Fytti the cat, the damn cabin – VG

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EGON HOLSTAD, commentator in the VG cooperation newspaper in Tromsø

A little paraphrase of Sølve Grotmol, there. But it will be about the cabin. Or Hytten, as they say in those parts of the country where women do not exist in the language.

When a lady from the people of Bergen, even from the highest power circles in the country, talks about the hut, therefore, it is automatically transcribed to the hut, and when you scoff at this, you obviously throw a big H, like you spelled it before, when we were still subject to Denmark and hardly dared to speak dialect in public, if the percentage was less than 3. When the prime minister’s party was called Høire, where terms like “most of the people” were spat on disdainfully in the same tone, as it was a violent venereal disease, equality, revolution or May 1.

Every Easter there is a lot of talk in the media. Radio and television shows cover it extensively, weekly magazines and the daily press write pages up and down about it, celebrities are interviewed about what life is like in the booth, and there is usually a lot of booth on the monitor. After the pandemic hit and made our lives miserable, the cabin took up even more room in the room. Not least when the denial of the cabin came on the scene and the morality of the Norwegian cabin owners exploded in public.

The press conferences at the beginning of Easter, and much less “Easter”, have been marked by many questions about the cabin, whether it is allowed to go or not. Many Norwegian journalists are well represented in the middle class, and many of them have a booth (Jo Moen Bredveien wrote well about this in Dagsavisen on Thursday). So there will also be a question or two about the cabin and Easter, questions so predictable that the government itself also had pre-processed interpretations of the current rules for possible cabin life in the upcoming holidays.

This has provoked, among others, Snorre Valen, political editor of the digital newspaper Nidaros. He doesn’t write the cabin, either, but consistently the cabin (female, capital and italics), as if suddenly standing on the podium at a Socialist Youth meeting, banging his fist on the table, and talking about horrible things like big business. , expensive time and the United States.

But it was the hut he literally hunted against, and that his own profession and the government have an excessive concern for this most insignificant Norwegian of all. Høire-Høie and Ernen Solberg’s damn cabin. And it hits you in the blink of an eye.

For example, Kurt Nilsen, Erna’s former co-inhabitant, and his guitar-shaped “cabin” are quite far from the everyday life, entertainment and cabins of most people. Kjell Inge Røkke’s creeper with 32 dass, indedass, is also not standard. Thank goodness greetings Blekkulf and Den Norske Fjellheimen.

There are also some palaces across the country that have little to do with cabins, at least in the sense that we normally think of it. However, it is not the case that the cottage is something that only sugar-rich people from the upper middle class, Kurt Nilsen, John Fredriksen and the director of the Norwegian Tourism Association have access to. Because the cabin is an essential component in the lives of many Norwegians, as the car and their own houses have been and are. Not for everyone, not really, but for many. And then you write about it, then you ask about it, and then you talk about it.

When the Holiday Act came into force in the Kingdom in 1947, Norwegian workers were entitled to three weeks of holiday. In the following decades, an economic rebound for most people, combined with the abolition of car rationing, became unacceptable because more and more people wanted a cabin or a vacation home in the mountains or by the sea, or both. things.

The cliché of the cabin has its origin from this part of the country’s history. It should be primitive. There would be old plates, discarded glasses and cups, and cutlery of different sizes. Water had to be carried or snow melted, kerosene lamps were the only approved light source, and the outer shell had to be drafty heavily. The Styrofoam on the doring was for sissies, and if I hadn’t had a TV blast on the hams over Easter, I wouldn’t have had a proper cabin vacation.

This quickly became part of the parody, myth and drawing of the soul of the Norwegian people. Parts of it at least. And not only did the wealthy sit in the open-air baths in floss hats and read Finansavisen with a monocle, monitored by a faded image of the former royal couple, but they wiped their butt with thousands of crowns, just like the cartoonist. Odd Klaudiussen. visions.

Today, people have upgraded their cabins and vacation homes, and advanced toilets or spinning tops have replaced chemical weapons of mass destruction with a heart-in-the-door that used to be standard. While the level of well-being in society has increased and the demands for comfort have continued, the electrical grid, the Internet and the water pipes have reached several of the cabins, in parallel with the people who are also renovating their own homes.

Having a cabin is, of course, a privilege. And there are many who do not have the opportunity to celebrate Easter in one. However, around half of the country’s population owns or has access to it. And that then necessarily will also be reflected in the media coverage, and perhaps especially in these times.

On the day when government press conferences focus primarily on weekend shopping in New York, yacht remodeling, or dusting off warehouses, you can probably justify hitting the brakes. But there is a long way to go to talk about the village hut.

Moralistic salute from the cabin office,
– White male in the private sector (49).