Numero neljä - Number four

Do you know which of the five contestants won yesterday's ilotulitus (=fire works) competition in Helsinki? Images might give you clues (or might not... in which case please refer to the title!)

Huovutus - 'Felting' (is this a word?)

The world of making 'things' out of huopa (=hand felted wool) has now been revealed to me after an intensive felt making course. From a pot holder to a felt hat & a few colourful largeISH rings (my favourite objects) the next step is to make my own sauna hat to protect head & hair whilst in sauna ;) 

Some more stylised Finnish felt arts & crafts and scary hats & scarfs are worth while checking out!

  

  

A white pot holder after the first stage of the process (making the wool wet) and a grey felt hat in early stage of the process when the seams are formed by turning the felt over the bubble wrap pattern (after this the other side of the hat is positioned on top and the seems are turned again, felt hats for harsh winter by my course friends (drying on model heads), and my FANTASTIC RINGS - Aren't they beautiful?! ;D

Muumi - Moomins

Image from Flickr, by Radical_Adult.

If you were to go into Stockmann's department store in central Helsinki, while getting lost in it's labyrinthine interior (or is that just me?) you might suddenly find yourself in the gift shop area, surrounded by Moomins, which seem to feature on at least 25% of the souvenirs there...  Of course this experience isn't just limited to Stockmann, it might happen in Kämp Galleria or the airport. And that's assuming you can avoid Naantali's very own Moominworld.  

So what's all the fuss about? Well since the resurgence in their popularity in the 90's (known as muumibuumi - honest), the Moomins have become almost as important to the outside world's picture of Finland (and hence tourism) as Santa Claus and his reindeer (Joloupukki lives in Rovaneimi in case you didn't know), sauna, snow, Sibelious, Aalto vases and stools (what, he designed buildings too?), Marimekko, wooden thingys (you know, like butter knives and kuksa's),  Mikko Hirvonen (ha! see I do know Finnish racing drivers other than Kimi and Heikki in F1 - oh, he's a WRC rally driver) and Lordi (actually maybe everyone has forgotten Finland won the Eurovision Song Contest in 2006 by now). There are even research papers on the subject. This would probably be better if 50% of the Moomin branded goods weren't complete tat, but hey, compared to some other children's book/cartoon character merchandising it's actually quite restrained, if occasionally a bit weird (Moomin brand Japanese sweets?); and some are positively artistic and tasteful.

Tove Jansson was an artist and illustrator as well as a writer for children and adults (and had a pretty radical, bohemian lifestyle back in 30's 40's & 50's) and this shows in the original illustrations (especially the woodcut style ones). The sometimes dark and chaotic stories (in a naive, childlike way) and strangely, and (perhaps) autobiographical characters are I suspect where the lasting (adult) interest comes from.  When coupled to Iittala's classic Teema ware (designed by Kaj Franck in 1952) you certainly have a better class of souvenir mug or bowl to collect.  No wonder they (Arabia Finland) release a new one every six months...

So Happy Birthday Lil' Sis (or should that be Pikku My?), maybe this is the start of a beautiful collection?

CSI Helsinki - Remontti Reiskat - Handy Andys

click the image to enlarge - klikkaa suuremmaksi

Syyskuu ja syksy

Where were we last year? Eden project, September 2007.  

September (Syyskuu) has always been my favourite or at least a special month for various reasons, (okay, because of my birthday then); even with it's connotations of 'back-to-school' for us from UK.  These days we often seem to go for short holidays with friends in (out of season) September.  I like the occasional indian summer days, the autumn colours, the first rustle of leaves on the ground; the beginning of autumn (syksy) and the end of summer (kesä).  Things always seem to start or end in September for me somehow, and now it will always be more poignant. 

Today is another start: the first lesson here in my Finnish for Foreigners course. 

Ehka ehkä mina minä sanoan sanon nyt: tänään on minun ensimmäinen suomen kieli oppitunti keilioppitunti.

I wonder how many mistakes are in that sentence...?

[corrected  23:06 01.09.08 by konna]

Urheilu: It's not the winning that counts, it's beating Sweden...

shadow runner

Finns tend to love their sport - and not just wife-carrying, ski-jumping, and mölkky world championships either. Motorsport aside (which seems to produce an inordinate number of Finnish world champion rally and F1 drivers - that may have something to do with the empty gravel roads, and the 'survival of the fittest' rules for motorway driving here, but more on that another time) the main yardstick for success here seems to be 'did we do better than Sweden?', be it at ice hockey (most importantly) or even athletics at a pinch.

Don't bother to mention that UK got 19 olympic golds to Finland's 1 (shooting), they will only point out our 60+ million population against their 5 million; and that Sweden (pop. 9m) got none... actually maybe there should be some sort of handicapping system by size of population in the future... or at least add wife-carrying and mölkky as olympic sports.

So this Friday and Saturday was the annual Suomi / Ruotsi (Finland / Sweden) athletics match, and we were lucky enough to get free tickets for the Olympic stadium on Saturday (thanks Bore's boss!) to watch with 30,000 others various fit young things in blue and white try to run, jump and throw better than those in yellow and blue. Who won? Let's call it a draw...

---

The evening also reminded me of trips to Crystal Palace athletics with my Dad & family in the 90's and the Grand Prix Finals in 2006; and with Sweden’s Carolina Klüft and Finland’s Sari Keskitalo reminding me of ex-speed skater Irina Privalova winning 100m & 400m, coming 2nd in 200m and competing in weak 4x100 & 4x400 teams for the winning rest-of-Europe team in '94 World Cup... I'm sure Dad would have loved to have seen this one too, especially with Helsinki's much more intimate layout, with the stands much closer the track; he always loved athletics having gone to White City as a youngster, and Rome olympics in 1960, and I have vivid memories of a summer holiday in Devon or Cornwall spent listening alternately to olympics results and Dire Straits on the car stereo.  I wish I could be going with him to London 2012, but thats not to be; so for his memory, as well as some vestige of British pride, I hope Boris & co doesn't make too much of a hash of it.

Wool gathering

Not quite wool: Balls of string at a market

Came across this article in the weekly edition of the Gruniad.  Obviously I haven't been here long enough to form more than a superficial opinion, but although it seems to ring true with what I have read, heard and experienced so far, but it also reinforces a lot of the 'Scandinavian' stereotypes that are around in the UK. Read the comments and you will see what I mean. As ever, any generalisation can be countered by a specific example or experience to the contrary - but our friends A&J in Germany, who have just had a bouncing baby boy, didn't feel the need to come rushing back before the birth... but that just opens up a whole other debate on another country.

Talking about babies, my brother (the middle one - let's call him Keski) has just found out that he (well his partner to be accurate) is expecting... somewhat to his and everyone's surprise. I'm not sure who had him in the sweepstake as to who would make our Mum a granny first, but he would have been the outsider not so long ago!  This rounds out a whole bunch of changes between us siblings -  youngest brother (let's call him Godzilla) finding a new GF;  Lil' Sis moving in with Godzilla (maybe we should call her Gosberry now?); Keski's news... anyone would think they were trying to compete with us for attention!  

Anyway at some point I will have to stop this displacement activity, do some work on my portfolio, and get my books together for language course starting Monday...