75th anniversary

In the 1900’s the Finnish government tried to influence on people’s drinking habits by alcohol rationing, with it only resulting in illegally distilled, and too often impure, alcohol and bootlegging of the same. The rationing finally ended and alcohol was let free with it today being 75 years since when the first Finnish Alko shops opened.

Funny, all these attempts by “Big Brother” in different civilizations and countries trying to watch the whereabouts and doings of citizens, and it’s been going on ever since the beginning of mankind.

I guess it will be easier in the modern society with easy accessibility to mobile-phones, the Internet, credit cards, GPS tracking of cars etc. How long will it take before we all get a microchip inserted into us at birth so “Big Brother” knows where we are at all times like in the X-Files?

Maybe this would have been useful to the Finnish ministry of trade and industry when investigating the illegal search and test drilling of uranium here in Finland done by a foreign company last summer in the vicinity of, and in if I have not got it completely wrong, a national park.

There are rumours that this is the biggest source of Uranium in Europe. Lots of money to make maybe, but with what costs as being hazardous to the surroundings, the environment and nature itself by opening the ground by mining it and making it radioactive all over, the material was not rich enough to use just piled in heaps in open air (?), or the final disposal of the waste after being used in a reactor...

Anyway, happy 75th birthday Alko, the only licensed shop to sell booze in Finland!

And I better get going if I want to get any wine with the roast of lamb on Easter Sunday as today is the last day Alko is open until Tuesday after the holidays.