Quick notes on Finland

It's almost three weeks late, but here are some impressions of Finland. The Interstitial One and I visited Oulu, Turku and Helsinki in April/May and, apart from a severe difference of opinion with the locals on what "Spring" actually means and that it does not involve icy winds at close to freezing point, it was a most enjoyable experience. And expensive. As a rule, coffee should preferably be below R10, not over R30, than you very much. Same goes for beer.

We also experienced Vappu, and coming from a country where on 1 May (and all holidays) some go shopping, some laze about, some partake in rallies, some speech, some listen to speeches, some try to catch up on work, and some don't event know, it was oh so foreign seeing thousands of people doing the same thing - participating in the same festivity, getting drunk together, and wearing the same white caps for two days.

We saw Värttinä and Marianne Faithfull live, and both were excellent shows. Faithfull showed that age does not necessarily make you timid when a heckler got a bit too much (from celebrating Vappu) and she exclaimed: "Shut the fuck up, this is my show. I own the stage and you are here to love me!" Ja, tannie. Jammer, tannie.

Some visual impressions below.


Rows: A - C, Columns: 1 - 5
A1: When in Amsterdam for 5 hours, take a boattrip
A2: Alexander & the blow-up doll, Helsinki
A3: Hanging in there, Helsinki
B1: Army bicycles in front of Helsinki Cathedral
B2: Turku Castle is at one end of the city
B3: Värttinä at Klubi in Turku
C1: Sibelius monument, Helsinki
C2: Moomin is a national symbol (awaiting Vappu)
C3: One stone will only get you one bird, Suomenlina Fortress, Helsinki
D1: Inside Suomenlina's tunnels with a trusty Lomo
D2 - E2: Birch trees everywhere!
D3: Cloes-up of Army bicycle, Helsinki
E1: Still life with the Interstitial One and birch, Oulu
E3: Chapel window, Suomenlina Island

My god, ek dog ek het probleme

Julle ken daai sidebar advertisements wat altyd tune van 'n girl in jou area wat up is for some action? Like especially op thepiratebay.org (God bless) kry jy goed soos dié:
En dan dink jy "yeah right, pull the other one it's got bells on". Dis wat ek dink anyway. Since when hang die Aryan posterkids uit in Huangcun?
Wel, toe sien ek hierdie ad op 'n commercial blog genaamd Shanghaiist:

yawaka
I am a j-rock lover, not really
keen in visual rock though,
however dress up more like a
street/pop style yoz. Messy
combination ain't I? ^^;

Hoe fokken original.
Ek los haar naam gelinked sodat julle haar kan uitcheck as sulke iconoclastic rebels julle ding is.

Big in China. I mean banned.

Well, whaddaya know. Blogger is once again unreachable from China. At the moment of writing no URLs ending with blogspot.com can be reached from China. This has been confirmed by using several anonymous proxies, which can all display Blogger perfectly. This post is also done using one of these proxies.

My wiskunde onderwyser in laerskool het altyd gepraat van ou mans met dik brille en pink kouse. Ek kannie onthou in watse konteks nie, maar hierdie skies dose in Beijing laat my aan hulle dink. Die ongelooflike ingatgeit, ignorance en arrogance wat van my skaal af gaan... Ek weetie wat om te se^ nie... Ek is jammer, regtig, maar ek bid dat die Chinese kultuur van verkramptheid nooit verder as hulle eie grense sal expand nie. Julle sal nie glo hoe vaktap hierdie mindset is nie. Zero engagement. Zero logika. Zero fucking intelligence.

Laat my dink aan 'n quote wat gequote is in een van my favourite graphic novels, genaamd New Statesmen ('n Crisis-reeks): "The divine should not only be guarded, it should be guarded AGAINST." My emphasis.

A challenge

I quote:



"If someone wants to pin Olympic Games and Darfur issue together to raise his/her fame, he/she is playing a futile trick," the spokesman, Chu Maoming, wrote.

So, here goes:




The little guy with the gun is Jingjing, and that is an official pose. He's a panda, and one of five Olympic Mascots. Their names are all doubled, which has the effect of making them sound very cute. Beibei, Jingjing, Huanhuan, Yingying and Nini. Together they form a sentence: Beijing huanying ni, which means Beijing welcomes you. There's an interesting explanation on Piyin.info.

Hijack this

I just want to document this. I would love to be able to confirm this report, and get an idea of what the messages were. Of course Falun Gong will be blamed again. And two hours from now it will disappear. But, check out this picture from the Roger Waters concert in Shanghai. In Chinese it says 你可以重写历史但不能改变它. It means: You can rewrite history, but you can never change it.

It must be a set expression, because when I used Google to translate it the English was grammatically perfect. (If you are a student of English remember never to start sentences with "of course" or "and" or "but" nor even "I" neither, and look out for those double negatives.)