But people who are into cars do suffer from stereotypes like these two: either you have to live in small town, wear a baseball cap at a jaunty angle and listen to senseless pop-trance-techno vomit, and on weekdays, you stand around smoking cigarettes and, on weekends, you drink, drive and hit a tree. Or if not that, you are a man who treats women like disposable items.  Attitudes like this can mostly be found in people who take everything too seriously, especially themselves, and the very core thing about cars is that you shouldn’t take such an uptight approach to them.  They are pretty silly, after all.  Boxes with wheels attached to them.

Don’t for a second think that it is somehow predetermined whether someone likes cars or not.  ‘It’s a boy!  Go buy the duvet with the cars!’  Nah, forget about all that, especially you ladies.  For example, I wasn’t born this way.  Sure, as a kid I’d inhale deeply every time I passed the gas station near my home, but that’s just because I liked the smell.  In fact, for a long time I almost loathed the act of driving a car and for that I blame the dreary Ford Focus diesel that I sat in all through driving school.  It took almost two years before I actually began to enjoy turning the steering wheel and feeling the car respond.  I suppose the turning point from disliking cars and driving to loving it began with Top Gear, a hugely popular British motoring show that has viewers who don’t even like cars that much, they simply enjoy the show.  Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May, with their antics and creative metaphors made me understand why some people think cars are so wonderful.  And before I knew it, I was one of them and quickly began to collect my favorite cars in that imagined Garage of Dreams every gear head has.

A whole new world opened up for me when I started paying attention to cars everywhere I went.  It’s great to not be bored if you have to wait for a late bus when there is always the possibility to see something interesting cruise past.  In the bus, I always sit on the left side by the window.  Can you guess why?  I like to carspot, and I’ve seen some pretty interesting ones like Aston Martin DB9s, Bentleys and a couple of Audi R8s.  But my favorite is still the Porsche 911 (see the pretty picture) and, lucky for me, there are plenty of those adorning the streets of Helsinki and they never fail to put a smile on my face and make my heart skip a beat or two.

I’ve found driving to be one of the best ways to get rid of stress.  Last spring, when I thought I was about to die of pressure about two weeks before my University entrance exam, I was belting up and down the highway in a gorgeous Mercedes with the sunroof open and I forgot all about linguistics, literary analysis and the Anglo-Saxons.  Sure, I did most of the work on my own, but that car fueled me, it had its part in getting me where I wanted.  Taking a walk in the forest would have only made me think of tree diagrams.

Still cars aren’t something you have to enjoy on your own, sitting in your room and circling the best candidates from the latest used car magazines.  The Car is a social thing as I came to realize as soon as I became a bit more outspoken about my affinity for it.  Two of the latest fun conversations with total strangers include a man in his sixties I met on a frozen car park as he was checking out a red Jaguar.  We had an interesting chat themed British cars versus German cars.  Another chance meeting was at a Humanisticum party when a friend of mine, with me in tow, decided to approach a couple of young men in their fetching pink overalls.  I don’t think I would’ve been able to hold down such a long conversation with them without my soft spot for car engines.

Don’t even get me started on the endless possibilities of sitting in traffic lights and looking over at the driver next to you.

But I’m not just talking about an object.  To prove a point, I refer to the finale of the American TV show Six Feet Under.  Why do you think one of the best TV series ever made ended with the youngest of the Fisher family driving a car through a barren landscape with glimpses of the future shown to the viewers?  It’s a metaphor.  The highway of life.  We’re all speeding, idling and cruising through life.  I’m one of those people who believe cars can transcend themselves to being something much more than just its physical matter.  It hasn’t happened to me yet with any car, but I sat on the passenger’s seat when my brother drove his beloved BMW for the last time before selling it.  So yes, I believe that German lump of metal was much more than what it appeared.  He stills asks about it occasionally.  ‘Have you seen it anywhere?’  Even my mom cried when she gave up her first car which was a banged up Datsun.

And if that’s hard to believe, think how difficult it is to throw away your favorite pair of jeans or shoes.  They are worn, they stink even though you’ve washed them and they’ve lost their original color and look, but you love them anyway.  They are not just jeans or shoes.

So what is The Car?  A box with wheels.  A fantastic conversation topic.  A thing of beauty.  A lump of metal and a metaphor.  It’s one big bundle of joy.  What matters isn’t what a bunch of engineers put together in a factory in Germany – or Japan or the US if you swing that way – but what you experience with it.  And it doesn’t hurt if the badge on its front oozes with prestige.

Technorati Tags: cars, brands

So I had to look nice: a freshly-ironed white shirt, one of those black ties that are constantly going out of style and making a come-back — I wish they’d decide already. I brushed my hair, and I brushed my teeth, and I brushed my coat, and I brushed my shoes, and I used separate brushes. I looked ever so professional, what with the creases on my trousers and the reflection of the sun shining from my feet.

I wondered, who’d be there. Probably the critics — you can easily recognize those by their little wrinkled foreheads. Some husbands, dragged in by their wives. Art students and other dodgy characters with those hideous scarves. Wondered, if there’d be women. Those intellectual women that can pull off wearing red lips without looking like a slut. Or perhaps they do look like sluts, it’s just that you know they’re not. I think this kind of deception nicely foreshadows any kind of relationship you may try to have with intellectual women.

I’ve got two sisters, you see. Their IQ combined is something of three hundred and one. They had this ridiculous crush on the same boy. He lived two blocks to the south and built railway roads in other people’s attics. He died snorting coke till it came out of his nose. Our house was a very gloomy place back then. I moved out shortly afterwards, and, I s’pose, it got much better in the course of time. Liz decided she’s a lesbian, and Beth converted to Islam. She’s happily widowed now. And yes, my name’s El, and our father’s always been in love with our mother. I don’t remember her much. She’s living somewhere in the Amazon, saving the forests. At least, that’s what our father used to say to explain why she didn’t write to us. She couldn’t possibly do that to the trees.

Anyway.

I missed the train. The next one was in a quarter of an hour, and I was late, and I was even later. When I got near the theatre, there was this wrong kind of anticipation in the air, or maybe it’s just the smell of Chinese across the road. The hall was empty, and I started feeling dreadful, because, well, one’s not supposed to come late for an execution. It just doesn’t work that way.

Mine had been scheduled for nine. And it’s a very good time, they’d said. They’d really had to work to squeeze me into that slot, ’cause otherwise it’s Birmingham, and the facilities there aren’t nearly as good. I was appreciative. I was also late, but it hardly could be helped. I’d been late all my life, why should I change my habits because of death.

They were pissed off. Said the crowd got hungry and left. Said there’s far too much competition in the field these days, what with the situation in the Near East, Middle East, Far East and Antarctica, where they’d discovered a cannibal penguin.

So they gave me an axe and said I should do it in my own time. The axe was nice and shiny. I bet you could really split hairs with that. Modern art kind of crap with a smooth white handle. I was impressed. They clearly put so much thought into this whole procedure, and I blotched it all. Oh well. But still, it’s nice — doing work with pros. It was almost like I wasn’t doing this for money. Don’t get me wrong, the money was good. It was good indeed; it’s a pity I couldn’t do this twice. But, they said, a joke is only funny the first time around.

They said I should remember to put the video onto YouTube. Said they hoped it would score high, and then they could put that achievement on my tombstone.

Said I should give the food I had in my fridge back home to my neighbours, for it’s bound to go rotten in a few days, and just think of the smell. And it’s not like I was going to need it.

Said the bathroom was the preferable place. But do take the wet clothes out of the washing machine, should you have any. Then they pat me on the back and left.

My college mate Danny’s always watching those videos on his phone while travelling to work. Pictures of those drowned, war victims, post mortems of the Victorian time. He says there is beauty in death. I say that I can’t understand it. I mean, I know what it is, I got straight A’s in Biology. And I know that it does exist. I just don’t get how something that once was can be there no more. It’s like a miracle but reversed. I guess you never get used to it, and then it’s your own, and then it’s too late.

Anyway.

Shall I proceed?

Technorati Tags: short, story

Looking back, 2009 seems to have been a bleak year indeed. The news were full of reports about the world wide recession, global warming and of course, that fearsome pestilence swine flu. But it wasn’t all bankruptcies, eschatological visions and flu fear mongering, and although wars continued to be fought in all the places we have grown to expect them to be fought, but I guess there were good times, too.

In 2009, people tweeted. I didn’t, because I have yet to figure out what the attraction is in reading SMS-length little snippets of what Ashton Kutcher had for dinner. Homing was the hot thing, and when we all weren’t out pickling mushrooms in our grandmas’ rubber boots, we were carrying around our own porcelain teacups and wearing baggy Hammer pants, as was the custom at the time. Finland’s biggest ever news event came around in August when Madonna came by and bought hotpants.

You might remember 2009 as the year the Grim Reaper reaped some of humanity’s finest with his grim reaping equipment. An overwhelming wave of grief swept over the world in June when the world’s love-hate relationship with Michael Jackson came to an abrupt end. The tacky media circus that ensued captivated people’s imaginations and spurred numerous tribute events. There was moonwalking aplenty, but what happened to all the dirty dancing and feathered hair in memory of Patrick Swayze and Farrah Fawcett? Oh yeah, Lévi-Strauss and Pinter died, too.

Perhaps 2009 was the year you got your proverbial tie-dyed knickers in a twist and took to the barricades? There was a lot to protest, after all: new university legislation, global warming, nobody giving a crap about global warming, global warming being a hoax East Anglians came up with just to spite us, Helsinki looking to the east for some more lebensraum, the nonexistent corruption in Finland, and of course, Taylor Swift’s MTV Video Music Award.

Obviously a lot went on in politics in ‘09, but what everyone will remember is Obama taking over in the US, and the biggest load of pressure placed on one man in the history of the entire world. Being given the most prestigious lifetime achievement award there is less than a year into your new job seems like a nice, stress-free way to kick off a new decade. In Finland it turned out that sometimes even politicians can lie.

In this first issue of the first year of the decade we invite you to have your say: What do you most remember from 2009? Did you go in for fads, what were the cultural highlights of your year? How will it go from here, how do you think 2010 will compare? Discuss!

Please leave your comments below, or I’ll be forced to post pictures of my Croatian island getaway and these really pretty cupcakes I made last year.

To save space, I’ll exclude the numerous pre-check-in screw ups, and the metal detector.

This guy gets easily distracted so, naturally, he’s wandered into one of those colorful and enticing tax-free shops to ogle cameras in immaculate glass displays and to sniff perfumes and, being so engrossed in his reverie, he’s completely oblivious to the announcement coming from somewhere above: ‘Passenger Noob, please, hurry to gate number 21, the gate is closing.’ The rest of the passengers, all sitting in their seats, roll their eyes at this idiot, when he boards the plane, apologetic and breathless.

He’s never been on a plane before so he insists on having a window seat much to the chagrin of the poor unfortunate soul who has to sit next to him. He keeps on babbling about how exciting it all is: how big the wings are, how modern the plane is. And how mystifying the seat belt is, and what a squeeze the seat itself is.
As the plane takes off, he’s impatient for the big moment, much like a little kid. But when the plane actually starts to accelerate, engines booming, he screams his head off.

After he’s recovered from the shock, he wants to try out all the safety equipment the flight attendants showed before takeoff. ‘Sir, you really cannot test the oxygen mask. No, you cannot make it come out from the ceiling by trying to remove the panel… Sir, you really shouldn’t pull on that…’

She distracts him by showing him the emergency procedure booklet which he finds intriguing. He studies it intensively and then calls her back and quips: ‘Ask me anything! Anything!’

During the flight, when there’s no food tray to keep him occupied, it’s impossible for him to keep quiet. After talking about his hemorrhoids, the shape of the clouds and various sports trivia (all of it inaccurate or plain incorrect), he finds a fascinating little button, he presses it and a flight attendant appears by his side, asking what she can do for him. He tries to be funny and asks: ‘You come here often?’ He laughs at this hilarious joke, she joins in professionally and when Mr. Noob isn’t looking, she gives the others a sympathetic look. At least the booze is on its way. After two of those really tiny brandy bottles, he turns once again, to his number one victim (the person next to him) and says: ‘I don’t know if I should have anymore. Brandy gives me gas.’ So of course he has one more.

What happens when you drink a lot? You have to relieve yourself. Noob’s bladder is about the size of a humming bird’s and this is a pain to the guy who has the aisle seat because he has to get up every five minutes to let our guy go to the toilette. His visits there cause long queues of people, all shifting from one foot to the other or holding their legs together with an expression of deathly serious concentration. Too bad Noob clogs the toilet.

The captain says hello to the passengers through the loudspeaker, telling them about the shopping possibilities during the flight, and the picture of himself looking smart in his pilot shades comes to Mr. Noobr’s mind. So of course he’s got to see the cockpit! He goes with the little kids and asks the captain to fly lower so he can see the cities. The incredulous silence is broken by the first officer who tells everyone to get back to their seats: turbulence.

As the more experienced feign relaxation in their seats, Noob can’t. He throws up in the complimentary paper bag, asks for another one between gags and fills up that one. To comfort himself, he steals a pillow. Demonstrating the stealth of an army tank, he grabs it and stuffs it into the duffel bag right next to his collectible baseball cards. Every time one of the flight attendants pass by, he looks very guilty.

Finally, the plane starts to descend (going through the thick clouds is a frightening moment), to approach and as it touches down, Mr. Noob does the philistine act of clapping like a seal because he thinks the captain will appreciate this ‘you didn’t kill us, thank you’ kind of message. Then he proceeds to tell the cabin crew what a great time he had.

As for the rest of the people, none of them have ever been so glad to get out of an airplane. But just you wait when he tries to get out of the airport.

I, BTSB debutante writer, thank you sincerely for reading. If you know Tom Hanks, why don’t you give him a call? He’s a nice guy, maybe he’ll finance this movie if he likes the script of which you’ve tasted but a fraction.

Technorati Tags: Christmas, Tom Hanks

Now, I could reflect
Upon the past year and stuff,
But you’ve watched the news.

No, I’ll tell a tale
That is abundant with the
Spirit of Christmas.

Once upon a time,
In the Kingdom of Haaga,
There lived a young prince.

He had a gerbil,
Who was killed by a viper
Lurking in the grass.

He was handsome, yet
In a very bizarre way
Hideous as hell.

But every Christmas
Santa would grant him one wish.
Just one wish, mind you.

As Christmas approached,
The Prince would behave gaily;
Full of mirth and joy.

But when Santa came,
He forgot what he wanted
And always wished for…

“Peace and love to all”.
Now Santa would smack his head
And say: “You’re stupid!”

And the Prince agreed.
He could have asked for money
Or fame and fortune.

But “peace”? And “love? Yuch!
The Prince WAS really stupid.
“‘Tis strange,” he would say.

“But ’tis not my choice
This wish, I mean,” he’d go on.
But what happened, then?

Well, I’ll tell you all.
The Spirit of Christmas came
And stole his one wish.

Every single year,
The Spirit hijacks his wish,
And the Prince is cross.

But who cares? I mean
Peace and love to all sounds like
A pretty good wish.

The snow, the stars… Yes,
The spirit of Christmas is
Better than sliced bread!

Technorati Tags: christmas, haiku, 2009

Christmas is a wonderfully perplexing hodgepodge of traditions, religions and cultures. The now secularized holiday commemorating the birth of Jesus taking place on the birthday of the Persian sun god Mithras, incorporating traditions of the Roman Saturnalia festival and Pagan winter solstice is like a lovely big collage anyone seems free to add to (bring glitter!). So if gingerbread and mulled wine are starting to seem a bit drab, here are a few suggestions of how you can spice up your holidays with some of the more interesting traditions from other corners of the Earth:

Since we are living in a material world, gift giving is the most important part of the festivities. Now, most of us are familiar with visits from Santa Claus – actual visits, I mean, none of that breaking and entering in the middle of the night that seems to go on in the crime-obsessed Anglo-American world – but Santa’s got a busy schedule so some countries have come up with alternative gift bringers. In many Catholic countries our Papist friends receive an advance visit from good ol’ Saint Nick on – that’s right – St. Nicholas’ day on December 6th when Santa rolls into town accompanied by a huge parade, handing out oodles and oodles of Christmas joy to hordes of delighted, bright-eyed children! (Something to think about next year when you’re lighting the pesky pair of candles on your window sill and watching people shake hands for three hours…) But the gifting doesn’t stop there! On Christmas day only small presents are given but on Epiphany the Magi make an appearance bearing – no, not gold, myrrh and frankensteinsence (as if that was good for babies anyway) – but the actual Christmas goodies. Three gift-giving occasions over the holidays? Now, that’s just good for the economy.

Getting presents from Santa, your family or the Magi, even, is not that unusual, but how about getting a visit from the birthday boy himself? In Germany (you guessed it!) Baby Jesus himself manages to visit all the homes of good Catholic children before kicking back in the manger. Having someone give you presents on their birthday? That’s pretty uncool, Germans.

But even that isn’t as weird as what goes on in Catalonia. Like in the rest of Spain, it’s Epiphany, not Christmas, that’s the main gifting occasion, but the children are amused with small trinkets on Christmas Day anyhow. The Catalan children don’t have crackers or stockings or anything like that, but they do have a poo-log! Don’t let South Park fool you, it’s a real log that’s been covered with a blanket, hiding the log’s little surprises.

At times the Finnish Christmas festivities can get a little solemn, which is not necessarily a bad thing. Families gather ‘round the warm glow of the TV to watch and listen while the (otherwise rowdy?) city of Turku declares peace for Christmastime, people bring candles to the graves of friends and family members to remember those who have passed on, and those so inclined go to church and think about Jesus. But in the end it is a festival of light and joy and candy, so perhaps it could do with a little spicing up. The carnivalistic elements of Christmas go all the way back to Saturnalia, after all.

The Catalan Christmas spectacularly combines the sacred and the profane by somehow managing to add excrement into many of its central traditions. There’s the aforementioned poo-log, or le caga tió, which is a hollowed-out log standing on four legs, with a little smiley face painted on it. It’s regularly fed before Christmas, when the children beat it with sticks to make it drop the toys and sweets hidden inside. There’s also a chant to aid in the proceedings.

But that’s not the end of their infantile obsession: the Catalonian manger scenes feature the traditional caganer, often depicting public figure of some sort answering Nature’s call. As they sit down for Christmas dinner, the toast is: menja bé, caga fort, or, “eat well, poo strong”. Erm, yes, I’m sure there’s plenty we can learn from our brave Catalonian friends.

Of course, Christmas would be nothing without the food. The pagan tradition was to celebrate with a massive feast if the Winter Solstice didn’t turn out to be the end of the world after all. Christianity then introduced the idea of fasting before major festivals and then royally pigging out in reward. In some parts of Central Europe, fasting is still a traditional on Christmas Eve. In Czech Republic, for instance, children are taught to fast on Christmas Eve until a ceremonial dinner is served, in order to be able to see a “golden pig”.
(Warning: appearance of said pig might be due to hunger-induced hallucination.)

Looking at traditional holiday dishes from around the world, it is comforting to see that the world is full of
bizarre foods that are only eaten at Christmas for reasons no one can understand. Lutefish, for example, continues to make an unrequested annual visit at our table, and I’m sure a cake prepared (with lard, no less) a month before Christmas and then forgotten in the back of a cupboard is no treat either. Cougnou, a Belgian Christmas cake shaped like baby Jesus, is surely more than a little disturbing. And could someone please tell me what the appeal of drinking raw eggs laced with rum is?

Luckily, everyone’s free to make what they want of the holidays. The city of Birmingham infamously came up with their own take on the season in the late nineties. It was dubbed “Winterval,” and at its most extensive form managed to cover Hallowe’en, Bonfire Night, Diwali, Ramadan, Eid, Hanukkah, Advent, Christmas,  Boxing Day, New Year’s Eve, and Chinese New Year.

Happy Holidays everybody!

Technorati Tags: 2009, Christmas, traditions

John lived at home. At times he went out, and came back later. John had a cat. The cat’s name was Cat. John wasn’t very fond of complicated things.

John taught philosophy at university. There he spoke of the reasons behind it all, the matters of life and death, the purpose, the subconscious, the unconscious, and the semi-conscious.

I could draw pictures to put in here to make the story better, but I never did finish my architecture education.

John was a strong believer in the ideas of Johann Gottlieb Fichte. Johann Gottlieb Fichte, in his turn, argued that everything exists because we believe it does. Our belief is what makes things real.

“You are alive because you are so sure of it,” lectured John. “If you believed you were dead, you would stop existing.”

So, to illustrate his point, John stopped believing that he was alive, and started believing that he was dead. And so he stopped existing. John just disappeared. The air was warm and blurred a little in the place he had stood. It didn’t smell good.

Weeks, and years, and fourteen bottles of perfume later, once I get my Ph.D. and start dying my hair for the purpose of hiding the grey, I will tear this paper to shreds and pieces; and place them in between the pages of my very own OED, 3rd edition, hardback, a thousand pounds and not a shilling less.

Technorati Tags: short, story, fichte, philosophy

A sign for the Paris Métro.

“I swung on to my old guitar,
Grabbed hold of a subway car,
And after a rocking, reeling, rolling ride,
I landed up on the downtown side”
Bob Dylan

As the orange train slows and stops at one of three final resting places in the Helsinki metro system, it tends to stop on the wrong side of the tracks. It loops over to the left side of the platform so that the operator simply has to exit what is now the rear of the vehicle, walk along the cars to the front, then drive in the opposite direction. The metro leaves the Vuosaari and Mellunmäki stops every 8 or 10 minutes, giving the driver plenty of time to wander down the platform smoking a cigarette or eating a sandwich.

It is difficult not to think of sandwiches when one discusses subways. Finland is ranked 24th in the world in terms of Subway restaurants. There are 21 in the country. That’s one Subway for every 240,000 people. Compare that to the 19,467 that are in the United States of America (15,000 people per store), or the 876 in Australia (25,000 people per store). Subway is the third-largest franchise in the world and the fastest growing. There are Subway outlets in Tanzania, Saint Kitts and Nevis, and Afghanistan. No one knows why the filled baguette or roll is called a submarine sandwich. In Viet Nam it is Bánh mì. In Philadelphia they call it Hoagie.

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines Subway as “an underground way, or a passage under the street.” Americans call this an underpass. An underground railway is called an Underground in Britain, and a Subway in the USA. Metro is more loosely defined as a rapid transit system. This gets rid of the pesky need to go underground, which the London system does only 45% of the time. Generally, the name is thought to have been taken from the Paris Métro, a system well regarded for its architecture. Its 214 km and 300 stations serve 4.5 million daily, more than the London Underground and the Helsinki Metro combined. London’s underground system is the oldest in the world, stretching 400 km with 270 stations. It began operation in 1863.

The only metro in Finland was completed in 1982. Although work has recently begun to extend it, the track is currently draped in a loping Y across 21 km and 17 stations. Robert Smith and The Cure sang about ”midnight on the subway” in 1979, but in Helsinki the last metro runs at half past 11.

A sign from the Tokyo Metro.

The Helsinki metro’s daily ridership is nearly 200,000. This is a fair amount considering the population of Helsinki is only around 500,000. New York City lists over 5 million daily passengers on a system that stretches for 368 km and 468 stations. That’s the entire population of Finland, every day. Amazingly, the greater Tokyo Metro system carries about 8 million passengers a day. One of the most commonly reported crimes in the Tokyo Subway system is frotteurism – very heavy petting indeed – leading to the establishment of women-only cars.

Metro is also a city in Indonesia, the name of the regional government in Portland, a Canadian supermarket chain, and a newspaper. That newspaper has 81 editions in 22 countries and, according to their published results, every day over 22 million people read it. Subway is the name of a Luc Besson film and a British rock band, as well as referenced in the titles of countless songs and musicals. (A classic example can be found here.) Writers, too, have their relationship with rapid transit systems. The recently deceased John Updike tossed a critic under the subway in “Bech at Bay,” published in 1998. Even now, they are building a metro station named for Fyodor Dostoevsky in Moscow.

In Helsinki, as the metro pulls into its final stations, passengers begin to crowd the doors. They wait for the doors to open, then, rushing to the escalators, they stand politely on the right till reaching the top, brusquely taking off again, arms swinging. But when the driver pulls this aforementioned devilish trick of switching tracks, the passengers hear the doors opening behind them and are no longer first off the vehicle. (The passengers waiting to get onto the metro busily push their way in, even though there is 8 to 10 minutes to wait.)

A few weeks ago, I held onto my daughter’s pram as the metro pulled into Vuosaari, moved over to the opposite track, and stopped. But instead of the doors on the right side of the vehicle opening, the doors on the left opened instead. I laughed, stifling it as an elderly woman nearly careened over the edge, caught by the arm by a watchful teenager. The doors closed and opened, this time on the correct side.

It was Updike who wrote that “no act is so private it does not seek applause.” The woman trundled off with barely a backward glance while the boy’s hands fluttered. I pushed my daughter to the elevators.

Technorati Tags: metro, subway, underground, helsinki, paris, london, tokyo

Today three strangers sat with me and I was the only one not talking into my cell phone. Three mobiles pressed to three ears and three mouths a-jabbering.

Immediately above us was a life-size poster of a person in a bus talking on their phone under the caption “Älä Kailota.” Don’t bellow. Don’t holler.

Is it narcissism? For some, surely. A man talks about cheap sex in Thailand. He thinks the dark ones are better. Another tells his wife that he won’t be home tonight because things just haven’t been the same since the baby was born. I’m going to get some, somewhere, he says. Another mentions that she is on the metro 15 times.

Moi (brief silence). Metrossa (brief silence). Kotiin (long winded explanation of day).

Repeat.

To chat is, of course, reasonable. To call children and tell them you’ll be late, mandatory. But don’t stare across the half meter that separates us and look into my eyes while you do it. Glazed like a jelly donut.

Leave. Me. Alone.

**

It sucks being a security guard. I was one for three years. Sort of. This isn’t about that, just to say that it sucks. You are not a policeman and you are not a janitor. Something in between. On the metro system they have some power. The power to restrain, for example.

The other day a guy got on the metro in Sörnäinen, heading out of the tunnel, out into the light. He was wasted, though not beyond comprehension. He smelled like he had been wearing those clothes since the millennium celebrations.

He bellowed, hollered, tried to chat up an 18-year-old blonde. Middle aged women throughout the car began to squirm. The kid got off. People looked at the ceiling, the floor, out the window. I feigned lingual ignorance. People got off their phones or talked a little louder.

Randomly, in Kulosaari, two security guards entered our car. One was black. This seemed to shock the occupants of the car. When they saw the uniform a few ladies raised their hands, like schoolchildren, but literally did a double take when he answered them. His colleague seemed amused by this, the young man himself, less so. He engaged the drunk and managed to persuade him off the metro in Herttoniemi which was one station short of where he said he was going.

People flipped open their phones and relayed the story. “Älkää kailotako.”

Leave. Us. Alone.

Technorati Tags: metro, cell phone, helsinki

Dennis Kucinich

January:
14th (AP) – MESSENGER, a NASA mission, flies by Mercury, the second spacecraft to do so and the first in thirty-three years. The world is united and nothing bad happens for the rest of the year. Thank you, NASA!
7th (Al Jazeera) – Another Pakistani security outpost near the border with Afghanistan is abandoned by government troops due to threats from pro-Taliban fighters. And the Pakistani troops live to not fight another day.
25th (CNN) – In the United States presidential election, Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich withdraws his candidacy. Said the seemingly perplexed Kucinich, “Jesus Christ, you thought I was serious?”

Moe Syzlak

February:
7th (New York Times) – The United States Congress approves a $168 billion economic stimulus package and sends it to President George W. Bush for approval. And thus the economy was fixed for good.
10th (RTÉ News) – Over five hundred people are evacuated from the North Sea oil rig Safe Scandinavia, 282 kilometres (175 mi) northeast of Aberdeen, Scotland, after a hoax bomb scare. Coincidentally, Moe’s Tavern was pranked by an anonymous caller who asked for Freely, I.P.
11th (Dayton Daily News) – Judge John Kessler declares a mistrial in the case of China Arnold, who allegedly microwaved her baby to death. The joke I think is too obvious, so I’m not gonna bother…
24th (CNN) – Ralph Nader enters the 2008 United States presidential election as an independent candidate. Said the upset Kucinich, “He’s stealing my joke!”

The Tibetan Flag

March:
7th (BBC News) – Vietnam bans ownership of pet hamsters. About bloody time! Those hamsters have had a free ride for too damn long!
13th (Reuters) – The U.S. dollar, after repeatedly testing 100 yen in Asian dealings and early European action, breaks through to touch 99.75, its lowest level since November 1995. Concerned American man: “The Japanese still have smaller c***s, right?”
14th (CNN) – Seven are reported dead in Lhasa, Tibet as protests turn violent. The Protests began Monday on the anniversary of the failed 1959 Tibetan uprising with calls for the release of detained Buddhist monks. Other protests followed calling for Tibetan independence and displaying the banned Tibetan national flag. Linguists around the world reach a consensus: Tibetans don’t have an equivalent to the proverb “history repeats itself”.
15th (Reuters) – Tens of thousands of Italians gather in Bari to march against the mafia and remember its many victims. Mobsters are shaking in their boots by tens of thousands. Wait, no that was a mistranslation, it says mobsters order cement boots by the tens of thousands.

Ilkka Kanerva and Condoleeza Rice

April:
1st (AP) – Finland’s Foreign Minister Ilkka Kanerva is forced to resign after a scandal involving 200 text messages sent to a stripper. Kanerva himself took the news well until he couple of days later realized it wasn’t an April fools’ day silliness.
16th (BBC News) – The United States Supreme Court upholds the constitutionality of lethal injection as a form of capital punishment despite the Constitution’s Eighth Amendment, which outlaws “cruel and unusual punishment”. The opinion written by Judge Elito said, “C’mon, vaccinating someone to death isn’t nearly as bad as what we let people get away with in Iraq.”
28th (Reuters) – General Motors announces that it will cut production of pickup trucks and sport utility vehicles in three plants in Michigan and one in Oshawa, Ontario and negotiate layoffs with the United Auto Workers and Canadian Auto Workers. An unconfirmed report (which you are just reading) says Michael Moore is making a movie (working title: I can’t believe they’re doing this shit again, it’s like nothing I do has any impact). The movie is dubbed to win an Oscar for the best documentary and win the Palme d’Or in the Cannes film festival.

A platypus

May:
7th (BBC News) – The genome of the platypus is sequenced. Unfortunately, this doesn’t unravel the mystery that shrouds the platypus. Said one scientist, “Gee, what the hell is that thing?”
9th (BBC News) – The United States Military denies the capture of Al-Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Ayyub al-Masri. Added the military’s spokesperson, “And trust me, if we had some good news like that you’d be the first to know.”
16th (RTÉ News) – Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden leaves an audio message on the Internet vowing to continue the fight against Israel. In related news, the sun rises from the east and bears still shit in the woods.
23rd (New York Times) – An independent investigation into $8.2 billion in United States Department of Defense spending in Iraq, as well as aid to Egypt and Kuwait since 2001, finds that 95% of payments to contractors failed to meet requirements for documentation to determine what was paid for. Guaranteeing expenses is a bad idea? My mind was just blown…
23rd (BBC News) – A coroner suggests the entire fleet of British Royal Air Force Hawker Siddeley Nimrod aircraft should be grounded on safety concerns. FYI, when a coroner suggests something, you really listen extra-carefully.
27th (MSNBC) – Leiden University Medical Center scientists decipher the first complete DNA sequence of a woman. Much to their disappointment, this didn’t help the scientists understand women.

Blagoi Blagolev

June:
2nd (BBC News) – The United Nations Security Council goes on a mission to Africa with the first leg of the mission to Djibouti to discuss the Somali Civil War. Just because they can, the UN Security Council also discusses the matter of Uranus during the mission in Djibouti.
4th (Bloomberg) – Al Qaeda claims responsibility for the 2008 Danish embassy bombing stating it was revenge for the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy. Cartoonists and freedom of the press -experts all agree that the reaction was completely reasonable and aimed at the people responsible.
11th (BBC News) – The Metropolitan Police launches an inquiry after top secret British government intelligence on Al Qaeda is found on a train going from Waterloo Station to Surrey. Terror-specialists agree that Al-Qaeda won’t be beat during this administration.
11th (Reuters) – President George W. Bush says that he wants to solve the Iran issue peacefully but “all options are on the table” in a joint media conference with the Chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel. The full quote was actually “all options are on the table, with the exception of war, because all of our troops are tied up in Iraq and Afghanistan”.
18th (BBC News) – Romanian villagers vote to re-elect a dead man as their mayor, to prevent his living rival from winning. Do you have any idea how bad you have to be, to be worse than a dead dude?
27th (BBC Sport) – Bulgaria’s Weightlifting Federation has withdrawn its team from this summer’s Beijing Olympics after 11 lifters failed drugs tests. If you can’t trust Bulgarian weightlifters, who can you trust?

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