Confusing clips on TV

I can only assume that people's behaviour has been deteriorating here in Finland lately, that people are no longer as considerate, as they once used to.

This I can only assume as the TV intermissions for the moment, or commercial breaks, currently on one of the Finnish TV stations begin with a clip of an anonymous red figure doing something wrong or rather not nice to grey figures, and then the show continues after the intermission with the correct behaviour.

What has been quite puzzling is, that normally the figure behaving badly is the red one causing distress to the grey figure, or figures, but in some of these clips it is the other way around. Maybe the colours should be consistent to clarify what is really going on, as this is not a hard thing to correct using the computer technology the clips apparently have been made with.

Hair fashion trend

When you are living in Finland you are actually here to see what is going on, and one thing this country has been renowned for is its' blonde beauties.

Well, knowing more about the facts of life, and how things actually work, you learn to know that naturally blonde hair tends to darken with age forcing so many "once used to be naturally blondes" wanting to stay blonde, having their hair either highlighted or dyed blonde.

I have now caught up another trend, about hair colour that is.

In the summer there are more blondes than in the winters. At least it looks so, and judging from the shop shelves, in the summer all the do-it-yourself blonde dyes are out of stock, and in the fall the blondes seem to disappear and more brunettes and redheads are seen walking in the streets.

That must then mean that many women dyed their hair blonde for the summer, maybe to be more attractive in the summer months or to "have more fun" as they say blondes have. Maybe it is better to go back to normal daily routines for the winter and dye the hair brown in the fall, maybe dyeing it flaming red for the winter to brighten things up a little at Christmas.

Anyway, the seasons show in the way people dress, well, at least how the women dress. In the winter more sensible clothes and shoes are sought for, to keep dry and warm, and when the sun comes out in the spring, the heavy winter clothes are shedded showing all legs and bosoms and women turn blonde all of a sudden to match it.

Is this a new fashion trend I have spotted?

Too cheap realty prices?

Finland has too cheap housing they say.

That is at least according to news reporting about the list compiled by IMF, the International Monetary Fund. The last has taken in consideration various factors such as expected growth of income, the number of working age people in the population, the average mortgage, loans and cost of building. Finland actually was the only country of the 16 countries on the list that has under prized housing.

This seems a bit strange, as housing has always been, well at least as far as I have been told, considered as expensive with families living cramped in apartments and houses for years in order to be able to get a bigger one later on. It has been considered as over-rated as a matter of fact, taking in what you actually get for the money. This of course depends on the city and area, but the prices have been considered a bit over the top and one of the most expensive realty countries in the world, or should I say upper side of the list?

Anyway, off-spring has finally moved out so now I am packing again, and moving into a smaller apartment than this previous one. And I just hate moving so much, the sorting out of things, discarding of some, packing and unpacking and re-sorting them into their new places...

But then, moving always is a sort of new beginning and life does go on.

Tickets released before time

A good way to obtain tickets to venues, concerts and happenings has been the Ticket office.

The good thing is, that you can either shop on line or call them direct and get the tickets you want for just what you want. Or so it at least has been.

Since I moved to Finland more and more of the big world famous artist have found their way here playing concerts, making the supply more varied and better available to the commoner, as you do not have to travel abroad to neighbouring countries.

Now the tickets to the most wanted concerts are sold out in a short time, like in the case of a famous, or rather infamous, rock band, with a number one hit on the Finnish top-ten list with an x-rated video. They are coming to Finland next year, and the tickets to their concert were sold out in only 6 minutes. Here I must sadly add, that the tickets seem to have obtainable at the Ticket office before the time they were supposedly to be released, at least according to the rumours.

Anyway, this band will only consider this as good press, as they are very good at bending the media in their purposes. Guess their motto might, perhaps, be: "Any press is good press".

Who knows, maybe we are lucky enough to look forward to a second concert.

Eating on the bus

Public transportation is quite good in this country, and I enjoy this facilities quite often.

Buses normally are on schedule, and so have the coaches been as well, but the trains seems to be in a struggle on and off and not long ago people got refunded for the trains having been late. Anyway, there are certain things you are not allowed to do on the train or the bus and this you are normally informed by with signs, like eating on the city buses.

Some people just don't seem to bother anyway. I mean, fruit is good for you," an apple a day keeps the doctor away they say". Well, someone having an orange on the bus, makes the migraine hit the top of your head.

Sorry, I am no good at poetry...but the smell of the orange peel it did ruin the rest of my day.

Hedgehogecide?

Following wildlife is strange, and you who have been following my blog have read about the hedgehogs outside my window.

They have been fun to watch and they had big gatherings early in the summer but then all of a sudden they all disappeared in August, just one single hedgehog was then seen a couple of nights and since then nothing. Not one single sighting of a hedgehog. They just seem to have disappeared.

Is this maybe a seasonal change in their behaviour I have not yet been able to determine, or did some disease kill them off all, a pandemic spreading only amongst the hedgehog population?

I can not believe that all 12 of them would have been road kills, that would be too improbable. Or was it the neighbour who fed them dry cat food, pouring it straight from the box on to the lawn in a heap, the poor hedgehogs eating too much of the dry food, not knowing the need of water and not finding enough water to drink and dying of dehydration?

I would hate to live next door to a hedgehog mass-murder...

Anyway, I have been to the licquor shop Alko buying wine and debited it on my credit card, and paid in bars with it. So is this right or wrong then?!? As according to the law selling alcohol on credit is prohibited here in Finland, at least so I have been told.

My neighbour, the one I suspect of hegdehogecide, seems to have had an awful long summer vacation this year, have not seen him sober one time since, well, ever actually. Wonder if he gets his drinks with cash or on credit...

To fund or refund?

The election campaign funds are currently the hot topic here in Finland.

The topic hit off with the last parliamentary elections but has stepped back in time even to the last presidential elections and "to dare to fund or have to refund is the question" so to say.

So far there seems to have been few rules and guidelines to apply to in Finland and since the last election the topic has hit the roof turning even ridiculous. The hot potato is the reform for the election fund raising on its' way, what to change and what to allow and which party, or who personally in so many cases, has to refund what money and to whom. Someone paying for you birthday bash or a vacation trip abroad for that matter seems an awkward bit too much like bribery to me.

I personally can not see why money donated years ago should be paid back now, unless there was something illegal about it back then. The persons in question having made the mistakes, giving donations wrongly should take the fall. Nor can I see the for reason it being mandatory to find out about the donor when receiving money. Until now you have been able to anonymously donate funds, at least up to a certain amount of money, if I have not got it wrong.

If a state owned corporation, or maybe a charity fund, donates money to some politician for their campaign, and the politician in question happens to be a member of the board of the corporation, or charity fund in question, it should be illegal. Which it seems is not, at least not yet, and money has been refunded to where it originated from at the same time resulting in some members of parliament resigning from their posts.

Logical would be for worker's unions to support their parties, which, at least presumably, should be some parties on the left wing of politics, and for employers to support the right wing of politics in correlation to their political interests. This might be illegal too soon, as well as banishing private donations...

So what way would there then be to support your party, if you're not personally involved in politics here in Finland?!?

One thing is for sure, all donations should be public for anyone to see, who paid what to whom and when.