In a quiet moment recently (and don't ask me why, but it was while I was waiting for an installation to finish!) I checked what would happen if I typed "Alexander Stubb" into Google.

Not surprisingly this active MEP's own site came first and it was followed by a wikipedia entry

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Stubb

which contained one glaring mistake ...

When talking about Alexander Stubb's languages (which are many and good) it said that he "spoke Swedish, English and German in addition to French and his native Finnish".

WRONG, completely wrong !

Alexander Stubb is a member of Finland's Swedish-speaking minority and therefore his native language is Swedish.

Naturally he also speaks Finnish because he comes from the part of Finland where Finnish is the dominant language, but his native language is Swedish and he almost certainly (not mentioned in this article which started at graduating from an American college) went to schools in Finland where the teaching is done in Swedish (and where Finnish is the first "foreign" language).

Of course this makes me wonder who wrote the article. They seem to have found a good source of information because the article is detailed enough but the article can't have been written by a Finn because even the many Finnish-speaking people who voted for him in the MEP elections were all well aware that he came from the Swedish-speaking minority (and it didn't bother them).

If you now go to the site you will hopefully (unless this has been "corrected" back) see an accurate text as far as languages go, because naturally I corrected it (along with a few minor typing errors).

P.S. It's nice to be right on occasion. One of the references after the article itself is to Alexander Stubb's abridged c.v (on his own web site). In it you will find something that was considered unimportant to the (US American?) writer of the main text in that he/she while including Mr Stubb's matriculation from an American high school (in 1986) didn't bother to mention that he two years later matriculated from a school in Finland. That school according to Mr Stubb himself was "Gymnasiet Lärkan, Helsinki, Finland" Readers with Swedish will know that "Gymnasiet" is the Swedish word (including a "the") equivalent to the German "Gymnasium" (the Finnish word is "lukio") , and that Lärken (also Swedish - for "the lark") is a well-known Swedish school in Helsinki.

I put three new computer books that I had in duplicate on the desk of a guy who I knew was interested in the subject (with a note explaining the gift).

He works mainly in a different location so I didn't see him for several weeks (during which time the books disappeared), but I did expect to get a thank you note by e-mail.

Did I ? Of course not.

I was then there when he by chance was in the same location. I left the subject of the books until the late afternoon to give him the chance to thank me for them. Nothing. Even when I finally mentioned them towards the end of the day, all I got was a confirmation that he had them. No thanks.

The next time I had a book copy to give away I of course decided that someone else would get it. Again someone for whom the book would be useful. So this time I asked this new guy first if he'd like a signed copy of "Real World Computing SharePoint 2007" (which is what this one was) and he said he would. I sent it by internal post with a personal (and nice) dedication.

Did I get a "Thank You" message by E-mail? Of course not.

If I ever come across him, will he thank me then ? I doubt it.

P.S. Two and a half weeks later I got a thank you e-mail (for the single book). Maybe he's been on holiday ...

All experienced drivers know the feeling. Some places are so well known to you that you drive by memory.In particular you turn at the same point.

Now naturally you have your eyes open so you'll notice having started your turn that a bicycle is coming and you'll have to let it past first but otherwise the turn is just automatic.

Occasionally, though, events conspire to make this not a good idea.

Today was one such day for me.

I drive to work at such a time that the roads are almost empty which leads to all the cars driving at ca 10kms above the speed limit (which tends to be within the area the police let go). This morning, though, I was in a 50 km/hour limit behind a woman who was driving at 40 km/hour so by the time I pulled into work I was a couple of minutes later than usual (and more irritated).

So that was one factor.

The second factor was that one job has finished and so rather than driving into the parking garage as I have done for the past n Tuesdays I was driving into the parking area at ground level as all I was doing was filling an Ikea bag with stuff from my desk and then heading for my normal office in another building rather than working for the day there. Of course I could have also put the car in the parking garage anyway (there's a lift direct to the office) but for some reason (probably saving a couple of minutes driving time) I didn't - more's the pity.

The third factor was that just as I arrived near to the parking area a truck was leaving so I turned left at my usual remembered point just behind it.

The fourth and crucial factor was that in the six months since I had last driven to the parking area they had put up an additional high curb stone to slow traffic coming into the parking area. So you had a normal curve of curb stone (from before) and then an additional *straight* one.

Because of the truck I didn't see it.

Result one tyre/tire that immediately blew and is naturally irreparable.

Luckily I am a member of the Finnish Car Association and have paid extra for free roadside assistance and that includes one tyre change a year. Also luckily I had no difficulty in noticing what the problem was right away (!) and had a row of parking spaces I could put the car in.

So it was grab the mobile phone; ring the number on the card I have with me for that additional service and wait (in -2C so not so bad). After about forty minutes a large towing truck arrived and the guy changed the tyre at no cost to me.

Good, efficient, Finnish service.

So now I have no spare so I'm going to put forward the change to winter tyres; have the same spare in the boot over the winter and then in spring when it's time to change back I'm going to have to bite the bullet and buy two new summer tyres.

But for now at least the panic is over - at least until I notice steering problems caused by that almighty bump (I haven't so far, but I've only driven about 1km). Now that I really hope doesn't happen. Paying for 2 new tyres three months after buying 4 new tyres is one thing. But paying major money for steering work because they added a curb stone in a stupid place is another.

P.S. I think I'm OK on the steering issue. Looking back at it I think I only just clipped the edge of the curbing stone with my left tyre. certainly there was only one bump not two so only the front left tyre went over the stone not the rear left.

Note that this is just a single row of curbing stones (serving no useful purpose apart from making your turn more difficult and thus (if you see it!) slower) so your car goes up onto the stone then immediately down after it. In other words I'd have noticed if I'd gone up down then up down again. So, thinking about how a car turns I was obviously very unlucky - turning a fraction of a second later and the whole car would have missed the curbing stones completely; a few fractions of a second earlier and I might well have hit them straight(er) on with no burst tyre.

Still I prefer to use my bad luck up on such a thing. A group of colleagues from a previous work place were in a car waiting normally at a traffic light when a truck ran into them. Result: one dead; one off for six months and one off for a year; back for a few months and then forced to retire because of ill health (at about 45). I'll bet they spent more than one twitchy day (which is what I'm having) wondering what if they had set off earlier; not slowed for the light etc. etc.)

P.P.S. I was back at head office yesterday (I walked!) and had a good look at the set of curbstones. Although the curbstones were mostly rounded at the edges, there was one place (or a building error?) that had probably been hit earlier so that one stone wasn't plane with the rest of them which left just one place where there was a nasty very pointed edge free. Guess what I must have hit ? So it really was a question of a fraction of a second in that turn. Bad luck.

We reached another couple of stages in the approach to winter.

First there started to be items in the newspapers about changing to winter tyres/tires and the various car magazines had their yearly test of winter tyres/tires,.

The rules in Finland are "simple but". Simple is that you must change to winter tyres by the 1st of December. Simple too is that the first day you are allowed to change is the 1st of November. Simple that is but for the fact that you can change to winter tyres earlier than that "if weather condtions demand it".

This has led to the commonly known statement if you are stopped by the police (and my experience of the Finnish police is that you have to be doing something seriously wrong if they stop you while *they* are moving (speed traps and alchohol road blocks excluded therefore) and hearing that you have winter tyres on 5 days ahead of the deadline isn't likely to stop them in their tracks) you just have to say that you are driving to Lapland at the weekend. What could be more "weather conditions demand it" than that?

Anyway that was one sign. The other was more mundane. For the first time since summer I had to connect my car to the electric motor/car warmer in the middle of the morning. Usually I leave it on overnight when there is a risk of frost and it is set to start heating at around 5 for two hours and then stop. Today I knew I was going to leave at 10:40 and didn't bother so at 9:30 I had to head to the car port and plug the thing in (and change the time so it would start right away).

I've followed the way trades unions negotiate in Finland with interest and over the years I've noticed one thing.

The fattest and ugliest trades union bosses are always the ones who are the most extreme.

I suppose it has something to do with them not being loved for themselves but only for the pay rises they screw out of the companies.

The previous example of this was the guy behind the paper-makers strike in the summer of 2006 (2005?) which must go down on record as the most unnecessary ever because they were trying to stop the inevitable closing down of money-losing mills.

Usually the theory has applied to men as most trades union bosses *are* men.

But occasionally you can apply the theory to women and this year we have a real humdinger.

The trades union Tehy (led by a very large woman) has just demanded a pay rise of 24% over 28 months where everyone else has been satisifed with a still high ca. 10-12% over 2-3 years.

Now everyone is aware that the nurses (who they represent among others) need their pay adjusted upwards, but not all at once.  A thinner better-looking woman might have realised this and taken a sensible long-term approach but not of course the leader they have.

All she's achieved so far is to lose most of the public goodwill her members had and the method of "strike action" which is mass resignations isn't likely to get that public goodwill back as hospitals lose all their ability to cure.

Most nurses are nothing like her size. Pity their leader isn't too.

P.S. I wonder at these 12% (over 3 years) figures. They then say 3.5% in the first year; 2.5 in year's two and three. (something like that anyway). Wouldn't that in most countries be called a 3% pay rise ? Is it just a way for the companies to give relatively little and the trades union people to say "look how much we got for you" ?

P.P.S Of course these opinions of female beauty (and male uglyness) are mine only, as is the above "theory". I remember going to dances at University with a guy from Nigeria because his idea of a fine looking woman was a somewhat (!) larger woman than mine and so neither of us had problems in deciding which girl (of 2) was for each of us.

They said there might be snow in Southern Finland today (12th October !) - now doesn't that make you want to come and live here?! - and I suppose we can say they were just right.

I went namely to the shops in Tapiola and more specifically to Stockman where it was the third day of their semi-annual Yellow Days where they *theoretically* have specially low prices and the store is packed.

Even it seems on a Friday morning, although my wife tells me if was even fuller on the first day (Wednesday) at about 10. She wondered where all the people came from because the crowd wasn't composed of obvious pensioners but of people you'd expect to be at work or at school at that time.

These days I go once; buy a packet of biscuits that you maybe can't get during the rest of the year and that's about it. As I wrote above the prices are only theoretically cheaper. I saw a TV in their catalogue and went straight to the web site of a computer/video store to check it out and it was cheaper in that store by a couple of hundred.

Where was I? Oh yes, snow. We finally left the Yellow Days and headed across the small walking area outside in the direction of the second department store (during the Yellow Days at Stockmann, empty!) and then we noticed that the rain we had been walking under to get to the bus to get to Tapiola had now changed to snow. Very wet snow that wouldn't have stuck on the walking area's surface even if that hadn't got heating under it, but snow (of a sort) nonetheless.

It didn't last long there but a bit further away from the sea (and thus a bit colder) maybe it lasted a bit longer because there were a few reports on the radio of the inevitable minor traffic accidents.

Not a problem for me. The bus got us home again and on the same ticket too (valid up to 60 mins after getting in the first bus - or is it 75 mins, I can never remember).

P.S. The comments are about the fact that "Yellow Days" is wrong and the translation is in fact "Crazy Days" or "Mad Days". Yellow is the prominent colour with them packing everything you buy in very garish Bright Yellow bags with dark black letters and the personnel wear Yellow T-Shirts and the ceiling hangings are bright yellow too. (An easy mistake to make, in other words )

No, there's still no snow and, No, the temperatures weren't below zero overnight so I didn't have to put the car on the heater (but I did anyway because it's really nice to get into a warmed up (motor and inside) car at 6 o'clock (AM) rather than one that isn't).

In fact the real sign that summer is over and that winter is just around the corner is that I didn't have a hat on when going for a walk at about 7PM yesterday (or even in my pocket) and I realised i should have had.

This also makes me realise that I also have a number of hats (bobble hats) of different thickness and covering different areas (more/less) of my head (and of course easier or less easy to push into a pocket). They don't take up quite the space of those 10 or so jackets, but I should have mentioned them yesterday I suppose.

By the way, did I mention the different material; thicknesses and length of my scarves .... ?

The last blog (in August) was about the signs that the summer is really over.

It's worth considering that there are benefits to the fact that there are four clear seasons here.

The main one being I suppose that you don't need the Christmas holidays to remind you that you are getting a year older.

The disadvantage is that you have to keep an amazing amount of clothes to be able to cope with them all. I must have about 10 jackets/coats because there has to be something for 20C or so (0F) and there also needs to be something for plus 25C (72F) but windy and just about everything in between. (Not to mention underwear, sweaters etc. ...)

At the moment we are in the short autumn period. This seems this year to mean that it rains ALL the time. Today it excelled itself and any coat would have been soaked in minutes and any umbrella (apart from a very large golf one) would have meant that your head might have stayed dry but not much of the rest. (I drove)

The other fun part of this autumn period is that it always ends with an unexpected snow storm leading to chaos on the roads. (Chaos being somewhat of an overkill description compared to the situation in the UK or even in most parts of Germany when it snows for the first time - has anyone else spent several hours heading up the hill to the Roman ruins after Bad Homburg that first snow day? - but even so).

I've written before here that this unexpected snow storm always seems in the Helsinki area to occur on the 1st of November, but yesterday (and it was only the 7th of October!) the TV weather forecast promised snow for Central Finland on Wednesday and a risk of snow in Southern Finland (which includes us) on Friday/Saturday. I'll believe that when I see it, but if it does come and I'm at work when it happens, the best thing will be just to leave the car here and head home by bus - either that or leave very early or very late. Of course that isn't really an alternative on a Friday (as like most people I need a car at the weekend) so naturally that's when it's going to happen if at all.

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Meanwhile on a completely different note, I see that Daimler-Chrysler have - after an extensive study I would guess, anything else would be very un-germanic - made the bold decision to change their name to, uhum, Daimler.

This reminds me of something a friend sent me about his international company's name change

"Over the last few years we have taken a number of important steps to create a leading European XXXX XXXX company with a strong international network. Read more about what XXXX writes regarding our company name change."

That change (= important step) was a similar one to changing Daimler-Chrysler to Daimler! So now you know why management gets the big bucks ...