HOT

HOT is the name of a school paper that Tomas Ahnström and I created when we, young and immature, studied at the Centralskolan School in Nässjö, Sweden. The purpose of the paper, which only had three issues, was to make both the teachers and pupils mad. It was all pretty innocent and I hope nobody bothered too much. The original files we used to create the paper are long disappeared, men I have saved some copies of the paper so that the rest of the world also can enjoy them.

It's cool! It's mean! It's HOT!

The HOT

We discussed the name a lot and finally came up with HOT which bears many significations. In Swedish the word 'hot' means threat, and even though the content was a bit provocative it was never threatening... In English it means hot, and we would have had a lot of heat if somebody had caught us. Finally it is an abbreviation of 'Henrik och Tomas' (Henrik and Tomas), something that (luckily for us) nobody else thought of.

Issue 1 - 1988

At this time (at the end of the 80's) the technical resources to create papers were not as good as they are today. Both Tomas and I owned an Amiga 500 and I had a simple 9 needle printer. So there we were, giggling and typing texts, which we printed, cut and pasted on a paper. The first issue of HOT had become reality.

This issue was posted on the message board and spread on several places in school. We were very nervous that somebody would see us. I remember how Tomas planted a couple of issue outside my classroom when I had music classes - I though I would die when I went out.

The first issue made a certain impact and people were speculating who could be responsible. Tomas and I discussed how we could lead the suspicions to another direction , and we agreed that the best way would be to make the paper have references to younger schoolmates, and these should also be of the female sex.

• Advertisement for issue 1 - 1988 (hot1_1p.jpg - 125.65 KB)

• Issue 1 - 1988 (hot1_2p.jpg - 401.83 KB)

Issue 2 - 1988 (huge Christmas edition)

In this issue were started criticising another, very ambitious, school paper, and we felt how the suspicions started to be directed towards us. But somebody pointed out that the responsible should be looked for among the pupils in the 8th grade, and specifically among the girls. Our ingenious plot had worked.

• Issue 2 - 1988 (page 1) (hot2_1p.jpg - 266.02 KB)

• Issue 2 - 1988 (page 2) (hot2_2p.jpg - 311.32 KB)

• Issue 2 - 1988 (page 3) (hot2_3p.jpg - 337.61 KB)

• Issue 2 - 1988 (page 4) (hot2_4p.jpg - 278.1 KB)

Issue 1 - 1989

The last issue of HOT also was the most technically advanced edition. My dad had a PC (an old Schneider with an Intel 286) and a word processor, which was quite advanced for that time. Dad also had a 24 needle matrix printer, which made nice printouts, even though it took 20 minutes for each page to print.

By now Hot was quite well-know among the pupils at Centralskolan and copies of the paper circulated in the classrooms. Some of the teachers also managed to get a copy. Luckily, they had a sense of humour and they were not too upset.

• Issue 3 - 1989 (page 1) (hot3_1p.jpg - 292.82 KB)

• Issue 4 - 1989 (page 2) (hot3_2p.jpg - 315.64 KB)

• Issue 4 - 1989 (page 3) (hot3_3p.jpg - 295.08 KB)

• Issue 4 - 1989 (page 4) (hot3_4p.jpg - 260.3 KB)

Final comment

If somebody would remember this very obscure paper you are welcome to mail me. This is also valid if you were maliciously pointed in the paper and want some kind of resurrection, for instance by giving us a virtual kick where it hurts the most.

Irresponsible editors:

• Henrik Wahlström
  Current whereabouts: Escaped to Spain since 2000

• Tomas Ahnström
  Current whereabouts: Gothenburg

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