At 8:30 *AM* I'll be going to the office "party" of the company I work for. They will be serving porridge and there will be no doubt a short pep-talk from the divisional boss.

We also yesterday got our "Christmas present". It was a book token that had to be used for one of 8 books all of which were in Finnish.

Both are thus better than nothing (my Finnish wife got to pick a book) but not exactly worth writing about.

So why do I ?

Simply because it reminded me of the norm in my companies in Germany. Typical of that time were four things.

1. There was an extra month (or month and a half) salary at Christmas time. (Beats a book token for a single book ...)

2. Each working group had a restaurant lunch in December (during the week) paid for by the company. Food and wine/beer - lasting about 90 mins.

3. The place where we ate our normal office lunch had a special meal with free (good) wine.

4. There was an evening out somewhere for all the company - food, dancing.

2, 3, and 4 beat a bit of porridge and half-an-hour break from work, don't they !?

P.S. I was wrong. The short pep-talk was about a sentence with no pep. But we had to wait about 20 minutes before the porridge (which was rather good and which in England would be called "rice pudding") because of first a couple of interlude music piano solos (from an ex-boss of mine) and then several Christmas songs from a small choir. When I then woke up we could go and collect our porridge.

P.P.S. It's now almost three years since a group of ca 100 people from my previous company were outsourced to this one and today - just as with any occasion for the whole company - it was still 100% obvious that we would all sit together (free choice of table) rather than with the people we now work with. I leave you to draw your own conclusions about the respective company spirit.

Much as I'd prefer to avoid the issue altogether and wish it had never happened, yesterday's shooting in a grammar school (lukio) in a semi-rural area north of Helsinki happened and needs at least to be mentioned here.

I first heard of it when I got home and turned on the BBC which I suppose indicates that no-one was discussing this at work and probably most people were unaware of it until they got home and turned on the regular news broadcasts.

After the BBC picked it up in their one hour news program and had included an interview with a Finnish doctor in charge of a quick response team and who seemed to be purposely trying to be as vague as possible, I turned on the TV and none of the Finnish channels had a special program on this (although of course there were some teletext reports).

When the news finally came on there was yet another interview with a person who seemed to be avoiding giving details and he then finally gave up and said something like "the police haven't told me what I am allowed to say and what not".

Meanwhile the statement on the situation from the police included a phrase like "there seems to be no more danger of any more shooting".

At the time this statement was issued the shooter (to remind you of at the figures late yesterday: 8 dead (headmaster; 5 girls; 2 boys); ca 20 injured some critical), who had shot himself in the head, was in critical condition and would that night die of his wounds. (The daily free paper had the headline next day  "shooting suspect dies" - carrying on this cautiousness with words that has been a (negative) feature of all of this.)

So the police seem to have forgotten the need for openness but the government system swung into action and within hours there were hot lines set up for the counseling of both school children and parents; a press conference from the government etc. (as well as from the police which I mostly missed but I guess they were still blocking and being evasive).

So Finland is being as efficient as usual but I have to wonder about the police. It's hardly their fault this happened so why all the evasiveness when dealing with it. Why not just say right out "The shooter has shot himself in the head and is in the hospital in critical condition" rather than "it seems there is no danger of more shooting" and why still call someone identified by masses of co-students a "suspect" ? It's beyond me but then I'm not in the police.

P.S. The eight shot dead by "the suspect" are of course a tragedy but I was using early figures when saying above "20 others, some critical". One is said to be critical while they rest are said to have cuts from glass (from jumping out of windows ??).

Some people are very sad at the moment and wondering to themselves "why didn't I wait".

These are the people who have just traded in their car (perhaps a 5-10 year old one) and bought a new car.

They have namely just lost a lot of money compared with doing that in 2008 (or in the rest of 2007 but valid from the 1st of January 2008).

The reason is that the level of car tax has been drastically changed.

But first most of you probably need to know about Finnish car taxes. Finland has a two-tiered system of taxes on any new cars bought here. There is the standard Value-Added tax (over 20% - I can never remember what exactly, 22% at the moment I think or is it 24?) that applies to everything, but there's also a special Car Tax.

This car tax used to be something like 122% (yes, really) and long ago the Finnish government realised that as a part of the Europe Union this wasn't going to work for long so they a few years ago decided on a plan of gradually reducing it.

The first reduction was about 10% (so car tax was then something like 110%) and all that happened was that within several months the car companies increased their pre-tax prices for cars being sent to Finland and most of that "gain" was lost.

So governments (quick to learn in this case) obviously realised that gradual change of tax levels wasn't going to work and started wondering about alternatives.

Now, several years later, the change has come and it's a big one. It also came without warning and is valid from the beginning of 2008.

The rate of car tax is now related to the amount of emissions from the car. So a small car with a diesel motor has typically the smallest amount of tax and efficient small engines (such as VWs new 1.4 TSI engine) are "better" than larger engines producing the same amount of power but with higher emissions.

The change in rates is dramatic and it also means that most cars have a lower car tax rate than before (so savings are said to be between 1 and 5 thousand Euros per car for most models) with only a few large cars with large engines having (heavily) increased car tax levels.

What this also means is of course than the price of used cars goes down - especially that of those reasonably large cars than have not seen their sticker price increased (as there will be from 2010 increased yearly road tax charges for them).

So imagine if you may someone like me (in 4 years in my case) who is planning to trade in a 10 year old car for a new one.

Done last month I'd have got a small allowance for my old car and will have paid todays price (at 110% car tax + 22% normal tax) for a new car. I won't have considered the yearly car tax when deciding which new car to buy because last month the yearly road tax was the same for all cars.

Done on the 2nd of January 2008, I'll still get the small allowance for the old car (because at that level 10% makes little difference) but I'll probably chose a car that has its price reduced by anything between 3 and 5 thousand Euros (and it will be one that will not have a high yearly tax rate from 2010).

No wonder people who did such deals last month are not happy today.

The ones that are of course are the people who bought large petrol-guzzling SUVs. They are in some cases saving tens of thousands of Euros (and no doubt there will be a rush to sign contracts for that kind of car in what's left of this year - no wonder the car sales people are smiling).

P.S. One of the people responsible for the public transport system in the Helsinki area has already pointed out one of the risks with much lower car prices - it suddenly becomes feasible to have more cars per family. I take that even further and say that the risk is that we have large increased population of young drivers. I've seen when I was in Germany that 18-25 year old males (usually males) are involved in a large percentage of car accidents and that hasn't been a major factor here because of the cost of getting into the car market (as high initial prices obviously rip down into high prices for used cars except the really old - and they need expensive repairs). Bad times ahead and not just for the bus companies.

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.