Strikes in season

Apart from the ginger bread and mulled wine this year's holiday season seems to have a new thing that is trendy and that is having a strike.

Not like going bowling but as in walk out from your job.

The financial industry is planning to begin their next week, as they want their fair share of the companies' profits. The union says that the cash machines will be running and that the wages and pension are to be paid to their due accounts despite their possible strike if the transfers are made before hand. Remains to see the result.

Last week the aviation baggage personnel walked out of their jobs at Helsinki airport in protest with it resulting in flights being cancelled and a luggage clog up with thousands of suitcases still to be sorted out .

The employees of one of the mobile phone operator walked out today and the IT sector have been negotiating for some time now about a pay rise.

Maybe this is a new way to get more time off before Christmas for them who have jobs as they are envious of the others who have been being laid off and made redundant?

Sunday shopping

Now we have entered into the winter season's Sunday shopping, the shops are allowed to be open for business also on Sundays.

This year with the novelty that yesterday the parliament finally granted for the Sunday openings to be continuous from the New year on. Before the decision was taken a lot was discussed about the prices going up as the wages for the employees will rise, as Sundays are more expensive for the employer to use their staff.

I can only see a lot of advantages with the Sunday opening. Families are better able to plan their shopping and even make a day out of it, less produce for the supermarkets to waste as the shops are open every day, you can better plan the transports and probably don't need as much shelve space, and if we are lucky the food prices may decrease even more than they have done since the VAT on food was decreased some time ago.

Running out of paper?

Many blogging ideas have popped into my mind lately, but I have not had the real urge I used to have earlier to get them posted, still some ideas have been bugging me for some time now and I guess they'd better get posted, or I'll die with them spooking around in my mind.

In the very early days when I first started blogging we had this long paper Union strike in Finland, a strike that has over the years showed having huge impact on the paper industry as well as the forest industry in general in this country. Of course other things such as the worldwide recession also has paid its' respects to running down the industry in question.

What surprised me though, is that the same company, one of the major companies in Finland, that has plants and mills in other countries, has been running down mills and cutting down on personnel, is doing so well abroad their mills running on full around the clock.

I read somewhere some statistics that most magazines and newspapers are now printed on Russian paper as it is more cost-effective. Well, using the same wood must be cheaper and turning it into pulp and paper in Russian, instead of importing them to Finland and having to pay import-taxes on the wood on top of the higher costs in wages and transports in and to Finland
is much cheaper so the paper industry, that used to earlier be so important for the Finnish economy, seems now threatening to die out completely.

One comes to wonder about ulterior motives though, about what trade unions really are about, when one hears that leading union representatives are members of boards in companies, that own parts of the companies they are union representatives for, the same companies that now are closing down.

Money on the hold

Two Nordic banks have now joined ventures.

One of the bigger banks here in Finland has been bought up by a Danish mega-banking corporation, it is among the five largest in Europe if I remember it correctly, and lately they now two happily joined banks have been ventured in getting their online banking system into one single instead of the two separate they used to be. This was planned to take place during the Easter holidays and should have been up and running by Tuesday but their thousands of their customers are still not able to access their system with all in all 800.000 bank customers in both countries being affected by the switch over and I guess many must currently have their money frozen into their bank accounts. The bank assures that they will have it up and running in no time at all, but I guess they said it would not affect any banking after the closing down of the system in the first place either.

I am fortunately to not have an account with the bank in question, but mind you, our bank did some updating and alterations on their online banking system that slowed it down for several months and things were either charged to the account weeks later than their original date of debit and some things were even by accident or mistake charged twice, which in fact is what happened to the offspring, being out clubbing. Double charging on a Visa electron of a sum in a bar made the account go null and no more money to be withdrawn from the cash machine either. Fortunately there were some friends along on the tour that could pay for the rest and borrow the needed amount to keep on clubbing, for you can not end it before the clubs close in the morning and things got sorted out in the end between the bank the following week and the money was replaced.

I had trouble getting money transferred from abroad into the account in the time it should have been there, so there for we were a couple of family members that were in a way over debiting our bank accounts and had their money on the hold. The money should have been there, and actually was in the bank but not on our cards to be charged for.

It has become very popular with various kinds of online scams, such as swindling under the pretext of charity and shopping hoaxes or phishing for personal information such as bank account and credit card numbers. Now the Finnish Consumer Agency has launched a website to help consumers detect them with a site lists the most common types of hoaxes and also hoping that consumers can by the website report such attempts to authorities, in order to make them alert of the attempts and be able to take action.

Some of the online scams are “art” performed by professional scam artist, they are so well thought out and meticulously designed and thought out that it is really hard to say what is real and safe and what is not as it looks like. They say what you see is what you get but in this case you can never be sure if it your bank has been hacked into, or a similar homepage has been designed at an alike address as the banks’ in order to get access to you personal info in order to use it maliciously for monetary advantages of the criminally minded. How delicious is that not, plan something that genial and then in the end get caught by the devious law enforcement?

Religion matters

Friday afternoon the Serbian ambassador presented the Finnish Foreign Ministry with a formal written protest against the recognition of Kosovo’s independence and at the same time calling its’ ambassador back home from Finland.

This is not one singular case as Serbia apparently has recalled all it’s ambassadors from all the countries so far having recognized Kosovo’s independence. So given time we will see whether the Eurovision song contest will take place in Serbia in May as planned or not.

As a strange coincidence sit seems to me that the First World War began in the same area that have for so long been unquiet and visited with war. I have often wondered abut how good an excuse religion can be when people disagree on no matter what subject. Like the European thirty-year war in the 1500’s, a religious war when Catholics fought against the religiously reformed Lutherans who were actually economically supported by the Pope.

Anyway, there is an Internet site where you can end your membership in the Finnish Evangelical Lutheran church. Some 10.000 people have already taken advantage if this easy way to leave the state church. Whether it is done out of religious reasons, or rather the lack of religion, or only in order to ease the taxes you have to pay. In Finland you pay church taxes if you belong to the church, which almost every Finn have tended to do out of tradition and it is easier to do it over the Internet than having to go through the proper paperwork handing it in.

There have for some time now been talks about the secularization of the Western world, with a simultaneous growth in New-Age and pagan religions as well as Islam growing the most as a world religion.

The western world’s economy currently seems to in a downward trend and many of the more wealthy Islamic countries are buying their way into owning the economy of the western world, like for instance the acquiring of the Finnish OMX stocks trade.

Maybe we will soon all have to convert to Islam as it is the common way, even here in Finland and soon there might be an Internet site to convert to Islam.

Or is there already one?

Lock and key

In Finland there is one big lock manufacturing company whose locks are in estimated 90% of all doors in the country.

Now this company has for two years been scrutinized by the Finnish Competition Authority as they have been accused of charging higher prices as punishment of lock-smiths who have has other products manufacturer’s products on display in addition to their brand. Some so called copy-protected keys sold by the manufacturer now turns out not to be copy-protected after all, and locksmiths certified by the company in question have not been allowed to copy keys of which the copy protection have already expired. As a matter of fact the keys are not in any way protected from copying and the patent runs out in five years and that it then apparently can been copied without any key coder, which is the general consumer is not informed about.

Anyway, a very close and dear friend of mine has for some time been terminally ill and he has now developed multi-organ failure and it is now only a matter of days or maybe weeks if lucky at most and increasing his life quality and making his last moments in life remains the on thing that still can be done for him so he is currently saying his goodbyes to his family and life itself.

I know there is a time to say goodbye, in many ways during our lives, people divorcing, moving away but death is absolutely definitive, there is no more. No chance you might accidentally ever bump into some long time lost friend as he will be dead and gone.

Loosing our dear and near ones is always sad and I will especially much miss this dear friend, as he is one of them who has been there for me through thick and thin for decades, which I can unfortunately not say for all of my “old” friends. Some good friends we seem to miss along the course of time.

This friend of mine has been there for me when he has been needed even now that we live in different countries and the distance is long, and our friendship has lasted undisturbed through ex-wives, ex-fiancés, husbands and even one current very suspicious and extremely jealous wife.

By the way, is he living abroad or am I living abroad?!?

Still my fond memories of our nightly phone conversations going on for hours over the years will remain with me for as long as I live. The two of us have celebrated many things and life in general together with hundreds of kilometres apart with the aid of one spectacularly innovative invention, the phone with the aid of some wine to make the occasion even more festive. And as our phone calls have been free of charge now for some time with the ever so useful Internet they have been able to go on for much longer than they used to when either of us still had to pay for them.

It is sad that I can not be there with him, to see him one more last time now, but we have already said our goodbyes some time ago but I still feel very sad as this is a definitive one, one goodbye for ever long.

I can’t say I won’t be sad when the time finally arrives, nor that I won’t cry, and a lot if I know myself at all but at least I am as prepared as I can possibly be for the inevitable thing.

Dear friend of mine, I will miss you and our long conversations…

Used lingerie

Second hand shops, vintage clothing shops and flea markets have been booming during the time I have been living here in Finland and more and more of them keep popping up, which I think is a good idea, make the your old discarded things available to use for someone else. There are even some recycling centres where you leave the stuff you want to get rid of and take others in return if you find something you like and recycling is an idea I am in favour of, but some of these flea markets really just are full of junk and no use items which I consider garbage but maybe someone still can find use to them.

The prices in some of the flea markets are pretty high for what they are offering so if you are looking for a particular bargain you will need to frequently spend time walking around in order to find it.

Most of the flea markets are in no comparison to their likes abroad with bargain antiques to find, that there are the antique shops and it seems there is a lack of them in comparison to the amount of flea markets and second hand shops. There is even a Saturday morning TV show called “Kirppari” which means flea market. In the program the host walks around this one particular flea market with some collector that has specialized in some item like stamps, hat or vintage clothing giving hints about what to look for to make a bargain. A celebrity is also interviewed just about anything showing one item of special importance to them and donating another to be auctioned in the end of the season for charity. It has been odd seeing people giving away fishing knives, dresses, boots, paintings and even lingerie to mention some. And people want to but someone’s stained, old bra or nightie.

I prefer my lingerie fresh from the shop, unused and for me to wear the first time after having washed it.

German protests

The Finnish mobile phone manufacturer Nokia has decided to close down their plant in Bochum, Germany.

Now the Germans public is protesting against the closing down and they are calling for people to stop buying and using Nokia phones. What does the closing down of one single technology manufacturer do for Germany and their unemployment? How can a number of 2.300 employees loosing their jobs make such a big issue of it for the even the German chancellor get upset about it and demanding a clarification form Nokia’s directors.

I think there obviously must be something here I have not quite understood, something the media has left out reporting about the news or I have just not been observant enough to see.

Anyway, another cake day today, which means I have to bake one of my annual anniversary cakes and I can not get out of it. The weather having been so depressing lately and now with some snow having fallen from the sky the scenery looks absolutely delicious to eat and I have been longing to go out and take some pictures of it, as you’ll never know it is the last time there is snow here this winter as the weather forecast tells there is warmer weather to expect and it will not stay for long before it melts into water again.

Maybe I could nip out for just a couple of hours…

Papercards

The Finnish forest industry together with the paper and pulp industry are facing hard in the near coming future.

Just today one of the two big paper manufacturers announced their plans to invest 4 billion Euros in a pulp mill factory in north western Russia right after having announced layoffs for about 2500 employees and several factory closings around the country as well as several hundreds in their factory in Canada, claiming it to be effects of future decreasing demand on paper as well as increased costs of wood,

The other big paper manufacturer is just negotiating with the unions on how to proceed with their layoffs affecting another 600 workers in several factories and closing dons of production lines as they are not, at least to my knowledge, closing down whole factories, as Xmas bonuses this year yet. But next year maybe?

Now the agricultural- and forest producers union state that the forest owners are not to be blamed and they claim the factory closings is not a result of increased raw wood prices as this is less than 10% of the costs but more the result of a global overproduction on many paper qualities instead together with the climbing energy prices and increased wages for paper industry workers. This being the result of the several weeks’ long strike of paper workers union in spring 2006.

Anyway, the Saimaa Canal has been leased by the Finnish from the Russians and a new contract is due to be signed by end of this year as the old agreement runs out in 5 years time and a great deal of the raw wood material for the pulp industry imported from Russia has been transported to Finland on boats on the Canal. Maybe there won’t be any need to sign another lease on the Canal for the Finns as it won’t be affordable anymore to import any wood from the east.

The Russians have also denied abolishing the high export taxation on wood despite talks with both the Finnish government representatives as the representatives of the EU and the increasing taxation will have the effect that hardly any wood will be imported from Russia in the future as it will be too expensive.

So here comes my clever question, of course as an ignorant foreigner, what is wrong with using domestic wood instead?

There are great forests here in this country and the forest industry has announced them only being in need of birch wood as there is not enough natural resources to match the demand. Maybe grow more birch forests to match the future demand on it or has this just been another Finnish scheme to get Carelia back unnoticed and this time in wood, buy it back in small pieces of wood. At least it would be a much healthier way than it being involuntarily inhaled by the people all over southern Finland as tiny smog particles from forest fires burning in Carelia during the summer of 2006.

Anyway, today is your last chance to send you Xmas greetings if you want them to arrive in time for Xmas Eve here in Finland. During the years the habit of sending each other Xmas greetings with a paper cards seems to have grown more and more outdated as hardly anyone seems to bother sending cards anymore. I am not sad about receiving my Xmas greetings by e-mail, on the contrary, I prefer the more personal greetings with photos of the family or drawings from our friends children or even clips from Xmas parties, singing Xmas carols or some schools’ theatre play more than the traditional greetings sent with the postman to be delivered on your door step as I can save them to my hard drive.

The Xmas cards one still tends to throw away after the holiday season anyway and they are more and more becoming a waste of paper, except for elder people who are not into this high-tech society we nowadays live in.

Easier getting visas

Finland is planning new visas for foreigners searching for work and the new visa would allow foreigners to search for employment for up to six months while staying in Finland. This would also mean that you would also be able to begin working immediately after having found a job, instead of having to return to your home country in order to apply for a residence permit. Currently Finland only grants visiting visas valid for up to three months.

Anyway, today the Finnish designer Marimekko announced that they have cancelled all their consignments from their contractor, Borås Väveri that I mentioned about yesterday as it is containing cotton originating from child labour in Uzbekistan. It is the first Finnish company doing so since the revealing Swedish TV program that was aired yesterday.

I guess this is another main reason against outsourcing all manufacturing to countries with cheaper labour as the cheaper labour might consist of exploited children which is not that ethic. At least it does not look good in the headlines. It makes god headlines though, and they say that any publicity is good publicity but I still wonder.

Child laboured cotton

The Swedish fashion giant H&M together with the Swedish home textiles designer, Borås Väveri, uses cotton that has been hand picked by child labour in Uzbekistan.

According to the BBC program that was aired in Sweden yesterday, schools are closed down in Uzbekistan when the cotton is in season to be harvested and schoolchildren are transported out to the cotton fields to work for much less money than they officially are said to earn. The cotton is then bought by Pakistani contractors who manufacture fabric for the two Swedish companies.

So far H&M has stated that they can only put pressure on their own suppliers as they make their agreements with their contractors and if they are supplied with under contractors using child labour and they can not do much about it and are not considering a boycott of Uzbeki cotton. Well if not earlier, than at last this statement has put me off H&M and their clothes!

The second firm, Borås Väveri has announced that they will stop using Uzbek cotton since the news got out about it yesterday. So this was teo companies in Sweden, I just wonder if there are any Finnish fashion companies that also use cotton hand picked by Uzbeki children?

Temperatures rising

The negotiations in the nurses' wage dispute have unanimously agreed on a proposal for a settlement on a four-year contract plan but no details of it will be made public until and if, it has been accepted by both sides.

There is still time until midnight today to avoid the almost 13.000 nurses quitting their jobs in protest with a couple of more thousands to follow suite.

The pharmacists and dispensers union wages negotiations has failed and their strike has begun and the union is threatening to further expand the strike later this week if no agreement is reached.

Most of the pharmacies are remaining open despite the strike as it affects mainly smaller pharmacies to begin with. In the meanwhile people are warned about longer waiting times than usual when collecting their prescriptions from the pharmacies.

And the Finnish prime minister has sought for medical care again due to lower back problems; maybe his kidney stones are troubling him again so he was admitted to hospital as he was last week.

Weather is bleak and gloomy, moist as the temperature has risen to above zero and the snow has begun to melt. All the joy of winter sports of last weekend is melting away, at least here in the southern parts of the country. Better get my wellies and woollen socks out to avoid spoiling my new winter boots when going shopping later this afternoon. So it seems that the temperatures are rising in more than one way here in Finland. Will just have to wait and see when the new doctor’s appointement arrives.

Strikes spreading

A law allowing prevention of access and censorship of Internet sites containing child pornography came into force in Finland at the beginning 2007.

Two weeks ago the Finnish Police gave public notice to their first list to the Internet access operators and now the Internet access providers are to filter access to these sites but this will not prevent accessing these sites, it will only complicate the uploading of the illegal material of the sites here in Finland.

I have been wondering about the health and stress levels of the Valtakunnansovittelija, the national conciliator’s. He is busy with his office swamped with work at the time being and there seems to be some new strike popping up in the media all the time.

First we have the nurse’s of the Finnish health care professionals union, with their threat of mass resignations, one paper pulp mill in Tampere is going to be shut down with the employees walking out today in protest against it. The pharmacies are also going on strike on Thursday in the capital region, and if no agreement is struck it will spread to all the bigger cities around the country. The pharmacies in the Helsinki area are expected to keep open with their supervising staff at least his week.

A strike of telephone operators’ service personnel union is also alerted to begin on Thursday, this meaning that only some mobile phone operators would be up and running in the meanwhile and probably also affecting the Internet providers so the banking business through the net could be shut down. This strike also threatens to spread to all the other phone operators as well given time without an agreement. The engineers began their strike for better pay on Monday morning and the strike is threatening to spread to more employees of more companies in two weeks time if there is no agreement made between the employers and employees union.

Even the president has to cut a trip short and return to Finland in order to ratify the new law forcing the nurse’s to return to their work despite a resignation done due to the disagreement on pay rises. The president has to make a change in her travelling plans and skip her trip to a summit in the US for women leaders of the world. The law has been rushed through the voting in parliament once in the early morning hours today with a second voting about it in the parliament on Thursday for the president to sign it on Friday in order for it to become lawful in time before next Monday when the disputed resignations en masse are effective.

And with the strike of the personnel of Alko, the national alcohol monopoly, beginning on Thursday I was happy to find out that my traditional annual tasting of the fresh Beaujolais Nouveau of more than two decades still is going to stay uninterrupted. The Alko shops will be open on Thursday even with the strike, there will just be a smaller number of shops open due to shortage of staff. The opens stay open with supervising staff only so I will have to make sure which one is open to avoid any unnecessary trips driving around the city.

Majority for euthanasia

According to a recently done Gallup 3 out of 4 Finns are in favour of giving euthanasia to their loved ones with a terminal disease to diminish the time and amount of their suffering.

Only just a little fewer, 70% of the interviewed said that they would use euthanasia themselves should the need for it should occur. Euthanasia is currently prohibited in Finland and so far there is no change on the laws concerning it in sight according to my knowledge.

Even with this liberal point of views of the Finns still comes the question, who would in fact do it for their loved ones? Talking is still is just words and an opinion is still what you only think, but would you act accordingly to what you think, that is the real question.

Anyway, the nurse’s union still have not come to an agreement with their employees, the Union of municipalities; about their pay rises and the mass resignation of almost 13.000 nurses seem likely to be effective on November the 19^th. There is also an ongoing dispute about the lawfulness of these resignations and a lawsuit about endangering the health of patients. So strikes seem to be the general issue one way or another these days here in Finland.

You are asked by your friends and people you meet about your opinions in the rightfulness of this or that unions’ actions but I guess this makes a change to what variety of potatoes you prefer at every dinner party.

Disrupted tradition?

One of my traditions for more than two decades will probably be disrupted this year for the first time. I have always been very keen on trying the Beaujolais Nouveau on the third Thursday every year, the date of the premiere, when fresh Beaujolais is allowed to be sold all over the world.

This year the Finnish Alko personnel are most probably beginning a the three day strike the very same Thursday which means there is no chance the wine will be available in Finland on the premiere. And I have kept that date open without any strings attached as every year only to try the wine and have a nice time with some friends and this year it was my turn to host the event. Sadly enough nobody is travelling from abroad to Finland on the right day either so no chance to arrange it that night either. So maybe a trip abroad should be planned in order to obtain traditions.

I would not have been upset about any other date but this annual, and having become very important for me very over the years. So the Beaujolais will probably then be available in the Alko shops on the following Monday, which is the day some appointments were moved to be bale to enjoy the wine tasting Thursday. It is not the same thing to have the lambs chops and celeriac purée on its’ own even though they have also become some sort of a tradition as well.

Anyway, according to the e-mail I just got from Alko, the strike is not yet definitively set to begin, so I am keeping my fingers crossed that I won’t have to plan a day trip abroad!

By the way, the Alko shops are today closed as it is All Saint’s Day as is every other shop in this country. The shops will be open tomorrow instead (except for Alko which is not open Sundays in any case) and will continue to be open on Sundays until the Christmas season is over, except for next weekend when it is Father’s Day and they are closed.

More drunk than before

It must be years if not decades since last time a Russian diplomat has been called back to Moscow from the embassy in Helsinki for some misdemeanour, but yesterday it happened again. This time the diplomat was called back home for making statements differing from the official Russian policy about Finland joining NATO.

Anyway, the soup days seems to have come to stay for a while as some planned outings were cancelled with the flu having hit hard with a bad cough and fever. Guess this was to expect as the first signs of warnings of a runny nose were not taken seriously enough, so mummy has been busy providing the offspring with some hot soup, sweet corn soup this time to be more specific and it turned out quite well, as a matter of fact too well as I have had to make some more already after the first batch this morning.

One thing I have been wondering about in the news is the fact that Finnish alcohol consumption has increased to a 26.3 million litres converted into pure alcohol sold during the first 6 months this year and it has never earlier been this high according to the National Product Control Agency with the sales of long-drinks and light wines having increased particularly. Once again I have to ask the same question, as this not adjusted into per capita, what the Finns drink per person, no consideration of that the population is bigger than before or maybe there were more tourists visiting the country.

I just love statistics!

And now the hospitals have made up their minds about the mass resignations from their staff nurses that are members of the Finnish health care union. The resignations are to be considered to be effective and real and no guarantee is made that they are to get back their jobs when the union eventually makes a deal about their pay rises.

Mass resignations?

The Finnish health care union has announced that it is going to use the means of mass resignations for almost 13.000 employees in the public health care sector effective in about a month’s time in order to obtain their demands of a pay rise. Their wages are considered unreasonably low for the workload they provide and have not followed the over all trend in pay rises.

Now the question of whether these mass resignations would be lawful has risen, as a document with only names listed is no way to resign according to the law. It would depend on what kind of data is printed on the lists, but a personal note of resignation might be required in order for it to be effective instead of the name lists gathered by the union so far.

Ordinary citizens in general do not seem to be worried the healthcare might deteriorate or be worse than normal during the strike, but there is now great concern from relatives for the elderly and for their care taking when an acute need would arise.

Anyway, fall break always is annoying as well as a hard time for me and so is this week too with the offspring being home from school. With the offspring having turned to their teens, they nowadays come and go uncontrollably, taking charge of kitchen utensils without a warning in no way taking notice of mum’s possible need of them. TV sets and PC are occupied all day around, music played on stereos on loud volume and their friends drop in unannounced. Normally at this time of the day I am home alone enjoying my solitude with our cat, but now I am seriously considering fleeing from home going shopping or just anything to get away from all the noise. At least I am absolutely up to date with the latest popular music!

It is not the noise, or the offspring itself being at home, it is the irregularity and havoc that prevails I am trying to avoid. I am not a very orderly person, I like my own kind of organized disorder, I know where the things are just as long as nobody moves them and there has been a lot of moving around my stuff going on these past few days. I like to get things done in my own time, at the time of my own choosing and here I am now queuing to get on-line to post my Blog, which normally is among my morning routines. A cup of tea with morning TV and blogging after having watched the news for some fresh ideas.

So now I at least I get to write my post, when I get to publish is an entirely different matter that nobody seems to care about at the time being.

As the offspring and their friends are not very sociable, at least to old dinosaurs like someone’s mum, I get pretty much ignored and just walked past in the hallway without even a hello. I am home alone in a crowded house until the time when dear spouse of mine comes home the going calms down a bit. Fortunately some outings have been planned by the offspring and are effective to take place commencing today.

By the way, I was worried about having to stock up with some groceries as the Finnish Service Union had warned about a strike for warehouse workers, which would have halted deliveries to most of the larger food chains. The walk out was planned to be effective today at 2 PM but the union reached an agreement with their employers about their pay rises in the early morning hours.

First snow

I have been following the career of the rock band Nightwish with great interest as they were among the first Finnish rock bands to become world famous. With MTV it has been made easy and I an especially fond of their latest promotion video for their song Amaranth. In the video there is a living replica of one well known Finnish painting, the wounded angel and I think this is a nice way to honour your own heritage.

The Wounded angel painting was first painted 1903 by artist Hugo Simberg and is today to be seen at the Ateneum Art museum, the Finnish national Gallery in Helsinki. The painting has also been repainted as a mural in the Tampere Cathedral with small variations in order to replace the painting to the vicinity of the city.

Anyway, two not so fun events took place today. And that is never fun in one single day.

I do not consider visiting the dentist as fun, at least not when having cavities to fill and even worse is when you have to remove and old filling in order to replace it with a new one and having to tell your optician you need new glasses to replace the ones you were given last week is not an easy thing to do. Well this time it all went with less difficulties than I had anticipated, the optician was just amazed at the ability of my eyes to lie, to adjust to their uttermost resulting in a renewed prescription. But the dental work done was then harder to cope with, the work was done swiftly enough but the after pains have been agonizing despite heavy painkillers and have kept me up all night.

And today the first snow for this winter is expected to fall upon southern Finland, which is much earlier than it has used to be during my years here. At least it will only be a swift encounter as the ground still is fairly warm and the weather is expected to turn a bit warmer again.

And strikes are expected in many industrial areas, the food workers union is planning an action around the country to protest against something, and the nurses in the university hospitals around the country are considering whether to hand in their resignation en masse or what they will do and I am beginning to review my thoughts about the Finns not being as strike prone as in some other European countries.

Equality

Negotiations between the unions and their employers have been going on lately about a pay rise and as some have struck agreements on their wages the Union of Health and Social Care Professionals who have not, are now threatening to go on alternating strike or even to mass-resignations from their jobs in protest. If I have got it right, altering strike would be to work and to be on strike on alternate days and mass-resignation would be to resign many at the same time. Wonder about the chances to be rehired after such a measure. This would be a great opportunity to get rid of unwanted and difficult personnel for the employers. Also the Union of Salaried Employees issued a warning strike effective in end of October which would affect several technology companies if no agreement is made.

Another thing that has been on the news is the difference in prices for haircuts for men and women and some hairdressers are now threatened to be fined by the Ombudsman for Equality here in Finland. The question is why men’s haircuts are valued differently from women’s? Women’s hair is more difficult to cut, more time-consuming, women are more picky, men come in more often as the average man has shorter hair?

Anyway, this would be the first time in Finland any company would face financial penalties based on the gender equality law, a law that has been effective for more than 20 years already.

At the same time we might want to ask why women are expected to be properly made up with their hair done as men can go unshaved for weeks. Women are essential to national economy as they spend so much money on their outlooks in addition to all clothes they buy, money spent on workouts, hair products, cosmetics etc

Women earn less money but still have to spend more to stay smart and good-looking. Men just need to get gray hair and a thick wallet to be someone to keep in mind. Where’s the equality in all that?

Lamb or duck?

This year so far until the month of May 4.200 brand new companies were formed in this country with the help of Starttiraha, Starting-money, which is paid to facilitate for new entrepreneurs to get their businesses up and running. The novelty from the begging of this year is that now even employees and not only unemployed as earlier, that can receive this benefit.

I just visited a church that is famous for it’s’ murals painted by a famous Finnish painter.
I guess I can not deny the paintings were beautifully performed but the choice of what was painted I found very odd.

A big snake coiled up above you in the ceiling, a “garden of death” with skeletons and a blindfolded wounded angel carried by two boys and all painted in murky, musty colours. I have heard they used to perform executions in earlier times in the same spot where the church was built and apart from the horrible murals in the church the ambiance is quite awful, gives me the chills, and badly.

Being a Christian I think you should feel welcome and at ease entering a church but there you can only sense anxiety and depression. I could not for anything in my life imagine getting married or having my child baptized in that church, I even kept my visit to it to an absolute minimum. Where lies the joy and happiness you are supposed to feel entering a church?

A word of warning; beware of chefs who can not see the difference between lamb and duck, especially if you are allergic to the one or the other.

Yesterday, using some of my points having dinner at a restaurant I ordered duck medium rare and to my disappointment got lamb chops instead. Asking the waiter about it I was told that the order was for duck and not lamb so the plate of lamb was sent back into the kitchen. After half an hour of waiting when my companions had finished their meals long ago I got my duck.

Well, the duck was not medium rare as I ordered it, it was fried dry to a crust. The accompaniments were fine and sauces delicious but the whole meal was ruined because of the chef’s cock-up, even more disappointed I became when the bill was presented in full without any further excuses, not even with an offer to have coffee on the house as a comfort.

Well, one thing is for sure, we won’t be going back there again, not even with all my bonus points, it’s not worth it. I’d rather get the groceries and cook the duck, or the lamb for that matter, in my preferred way myself.