And finally...

Eija Laakso of Finland mid-fling during the Mobile Phone Throwing World Championships in Savonlinna, 2007. Photo copyright by Seppo Sirkka / EPA via Flkr

I guess all Finnish summer sports were invented by drunk people

Harri Kinnunen, boot-throwing world championships organiser, Via BBC News website

So here's the annual "those Finns are crazy (and drunk)" summer article from the UK, supposedly triggered by this year's totally sensible kännykkä chucking event in Savolinna (

although as it was actually written by a Finn for the BBC I suppose it was a sort of self-stereotyping). You'll have to wait until winter for the "seasonally affective disorder/suicidal (and drunk)" one to be rolled out.

Interestingly for grapheme spotters auntie beeb doesn't seem to do Ä or Ö - and is also apparently inconsistent in (semi-incorrectly as it isn't an umlaut) transposing Ö as OE in the the only* 'foreign' word used (mökki -> moekki) but A for Ä in a few of the place names and surnames (which is more conventional). Mind you, even Konna's passport has AE for the Ä in her name so we can't be too critical.

Maybe they don't use Macs so can't figure out how to get those ¨pësky¨döts¨ from their UK localised Windows keyboards?

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* Okay I realise sauna is Finnish, but we use it too, even if we pronounce it wrong!