Enthusiastic Bull or the Art of Finnish Palindromes

This week, I found out that, according to the Guinness Book of Records, the Finnish language holds the world record for the longest palindromic word in "every day use" with "saippuakivikauppias" (19 letters). That magnificent specimen of a word means a "dealer in caustic soda", which does beg the question as to how much daily use that word actually gets. But hey, if Guinness says it is in daily use, then it must be.

Heavy Metal for Kids

Q: What do you call a band of dinosaurs playing heavy metal?
A: Hevisaurus!

No, really. This is not a joke. Not in Finland at least.

Matti Nykänen Quotes

In in recent weeks, I have made references on a couple of occasions to the legendary Finnish ski-jumper and bon-viveur Matti Nykänen. In particular, I have mentioned that he was the source of classic, mostly unintentional, humourous quotes.

However, it has come to my notice that only very few of the great man's perls of wisdom have actually been translated into English. That is clearly a shocking omission!

Melancholy Season

This week marked the official start of melancholy season in Finland, aka November.

November is the time of year where the weather in Finland is garanteed to be miserable. It is also noticibly darker, and the snow has not yet arrived to bring a bit of luminosity.