Lordi on the Tango-market

The European song-contest winner, the heavy monster-rock-band Lordi is going to perform at the annual Tango-market, the Finnish Tango-vocalist contest in Seinäjoki this summer. Imagine all people gathering to hear Tango music and then comes heavy rock band Lordi. Is this the country of controversy or not?!?

Before entering the stage in Helsinki, or Hellsinki, as is the new spelling for the name of the capital on the t-shirts saying "Mr Lordi for President", the band asked for a peaceful participation from the audience when appearing on Market-square on Friday night, not on Senate’s Square as I mentioned before.

The members of the band seem to be quite down to earth, both guys and girl. They had also asked to be able to stay incognito and for the Media to not publish their real names or any photos of them, which Finnish gossip magazine Seiska did anyway. Now there is a petition collecting signatures against the pictures published by the magazine. I think it was quite cool by Lordi doing “Kiss” all over again.

That was magic, the members being able to be their own roadies without anyone knowing how anyone of them looked!

Mr Lordi himself has stated that his Finnish accent is incompatible with his made-up stage look, so he is not allowed to be photographed from the front when interviewed in Finnish. And quite frankly, it would seem a bit odd.

But I join everybody else in saying: “Hard, rock Hallelujah”!

Way to go Finland!
Winning for the first time in 40 years of participation in the European song-contest!

Hard, rock, Hallelujah!

Strange, that a Finnish band should go and win the European song-contest. It has been said that hell freezes over before a Finnish song wins the Eurovision song-contest. So we are now awaiting for hell to freeze over!

But how could Lordi not have won?!?

The BBC was broadcasting their song three times every half-hours the day after the semi-finals on the News as Lordi was sued as Satanists by some Greeks. Any artist would have paid millions to hit the News worldwide as they did, and unintentionally!

And are they really Satanists or is their song satanic?!? They do have another song named “Devil is a looser”, would they be Satanist singing that?!?
“Both angels and demons should join”, and “if you don’t join us, you can go to hell”…

Anyway, it was quite fun to watch the contest, for the first time for years, knowing that the Finnish female narrator had earlier stated that if Lordi makes it to the finals, she would do the speaking in just her bikinis…to the disappointment of all the male spectators she was not shown on TV.

Leaves me to wonder what she had promised to wear, or not to wear, if Lordi won, as she from the beginning was not at all positive about them getting points in the vote and winning. She kept on repeating “Oh, no! They can’t win!” Maybe she promised to wear just her bikinis all year around?!?
And that is not advisable with the weather in this country!

An old lady was interviewed live on radio last week about what she thought about Lordi. Well, her quick answer was: ”He must have done some serious drinking to look like he does!” Today, just two days after their victory, or rather just one day, they are already talking about naming a square after the band, imagine Lordi-square!

Anyway, every time when the Finns have achieved some success in sporting, like ice-hockey or something, the winning team is welcomed on Senator square in the middle of Helsinki with crowds of people gathering to see the heroes returning from the battle-grounds .

And these hard rocking monsters did not win by being half-naked. They were almost the only contestants that were fully clothed !

Low-fat sausages and light Ciders

The Finns are well informed and educated about health issues by the government so the food industry is making huge efforts to keep in pace with the latest trends in healthy food. For years it has been said that salt is bad for you so everything in the supermarkets are lightly salted. Not to forget to mention about Coke light and sodas with sweetener instead of sugar for keeping the calories down. Or the yoghurts with no added sugar and practically no fat at all!

Also fat has been banned and all the products are now low fat forgetting that there actually is good and bad fats! So people forget to eat salmon and other fish with unsaturated fats and eat low-fat sausages with saturated fat instead.

And talking about that, now that we are entering the high-season of bar-b-ques in the summer. Low-fat sausages for the grill of course, potato-salad also made with low-fat mayonnaise, but here comes the funny part, we do actually have light Ciders here. Yes, real Ciders with alcohol but with added sweetener instead of the sugar to keep the calories at a minimum. Actually they are not as bad as I make them sound, but it’s funny, I think.

The newest trend here and not yet a big hit, has been is the low-carb-diets that are just making their arrival. Some signs are already to see in the supermarkets. So instead of counting calories you leave out the carbohydrates to as little as possible to maintain or reduce your weight. Imagine what horror that is to a hostess to keep track of who is eating what for the moment hosting a dinner party instead of keeping in mind just the old, common food allergies?!? Some of my friends are now eating high protein foods forgetting about fibres and good fats. Is it not strange what influence the Media has on people?!? Anything on the TV or in the Newspapers must be true and you don’t have to think yourself at all.

We just had two weeks of lovely, warm sunny summer weather so the bar-b-ques have been going on steaming hot this time and now we’re back to snow! Well not quite here where I live, and the chances seeing cross-country skiers on the lakes is already gone for this year, maybe if I moved further up North for next year to make this dream of mine come true?!?

Hair-colours and suntan

I know that blondes have more fun, and as I got a hair-make over as Mother’s Day gift I thought I’d go blond to have even more fun than I already do.

Well, then they told on the news that it is highly probable to get cancer if you dye your hair often. The same with sun-bathing and tanning-beds, you might get skin cancer and the colouring agent in self-tanning lotions might also cause cancer. Where has all the good fun gone now for all us women with nothing else to do than change our colour in one way or another?

A new book was just published about the good and bad effects of sun. Did you know that the sun is good for you as well as the culprit of many bad things?!? Actually, if you get sun burned as an adult it can prevent from certain forms of cancer but getting burnt as a child you might get melanoma? Or that acne gets better from sun exposure only temporarily just to worsen its symptoms during the winter? And we have always been told it is good for us to be in the sun if acne prone, and also to get sufficient vitamine D.

And at least women know today that vitamine C is good for our skin, in our skincream. So now we have to take our vitamine C both internally and externally.

When will they tell us to not paint our nails because it is good against osteoporosis or something else and take that fun from us as well?

Self-made gift on Mother’s Day

The TV has lately been busy with giving us tips of what to get for mother on Mother’s Day. Traditionally in Finland you get her some flowers, preferably a self-made card by the kids and a nice gift, that also preferably self-made.

Daddy bakes a cake with the kids and cooks dinner. Imagine how messy the kitchen will be after daddy having cooked there with the off-spring, and if this is the only time in the year daddy does some cooking? Who does the cleaning but mommy?!? So I guess this is the most common gift to mother on Mother’s Day.

And what if mommy really likes her cooking and would prefer to do it herself like I do?

Another tip has been to not buy mother buy her something glamorous and romantic like lingerie or a necklace. Something “useless” and pretty and not any kitchen utensils or appliances. What if she wants a new toaster or a blender? Or the espresso-machine just broke down? Or she needs a new tea-pot like I do?!?

Why not really listen to what mother herself wants to do and have? You should know that much of your mother, and wife, at least. Flowers yes, or perfume perhaps is nice, but is she allergic?!? Chocolates, but is she on a diet?!?

Just be yourself and skip overdoing it on Mother’s Day. Ask mum what she wants!

Credit-card in your own wrong name!

A friend of mine moved to Finland a couple of years ago and now recently opened a new banking account with her own brand new cash- and credit-card attached to it instead of a joint one with her husband.

Imagine her receiving the card and discovering that her name was wrong. Instead of using her full name, the bank had just used the first name together with her surname on her credit-card.

What heavenly delight to a credit-card in your own rich cousins’ name! Only sad it is not the same bank balance to go with the card. The name is exactly correct but completely wrong as my friend is called by her second name instead of her first name. As my friend has kept her maiden name when she married since it is quite uncommon, and her cousin has not yet married resulting in that they are named exactly the same. One is using her first name as her first and the other is using her second name as her first. Imagine trying to explain this to the police on day!

I guess that in some families just imagination for names run low.

Anyway, when talking to some other friends that are also foreigners or have returned to Finland after having been living for ears abroad, we discovered that his is a common problem here. All officials always take for granted that your first name is your first name. So please have a little more creativity when choosing the names of your children!

Hmmm…fun would be for twins though, to be named exactly the same. Nobody knows who is who anyway.

Knives and wildlife

Before I moved to Finland I had heard about the Finns always settling their differences with their knives. Well, I came here and was thrilled about the idea of men getting their knives out in the streets and having real knife-fights, and how disappointed was I to find out that no such things exists anymore. At least not living in a big town, maybe in the country-side far up north they might do in the woods.

Another big delusion for me when moving here was to find out that here are no polar-bears walking in the streets! You will certainly have to go to the US and Alaska for that. It would certainly be cold enough in the winters for the polar-bears even here in the southern part of this country.

But you do get bears around in the woods quite a lot. Never have seen one in the wild, but some friends live in the countryside nor far from here and they have a bear wandering around in their neighbour-hood in the woods. Imagine go out in the woods berry picking and walk head on into a hungry bear!

But the strangest things are quite rare and you do not see them much in big cities. They are easier to discover in small towns or villages a little off the beat so to say.

Imagine a young woman in her twenties, good looking. She has made her hair properly, done a nice, fresh looking make-up, high heel pumps and here we go!!! She is also wearing a track-suit!

Why bother with the hair-do and make up, and then wear high-heels to a track-suit?!? I have seen it several times during the years. So keep your eyes open look around you when you are as there are many of them to see, they are just hard to detect when dressed properly.

How is that for wildlife?

May Day

I have discovered that the celebration for May 1st always begins on the day before “Vapun Aatto” people gathering for Pique-niques and a nice time, students celebrating their examinations. Balloons, serpentines and streamers are sold for the children, and traditional “sima” to drink is a must together with “tippaleipä”. Nice food and lots of nice drinks and outdoors if the weather is as gracious as it has been this year.

The next day, on May Day itself, political parties have their marches for one cause or another as everywhere else in the world. But most students thought are sleeping late due to their late-night activities when politicians hold their traditional annual speeches missing most of the fun seeing the politicians keeping their annual speeches promising everything and keeping nothing of it.

The youth being the future maybe better is kept in the dark, quiet and unknowing of the promises of the politicians so they don’t get their hopes too high about the future.

At least I was not concerned with the future when young, and I did graduate too, but where did my bright future go? Where did all the important things disappear to? After discussing the problems of the future sharing a bottle of wine some twenty years ago? Here we are now in the future and nothing did we get done…It is sad that life is so short and we have to choose what to do, have children or change the world.

Well, maybe one thing though.

There’s nothing much one can do to change the world but to change yourself…
So I have been thinking about a new hair-colour!