sunday morning in helsinki (two weeks ago) - part 2

So just after I wrote the preceding post, I went out for a coffee, and spoiler I got one and it wasn't at all bad, but anyway, I realised that Hotel Anna has a conference room, with an actual fax machine, isn't that glorious? Portrait of the author in the reflection in the glass. 

 

There is another non-ironic telephone (what they call locally an ei-ironinen* puhelin) on the shelf there. 

Above; view into the courtyard; below, the gloriously empty streets of Iso Roobertinkatu.

The sparrows (?) of Espresso House. (If they're sparrows as we English-speakers understand them, they're varpuset, but I am only sparrowising them for convenience). 

They left after they realised I had no pulli for them. 

I love this shop, and I have loved it previously in posts on this blog (go looking).** I will love it again after midday today I suspect (when it opens for Sunday trading). 

* The existence of the word 'ei-ironinen' suggests that there was no word for 'ironic' in Finnish before the word was appropriate/adapted from, I assume, English although wiktionary tells me it has Latin, Greek and French derivations. I can't believe there was no concept of irony in Finnish language/culture/society before this time though! Can't believe, so won't believe. 

** For instance, here, but go looking first please. 

sunday morning in helsinki (two weeks ago) - part one

Greetings to you from the Hotel Anna. I think I have actually stayed here twice before, or perhaps only once. Definitely I stayed a few days here on my first ever trip to Finland, which I believe was in 2011. It is old school, I suppose I hate that term as much as I hate any term which has kind of detached from its original wry or hip meaning, so that really people who use it actually just mean 'old' (ok well I guess they mean 'old but valid'?). For instance, my room has this phone in it, and I am pretty sure it's not even ironic:

I don't have a clue about the story of this hotel but when I see the other people staying here, in the breakfast room, I suspect they have been guided here by their valuing of proximity to the city and an eschewing of costly (faux-) luxury. I had a quick look at Tripadvisor expecting a swathe of 'never since I had my wallet stolen in Phoenix in 1981 and had to slum it in a run-down...' reviews - not a reflection on the place as I see it but on its resilient rejection of frippery - but there were none, which I can't interpret. 

I'm on the fifth floor, this is what I see out the window this morning (just before 9 am). Not bad. 

I had to have the window open as the room was quite warm when I got here, it wasn't uncomfortable. I was zonked, as they say, so although there were drunken gronks going past having super loud conversations (the last one just some young men bellowing, I know they were young because I looked out the window to see who was doing this, they had the faces of 80 year olds though) I wasn't that bothered. 

The big dumb thing about today is that whereas I was originally scheduled to get in on Saturday morning, in fact I didn't make it till Saturday evening - whole waste of a day - and things don't get started in a hurry in Finland on Sundays. You guessed it - this is depressing and embarrassing but just true - I can't handle the day without coffee. I had some coffee in the breakfast room but it was the coffee of non-coffee drinkers i.e. insufferably bland, I just had some the way junkies put water in their old needles hoping to get a little of the residue. So my next step is to go out and find an outlet for one of the cafe chains - Espresso House - which apparently is due to open in 8 minutes. Not 7, not 9 but 8. 

More anon. 

helsinki crimes

Really, you can't complain. It contains what it says on the packet. The classic formula of nasty and gruesome murders, etc, usually (maybe always) we see the perpetrators and their actions before the cops figure it out. The cops themselves are just trying to get by and the show is I guess 80% crimes and their solution, and 20% the lives of the cops. One unusual aspect of the program is that each storyline goes over two episodes. But otherwise it's standard, except that it's got good actors and scintillating Helsinki scenes in it. That's the best bit. The Helsinki scenes. I always love it when the policeman goes home on the train and we see the train he's going home on. 

august 1952 flook

I'd like to draw some connection between the Australian-ness of the author and the Australian references in the 20/8 and 21/8 strips but nah. Also note that in the 22/8 episode, the word 'information' has been inserted into the last panel, presumably for the North American audience. I wonder what it replaced. 'Intelligence'? 

How come Flook and Rufus are allowed to compete as two members of a team, when the other countries only have one team member each? 

july 1952 flook

 

Well who would have thought they'd go to Helsinki. I would have liked to have seen some more of the city itself. Nice forest in the 14 July strip though.