Snow! Where?

It feels like a case of the Emperors new clothes. People staying home, trains refusing to move... IT'S NOT SNOW PEOPLE! It's just a slightly whiter rain.

On the other hand, it's quite fun to see how much hoopla a measly half centimeter of grey gloop can cause. Til it affects you personally. My meeting tomorrow, at the riviera of UK, just got postponed because of having snowed there all night.

Now, I'm sorry, but if it ain't looking like this when you wake up, it's not snow:

Also, walking on it won't kill you. In fact, it's quite fun.

Steam of life

This is as Finnish as it gets: A documentary set in the sauna, about silent Finnish men opening up and sharing the often violent, sad and uplifting stories about their life. It makes me so home sick I might just shed a teeny tiny tear.


STEAM OF LIFE TRAILER from OktoberFi on Vimeo.

Finndie Wednesday!

The lovely, lovely Husky Rescue. Note the best hipster/tango moustache ever. I get home sick just seeing it.
You might want to go to the Youtube link to watch the whole video thought, cause for some reason, it won't show the whole thing.... where's IT when you nee them?

Sommarmiss

Jag har missat hela sommaren. Hela sommaren har jag suttit pa nionde vaningen i ett trist och knokfullt kontorslandskap och stirrat ut genom ett tjockt smutsigt fonster pa hustaken utanfor. Inte sett manniskorna nedanfor pa gatan i sina himla flip flips och solglasogon. Bara stirrat pa hustaken och reklalskyltarna pa de hogsta kontorsbyggnaderna, som delar airspace har uppe med oss, en fellow betongkloss som gor stadbilden lite tristare.

Jag har sett alla nordiska vanners bloggar och deras bildkavalkader av sommardopp, bara fotter, loppisar och skargardsliv. Och jag har forbannat detta U-lands arbetspolitik och slavliknande villkor som innebar att alla jobbar langa dagar, ingen fikar, alla ater lunch vid datorn och ingen jobbar hemifran nansin. Lagg till 20 dagars semester per ar som far tas ut i inte langre an en vecka i taget och du har typiska engelska arbetsvillkor. Anda ar produktiviteten langt lagre har an i Norden. Go figure, sjalv gar jag i nagonslags synnerligen oproduktiv och okonstruktiv halvdvala som inte direkt hjalper mig astadkomma nagra mirakel pa jobbet.

Forhoppningsvis kommer Greklandsresan som hagrar att rada bot pa allt detta. Det ar ratt hoga krav pa en veckas charter, men jag tanker mig att om jag far till en exakt och bra blandning av solstolslitteratur sa kan det nog ga vagen. Har ska racerrelaxas!

Fika, kom tillbaka

Herre min je vad jag saknat att fika. Formiddagsfikan, eftermiddgasfikan. Det ar sa mycket som dom inte forstatt har i England.

Midsummer dreams

It sucks not being in a country that celebrates midsummer. Today, Midsummer Eve,  is the most relaxed day of the year in the Nordics, more so that Christmas when everybody is stressing to get all the shopping stuff done. No, midsummer is all about getting some booze, food and maybe a good book and getting the hell out of the city to the nearest (or farthest, more often) summer cottage and just chilling with your friends. Preferably, by the sea.

It’s about pretty dresses, romance and picking seven different kinds of flowers, putting them under your pillow when you go to sleep and dreaming of the person you’re going to marry. And waking up with bugs in your hair...

And here in UK? Nothing. Nothing at all. The closest thing you get here is Summer solstice when crusty hippies gather by Stonehenge to get high. Not really the same thing is it?

So depressing. If I had my own flat, I would have had a Midsummer party, with schnapps and new potatoes and lots of strawberries. Next year, maybe.

No, next year, I hope to be at my friends house outside of Stockholm, with the little sauna on the end of a bridge, paper lanterns in the apple trees and all that jazz. Sigh....

Vappen!

The 31.4 and 1.5 is quite special in the Nordics, especially Finland. This is what it looks like in the centre of Helsinki about...now. Piictures from Vappen celebrations 2007.

Such a follower

I just stumbled upon a blog that told me that John Ajvide Lindqvist, the writer of the filmatized novel Let the Right One In, amongst other even scarier novels, just released a new book, and I HAD NO IDEA!
If you’re into Swedish, read about it here: http://www.johnajvide.se/

I don’t like it, not knowing what’s going on with things I care about in Sweden. And there seems to be a lot of them. Both the things, and not knowing about them.

Luckily, I’m going to Sweden end of May and can fill my boots with new Swedish literature. And my boots are the only place I’m going to have too, since I have to bring the rest of my life in Sweden back to England, consisting mostly of books and cds…

Promos and rye bread

It's Friday, sunny and I got a afternoon of promo and an evening of gigs in London ahead of me, none to shabby ey?

My first promo day....can't wait!

And since I'm staying in London til tomorrow, I'm going to pay the Nordic Bakery a visit and get me some cinnamon buns and karelian pastries. I read on their site that they do oven pancake on weekend mornings too, how nice is that?

Easter

This is how we do it in the Nordics.

We take in twigs of vide (don't know what that translates to) that has little fur bolls as..flowers.

Like this

Then we put colourful feathers in it.
Like this.

And fill our Eatser eggs WITH chocolate, candy and other nice stuff, rather have eggs made of chocolate.
Like this.

A little perspective

I moan and complain a lot about the "winter" here, about the cold and all that - I'm not built for humid cold and damp weather.

This is what I'm built for:

Have you seen anything as beautiful and inviting (imagine doing snow angels in THAT!)
It's my house, or well, my parents house, at home in Finland.

Woollen sock surprise

When I was a child, I always got a pair of knitted woollen socks for Christmas. Several pairs, in fact. From both grandmothers. One of them, Mummi, always hid a chocolate bar in each sock, like this:

It's Patkis, Fazers littlest and sweetest and mintiest chocolate bar, the one originally made of the left overs from the other chocolate making machines:


And I have one at home.

In search of lost coffees

I was gonna upload some photos from the Manchester trip today, but managed to bring the only USB cable I can't use. Well done, me.

It might be the lack of good coffee that does it, that makes me this loony, forgetful old professor. See, Finns are the mostest coffe drinkers in the WORLD! First place, Finns. Second place, Swedes. We love our coffee, and although there's no such thing as Finnish coffee, I do miss the Finnish coffee brands. I've tried to find good ready roasted coffee here, but it can't be done: It all tastes like tea. And no, Nescafe is not coffee.

So, I reminisce. (Notice how very finnish the woman looks.)

Pancakes? No buns.

Today is pancake day. Meanwhile, it is Bun Day in Sweden and Finland. Or Semmel Day. Or Lent Day. (All my very own words for this important day, freely translated from Swedish). We eat buns with marsipan and whipped cram. Some people put the whole thing in a bowl of hot milk and call it "hot wall" too, but that's just nasty. 

The Swedish king Adolf Fredrik died in 1771 after a gluttonous feast consisting of the the little buggers.

Me, being a true lactose intolerant Finn, I'd rather have pancakes any day. Or maybe just the top bit of a semla. 

It's a bit of a "super sized muffin phenomena" here - Just like the in the big muffins (sooo 2000) The bottom bit is often quite dry and boring. It's the top bit (also known as the "muffin top") you want. The rest you leave for the seagulls.