Nordic News

[Mowl]

Here's one that'll put a few things about Ireland into perspective.

I spotted this one earlier and linked a friend (Emmu) to it, looks like she'll get it too. She did a two year art degree in Dun Laoire College Of Art and NCAD on Thomas Street. She shared a room with another girl, and both were sharing with two other girls in a second bedroom as they couldn't afford to live there any other way. Her part time job ate the rent and she said she never felt as poor and hopeless as she did for those two years. She couldn't afford to fly home for a break either, so it took its toll and she regrets having ever applied to either college.

Now she's back and I've been helping her along as best I can: because I tried to help her get any place at all in Dublin but failed completely. The few options I did see and pass along depressed her so much that she was willing to agree to having zero privacy for two years of endless hardship and rotten treatment by the Irish state who did fuck all to help or advise her, same deal with both college housing groups.

So after a quick search on my council's list of places, I found this one:



It's going for €466 per month and is fully self contained. Nice neighbourhood in Tapanila, about 7Km from Central Station. Nearby services and shopping centre, bus and commuter line. No metro/tram (metro will link Tapanlina in 2026). Completely renovated in 2017. Small but nice bright and clean kitchen, open plan lounge/diner/bedroom (bed can be elevated if required) hallway storage/lounge storage (approx 10SqM) attic/basement storage (+2x5SqM). WC with heated floor. Quad glazing, no balcony connected but rooftop access available. Bike rooms, winter items, laundry/drying facilities within complex, but no car parking. Rooftop free space for private parties with sauna access x2. Non-smoking building throughout and no smoking on connected grounds either. Students welcome, the entire set-up has been created for student life. Couples also welcome but priority is for younger university/college types.

Some images of the space (current tenant has own washing machine):



So for less than €120 per week, you get all this along with the usual standards: garbage disposal, boiling hot/cold running water, sauna, etc. Emmu was paying just under a grand to share a bedroom with someone she never met before. The place was horrible, like something out of the 1970s Ireland. Shitty furniture, she had to wrap her bed with industrial quality clingfilm to avoid touching it. The toilet/shower looked like something from a Turkish prison. The kitchen was even worse. I was so embarrassed, but I did warn her before she left not to expect anything better unless she had serious money to throw at it. She didn't.

Tapanila's a quiet little village and is surrounded by parks and forests, the River Vantaa is nearby for swimming and picnicking during summer, and you're on the edge of the city near the Second Ring (there are three ring-roads around Helsinki) with immediate access to open country for walking/cycling/hiking. Time to city by train: 8/9mins. By bus: 15mins, and by taxi 7mins.

Multiple bus lines, commuters every three/four minutes.

Sweet little number for Emmu.

Hope she gets it.

 

[Electricity]

What does onkalo mean the Mowl?

 

[Mowl]

What does onkalo mean the Mowl?

It's a reference to the state of the inside of your skull: a cavity.

Doesn't Ireland have access to a translator?

Do you even know what lator means, by the way?

You DO know what trans means - right?

 

[Electricity]

It's a reference to the state of the inside of your skull: a cavity.

Oh. Have I been misinformed then?

Doesn't Ireland have access to a translator?

Do you even know what lator means, by the way?

You DO know what trans means - right?

I know it's a longshot (considering it isn't Good Morning, Vietnam) but have you seen this (documentary) film? -



Did you know that dur Finns are building a storage facility for nuclear waste that has to last for a 100,000 years?

 

[Mowl]

Yes, everyone in Finland knows this; the national curriculum sees to that.

Apart from Irish cavemen like yourself.

Did you know that the term cave is derived from the word cavity?

As in: caveman/cavity-man?

Gas.

 

[Electricity]

When you go to the dentist in The Frozen Wasteland does the dentist tell you that you have an onkalo, or onkalos?

 

[Electricity]

Oh. Have I been misinformed then?


I know it's a longshot (considering it isn't Good Morning, Vietnam) but have you seen this (documentary) film? -



Did you know that dur Finns are building a storage facility for nuclear waste that has to last for a 100,000 years?

Of course it's quite natural to assume that in a hundred thousand years mankind will be more advanced.. but that's not necessarily the case. What if we go back to being cavemen, for whatever reason, and the facility is unearthed by those people who haven't (re)invented the geiger counter yet?

 

[Mowl]

When you go to the dentist in The Frozen Wasteland does the dentist tell you that you have an onkalo, or onkalos?

Everyone has access to state provided emergency dental care, and this includes, as well as emergency services, an annual check-up at a pre-arranged time including x-ray and full oral examination. One can also book a cleaning service once every three years, but the waiting list often fluctuates and if one person can't make their appointment and notifies in advance (you have to cancel at least one week ahead of schedule or else pay a fine of the equivalent of a private dental care appointment) then you can get lucky and be chosen as a short-notice patient.

Every dentist I've been to speaks excellent English and they all use the session to practice their English skills on me, this is very common these days.

So their English vocabulary is in fact often several times superior to your average Dublin skanger with a tiny lexicon and rampant use of the term 'fuck'. When I say this to Finns, they always laugh it off as a compliment with no basis in reality. And to be perfectly honest, I don't insist otherwise no matter how true it is. So yes, they might use 'onkalo' as a loose term, but it's not the proper medical term in Finnish. Rather what Finns call 'stadin slangi' meaning street talk. The type one NEVER uses to any person over the age of sixty-five or seventy. The elders don't understand street terminology and they use the language very precisely.

Sauli Niinistö, our previous president, is a great example of this.

He oozes gravitas and has no time for fools - hence this photo-op from when Trump and Putin met in his house.

He went for a pint with the presidential dog instead.

This is Finland: After Trump and Putin leave, the president heads across the street for a drink

After Monday’s summit, president Sauli Niinistö of Finland went to a bar. Just like anyone would after a hard day’s work.

www.hs.fi

Of course it's quite natural to assume that in a hundred thousand years mankind will be more advanced.. but that's not necessarily the case.

True, but as the narrator said: the tombs of the great Kings and Queens of Egypt were also designed never to be opened for eternity. Which is all well and good in theory, but not so much when every country in the fucking world has pillaged their history - and in many cases, killed the natives if they objected. Go to any modern western world museum and tell me any different?

What if we go back to being cavemen,

You mean 'cavity-men' - right?

for whatever reason, and the facility is unearthed by those people who haven't (re)invented the Geiger counter yet?

Well, any future society which can dig down several hundreds of meters into the rock and stone but who haven't clocked the existence of radiation just yet would be a strange race of human/people/animal/cavity-men? Perhaps by the same days you project about - they take it out into space and dump it there?

There aren't really any 'clean' solutions to the problem of nuclear waste.

It's a messy business, but then again so was coal mining.

And remember: we're not amateurs at this. The Helsinki you see above ground is one aspect of the city, what's underground is entirely another. Even in commercial terms. For example, under Central Station there are three separate shopping centres, two bus depots, multiple underground car parks, bomb shelters, etc, etc all connected together. You can enter at say the curve on Kaisaniemenkatu and walk two kilometers over to Kamppi without going back above ground. A city beneath the city. It serves all things to all people and relieves the overground of much of the daily stresses you might endure in Dublin, which is a polo-mint city: all edges and no centre.

My old studio under Uspenski Cathedral was being exploded deeper and deeper down into the bedrock for around three of the last years I rented Skatta studios. Now it houses a multi-billion euro data processing centre that serves all of the southern Finnish broadband needs, and yet the same keys open the door to the studio floor (mine was the Presidential Suite, 105SqM around 35M beneath terra firma. So the engineers who work on the data processing floors meet the punks and rockers and jazzers of the bomb shelter floor.

We trust each other, I guess - or rather the state is aware of how we utilize the underground networks for artistic purposes and they mostly help us along in ensuring access is ongoing. Sadly, what was a golden egg one day became a rotten egg the next when the new Fire Chief was installed and decided to do a complete clean/clear-out of rooms like mine which was designed to house the president. Those rooms are still available but at prices far out of my reach. Some are used by larger companies looking to store hard data which has to be transferred to virtual. Massive storage rooms. But the emphasis is still for arts and music in general, that'll never change.

Geiger begins with a capital letter, by the way.

 

[Electricity]

Everyone has access to state provided emergency dental care, and this includes, as well as emergency services, an annual check-up at a pre-arranged time including x-ray and full oral examination. One can also book a cleaning service once every three years, but the waiting list often fluctuates and if one person can't make their appointment and notifies in advance (you have to cancel at least one week ahead of schedule or else pay a fine of the equivalent of a private dental care appointment) then you can get lucky and be chosen as a short-notice patient.

Every dentist I've been to speaks excellent English and they all use the session to practice their English skills on me, this is very common these days.

So their English vocabulary is in fact often several times superior to your average Dublin skanger with a tiny lexicon and rampant use of the term 'fuck'. When I say this to Finns, they always laugh it off as a compliment with no basis in reality. And to be perfectly honest, I don't insist otherwise no matter how true it is. So yes, they might use 'onkalo' as a loose term, but it's not the proper medical term in Finnish. Rather what Finns call 'stadin slangi' meaning street talk. The type one NEVER uses to any person over the age of sixty-five or seventy. The elders don't understand street terminology and they use the language very precisely.

Sauli Niinistö, our previous president, is a great example of this.

He oozes gravitas and has no time for fools - hence this photo-op from when Trump and Putin met in his house.

He went for a pint with the presidential dog instead.

This is Finland: After Trump and Putin leave, the president heads across the street for a drink

After Monday’s summit, president Sauli Niinistö of Finland went to a bar. Just like anyone would after a hard day’s work.

www.hs.fi

True, but as the narrator said: the tombs of the great Kings and Queens of Egypt were also designed never to be opened for eternity. Which is all well and good in theory, but not so much when every country in the fucking world has pillaged their history - and in many cases, killed the natives if they objected. Go to any modern western world museum and tell me any different?



You mean 'cavity-men' - right?



Well, any future society which can dig down several hundreds of meters into the rock and stone but who haven't clocked the existence of radiation just yet would be a strange race of human/people/animal/cavity-men? Perhaps by the same days you project about - they take it out into space and dump it there?

There aren't really any 'clean' solutions to the problem of nuclear waste.

It's a messy business, but then again so was coal mining.

And remember: we're not amateurs at this. The Helsinki you see above ground is one aspect of the city, what's underground is entirely another. Even in commercial terms. For example, under Central Station there are three separate shopping centres, two bus depots, multiple underground car parks, bomb shelters, etc, etc all connected together. You can enter at say the curve on Kaisaniemenkatu and walk two kilometers over to Kamppi without going back above ground. A city beneath the city. It serves all things to all people and relieves the overground of much of the daily stresses you might endure in Dublin, which is a polo-mint city: all edges and no centre.

My old studio under Uspenski Cathedral was being exploded deeper and deeper down into the bedrock for around three of the last years I rented Skatta studios. Now it houses a multi-billion euro data processing centre that serves all of the southern Finnish broadband needs, and yet the same keys open the door to the studio floor (mine was the Presidential Suite, 105SqM around 35M beneath terra firma. So the engineers who work on the data processing floors meet the punks and rockers and jazzers of the bomb shelter floor.

We trust each other, I guess - or rather the state is aware of how we utilize the underground networks for artistic purposes and they mostly help us along in ensuring access is ongoing. Sadly, what was a golden egg one day became a rotten egg the next when the new Fire Chief was installed and decided to do a complete clean/clear-out of rooms like mine which was designed to house the president. Those rooms are still available but at prices far out of my reach. Some are used by larger companies looking to store hard data which has to be transferred to virtual. Massive storage rooms. But the emphasis is still for arts and music in general, that'll never change.

Geiger begins with a capital letter, by the way.

I thought it would autocorrect! (Last time I trust the software)

It did remind (what I said) of that Gervais quote, you know the one about if we wiped the slate clean and started again all the scientific discoveries and inventions would come back the same but the religions would be different? Baha, the theists hate that one.

 

[Electricity]

Mikael 39, Henrik 15, Luna 9, Fredrik 54, Lisa 17, Ebba 11, Kjäll 57, Elin 27, Wilma 17... the list can be made much longer but these are just a few of those who recently have been murdered in Sweden by the immigrants that our political establishment have imported. While those that have opposed this for years have been hunted, hounded, targeted, censored and called names.

How many more victims does it take before people have had enough? 5 more? 15 more? 50 more? 500 more? 5000 more? What number of deaths do we have to reach before there is a justified revolt by the people against those responsible?

Red Ice TV

Mikael 39, Henrik 15, Luna 9, Fredrik 54, Lisa 17, Ebba 11, Kjäll 57, Elin 27, Wilma 17... the list can be made much linger but these are just a few of those who recently have been murdered in Sweden by the immigrants that our political establishment have imported. While those that have opposed...

t.me

 

[Mowl]

That's Sweden's hangover from the liberal period of the 1960s/1970s when love was free and it felt like summertime all the time.

But Swedes are an isolated lot, they honestly think they've got it all going on. So their self-imposed isolation continues today and they seem to like the African continent more than they like the Scandinavian countries. Good luck to them with that. Me? I prefer the Nordic model. It doesn't mince around like the Swedish blondes do. And the African continent seems to like Sweden too, regardless of the long winters and weird food.

You seem mighty outraged by it, Jambo.

Ever been to any Scandinavian country? Even Denmark? They're pretty happy down there too, but not as much as Finland is. We're the happiest of all contenders and it pleases me greatly to see all the cranks I knew back home asking me why the fuck and how the fuck I'm leaving for Finland years before she was even on the maps. Look at them now? Lots took to the rope, others the high speed car after a bottle of whiskey and fifteen downers. Ireland's on her fucking knees by now and I know how much it kills my haters that - out of all you blogging twats - the Mowl's the only one to clock what was happening and get the fuck out of there bang on time in order to ride the wave that landed me here, living in luxury, surrounded by beauty, safety, efficiency, opportunity and wealth.

They said I was nuts, crazy for leaving over twenty years ago with fuck all to look back at. I wiped the slate clean before getting the fuck out, all my affairs in order and signed off for good. Good fucking riddance. Look at you all now, but? Holy shit. The national debt. Simon fucking Harris. Fine Gael falling apart yet they're still sitting on top of the pile? You have no autonomy. Not even the right to vote any more. Not that it matters, mind you: look at the complete mongs wandering the hallways of Leinster House? Look at what they've done to Dublin? To the entire country? Look at the fucking state of you?

I have it all nailed down up here, and the sacrifices I made back in the day have all paid off multiple times over.

It took prescience and calculation: I made a plan, told nobody around me what I was up to until the bridge was built and the door wide open. I timed it to perfection, getting out just as reality was dawning on you lot that you'd been taken for a fucking ride. All those billions you pissed up the wall? What did you buy with it anyway? Most of the working class kids I know bought cars, then drove them headlong into a brick wall when the bank asked for its money back. All those single Moms with teenage kids? Not all of them are traditional slappers: many of them are the same ones whose husbands took their own lives in the hope that the insurance pay-off would cover the keys to the gaff. Mostly it didn't: they died in vain. Pointlessly. Ignorantly too. So now their wives and children live in tents on O'Connell Street. Eating off the pavement - literally.

And those who set you up for all that bullshit?

Yeps - are still creaming the wages in like it had nothing to do with them; still wandering the corridors of Leinster House dripping saliva and hungry for more. The women and children? Collateral damage, a necessary evil. The two-party state couldn't possibly have been more cold and calculated. And it very much still IS all worked out. They know what they did, they know who's to blame, they know who won and who lost and so long as they apply selective amnesia then the two-party state can live on for a few elections yet: until there are no elections any more because they don't need to kid you into thinking you have any say in what's happening now and what's coming down the road for you later. Those women and children are fucked for life. Utterly fucking fucked. And that's your problem to deal with, not mine.

I worked, I saved, I managed to avoid any expense in doing so, and by the time the bubble burst I was out clean. No ties. No bridges left to burn.

You went on vacation to all the wrong countries, Jambo.

You should have picked somewhere closer to home, anywhere you actually stood a chance in. America? Australia? Canada? Why does it always have to be English speaking countries? What the fuck are Irish people afraid of? Not being in charge? Not having the capacity to see things are done your way? Look at the fucking state of 'your way' anyway? You've been on your knees since the fucking famine. You're as bad as ze Jews STILL banging on about ze hollercause eighty years after the fact. The Famine is another hundred years older, for fuck's sake. The whining out of both of you never fucking ends. Get over it, your descendants did, so what's your fucking problem?

Who the fuck cares about Sweden?

And don't be fucking pretending you do either, Jambo. You don't, you just see a chance to get all worked up and melodramatic about it and you're using it to give your world view some sort of credibility. It doesn't. You know precisely fuck all about Sweden, that's been clear to everyone for years now. You know even less about Finland, but at least you have a point of reference in the Mowl. What you do know about is English-speaking Australia. That's why you and Fish-wipe over on the gay bar site hate each other: he's an Aussie, likely derived from in-bred criminal Irish blood that landed there hundreds of years ago, maybe even the 1840s when the famine started taking its toll. He bossed you around. Told you where the line was. Deleted things he didn't like you saying. Bossed you around some more. And look at you now? I mean, fuck: just look at you?

I suppose I'd be in a rage too if I were in boots like yours.

Suck it up, Kid - there's nothing else on the menu bar some inedible hair-shirts an/or culchie leg on toast.

 

[Mowl]

Is Ireland going ahead with building that 'white water rapids' project with an outdoor all-weather swimming pool and spa facility? Somewhere down along the docks as I recall, a massive vanity project that had a whole bunch of your money flung at it in the hopes that the doors to the state coffers would be well greased in time for all available chancers to grab a few quid?

Here's an idea: there's an underground space beneath Grafton Street which was developed decades back for a planned metro line in the previous century which was never completed. So currently it simply exists under the ground with no purpose. So how about instead trying something a bit more interesting like the French did with their disused metro stations?



Imagine having a facility like this dead centre in the pricey end of town? No skangers for a start - which is exactly what you would have if it was build over ground along the river. Instead you join as a member and pay a fee for occasional use. Along with a large pool you could also insert a few saunas, some steam rooms, a gymnasium, a cafe and restaurant, maybe even a small cinema. A sort of wellness centre? All underground, no natural light or air (or you could put some port-holed windows above on street level so you get a glimpse of natural light from above while pedestrians above could also see what's below them from their point of view) and rather both air and light are supplied/contained/controllable in how they're designed and for how many people at a time?

It'd be miles off the charts in terms of the lame Irish building sector, so instead of hiring locals who'll fuck it all up and run the basic costs away up into the stars, and then sign off on it knowing it's likely to fall apart. Instead, get outside professional help. Hire in the designers used for the Parisian underground project. Or hire in some Finnish tunnel/building people who know what they're doing. Irish navvies could do the labouring but NO Irish person on the board would have the right to shout down any other points of view or techniques. Leave the contracted specialists to do things up to standard. Because they're on contract, they're answerable. If they fuck up and cheat - boot them out.

That way you wouldn't have to wait forty-three years and six tribunals for the case to make it to court: you write it into the contract.

It'd be something entirely different for Ireland and for Dublin.

Unique, full of potential, and a worthy use of space to relieve the ground level of traffic and footfall.

Like here in Helsinki: you can enter the underground in the city centre three kilometers from central station. You can walk all the way from Kaisanieminkatu across to Kamppi in around ten minutes. Lots of shops, restaurants, outlets of every description, car parking, access to tram and bus depots, and whatever you're having yourself. It's like a second city, a shadow beneath our feet that bustles with footfall all day every day.

Now, nobodies asking Ireland to replicate Finnish tunneling projects - Finland's been dynamiting downward for over a century. Hence all these bomb shelter studios for musicians and artists. The last major state project was actually in my old studio at Katajanokka. It links directly to the Presidential Palace fifty meters away and the council dug down another fifty meters below even my space, which is already twenty-five meters below terra firma. The vast caverns they hollowed out now house the massive servers for Finland's data processing and broadband delivery to the entire southern region of Finland almost up into the wilds. They don't make mistakes: I used to get letters delivered reminding me about periods of particularly busy dynamiting in advance so we could prepare for it if we were in recording mode. We had a few occasions of digital recorders blanking the discs after particularly large explosions. The air pressure expanding so suddenly causes your ears to pop, and it can also cause what's called 'temporal masking' - a debilitating effect on your aural canal where both extreme high and low frequencies can't be heard that takes a while to recover from. You're effectively deaf to the highs and lows for few hours.

Would an Irish project like that work or would it fail?

Are the Irish copped on enough to see the value of these things in terms of tourism and paying down the national debt?

Some images for your imagination:



An underground swimming pool in Itakeskus (north east of Helsinki)



A competition-standard underground swimming pool in the city centre.



An underground kart-racing circuit, all are welcome.



And our beautiful Temppeliaukio church, also underground, with exceptionally awesome acoustics where the choirs and orchestras sound amazing.

The price per square foot of commercial space in Dublin is ridiculous, so why not expand downwards instead of outwards?

 

[Electricity]

Is Ireland going ahead with building that 'white water rapids' project with an outdoor all-weather swimming pool and spa facility? Somewhere down along the docks as I recall, a massive vanity project that had a whole bunch of your money flung at it in the hopes that the doors to the state coffers would be well greased in time for all available chancers to grab a few quid?

Here's an idea: there's an underground space beneath Grafton Street which was developed decades back for a planned metro line in the previous century which was never completed. So currently it simply exists under the ground with no purpose. So how about instead trying something a bit more interesting like the French did with their disused metro stations?



Imagine having a facility like this dead centre in the pricey end of town? No skangers for a start - which is exactly what you would have if it was build over ground along the river. Instead you join as a member and pay a fee for occasional use. Along with a large pool you could also insert a few saunas, some steam rooms, a gymnasium, a cafe and restaurant, maybe even a small cinema. A sort of wellness centre? All underground, no natural light or air (or you could put some port-holed windows above on street level so you get a glimpse of natural light from above while pedestrians above could also see what's below them from their point of view) and rather both air and light are supplied/contained/controllable in how they're designed and for how many people at a time?

It'd be miles off the charts in terms of the lame Irish building sector, so instead of hiring locals who'll fuck it all up and run the basic costs away up into the stars, and then sign off on it knowing it's likely to fall apart. Instead, get outside professional help. Hire in the designers used for the Parisian underground project. Or hire in some Finnish tunnel/building people who know what they're doing. Irish navvies could do the labouring but NO Irish person on the board would have the right to shout down any other points of view or techniques. Leave the contracted specialists to do things up to standard. Because they're on contract, they're answerable. If they fuck up and cheat - boot them out.

That way you wouldn't have to wait forty-three years and six tribunals for the case to make it to court: you write it into the contract.

It'd be something entirely different for Ireland and for Dublin.

Unique, full of potential, and a worthy use of space to relieve the ground level of traffic and footfall.

Like here in Helsinki: you can enter the underground in the city centre three kilometers from central station. You can walk all the way from Kaisanieminkatu across to Kamppi in around ten minutes. Lots of shops, restaurants, outlets of every description, car parking, access to tram and bus depots, and whatever you're having yourself. It's like a second city, a shadow beneath our feet that bustles with footfall all day every day.

Now, nobodies asking Ireland to replicate Finnish tunneling projects - Finland's been dynamiting downward for over a century. Hence all these bomb shelter studios for musicians and artists. The last major state project was actually in my old studio at Katajanokka. It links directly to the Presidential Palace fifty meters away and the council dug down another fifty meters below even my space, which is already twenty-five meters below terra firma. The vast caverns they hollowed out now house the massive servers for Finland's data processing and broadband delivery to the entire southern region of Finland almost up into the wilds. They don't make mistakes: I used to get letters delivered reminding me about periods of particularly busy dynamiting in advance so we could prepare for it if we were in recording mode. We had a few occasions of digital recorders blanking the discs after particularly large explosions. The air pressure expanding so suddenly causes your ears to pop, and it can also cause what's called 'temporal masking' - a debilitating effect on your aural canal where both extreme high and low frequencies can't be heard that takes a while to recover from. You're effectively deaf to the highs and lows for few hours.

Would an Irish project like that work or would it fail?

Are the Irish copped on enough to see the value of these things in terms of tourism and paying down the national debt?

Some images for your imagination:



An underground swimming pool in Itakeskus (north east of Helsinki)



A competition-standard underground swimming pool in the city centre.

An underground kart-racing circuit, all are welcome.

And our beautiful Temppeliaukio church, also underground, with exceptionally awesome acoustics where the choirs and orchestras sound amazing.

The price per square foot of commercial space in Dublin is ridiculous, so why not expand downwards instead of outwards?

 

[Mowl]

This is exactly why Jambo's such a loser.

He has all the imagination of a licked stamp and all the forward thinking of a rabid goat.

And those are his best traits, mind you.

 

[Electricity]

Jambo

He has all the imagination

Thanks. It's part of the lyric (near the end) and I thought of it, popped into my head

I'm always thinking radially, me

 

[Mowl]

Thanks.

All are welcome?

Nope, not even close Jambo.

'All' as in kids, old folks, regular people who don't have a driving license.

It's part of the lyric (near the end) and I thought of it, popped into my head

It would have been better to have slapped you in the head.

Besides: it's Friday again.

Got your slab in and the two frozen pizzas in the icebox?

Good lad.

I'm always thinking radially, me

Yet your perspective is as twisted and bitter as it gets.

Only six more hours to Miller Dutch Gold time, Jimmy.

Time to brush your teeth and change your shorts.

 

[Electricity]

All are welcome?

Yes - it's in the song (at the end)

I really don't think that you know anything about music

Nope, not even close Jambo.

'All' as in kids, old folks, regular people who don't have a driving license.



It would have been better to have slapped you in the head.

Besides: it's Friday again.

Got your slab in and the two frozen pizzas in the icebox?

Good lad.



Yet your perspective is as twisted and bitter as it gets.

Only six more hours to Miller Dutch Gold time, Jimmy.

Time to brush your teeth and change your shorts.

 

[Mowl]

Yes - it's in the song (at the end)

I really don't think that you know anything about music

 

[Mowl]

Hard to believe we had twelve centimeters of fresh snow two days ago.

It's now plus nine and I have every window are door wide open to welcome in the coming May Day.

Outlook isn't great for Wednesday but we'll all spill out onto the streets regardless.

Hell of a winter this year - it was everything I expected and it was wonderful.

Now the sun's blazing in the sky, the sheer blue tones are awesome, and there's a handful of snow piles left on the street corners which is melting so fast it'll be completely gone by later this evening. Roll on, Vappu! This is where I'll be at 1800, Tuesday evening:



Havis Amanda, a water fountain down on Market Square by the sea front. The students union have the honour of selecting some of their students to place the white cap onto her head. Once the hat's on - the city and country is free of winter and we hail the oncoming summer by staying out all night partying and dancing. Kaivopuisto is always a full-on festival but so too this year at Suomenlinna, the island fortress out in the bay. A world heritage site and the scene of many epic Finnish battles, the huge cannons still standing will be lit up and there'll be traditional Finnish cook-outs all over the island.



We take the ferry out. It's a sea bus you can sail on with your regular bus pass. Takes around fifteen minutes to get there and the two ferries dock within minutes of each other at either end to keep the traffic of people steady. Along the coastline of the island facing west, we watch the winter sun go down for the last time while barbecuing and drinking.

How about you guys?

Any plans for May Day?

 

[Mowl]

Hyvää vappua kaikille!

It's nineteen degrees out there, the streets are jam-packed full of people wearing colourful clothes and wigs, face-painted, ribbons and bows all over the place, and singing as loud as they can. The shopping centre was like Christmas eve with people buying their fireworks, drinks, traditional snacks, and of course lots of champagne and wine. Unbelievable weather for May Day, the hottest of the last three decades - not a cloud in the sky and no need for a coat or jacket until the sun goes down.

I gotta head out to for the crowning of Havis Amanda and then down to Kaivopuisto for the craic.

Winter's dead - drained of all snow and ice and washed down into the sea.

Summer's here - and it's going to be a hot one by all accounts.

This is the best feeling, the noise and laughter from outside, people barbecuing down on the beach. Some with families and friends, but lots of groups of younger people dressed in their university colours and caps. Someone's cooking steak, it smells delicious. Must be coming from up above on the rooftop party area.

All tomorrow's hangovers will be worn with a smile.