Michael Henrik Wynns skrivedagbok

[Michaelhe]

Ryanair bør kjøpe Widerøe

I dag kan vi lese at konkuransetilsynet forhindrer Norwegians oppkjøp av Widerøe. Mitt forslag er at Raynair kan kjøpe selskapet i stedet. Pris for kundene blir 1 krone per tur, men 3000 kroner for sitteplass, og 5000 for do-besøk og utlevering av bagasje. Det er ingen som kan konkurrere med Ryanairs booking gebyrer, eller sammenlignes i forhold til kundeservice. Jeg kan bla nevne at mens Norwegian bare har 7 tastevalg i sin kundetelefon har Ryanair hele 25! Mediene har rett nok skrevet om enkelte som har klaget over uvennlige ansatte, og dette ønsker ledelsen å gjøre noe med. De har derfor nylig innført en ny "vennlighetsforsikring" (politeness-insurance) som bekymrede passasjerer kan bestille for et ubetydelig beløp når de kjøper billettene. I motsetning til Norwegian viser Ryanair viser dessuten interesse for fagforeninger, og har til og med sendt gratis biografier av Jimmy Hoffa til sine ansatte - som julebonus.
Forbrukerombudet har påpekt at det nederst på nettsiden til selskapet står en setning med liten skrift om at "norske myndigheter dessverre har påbud om sitteplass ved take-off og landing  (dvs totalt to seter) - noe som ikke er tilfellet i landene hvor selskapet har sine midler - og at dette kan ha betydning for bilettprisen". Men dette har en veldig enkel forklaring. Ryanair er et selskap som verdsetter passasjernes indivduelle behov, og de jobber kontinuerlig med å la hver passasjer skreddersy sine turer. Jeg bla nevne den nye helsepakken som er under utvikling, og som tar sikte på å sikre ren luft til de som trenger dette. På Ryanairs nettside kan man derfor også finne et svært sortiment av tilpasningsmuligheter, som den enkelte kan bestille ved behov også under reisen - med et tastetryk på sin telefon. Og den totale prisen av turen vil også automatisk bli trukket fra, og beløpet synlig nesten umiddelbart i passasjerenes nettbank. (Merknad: de som måtte sjekke dette, må se etter WorldRemit som er selskapet som forvalter Ryanairs bank-konti)

Endret 20. november 2023 av Michaelhe

[Michaelhe]

An old friend of mine who miscalculated 

When I left high school and university, I lost contact with many of my old friends. They got married or moved or somehow drifted off into oblivion. I was left with my mother, who is herself in many ways a lonely woman. Sometimes, therefore I had the feeling of being alone with her on a deserted island. Of course, then you start noticing eccentricities. Some years back my mother had a bad heart attack, and after that she gradually became obsessed with alternative treatments. The heart attack had somehow set great fear in her, and she would spend hours talking about the value of vitamins, and how they could save us all from the neglect of traditional medicine. This went on for years and years. Then one day, I think it was about a year and a half before the pandemic, I ran into one of my best high school friends while I was out drinking. He had not changed much. It is true that I used to drink sometimes at that time, but his intake of alcohol would then be ten times mine, and last ten days longer. That is in fact why we lost contact after high school. I just got fed up.

But when I met him again, he was smiling, and I noticed that he had a new and very nice girlfriend, who matched him quite well. His girlfriends always used to straighten him up, and that was a good sign. I then got into the habit of meeting my old friend while out drinking, and I gradually told me that he read much since last we met. He then presented me with several nineteenth century articles on infectious illnesses, and said that his “facebook-group” run by some person I had never heard of had revolutionary knowledge about science that had been suppressed.

“And what was this knowledge?” I asked.

“It is that the pharmaceutical industry are suppressing the fact that several herbs can treat people as well as their toxic drugs, and that the body is holistic?”

“Holistic?”

“Yes, in our body there are thousands of microbes and all of them serve a function, bacteria and viruses are part of a human holistic ecosystem.”

“What about penicillin?”

That was a useless invention that lead resistance.

“And ART-treatment for gay men (he did not know that I was part of the prep-program for gay men for five years)”

He avoided that issue, because he was by that time very drunk.

Later I asked him about vaccinations? No they all lead to autism.

I thought no more about this, because I knew that he previously had had a period in which the subject was number theories and their link to the fabric of the universe.

But this issue kept re-appearing every time he drank alcohol, and a year passed. Then I got fed up and started avoiding him.

Three months later the pandemic started. And I thought, what will he do now? Even my mother, who had a whole sack of vitamins in her cupboard before the vaccine arrived, awaited the arrival of the vaccine. I saw her “stash” myself, after she was vaccinated and I could visit her. Then she had spent one year in total isolation, and said with a trembling voice that “the vitamins had saved her”. She must have bought hundreds of euros worth of vitamins.  Unfortunately, even if she survived the pandemic, she got blood poising not much later, but she survived that as well, allthough in quite a reduced state. I moved to Portugal a few months after that. 

Endret 18. november 2023 av Michaelhe

[Michaelhe]

What I have been doing lately

Since I lost my small translation business, I have been looking into new ways of starting it up again, but with a different non-academic profile. But in order to do this, I must do some preparations, and so I have been probling a little online, trying to see what is possible. There are transformations on the horizon, the outcome of which is uncertain. This AI-thing...

[Michaelhe]

Jeg satt nettopp og leste nrk.no, og så så jeg at man hadde funnet sjeldne mynter i Norge av bysantiske konger fra 900-1000. Jeg tenkte jeg skulle prøve å finne ut hvordan de så ut. Oppskalerte bildene, gjorde de om til linjetegninger, og brukte den siden av ansiktene deres som íke var skadet til å rekonstruere den andre siden. 

Slik ser de ut på nrk.no sine mynt bilder.

https://www.nrk.no/innlandet/fant-over-tusen-ar-gammel-gullmynt-i-fjellet-i-valdres-1.16657858

 

Og her er mitt bilde. Jeg kunne brukt mer tid, men det var litt artig bare å prøve. Hvis noen vil bruke dem i skolen, bare ta dem. trenger ikke si hvor de er fra.  Trenger ikke nevne meg.  Edit: jeg har pyntet litt på det. Jeg kan gjør noe med hodeplagget til han som holder korset, det er standard. Jeg har klart og rekonstruere ansiktet til han nederst til høyre, men jeg har ikke ennå klart å legge det inn i bildet slik at det passer. Jeg tror han har hareskår på høyre side? Men det er noe med nesen hans, og det tror jeg er en skade i mynten, eller trolig noe som hendte under mintingen. For så nøyaktig blir det ikke i mynter. 

 

 

Endret 30. november 2023 av Michaelhe

[Michaelhe]

A burden to society
As a man on disability pension I often hear that we are usless bums who leach on society. But when I think back on what I have done in my years on disbility, how I spent almost all my time, I realise that I have in fact done many good things that have been of benefit to many. I built a literary search engine that aggregated educational material for my old school subjects history and literature and sorted them on timelines and maps. I also created an animated of King Harold the Fair-Haired's conquest of Norway as described by Snorre (I lost this unfortunately, but it was online for many years at a time when there was very little of this in Norway) . I then became a movie blogger focusing on old and very neglected Norwegian movies from the black and white era. I also wrote articles on some of these and published them (unpaid) in a decent movie review. And since 2017 I built up a net radio stream broadcasting aggregated educational material about the very same school subjects that I was unable to teach when I got my pension. So I have in fact been a teacher all these years, just not in the public school system - online. And unlike the work that some teachers do in the classroom, it was all voluntary and motivated by interest. For me it has been a journey of exploration.

Endret 1. januar 2024 av Michaelhe

[Michaelhe]

Here I am reading the Emilio Salgari story I translated. An adventure set in the Amazon. I improved the translation a little in the process.

 

Endret 7. januar 2024 av Michaelhe

[Michaelhe]

The emergence of the crime fiction genre is linked to the growth of the modern legal system. In Germany, there were the true crime stories of August Gottlieb Meißner (1753-1807), in France Vidocq ( 1775-1857) and in Britain the Newgate Diaries. China has one of the oldest bureaucracies on earth. In this video, I make an interpretation of a classic story about the legendary Judge Bao, a real life character from the early middle ages who was transformed by fiction into a Chinese Sherlock Holmes. This interpretation uses the Feng Menglong (1574-1646) version of the story as a foundation, and includes all the elements of that legend. But it is not a direct translation.

 

 

Endret 2. februar 2024 av Michaelhe

[Michaelhe]

Zhou Daguan (1266-1346) was a Chinese diplomat who visited The Khmer kingdom in 1296-1297. On his return, he published a book entitled "The Customs of Cambodia", which is today the best source for information about what Angkor Wat might have been in its hay day. This short audio documentary is built on quotations from his book. It  was made by me, Michael Henrik Wynn, editor of Historyradio.org.

[Michaelhe]

My tribute to an old master

When I discovered the short stories of Ambrose Bierce I was stunned by his absolutely unique style. He has since then been one of my favorites, and I must say that I have never seen anyone who blends the macabre with a sense of humor better than he does. So I wrote this:

 

Whatever happened to Ambrose Bierce?
by Michael Henrik Wynn

'Whatever happened to Ambrose Bierce?
There may have been moonlight, or the sun may have scorched,
he may have mounted a horse, or not,
but in 1914 an ill old man moved across an unseen border.

What was on the other side?
There may have been wolves or marching soldiers,
there may have been gunshots or screams,
or roars of canons from his past, or perhaps not.

Where did he go?
He may gone east to a mountain range, he may have gone west,
or he may settled with steaming coffee or coughed,
perhaps by a flickering fire, or perhaps not.

Was he alone?
He may have seen his solitude in a starry sky,
or walked a drunken alley with a burlesque,
he may have been stalked by faithful canines, or maybe not.

What was on his mind?
He may have been driven by ambition or rage,
bitten by the gold bug, or been invited by a friend,
or purchased discount tickets, or maybe not.

One thing is very certain, however:
Ambrose Bierce is dead.

https://historyradio.org/2017/12/18/whatever-happened-to-ambrose-bierce/

Endret 9. februar 2024 av Michaelhe

[Michaelhe]

Shakespeare became a "super genius" in the early 1760s. 

Before that he faced stiff competition. Then something happened, and he left all his rivals in the dust.

 

 

[Michaelhe]

Here I am reading a Capek story

 

[Michaelhe]

I came across this very strange story in the public domain works of Knud Rasmussen, the Danish explorer. It is the strangest legend I have ever heard!! So I made a video using music, some minor animations and an AI voice.

 

[Michaelhe]

My bad neighborhood

I am really a terrifically handsome guy. When I see my neighbor naked in his shower through this hole in the wall, I immediately notice that he eats too much fat. People who eat too much fat can thank themselves for not getting a date. Furthermore, I also see that he does not wash his sink very often in the bathroom. This is in my view inexcusable, and when consider the fact that he also masturbates in there, you will understand why I have never spoken to him. People who do not clean themselves properly after sex or masturbation are not fit for society. Another strange thing about my neighbor, is that sometimes he gets very large bills for many things I do not understand. Once - it must have been at least five years ago - I was going through his rubbish, only to find a bill for some yachting club! But we live inland, and I can promise you that if my neighbor had visited the sea, which is almost a day by train away from where we live, I would have known about it. So when I noticed that my neighbor somehow managed to get a girlfriend, I stopped her in the street and got her talking. As the conversation got more casual, she was surprisingly outspoken and straightforward, I decided to inform her about some of my neighbors eccentricities. And what has happened, a week later they have moved! And no forwarding address!! And suddenly I am left looking at an old hag with a walker and a remote!

Endret 3. mars 2024 av Michaelhe

[Michaelhe]

I have now left Portugal and settled in Denmark. I was tired after looking for an apartment in Portugal. It was almost impossible to find something. So when I left the country and accepted the first offer I got, from a housing complexed which bragged about offering low cost housing in the city center, it was well knowing that I was being lured, in a way. On arrival, one the very first days, and man came up to me and told me that I must join a tenant’s union? It was very important. Why? I said. If not, I would have no protection, and the system depends on it. And in any event I could not understand, why, in a country with low crime rates, there would be much need for it. But I did as told. It soon became apparent why it was needed, and I was astonished by his ability to predict the future.

[Michaelhe]

Tom Clancy did not invent the technothriller

Tom Clancy wrote stories in which he described the workings of government, the cogs of state, and from that he spun spy stories. The earliest example I have so far come across of this style is a man completely ignored. His name was Clarence Herbert New, and he wrote books such as "Free Lances in Diplomacy", which is almost identical to Tom Clancy in style. But he was a little stiff, and that is why I think he never became recognized. But when you read the old magazines, there are no other contemporary writers that specalize in or even use this genre. He is alone.

Endret 6. mars 2024 av Michaelhe

[Michaelhe]

What you see is what you get...

In my life, my reason for supporting the labor party has been the progressive tax system, and the fact that they were willing to stand up for certain values. (My mother also supported the labor party, and her mother, and even her mother, my great grandmother.) For instance, after the terror attacks in Norway, the mantra provided by the PM at the time was «more transparent government and more democracy». That was his answer to an attack.
Donald Trump’s appeal is seemingly the opposite of what we need now, he openly attacks a system, tears it down. But I think his appeal can be understood in this way. The average voter, sitting at home, feel invaded by things they do not like, and they are tired of being lied to, either by politicians who invade their livingrooms through various screens or by anyone else who says that they are something they are not. So, the voters are squeezed by those who openly gerrymander and those who sweep it under the carpet. In both cases....
 

[Michaelhe]

A new audiobook for my radio station:

 

[Michaelhe]

"The Man Who Wanted to Fool Death, a legend from Cameroon", by C.J. Bender (1869 - 1935)

This hilarious legend comes from the book African Jungle Tales, by Carl Bender (1869 - 1935).
The music at the start and at the end of the show comes from a creative commons recording of traditional Cameroonian music found at youtube.
Historyradio.org, a literary net radio stream, is available online at the website, or via phone apps 24/7.

 

[Michaelhe]

This is one of the best stories I have written so far (notice). There is simply too much going on, but I have 23 other stories in the works. I used to be a movie blogger some years ago, and I also attended a short course on film history. This story is about a private space in the mind of all humans, which somehow becomes more distinct in those who move in a public spotlight. I have a little problem with the story, and it is that I worry about its originality. If you see something similar, please send me some feedback here or elsewhere. Historyradio.org, a literary net radio stream, is available online at the website, or via phone apps 24/7.

 

 

Endret 18. mars 2024 av Michaelhe

[Michaelhe]

Eroll Flynn vs Harrison Ford

There has not been an actor after 1950 who has done as much for the traditional adventure movie as Harrison Ford (Belmondo is the only possible exception). Ford has been the Errol Flynn of his age. But if you look at the way they act, they are opposites. Flynn is boisterous and jolly, while the interesting thing about Ford is his reluctance, the way he holds things back.

"I do not really want to chase these stormtroopers down the corridor, but  dammit they are forcing me." "This man is waiving his sword, and now I am simply forced to shoot him" etc.

This "quiet base" also means that he could blend into toned down thrillers, like Frantic, Witness and Blade Runner, and be marvelous. We will never know what Flynn could have achieved had he been normal. He was an alcoholic, who basically spent most of his life in a bar. In fact, they say he drank himself to death. 

Endret 22. mars 2024 av Michaelhe