When I moved to Finland we had neighbours who spent most of the summer away.

They'd travel on Friday evenings to their summer house; come back on Sunday evenings and spend a solid block of five or six weeks holiday at that summer house as well.

Add to that the fact that all the houses nearby had children who were teenagers (or had left home) and therefore the swing and sandpit area just beyond the bottom of our garden was empty all the time and you had an idylic time most of the summer that I supposed I should have realised was not going to last for ever.

When our neighbours (with one quiet teenage son) moved away they were replaced by a family of five with three young children. They had no summer house and especially that first summer they spent most of their time in their garden (adjoining ours) - unfortunately with a plastic swimming "pool" that their daughter delighted in splashing and screaming in.

For a couple of years it was a nightmare but as always children grow up and start behaving more normally (and especially more quietly) and now for the past couple of years the only minor problem in the summer has been the fact that if I move myself and a couple of books onto our terrace, you can bet your life that within minutes at least of couple of the (five people) neighbours will go onto their terrace which by an amazing feat of bad design (but typically Finnish) is built (like the balcony above it) right alongside ours and thus they are a foot or so away from me (behind a wooden wall/fence)

I'm alone so I'm quietly reading a book and disturbing no-one. They are almost always at least two so talking now and then. Usually quietly but the comparison to the total silence there was just before is noticeable.

Last year I then just moved to the front garden where there were a second set of chairs set up, but that was a nuisance because of course I had to go in; lock the back (terrace) door from the inside; go out at the front door (not forgetting my keys) before I could settle in again.

Now, however, as I discovered yesterday evening I have a new and very effective option.

I simply put on the very effective (and expensive) Boss noise-reduction headphones that my mother bought me for my birthday recently (that ended in a "0" so she wanted to get me something special).

Even though they let some sound through of course, they proved to be very effective in giving me the same level of almost total peace I had many years before. They probably wouldn't work if the neighbours were shouting at each other, but as I wrote above they are considerate and speaking quietly and so the Boss headphones seem to get rid of almost all their speech.

Not bad considering they were bought for air flights ...

(and they are also quite effective (not 100%) in drowning the noise of the neighbour's son praticising the piano [which my normal headphones only succeeded in amplifying the sound of compared to no headphones at all, which was a disaster when I was listening to classical music (in the quieter parts) as the tinkling of the piano came through - listening to rock music was no problem....])

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 ...

The new Finnish cabinet can be summed up in three phrases

- blackmail pays off

- women majority

- best-looking woman in previous cabinet dropped

I suspect the third one won't be on many people's lists but I thought that she was quite a good Culture minister and not the stupid ex-Miss some of her critics would have you believe. A couple of times I saw welcome signs of a sense of humour where other ministers in true Finnish style seem to be po-faced all the time. There was at one time some talk of her spending time late one night (at a party conference) in the room of the party leader (and prime minister). I think we can safely say that - as was said at the time - nothing happened. Conspiracy theorists would probably say that dropping her was the prime minister's revenge for that lack of "action" whereas in fact it was probably caused by a large loss in her personal vote in the latest election compared to the previous one (although that vote loss almost certainly happened because the PM switched constituencies and was this time in the same one as her, leading them to divide her old vote between them).

The first item in the list above refers of course to the unbelievable act of the PM in proposing the former many-years Foreign Minister (in the era of the Soviet Union) for the job of Foreign Trade minister. This amazingly big-headed ex Foreign Minister (Paavo Väärynen) from Lapland had first of all been a candidate for election to the Finnish parliament at the same time that he was an elected member of the European parliament but had then once elected to the Finnish Parliament as well had refused to register as a new member of that parliament unless he was given guarantees that he would become either Speaker of the Parliament or a Minister - otherwise he'd abandon his membership and just carry on as a Euro MP (you can't be both so registering for the Finnish parliament would have compelled him in a few days to give up the Euro seat). Everybody - including most of his own party - was disgusted by this tactic and were glad to see the back of him (as they thought) as he went back to Brussels. However the PM put him on his minister list and it takes a bold Center Partyist to vote against the PM so Väärynen made it (but only just - there was still a large minority prepared to stub party discipline in order to try to get rid of him).

I pity the new Foreign Minister because (theoretically) big-head as Foreign Trade minister is his junior in the Foreign Ministry. Now that guy (Kanerva of the Conservatives) not only has pressure from "below" but also doubly from above as the PM likes to dabble in Foreign Affairs as well and then there's the Social Democrat President who also has a Foreign Affair role to play as well when she feels she wants to (she can pick and choose which EU meetings she attends (with the PM) and only if she doesn't want to does the FM get a look in. Still it's hard to be sorry for the new FM because a couple of years ago there was a scandal about the guy sending explicit text messages (SMS) to young girls and women (he's 59 now) and of course in typical Finnish politician style nothing happened and he was kept on as deputy Speaker.

Finally the second (more women then men) is only a surprise because of the numbers of female ministers. Most people expected political correctness (50%) in all parties except the Greens and that's what happened with the Conservatives and the Swedish-Peoples party. The Greens as expected voted in 2 women [0 men] (to my relief as their women are better than their men) but then rather than the 4/4 split the PM had been suggesting for the Center party, his list (5 women; 3 men including himself and big-head) was topsy-turvy too so now the Cabinet has 12 women and 8 men (although to no-one's surprise the men get the very top posts PM; Foreign Minister; Finance Minister; Super Minister (Labour+Interior(?)).

Meanwhile it's already been announced that one of the new female ministers will be going on maternity leave in a few months (just as she spent several months off during the previous 4-yr government). She's one of the stars of the Center party and has been moved from the Foreign Trade post (that she did well) so the Environment Minister post which the PM is said to regard as an important one these days (it never was before). If it's that important why give it to someone who's going to take time out in a couple of months ? (or is that just the old MCP in me speaking?).

P.S. I suppose we can all be grateful that Kaukko Juhantalo wasn't re-elected otherwise given the Väärynen thing the PM would no doubt have given him a minister job too. (For newcomers to the Finnish political scene, said Juhantalo was forced to leave the parliament because of a scandal involving his time as a minister and connected to loans for a bank and bank loans for his own company [I'm not saying any more). After it took well over a year for the process of running this expulsion from parliament through channels and he finally left, the voters of his constituency virtually immediately voted him in again at the following election and so we saw him (on TV) wandering around in the parliament as if nothing had ever happened. Really really sickening but would have been beaten by him becoming minister again. The PM is obviously capable of completely stupid choices (Väärynen) so we can be thankful that even Juhantalo's voters finally decided to pull the plug just in time.)

Yesterday's paper reported that the average temperature for December 2006 in the Helsinki region was +4C whereas the average for December for the period 1900-2000 was -2.1C

It always amazes me that when they come out with such statistics they never say what exactly they mean. How do they calculate the average temperature ? Is the daily figure the average for the entire day; based on four (or two) readings (night and day) or is it I suspect based on the temperature at one daytime hour like 12:00 or 13:00. I guess we'll never know but I suspect it's the latter - that would better match the month even though it was minus degrees at night, by no means as often as usual.

Today was minus degrees but luckily we've recently had so many days of plus degrees that the gravel paths were able to soak up the recent days rain in time before the minus degrees would have frozen it to ice, so the paths through my local woods (walking which with an MP3 player in my ears [Archos 401 with 20GB] is my main winter exercise so it's pretty important I can do it at a quick pace) were very easy to walk on for once.

Aside: Why is it that four guys running together or three people walking with those ridiculous "Nordic Walking" sticks are always so boorish as to assume that any single walker walking towards them will make way for them [=step off the path] instead of them sticking to their own side of the path when there is meeting traffic ?

Just another example of people not being used to living in places with more than a few hundred inhabitants I guess although surely not all of them are "just off the farm"?

Despite the unseasonal warm weather (for those of you outside Finland it's been +/- 3 or so degrees C for weeks) and the lack of snow (a few patches if you looked in the garden but nothing on even paths through the woods), there's still the typical winter problem of having to watch where you walk.

OK with the choice of bare paths; paths with ice with gravel in them and paths with ice only (compared to all the combinations of snow+ice [including the deadly thin snow over flat ice] we usually get) it's fairly simply to walk on this stuff but given that most of the paths are free of ice and ice tends to be where the "street" lamps aren't working so you can't really see it, you still have to walk fairly slowly most of the time and especially watch your feet.

Which reminds me that an extrovert Finn is one who looks at *your* feet when he's talking to you ...

People spending their first winter in (Southern) Finland may be wondering what there was to worry about. Apart from a brief flourish of snow at the beginning of November there's been no more and mainly plus temperatures of 5C or more (40F) and rain - lots of rain in fact.

Well, be reassured, this isn't normal by any means. What we usually have at this time of year is -5C to -10C with if we're lucky snow on the ground (and if we're not lucky no snow for long but +/- 2 or so with an endless cycle of snow coming / snow melting / water freezing [loop].

So in a sense this is an advantage. But for those of you newcomers who are depressed by the lack of sun (which has popped its head out for maybe a maximum of 30 mins in the past two weeks) combined with the very very grey look of everywhere (caused by the lack of snow), now is the time to rush out and buy yourself a sun-imitation (i.e. a so-called "Bright Light" - the Philips brand name) and switch it on once a day for about half-an-hour and hope that your body is fooled by it. It seems to work for me - although why I can't imagine, as I'm fully aware that it's only a light panel.

[Note to people who haven't seen these - it's not a solarium, it's just a panel about the same size as a 26" wide-screen TV's panel but placed upright.]

A while ago I advised people to go to Suomalainen rather than to Akadeeminen Kirjakauppa if they wanted to buy books in English because the prices were likely to be less there.

I had a couple of free hours in Helsinki on Saturday so I decided I'd better check out the main Akadeeminen Kirjakauppa at the back of Stockmann to see what sort of selection they had and if those prices were still more expensive.

The bad news is that they are. Marginally - maybe a couple of Euros more per non-fiction paperback (i.e. those from £9.95 upwards) but still a perhaps noticeable amount over time and certainly more of an encouragement to forget buying the book then and head off to the Internet and a British or US (or even German - Amazon Germany now has a fixed rate of 8 Euros for postage to Finland irrespective of how much is ordered - there's no point in buying English Language books there [too expensive] but CDs and DVDs might be an option as of course are German boardgames [still the best]) site instead.

The good news is that these books are very accessible at Akadeeminen Kirjakauppa (go in through the doors on the Bulevaardi; go straight ahead until you reach the escalator; and just before it head off to the right) and there are many more of them than at Suomalainen, where you have to find the particular non-fiction section you are interested in (so for instance "Hstory" and there there's English lanaguage history books on one side; swedish language history books on the other side etc. So if you want English language books on Travel you have to find the travel section) whereas in Akadeeminen all the English language *paperbacks* are in the same place with the travel books just a bit further along. Travel books meaning the chatty kind of travel books like those by Bill Bryson rather than Lonely Planet and the like - those are in the travel section even in Akadeeminen.

Actually I spotted three of the four non-fiction paperbacks I'd bought (at full UK price) when I last visited my parents in the UK (in Akadeeminen). So there was nothing wrong with the selection as far as my tastes go, but yes, the converted price would have been a bit of a turn-off.

As an aside one interesting thing I noticed is that the Suomalainen system of having the english language non-fiction books arranged along with the other languages according to the interest area (history etc.) works very well in their smaller shops because I tend to go into them when I have a few minutes to spare (which usually means my wife is shopping nearby but could as I've noted before mean just that I have a few minutes before the bus goes). Then I can zoom straight into my usual areas of interest and quickly see what they have. But when I visit the larger stores in the centre of town it's useful to have all the english language versions of whatever non-fiction area close to each other.

Pity about the A.K. price levels though - they are getting closer but still aren't quite at my level.

P.S. I didn't actually find any paperbacks that were in both shops so that I could directly compare the prices, but one curious oddity was that I did find a book at Suomalainen that I already had bought in another Suomalainen branch. In fact it was the last book I bought and I'm still reading it. This may not seem strange until I tell you that not only did it have a different (slightly lower) price but it also had a different cover and was much lighter! The solution was equally odd. The new, cheaper book was a Penguin (a UK publisher in my youth) but was a US edition with $20 as the price on the cover whereas the book I had bought earlier was Pimlico (a Random House UK imprint - i.e. a typcially *US* publisher ...) at £11.99. My copy was much heavier than the US version I saw yesterday because the paper used was of better quality with however the slight problem that that brought with it of a binding that doesn't allow you to open each page properly (so its good that the end of the lines are well in from the right-hand edge of the page!). Well, *I* found it curious.

I've discovered that it's not really a problem driving to work and back in the winter. Often the roads are in fact less slippy than the pavements because the spikes on the tyres have done their work well, but still there are a few reasons why I yesterday bought a bus pass for the next four weeks and will therefore be using the bus for the journey to work and back.

Reason 1 is that driving home in a snow storm (and especially with the windscreen freezing up so you can hardly see) is not my idea of fun. This doesn't happen often but when it does you make all sorts of promises to yourself such as leaving the car home at the mere threat of this; or leaving work several hours late so that no-one else is on the roads.

Reason 2 is that spikes have a nasty habit of loosening from the tyres of the car in front of you and crashing into your windscreen. If they do there's a chance that you get a deep enough scar in the windscreen that it will expand over time and even if you are prepared to risk it, the people who test your car every year won't pass you unless you get it fixed (and sometimes that means getting a new windscreen for several 100 Euros).

Reason 3 is that when the weather is bad, it's very easy to get into the habit of going to the car (20 meters); driving to work; parking the car in the garage and walking maybe 50 meters to the office (repeat in reverse order to get home) AND doing nothing else in the way of exercise. Taking the bus has the major plus (!) that it forces you to walk to the bus stop and in my case that (carefully selected) bus stop is a brisk 15 mins walk from my home.

Reason 4 is that having a bus pass means you are more rather than less flexible. You can - without needing to bother about parking spaces - make a detour via the centre of town; you can get off at one of the two large shopping complexes on the route etc.

Add the lot together and it's actually a pleasure to use the bus at this time of year.

Oh yes, and for those of you wondering why I didn't add as Reason 5 the delights of getting into a cold car in the morning. Well the heater on timer takes care of that and during the day the parking garage is at least warmer than outside.

 

P.S. You'll be wondering about the title. Well today was my first day by bus and it seems there's a snow storm out there. So the bus driver can take charge of getting me home ...