The final countdown

Aki and Tina came to visit us this weekend from Australia. Well, on the way home to Australia from Leeds to be precise. We had a pretty nice weekend and we even got to drink Jim Beam and coke like old times. And get a bit of a hangover like old times too.

But on the Saturday night as I was in bed falling asleep, I realised that all the things we have been waiting for have all happened now, except one. We have been to Ähtäri for Ulriikka's dad's birthday. We have had Aki and Tina visit and now all that is left is for us to get married. It has been good that we have had things going on the whole time so that I haven't had much time to panic but now there is nothing inbetween now and then.

Last week we went to see the judge in the courts. He took us into what looked like a normal interview room off the main corridor, only for it to turn out to be a proper courtroom. The judge took his, presumambly regular, seat behind the judge's desk and we were sat in what looked like the defendants seat. He then asked us some questions about why we were getting married. Under the pressure of it all my Finnish shrank to a tiny squeak and I was too shy to say very much.

Before that I have to navigate my family and friends to Tampere from varous arrival points in Finland. However, Tampere airport is not very big. There is only one bus stop and only one bus stops at it. Helsinki airport is only slightly more complicated. So I am not expecting them to face the kind of problems that I would imagine come from landing, say, in Delhi at 2am. That said, it won't be the same without them so I hope that they make it.

Nothing to see here

I was planning to say something. I can't think what it might have been. I suppose it doesn't really matter. Sorry for wasting your time. Just for the sake of it, here is the view from my window.



Incidentally, the video shop is supposed to close at 11 today but it's already closed. I don't know what the world is coming to. Standards have slipped.

3D is not the future of cinema

After recycling Mark Kermode's opinions on 3D cinema for a while, I finally went to see a 3D film of my own. Some might argue that since time is a dimension, we have been watching film in 3D for quite some time now so perhaps it should really be called 4D. But since 4D is a Channel 4 series, actually quite popular in Finland, detailing the more freakish elements of society, I'll stick with 3D.

The film we went to see was Ice Age 3, which follows in the tradition of third films being 3D which dates back at least as far as Jaws 3D and probably further back. This makes this particular 3D feel like a Gimmick already. There have been other gimmicks in cinema - John Water's "Odorama" is one that I feel glad to have missed out on. But 3D in it's current incarnation is being sold as the future of cinema although I don't see it myself.

I went to see Superman Returns in the Imax a few years back. That film only had a small number of scenes in 3D which meant that the glasses had to be put on and taken off constantly. The 3D parts felt like they were in the film purely in order to be 3D a 3D film - they added nothing to the film, which would have worked fine without those scenes. I will admit that the sight of Superman apparently flying above the cinema audience is impressive. Unfortunately on at least one occasion it was a Superman with no feet flying above an audience. Cinema, especially super hero films, is supposed to be about escaping into a different world. Nothing drives home the fact that you are watching a film in Manchester as opposed to fighting evil aboard an asteroid than seeing half a superman and half an audience at the same time.

There are other problems with 3D. The glasses you have to wear are pretty uncomfortable - we all had indentations in our faces after coming out of the cinema. It's also more expensive - €12.50 here in Finland, which is €2 more than usual. It seems that this more than covers the cost of the projectors and the glasses you need, although the film industry itself denies a rip-off.

Ice Age 3 was a pretty terrible film so I was able to judge the 3D on it own. There were definitely some nice images and effects and I could see how it could be made into a pretty impressive spectacle. But at the moment I just can't see the point in 3D cinema. It doesn't add anything to the film viewing experience and I can't see it being a success. For all that, James Cameron's Avatar might show me to be wrong when it's released later this year.

Next week: How the time travel aspects of the new Star Trek film don't make sense and how Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure shows that time travel in a film usually renders the rest of what you've just seen largely pointless (although in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, it's genius!).

The Riff Raff in Burger King

Every once in a while I drive up to visit my sister in upstate New York, this is about a 4-5 hour drive and usually I stop about half way to get something with no redeeming health value to eat a Burger King. There is one along that way that I prefer as it is very convenient to the highway.
In April I found myself stopping at this particular Burger King, while I'm sitting there eating my BK Big Fish, I overhear an elderly guy. And I'm not even trying to over hear him, which is unusual as I enjoy eavesdropping in random place. This person starts to get louder. He is saying things like "look at her, yak yak yak." I don't think much of it and pull my phone out to check if I have any messages, at which point I hear "oh now she has her phone out, look at her." This makes me feel weird as the place is not very crowded. I look over at this table where all the yakking is coming from to see a large old man staring at me along with two old women; they all have thick glasses on which make their eyes bug-like and crazy. The do not stop staring when I look at them as they clearly think I am a freak of nature. This makes me for uncomfortable and a strong urge to flee comes on.
On any given day I'm sure I do lots of things that could warrant strangers making fun of me, but I don't think I've ever had this sort of experience with the elderly. I have to walk by them to leave and manage to look at them again and sure enough their crazy bug eyes followed me out.
The last time I visited my sister I decided to stop there again, assuming that the menacing old folks have moved on and it is a much more crowded July 4th weekend. While I'm waiting for my food, I think I had a chicken sandwich if anyone was wondering, the 16 year old cashier starts yelling "Don't you want your change!?" Everyone turns to look at an old man, the same one that was making fun of me in April. He is standing in his glory with the crazy eyes and a bizarre grin on. Another customer offers the cashier that he will take the change over to the man, the cashier declines with an exasperated "He does this all the time!" After standing around for a while he goes over to a table with other old timers seated at him, where they just sit around, stare and point at other customers. It was like a geriatric version of Mean Girls. I will definetly stop there again on my next visit.

Alko, pizza and fried fish

I guess that I haven't written anything for a while. Mainly it's because I've been moving house, but there is a bit of laziness involved too... But anyway, apologies for my laziness and thanks to Johnny and Krista for at least writing something from time to time.

But we have moved house and it has used up pretty much 4 solid weeks of my life in painting, moving, packing and unpacking or other house moving related activities. Although I should at this stage point out that Ulriikka did significantly more work than I did!

We've moved to a slightly more residential part of the city centre. So even though we're on the ground floor we haven't heard the same amount of noise as we did in the city centre (although even there it was never too bad). We are right next door to the Alko store which means that we will never be struggling for high-percentage alcohol as long as we buy it before 6pm. We can also see a Kotipizza from the kitchen window, which might make it hard to decide to eat something healthy though. Nearby is Tammelantori where the main market is, so we can get our fried fish in the mornings.

We reserved our sauna slot for Friday evening so spent last Friday tidying away the last of the unpacked things then relaxing in the sauna. Well kind of relaxing. We have the 7-8pm slot and we were a bit late and went there at about 7:15. We didn't take a watch with us so we didn't know what time it was. After a bit we decided we'd had enough and though we should leave before the next people came banging on the door. When we got back we found that we had been away for 15 minutes. Maybe we can take it a bit easier next time.

Living in a block of flats leaves us with quite a few odd little things that we can use. We have a space in a cold storage room (which currently has paint in it) and some storage space in the attic. There are also some drying rooms which are a little bit spooky. There is also a bike storage facility but it takes about two days to walk through the maze of corridors in the cellar to get to it - where it exits out onto a different street than we live on.

But otherwise it's all weddings over here. I was in Helsinki about three weeks ago to see the UK consulate. I was made to swear on the bible that Ulriikka wasn't my sister or anything else on a list of about 30 different relations. It was all very bizarre. I had to leave all my belongings in the security lodge, taking "only the papers you need" with me. This meant that I left my cash in my bag and had to go back to get it - I suppose that would have come under the "papers I need" section of my belongings so it's my own fault. I also had my suit with me (I was at a christening the next day) so in the end I left quite a bit of stuff in the security lodge, some of which I needed. Apart from getting my first attempt at the form wrong, including writing my age down wrong, and getting my address wrong (I wrote "road" instead of "street") it all went smoothly and I should hear in the next few days whether or not I am free to get married. Or rather I am free to ask the Finnish authorites if I can get married. It's all very complicated this international romance thing you know.

I Love Lamp

Around 2005, I had a pang of sadness. George Lucas had released Episode III and the Matrix and Lord Of The Ring trilogies had finished 2 years prior. There was nothing cinematic left to look forward to. (In hindsight, it's a good thing that Lucas stopped at that third prequel and didn't go on to make the much hinted-at 3 sequels which would follow Return Of The Jedi - although we can live in fear everyday).

Anyway, my point is that although excellent films come along all the time (has anyone seen the most excellent French thriller Tell No One yet? C'est superbe!), there were no franchises left to plunder. In 2005, I was looking forward to Bryan Singer reigniting the Superman films but instead he made them drastically worse by introducing a new character which will inevitably plague any future films. And even though I knew a new Batman film (...Begins) was imminent, who would have thought it would go to become the new benchmark for comic-book movies and origin stories?

So, all the way through this period - and back to 1995 even - there's been one source of filmaking that is (almost) sure to hit the spot every time: Pixar Animation Studios in Emeryville, California.

My fondness for Pixar started somewhere following the release of Toy Story. I used to watch the film endlessly at university, stunned not at the quality of the computer animation, but at the depth of the characters and the inventiveness of the plot. In hindsight - and in comparison with later work by the studio - there are faults with the animation: the humans aren't quite right, and everything has a glossy Star Trek-sheen as though it was (surprise surprise) created inside a computer. But the story has charm and it is this that has held the film in high regard for the last 15 years.





















Although I think A Bug's Life is a fine film, it is probably one of the weaker Pixar films - mainly because of the massive debt it owes to The Seven Samurai / The Magnificent Seven - but also it was a poor contender to Antz, which was released by Dreamworks at the same time.

Things got back on track a year later with the sequel to Toy Story - and the first of many Pixar films I would catch on the big screen. The animation is far improved from the original - just check out the fantastic opening 10 minutes - and they finally managed to get human beings looking a little less like a random assortment of geometric shapes.

Monsters Inc., released in 2001 remains one of my favourite films from the studio. It's the first of many Pixar releases that seems to be aimed more at adults than children - and considering I don't have the innocent mind of a 5-year old any more, that can only be a good thing. Again, it's the characterisation - and the interplay between the two leads - which pulls the film out of family-friendly cartoon territory and into comedic genius.

2003's Finding Nemo marks the first time the studio won the Best Animated Feature at the Academy Awards. Although not a favourite of mine - mainly because of how child-friendly it is - there are some magnificent moments, and it looks amazing. But it is 2004's The Incredibles where Pixar really hits its stride.

Right from the trailer - which makes use of John Barry's On Her Majesty's Secret Service theme - the ingredients are perfect: a bunch of superheroes in hiding (à la Watchmen), a megalomaniacal villain encamped on an island hideaway (à la You Only Live Twice), an Art Deco design scheme, a John Barry-esque soundtrack, and a satirical edge so sharp it demands a second viewing just to digest it all.

The Incredibles was the second Pixar film to scoop the Best Animated Feature award and marks the first time a Pixar film was written and directed by an outsider. Brad Bird's touch takes the focus away from the whimsy of John Lasseter and Andrew Stanton and thankfully there's no Randy Newman songs to sour the deal either.

Of course, when you're at the top there's only one way to go, and that's down. 2006's Cars is a definite low. There's pretty much nothing going on here to keep anybody's attention, and the fact that the central character is so obsessed with money and celebrity is a really odd choice for a children's film. The same can be said of Shark Tale, Dreamworks' 2004 attempt to ape Finding Nemo. I understand that it's all about the journey, and that the message is 'friends before fame', but when you consider that most children would see a character only in the way that they are introduced, what does this teach them? Of course, it works perfectly when you look at the culture we live in: American Idol, The X-Factor, Big Brother, Britain's/America's Got Talent, and so on and so forth. Simon Fuller has a lot to answer for.

Unfortunately things manage to slip further downhill with Ratatouille, released in 2007. There's just something very un-Pixar about this film. I had high hopes, with Brad Bird returning to the fold, but it just stinks of Disney. Perhaps I need to revisit it - it won Pixar their third Best Animated Feature award, and it seems to be universally lauded everywhere else.

WALL-E, released in 2008, represents the closest Pixar has come to a nomination for the Best Picture category. Advised on lighting and atmosphere by Roger Deakins and Dennis Muren, the film looks scarily realistic, especially in the scenes on Earth in the first act. Given that it's a cartoon, the fact that certain shots that look like the real world is a testament to how far the animation has come since the very smooth-looking Toy Story days.

Another impressive feat is that WALL-E is practically a silent movie for the first half - a bold move from a studio which usually puts so much stock in the quality of its scripts. Most of all however, the one thing that makes the film truly deserving as the studio's fourth Best Animated Feature is the fact that there is more emotion and interplay between the two leads - a couple of robots - than there is in a year's worth of formulaic Hollywood bullshit.

I haven't seen Up yet, and given New Zealand's whacky release schedule, I doubt that I'll see it anytime soon. But I can't wait. It doesn't look to be aimed at children, considering that it revolves around the adventures of an old man, so that's good - and it's in 3D which I'm also looking forward to. I can't speak for a proper live-action film in 3D as I haven't had the pleasure, but an animated film is the perfect medium for it - Monsters Vs. Aliens looked amazing recently.

So that concludes the Pixar story so far. I recently read that the studio is about to start moving into live-action filmmaking, which I suppose shouldn't be seen as a surprise given the few glimpses of it we saw in WALL-E, but it makes me wonder why they would venture into a field that has been tried and tested? Pixar spearheaded computer animation so I would like to see them move into unkown territory again.

There's also a rumour that the studio will be shooting a remake of Star Trek III: The Search For Spock. It will be called Finding Nimoy.

EPILOGUE: THE SHORTS
One of the best things about seeing a Pixar film at the cinema is that you get the full experience of a short film, followed by the main feature. This is excellent as the shorts are always high on laughs and are usually just as good as the films that follow them. Given their length, they're a really good thing to have on your iPod too.
I'm not going to list every one, but here are my favourite 3:
For The Birds - a silent film, backed by some nice jazz, about a group of birds on a telephone wire. Shown prior to Monsters, Inc.
Lifted - a dark sci-fi piece following a training session of an alien spaceship as it attempts to do a spot of midnight abducting. Shown prior to Ratatouille.
Presto - a hungry rabbit and an intolerant stage magician do battle on stage over a carrot. Shown prior to WALL-E.

And finally, I can heartily recommend The Pixar Story - a feature length documentary by Leslie Iwerks, which can be found on the special features of the WALL-E DVD.

Feelin' Groovy

I'm seldom impressed when I go to see a gig. I don't know what it is, but I think I'm just very hard to please. My friends Robbie & Natalie always tease me about my standard review of bands I'll go and see at Glastonbury. "It was alright," becomes my stock response. And I think that can be applied to most musical performances. Unless something special happens - or if you have your head buried in the sand to the degree that you have no frame of reference - it's just very hard to be hit for six.

So it's with great pleasure that I can report one of these rare occasions. On Sunday, I was honoured to be able to see Simon & Garfunkel live in concert. They're not even touring! They're just doing a few dates in Australia and New Zealand for shits and giggles. Presumably so Art Garfunkel can scope out the competition for opening a chain of steak restaurants in the Australasian market and so Paul Simon can go to the open casting calls for the new Hobbit films.

I always see photographs of them on stage, with an acoustic guitar draped around Paul Simon, and I always wonder whether he's actually playing it or whether it's just for show. Mystery over - he's a freakin' genius. Although they were backed by a very proficient band, the songs that they performed alone with just their voices and the acoustic guitar really showcased his guitar playing.

They played practically all of their sixties singles - even throwing in my own favourite S&G song The Only Living Boy In New York, and my one of my favourite Simon tracks from his solo career, Me And Julio Down By The Schoolyard. Halfway through they each played a short solo section, so after sitting through Art Garfunkel bringing back bad memories about bunny rabbits with Bright Eyes, Paul Simon walked on stage and an African musician on an accordion played the intro to The Boy In The Bubble - the opening song off the Graceland album. Fantastic - and I was officially hit for six.

Even their band amazed me. Their lead guitarist managed - in the instrumental section of Hazy Shade Of Winter - to play a backwards guitar solo. This was previously impossible without the aid of a time-travelling device so presumably somebody has invented a new guitar pedal. Bit of a shame really - as now truly everything The Beatles recorded in the studio can be fully reproduced on stage.

Anyway, I'm going to stop gushing now.

Terminatin'

We caught the new Terminator film last night. I must say I was mightily impressed. After 2 of the strongest science fiction films to come out of Hollywood, the third one was pretty poor, so I wasn't expecting much of the new one. Also, the way in which Auckland Sky City was promoting the film inside the cinema - a few old car tyres with bits of grass sticking out of them, to symbolise the apocolypse - left me with the feeling that I was about to see some college theatre.

Aside from a few dodgy special effects, and a few "jump the shark" moments, it was top notch. The dystopian future was perfectly realised - even though it was all a bit A-Team in that most of the action took place in the Californian desert - and all the performances were spot-on. Well, everyone except Bryce Dallas Wishy Washy Howard, who should have just stayed at home.

Unlike most effects-driven movies, where the action is too visible, it was neatly trimmed down to short, episodic set-pieces. For example, an early encounter with a primitive T-600 was awesome and ran under 3 minutes, whilst a later encounter with a huge machine (and a couple of nice nods to War Of The Worlds) was only marginally longer. Don't get me wrong - the film is full of special-effects and CGI, but the action leaves you wanting more rather than less. Which is nice for once.

If it's made with the same respect for the story, then I'm looking forward to the fifth film, but please please please can we not have the finale take place in a foundry - it's wearing a little thin.

The other thing is that they totally missed the chance to have Christian Bale's well-publicised rant playing over the closing credits, in a Cannonball Run-style gag reel. They could have even shoe-horned in a nice cameo with Sammy Davis Jr and Dean Martin. Dressed as priests.

Spending time in Stockholm when really I should have been in Cheshire

When I introduced Sally and Ben to each other a few years ago, I really had no idea what was going to happen. Maybe I should have realised really but there you go - I can only hold my hands up and say sorry. I don't really mind that Ben got Sally pregnant, even when you take into account what he must have been doing with her at the time it happened. But I draw the line at Ben joining the family. Luckily, I don't recognise the office of Brother in Law so I can ignore him at family functions.

In truth, I'm really happy that Ben and Sally are married of course. I was really dissapointed not to have been able to go and see it happen myself. I have since seen a video of it, so I accept that it really did happen. But somehow it doesn't seem all that real if I wasn't there to witness it myself.

The reason I wasn't there was because I couldn't afford to be there. So instead I was spending Sally and Ben's wedding day in... er... Stockholm. If that doesn't sound like the actions of a man who can't afford to travel abroad, I can only say in my defence that Stockholm is a lot closer to Tampere. And not for us the jetsetter lifestyle; Ulriikka and I gave a masterclass in cut-price city break holidays. We are a cut above the 20 minute express train from the airport to the centre. Instead we went on a small bus tour of the Arlanda industrial estates before catching a commuter train to the centre. I tell myself that this is a better way to the see the city, but deep down I know that with a little bit of extra cash I'd be on the express train every time. But honestly, the railway cuttings of Stockholm really do deserve to be savoured and not whizzed past.

Stockholm itself is a pretty wonderful city. It's like a fairytale - or is that Bruges? Either way, it was one of those cities that are nice to just walk around admiring the buildings - as opposed to Hull for example, where standing next to a man with a bayonetted rifle is a lot more dangerous.



Back here in Finland, Ulriikka and I decided that organising our own wedding wasn't giving us enough stress and have launched ourselves onto the property ladder. This means that our June will be filled with decorating our new home. I can't really say very much about the place yet as we haven't got the keys. But it is still in the city centre, just a little bit away from the main shopping streets. It's also right next to the main market square which means that I will be able to have blood sausage for breakfast every morning.

I realise that it isn't a very helpful picture, but here is our new house.

A Private Party in Trenton

Trenton is the capitol of NJ and is also possibly the worst city in the US, a friend of mine recently moved there, he has a job rehousing refugees which he feels bad that he has to re-house them in Trenton because it's just not very nice. Previously I have only been thru the city, on the train or driving, the first time I was amazed by their giant city slogan that doesn't really enhance the what could otherwise constitute a nice view. There is just something about "TRENTON MAKE THE WORLD TAKE" that puts people off, I'm not sure why, surely this slogan was decided upon by a panel of intelligent minds at some point. It's not nearly as good as the currently NJ state slogan: Come See for Yourself, if that can't bring in the tourist I don't know what will.

Driving in downtown Trenton is relatively easy; no one actually wants to go there. There is no traffic and I was able to find my friends place without any problems. We walked down the road to to get some pizza and I managed to run into a man I used to work with about 10 years ago at another pizza place. He asked me if I remembered the drug addict we used to work with named "Heroin Bill", and of course I didn't although I prefer to use the name "Methadone Bill". After that run in we decided to get a drink at a place my friend described as the only nice bar in Trenton. Unfortunately when we tried to go in they wouldn't let us. A very happy insane man who was outside dancing alone informed us there was a private party going on inside and they wouldn't let him in so he was going to have his own private party outside. A bouncer opened the door to also tell us we were not allowed in just like the crazy guy. After a few more moments watching the crazy guys hip shaking moves we decided to leave.

We went on a nice walking tour of some abandon building scenery and then hit the arena where there was going to be some kind of Rodeo. The rodeo basically subjected me to one of the most horrifying scenes I've ever witnessed when a man was trampled, stomped and head butted by a pissed off bull for about 60 seconds. What was somewhat more disturbing were the people around us who insisted that the bull should be killed on the spot, geez it wasn't his idea to be ridden. Would I go again? Yes.

After several hours of rodeo excitement we left and were instantly approached by a man: "Excuse me! I just need to tell you something! My mom just died like 30 minutes ago!"

Moving on we went driving in search of an open shop, which took us around some finer parts of the city. I was informed as we passed several abandon factories that Trenton doesn't really make anything that the world takes anymore, which was just kind of sad considering just few years ago the city spent millions fixing that slogan sign.

Here comes the summer

We spent Easter at Ulriikka's parents' house which included a walk around a frozen lake. On the way home we saw the huge lake Näsijärvi from the train and it looked pretty much frozen solid. On monday this week, I was wearing my winter coat as the temperature dropped to about -5 in the morning.

Next week is Vappu, the first of May. It's a big deal in Finland and the tradition is to sit in the park having a picnic while nursing a terrific hangover. We were looking at photos from last year when it was t-shirt weather and everything was green. We were contemplating a Vappu in the cold when something remarkable happened. The sun, which has been shining more or less constantly for the last month or so to no great effect, suddenly started feeling warm and now today it's a rather toasty 18 degrees and looks like a beautiful day - looking out of the balcony window just now, I can't see a cloud in the sky.



We've started getting prepared for Vappu and yesterday we made some Sima. Or rather, we are about halfway through making some sima. Right now it's sat on the kitchen table brewing, or whatever yeast does when it's in a pan full of sugar and water. We'll be bottling it later and the idea is that it will make a slightly fizzy weak lemon drink that we will be drinking on our picnic next Friday.

We'll have a house full next week as Lash, Stevilee, Danny and Vicky all come to visit us. They'll be arriving to Tampere at about 11pm on Thursday, which should be just as the city reaches the peak of its post-apocalyptical drinking session. It will be a baptism of fire for them - especially if they get the bus from the airport and arrive at the train station surrounded by the Ale-Pubs there. "Ale" is Finnish for discount, which means that where beer normally sells for about 5 Euros a pint in normal bars it's sold for about 3 Euros in the Ale-Pubs. This means that it attracts the... ahem... more interesting characters in Tampere.

But I don't want to paint a bad picture of Finland and Vappu is more like a festival than a party. There will be bands and fairs in the town centre. The new university students are dunked into the rapids that run through the centre of town - which might be cold since the water will be made up from defrosting ice. The Ice Hockey World Championships is on and Finland are actually quite good at it - they were finalists a couple of year ago. There is always a really good atmosphere in the city, which is maybe helped by the alcohol flowing through everybody's blood system. But I'm really looking forward to it and I will try and give an update as it happens.

The One Armed Man Lives

This weekend I decided I might as well check out Duke Farms, it’s one of those places that I have driven by about a million times and never visited. (And I still managed to get lost because basically I’m an idiot and didn’t look up the proper directions to the visitor’s entrance.) The Duke Estate is huge chuck of prime NJ real estate that is worth approx a gazillion dollars. Doris Duke spent many of her insane years there; you can even watch a movie about how crazy she was starring Susan Sarandon with Ralph Fiennes as her also alcoholic Irish butler. She inherited all her money from her family cancer stick business or something along those lines.
At the guard station check in I was told to drive to the visitor’s center and check in with someone named Pete. The visitor’s center parking lot only had two other cars in it, I did think it would be more busy as it is a Saturday and spring-like.
I make my way inside to meet this Pete and find that he is most likely the “One Armed Man” from the Fugitive or just his brother Pete that happens to have two arms. He makes me fill out a card with my address and information so he can effectively stalk me later if he wants. And also give me a laminated map and says I should skip the Butterfly Spur because it’s basically been decimated. Some ladies appear who have just completed the walk I'm going on and one of them randomly tells me I should use the rest room before I start, Pete does not offer advice on this topic, he does give me a disclaimer card with their phone number on it. He asks if I have a cell phone and recommends I call them if I have any trouble, which of course leads to me wondering what kind of trouble one can get into here.
The start of the walk leads you through a large patch of trees, many of which appear to have been ripped from the ground by giants and struck by lightening. Some of the ones that are still standing are snapped partway up and making loud creaking noises and I wonder not if but when they will fall on me.
There are protective fences around most of the estate to keep deer out, which makes me happy as they are one of my natural enemies and also the scourge of the earth. According to my laminated map, deer caused a lot of damage to the trees and generally cause trouble being such sinister creatures.
Moving on I realize that I am indeed the only person anywhere to be seen and it is incredibly creepy. I imagine several situations where the Zodiac will appear. The Butterfly Spur is indeed decimated. There is also the shell of a barn that burned down 100 years ago that is now filled with marble statues of women, some of which are missing heads.
I manage to take find some interesting plants to shoot with my old film camera since I’m back on real pictures and generally had a nice time with moments of paranoia that are a direct result of reading too many true crime books in the past. I’ll have to go back in the summer when things are a bit greener, there will probably be more people then and I’ll end up getting annoyed instead of creeped out.
On the way back out through the visitors center the One Armed Man showed me the Bald Eagle Cam where you can spy on a nest. The "eaglets" should be hatching today or yesterday: http://www.dukefarms.org/

Ant Lifeboat

One of the best things about starting from scratch in a new country is buying little things that you've always wanted. Like a clear kettle. So we have one like this:





















It's fantastic and seems to make my life that little bit more bearable. However, it's become the focal point of a very strange phenomenon.

Over the summer, we've had a real problem with ants. The weather is so hot in New Zealand that you really have to be careful with leaving food out. Make the mistake of leaving something sweet out on the kitchen counter overnight, and you can rest assured that when you wake up there'll be ants everywhere.

We even found that they'd managed to infiltrate sealed glass jars of honey. How? We first thought it was impossible - that they must have created some kind of Star Trek transporter to pass though solid materials. And then we realised how they did it - they travelled along the groove of the screw lid until they got inside the jar. Crafty bastards.

This is nothing though in comparison with their latest trick. A few times I've woken up and walked into the kitchen, sleepy-eyed. I've gone to flick the kettle on and realised that there's something black floating on the water inside it. Astounded by this object, bobbing up and down on the surface about as big as a kidney bean, I've taken a closer look...

It's a raft. Made of ants, with more ants on it. Just floating there, in the middle of the kettle.

Now I'm no scientist but I'm stumped if I know how or why they're doing this. The simplest explanation is that one fell in and they just kept following, like lemmings. But if this had happened, you would expect the water in the kettle to be peppered with ants. What they have done seems almost planned. When you look closer, the dead ants have created a raft by linking their legs together, and then the other ants are sitting on top having a nice sail.

WHY? WHY? WHY?

I guess we're just lucky to have a clear kettle to act as an early-warning device for this odd event. You know those times when you make a coffee and there's undissolved coffee floating on the surface in your cup? Maybe that ain't coffee after all...

All this talk of ants has just reminded me of a fantastic lyric I heard on the radio the other day:

I want to cover you in ants, bees and honey,
Then take a picture for the cover of our album!

Watch it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCPY-zD6e-I

The false economy of flying Ryanair

It seemed like a good idea at the time - we would save some money and get to see a nice city. So when we booked our flights to Manchester we went with Ryanair. A few weeks before we were due to fly they cancelled our return flight meaning we had to book a new flight with BA, which while not expensive was double the price of the Ryanair flight. But so what, this was all still cheaper than flying direct.

Going to Manchester was two flights - the first from Tampere to Bremen. We then had about 6 hours in Bremen as long as we didn't mind the snow that was pouring down. We braved the snow and headed into Bremen town centre. This being Germany, getting to town was absurdly easy. A tram from ten metres outside the airport dropped us outside the cathedral. We then went round the corner and could see this:



Which is a nice thing to look at. We had some nice schnitzel in a cafe and felt ready for the weather. We weren't - it was freezing. We spent the next few hours going between places and being inside for as much as possible. It's a place to go in the sunshine really - it would have been nice to spend more time looking upwards! We pretty much condensed a holiday in Germany down to 6 hours. Medieval catheral? Check. Stamps printed individually at the post office? Check. Heart-attack inducing cake in a cafe in the middle of a maze of ancient streets? Check. Slightly flat beer in a dark pub served by a slightly overbearing fake smiling lady? Check.

Next on the trip was Manchester and we stayed at the Brittania hotel in Piccadilly. I've been to Waves, the bar underneath the hotel and didn't have especially high expectations of the hotel itself. The hotel is beautiful itself but inside is amazing, as though it was designed by M.C. Escher. One of the things I was looking forward to doing in Manchester was to have a margarita in Rodeo. However on arriving there I was confronted with this:



You can't really see from the picture, but Rodeo is now "Keko Moku". It doesn't roll off the tongue quite as nicely but the place is essentially the same. I can recommend the Dark and Stormy cocktail.

It's birthday season at the moment and after Pia's birthday party on Friday in Chorlton we were up bright and early the next day to go to my Dad's 60th birthday party. My Dad himself didn't know that we were coming - what better present than post traumatic stress? Certainly that was the expression on my Dad's face for the next hour after we arrived. I think that in truth our arrival gave the game away about a party later that day but from a purely selfish point of view, it was worth spoiling the surprise just to see the happy look on his little face. Plus it gave me a chance to set up a Spotify account.

Getting up the next morning we had to leave to head down to that there London town. I have noticed that living abroad has changed my attitute towards a lot of things about Britain. For some reason I've become nostalgic for places, like London, that I don't actually have any specific attachment to. So I pretended not to be a republican to try and see Buckingham Palace down Pall Mall, took photos of Big Ben from every angle (and yes, I know that since Big Ben is the name of the bell not the clock tower I realise that I couldn't actually see it), crossed the road to get a better view of look of Downing Street and so on. Most pleasantly of all though we were in the centre of London before the protests in the City.

We spent the last day in the British Museum. I'm sure that I will have been there in the past but I don't remember ever visiting there. It was quite nice to see all the things from ancient civilisations. Say what you want about the contibution of the Egyptian empire to human civilization though, they clearly didn't know what a lion looks like...

Kiukku

Kiukku is a word I learned on my work placement. It means anger (my dictionary actually says "crossness"). Anyway, it's a pretty useful word at the moment since it more or less describes my feelings at being back at language school. I didn't learn the Finnish for waste of time though, and that would have been even more useful just now.

About 8 weeks ago I was told that my work placement was going to be at a nursery school. Before it started there we were two weeks of lessons about Finnish work life. They were unbearable. I was given the choice to go back to the normal lessons just before I went and I was on the verge of doing it before deciding on a "get it over and done with policy" and, well, getting it over and done with. The idea of working in a nursery school was not one that I contemplated with any kind of relish. I was pretty sure that I would not like it and the thought of trying to corral 5 year olds who wouldn't understand me filled me with terror.

I arrived on day one determined to keep an open mind. Sure, it was probably going to be pretty awful but it was only 7 weeks and starting the work practise expecting horrors was probably the best way of making sure that it happened. As long as there was some kind of improvement in my Finnish then the whole episode would not be a waste of time. I had met the staff that I would be working with and they had seemed to be pretty nice so I figured I would keep quiet and knuckle down.

However keeping quiet and knuckling down is a pointless and boring way to fill the time. After the first day had been and gone and I had sat watching children play or eat for six hours I left feeling glad to have survived a group of children and feeling that I had acheived fairly little. So I looked for ways to relieve the boredom. Ultimately that meant actually interacting with the children. Slowly I got myself more involved in what was going on. Initially that meant doing my best to stop the children killing each other. Anybody checking the statistics will find that I did that aspect of the job especially well - in the time I was there, no-one died.

My days were slowly filled helping the children put on their outdoor clothes, helping them take them off, nudging them along when they set the table for dinner, getting out and putting back beds, and so on. I'm not sure when it happened but at some point I realised that I was enjoying myself. Sure, there were bad moments - mostly when not much was happening and I was again just watching. But the boring times were not that bad and were partly the reason I was there in the first place. That is, I was rubbish at doing the job because I couldn't speak Finnish. If I could have spoken more Finnish the job would have been even more enjoyable.

At the moment, I'm giving serious consideration to going to school and studying so I can start working properly in a nursery school. However before that can possibly happen I need to improve my Finnish. And so back I go to Finnish school. And it's intolerable. Yesterday was spent listening to people complain for three hours about their experiences. One guy seemed to be mostly upset that the place he was working in expected him to actually do some work. His logic was wonderful - he was only on that course because the job centre paid him do it, so it was unfair of them to make him go to work. People seemed to miss the point that learning a language usually involves using it in some way.

I'm hoping that when I go back to the normal lessons and actually study Finnish it will be a more pleasurable experience. One discussion point yesterday was "what is Finnish work culture like?" I have worked in a variety of jobs for more than ten years and still I couldn't describe British work culture - every job I have had has been different. So there is no way for me to describe Finnish work culture after seven weeks. If I could do it, I wouldn't have the words to talk about it in Finnish.

Hopefully it won't suck all of the life out of me and I'll manage to struggle on. It's giving me Kiukku though!

Cancelling the phone, wriggling out of exercise

I have just got off the phone with O2. I have had a phone contract with them for about 6 years and after I left the UK it was still running. It runs out next month though so I was calling to cancel the contract. It feels like my last connection with the UK and that without it I won't be able to be contacted. As it happens there are only about three people who still send me any messages on it and I'm in email contact with all of them so I don't expect me to lose touch with them any time soon!

It is strange how attached you get to numbers though - I had thought about changing it to a pay as you go just so that I could keep the number. Of course nowadays nobody knows anybody's phone number since it's all on the phone so whether I keep a particular number or not is irrelavent. But there was a time when you knew all the phone numbers of the people you called most often. I can still remember my Dad's old Hazel Grove phone number twenty years after he moved out. That's all changed now and I don't even know Ulriikka's current phone number. It means that if I lose my phone I might never see her again.

In unrelated news I joined the local gym, technically with the intention of getting rid of the paunch that seems to be deceloping. I'm probably not going to start using the weight machines as it seems to be the most boring thing I can imagine doing. I have gone to a couple of the classes though and they seem enjoyable enough. I did a cycling lesson which started off OK. After about 15 minutes though I was in agony from the bike seat that made it difficult to sit down. The idea of the class though was to stand at various points which left my thighs feeling like they were on fire. So my choice was between severe bottom pain and thigh-knack. I managed to make it to the end of the hour though (mainly by not standing on the bike as much as I should have done if I am honest).

Next up was pilates a few days later. Piece of piss, I figure, it's just stretching. I couldn't do it. I figure that the main problem is that I'm just not strong enough to do it and it will get easier if I stick at it. It was a bit embarrasing not to be able to keep my leg still lifted in the air. Not as embarrasing as not being able to do a sit up mind, but at least that was at the end of the hour and I could blame it on tiredness and the ball between my legs...

The plan is to go three times a week, or twice at the very least. That said, I'm writing this instead of getting ready for the Vatsa-selkä class starting in five minutes. I haven't been to the gym this week at all so week 2 and skiving doesn't bode well. But I will be going regularly so that at the very least I'm not out of breath when I walk up two flights of stairs at school.

The Land of Clean Public Toilets

The Maoris’ called New Zealand the “Land of the Long White Cloud” and now while there are still long white clouds visible here and there, I think they should think about changing it to the “Land of the Amazingly Clean Public Toilets”. This would also be a good slogan for there tourist board to use, it would pull in millions of tourists who are sick of taking vacations to destinations with disgusting public toilets. I have never been in so many clean public facilities. All of the ones I visited had both toilet papers and locking doors; they were also generally up to a better standard then my last five places of employment. Amazing. The “Hunderwasser Toilet” is even a tourist draw and is the only public toilet I have ever taken a photo in.
Another previously unimagined facet of my trip was the general lack of crazy people roaming the streets. I counted six on my trip. Two of those were confirmed crazy as they could be witnessed shouting random things or singing and grunting to themselves on the side of the road. The other four just had big beards and tended to wear army jackets. Confirmation of crazy was impossible as maybe they were just trying to cover up their weak chins and like the color green.
More shocking was that I only spotted one potential serial killer as a hot water stream/swimming area. He fit the classic strange man lurking alone at family swimming area. That was also unusual considering on a normal day going to work I see about three or four.

Strange drinks policies

I went to a wedding in Nokia yesterday. Despite me falling comically on the snow afterwards it was a good party. It's possible that my fall added to the general fun. The stand up comedian seemed to be quite funny but it was a bit wasted on me. Maybe my Finnish needs a bit more work before I can watch a comedy show!

After the party we all headed to Tampere and went to Hotel Ilves to go to the disco.



When we got in, I went to the bar to order drinks for myself and Ulriikka. "Two beers," I said. "Who is the other drink for?" the barmaid asked. "Me and my girlfriend," I said. "Where is she?" the barmaid said. "Somewhere over there," I say pointing vaguely towards the rest of the bar. "I can only sell you the drinks if you are both standing here," she said... At around the same time, one of our friends was being made to drink the shot he had ordered before he could have the beer he had ordered at the same time. It was all very bizarre and nobody had ever known it to happen before. Aside from that it was a really bad nightclub so we left and had some pizza at home.

After waking up after only 5 hours sleep I drifted in and out of sleep for most of today. I was finally able to call myself hangover free after a Trafalgar Burger from Soho whilst watching Manchester City finally play well away from home - I didn't go for beer though so maybe I wasn't completely over the excess. I'm off to buy some falafel-pitas now to chase away the last remnants of roughness.

Is it ever too cold for an ice cream?

As I was leaving the nursery school where I'm currently doing my work practice I heard an ice cream van doing the rounds. To me it all seems to be a bit early in the year for ice cream. He must be a pretty optimistic ice cream van driver. Especially since as I carried on my way home I saw this at the bottom of a drain pipe.

Oscar Polishing

I've now seen all of the Best Picture nominations I can "legally" see before February 22nd. Benjamin Button, Frost / Nixon, Slumdog Millionaire and Milk down; just The Reader to go. Unfortunately due to the fools who schedule release dates in New Zealand, I'll have to wait until the end of April to see The Reader. Grrr.

The verdict so far: of the 4 I've seen, Milk is the better film , with Frost/Nixon a distant second. So many of Gus van Sant's projects have been hit and miss in the past, but here he delivers with a biopic of the 1970s Gay Rights activist, Harvey Milk. Not only is Sean Penn a joy to watch but his co-stars James Franco and Josh Brolin also deserve a mention, and the film - and Milk's passion - effectively does for San Fransisco what Woody Allen did for New York.

In Ron Howard's Frost/Nixon, Michael Sheen and Frank Langella dazzle in front of a stellar cast. Not to everybody's taste (a 2-hour film about an interview), the only criticism I have of the film is that the talking-head sections - where the supporting characters explain away their motives - feels as unnecessary as Harrison Ford's voiceover in Blade Runner.

Although Benjamin Button is a great film, it is in no-way Oscar-material and not a patch on Fincher's previous film, Zodiac - completely ignored by the Oscars last year (probably due to an early release more than anything else). I still find it difficult to accept that Benjamin Button and David Fincher received Best Picture and Best Directing nominations whilst The Dark Knight and Christopher Nolan were snubbed.

Slumdog Millionaire - while as visually stunning as all Danny Boyle's work - is the victim of a forced, childlike narrative. It's worth watching just to see the transition between Boyle's previous film and this. The very fact that this director can effortlessly go from Sunshine, one of the finest British science-fiction films ever, to a feelgood knockabout drama set in Mumbai should see him earn the directing award at the very least.

I found it amusing that Indians apparently don't pronounce the penultimate syllable in the word 'millionaire', so when the guy playing the presenter of the game show kept saying the word, it sounded like a Frenchman saying the word 'milliner'. Bizarrely, this made the game show sound like "Who wants to be a Hat Maker".

All of this is in sharp contrast to a film I watched last week - Wanted, starring James McAvoy, Morgan Freeeman and Angelina Jolie. Although it's always nice to see Terence Stamp, even his appearance couldn't save this film - a mixture of Matrix-style sci-fi, Star Wars-style mythology and LOUD MUSIC. Bad? It plumbed new depths of shit. Can we please have no more films - ever - where the lead character is 'the one', 'the chosen one', or some other such calling? I'll take the shot of Angelina Jolie in a state of undress though. Always.

Miniature snow drift

Tampere, 23 January 2009

Adventures In Millinery

I've just done something I thought I have never done before in my adult life, and thought I would never ever do.

I have bought myself a hat.

Now for most people this isn't a big thing, but for me it's akin to taking up religion or giving up porn: it goes totally against my grain. I've opted for one of those black military-style hats a Cuban revolutionary might wear. Which means if New Zealand's society ever crumbles, and I have to lead a band of freedom fighters across the land, at least I'll look the part.

For many years, I've hated the sight of anyboy wearing a hat (which is completely at odds with my love of Hitchcock films, where hat-wearing is key). However, girls can get away with wearing hats. Especially if said hat comprises 50% - or more - of their total clothing. Here's a good example:

Here's another example, just in case I didn't get my point across the first time:





















I still hate those fashionable trilbys that they sell to pubescent males in clothes shops. It should be a law that if a guy ever puts one of those on his head duing the 21st century, the nearest bystander should be obliged to flip it off his head as though it was a wild animal ready to attack. If you do, for some reason, choose to wear one of those, you're in danger of being mistaken for that cunt from the band Orson:

Now this guy has forged a career, not out of the music his band has written, but because of the fact he wears a hat whilst performing. Take a look at him above - it's almost as if one of the mannequins in the show window of Top Man has magically come alive and started taking over the world through the might of kareoke. At least The Edge had the decency to wait for a couple of albums - and a rapidly receding hairline - before he started wearing stetsons.

Which brings me to question why I have bought a hat. Is it because the southern hemisphere summer is heating up my head more than usual? Is it to cover up my own receding hairline (which I like to refer, hopingly, as my "receded" hairline)? Is it the start of a mid-life crisis?

Who knows.

Maybe I should just write to this guy and ask him:

Guitar Hero

To pass the time on the train to and from work I read a book or sleep. Other people that don’t like to read or sleep make pointless loud phone calls to prevent being alone with their own thoughts. Obsessively sending text messages to everyone they know is another common way they can do that. The people that have expensive gadgets can check the weather on and some people catch up on their favorite sitcoms or watch action films on their laptops.
Yesterday the middle aged man that sat next to me was watching his laptop and tapping his foot. At first I thought he was watching some bad country music video, as there was a bland looking man on screen with a cowboy hat playing the guitar. When I looked back 20 minutes later it was still the same man playing guitar on screen and it appeared the man sitting next to me was either playing with himself or trying to figure out the fingering for guitar chords on his left hand and randomly strumming with his right hand. Either way it was mildly disturbing and made me wonder what thing that I did not accomplish when I was younger that I’ll be attempting while commuting in middle age.
I’ll probably be one of those old people that goes back to school and asks annoying questions in lectures. Riding the train I’ll be able to whip my text books out and highlight things. I can’t wait.

Hank Williams in the snow

I'm starting my work practise next week. The Finnish course I'm on is run by the Job Centre here and the idea is to get me ready for work. As such we're all to be sent out to work in the real world. I'm going to be working in a nursery school, which is sure to be a new experience for me. I'm not sure that I've even ever been inside a nursery except for when I was one of the nursery inmates myself.

I will be bringing some 1970s UK nursery school wisdom to the Finnish children. No pudding unless you eat all the greens on the plate, leading to a lifetime hating anything green on a dinner plate. Not that the pudding will be worth the punishment. It will just be a cube of spongecake drowned in pink goo. If anybody knows what the pink stuff was, I'd be happy to learn. Water, sugar, gelatine and pink colouring is my guess.

Building up to the start of the work practise though, we've been learning about Finnish work culture and the process of getting work. It's essentially a good old fashioned Job Club. It isn't as much fun as I've heard the Job Club to be in the UK - they treat us like adults and they do seem to expect us to be a success. Those who have been to the Job Clubs in the UK tell me that the League of Gentleman is documentary not comedy.



Anyway, today we've been told such important things as this:
- Be on time to work and don't leave early
- Remember your boss's name
- Don't ask when the break is the second you arrive on your first day
- If you're sick, remember to call your work place
- When you're there, work hard

Now, I would be pretty offended to be told these things normally except that there are people on my course who seem to be being told this for the first time. We haven't done anything that has seemed pointless on this course, so they must know that they have to go through all this every time. The only problem was that the people who need this information most were all either not there or having a conversation when they were being told. The result is that the only people who get reminded to do the right thing are those of who would have done the right thing anyway.

This has ended up in a what-is-wrong style rant at the world of immigrant intergration Finnish language courses but I don't want you to think that I'm in a bad place. True, I'm currently so tired that I have a different understanding of reality than I normally do. But I'm otherwise feeling pretty good about the world and about Finland. It isn't so face peelingly cold at the moment and the whole of Tampere is under a blanket of snow which means that the city is suddenly much lighter - besides, who doesn't like snow? Especially when it hides the frozen vomit puddles leftover from the weekend.

I had Hank Williams on the iPod on my way home and was secret-dancing to Why Don't You Love Me (Like You Used to Do) on my way through the city centre. I was going to attach a Hank Williams video to this so you could all share my joy, but I couldn't find one. So then I was then going to put Rock and Roll Doctor by Little Feat on instead, but you're not allowed to imbed it for some reason (you can watch it here if you like though and I recommend you do). So instead, here is a Kinks song. My friend Mikko inspired me to listen to the Kinks after saying that hearing them on the radio had turned a bad day into a good one. Better than Beatles in my mind...

"Hey, how did you learn to speak Norse?"

For some inexplicable reason I've managed to catch quite a few films starring Antonio Banderas recently. I've never really noticed him before. I don't know why. Latino men just mustn't do it for me, or something.

I've started to notice how terrible he is - not because he's a poor actor - but because he seems to have made some bad, bad choices in terms of the films he's chosen to make. At least if he was a bad actor, it might not be his fault, but if you're one of the most famous actors in the world and you star in a bad film, that's just plain lazy.

Last week I caught him as the bad guy assassin in Richard Donner Kebab's Assassins. He stars opposite Sylvester Stallone - also playing an assassin. I don't really know how they came up with the title of the film. So poor Antonio is cast as the bad guy, against Sly's good guy - although quite why this is so is beyond me - both play hitmen after the same targets. Sly is just a bit more dopey looking so I think he becomes the protagonist out of pure pity. To play his role, slightly unhinged, Antonio delivers all of his lines with a mad glint in his eye. He comes off sounding gay, and therefore not very menacing at all.

The other night I caught the beginning of Take The Lead. In one of the most forced exposition scenes I've ever witnessed we find Antonio sitting in a busy high-school office, waiting to see the headmistress.





















Antonio stands up and opens the door next to him for any females that happen to walk past. Of course, this being Hollywood everybody seems to think he is admirable because of this. Whenever I hold the door open for women, I'm either being creepy or sexist.

Back to Antonio, he's called in to see the headmistress and following conversation takes place (and I'm paraphrasing here):

Headmistress: What can I do for you?

Effeminate Latino Businessman: One of your students broke into my apartment.

Headmistress: Then call the police.

ELB: Do you not care about your -

Headmistress: (interrupting) - Listen, Sir, if my students commit crimes during school hours, I'll get involved. Out of school - I can't help them.

Effeminate Latino Businessman looks around the office, and gestures to a series of framed student photos on the wall.

ELB: Is this the way you reward good work in your school?

Headmistress: Those students are all dead. I have them up there as a reminder of how bad our kids have it today.

Effeminate Latino Businessman looks instantly regretfull.

Pause.

ELB: I would like to teach your students to dance...

*

Unfortunately I didn't watch the rest of the film, although I'm betting he managed - against all odds - to successfully teach a gang off innercity youths how to tango - and to find themselves - in the face of great adversity.

This excellent - and LAZY - example of scriptwriting reminds me of an exchange from one of his earlier films, The 13th Warrior. Antonio thrills us with his role as an exiled Arab warrior, sent to help out a load of vikings. However, there's a spot of trouble: he only speaks Arabic, they only speak Norse. Hmm.

After a few scenes where - with the assistance of some handy subtitles - Antonio is the subject of some ripe Nordic insults, our hero is sat with his fellow warriors around a campfire. Remaining silent as the jipes continue, Antonio eventually responds to a comment one of them has made, something along the lines of...

Arab Warrior: Your Mother!

Nordic Warrior: Hey, how did you learn to speak Norse?

Arab Warrior: By listening.

Can't Buy Me Love

Last night I had an extremely disturbing evening, I watched “Can’t Buy Me Love” starring Patrick Dempsey. This used to be a favorite of my sister and I when we were kids so when I saw it was on tube I immediately changed the station to it.

The fact that it was terrible came as a shock to me. The hammy music that would start whenever Dempsey’s character would make some kind of deep statement how tough it was to be a nerd made is nearly unbearable.
I also had no idea there was any sort of sex in the film.

Shocking...

I think it highly possible that my sister and I were in possession of an edited version of the film. We also had an edited version of “Temple of Doom” where the whole Mola Ram ripping out the beating heart of that dude scene was removed and replaced with snow. I hadn’t seen the unedited version of that one until 2 years ago and was disappointed with how not scary it was. We were also not allowed to watch “Dirty Dancing” and had to go to the neighbor’s house to watch the infamous half of Patrick Suase butt scene. That I saw a few years back as well, I wasn’t too impressed but the half a butt cheek was just as I remembered it.
After the horror of last night, I can only wonder what other pleasant childhood film memories will be destroyed in the future.

So cold, so very very cold

We spent the New Year period in Manchester and were happily telling everyone that it was actually warmer in Finland than in Manchester. And it was true. When we left Helsinki it was +2 or something and -2 in Manchester. That has changed. When we left Manchester it was still -2, but in Helsinki it was -11. And that's very cold.

I'm sure that you've all noticed that your nose runs in cold weather. I'm guessing that it's from condensation on the nose hairs. Wherever it comes from, whatever runs will freeze. And so it was on my walk to school yesterday that I noticed that there were suddenly lumps forming in my nostrils as the condensation froze. It was quite unsettling, but strangely quite pleasant.

But that isn't something I will need to worry about for much longer. On my way home it was -8, which after -11 was starting to feel like t-shirt weather. Nonetheless, it felt like my face was about to fall off. If it gets much colder then it probably will fall off and it's hard for a nose to freeze when it's not attached anymore.

About halfway through my trip to Manchester, I was starting to feel homesick. I was quite surprised when I realised that Home for me now means Tampere, as that was where I wanted to be. So I guess that it means that I'm becoming quite settled here in Finland. When we did get home a couple of days later, I quite enjoyed looking out of the window and seeing the familiar view. Of course it's possible that I wanted to be in Finland because the houses are warmer than in England. But then I suppose that if it gets to be -20 in winter you need better insulation!

Anyway, I'm off to eat some cheese and Branston sandwiches followed by a slice of Marks & Spencer Christmas cake and a cup of tea. It's good to be back in Finland.