There was a rather charming short 30 minute "visit" by Bettina S. of the swedish-speaking TV here in Finland to the Finnish Ambassador in Athens who in an earlier life was a politician who had been a minister several times and also head of the Swedish-speaking People's Party.

He'd then moved sideways (?) straight into the job of Finland's Ambassador to Norway (by comparison the recent Ambassador to Great Britain was the former head of the larger (four times larger) Conservative party) and after the standard four years there he'd moved to become Ambassador to Greece and he was now into the last six month period of that time - after which no doubt he'll retire (he's that age I suspect).

He is not your typical Ambassador that's for sure, getting up at 6 summer and winter (11C) to swim in the residences pool before taking the bus to the embassy (and as he claimed passing some of his colleagues in their chauffeur-driven cars on the way!) and the clothes he had chosen to meet the film team (Bettina S. + cameraman + sound guy) were slacks and an open-neck shirt worn outside the trousers. (Like most Finnish men of that age he is rounder than he should be).

Still he seemed to know his recent Greek history even though his language claims were quickly put to the test by Bettina S. when they tied a rapid death and he also had selected a park/hill to take them to which indicated he had an idea of its geography (Athens at least too).  His method for quickly learning his way around in Athens was very familiar to me from my early days in Budapest. I'd take out the cinema guide; find a film I wanted to see irrespective of where it was playing at and drive there. Invariably I'd get lost several times on the way and need to stop and pull out a map, but very quickly I found myself doing that less and less often as I soon had the general picture of Budapest imprinted on my brain. Because of the traffic differences (in Communist times in Budapest in the early 70s there were few cars) the Ambassador did his driving and getting lost expeditions mostly on Sundays but the technique was still the same (although they didn't mention on what basis the destinations were chosen).

Now those mis-interpreted statistics ..

During his time in Athens they had moved to a new embassy in a modern high-rise building and he got to design the layout. He decided on an open-plan office for all (actually including the ambassador but wiser spirits said maybe the next ambassador wouldn't like it so he accepted having walls around his own space) because that for him indicated the openness of present Finnish society. (Something we could question in its "openness" to immigrants of which compared to most other W. European and especially Nordic countries the percentage is low)

Bettina S. commented that some people don't like open-plan offices and his reply was that half did and half didn't so someone was not going to get their choice.

My own feeling is that that position is too simplified. People who are against open plan offices will tend to be very strongly against them (as I am following some horror days in such a place) whereas very few of the pro-open office people will be as strongly in favour of them.

In Statistics lectures they called what he didn't do "weighting" if I remember correctly ...