Short Story: Summer Lovin'

The website "What's Up Finland?" organised a short story competition recently. The theme was "the Finnish summer" and the story had to have "at least one Finnish character and have some understanding or a view of the Finnish culture".

I had never written a short story in my life, but I thought I would give it a go. So here it is: my very first short story.

Breaking Wind Lappish Style

A few years ago, while on a summer holiday in Lapland, I went on a one-day guided cycle tour in the countryside around the small "town" of Inari.

At lunchtime, we stopped at a small cafe in the town centre. To my surprise, we left the expensive mountain bikes outside the cafe, unlocked. Our guide, Ate, explained that no one locked anything in Lapland as theft was very rare. He then proceeded to tell us a hilarious story about the pitfalls leaving vehicles unlocked.

Finnish as a Secret Code

One of my former colleagues, Simo, is fond of saying (I suspect only half jokingly) that Finnish is the second best encryption language in the world. By that he means that Finnish is virtually undecipherable to anyone who doesn’t know it, and spoken by sufficiently few people globally to make it pretty secretive.

Finland and the Olympics

The London 2012 Olympic games have now come to a close. These were the most successful Olympics for Britain ever, but how were they for Finland?

Time to indulge in some stats and some gratuitous speculation.

How Many Infinitives Do You Need?

Regular readers of this blog will know that I use it occasionally as a platform to moan about the complexity of the Finnish language. Well, when I say moan, it’s more of an affectionate groan, because I love learning the language. And actually, it’s not really a groan about the Finnish language itself (which is not so much complex as very different), but more about my own struggle with learning it.

Vowel Fest

As a finnophile, I often find myself surfing the Web for information about Finland or the Finnish language.

What I find generally veers between the sublime and the ridiculous. If I am honest, it is more often ridiculous than sublime, as regular readers of this blog will no doubt testify. But it keeps me amused, so I keep surfing.

Weird Finnish Sports

Last Saturday, the World Wife-Carrying Championship took place in Sonkajärvi, Finland.

A Finn won it. Again.

Finns do excel at bizarre summer sports, it has to be said.

Finnish Mosquitoes Suck

Ah, Finland. The land of a thousand lakes. Actually, the land of a billion trillion zillion quillion mosquitoes.

In the summer, behind every idyllic Finnish countryside setting, there lurks an army if those evil creatures ready to ruin your enjoyment of it.

Show Me the Way to a Place with a Very Long Name

The Finnish language has long words. Yeah, we know that. Indeed I have mentioned this many times before in this very blog, including here, here and here.

But what hadn't occurred to me until very recently is what a challenge it might be for road-signs.