Lack of alcohol

There might soon be shortage of alcohol in Finland.

At least that is if the of the employees of the Finnish Government monopoly alcohol shop, Alko, are going ahead with their threats about a strike. As 85% of all employees in Alko are part-timers, they are paid less than full-timers and thus also having fewer benefits.

A strike closing down the Alko shops would probably be more devastating on the Finns than the nurses’ unions’ strike with their mass resignations that are likely to be effective later this month. The nurses having signed the lists have received a letter from their employers about their personal point of view of the resignations and 300 of the 12.800 nurses having changed their minds so far. The union is at present making new lists to replace the old ones for their mass resignations in order to obtain better pay for their performed job.

Considering that about 25% of al casualties in Finland are either direct causes of alcohol consumption or side effects with accidents such as falls, fights and so on, so having the Alko shops closed at the same time as there is going to be a shortage of nurses and health care staff due to their strike with resignations would be well timed. 25% less casualties requires 25% less medical staff, does it not?!?

Anyway, I wonder how to avoid getting the winter blues. Now with last Sunday’s turning back of the clocks into regular winter time the sun sets earlier and darkness all of sudden prevails earlier than we are used to.

Now we are in desperate need of some light and warmth. Cuddling up under a warm blanket on the sofa drinking hot cocoa in the candle light is not always enough to do the trick. At least not in the long run, but soon will be Xmas time and then the days begin to grow longer again.

Depression as it happens is the most frequent reason of disabilities to work and for retiring because of health reasons here in Finland, and the more north up you are the more common it gets. Less sun hours means more darkness and I suspect that a winter night going on for several months can not be very good for you. Neither can a summer day that goes on for as long the winter night, for months and months.

Anyway, tomorrow is the real Halloween according to Celtic tradition, the night when the veil between the worlds is the thinnest, when the ghosts come back to speak to us and also the Celtic New year if I have not got it all wrong.

The trick and treating of Halloween has not yet got as popular here in Finland as in the Anglo-Saxon countries over the world. Even as it is not a tradition originating from the Nordic tradition still many kindergartens and schools have some festivities like costume parties in order to celebrate Halloween.

Power shortages?

If the coming winter is a cold one there might have to be power cuts even in households and not just in the industry.

A very cold winter might stretch Finland's energy resources past the breaking point as Finland does not produce enough power of its own. There is a risk for power cuts especially during the peak season of Christmas when the traditional Xmas sauna is heated up at the same time with the traditional Xmas ham cooked in the ovens. At present power is imported from Russia accounting up to ten percent of Finland's energy needs and the Finnish power supply company Fingrid now says that with Russia turning down its output in order to meet its own power needs there might not be any power left to sell to Finland.

The worst case scenario is that even household power would have to be rationed, this meaning cut of for some time, and the power supply company now hopes that the households will economize the amount of power used during a cold winter. Some electricity is also imported from Sweden but with a cold snap there at the same time as here in Finland, there would be no additional electricity resulting in shortages. As last winter was an exceptionally mild one apart from a couple of short cold snaps Finland didn't experience any power shortages although they were already then expected to happen.

An electricity shortage or rationing of the same will surely make the electricity prices sky rocket.

As I am no sports fan I to my great surprise yesterday found out that The FIS Ski Cross Country Worldcup began its’ season 2007/2008 in Düsseldorf, again, and this for the 4^th time.

Snow in Dusseldorf at this time of the year?!?

End of October a mild autumn, in the middle of the Old town down by the river Rhine? When the leaves still are green? Becoming curious I googled the event and found the official site and read on.

What a waste of energy and resources!

The event was proud to on their official site announce that they are the only event of the cross country season to have a 100% guarantee for snow. The needed 3000 cubic metres of snow for the track is made out of 1500 cubic metres pure drinking-water without any chemical additives. The same amount of water to fill a common 50m swimming pool and the manufacturing of the snow is begun 100 days ahead of the World Cup and the track itself is handmade.

Okay, cleaning the water, making it freeze, storing it cold in order to have the needed amount, moving the snow into place of the track, hand making the track, how much does this cost in energy resources?
Or money for that matter?

And there is lack of pure drinking water in many areas of the world!

I have been feeling bad about it as there is no alternative when showering living in apartment in Finland as the municipalities supply you with water and it is all pure drinking water but this unbelievable wast of resources.

One thing comes to mind though, they are absolutely right, good that the water used is pure and does not pollute the river Rhine in any way as it is quite polluted already. No more additional pollution of the water except for maybe some substances washed down by the melting snow on its’ way down the banks into the river below.

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You can check out the facts out yourself at the provided link to the official cite of The FIS Ski Cross Country Worldcup in Düsseldorf at: http://www.worldcup-duesseldorf.de/index.php?id=35&L=1

Red nose

Comic relief, red nose day campaign, originally created in 1988 in the UK, was now on Friday held for the first time in Finland.

1, 6 million euros were gathered for charity in the work against child labour. The other of the national TV stations Yle broadcasted 6 hours of special red nose program issues for the charity campaign during the night in order to collect money.

The idea has been to buy you a red nose and do something funny you have always dreamed of doing with the idea of doing something fun for charity. I wonder if Rudolf the red nosed reindeer joined the fun.

And I just got mine absolutely free, the offspring has cursed me with the flu and nobody has bothered to make me any soup. Thank God I had some ready salmon soup in the freezer to heat up !

Recycling is not easy

To be able to follow up your electricity consumption, a dozen of households in the capital area have been able to get the meter readings real time by their home computers on the net and as the pilot project try out has turned out so well this is soon going to be reality for all Finnish homes in order to save electricity.

I am looking forward to be able to see in real time what turning off some home appliance will do to the electricity consumption, maybe this would spur even the offspring into doing something about their lights being turned on even when nobody’s in the room.

A lot of TV programs today in Finland are about the issues of how to become more environmentally conscientious. We are taught how to choose the clean form of electricity, how to shop making the proper choices, what produce are environmentally good, what produce have been manufactured in ways thinking of the environment and we are also made believe that recycling is good. Well it would be good if there were enough capacity to recycle all the household waste in an easy way sorting all your waste instead of just chucking it all in the dustbin, which seems to be the general way of treating your garbage.

Sorting your own metal scraps, paper, cardboard, glass, plastics and so fort is hard at present as there are no separate containers in each building, you always have to take the car to do the sorting somewhere centrally, like by the local supermarket.

How hard can it be to have more containers available for the households to do the sorting ourselves at every house?

At present there normally is just is the ordinary bin, one for composting materials, another for recycling of paper and a third one for cardboards. All glass bottles and jars, old batteries have to be taken else where and the hardly exist any recycling of plastic materials or metal from households today. And the left over medicines are to be taken to the pharmacists for extinction.

I am quite confident that in due time people will range their own waste, if provided with the proper facilities in for recycling and the municipalities can stop complaining about not having enough resources. Collecting the garbage several times per week, or maybe even keeping it in separate containers on the trucks could do the trick. As it is now the paper and the household garbage is collected on separate trucks.

I guess it might be time for all of us to begin to act in environmentally good ways on all areas of our life.

Sunday shopping

With Finland being a Christian country with a traditional Sundays rest seems a bit off in today’s urban society when Sundays happens to be the day when people have time to go places being off work, so the shops Sunday closing has seemed a bit strange. Now there is going to be a change in that and even hardware stores are going to be taken in consideration for Sunday openings in the new law proposal. According to a recently done Gallup households with children would appreciate the Sunday openings the most.

Anyway, I was shocked to by accident find out that my blood pressure has skyrocketed with out no apparent reason at all. A blood pressure going from normal this spring into 140/100 now and staying need some serious research done as no apparent lifestyle changes have been done, no radical weight gain as anything else in order to point out the reason for it. As it happens we do have a history of high blood pressure, diabetes and obesity in my family but no one has had this high blood pressure as I have been discovered with. So now I am going to have some blood test done to be able to make a second doctor’s appointment in order to hear the results. I always thought I held a healthy life, with a well balanced diet even though I have been lazy about getting enough exercise due to the arthritis in my right knee, which has developed over the years after a skiing accident in my youth.

But maybe it is not always the choices we make of our own that determines how health we are, maybe the genes have an even greater role in this as well than thought before.

Freedom to not speak

Freedom of speech is something that is taken for granted in the so called Western world, and so here in Finland as well, but apparently with a little twist to it.

According to the Finns I have recently been discussing the issue with, here in Finland it seems that the meaning of freedom of speech here is; (which normally is considered to be that you are allowed to express your own opinions), “the freedom of leaving out to mention about things you should talk about”.

And this has been practised to its’ best extent at least when the late president Urho Kekkonen still lived with some remains still prevailing in today’s politics. The eastern neighbour has ever since been talked about in a hushed tone of voice, some things were best not to talked about aloud at all, and president Kekkonen was according to the information I have found on the subject a mastermind on balancing on a tight rope between the western world and the eastern then great neighbour, The Soviet Union.

Anyway, I never seem to cease to be surprised about what information is freely available on the Internet, like finding a distant relative or a second cousin really, currently living here in Finland and studying at the University of Helsinki!

I have not as yet got any answer to the e-mail I sent this morning but am hoping to receive one soon. It would be very nice if we could meet up, if not at least be in contact by e-mail even though we have never actually met before, just our respective parents that are first cousins as our family is not the very best at keeping in touch and we are spread all over Europe together with a couple of other continents as well and no family reunions have ever taken place. Maybe that is one thing we should take up doing in the future as with age one tends to all of sudden become more interested in one’s family and relatives.

By the way, why do they say that flowers are best captured in backlight?

Tough races

Kimi Räikkönen has become the third Finn to win the Formula One World Championship after Keke Rosberg in 1982 and Mika Häkkinen twice in the years 1998 and 1999.

Räikkönen won his championship in the in the last race of the season yesterday, the Brazilian Grand Prix by a long-shot chance at the title as he was seven points behind the season leader and his victory has been well celebrated through out the country.

The Helsinki Horse Show is the biggest indoor sports event in Finland and this year it was held for the 23^rd time throughout Thursday until Sunday. More than 40.000 people visit the show at Hartwall Arena annually with 40 top international riders this time, the best home riders and around 100 super horses participating. In this years suspense killing highlight the Rolex FEI World Cup in Helsinki, only three horses out of 39 went clear on the course and nine horses just had one fence down as the course was very technical and especially the combinations were said to be highly challenging. Especially happy news was that for two Finns on 7^th and 11^th place, with of course the horses doing most of the work, having for the first time got World Cup points in the same class.

Surprise visits are not always pleasant ones but all the same surprising, things you could not plan ahead and they have begun to occur more and more frequently these days. Friends you have not heard from for years all of a sudden turn up on your footstep as they are visiting town in business from abroad. One family even came during their summer vacation but unfortunately as we were not at home at the time we did not hear about it until later when they had returned back home after their holidays. A pleasant visit we just missed.

Well how to prepare yourself? Stuff the freezer full with goodies you can just whip up into a three course dinner with wine in no time at all, replace the offspring to their respective friends for the night and enjoy the moment, in best case. What if the person that turns up uninvited is someone you would rather not see? I guess you just abide your time and try to survive, make the best of it and try to make your guest understand you have previous appointments you can not cancel, at least not this late time anymore. Well, this particular visit was actually planned in the near future, just turned up one day earlier which actually was better as it suited our timetable as there was a concert yesterday evening that was not to be missed, at least according to my dear spouse.