Finnish Milky Way

Despite being a small country, Finland leads the world in many areas, some of which I have previousy documented here.

But recently, I discovered that Finland is world leader in one surprising field.

10 Useless Facts about Finland

In the past couple of weeks, my social media inlets [is that the word for the SoMe equivalent of an inbox?] seem to have been filled with an unusually high number of, well, numbered lists. You know the kind that go: "5, 10 or 20 [useless] things you need to know, do, avoid, see, read or have, now or before you die".

I figured it was time for me to contribute a trivial and pointless list of my own – about Finnish things, obviously.

Alko - A Heroic Institution

What do you call an 80 year old always full of alcohol? Alko.

Yes, the national alcoholic beverage retailing monopoly in Finland celebrated 80 years just last week.

Matti Nykänen

Last Monday, former ski-jumping champion Matti Nykänen started a 16 month prison sentence in Kupio for aggravated assault on his on-off wife Mervi Tapola in 2009.

This is just the most recent twist in the “car crash” life Nykänen has led since retiring from top-flight (fortuitous pun) ski-jumping in the late 1980s.

Finnish Jokes About Drinking

Drinking is a very important part of Finnish life. So it's no surprise that Finns have many jokes involving drinking.

I mentioned a couple of short drinking jokes in an earlier post, but now's the time to tackle this subject in earnest.