Apart from the rather expensive option of actually buying bus tickets from the bus/tram driver or train conductor when you get on the bus/tram (or are on the train), there's the more usual option of electronically putting money into your smart card.

There are two main choices.

A) You can put money as money (!) on your card and gradually use the card money for journeys. This is roughly the same as buying your bus (etc.) ticket from the driver but is at a slightly cheaper rate and is more convenient.

B) You can put money as a time period on your card. This gives you the right to use buses (etc.) in either one local authority or (at roughly double the cost) all local authorities (Helsinki, Vantaa, and Espoo[including Kauniainen]) for a specified time.

Earlier this was for 30 day periods starting from the day you bought the ticket but now with smart cards you can specify both a start day and a finish day when paying. The only limit is that there is a minimum period of (I think) about a week.

The pricing for this is that there is a start-up cost so things get cheaper per day the longer the period is. But you also have to consider days (like weekends and public holidays) when you might well not use a bus (etc.) when working out which ending date you want.

I tend to always start on Mondays and finish on Fridays (not the same week - see above) and either end when there is a public holiday on the Monday following or when there is a holiday period (Easter; Christmas) or even (naturally) before I go away on holiday.

In the A) case when you board a bus (etc.) you choose between 0 (tram only - single ride); 1 (the local authority you are in now -with transfer right) and 2 (you are going to cross a local authority boundary in the course of your journey - otherwise the same as 1). The price naturally rises from 0 to 1 to 2.

The system is a bit crazy in that if you have pressed 1 but then later change to another bus going to another local authority and thus press 2, you will be charged both the full price for 1 *and* the full price for 2 even though the system knows of course that you have already been charged for 1. This is a hangover from the old system of tickets where if you had a 30-day ticket for one local authority but wanted to go to another one, then you would need to buy a 2-zone ticket even though you'd paid already for one zone. (and this also applies to the smart card B) type "ticket").

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The only reason you're getting all this here and now is because the smart card readers are being changed. As if 0,1,2 was not enough (and I've had my card brush against 1 when I wanted to press 2 thus leading to extra costs for me) we will now have L and 3 buttons.

L is for paying for a ticket for the train and 3 is "for a ticket that is also valid in Helsinki".

This latter needs an explanation. The further outlying areas of Kerava (to the north) and Kirkkonummi (to the west) are joining the system. They will of course pay more and they will have two choices - either come to helsinki by train (only = don't then go further by bus/tram) or come to helsinki by train and then carry on the journey via bus/tram.

What I don't understand is why all the readers are being updated. Surely they only need these new ones on the trains? But that isn't what the article says.

P.S. It's come to me. They can also come to Helsinki by bus. But surely only *those* buses and the train need the L possibility (although transport even in Helsinki will need the 3 possibilty just in case one of these "country" people *start* their journey home on a local (to Helsinki or Espoo or Vantaa) bus/tram).

P.P.S. There are only trams in Helsinki. For the moment there is also a metro (forgotten above) in Helsinki but Espoo are about to decide whether to extend it into their area (where there is a good network of direct buses to Helsinki already)

In England traffic roundabouts are usually when two busy roads cross each other and you want to have the traffic sort itself out rather than have traffic lights. They are quite often in South East England especially when two dual carraigeways cross, but also on a smaller scale in small towns when perhaps one road merges with another at an angle.

Mostly I've seen a logical reason for them.

In Finland they seem to be almost a mode item.

In the summer I drove in a small town called Jämsä. The main road by-passed the town and there was one roundabout on it for the benefit of feeder traffic. However when you got onto that much less important road (which also by-passed the town) with little traffic and unimportant roads joining it there was a sequence of another three roundabouts none of which seemed to have much point.

Where I live in Espoo (just outside Helsinki but still a built-up area) they are in the process of building two roundabouts.

One is a place that had traffic lights before (that never caused any problems) and is where two very minor roads join a slightly less minor road (which does get a reasonable amount of traffic). The traffic lights coped well enough except for maybe 15 mins a day ....   I doubt if the roundabout will help in that 15 or so mins.

The other is on the road near my house that *used* to - in parts (but not that part) - be full of traffic at rush hours but which nowadays (after a motorway addition got most of most of the cars) has been narrowed; made a 40kms zone (with a single speed bump at one end [but for both directions]); and so has much less traffic than ever before. That roundabout is being built where there are side roads leading to residential housing and where there have never been any traffic lights before - nor have they ever been needed.

It seems like the local council having done all the cycle lanes it can is now using its people (and my tax money) to do really unnecessary things.

Or maybe they are taking part in a non-publicised "who has the most unnecessary roundabouts in Finland" competition. They'll need a few more to beat Jämsä.

I saw a report today that said that Spring in Europe this year started a few days earlier than usual and that summer was likely to last a few days longer.

Here in Finland that wasn't the case as the late winter was colder than the early winter and now we're in the typical decline that is August with more signals that summer is coming to an end than anything more positive.

It's very odd at this time to watch French TV which seems to be full of outside broadcasts from the beaches in the South of France while we are beginning to think of getting the winter clothes out.

Well, more like the autumn clothes because one actually quite positive thing here is that there really are four seasons (requiring three - spring and autumn clothes are about the same - sets of clothes). The only bad thing about this is that I'm sure most people would welcome a longer summer and a shorter winter.

Actually winter would be OK too if we could do without those (many) weeks at the beginning of it when it is just dark and getting darker and cold and getting colder without having stabalised on a few minus degrees (say -10C) all the time and with snow on the ground to lighten things up. Those days are regretably few and far between in Southern Finland so we have instead just the misery of plus/minus zero weather with icy roads and no sign of the sun for weeks.

No wonder that there is a mass migration to the Canaries in December/January/February although in most cases the "migration" is only for one week or two (to charge up with sun) rather than the several weeks that only well-off pensioners can afford (The Canaries are no longer cheap).

For me the end of summer means firstly an end to my canoeing as the water is too cold to fall into (not that I have fallen in for over ten years but it could happen) and then about a month later there's an end to my golfing as the courses get hard and virtually unplayable and you need to dress up very warmly in order to survive a typical round. I see no point in putting off the inevitable so I roughly stop both activities according to the calander (or the first signs that "this isn't going to be fun, anymore").

One of the big news yesterday in the Finnish computer industry is that UK-headquartered LogicaCMG with branches throughout Europe but mainly concentrated in France, UK, and Holland had made a bid for WM-data (with offices throughout the four largest Nordic countries and mini offices in Estonia and Poland).

Curiously some people seemed to think that LogicaCMG had *bought* WM-data while the more accurate (there seemed to be less of them!) reports said the truth namely that this is a bid.

While it is a bid that has been approved by shareholders representing more than 50% of the votes in WM-data it still needs to be approved both by 90% of the shareholders of WM-data and also by the shareholders of LogicaCMG.

Now I don't see any problem with either of those as the bid is well over what WM-data has been trading at recently and from the point-of-view of LogicaCMG it extends them from 60 people in Stockholm to good penetration of all Nordic markets (with the emphasis however on Sweden and Finland [which seems to have been ignored by just about everybody]). However there's a further thing which is stopping this Bid from really being a Buy - if someone else comes in and offers at least 30 Swedish Kronor per share (the present bid is worth 27.75 SEK/share) then the deal is off. It's not that much more ...

Curiously that's how WM-data was able to double its size in Finland a couple of years ago. Another company placed a bid for Novo Group which was much bigger than it. That put Novo Group in play and WM-data rushed in with a higher counter-bid which secured the company for it.

So it's quite possible that one of the other big international companies, seeing that WM-data is in play, will make a bid of 30.00 (or more) for it. The only one I think we can exclude is Tietoenator as the two together would have far too large a percentage of the Nordic market for the competition authorities.

Meanwhile I'm in a strange way just happy that I don't have any WM-data shares. I did have a few hundred shares in the Novo Group two years ago and I sold them after the first bid came in and in fact only 2 days before the much improved offer from WM-data. I wouldn't want to experience that sick feeling again !

Every day for the past week or so, I've woken up to the smell of burning.

It hasn't rained for something like 6 weeks in this part of Finland and the woods and fields are extremely dry, but this smell isn't coming from any Finnish forest fires instead it's coming from several hundreds of miles to the East where fires outside the few built-up areas are being allowed to burn themselves out because the fire services only have the resources to deal with the most pressing cases.

The fires are both to the North-West and South-West of St. Petersburg but are mainly concentrated in the North-West i.e. in Karelia some of which was - until the end of the Second World War - part of Finland. They are raging in some cases just across the border and the Finnish border towns of Imatra and Lapeenranta have naturally much worse air because of it than we do in the Helsinki area several hundreds of kilometers away.

When there was a major forest fire in Estonia that the Estonian fire people were fighting a losing battle against, they called on Finnish assistance and with the combined efforts the fire was put out.

The Russians however haven't called on Finnish help.

As always they are too proud to ask for help, yet at the same time their fire service is only able to cope with a small number of the fires and it's natural that when for instance - as happened recently - there was a large fire in a famous park in the town of Viborg (Finnish Viipuri) they would concentrate on that rather than on saving some acres of timber in the countryside.

I suspect that it is official Russia that isn't asking for help and that the firemen themselves would be only too pleased to be able to take a night or so off while someone else (with perhaps more modern fire-fighting equipment [the Estonians if I remember correctly didn't have planes that could drop water]) took the strain.

So there you are. Russia - rich through oil revenues but still without a re-built infrastructure following the upheavals of the past 15 or so years. As an Economist by training I can appreciate the Putin approach of first getting the state solid (oil and gas) revenues and then start applying them in improving living conditions and infrastructure, but as a person suffering these burning smells, I wish he'd start with the Fire Service.

I went to collect my new Identity card yesterday. I'd needed to renew my driving licence and thought I might as well get a Finnish Identity Card at the same time as my British passport expires in November and I want to travel in January. According to the official information Identity cards are valid for travel to all EU countries and a couple more (Norway and Switzerland I think).

When I applied I was told that once I got a notification from the authority that hands these out, I could come and collect it. (There was a fixed date to collect the driving licence).

The notification from the authority ("population registry") came and I waited a couple of days to make sure the card had arrived at the place where I had submitted my application and then went to collect it.

There was a massive queue but luckily there was a separate ticket for completed things so I didn't have to wait very long. They couldn't find it and so asked me if I was a Foreign national - if so I'd have to collect it from the Foreigner's section around the corner. She kindly checked the computer when I said that I'd handed in the application form in that room not in the Foreigner's section and found that it had arrived.

So round the corner I went to the Foreigner's section where luckily there was no queue. But it took 10 mins to find my ID card and having been given my driving license as proof of identity right at the start and having finally found it they *then* refused to hand it out unless I presented them with a passport. I had a Finnish driving licence in the same name with picture; a work smart card in the same name with a recent picture etc. etc. and of course the ID card and the accompanying papers had the same name and similar picture but no go unless I had a passport. There was nothing on the notification I received about a passport either.

At this point I thought I'd got them. It's perfectly possible for a Finn to apply for an ID card who doesn't have a passport, so they can't possibly require a passport in such a case. Ah but they're a Finn. But I showed you a Finnish driving license already what's more Finnish than that. No, the boss has left already, and only he can make a decision to hand out something without a passport.

"OK. I'll go and get my passport and I'll be back in 20 mins." (I know when I'm beaten - in fact the whole attempt to get it with a driving license was doomed to failure as soon as they mentioned the word "passport".

As I was leaving they handed me an envelope that was addressed to me. "What's this". "It's a letter (that they hadn't got round to posting - I'd heard that part of the conversation earlier) saying that you need to present a passport to collect your ID card" !

20 minutes later I was back. The place was still empty but it still took another 5mins to find my ID card which had been moved from the worker's desk in the meantime.

But finally I did get the new ID card and could now face my passport change with the knowledge that I had an ID card to fall back on for my EU travel while the passport application was going through the British Consulate's bureaucracy.

Hah! That's what I thought until I looked at the ID card. On the back it says

"This is a certified Finnish Identity Card" (fine so far)

but also

"Not valid as Travel Document"

(the lack of the grammatically necessary "a" before Travel Document - for which there was space - is a typical Finnish English error)

[The front is also interesting. There's a section for Nationality (actually only the words for that in Finnish and Swedish). I am apparently a person with XXX nationality. It makes you wonder.]

So either all the information in all their Finnish and Swedish language documentation about ID cards being used as travel documents is incorrect or I've fallen for the usual One law for the Finns; One law for the non-Finns rule (valid of course for whichever country a non-local lives in - there's nothing specially Finnish about this) and been screwed again. (as for all other purposes than travel my driving license is sufficient proof of identity for credit card purchases; bank business etc.)

Sometimes I feel like doing an Annikka Sörenstam and becoming a citizen of the country I happen to live it - at least then whenever I read the rules about something, I'll know they apply to me (and I'd be able to vote for the people who decide on what to use my tax payments for). Not that I'd feel that I was a Finn, I'd just have documents saying I was. I suspect that Annikka isn't going to be any less Swedish for becoming a US citizen either.

P.S. The official documents I had seen earlier which described how the ID card was valid for travelling to EU countries etc. didn't make any distinctions between Finns and non-Finns. The police web site has a very clear description

Henkilökortti (myönnetty 1.3.1999 lukien) ja sähköinen henkilökortti (myönnetty 1.12.1999 lukien) käyvät Suomen kansalaisilla myös matkustusasiakirjana.

The ID card ..... can be used by Finnish citizens also as a travel document.

ulkomaalaiselle myönnetty henkilökortti tai sähköinen henkilökortti eivät käy matkustusasiakirjana

ID cards that have been granted to foreigners can not be used as travel documents.

If I'd read that web site before I applied,  I wouldn't have applied and I'd have saved myself 40 Euros.

This is however small potatoes compared with renewing my British Passport where the charge is 141 Euros and where they require colour photograhs (whereas the Finns "prefer" black and white). Now here's hoping the photograph that was good enough for the Finns (but now in colour) will be good enough for the Brits. It's closer to a "good" photo than to a "bad" photo in the document on their web site, but who knows if they'll get a measuring tape out to measure to the exact mm.

According to a column in the current Business Week magazine (I have the digital edition so for you readers of paper versions, it may be the next magazine), the US is now fourth in the "Global Creativity Index" which a professor has created to define the attractiveness of a country to foreigners.

The very odd thing is that the top three countries are (in order) Sweden, Japan and Finland.

The reason this is odd is that both Sweden and Finland have very high tax rates (although Finland at least has some kind of rule that cuts taxes for (some?) foreigners for the first six months (pity - indeed great pity - it didn't apply to me when I first moved here!)).

It's also odd because Finnish business leaders - yes, including the former boss of Nokia - are always saying that Finland needs to provide financial incentives to attract the kind of highly qualified people that hmmm.. Nokia ... needs.

If they take a look at this "global talent magnet" list they'll see there's no need. As I've said for a long time, people come to Nokia in Finland to improve their cv and as a long-term investment - not for the money - so there's no need to offer them financial incentives.

and anyway, once they are here, they might realise (as I do) that there are benefits to living here that can't be counted in money terms

(cycle tracks and good public libraries to name just two)

One of the continually running stories this Finnish summer - especially in the Swedish language press - has been the attempt of the Helsinki local authority to grab a large part (20%) of the local authority Sipoo (swedish=Sibbo) to the East. This area includes Sipoo's largest tax payer (a food company) and thus represents about 30% of the tax revenues of Sipoo.

Helsinki's claim on this area has nothing to do with history, it's just that they want to build houses there. The problem is that they seem to have done a lot of lobbying of the Government before they bothered to tell anyone about their proposed takeover and the Government (or at least part of it) seems to agree with them.

Sipoo are now forced to propose that *they* make land available in that now disputed area for house building. This is completely against the stated will of most of the people who now live there because they live there *because* it is a rural area yet close to Helsinki (and ironically many of them moved there from Helsinki).

Arguments used by Helsinki include the rather mad "people in Helsinki ought to have the right to have a house yet stay in the Helsinki local authority area".

In short, in a sensible system they wouldn't have a hope in h*** but in this system, the government (and especially the Center party part of it who don't get many votes in the south and so probably don't really care) might just let them get away with it and ruin Sipoo's economy making it ripe for a further takeover of land in a few years - maybe even all of it will go then.

Another curious fact in all this is that Helsinki and Sipoo are not adjacent as there is a odd small triangle of land between the two that is owned by Vantaa which is the local authority to the North. In the proposed deal they were supposed to get compensation consisting of a larger piece of land in Helsinki but on the border to Vantaa. The people living there didn't fancy the idea (Vantaa has higher taxes) and so that idea was dropped. The last thing I read was that Vantaa were now going to get no compensation at all for that **key* piece of land without which the whole land grab wouldn't work. What you might think was that that sliver of land was so valuable that Vantaa could get for it almost anything they want - but no, they are giving it up for nothing! Either their leaders are fools or there is something nasty going on here.

P.S. Why are the Swedish press interested in this ? Sipoo was until recently one of the few local authorities left with a Swedish-speaking majority. So there's that fact coupled with the fact that the Swedish(-speakers) Folk Party is influential there and the fact that one of the roles of the Swedish language press is to support Swedish-speaking people many of whom still live in rural areas along the south and west coasts - just like those in this part of Sipoo in fact.