Happy Hippo in Christmas Y-front Shocker!

A happy hippo in tighties whities and flipflops, completely unaware that he is being stalked by a fat pink monster that obviously wants to bite him in the butt.

And where did I stumble across this freaky scene, you may ask? Children’s wrapping paper – of course. Okay, so actually it was one of those decorated boxes that act as wrapping paper, but same difference.

Really, who’s idea was this? Probably the same person who came up with this baby toy, also received by m's niece this Christmas.

I am disturbed.

Adopt a Cat From Estonia Day

Spending Christmas surrounded by cats reminded me of my own kitty acquisition project that has been constantly put off for about five years for various reasons of whatever not being right. Although the Russian Blue has long been the breed I’ve been hankering after, I found myself idly surfing the homeless cats page on the Pelastetaan Koirat (Save the Dogs) website.

Within twenty-four hours, I had adopted this huge white fellow from Estonia. Although ‘Lord’ (his current name) suits this majestic creature well, as m pointed out, it seems that the name stops short somehow. You’re expecting Lord Something.

His Lordship will be crossing the Gulf from Tallinn hopefully sometime in the next week. Let’s see if I can come up with a suitable title by then! All suggestions welcome, although the jury reserves the right to completely ignore them in order to protect an innocent cat.

Four Hams and a Staring Cat

2006 turned out to be a record-breaking yuletide: not only the least snow I’ve ever seen in Finland at this time (read none), but I also managed to partake of four different Christmas hams in the space of two days! Doing the rounds of m’s relatives in the Middle of Finnish Nowhere resulted in many Christmas dinners, usually followed by cold leftovers, and on one occasion even a second ham. I think I sat down to a total of seven ham meals in four days!

The time not filled with stuffing my face with pork products was spent being stared at by Lirppu. Lirppu (Licky) didn’t lick me once, but every time I turned around, this beast would be lurking somewhere doing its best impression of the Gayer-Anderson. At first she hid whenever I entered a room, then wouldn’t stop stalking me.

Why doesn’t it move? Why doesn’t it blink?

Fake Boobs Break Hundred Barrier!

All parties should supply a pair of fake boobs to break the ice. At the Tales From the Attic cast party, we laid out a whole selection of set, props and costume from productions past – but it was the two pairs of fake boobs (Cinderella, I believe) that everyone was fighting over. And the policeman’s helmet, but that’s another story.

Some were very eager indeed to get into the spirit of things, including me. More evidence here, some only open to ‘Flickr friends’ to protect the guilty.

Not only are they good for parties. The only one of my Flickr photos yet to break the one hundred views barrier is this one of m showing of his nice rack. It had reached a plateau of about forty views, until recent addition of tags such as ‘tits’, ‘boobs’ and ‘sexy’ sent it surging ahead once more (currently 112!).

I begin to understand how this Internet thing works.

Squirrel Vandalism

What is it with the youth of today? Even this year’s young squirrels are vandalising churchyards!

An Espoo local paper is currently running a series called ‘Sinä Maksat’ (‘You Pay’), detailing how much tax payers end up shelling out for vandalism of public property, e.g. stealing street signs, blowing up rubbish bins, etc. I’m not quite sure who the series is targeted at though, as I doubt knowing the cost of their destruction is going to make any of the vandals think twice.

Up this week was tipping over gravestones, but the accompanying photo seems to suggest that it’a not thoughtless teenagers, but young squirrels that are costing us €5,000. At least there was no caption saying ‘The squirrel pictured is not connected with the events of this article.’

Plan Cheese From Outer Sweden

We all know French cheese is mischievous and treat it with due caution, but who thinks about the dangers of Swedish cheese? No one, until they try Rosa Lina.

Don’t be fooled by the cute moo cow - this cheese is poisonous! Evil all the way from the smell that erupted from the packet to the taste that evacuated on my tongue. After handling it, my left index finger smelled off for a full day. Washing with forest strawberry soap only succeeded in mutating the reek into another, far more disturbing, one.

Even after being dumped into the bath to swim, my rats wouldn’t climb onto my hand to escape the water. They just sat there transfixed, sniffing my smelly finger, until they could escape via m’s hand instead.

One day, this cheese is going to break out of its packet and take over the world!

Hmm … I think I’ll go have some more.

Dog piss fells lampposts

I stopped following the news a long time ago. Sue me for not keeping informed about the state of the world, but it just alternately bores and depresses me. At least the national papers only seem to be padded with the shenanigans of celebrities I’ve rarely heard of, political bickering and a list of how many people died the previous day.

Some people say they prefer the local papers as their news relates to and directly affects the community. Once you’ve got past the page two list of major and minor traffic accidents and the tedious complaints about bad drains and dog shit, I guess there might be some truth in it. Although one must admit, most of the articles tend to be on the less-than-interesting side.

However, I do have a soft spot for the local papers, because they have room for such stories as ‘Dog piss fells lampposts’. Now, that’s what I need to read on days like these! A great title and, although not a world shattering piece of news, still a perfectly respectable piece of journalism on the erosive effects local dogs are having on public property.

Anyway town councils, just so you know, don’t coat your lampposts with aluminium!

There’s been weather

Can this really be 2:45 in the afternoon? Yes, I took the left-hand photo outside my house today. In fact, the street lamps had already been on for quite a while and we still haven’t quite reached the equinox!

Now, it's now been fully dark for a bit, of course.


Compare this to keltanen’s gorgeous photo of ferries in February and you start to realise what a real difference the snow makes. Choice: light(er) and freezing or warm(er) and grey. Hmm…

Speaking of speaking of the weather, I often heard former Finnish colleagues complain about small talk in international meetings and how they never had a whole host of vapid comments about the weather at hand. However, a Finnish friend once told me that Finnish meteorological small talk can actually go one step further than the English ‘It’s been raining a lot lately hasn’t it, Vera.’ The equivalent Finnish phrase of choice is apparently ‘On ollut säätä’ – ‘There’s been weather.’

Now that is some really miniscule talk!

Becoming noctural?

Busting with gossip I still have to keep quiet about for a bit, so I think I’ll fall back on tradition and write about … the weather.

About a month ago it snowed, as it ought. However, we were foolish enough to make fun of Winter (ha, ha, I’ve found two identical snowflakes – slacker!) and it stormed off in a huff. Now Autumn has had to return and is taking its irritation at the overtime out on us. Okay, so it is warm – about twenty odd degrees warmer than it should be – which is nice, but…

I’m not usually affected overmuch my SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder), but this past month of ‘Autumn #2 – Revenge of the Drearies’ has been miserable. Everything is grey. The sun barely winches itself into the sky by ten and it’s twilight by three. Except when it rains (which it has done seemingly non-stop for about three weeks), when it’s twilight for all of what attempts to pass itself off as day.

Dragging myself out of bed is nigh on impossible some mornings and work drags, especially as mine involves tasks requiring concentration, such as proofreading. Coffee and other artificial stimulants don’t help. I’d get a daylight lamp if they didn’t cost an arm and a leg.

However, when it’s finally properly dark, I start perking up again! What’s that all about? Maybe I’m becoming nocturnal?

Comprehending resignation

A friend at university once told me how he'd come to terms with dying at the age of fourteen. Being a slightly neurotic teenager, he'd convinced himself – without any logical basis whatsoever – that he had AIDS. Naturally, instead of mentioning this to anyone, he kept it to himself. After spending many anguished months simply waiting for the end, he finally came to terms with the idea.

Whether that feeling, like the conviction that he was terminally ill, also wore off with time, I don’t know. When I first heard the story, I couldn’t even begin to imagine reaching such a feeling of – I don’t even quite know what to call it! – resignation, perhaps? Yet now, albeit in a very different context, I think I've taken another large step closer to understanding that kind of thought process.

Strange Instruments

The Players weren't the only ones providing entertainment at the Finn-Brit 80th anniversary party. Also performing were the Helsinki Morrisers and the Folk club, who had a whole host of strange instruments, including what looked like a didgeridoo made from a piece of plastic corrugated pipe and several cardboard tubes, another wind instrument made from a ceramic flagon and a recorder fashioned from one end of a walking stick.

Even more amazing than the instruments themselves, was that you could actually get a tune out of them!

Get Back Into Your Scraghole!

How the mighty tumble. Anna MR and I have gone from Shakespearean ladies to Pinter bag ladies in a month. Yes, instead of having a rest we leapt straight into another production: six revue sketches for the Finn-Brit Society’s 80th anniversary party this evening.

Pinter is notoriously hard to read; and also to learn, being riddles with pauses and non sequiturs. Reading one of our sketches, The Black and White (about two bag ladies with an obsession with buses), it was hard to see how it was going to be funny. In fact, during the readthroughs it was pretty darn sad. But once we got into dress rehearsal, people were killing themselves laughing. Especially during the pauses.

Those Pinter pauses … hey, was that the last two-nine-six coming up over the river? Shit, gotta dash.

Rat Baiting

In its death throes, my rats’ old hammock lost one of its supporting chains. This chain hung tantalisingly down, one more item asking to be gnawed upon. Quite amusing to watch the little blighters try and grab this tricky non-food; but what if it was rubbed with essence of peanut…?

The resulting fight for the invisible peanut can be viewed by clicking on the play button below or here.

Exit pursued by a tax bear

I’d like to apologise to the tax office for being so harsh in October when I berated my year’s wait and a mere twenty four euros interest on the six thousand that I had been overtaxed in 2005. Sorry: it seems that the Finnish verokarhu (the ‘tax bear’ – I love the concept of the tax bear relentlessly pursuing you through the forest!) really is that greedy after all.

After receiving the first communiqué from the tax office telling me I was getting about five and a half thousand euros back, I naturally returned it immediately for correction in disbelief. A few months later, I received the final, corrected decision giving me a six thousand rebate instead! And bitched about it.

However, on the very last day before all tax papers had to reach taxpayers, a third letter thunked ominously through my letterbox. I immediately rang them and asked how I could suddenly be paying them?

‘Oh yes, we just got some new information.’
‘What information? … Oh, that information – the stuff my accountants filed with you in, er, APRIL?’
‘Yes … it was in a different department.’

Of course, with your mate two cubicles down no doubt…

They were of course ‘very sorry’ that their incorrect second decision had reached me a few months earlier.

Today is tax return day, when I should have been using my rebate to kick my disastrous finances into shape. Instead, as Shakespeare would say:

Exit pursued by a tax bear

Is He Dead or a Friend of Yours?

Anyone who deals with copyright will know why this would be one of the first questions asked about our ‘guest writer’ for Poetry & Jazz’s autumn programme. (Yes, I am really behind on this one!)

Even though Rhys Hughes is still living in Wales, it still hasn’t killed him yet! Rhys’ work was very popular at our performances, but if you missed it – or just want to find out how to get your hands on some more Rhys scribblings – why not visit his blog for more info.

In honour of Poetry & Jazz’s fifth birthday, which it celebrated in October 2006, both of this year’s programmes consisted almost entirely of work written by members of the Players. As the affiliated writing society begun this year has been spawning so much excellent material, it looks like this is going to remain as our policy for the foreseeable future.

Photos and full programmes are (finally!) available for perusal here .

Hm … guess we better start getting our heads together for the Spring 2007 season.

The Other Foot

Kanikoski decides which card to play: Camel hump soup? Seven physicists and an apple pie? Nothing ever feels the same again? Or maybe the never failing trump card: BRUCE!

Forget poker and Trivial Pursuit, we've stumbled across a new pub game: The Other Foot. Setting up is easy. Simply tear off one side of a large number of beer mats to create cards. Divide equally among players. Each player writes a single idea on each of their cards (see above examples).

When you have written your cards, this is the point to look out for mean-spirited staff. Even though they were already ‘ruined’ anyway, the grade A pettiness of some barmaids will force them to march up and steal all the cards you have just written, silently throwing down in their place a measly notepad containing ten tiny sheets of wafer thin paper. This could put a terminal spanner in the works unless you happen to have a perfectly good muji notepad to destroy. After leaving coded insults on the useless pad and rewriting your muji ‘cards’, attempt to shuffle them without tangling the perforations and spilling them everywhere. Deal out evenly between players.

Before settling down to play, ensure that your group is still being served at the bar. After smugly obtaining fresh drinks and enormous doorstep toasts, each player takes it in turn to be the ‘judge’. The judge places a card on the table and each player has to respond in turn, either to the original card or the subsequent ones. Cue much noise and hilarity. The judge then decides which response was best and awards a point before passing the judgeship onwards. If you can be bothered to count, the player with the most points when the cards run out wins. Deduct a point from everyone’s score if you were not the loudest people in the pub. Add one point if you were and the next table was full of rugby players.

Add some new cards and play another round!