Finnish TV showed a documentary at a prime time at the weekend that was probably made for the international audience as, despite being made by Finns, it had an English soundtrack with the English Neil Hardwick (Cambridge graduate; ex Finnish TV talk show host; occasional actor; TV and theatre director and ex-columnist in the Finnish Time/Der Spiegel equivalent) providing the sound.

It was about - what else (everybody sigh) - the sauna. Again.

My Finnish newspaper said before it was aired that it went on (ca 50 mins) for far too long and they were right. The 30 mins they suggested would have quite enough as it jumped from history to present day and back again virtually ad infinitum.

However the reason for this blog item is the soundtrack. There was a sort of underlying meaning to the way Neil Harwick read his words that gave at least me the impression that he was telling the people able to spot the nuances "yes, this is cr*p isn't it". [No doubt the Finnish people behind the film hadn't a clue.]

This if nothing else made the whole thing mildly amusing and certainly without that soundtrack the whole thing would have been boring in the extreme - do we really need to know how many saunas the Finnish UN peacekeepers built in the Golan Heights, Sinai; Gaza Strip etc. etc. ?

Oh yes, and if you are imagining lots of female breasts on show, don't. This is a Finnish documentary after all about an almost holy Finnish institution, you'll find more in any 80s German Krimi such as Derrick (or of course any 60s Finnish cinema film with Jörn Donner).