Nordic News
- Thread starter Mowl
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Mowl
Member
Finland set to freeze in -20C conditions as cold snap returns
Although it has been a mild start to February, the coming days will see much colder temperatures than normal for this time of year.
yle.fi
Aaargh. Hopefully by the end of the week I'll have my part of the current interior design contract finished and can consider taking a break.
I may fly home to see the Mammy.
It's been a while since I last visited Ireland, but I can't say I've missed it either.
Hard biting weather incoming makes Mowl nervous about walking on black ice: I took a fall last week, slipped on wet black ice, landed on my hip and bruised myself nicely. So maybe after Dublin I'll fly south and spend some time in Puerto with friends. Might even sail into Ceuta and cross into Morocco for a few days.
You?
Mowl
Member
And it's Alexander Stubb by a tight margin at 51.4% to Pekka Haavisto's 48.6% at the close of voting moments ago.
Nyt Suomen Presidentti Alexander Stubb.
Nyt Suomen Presidentti Alexander Stubb.
Would Stubb's background in the Finnish army influence his stance towards Russia? The Russo-Finnish border must be an impenetrable fortress at this stage. Which along with the more militarised direction Finland's foreign policy is taking has likely taken the Russians by surprise.
I can see Moscow thinking of the Nordics / Scandinavians as pacifist pussies who could be pushed around with ease. Yet perhaps the old Viking warrior spirit is reasserting itself in the face of such external threats.
I can see Moscow thinking of the Nordics / Scandinavians as pacifist pussies who could be pushed around with ease. Yet perhaps the old Viking warrior spirit is reasserting itself in the face of such external threats.
Mowl
Member
Every Finn has a background in the Finnish military what with national conscription. There are those who don't want to enroll for military training and of course they can serve their year in other ways like serving in the libraries or old folks homes, various other avenues too if they have a valid reason including moral, ethical, and conscientious. But ultimately, every Finn serves their nine months/one year of service after high school and before college/university.
The border issue is a laugh: in lots of places along the frontier there are only there bare wire fences, more for letting you know where the line is than anything else. You'll see a few unmanned turrets every couple of miles, but in general it's not a heavily defended border. The crossing points further to the north are currently closed down and nobody passes unless they're 100% cleared and accepted in. Putin was sending young men of fighting age on bicycles to cross the northern borders as refugees three months back, but we refused to take them in: they had no proper documents and so they were all sent back.
If any of them happened to cross the border anywhere they thought would be easy, then they'd have to enter the first town or city they find themselves in. If they have no resources they have to apply for asylum. But if they can't prove who they are and where they're from then they're taken back to the border and returned to sender.
You'd be surprised how tight the system up here actually is: if some nutcase from Uzbekistan (or even a passport holding regular European citizen) was caught on a train or a tram, even a bus or metro without a valid ticket, they'll be busted and removed from the transport and handed over to the transport cops. If they have no ID then they're brought to the police station and immigration take over. They'll be processed and sent back over the border. This can happen even here in the capital on public transport: you must have some form of ID, if you don't then you're held until you are identified and then you're booted back out.
Traveling on public transport without a valid ticket gets you a fine of €100. The ticket penguins wear uniforms. They randomly patrol the trams and metros and check people's tickets. Usually in groups of five or six. If they catch you, you have to give them your name and address. If you don't have a personal number (called your henkilötunnus - or personal identification number) then you're the cops' problem. You can't do anything in Finland without a henkilötunnus: bank account, address, medical records, etc. You must be registered in the system and even the tram ticket checkers have access to a database which they can access via your henkilötunnus. They see your full name, address, etc. A person without a henkilötunnus will be handed over to immigration immediately for processing.
With regular citizens using public transport without a ticket, the ticket checkers will question you and then hand you your penalty document on the spot with twenty-eight days to pay or else you get another penalty sent to your address. Until the bill is paid, you'll accrue more penalties over time. So any refugee who has made it into the country basically has nowhere to go. If they don't speak Finnish and have no documents they'll be spotted fairly quickly. In fact, even your regular Finn who the migrant might have begged from will report the migrant. There's nowhere to hide. No one to hustle. And without a roof over your head up here in winter, you're fucked. No two ways about it.
So whoever they were that tried to enter Finland further up north late last year, they're not our problem.
They could have been rapists, child killers, mental cases, who the fuck knows?
Send them back, case closed.
Any refugee who makes it into Ireland can probably survive longer over there without being discovered, because everyone speaks English and Irish people wouldn't be able to tell the difference between some illegal immigrant and a legal one. They just don't care. But up here you stick out like a sore thumb. It's a matter of time before you're nailed. Walk up to some Finnish lady and ask her for money in broken English? She'll have her mobile in hand and call it in or else simply point the migrant out to cops/security/checkers/staff. Once the call goes in, they'll arrive within moments. Security staff in the metros, security in the shops and malls. They're all working together, and a security guy from a supermarket will be in cahoots with the cops, if he gets a tip or a nod, then he'll take the mark down and hold him until the cops arrive.
You can't hide up here.
For the first two years I was in and out of here and Dublin, getting things done without a henkilötunnus and citizenship was a pain in the nuts. Entering the system makes everything so much easier and more efficient. But I had a home and a partner, so I could come and go with ease. Example: one time many years back I busted my foot and it needed stitches, so when I went to acute care. At check-in my ex-wife identified me through her number and I was given a temporary number adhered to her address for me as a visitor to Finland. So let's say some migrant from Mogadishu or Nigeria makes it all the way up to here? What's next? Get an address? Not without a henkilötunnus. Open a bank account? Not without a henkilötunnus. Change money? Nope. Buy a car? Nope. Book into an hotel? Not without your henkilötunnus or international ID/passport. Try to get a job? Nope. Receive a letter from abroad? Nope - not if your name isn't on the official marker on your letterbox/front door. Attend acute care at the emergency room? Yes, but you'll be busted as soon as your wounds are tended to. See a private doctor? Fuck no.
There's no way around it, you have to deal with it or else you simply don't exist.
And you'll be spotted eventually, so there's no let-up.
It's ingrained in the Finnish psyche to report illegal activities by obvious foreigners. The language barrier also protects us from illegal immigrants. Some nutter who can't even speak English will stand out like a siren. People up here are so honest. When they see crime taking place, they report it. In fact, one of my ex-wife's neighbours at a previous address reported that I was coming and going from my her place. She got a letter from the council reminding her that the apartment was leased to one person singular - nobody else should be living there without notification and permission, so we went to the offices and I showed them my passport and my dated flight records in and out of Finland. The longest I'd stayed without flying out again was about six weeks. Plus I regularly worked in Finland via a Stockholm based booking agency who paid our taxes directly to the Finnish system before we were even paid our fees ourselves: because it's cheaper that way.
So it was grand. 'No problem, we'll notify the individual who made the report that there is no case to answer. Thank you for your time'.
Case closed.
The border issue is a laugh: in lots of places along the frontier there are only there bare wire fences, more for letting you know where the line is than anything else. You'll see a few unmanned turrets every couple of miles, but in general it's not a heavily defended border. The crossing points further to the north are currently closed down and nobody passes unless they're 100% cleared and accepted in. Putin was sending young men of fighting age on bicycles to cross the northern borders as refugees three months back, but we refused to take them in: they had no proper documents and so they were all sent back.
If any of them happened to cross the border anywhere they thought would be easy, then they'd have to enter the first town or city they find themselves in. If they have no resources they have to apply for asylum. But if they can't prove who they are and where they're from then they're taken back to the border and returned to sender.
You'd be surprised how tight the system up here actually is: if some nutcase from Uzbekistan (or even a passport holding regular European citizen) was caught on a train or a tram, even a bus or metro without a valid ticket, they'll be busted and removed from the transport and handed over to the transport cops. If they have no ID then they're brought to the police station and immigration take over. They'll be processed and sent back over the border. This can happen even here in the capital on public transport: you must have some form of ID, if you don't then you're held until you are identified and then you're booted back out.
Traveling on public transport without a valid ticket gets you a fine of €100. The ticket penguins wear uniforms. They randomly patrol the trams and metros and check people's tickets. Usually in groups of five or six. If they catch you, you have to give them your name and address. If you don't have a personal number (called your henkilötunnus - or personal identification number) then you're the cops' problem. You can't do anything in Finland without a henkilötunnus: bank account, address, medical records, etc. You must be registered in the system and even the tram ticket checkers have access to a database which they can access via your henkilötunnus. They see your full name, address, etc. A person without a henkilötunnus will be handed over to immigration immediately for processing.
With regular citizens using public transport without a ticket, the ticket checkers will question you and then hand you your penalty document on the spot with twenty-eight days to pay or else you get another penalty sent to your address. Until the bill is paid, you'll accrue more penalties over time. So any refugee who has made it into the country basically has nowhere to go. If they don't speak Finnish and have no documents they'll be spotted fairly quickly. In fact, even your regular Finn who the migrant might have begged from will report the migrant. There's nowhere to hide. No one to hustle. And without a roof over your head up here in winter, you're fucked. No two ways about it.
So whoever they were that tried to enter Finland further up north late last year, they're not our problem.
They could have been rapists, child killers, mental cases, who the fuck knows?
Send them back, case closed.
Any refugee who makes it into Ireland can probably survive longer over there without being discovered, because everyone speaks English and Irish people wouldn't be able to tell the difference between some illegal immigrant and a legal one. They just don't care. But up here you stick out like a sore thumb. It's a matter of time before you're nailed. Walk up to some Finnish lady and ask her for money in broken English? She'll have her mobile in hand and call it in or else simply point the migrant out to cops/security/checkers/staff. Once the call goes in, they'll arrive within moments. Security staff in the metros, security in the shops and malls. They're all working together, and a security guy from a supermarket will be in cahoots with the cops, if he gets a tip or a nod, then he'll take the mark down and hold him until the cops arrive.
You can't hide up here.
For the first two years I was in and out of here and Dublin, getting things done without a henkilötunnus and citizenship was a pain in the nuts. Entering the system makes everything so much easier and more efficient. But I had a home and a partner, so I could come and go with ease. Example: one time many years back I busted my foot and it needed stitches, so when I went to acute care. At check-in my ex-wife identified me through her number and I was given a temporary number adhered to her address for me as a visitor to Finland. So let's say some migrant from Mogadishu or Nigeria makes it all the way up to here? What's next? Get an address? Not without a henkilötunnus. Open a bank account? Not without a henkilötunnus. Change money? Nope. Buy a car? Nope. Book into an hotel? Not without your henkilötunnus or international ID/passport. Try to get a job? Nope. Receive a letter from abroad? Nope - not if your name isn't on the official marker on your letterbox/front door. Attend acute care at the emergency room? Yes, but you'll be busted as soon as your wounds are tended to. See a private doctor? Fuck no.
There's no way around it, you have to deal with it or else you simply don't exist.
And you'll be spotted eventually, so there's no let-up.
It's ingrained in the Finnish psyche to report illegal activities by obvious foreigners. The language barrier also protects us from illegal immigrants. Some nutter who can't even speak English will stand out like a siren. People up here are so honest. When they see crime taking place, they report it. In fact, one of my ex-wife's neighbours at a previous address reported that I was coming and going from my her place. She got a letter from the council reminding her that the apartment was leased to one person singular - nobody else should be living there without notification and permission, so we went to the offices and I showed them my passport and my dated flight records in and out of Finland. The longest I'd stayed without flying out again was about six weeks. Plus I regularly worked in Finland via a Stockholm based booking agency who paid our taxes directly to the Finnish system before we were even paid our fees ourselves: because it's cheaper that way.
So it was grand. 'No problem, we'll notify the individual who made the report that there is no case to answer. Thank you for your time'.
Case closed.
D
DCMystic
Guest
Hi Mowl, I wanted to ask you about the property market out there in Iceland, what is the story with renting and purchasing, are the prices reasonable and is it plentiful?
Do you have an Irish diaspora out there, and where would be the best places to visit to relocate? Is English widely spoken with many job opportunities?
Thanks for anything you can offer.
Seriously giving some thought about leaving Ireland now,
Do you have an Irish diaspora out there, and where would be the best places to visit to relocate? Is English widely spoken with many job opportunities?
Thanks for anything you can offer.
Seriously giving some thought about leaving Ireland now,
Mowl
Member
I couldn't tell you - I live in Finland.
There are a couple of hundred Irish people up here, but I have nothing to do with any of them.
The St Patrick's Day jolly next month brings them all together at the ambassador's residence, a beautiful period house in Eira, down south of the city centre.
I never go to that bash any more - the Irish who show are there for the free drinks and always have traditional Irish 'sing-song' in full-on scrum mode wearing their Ireland jerseys. I always dressed formally for the event when I used to attend: the Finns who are invited to join us for the party are very valuable contacts who own businesses and run Irish pubs.
But as soon as the tapas starts being dropped and stepped into the carpets, I leave. That's when the shit hits the fan and the whole crew get rat-arsed drunk.
It's a rather disgusting sight to be honest - I really wouldn't recommend it, the Finns who attend usually leave at the same time as me.
Most younger people understand and speak a little English, but it's their fourth language after Swedish and Russian.
Older people don't speak English and you should not address the very elderly in English. Many of them are war veterans and Winter War heroes. Speaking to them in English, even at the embassy, is considered highly rude. Learn a few phrases at least before you come here; a little effort will take you a long way. No effort will probably end up with you leaving.
This country isn't for everyone, if you can't handle the seasons, then forget it - there's no way you'll last.
Last Irish/blogger guy I helped out got a job up in Tampere working with airplanes: he started on the Monday and left the next Friday.
I see that a lot.
If you have any specific questions about Finland, I'll try to help you.
If you need information about Iceland, then this wan might be a help:
I totally understand.
I left just at the end of the last century - just in time for Paddy and Bridie to go nuts on their spending spree.
I hated the place by then anyway, not to mention her people.
I'm much happier up here, I could never feel this way about Ireland or Irish people.
Which is why I only ever come back for major family events or else work - but even the work angle isn't worth the sheer fucking hassle any more.
If you're interested in Nordic life, come over for the 1st of May, it's called 'Vappu' and it's the first big party of the year which signals the end of winter time and the fall of spring and summer. The whole country goes ballistic. The party usually lasts two to three days, depending on the weather. The streets are full, everyone's out dancing and partying, and it pretty much continues like that until the official end of summer and the beginning of autumn, a very sombre time in Finland.
At the moment it's a brisk minus eleven here by the sea and I just came from lenkkisauna with the neighbours.
On Mondays, the two communal saunas are divided to men and boys in sauna one (the seriously fucking hot one) and the ladies and girls in sauna two (the regular and extremely hot one) which is part of our community effort. The neighbourhood I live in is the most desirable address in the entire country for regular folk. There are more expensive neighbourhoods, but they're not like Arabianranta.
Rents are nominal, cheaper than Ireland by forty/fifty percent.
Quality of build/architecture multiple times better than Ireland.
Outside the packed ice has blackened on the pavements and fresh snows fall every few days, but it's still very slippy, you have to know how to dress for this country. But the opposite is true for summer: winter is dark and cold, but in summer? The sun doesn't go down below the horizon at the height of the season. It's fucking hot, we all head up north to our little cottages on the lakes to live in the wild, miles from any civilization. We have midnight sun parties.
Like these:
Still feel like coming up?
Lumpy Von Talbot
Member
Immanuel Kant. Nice to see a mention anyway. There's a real fashion by what I can only describe as blackguarding CUNTS at the moment for making up quotes and misapplying Carl Jung. People misinterpreting Jung. For example a couple of years back I was threatened to within an inch of my job to attend along with the rest of the office some kind of 'course' in leadership. It was, as I fully expected, a complete bucket of horseshit.
The worst bit was when a picture of Carl Jung was on a powerpoint slide being delivered by some mumsy with anxious hair which had a quote attributed to Jung purporting to be about office life. Now I'm not an expert on Jung but I do know the fucker wouldn't have given a scratcher of an instant of thought about the contemporary office environment because he was married to the second wealthiest heiress in Switzerland and never set foot in any environment resembling the contemporary office in his life. I went to look up the quote afterwards and I even said it at the next meeting- Carl Jung said no such thing and someone has just made up that quote and stuck a picture of Carl Jung next to it for awesomeness.
I think that was the day I made up my mind to leave and start my own business. Mainly because I was becoming heart sick at the plastic plagiaristic bollocks I was being forced to listen to by no-mark consultants who didn't know what they were talking about any day of the week.
The Guardian had a picture of Jung last week next to some more tedious bollocks he would have raised his eyebrow at being associated with. We live in an age of CUNTS.
Thank you for listening. I'll be signing copies of CUNTS in the lobby later. Try the chicken in a basket. It's great.
The worst bit was when a picture of Carl Jung was on a powerpoint slide being delivered by some mumsy with anxious hair which had a quote attributed to Jung purporting to be about office life. Now I'm not an expert on Jung but I do know the fucker wouldn't have given a scratcher of an instant of thought about the contemporary office environment because he was married to the second wealthiest heiress in Switzerland and never set foot in any environment resembling the contemporary office in his life. I went to look up the quote afterwards and I even said it at the next meeting- Carl Jung said no such thing and someone has just made up that quote and stuck a picture of Carl Jung next to it for awesomeness.
I think that was the day I made up my mind to leave and start my own business. Mainly because I was becoming heart sick at the plastic plagiaristic bollocks I was being forced to listen to by no-mark consultants who didn't know what they were talking about any day of the week.
The Guardian had a picture of Jung last week next to some more tedious bollocks he would have raised his eyebrow at being associated with. We live in an age of CUNTS.
Thank you for listening. I'll be signing copies of CUNTS in the lobby later. Try the chicken in a basket. It's great.
Mowl
Member
Never delved to deep into Kant but was fascinated by Jung having previously read Freud's material and then realizing its impact on Jung's work.
It must have great to live in a time when all the brilliant ideas and inventions were not yet discovered.
By comparison, today we live in an age of stressed-out delirium.
I'm sure both Freud and Jung would find the modern mindset extremely interesting by comparison the people of their era.
It must have great to live in a time when all the brilliant ideas and inventions were not yet discovered.
By comparison, today we live in an age of stressed-out delirium.
I'm sure both Freud and Jung would find the modern mindset extremely interesting by comparison the people of their era.
Mowl
Member
18 Things That Prove That Finland Is Straight Up In 3018
BRB, moving to Finland ASAP.
www.buzzfeed.com
Some funny yet innovative ideas that could only come from Finland.
Mowl
Member
Banging fucking snow-storm out there. Temperatures aren't too bad at minus eight but with the sheer force of the wind it cuts much deeper into the skin and there's snow-devils whirling up everywhere. Blinding fuckers, so they are: doesn't matter which direction you're facing - it keeps slapping you in the face. I was going to cross the bay but there's no fucking way I'm walking across that ice tonight.
There's nobody at all on the bay, where there would usually be a few fishermen sitting on little stools beside their drilled out ice hole.
I'd have to carry a torch - if anything went wrong or the ice started to crack, I'd be fucked.
en.ilmatieteenlaitos.fi
The worst part of it is that even the gritting on the pavements are getting carried on the wind, not just the snow.
Another danger is the hanging ice daggers on the gutters above the rooftops come loose and fall haphazardly, no warning, no idea what's above your head.
Still, this is what I came for - weather like this sorts the men from the boys.
There's nobody at all on the bay, where there would usually be a few fishermen sitting on little stools beside their drilled out ice hole.
I'd have to carry a torch - if anything went wrong or the ice started to crack, I'd be fucked.
Weather in Helsinki - Finnish Meteorological Institute
Weather Helsinki - Weather forecast in Finland and abroad. Weather observations in Finland.
en.ilmatieteenlaitos.fi
The worst part of it is that even the gritting on the pavements are getting carried on the wind, not just the snow.
Another danger is the hanging ice daggers on the gutters above the rooftops come loose and fall haphazardly, no warning, no idea what's above your head.
Still, this is what I came for - weather like this sorts the men from the boys.
roc_abilly
Member
I loved this film, "Cool and Crazy", about some chaps from a Norwegian fishing village, north of the Arctic Circle, who sing in a choir:
Mowl
Member
Actually, YLE1 (the national public channel) show the news from Lapland every night around 2200. It's broadcast in the Sámi language which is very close to Finnish, but only in the same way as Finnish and Estonian are vaguely similiar. I love the fact that when it comes dressing formally for a news item, they wear the national costume (the Gákti) rather than a conventional suit.
The singing traditions of the Sámi 'oik' are oft times hilarious while at the same time so sad.
Imagine living in a place where the aurora borealis is an everyday thing?
The singing traditions of the Sámi 'oik' are oft times hilarious while at the same time so sad.
Imagine living in a place where the aurora borealis is an everyday thing?
She's gorgeous!
Mowl
Member
Finland: so much to see and do.
Today we're at a calm minus four in Helsinki with a very light breeze and big floppy snowflakes settling down onto last night's blizzards which dumped seven to ten centimeters of fresh snow upon us.
I have to dress for it and go across town for supplies for this interior gig I've been working on: hopefully it'll be done and dusted by Friday lunchtime. Gonna go and see the new Bob Marley film over the weekend and with the same crew will be heading off on an overnight hip-hop party on Viking Line's Marjella, the craziest party on the high seas you've ever seen. Leaving from the south pier at 1900, then a slow sail through the archipelago off Turku, a quick stop across to the islands at Åland before arriving into Stockholm next morning around 0900.
The archipelago is just unbelievable, we slowly sail through several miles of tiny islands, some inhabited, most not.
The live gigs on the main stage kick off after 2100, when everyone's eaten the their fill of the smorgasbord and are in party mode. By midnight it's mayhem all over the ship. Parties in every cabin, bars everywhere, music, dancing. Goes on into the wee hours and the gangway is open from 0500 for anybody looking to get off early. Party heads usually wake for the breakfast bar before 0900, others stay awake all night boozing.
I have a few friends over in Stockholm so it's nice to call by and say hello, maybe get to play on a few tracks if there's time.
It's good to get out on the seas at winter time - it's as though you could hop off the deck and run alongside the ship on the ice packs the passages are so tight.
You can see the trails of cross-country style skiing tracks on the snow along with the trails of the skidoos beside them. One should never step on or bother the ski tracks: they're very hard to make in the first place and when they're down they have to be used to remain visible and workable for people on skis. I'd love to take a skidoo around the islands of the archipelago on the ice.
Today we're at a calm minus four in Helsinki with a very light breeze and big floppy snowflakes settling down onto last night's blizzards which dumped seven to ten centimeters of fresh snow upon us.
I have to dress for it and go across town for supplies for this interior gig I've been working on: hopefully it'll be done and dusted by Friday lunchtime. Gonna go and see the new Bob Marley film over the weekend and with the same crew will be heading off on an overnight hip-hop party on Viking Line's Marjella, the craziest party on the high seas you've ever seen. Leaving from the south pier at 1900, then a slow sail through the archipelago off Turku, a quick stop across to the islands at Åland before arriving into Stockholm next morning around 0900.
The archipelago is just unbelievable, we slowly sail through several miles of tiny islands, some inhabited, most not.
The live gigs on the main stage kick off after 2100, when everyone's eaten the their fill of the smorgasbord and are in party mode. By midnight it's mayhem all over the ship. Parties in every cabin, bars everywhere, music, dancing. Goes on into the wee hours and the gangway is open from 0500 for anybody looking to get off early. Party heads usually wake for the breakfast bar before 0900, others stay awake all night boozing.
I have a few friends over in Stockholm so it's nice to call by and say hello, maybe get to play on a few tracks if there's time.
It's good to get out on the seas at winter time - it's as though you could hop off the deck and run alongside the ship on the ice packs the passages are so tight.
You can see the trails of cross-country style skiing tracks on the snow along with the trails of the skidoos beside them. One should never step on or bother the ski tracks: they're very hard to make in the first place and when they're down they have to be used to remain visible and workable for people on skis. I'd love to take a skidoo around the islands of the archipelago on the ice.
roc_abilly
Member
A man of conviction.
Many of the losers on Arsefields will no doubt be delighted though.
(Someone's view on Navalny is another strong marker of someone being a Russian propagandist, no doubt unwittingly in the case of the Arsefielder scum, being mostly down to the disinformation diet their pathological online habits draw them to, in combination with their stupidity and innate viciousness, yielding a lethal cocktail).
Who will be first over there to start up with how he was "a Nazi white terrorist" etc.
How Finland halved its suicide rate.
www.google.ie
The Finnish miracle: how the country halved its suicide rate – and saved countless lives
It is now often known as the ‘world’s happiest country’, but Finland used to have one of the highest suicide rates in the world. From alcohol to antidepressants, here are the changes that made the difference
www.google.ie
Mowl
Member
My ex works at THL and was at the United Nations building in New York just a few weeks back to read some items from her own thesis (as well as several others) which centered on the physical and mental health of Finnish males between the age of eighteen to thirty-five and their habits with alcohol, drugs, and tobacco. Nutrition, sleeping habits, etc. In fact, she hired me as her assistant to collate data from paper to digital, an extremely frustrating and boring job. But the money, blah, blah.
As I said then, in Finland everyone has a degree in every one else's misery and problems. Everyone is highly educated. The sense of 'Finnishness' or self is very strong up here; this is mostly down to the isolation we take for granted due to our geological location. All of our neighbours on every side of our borders and seas have different languages. Nordic people manage to turn this into an advantage rather than an obstacle. So Finns writing their theses often use English as it travels further and better, faster. So her appearance at the UNHQ was based on presenting years of collated data into a few A4 sheets that were read in less than an hour. She's also presented papers at the EU HQs over the last few years.
The dropping suicide factor has another answer/solution not referred to in the article from The Guardian. After the collapse of the Finnish Markka post-Finnish recession of 1992, the national economy took a sharp nose-dive. Lots of males who were in the property business topped themselves when the arse fell out of the market by the end of 1992. The country was crippled financially and the suicide numbers were outrageous. The state had tough decisions to make: ask for a bail-out and keep going, or tighten your belt for a while and throw everything into education. They chose the latter option and as it turned out, events all across the EEC zone (pre-EU) helped put Finland into a positive position through international companies like Nokia. The fact that Nokia did so well gave confidence to other Finnish business people to invest more into IT and general tech and it happened at exactly the right time to catch the upswing of modern mobile technology. Previously, Nokia - named after the small rural town where it began - produced rubber goods. Wellingtons, tyres, gloves, whatever. The shift to technology was built on state incentives for younger entrepreneurs to develop their ideas. So after a few tough years of relative hardship, the country began to blossom internationally and find her feet again.
The suicide rates dropped drastically during this international boom until they were no longer that much of an issue, but at the same time the state wasn't going to remove the apparatus built to help people with chronic depression and suicidal inclinations. All of those supports still exist and are as busy as ever. The difference between today and the period of extremely high suicidal rates is that Finland had finally opened up and became a destination rather than some obscure international capital city. Opportunities bounded like kangaroos in the sand. Everyone wanted to run their own company rather than work for someone else and that too helped the economy flourish. Since the recession of the early 1990's, the improvement has been consistent and is down to the fact that Finland refused to borrow funds and decided to do it her own way: sisu in effect.
She developed multiple global brands and handled her international profile carefully and discreetly. Incentives were rife, taxes were high but what you got back for them was palpable in every way. You saw exactly where your money was going: education, health, infrastructure, culture, and most of all: family. Quality housing for all - meaning building blocks to last for centuries, not years. The inclusion of things like central heating for everyone, internet access for everyone, and even our garbage/recycling systems, are all paid for by our annual taxes, not our monthly wages. You're billed for rent, energy consumption, all per square meter. Public transport is made affordable for all. Schools and colleges are to global standards and beyond. They're free. Information should be free to all, so every home is online as standard.
The quality of life improvements over the last thirty years have seen Finland grow from a very obscure Nordic country to a global model of excellence in every area of life/society. Quirky little things like The Baby Box: they may cost just a few hundred euros but that's not the point: the point is that it started as a nice idea but was followed up on and put into practice. Since the 1930's in fact. It's not the value of the items, it's the fact that the state wants her citizens to be happy and proud of our culture, even if we're a small obscure country with a small population. We do it our own way.
Sadly, the burden of suicides rates increasing next infected Ireland after her collapse. During the 2000's, Ireland had huge numbers of suicides, particularly among adult males. So much so that Joan Burton had the bright idea of changing the terms of suicide so that the insurance companies had some degree of leverage in terms of what they paid out and what for. The word suicide was removed and the new term was: 'death by misadventure'.
In effect, a young Irish man of say twenty-five with a wife and two kids who took a loan in say 2002 to get onto the property ladder had even more credit raining down around him, so three holidays a year was suddenly normal even for working class scruffs. The house, four beds, three cars in the garage, dinner out three times a week, the designer clothes, the bling, the designer drugs. Paddy thought he never had it so good. And face it: ye ALL partied. But then along came Lehman Bros/Bear-Stearns causing a global collapse which hit him right when he least expected it. The banks wanted their money back. Paddy spent it already. The houses he build and bought were crap: at the height of the boom they might be worth €500,000 on paper. But by the time the IMF were in town, they weren't worth €100,000, and Paddy had to fill the gap somehow.
Life insurance suddenly piqued Paddy's interests. The wife and kids out on the street and huge bills still hanging over me?
Or buy a bottle of whiskey, raid the medicine cabinet, then get in the car and drive it into a wall/tree/lamppost/ditch and be sure to die: surviving and being a vegetable wasn't an option. Die. Dead. 100%. Now the wife and kids have some cash to help pay the bills.
So it's a blight Ireland knows all to well about. Just as Finland did. Except the Irish model dumped the bill for the party on the people. Finland took what little she had and used it to educate her children to the highest standards that they could rebuild what the previous recession/generation had destroyed. It's worked too. Our national debt isn't a concern. Yours is rather ominous and looks like it'll still be around for your great grandchildren to ponder why they're having to pay YOUR bills for you, decades after the party was over.
I first came to Finland in 1996, a few short years after the Finnish recession. I knew nothing about Finland then. But within the first couple of days of out and about I started to fall in love with the place. It's nothing like Ireland. We're on a cultural curve at the moment where the national characteristics of the average Finn are no longer the dour, depressed, angry and drunk version. Modern Finns are highly educated, highly intelligent, honest to a fault, globally aware, but still very much attached to the older traditions: like spending time with nature and the wilds. Finns are new to city life, it's reflected in how some older Finns still try to maintain distance with their neighbours, because when they themselves were young, their nearest neighbour might have been thirty miles away.
I always behaved in an open and friendly manner, doing things that Finns my own age thought weird: thanking the bus/tram driver for opening the door remotely for me. Thanking the postman for my mail. Starting some chat with the pretty girl at the cash desk. Asking strangers for directions in English and thanking them in Finnish. Now everyone's at it. Today Finns are bright and friendly, curious and open; the first question they'll likely ask you is:
'Why did you come to here?'
Because they still can't get their heads around the fact that they're considered the happiest people in the world because they have things they can absolutely rely on: honesty, progress, safety, quality, reliability. They also think at times that everywhere is like this. When I tell them about how Ireland works, they look at me in incredulity: 'Irish people are dishonest? Your government is that corrupt? You have HOW MANY homeless people? How many are women? How many are kids? You pay your prime minister HOW MUCH money? You have kids in classrooms made of wood? You have elderly people on trolleys waiting days to see a doctor?'
In that light, they're aware that the suicide problem isn't theirs any more: it's yours.
As I said then, in Finland everyone has a degree in every one else's misery and problems. Everyone is highly educated. The sense of 'Finnishness' or self is very strong up here; this is mostly down to the isolation we take for granted due to our geological location. All of our neighbours on every side of our borders and seas have different languages. Nordic people manage to turn this into an advantage rather than an obstacle. So Finns writing their theses often use English as it travels further and better, faster. So her appearance at the UNHQ was based on presenting years of collated data into a few A4 sheets that were read in less than an hour. She's also presented papers at the EU HQs over the last few years.
The dropping suicide factor has another answer/solution not referred to in the article from The Guardian. After the collapse of the Finnish Markka post-Finnish recession of 1992, the national economy took a sharp nose-dive. Lots of males who were in the property business topped themselves when the arse fell out of the market by the end of 1992. The country was crippled financially and the suicide numbers were outrageous. The state had tough decisions to make: ask for a bail-out and keep going, or tighten your belt for a while and throw everything into education. They chose the latter option and as it turned out, events all across the EEC zone (pre-EU) helped put Finland into a positive position through international companies like Nokia. The fact that Nokia did so well gave confidence to other Finnish business people to invest more into IT and general tech and it happened at exactly the right time to catch the upswing of modern mobile technology. Previously, Nokia - named after the small rural town where it began - produced rubber goods. Wellingtons, tyres, gloves, whatever. The shift to technology was built on state incentives for younger entrepreneurs to develop their ideas. So after a few tough years of relative hardship, the country began to blossom internationally and find her feet again.
The suicide rates dropped drastically during this international boom until they were no longer that much of an issue, but at the same time the state wasn't going to remove the apparatus built to help people with chronic depression and suicidal inclinations. All of those supports still exist and are as busy as ever. The difference between today and the period of extremely high suicidal rates is that Finland had finally opened up and became a destination rather than some obscure international capital city. Opportunities bounded like kangaroos in the sand. Everyone wanted to run their own company rather than work for someone else and that too helped the economy flourish. Since the recession of the early 1990's, the improvement has been consistent and is down to the fact that Finland refused to borrow funds and decided to do it her own way: sisu in effect.
She developed multiple global brands and handled her international profile carefully and discreetly. Incentives were rife, taxes were high but what you got back for them was palpable in every way. You saw exactly where your money was going: education, health, infrastructure, culture, and most of all: family. Quality housing for all - meaning building blocks to last for centuries, not years. The inclusion of things like central heating for everyone, internet access for everyone, and even our garbage/recycling systems, are all paid for by our annual taxes, not our monthly wages. You're billed for rent, energy consumption, all per square meter. Public transport is made affordable for all. Schools and colleges are to global standards and beyond. They're free. Information should be free to all, so every home is online as standard.
The quality of life improvements over the last thirty years have seen Finland grow from a very obscure Nordic country to a global model of excellence in every area of life/society. Quirky little things like The Baby Box: they may cost just a few hundred euros but that's not the point: the point is that it started as a nice idea but was followed up on and put into practice. Since the 1930's in fact. It's not the value of the items, it's the fact that the state wants her citizens to be happy and proud of our culture, even if we're a small obscure country with a small population. We do it our own way.
Sadly, the burden of suicides rates increasing next infected Ireland after her collapse. During the 2000's, Ireland had huge numbers of suicides, particularly among adult males. So much so that Joan Burton had the bright idea of changing the terms of suicide so that the insurance companies had some degree of leverage in terms of what they paid out and what for. The word suicide was removed and the new term was: 'death by misadventure'.
In effect, a young Irish man of say twenty-five with a wife and two kids who took a loan in say 2002 to get onto the property ladder had even more credit raining down around him, so three holidays a year was suddenly normal even for working class scruffs. The house, four beds, three cars in the garage, dinner out three times a week, the designer clothes, the bling, the designer drugs. Paddy thought he never had it so good. And face it: ye ALL partied. But then along came Lehman Bros/Bear-Stearns causing a global collapse which hit him right when he least expected it. The banks wanted their money back. Paddy spent it already. The houses he build and bought were crap: at the height of the boom they might be worth €500,000 on paper. But by the time the IMF were in town, they weren't worth €100,000, and Paddy had to fill the gap somehow.
Life insurance suddenly piqued Paddy's interests. The wife and kids out on the street and huge bills still hanging over me?
Or buy a bottle of whiskey, raid the medicine cabinet, then get in the car and drive it into a wall/tree/lamppost/ditch and be sure to die: surviving and being a vegetable wasn't an option. Die. Dead. 100%. Now the wife and kids have some cash to help pay the bills.
So it's a blight Ireland knows all to well about. Just as Finland did. Except the Irish model dumped the bill for the party on the people. Finland took what little she had and used it to educate her children to the highest standards that they could rebuild what the previous recession/generation had destroyed. It's worked too. Our national debt isn't a concern. Yours is rather ominous and looks like it'll still be around for your great grandchildren to ponder why they're having to pay YOUR bills for you, decades after the party was over.
I first came to Finland in 1996, a few short years after the Finnish recession. I knew nothing about Finland then. But within the first couple of days of out and about I started to fall in love with the place. It's nothing like Ireland. We're on a cultural curve at the moment where the national characteristics of the average Finn are no longer the dour, depressed, angry and drunk version. Modern Finns are highly educated, highly intelligent, honest to a fault, globally aware, but still very much attached to the older traditions: like spending time with nature and the wilds. Finns are new to city life, it's reflected in how some older Finns still try to maintain distance with their neighbours, because when they themselves were young, their nearest neighbour might have been thirty miles away.
I always behaved in an open and friendly manner, doing things that Finns my own age thought weird: thanking the bus/tram driver for opening the door remotely for me. Thanking the postman for my mail. Starting some chat with the pretty girl at the cash desk. Asking strangers for directions in English and thanking them in Finnish. Now everyone's at it. Today Finns are bright and friendly, curious and open; the first question they'll likely ask you is:
'Why did you come to here?'
Because they still can't get their heads around the fact that they're considered the happiest people in the world because they have things they can absolutely rely on: honesty, progress, safety, quality, reliability. They also think at times that everywhere is like this. When I tell them about how Ireland works, they look at me in incredulity: 'Irish people are dishonest? Your government is that corrupt? You have HOW MANY homeless people? How many are women? How many are kids? You pay your prime minister HOW MUCH money? You have kids in classrooms made of wood? You have elderly people on trolleys waiting days to see a doctor?'
In that light, they're aware that the suicide problem isn't theirs any more: it's yours.