll not be punished... by God

Kville... the place where the priest told its people from the pulpit that the devastating fire of Fjällbacka in 1928, was because the people of Fjällbacka didn't work hard enough. This is the church.

I don't really know what this is for a formation of crosses, but I found it among the graves. Interesting.

And this grave was a cute one. There are some ironed plastic beads, and they seemed like they had been there for awhile (looked a bit old). The last person in this grave died in 1945. Cool!

A Long Way to Carlisle, part 4: Crashed London plans

Books about Screenwriting

Toward the end of Upper secondary school, I planned to move to London and work as a journalist. Crash! Boom! Bang! for those plans. Before the exam, I met my husband to be, got pregnant, and didn't go anywhere, more than Stenungsund and Gothenburg, some 50-70 kilometres from home, and then back to Trollhättan again. At that time I was 25 years and had 4 kids.

Two years earlier, still in Gothenburg, in 1997, I got interested in screenwriting, at the same time I was going to an education in communication and media. From that I created the net site ScreenPlace - about screenwriting - and from that, I kicked off my career as a freelance journalist.

Murders and Ingrid Bergman in Fjällbacka

Fjällbackamorden... Camilla Läckberg's books became films. But I didn't see any murders at all. Lucky me! But there were plenty of Norwegian people. In fact, I heard more Norwegian than Swedish. The first picture, I took from the church. Remember that picture. 

This is the church in Fjällbacka. As I said, remember!

Beautiful flowers by the sea.

Grave spotting could be quite fun, but I look for differences in cultures. This type of "stone coffins" was a quite ordinary type of grave in Fjällbacka.  

Shells is like an obvious decoration on a grave by the sea.

Maybe it doesn't appear that well on the picture... however, I haven't seen quite a grave stone like this before; like an adapted stone coming out of a natural stone. Maybe there is a symbolism in that. Fjällbacka is located around a big rock, and the persons that lie under that stone are to be seen as beauty come out of that rock (from Fjällbacka that is). Who knows? I am probably a good fantasizer.

An custom in Fjällbacka seems to be to place potted plants on the graves. Where I come from, Trollhättan, you use to plant flowers or put a bouquet of flowers in a sort of grave vase. I didn't find much of that in Fjällbacka. Aah, a good idea to bring home - put a potted plant on each grave, until... I realized... someone has to water those plants, and I am not the one visiting the church yard every day or every second day.

Me and Gorm placed ourselves on the landing stage to eat some food. This was our view.

From our place, I took a picture of the church once again. Remember - once again!

Ingrid Bergman? What has she and Fjällbacka in common? From the ethnology I have studied at the university, just on memorial monuments to someone, is it more of a custom to try to cover what has something to do with the town itself, or maybe something neutral. A monument to Ingrid Bergman is not especially neutral, so she has to have something to do with Fjällbacka.

Swedish Nationalencyklopedin told she was born in Stockholm and a bit about her film career. Hmm... But Wikipedia said that Ingrid Bergman (1915-1982) often visited Fjällbacka and she lived on Dannholmen, an island in outer skerries of Fjällbacka, for several summers from 1958 and forward. Her ash, after her death, was spread in the sea around the island of Dannholmen. In the square by the sea, a monument to Ingrid Bergman has been erected (see the next picture) to her memory, and the square has been named Ingrid Bergmans torg (square of Ingrid Bergman). As time goes by.

Remember the rock!

But Fjällbacka has more cultures. Some of the scenes of the film Ronja Robbers Daughter (Ronja Rövardotter) is shot in Fjällbacka. Swedish detective writer Camilla Läckberg (Camilla Lackberg), grew up here, and her Fjällbackamorden is set here.

Next picture, I took at Bohusläns museum in Uddevalla, a couple of days later. Now, it is easier to recognize the place in the photo, if you've been there. But look at the church tower to the left in the picture, the square of Ingrid Bergman with the rock in the background.

This picture was taken after a fire in 1928 when half of Fjällbacka was destroyed. The inhabitants were in shock and were seeking comfort from the church. In nearby Kville (as I will talk about in the next text), the priest told in the pulpit that the devastation was a punishment from God, because people of Fjällbacka weren't working sufficiently enough.

A Long Way to Carlisle, part 3: Reward, not punish

On this photo, I went to 8th grade.

I have grown up since the tv-thing, I've got my own kids, I've studied psychology, among several other subjects at the university, trained horses, and worked as a teacher myself.

I know that now, that if a child / a pupil / a horse do not do what you tell him or her to do, or what you want him or her to do, but suddenly do something right, a very little doing in the right direction, you should reward the child. From that, the individual will know in what direction, you wish him or her to go.

If you, instead, tell him or her: Okay, it's like this, you haven't done your homework, so do not show up now...  you have probably lost your pupil's interest in you quite a bit, you have made it harder for yourself. To get back on track, you need a new pedagogic method.

My teacher did't succeed getting me back on track. Not that she tried - really. According to my teacher in 7th, 8th and 9th grade, she really tried doing as much harm as she could up til end of her time as my teacher, by telling my new teacher a lot of bullshit about her pupils at the handing over-talk.

World heritage of rock carvings

Rock carvings i Tanum is a world heritage. This is from the Bronze Age, and it seems like there is a whole forest of rock carvings. Read on the Internet that there are thousands of pictures on rocks. I will present some of them. But first, at totally different thing.

When we turned our car into the car park, a whole row of sports cars followed us. We had seen them on our way there, here and where on the roads. Yes, our Saab 9-5 combi from 2000 something, probably felt a bit odd and different from all the eager sports cars from the 80's or something. But Saab is my thing.

Well, sports cars... all were driven by male drivers in age 50 or more, and they did not have sense enough driving their precious old cars in a nice way. The road that passes Vitlycke rock carvings was equipped with a speed hump. And if you have a quite low car, you drive slowly and if you have possibility, you drive up a bit at the side. And these drivers had that possibility. Still, we saw and heard several drivers who scratched their chassis against the ground. :-o

By the way in to the car park, this big stone is located. Don't know what it is symbolizing, but I had it on picture anyway. 

When it comes to the rock carvings, we found some - of course; some more interesting than others. This one for example. We've been into horse business, both riding and harness racing. This rock carving is kind of both - or nothing, something in between. It is not even a horse, but the man is located up on the back of the animal, even if it is more on its rump. But there is still a wheel. Strange picture, but somehow, I feel connected.

And this man. I had him sent out on the Facebook, because I thought it was so odd compared to our culture nowadays. Flasher? Or a raper? Is he running from you or toward you? His penis is erected and he has his hands, with four and three fingers respectively, up in the air, like he is scaring or has being scared, which also is connected to if he is running from you or toward you.   

And than we have this one. Is the man having sex with an animal or what is really going in here?

The bridal couple to the right is one of the most famous rock carvings in Bohuslän. I took the picture, believing it was some sort of sport activity. But when I read about it afterwards, I realized that others interpreted it as a bridal couple. Well, who knows?

I end this text with a picture of my husband Gorm in front of Vitlyckehällen, as includes all of the pictures above.