The Late Review

Well done, Ireland!

2009-10-04T11:18:00.003+03:00

Buíochas le Dia! Common sense has finally prevailed in the Republic of Ireland as the populace voted on Friday to ratify the Lisbon Treaty. I'm interested by Brian Lenihan's comments that what he calls "junk politics" (a wonderful, apt term) was coming from the far left rather from the far right.

It's intriguing how opposition to "Europe" is not necessarily a party-political matter but can manifest itself in all political corners. For instance, here in Finland, again, confusingly and somewhat nonsensically, it is the parties of the left that most vocally object to the Treaty, whereas in the UK, euroscepticism is almost exclusively part of the far-right agenda (espoused by the Tories, the odious UKIP and the even more odious BNP), while it is the Labour party that has tirelessly tried to ratify the Treaty and integrate us with the rest of Europe – which is, after all, our rightful place.

Out of a glorious sense of schadenfreude, I would have loved to have seen the looks on the faces of Cameron and his disciples as exit polls began appearing in Ireland. This article in the Guardian gives us a fairly good indication of what that look might have been. Poor Dave... Left with the prospect of becoming PM but not actually being able to do anything about the Treaty. Not only that, he's now faced with the dilemma of whether to hold a referendum on the Treaty after is has already become law. What a ridiculous idea, not to mention an utterly pointless endeavour.

It goes without saying that certain loony elements [certain...?] on the far-right of the Tory party are calling for a referendum even if the Treaty has passed. I suppose they have to do this so as not to lose face. They erroneously claim that a No vote in such a referendum would "rule the Lisbon treaty null and void in the UK and withdraw us from its provisions". This demonstrates how little they understand of the ratification process and, not surprisingly, the contempt in which they hold European law. But what if Cameron doesn't hold the long-promised referendum, fruitless though such a thing will now inevitably be? Won't he be accused of going back on his promise, of denying the British people their say? I dare say it won't go unnoticed that these are the same accusations he has been throwing at Gordon Brown since the day he took office. A tricky situation indeed... Poor Dave. Let's just hope it does put a damper on the conference, eh? At least the presence of all his new Eastern European bedfellows should cheer him up. They sound like jolly nice fellows to me.

Cameron is also facing controversy over the presence at the party conference of controversial MEPs Michal Kaminski, the Polish leader of the new Conservative group in the European parliament, and another member of the group, Roberts Zile from Latvia, who are both accused of having far-right links.

Last night it emerged that another of Cameron's European allies had been accused of holding extreme views after backing anti-gay legislation in Lithuania. Valdemar Tomasevski, an MEP and a member of the Tories' European coalition, voted for a Lithuanian law on 16 June that bans discussion of homosexuality, not only in schools but in any forum open to young people.

The Last 12 Months: An Abridged Version

2009-07-25T15:29:00.008+03:00

Hello… It’s exactly a year since the last time I posted on The Late Review, giving new heights to the word ‘late’. The reasons for this hiatus are long and various, but suffice it to say that plenty has happened in the intervening 365 days. A few of the highlights:

• On the work front, last summer I translated a very long book about the history of Raseborg (which was the primary reason I stopped blogging for a while). This 270-page epic managed to eat up most of my time until the middle of September.

• My translation of Matti Yrjänä Joensuu’s To Steal Her Love was finally published by Arcadia Books. A number of good reviews appeared, including this one in the Independent.

• In November I started working for the quarterly magazine Welcome to Finland, translating articles and correcting the (often extremely bad and funny) English of others. This job seemed to take over my life every time an issue came around (160pp each), so you can imagine I wasn’t exactly devastated when the editor informed me that they were letting me go because they’d found someone who would translate it cheaper! Apparently that’s the way people conduct their business in the cutthroat world of Finnish journalism…

• The up-shot of all this – and of being turned down for an artist’s grant by the Finnish Cultural Foundation – means still having to eke out an existence until something more interesting comes along… Oh well.

By virtue of my own sheer laziness, the renovations to my bedroom have taken over five months. The house has been in chaos and I’m still sleeping in the living room. All that remains is to give one wall a final coat of paint and to affix the skirting boards, then we’re done. Photographs will follow shortly.

On the artistic side of things, singing has rather taken over my life. In August I joined the Incanto Vocal Ensemble, conducted by my good friend Jukka Jokitalo – meaning more rehearsals and less time for blogging! I have continued taking lessons with the wonderful Kirsi Telaranta and since Christmas have been concentrating, as far as my solo voice is concerned, on developing my countertenor.

In February, American tenor Charles Kamm – who was visiting Finland for six months and, among other things, sang with and conducted Incanto – and I sang Purcell’s marvellous countertenor duet ‘Sound the Trumpet’ (performed here by countertenor Alfred Deller and his son Mark). Spurred on by this, we decided to have a go at Britten’s ‘Canticle II: Abraham and Isaac’. This culminated in a concert far more ambitious than either of us had imagined. In association with the Metsoforte Choir, we and the enormously talented pianist Timo Latonen put on, in May, a concert with the following programme:

• Britten: ‘I know a bank’ (from A Midsummer Night’s Dream)
• Tippett: Songs for Ariel
• Barber: Hermit Songs
• Britten: Canticle II: Abraham and Isaac

In July my composition Resonance for violin, strings and horns (composed last autumn, yet another reason for not blogging…) was performed at the Brinkhall soi festival by my friends from the Refugium Musicum Chamber Orchestra, and I performed an aria from Handel’s Messiah at a Sunday service in Turku Cathedral – a wonderful experience. Imagine my delight when, later that day, a woman stopped me in Stockmann’s in Turku to ask me whether it was me that had sung at the cathedral that morning! Rest assured, there will be plenty of posts about singing in the coming months.

And, not to disappoint, there will be lots of posts about politics, Finnish, British, American and otherwise. There’s certainly plenty to comment upon, what with the deplorable results of the European elections in June; the rise of the fascist Perussuomalaiset and the charges for incitement against their ‘intellectual’ henchman Jussi Halla-aho – now relieved of his duties; the Kokoomus turning a blind eye to the racist comments of their own candidates in the lead-up to the elections; the exit of the British Conservative Party from the EPP to join ranks with homophobes, racists and climate-change deniers across Europe and the looming return to neo-Thatcherist misery in Britain; the attempts to impose creationism, via the Trojan horse that is ‘intelligent design’, on pupils in certain US states; the assault of the far right on all that is good about the Obama administration; and so on (and so on).

So, apologies for the inordinate wait. I hereby promise to keep any faithful readers I may still have regularly up-to-date with any thoughts that pop into my head and seem worth sharing.

People of improbable hope

2008-07-25T03:20:00.003+03:00

Nothing I can say could possibly make this any more inspirational. All rise.

Word Splash!

2008-07-14T17:33:00.014+03:00

Thanks to Sean at Alone and Unobserved for the link to Wordle, a programme that creates 'word clouds' from any website. I put in the link to The Late Review and this is what it came up with:

The programme highlights words according to frequency. Interesting that the words 'Kokoomus' and 'homophobia' are right next to one another – and I didn't even put them there! And as for Kanerva, well, I'm easily provoked.

PS: Sean I'm not sure how to make the image appear larger; can you help? Thanks!

Translated Fiction at BookTrust's New Site

2008-07-02T12:09:00.003+03:00

Over at translation blog Brave New Words I found a link to BookTrust's new website dedicated to translated fiction and thought I'd link to it here too. The site is a valuable addition to a small field, and certainly worth a look for anyone interested in literature in translation.

For years, BookTrust has been an outstanding exponent of translated fiction, regularly reviewing new titles and giving translated fiction the kind of publicity it is hard even for publishers to provide. Now it seems they have decided to concentrate their efforts on one website, so as to have everything under one roof, as it were.

The site contains articles by publishers, writers and translators alike, reviews of new works in translation and introductions to forthcoming titles. I was pleased to note that, though it – disappointingly – didn't make the shortlist Independent Foreign Fiction Prize 2008, my translation of Maria Peura's At the Edge of Light did however make it to BookTrust's Recommended Titles section. The review isn't bad, either.

Indian summer of love?

2008-06-30T23:09:00.003+03:00

Further to my post the other day about the plight of LGBT organisations in Latvia, there was an article in today's Guardian about the first Pride parade in Delhi. Indian marchers were allowed to hold a parade, and judging by the short video clip at the link above there seemed to be quite a lot of participants. This, despite the fact that an 1861 law criminalises what it refers to as "carnal intercourse against the order of nature between any man, woman or animal". Whatever that means...

At the end of the article is a brief rundown of other Pride marches which took place across the world last week. Latvia isn't mentioned; I wonder how they got on.

Cowardice vs Bravery

2008-06-27T18:43:00.004+03:00

I was shocked to read earlier in the week about the Heinz mayonnaise advert which the company has taken off screens after around 200 complaints about obscenity. The advert, which features two men kissing, was called 'obscene' and 'inappropriate'. Many also complained saying that the advert was detrimental to children and would put parents in the awkward position of having to explain to their children that same-sex couples exist.

An online petition has been set up asking Heinz to reinstate the advert and not to give in to bigotry. So far over 9000 people have signed the petition – far more than the two hundred or so who complained about the original advert. We're no longer living in the 19th century. I can't see how people find this brief kiss offensive. It's not as if they started rimming each other on the kitchen table (cf. Queer as Folk episode 1, about twenty minutes in).

The issue of parenthood amongst same-sex couples came up again last night in two films shown as part of the Helsinki Pride 2008 (going on this week). The first was a documentary Tuplaisät ('Double Dads') focussed on a gay couple in Helsinki who have two foster children and who are now trying to have one biological child each. How refreshing to see a documentary about 'normal' people going about their lives. The film gave a fascinating look at what life with two dads must be like. I found the following anecdote particularly endearing: the two older children were arguing and calling each other gay, when one of the fathers walks in and says, 'That's enough! If anyone's gay round here, it's me.'

The next film, another documentary called The Marching Season, focussed on the differences between Pride marches in London and Riga in 2007. Gay rights hasn't been a political issue in the UK for years; young gay men in particular don't seem very interested in the politics of the movement, nor of the struggles that went on through the 70s and 80s. It was heart-warming to see the brave young members of Mozaīka, the Latvian LGBT rights organisation, determinedly planning their Pride march despite widespread hostility – a counter parade entitled NoPride was to be held at an adjacent park; the event attracted thousands of people who flocked to sign petitions against the Pride march. At the 2006 march, Mozaīka members were pelted with stones and excrement. How brave they are to carry on their work, regardless of the fact that their lives are constantly at risk.

We've come a long way in the last forty years. Equality has increased in many areas of life and gay people don't need to feel threatened in the street. This is largely because, in most western countries, it has become wholly unacceptable to hold such flagrantly homophobic opinions. Sadly, this is not the case in Latvia, where it seems that the neo-Nazi activities of NoPride and other homophobic factions are not universally frowned upon. Mozaīka has the right to hold a march, but the police cannot guarantee participants' personal safety.

In Britain, such attitudes would be, in the words the Heinz complainants, 'offensive and inappropriate'. This is why, although the Heinz debacle is a million miles from the problems in Latvia, the advertisement must be reinstated. Homophobic attitudes are to be condemned unequivocally. After all that people have fought for, it is absurd that something as trivial as two men sharing a kiss can cause such great offence. Reinstating the advert will be a powerful signal that such bigotry will not be tolerated. As things are now, the removal of the advert has caused far more offence than the kiss itself. Heinz: do the right thing.

The Finnish Eton Boys

2008-05-29T11:06:00.004+03:00

Let me return, for a moment, to one of my favourite subjects: rife corruption in the National Coalition Party (Kokoomus). Clearly, the dismissal of Ilkka Kanerva, the lecherous former foreign minister, is only the beginning of a long process of ridding the country these people...

Kokoomus MPs clearly hold the general public in contempt if they really think we're so gullible that nobody will notice that there's a connection between who donated money to their (widely derided) "retro" election campaign, and the people who are now up for top jobs and promotions. This is the Finnish equivalent of the "cash for peerages" scandal in the UK and let's hope it exposes them for what they are: a bunch of self-sufficient, back-slapping Eton boys (if such a thing could exist in Finland). Speaking of which, don't even get me started on Boris Johnson. His election defies belief.

For those with Finnish, here's an eye-opening article from Uutislehti 100 on 21.5.2008:

Tää on ihan kakkosesta (Ville Soininen, Uutislehti 100, 21.5.2008)

Iltalehti kertoi eilen, että poliitikot hakevat vaalirahoituskohun keksipisteessä olevalle Tokmanni Oy:n konserninjohtajalle Kyösti Kakkoselle vuorineuvoksen arvonimeä. Asialla on muum muassa kokoomuksen Sauli Niinistö, Jyri Häkämies, Marja Tiura ja Ilkka Kanerva ja keskustan Paula Lehtomäki sekä Hannes Manninen, jotka kaikki sivat tukea Kakkosen ja Toivo Sukarin avokätisesti rahoittamalta vaalirahayhdistykseltä.

Kakkonen luonnehti vaalirahoituksen ja vuorineuvoksen tittelin yhdistämistä eilen Iltalehe nettisivuilla "kananaivojournalismiksi ja julkeaksi vihjailuksi", mutta minusta on hienoa, että talvisodan henki elää edelleen suomalaisissa poliitikoissa. Ei kaveria silloinkaan jätetty. Tosin nykymuodossa talvisodan meininki menisi seuraavasti: "Paljonkos maksat, että kannan sut takaisin omille linjoille, kun näyttää tuo vasen koipesi irronneen."

[...] Suomi on toistuvasti arvioitu maailman vähiten korruptoituneeksi maaksi, eikä tavisten välillä rahalahjuksia annetakaan. Kuitenkin vuosi vuodelta suurempi osa hyvinkin erilaisissa ammateissa työskentelevistä tuttavistani on saanut töitä suhteilla. Olennaisinta ei enää pitkään ole ollut se, mitä osaat, vaan kenet tunnet. Hyvä veli - ja yhä useammin myös hyvä sisar -verkostot elävät ja voivat hyvin, mutta onko se korruptiota tai modernia nepotismia? Nämä käsitteet tuntuvat usein hämärtyvän, kun ne osuvat omalle kohdalle.

"we live / the opposite / daring"

2008-05-09T12:29:00.007+03:00

A strange news item came to my attention last week: on 1st May, the BBC ran a story about a motion in the Greek parliament to restrict the use of the word 'lesbian' to natives of the Greek island, Lesbos. The modern meaning of the word stems, of course, from the fact that Sappho, who wrote extensively about her love of women, was herself a native of the island. The title of this post is from Sappho's fragment 24C, translated by Anne Carson. In the original: ζ]ώο[μεν ... ]εναντ[ ... τ]όλμαν[

The parliamentary motion sounds far-fetched, to say the least. The Guardian offers a more detailed insight into Lesbian and lesbian life on the island. From these snippets of interviews with the natives, the problems stem largely from Greek tourists from the mainland, while the islanders themselves largely welcome lesbian tourists with open arms. I particularly liked the comment: "So long as they leave our women alone, they are welcome".

In the extremely unlikely event that this act passes through the Greek parliament (it would make them a laughing stock), it's hard to imagine its having any effect on the international use of the word. Languages develop as they will, and it's impossible to rein them in after the fact. Not to mention the fact that, around the world, people who identify themselves as lesbians significantly outnumber the inhabitants of the island.

Besides, this isn't the first time the Greeks have given us a synonym for the unmentionable. In the 19th century, the term 'uranian' was a common euphemism for all manner of sexual deviances, and derives from the word 'Uranus' / Οὐρανός (with its highly unfortunate English pronunciation). According to one version of the story, Aphrodite was born of Uranus (a birth in which "the female has no part") and later came to be associated with "a noble love for male youths". The word 'dyke' is also of Greek origin, and comes from Dika / Δίκα, one of Sappho's most favoured pupils. And if I remember correctly, Forster's Maurice (and, doubtless, Hall's The Well of Loneliness, too) also makes mention of the fact that the characters are "like the Greeks". Hmmm... By all accounts, they've been getting up to all sorts for over two millennia!

To finish with, I loved this comment from one of the women interviewed in the Guardian:

"Thank God Sappho was born on Lesbos, not Rhodes," says Sandra, on holiday from Leeds with a group of friends to celebrate her 60th birthday. "Or we would be stuck being known as Rhodesians."

European Fantasy in Paperback

2008-04-29T11:28:00.011+03:00

In 2005 I translated an extensive anthology of Finnish fantasy literature, edited by Johanna Sinisalo, one of the the foremost SF writers in Finland. Some time later I was approached by Sinisalo to translate another of her short stories for an American anthology, the SFWA European Hall of Fame (2007), which features "sixteen contemporary masterpieces of science fiction from the continent". Edited by James and Kathryn Morrow, the anthology gives an overview of contemporary European fantasy writing, presenting it as both similar and distinct from the North American tradition of SF writing (Gaiman et al.) James Morrow's opening essay, 'Extrapolations of Things Past: A Barbarously Brief Account of European Science from Micromégas to Microchips', is informed and insightful, and serves as an excellent introduction to the collection.

The SFWA European Hall of Fame has recently been released in paperback, and in honour of this a video has been posted on YouTube (link below), featuring an interview with the editors about the process of putting the book together and with one of the authors on his feelings about having his work translated.

It's always fascinating listening to people – authors, translators, editors – talk about how they view the translation process. It's clear that most authors welcome the opportunity to have their works translated by professional native speakers (a certain Finnish playwright notwithstanding). However, working with editors, who are outside the initial creative process due to not speaking the source language, can be problematic, as their priority is the translation, while the role of the original is often seen as secondary. Not so with this collection.

As they point out in the interview, rather than normativise the text for an American readership, the Morrows actively encouraged all translators to retain as much of the feel of the original as possible. That being said, adherence to the original versus normativisation is always subject to the context and topos of the text; it is impossible to suggest that a given solution is necessarily desirable in every instance (as a certain Finnish playwright seems incapable of understanding). In the case of Sinisalo's 'Baby Doll' (the text featured in this collection), we all agreed that the language needed to be as accessible to an American readership as possible. After all, the subject matter – the over-sexualisation of pre-teenagers – is by no means a specifically Finnish problem.

This translation process differed considerably from previous ones in that, for the first time, I was working for an American publisher. I speak and translate into British English, so the Morrows agreed to Americanise my initial translation. This was an eye-opening experience; I realised that, though I have no difficulty understanding American English, the differences between our two variants of the language run far deeper than that we say "tomahto", they say "tomayto".

Thankfully, there was no need to call the whole thing off – I had to get that in somehow! It was like going through an additional level of editing. The Morrows sent me a revised version of the text, I then went through it and said whether they had strayed too far from the Finnish, or whether a certain phrase might better suit the feel of the original, until we reached a version all parties were happy with. There was much to think about: apart from vocabulary, word order and syntax is often markedly different; verb declension differs; people swear differently...

Actually having to engage with this on a textual level made me understand the full extent of the chasm between our modes of expression. Just as non-natives cannot translate into a target language that is not their native language, I will never be able to translate into American English, as I'll always need a native speaker to go through the text for me, and vice versa. Of course, real translators, being humble people, will be the first to acknowledge this; we have the conviction to know when we are right, but we also know where our expertise comes to an end. It is depressing that, in my experience, non-native translators have such an aggrandised image of their own abilities that they lack a default setting that says, "Sorry, I'm not qualified to translate that". What a shame that a certain Finnish playwright also falls into that category...

What's in a name?

2008-04-24T11:22:00.009+03:00

Karita Mattila's new home workout DVD – now available from stores across the country! Weight loss on Mattila's four-point plan guaranteed – or your money back!

Joking aside, though I haven't listened to it, I'm sure this is an excellent disc. Kaija Saariaho's Quatre instants were written for Mattila and she has championed them ever since (unlike many performers who commission works, perform them once or twice, then conveniently forget about them). Given her acclaimed performances in the operas of Leoš Janáček, I imagine her voice is well suited to the music of Dvořák and Rachmaninov. Silly cover art for what is probably an excellent release.

Coming up with suitable cover art presents a wealth of challenges. The choir I sing with is about to release a CD of contemporary choral music, but what to put on the cover is an sensitive issue and can have a very real effect on what people buy and what they don't. Like, I imagine, the majority of people, I'm a sucker for judging a book / bottle of wine / CD by its cover. How can we make this disc different from all the thousands of other discs of contemporary choral music? The cover art serves as a calling card for the product as a whole. What to name one's disc is another minefield. A friend is currently recording a disc of kannel music (what's a kannel, I hear you ask!) That, of course, is part of the problem. This is an instrument with few exponents, so the title of the disc must both enhance the mystique of the instrument, while making it seem accessible to a wider audience. Tricky.

Oh! My recording of Britten's Billy Budd has just arrived from Amazon! Odd cover art: a man (presumably Billy) tied to the helm of a ship, the whole image airbrushed into something that could be from a collection by Pierre & Gilles. Hmmm... a bit homoerotic. Great cast, though. I'll have to sign off now and listen to it immediately. Review to follow – watch this space!

Keep it down!

2008-04-20T12:21:00.002+03:00

There was an interesting piece in the New York Times this morning about noise levels in symphony orchestras. Having spent almost ten years playing with the university orchestra in Helsinki and rehearsing in the far too small music hall at the student building, I'm only too well acquainted with the problems of overly loud, potentially damaging rehearsal situations.

It's a complicated problem; for me, wearing earplugs is absolutely not the solution, as it means you can hardly hear yourself, thus making it far more difficult to play in tune. There seems to be something of an obsession in Scandinavia with earplugs – incredible as it sounds, I've even heard of people who wear them in string quartet rehearsals or while practicing! I've always thought that if the music is meant to be loud, there's no point in trying to counter the effect by damping it out. Why try and regulate your experience of the music? Having said that, I do often feel sorry for bassoonists who have to sit right i front of enormous brass sections day after day.

The danger with the EU directive mentioned in the article is that it could start affecting the way people play, the way people compose and conduct. Though undeniably good news for the hearing of our orchestral musicians, this surely can't be good for the long-term development of classical music. The mere thought of a conductor asking players to keep the noise down at, say, the very end of Mahler 1 or 2 makes me shudder...

This is largely a question of acoustics. The music hall in which I regularly rehearse may be fine for smaller ensembles and choirs, but was not designed to house an entire symphony orchestra, and rehearsing loud music in there (e.g. Shostakovich 5 all last spring) can be painful. Finlandia-talo has the opposite effect. Last week I went to listen to Messiaen's gargantuan, 90-minute oratorio La Transfiguration de nôtre Seigneur, which featured a huge orchestra, four choirs and soloists, yet the performance never sounded too loud because the acoustics at Finlandia-talo swallow up the sound, making it sound as though the players are in a different room.

As for the Great Hall of the university, where the university orchestra often performs... I hate playing there because you can't hear other people and all you can hear is your own playing, but people assure me that when you're in the audience it sounds great. This, after all, is the same hall in which many of Sibelius' (often very loud) orchestral works were first performed. Let's hope the people designing the new Musiikkitalo will get it right, so that loud pieces can still be enjoyed, performed and compsoed so that neither audiences nor performers end up losing their hearing.

The April Fools

2008-04-01T14:14:00.008+03:00

It's finally happened! Weeks after it would have happened anywhere else in the world, admittedly, but it's happened all the same: our sleazy foreign minister Ilkka Kanerva has been fired - I mean, erm, relieved of his duties - minutes before the magazine publishing some of the 200-odd dirty text messages he sent to an erotic dancer using his work phone funded out of taxpayers' money arrived on shop shelves this morning. The best April Fool's surprise I could have wished for.

His replacement, toothy, gung-ho NATO boy Alexander Stubb, is hardly any better, though I suppose we'll have to give him the benefit of the doubt for five minutes or so. I first heard of Kanerva's demise upon arriving at my office shortly before midday this morning. On the underground, I'd read a column in today's Metro (which went to print before the "shock" announcement and Jyrki Katainen's Hillary-esque tears at the press conference) by Timo Harakka, who, along with Jukka Relander, is fast becoming one of my favourite columnists in Finland. I wonder what the column would have read had he written it a day or so later. No doubt we'll find out soon.

Though I'd initially thought I wouldn't bother posting on the subject of Kanerva and his dubious behaviour (partly, also, because I've been working, travelling and my computer has died on me), I now feel justified in doing so, not least out of an unashamed sense of Schadenfreude. Of course, prominent Kokoomus politicians are careful to tow the party lie (I mean, "line", though noticed I had mispelled it in a Freudian slip of the fingers) about how Kanerva should have shown more restraint and should have known better, but that "your personal life is your personal life", blah blah blah.

Most revealing, I feel, is the comment by Ben Zyskowicz, another Kokoomus crony, to the effect that Kanerva was not dismissed because of the text messaging itself, but because of the resulting media furore and because more details of the messages' contents had come to light. So, how are we to understand this? That he is not being dismissed because of what he did (which was morally questionable and, at the very least, amounts to harassment), but only because he was found out! Don't people realise how disgracefully see-through these people are? We can only hope that this is the first step towards voting out the whole, rotten bunch of them.

Here is the final paragraph of Harakka's column:

Suomessa on paljastunut pyramidihuijaus, jossa on jymäytetty useita kymmeniä tuhansia ihmisiä. Petkutetuille on lupailtu rikkauksia ja menetystä, mutta viime kädessä heidän tehtävänsä on ollut värvätä ystäviä ja perheenjäseniä. Pahimmillaan kokonaiset suvut ja kyläkunnat ovat haksahtaneet huijaukseen.

Pyramidin sisäpiiri saavuttaa suuret voitot. Myös seuraavat mukaantulijat menestyvät näkyvästi, mikä juuri houkuttaa suuret ihmisjoukot ansaan.

Ahneus lamauttaa viileän harkinnan. Muutaman vuoden välein huijaus paljastuu, mutta heti pelurit lähtevät keräämään uusia kannattajia. Aina löytyy laumoittain hyväuskoisia, jotka lankeavat katteettomiin lupauksiin.

Mikseivät he koskaan opi? Varokaa nyt, hyvät ihmiset, jo kokoomusta.

Metro, 1.4.2008

(Quick translation: "In Finland, a pyramid scheme had been uncovered which has swindled tens of thousands of people. Those cheated were promised riches and success, but their function was merely to recruit their friends and family. At worse, entire families and villages have fallen for this confidence trick.
The pyramid's inner circle makes huge gains. The next group of converts also has some visible success, which in turn lures more people into the trap.
Greed paralyses our common sense. Every few years the scheme is uncovered, but those involved immediately start looking for new supporters. And there are always herds of people gullible enough to fall for their false promises.
Why will they never learn? Good people, beware of the Kokoomus.")

My sentiments exactly, Mr Ravel!

2008-02-24T13:44:00.006+02:00

I was lucky enough to get a ticket to Thursday's dress rehearsal of Kaija Saariaho's new opera Adriana Mater at the Finnish National Opera; the official première was last night. Having followed Saariaho's music for the last thirteen years, and having attended three performances of her previous opera L'amour de loin, there was really no question as to whether I was going to like this piece or not. Saariaho's music is captivating, agonisingly beautiful, at times visceral and violent, and Adriana Mater is no exception. For those with Finnish, here is Helsingin Sanomat's review.

The intricacies and subtleties of the music and staging require too much thought to post about right now, but perhaps I'll return to this subject at a later opportunity. I'm compelled to post regarding a conversation I had last night with K, who had just come from the première. K is himself a formidable and experienced musician, whose opinions I don't take lightly. For me, this fact makes his assessment of the opera all the more alarming. I described the opera as "häkellyttävä" (astounding, astonishing), to which K replied that that would certainly be an appropriate term. After I said that I had expected nothing less from Saariaho, it turned out that his comment was meant sarcastically. "How so?" I asked. "Well, for a start, it's badly written, badly orchestrated, and the orchestra doesn't get to play any melodies," he replied. For a moment, these comments rendered me speechless. Of course, people can disagree on the merits of any given piece of music, and I love a good argument as much as anyone, but in this instance, K's argumentation is, in my opinion, so fundamentally flawed that it has driven me to afford it deeper consideration.

Admittedly, I haven't examined the score very closely but, having a knowledge Saariaho's previous music, I think it's fair to say that melody is not and has never been a defining feature of her aesthetic. According to K, the players find the piece "boring". Do they feel cheated because they don't get to play grand melodies, I wonder. Perhaps more than concert music, isn't opera all about the audience, about the experience of listening to an orchestra while being visually stimulated by what is happening on the stage? Boring or not for the musicians, Adriana Mater is a highly successful piece of music theatre precisely because it engages the audience, which for me is a more relevant criterion by which to judge the music than whether the musicians enjoy playing it or not.

When I asked K to give an example of how the piece is "badly orchestrated", he mentioned a section in the clarinet part which requires a high c#4. "How can a player be expected to produce this note night after night?" he asked. A quick look on Google reveals fingering charts for all the notes up to d4. Agreed, these pitches are at the upper reaches of the clarinet's altissimo register, but you can't call something badly written just because it's difficult. If you claim to play the clarinet, you play the whole clarinet, not just the easy bits.

Performers are notorious for taking the path of least resistance when it comes to new music. Too often one hears performers claim that certain techniques are "impossible", when what they mean is that they are difficult, outside the boundaries of standard technique (agreed), the implication being that these techniques actually involve some practice. At a new music workshop a few years ago, the cellist who played my piece came up to me later in the evening and told me that I shouldn't write microtones because they're very hard to produce. Well, cry me a river! I replied by explaining that, as a string player, I know exactly how difficult (or not) it is to produce microtones on a string instrument. To give a more extreme example: Brian Ferneyhough's music is "difficult", but if you decide to perform it you then take on the responsibility of learning it properly. That this is a revelation to some professional musicians is surprising to say the least.

This whole conversation – and writing this post – reminds me of the exchange between amputee pianist Paul Wittgenstein and Maurice Ravel regarding the latter's Piano Concerto for the Left Hand (commissioned by the former). Wittgenstein wanted to rearrange some aspects of the piano part claiming famously that "performers must not be slaves!" Ravel's answer was simple and to the point: "Performers are slaves." The day composers allow performers' whims and, dare I say, in some cases, laziness to dictate what can and can't be done with their instruments will be the day all progress in the field of musical expression grinds to a halt.

Filth and Wisdom

2008-02-14T20:05:00.004+02:00

Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the cinema, Madonna goes and does it again. Not as actor (for which we may be eternally thankful) but as director (groan). Like most people who haven't been at the Berlin Film Festival this week, I haven't seen this film, so I can't give any first-hand reaction to it. Judging, however, by the reviews, including this one by Peter Bradshaw in today's Guardian, I seriously wonder what it's chances are of ever being put on general release.

Ms Ciccone / Mrs Ritchie is a perplexing, vexing figure. Her music is bland in the extreme, yet it is touted, particularly to young gay men, as if it were the pinnacle of expressive art (note to self: try not to sound too much like Peter Giles...) Her use of Abba's music in a recent single was, in my opinion, utterly unforgivable and serves merely to underline the vacuousness and sheer lack of any originality that characterises Madonna's career. Her acting career was abysmal (Swept Away and The Next Best Thing rank alongside Crossroads as possibly some of the worst films I've ever seen). And so forth and so forth...

Now we have her directorial debut bearing the vaguely Austenesque title Filth and Wisdom. Peter Bradshaw's one-star review certainly doesn't spare the wrath. But really, in a related article, Madonna states: "I have always been inspired by the films of Goddard [sic], Visconti, Passolini [sic] and Fellini and hope that I may one day make something that comes close to their genius." The audacity of this statement leaves me speechless.

I'm pleased to note that the Guardian refrains from referring to Madonna as the Queen of Pop - I mean, who ever said she was the Queen of Pop? I could name a whole list of people manifestly more deserving of that title, but whose careers have suffered by virtue of actually being able to sing without the intervention of modern audio technology [Peter Giles alert!!!] - and settles for the far more apt Queen of Reinvention. I'm also indebted to Julie Burchill for many laughs in her numerous columns on the Immaterial Girl herself (two good examples of which can be found here and here). All I can say is that if the film is ever released in Finland, I will go and watch it and attempt to post an objective review here, but until then, let's not hold our collective breath...

Prejudice and Pride

2008-02-14T14:51:00.007+02:00

Reading through Peter Giles' interesting history of the fall and rise of the counter tenor (entitled – what else? – The Counter Tenor) I was struck and a little disappointed by his attitudes to any music other than 'classical'. (Here I use inverted commas just as he does to refer to any other form of music). Had the following opinions been published in, say, the 1920s, one could almost understand them, though his level of animosity towards musical development would still have seemed rather alien to our modern sensibilities. The fact that these opinions were published in 1982 makes one wonder why his publisher didn't suggest he dilute his vitriol. Here is a typical example:

The whole world of serious music is itself the subject of incredible prejudice. It is ignored good-naturedly, or scornfully dismissed as irrelevant by a now sizeable and growing proportion of the general public, who know nothing of any tradition before Elvis Presley and care less. (Giles 1982:3)

And...

So we have a fascinating situation: on the one hand a tradition legitimate and honoured, successor to the Romantic, Classical and Baroque, going back to Renaissance and Medieval times, but hidebound in many matters. Next to it, another tradition, recent and clearly illegitimate, artificial, of mammon, in many ways barbaric, all too prey to the whim of the moment and the wave of the manipulator's chequebook; but at least utterly free to go where it will within its limited abilities and 'cultural' boundaries. The first is the undoubted arena for, surely, the ultimate in vocal and instrumental technique, for mankind's most profound musical experiences and statements. The second, for the most part and with the exception of the art form 'jazz' and certain musicianly groups like 'Sky', comprises ephemera perhaps more of interest to the sociologist than the true artist musician. (Giles 1982:4-5)

The irony that these comments and countless others like them appear in a chapter entitled 'Prejudice and the Status Quo' will surely be lost on nobody. Neither, indeed, is the irony of two lengthy citations, both written in the 12th century, in the following chapter on the development of organum singing and the rise of the Paris Notre Dame School. It would appear that Giles in fact part of greater, not to mention highly legitimate, tradition of moaning about the development of music, a tradition stretching back a thousand years.

Whence hath the Church so many organs and musicall instruments? To what purpose, I pray you, is that terrible blowing of belloes, expressing rather the crashes of thunder than the sweetnesse of the voyce? To what purpose serves that contraction and inflection of the voyce? [...] Sometimes, which is a shame so to speake, it is enforced into a horse's neighing: sometimes the masculine vigour being laid aside it is sharpened with the shrillnesse of a woman's voyce: now and then it is writhed and retorted into a certain artificial circumvolution. (Aelred of Rievaulx, Speculum Charitatis, 1123)

As Giles points out, "John of Salisbury was also worried by much of what he heard":

The very service of the Church is defiled, in that before the face of the Lord, in the very sanctuary of sanctuaries, they, showing off as it were, strive with effeminate dalliance of wanton tones and musical phrasing to astound, enervate, and dwarf simple souls. [...] When this type of music is carried to the extreme it is more likely to stir lascivious sensations in the loins than devotion in the heart. (Policraticus, trans. John of Salisbury, 12th century).

And he wasn't even talking about Elvis Presley...

Finnish History II

2008-01-23T14:25:00.000+02:00

Further to my post about the conflicting interpretations of Finnish history, here is the letter from the ambassador (which I have abridged) sent in response to Alex Ross's column on Sibelius:

Other than in the early 1930s, when Fascist elements unsuccessfully challenged our democratic system, Fascism has never played a significant role in Finnish politics. There were never any "Nazi-style race laws" in force in Finland, and the Finnish government's wartime policy of resisting German attempts to inspire anti-Jewish actions in Finland has been publicly appreciated by our Jewish communities.

[However, the handing over of Finnish Jews to the Nazis is also well documented.]

For Finland, the Continuation War of 1941-44, as it is called in our history, has its roots in the Winter War[...] the annexation of the Baltic countries, in the summer of 1940, demonstrated the expansive nature of the Soviet policies and left the area vulnerable to further aggression. The Continuation War, then, was a defensive struggle for my country, politically separate from the war of the great powers.

Pekka Lintu, Ambassador of Finland, Washington, D.C. (printed in the New Yorker, July 23 2007)

Our man in Northfield

2008-01-19T18:45:00.000+02:00

I was very pleased to note this afternoon that my dear friend in Northfield MN, Alex Freeman, has launched his own website. The site contains everything you'll ever need to know about Alex who, as a composer, singer-songwriter, tenor, bass trombonist and, latterly, assistant professor of music at Carleton College, is without a doubt one of the most multitalented people I am honoured in knowing.

Much as, on a recent visit to London, I tortured myself by reading the concert listings at the South Bank, leaving myself hopelessly salivating over all the wonderful concerts I wouldn't be able to attend, Alex's site features tantalising news of upcoming events and performances of his work. If you happen to be in Northfield on February 8th you're in for a treat. For anyone outside Finland, the performance of Magnolia for kantele, a Finnish harp-like instrument, promises to be quite an event.

But for those of us who can't make it, hope comes in the form of mp3 downloads of some of Alex's recent work, including three of the Four Songs of Hellaakoski performed by the HOL choir, a group that has championed music by Alex and Canadian composer Matthew Whittall, under the direction of Esko Kallio. You can also listen to (though not download) a number of other pieces, including O Magnum Mysterium, a choral work that I had the pleasure of singing in December. Though the loud sneeze during the quiet section is annoying, the performance is great. This music makes me weep.

Crash Course in Finnish History

2008-01-10T23:36:00.000+02:00

Given that this blog claims to be a "review" of sorts, it seems fitting to begin 2008 with a review of a film I saw this evening, namely the latest film by Finnish director Lauri Törhönen, Raja 1918 ("Border 1918").

The film is set during the Finnish Civil War of 1918, a year after Finland had declared independence from Russia. In a nutshell, the war was between the "Whites" (the national guard) and the "Reds" (the Bolsheviks). The film follows the young Captain Carl von Munck who is sent to the newly established border to make sure that undesirable elements (Russians, Jews, Bolsheviks) are kept out of Finland. Of course, ther's also a romantic subplot between von Munck and the local school teacher Maaria Lintu, who, it transpires, is hiding her Bolshevik fiancé from the firing squads. [The "tragedy" motif in the soundtrack was presumably a quote from Im Treibhaus, the third movement of Wagner's Wesendonk-lieder and a study for the beginning of Act III of Tristan and Isolde.]

Anyway, back to the film! I was most impressed by the script. In less than a hundred years spoken Finnish has changed radically and this script preserves a level of formality that younger audiences are unused to hearing. The actors delivered the antiquated dialogue convincingly.

However, far more interesting (almost than the film itself) is what the film tells us about Finnish history. Some Finns have a difficult relationship with their nation's history. To give, in my opinion, a telling example: in the July 9th edition of the New Yorker music critic Alex Ross wrote an extended piece about Jean Sibelius, Finland's "national composer". The article goes through each of the seven symphonies in considerable detail and, by way of offering the reader some context to the Eighth symphony, which Sibelius eventually destroyed, Ross explains that:

Then, in 1939, Hitler invaded Poland, and Finland became part of a chess game between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. Early in the war, Finland was applauded in the West for its hardy stand against the Soviets, and Sibelius was more popular than ever. In 1941, though, Finland aligned itself with the Germans, partly because Fascist elements had infiltrated the government and the Army, and partly because the Nazis would have taken over the country anyway.

[Alex Ross, New Yorker July 9th 2007]

The above sentence provoked a letter of response (which I can't locate for the purposes of quotation) from none other than the Finnish ambassador to the US who dismissed Ross' summation of events as essentially untrue and proceeded to tell readers just how hard "my people" had fought for "my country". Though Finland's relationship with Nazi Germany is well documented (most recently in Prof. David Kirby's book A Concise History of Finland), it is common in Finland to claim that there was no relationship whatsoever (the fact that Marshal Mannerheim and Hitler were on such good terms that, in 1942, the Führer paid Mannerheim a surprise visit on the latter's birthday seems easily forgotten).

Similarly, Swedish historian Henrik Arnstad caused a furore here when, in an article in Svenska Dagbladet, he suggested that "the entire Finnish foreign ministry should be sent on a crash course in history" – again in reference to the systematic denial in Finland of any dealings whatsoever with the Third Reich. [For those with Swedish, the article can be read here.] The outcry over Arnstad's book and his subsequent articles speaks volumes about a nation still not at peace with its past.

Raja 1918 thus marks something of a departure for Finnish cinema: in gruesome detail, the film points out that the ethnic cleansing that took place in the early 1940s has its roots in the rise of nationalist sentiment during the Civil War. The film attempts to demonstrate how easily concentration camp style "quarantines" were set up along the new border and how people were only allowed into the country if they looked right (ie. didn't look Russian or Jewish) and could pronounce Finnish words without an accent. Towards the end of the film, there is even a scene in which a visiting German officer and another high-ranking Finnish officer are discussing how easy it would be to attack Russia as a unified force and that their primary objective should be to move the Finnish border beyond St Petersburg, fortify their "indigenous people", thus creating a "Greater Finland" (Suur-Suomi). Though this is 1918, the sentiment is clear.

There are numerous works of fiction on the subject of the Finnish Civil War (two recent examples being Leena Lander's Käsky and Asko Sahlberg's Tammilehto, neither of which are available in English), but with subtitles on a DVD this film will – and should – reach a much wider audience. Highly recommended – even for members of the Finnish foreign ministry.

I know that one, though...

2007-12-31T22:04:00.000+02:00

Well, I've been extraordinarily quiet these last few weeks. This is mostly due to working hard, being in the United Kingdom and the fact that Facebook's Scrabulous seems to have taken over my life... But as the minutes tick away before the start of 2008, I thought I'd better post something of interest just to have something in my December column. So here is a snippet I found this afternoon:

The following article is from the January 2008 edition of BBC Music Magazine. It's a shame this isn't a more widely read publication in, say, Finland, a country with, in my experience, some of the most congested and bronchial concert audiences in the civilised world. The idea of the great Sir Simon Rattle (pictured in a wonderful caricature by the Belgian sketch artist Jan Op De Beeck, which lends extra credence to a joke Magnus Lindberg told me a few years ago and which almost certainly deserves a post all of its own) instructing a Carnegie Hall audience in how to cough correctly (ie. discreetly) is one I shall treasure. Enjoy!

(P.S. New Year's Resolution #1: Post more actively in 2008!)

Splutter Ye Not
So, what's the best way to cough? Instruction on this very subject has been given mid-symphony by Sir Simon Rattle, who finally lost his patience with a persistent hacker in New York. Conducting the Berlin Philharmonic in Mahler's Ninth Symphony at Carnegie Hall, Rattle broke off after the first movement to address the audience. 'This piece starts with silence and returns to silence,' he said. 'The audience can help to create the piece by remaining silent.' The silver-headed maestro then proceeded to whip out a handkerchief from his pocket and show how best to muffle the sound, should anyone continue to find the urge to clear their throat simply too much to resist. The audience, we understand, behaved impeccably thereafter.

The world according to Mr Boyes

2007-11-09T23:43:00.000+02:00

At first I didn't think I'd post on this subject, but here we go...

It's nice to see the Times doing its bit to uphold journalistic standards. Wednesday saw the publication of an article by columnist Roger Boyes on the Jokela school shooting, a piece of journalism as absurd as it is ridiculous. After a deluge of comments on the original article, Boyes today published a follow-up, in which, instead of righting the wrongs of his first piece and engaging in constructive debate, he continues to ridicule Finns and Finland with comments such as:

Finland ranks as one of the happiest countries in Europe. It also has one of the highest suicide rates, the third highest divorce rate in Europe (beaten by Sweden again!) and 56 per cent gun ownership. So that adds up to a pretty complex society, no?

At the last count, the original post had received 192 comments. I don't know whether the Times has decided to stem the flow of comments on the new article, but the one I posted earlier this evening still hasn't appeared. So, for the record, here is my response to Mr Boyes.

Mr Boyes. As, behind your sarcasm, I’m sure you’re well aware, the outrage over your article does not represent an unwillingness on the part of the Finns to discuss the implications (for Finland and elsewhere) of Wednesday’s events, rather it is an expression of dismay at a cobbling together of isolated statistics which, at the Times, apparently passes as serious journalism. As a foreigner here, one’s eyes are perhaps more open to the problems that exist, and those problems should rightly be discussed, but your original article goes no way towards doing this. The young feel disaffected in many countries (not least the UK); they carry mobile and spend hours on the internet; their parents are divorced. What, then, if we disregard your misplaced Kalevala analogies, makes this “a very Finnish affair”? Whether you have visited Finland in the past is beside the point. It is the specious nature of your comments that has caused offence, not the fact that you ask valid, necessary questions.

Bowling for Jokela

2007-11-08T11:22:00.000+02:00

As incredible as it sounds, I only heard about the school shooting that occurred only some 50km from where I live about 12 hours after it happened. Not having a television and being on the move all day yesterday may have had something to do with it. When I was on the bus, I heard something on the radio about somebody being "rushed to Töölö hospital", but couldn't hear the rest of the item.

It goes without saying that yesterday's events were shocking beyond belief – I don't think there's any need to reiterate that. In a Finnish context the idea of a school shooting seems even more outlandish, because things like that simply don't happen here. Virtually nothing happens here – or so people like to think. Finns and other Scandinavians often seem to live in a fairytale land where they believe they are immune to these freak attacks. But if, as the media has now pointed out, Finland does indeed have the third highest ratio of guns per capita in the world, the answer to the question "How can something like this ever happen in Finland?" seems painfully obvious.

From the Guardian, 8th Nov 2007:

Police said the killer's gun was legally owned but he had obtained a licence only three weeks ago. Finland has the most heavily armed civilian population in Europe, and is third worldwide, after the US and Yemen.
Although murder rates are higher in neighbouring Russia and the former Soviet Baltic states, Finland has the highest murder rate in western Europe at around 28 per 100,000 people.
According to a survey this year by Geneva's Institute of International Studies, there are 56 privately owned firearms for every 100 civilian Finns. The guns must be licensed and a licence costs €32 (£22.50).

Can I really be the only person to whom these statistics come as a real shock? I'm stunned that a firearm licence costs less than the average train ticket and that anyone over the age of 18 can obtain one. However, Finland having the highest murder rate in western Europe doesn't come as a surprise. You only have to open the paper to see that, particularly in the countryside, the only way to sort out an argument with your neighbour is to shoot them with your hunting rifle. "My girlfriend left me, so I shot her" is not an uncommon quote in Finnish newspapers.

Where does this leave the indignation of those asking how this can happen in Finland? It does happen in Finland, it probably happens every day – on a smaller scale – but too often we turn a blind eye to it. I glanced at Finland for Thought this morning, the blog I love to hate, to see what they were saying about the shooting. The issue of guns in Finland came up there a few months ago. The opening comments on blog owner Phil's post speak volumes about the prevailing attitudes over at FfT:

Finland has the third highest number of guns in the world per capita, yet everyone isn’t shooting each other!? This must really confuse the anti-gun advocates! Or maybe, it’s not the *guns* that are the problem…??

Every time something like this happens (Dunblane, Columbine, Virginia Tech), we ask ourselves how many more people are going to have to die before something is finally done about the gun laws in our countries. The Second Amendment (and rest of the Constitution) was written in the belief that most people are decent, honourable citizens who will treat others with dignity and exercise restraint in front of the privileges the Constitution affords them. Perhaps I'm a misanthrope, but I'm not convinced that the majority of people have the common sense necessary to handle a firearm. Though I often dislike his style and his methods, on the issue of gun control, Michael Moore is absolutely right.

I love seeing conservatives and libertarians proved wrong; I only wish it had been in different circumstances. Perhaps you'd like to retract the above statement, Phil?

Formula One Goes Channel Five

2007-10-29T22:38:00.000+02:00

Is it only me, or is there something distinctly pornographic about this and other recent photographs from the Formula One Championships? I remember laughing with O a few years ago, when Kimi Räikkönen won his first Grand Prix, at how even Helsingin Sanomat plastered a photograph of the boyish, downy-cheeked, "barely legal" Kimi in a similar pseudo-bukkake pose, but now I realise that the photograph in question, and the one above, are part of a much larger genre.

It's startling quite how closely the imagery of Formula One resembles the aesthetics of porn. The above picture might in another context be called an "autofacial" or something similar. Another common image is what I'll call "the ejaculation pose" (photographs which immortalise the moment upon which the winner first corks the champagne bottle at crotch-height, letting the contents spurt forth). Then there are those in which the winner drenches the other two drivers standing on the podium in the remaining fluids... I mean, champagne.

For all its inherent masculinity, the world of sport is positively brimming with homoeroticism, both overt and covert. For years I've wondered why footballers embrace each other, jump on top of each other and generally frolic on the pitch when somebody scores a goal; rugby scrumming has always held a certain amount of interest; and as for Greco-Roman wrestling... the sight of two men in tight (and I mean tight) lycra jumpsuits grappling each other on a court is quite a spectacle. I'm sure there's been much more written on the subject of homoeroticism in sport and the portrayal of the victorious man (do women shower themselves and in each other in champagne?) – numerous sociologists and queer theorists have doubtless had a stab – though for the time being I'll just have to make do with the pictures.

PS: I promised K last week that I would post on this subject, so thanks for your patience! Your comments, insightful and otherwise, are most welcome. My computer was at the repair store all week... Technology, eh! I don't know whether you can live with it, but as I've discovered you certainly can't live without it...

Coz it's really, really important

2007-10-21T14:45:00.000+03:00

I promise to write something on a subject other than British politics soon, but this was too good an opportunity to pass up!

You can always count on The Sun for some informed debate on burning issues of the day. I mean, who wants to listen to politicians' opinions anyway? They're all the same, I say, can't trust any of them! Far more interesting, not to mention edifying, are the opinions of Top Gear presenter Jeremy Clarkson and one of the singers from Girls Aloud, both of whom are, of course, renowned for the insight and depth of their political commentary – or something like that...

To give him credit, Clarkson does present a rather cogent argument for what the Treaty means and why it is important that we, the great British public, ratify it. He argues in favour of a referendum and, I was surprised to read, says that he would vote Yes. I'm surprised Mr Murdoch allowed such dissenting, pro-European opinions to be published in one of his papers.

And before I’m accused by the Guardian of being a Little Englander with his head stuck in the 1950s, I should like to say that I like the idea of a common Europe with the same money, the same airport trolleys, the same plug sockets and the same property laws. [...] I like the idea that I could work in Greece or France and it’d be just the same as working in Swindon. I also like the idea of a giant European state tempering American stupidity and Chinese economic might. I would therefore vote YES in a referendum. But since we live in a democracy, I would absolutely respect the result if everyone else voted no.

Far more in line with The Sun's traditional politics is Nicola Roberts. Who? You know, that singer from Girls Aloud. Oh, her! Apparently, the paper claims, she is "more concerned about Britain's future than her nails or make up". Good to know.

Personally I’m against us signing up under the terms being suggested because it means we will be handing over so many powers to unelected representatives in Europe. It will mean they could bring in new laws and dictate the way we lead our lives in Britain. That’s why I think that, if we do get a referendum, we should vote No. Others might disagree – that is their right in a democracy – but at least let’s all have a debate about it.
If young people today don’t know anything about the EU constitution they should go and educate themselves and find out how it could effect [sic] them because it’s important. Do we really want to end up living in a country where we can’t make our own decisions based on what is best for Britain?

Why do I get the distinct impression this was not written by Ms Roberts? The text has Sun propagandist rhetoric written all over it. "They" (the terrible other, the foreign, the European, "Brussels") could bring in new laws... Do "we" (the pure, the righteous wronged, the non-European) really want to end up living... And so on and so on ad nauseam.

How frustrating that this represents the current level of "debate" on this issue, and how saddening that one paper and its Australian owner seem intent on derailing decades of work simply to protect their own megalomaniacal agenda.

Defending our right to stupidity

2007-10-17T12:10:00.000+03:00

Polly Toynbee does it again! Another marvellous article in today's Guardian regarding the frenzy of misinformation in the UK over anything "European". Ms Toynbee is absolutely right. A referendum on this issue should never have promised in the first place; Blair should not have given in to pressure from the xenophobic Tories and the right-wing press. Now, instead of addressing the facts surrounding the signing of the Treaty, the debate has descended to bickering over the referendum "we was promised".

Democracy is a term often bandied about in the referendum debate. One poster (again, the comments to this article are worth a read: prepare to get angry!) talks of Ms Toynbee's "undemocratic vision"; another, in an echo of the Patriot Act, says that she "intensely dislikes her country". Dissent clearly means you are anti-British – can someone please explain the logic in this equation? Tory sympathisers seem to have conveniently forgotten that it was a Conservative government which, in 1992, voted against a referendum on the ratification of the Maastricht Treaty. But we don't mention that, okay?

The whole point of electing government is that these people are better equipped to run the country than you or I. Gordon Brown understands a great deal more about the workings of the economy than most of us. Government ministers also understand far more about the Treaty than the average citizen. At the very least they will have read it. Would it be undemocratic to insist that everyone read the Treaty before voting on it? Are any of the readers of The Sun planning on printing off the Treaty (which is available online), reading it and engaging with what it actually says? One wonders whether they would even be capable of this, so poisoned have they become by the vitriolic (and highly misinformed) anti-European sentiment the Murdoch-run right wing press feeds them. The Daily Telegraph is not much better either. When I was in the UK this summer I was shocked (though not surprised) to see, on the front page of the Telegraph, a sign saying "Sign our Petition Against the EU Treaty" printed in bright yellow and purple, the colours of the heinous UK Independence Party. The paper's affiliations could not have been made any clearer.

Far more undemocratic, in my view, would be to hold a referendum in which people end up voting on an issue they know little or nothing about because they cannot be bothered to engage with the issues, casting instead a vote against "Brussels" (whatever that means) and the Euro. It pains me that many people in Britain seem incapable of understanding that the Euro wasn't created simply to further facilitate their holiday to the Costa del Sol.

More frightening, however, is the speculation that a No vote would ultimately result in Britain's exit from the EU. In the event of such a catastrophe, I would find it very difficult to have anything further to do with a nation that is prepared to espouse such idiocy.

The Definition of Grievous

2007-10-12T23:29:00.000+03:00

What does "grievous" mean in the phrase "grievous bodily harm"? The precise definitions of this and other similar legal terms seem rather vague. Where should be we draw the line between ABH and GBH? At what point does the harm inflicted cease to be "actual" and must therefore be considered "grievous"?

This question came to mind in the light of two recent cases I read about in the Finnish press this week. "Grievous" is the closest translation I can think of for the Finnish legal category of "törkeä something"; pahoinpitely is the legal equivalent of ABH, while törkeä pahoinpitely is GBH.

This, however, is where the similarities between Finnish and British legal terminology end. The Finnish legal system has a strange concept of what is grievous and what is not. All manner of misdemeanours can be considered grievous or not grievous. The most shocking example is the legal distinction between "rape" and "grievous rape" (raiskaus and törkeä raiskaus). This distinction seems to suggest that some rapes are less grievous than others and that not all rapes are considered "grievous" enough to warrant a stiff sentence. What exactly is a non-grievous rape? Was her skirt too short?

Earlier this week, a man who murdered his wife appeared in court charged with "murder" (in the US this would probably be "first degree murder"). His defence argues that the charges should be lowered to "manslaughter", because the crime as a whole cannot be considered "grievous" enough to warrant a murder charge. Here is a rough translation of an article in Helsingin Sanomat, 10th October 2007:

At the hearing of the Vaasa High Court in Jyväskylä on Tuesday, district prosecutor Pentti Hiidenheimo called for a life sentence for Jarmo Björkqvist, charged with murder. Björkqvist killed his wife Paula Björkqvist, chairperson of the Jämsä Town Council, on 18th July 2006. Jämsä Municipal Court charged Mr Björkqvist with murder in May [...]
Björkqvist's defence counsel has appealed against the decision because, in their opinion, the crime as a whole does not fulfil the notion of grievousness required by law for a charge of murder. Counsel for the defence, Henry Saleva, said his client would plead guilty to manslaughter, and suggested that a suitable sentence should be at the higher end of the scale [...]
His wife escaped into their daughter's room, lifted her from her cot, and said she was leaving. Jarmo Björkqvist did not accept this, and stood in the doorway to prevent them from getting out. The couple argued for about 15 minutes, after which Mrs Björkqvist opened the window and shouted for help.
His wife's cries for help allegedly made Mr Björkqvist "lose his temper". He shut the window, then ran to the kitchen to fetch a bread knife. Björkqvist says he had no intention of harming his wife; he merely wanted his daughter back. She was hiding under the table. Mr Björkqvist soon began a frenzied attack on his wife until the knife's handle had become so slippery with blood that he could no longer use it. He then went back to the kitchen to fetch another knife and continued stabbing his wife using his left hand. A total of 69 stab wounds were found on the body.
In the eyes of the prosecution the crime was extremely cruel, brutal and deliberate. Fetching another knife from the kitchen indicates premeditation, though not "wilful premeditation" as indicated in the statute book. Mr Björkqvist paid no heed to his wife's cries for help, the fact that she was unable to defend herself or the fact that their daughter was all the while in the same room.

This all begs the question: how grievous does this crime have to be before Mr Björkqvist will be charged with murder and sentenced to life? Under UK law this would be clear; this was not accidental. If fetching another knife is not considered grievous enough, my faith in Nordic justice will be seriously dented.

Compare this with the case, reported both in Finland and the UK this week, of a British woman who helped her terminally ill Finnish partner to die. With the body in the back seat of the car, the woman then drove straight to the nearest police station and told them what had happened. Under British law she will now be charged with murder (not manslaughter) and could face a life sentence.

Now which of these two crimes is the more grievous?

Yo, Cameron! Pimp my election...

2007-10-10T14:44:00.000+03:00

So, after weeks of speculation, frantic phonecalls to county hall, printing off my electoral registration papers, finding a British witness who isn't a member of my family, the threat of postal strikes and the prospect of another Florida 2000, there isn't going to be a general election after all. It's quite a relief, not least because of the potential debacle over postal votes from overseas: would there be time to send them out and return them by the deadline given the current situation with the postal service?

Hindsight, of course, is a fine thing, but only if we can look back at events without distorting the facts to suit our own agendas. In this respect, the rhetoric coming out of the Conservative Party this week is most interesting indeed, and highly revealing.

Who actually wanted this election to happen, I began to wonder. It certainly wasn't anybody within the Labour Party. From Labour's point of view, the only conceivable reason for holding an election only two years after the last one would be to give Mr Brown a mandate of his own, one that doesn't come with the uncomfortable baggage bequeathed him by Mr Blair. In all honesty, the likely outcome for Brown would have been an even larger majority than he has at the moment; Old Labour voters are more inclined to vote for Brown than for Blair. But who really wanted this election? It seems rather spurious of Mr Cameron to accuse the PM of "bottling it", when all along it was the Tories goading him to hold an election he neither wanted nor needed.

With this in mind, Mr Cameron's recent comments in the House of Commons all seem rather mystifying:

You are the first prime minister in history to flunk an election because you thought you could win it. [...] Do you realise what a phoney you now look? Have you found a single person who believes your excuses for cancelling the election?

I for one fail to see how the PM could "cancel" an election which he had never once "announced". Is your memory so bad, or are we being slightly disingenuous with the facts, Mr Cameron? You may be well advised to remember that electorate's memory is not as short or failing as your own.

Another hilarious upshot of last week's alleged election fever is the Nuspeak now coming out of Conservative party HQ. "Bring it on", bellowed Mr Cameron, and, in what seems like a paraphrase of a grammatical construction common only to porn films, "call that election"! Brown is, apparently, a "phoney" for "flunking" the election. Where is this all going to end? Before we know it, the Tory manifesto will be available in txtspk to appeal to all those underprivileged people who can't spell properly. It's too absurd for words... I did giggle listening to interviews of the Tory faithful immediately after Cameron's "virtuoso" speech at the conference:

– What are your feelings about a snap election?
– Bring it on, I say!

Sadly, as I heard this all on the radio, I didn't have the pleasure of witnessing for myself as the blue-rinse brigade of affluent, upper-middle-class England gushed with phrases more common in the "broken society" they so wish to mend.

Polly Toynbee, who shadow minister cum Tory image consultant Greg Clark suggested should replace Winston Churchill as one of the key social commentators of Nu-Toryism, wrote a marvellous column in yesterday's Guardian, in which she points out that Brown must not spend the rest of this term playing it safe. He has leadership skills, but now he has to show people what he can do with them. He has to demonstrate that cutting taxes isn't the answer to all our ills – Mr Cameron, are you listening?

In offering £3.5bn in tax cuts (exemption from inheritance tax etc, thus making the rich richer. "But only millionaires will pay". Why doesn't this thought comfort me?), the Tories might as well have pledged a commitment to longer hospital waiting lists, less funding for schools (not to mention the arts), worsened public transport in areas of the country that badly need more investment... Shall I go on?

The deputy leadership elections did briefly throw up some passion - revulsion at excess at the top, the word "inequality" spoken out loud, debates that touched on fairness in schools admissions, faith schools and all the barriers to social mobility. That's what Labour is for. The Tory masterplan for cutting inheritance tax by £3.5bn while taxing non-domiciles £25,000 each has drawn a key battle line. Labour may have to give assurances that the inheritance tax threshold will never reach more than the current 6% richest, but the principle remains. It will take hard work to remind people what tax is for, why it is a public good and not a burden, how it is the agent of social justice. Those ideas have been allowed to atrophy in the last decade. Labour has redistributed more than any government to the poor, at least slowing the rate of increase in inequality - but by never framing the argument in ideological terms, a generation has never heard how inheritance tax helped shape social progress in the last 100 years.

Every bit as interesting as the article itself are the comments people have posted in response. It seems that a lot of people read Toynbee's columns in order to disagree with them, much as I often read Finland for Thought. It's good to be reminded why you think the way you do; anger can be a very useful tool. One comment on Toynbee's article stood out:

I have to say, Polly, that when I read your columns these days, there's a distinct aroma of Animal Farm: "You don't want Mr Jones back, do you?" The idea that the big, bad Tories will be markedly worse for the poor than Gordon Brown is a puerile fantasy. I don't know if you believe it or if it's designed to frighten Guardian readers back into sullen submission to New Labour [...] [Brown is] obsessed by [sic] courage in the same way that some poor people are obsessed by money: the lack of it defines their lives.

That's beautiful – poor people are obsessed with money. Of course, it's easy to ridicule "the poor" from a life of luxury. David Cameron may make overtures to the middle classes by promising extensive yet unrealistic tax cuts, talking about the abolition of grammar schools, advocating a more inclusive definition of "the family" (to include, for instance, same-sex couples), but there is a gulf between what Mr Cameron says in public and what the rest of the party faithful truly believe. Essentially he and other "moderate" Conservatives are banging their heads against a brick wall, preaching to the unconvertible. The Tory party does not want to be modernised; Tories do not believe in freedom of opportunity for all (the grammar schools debate), they do not believe that a family can also consist of two women or two men. It is comments like this that make the question of who to vote for blindingly obvious: we do not want Mr Jones back, thank you very much. Too much progress has been made since 1997 for it all to be undone by, as Toynbee puts it, "rich boys protecting their own". I'll let the marvellous Ms Toynbee have to final word:

Some things don't cost money, only bravery. Brown yesterday left open the scope of the coming constitutional reform. To give away his right to choose the timing of elections might feel a blessed relief after this week - and so would a sharp curb on party spending. The spectacle of one Tory millionaire swaying votes in a few marginals to buy the next election is all the evidence anyone needs of the democratic dysfunction of party funding and of an electoral system that hinges on 200,000 bored swing voters. Jack Straw has already led the way in supporting the alternative vote, giving voters the right to put their choices in 1, 2, 3 order, a first step towards fairer voting: it could be done for the next election. Better by far for Labour to do it before a hung parliament forces them.

Blowing the Proverbial Brass Instrument

2007-10-06T12:47:00.000+03:00

Of course, one doesn't like to blow one's own brass instrument too much and too often (take that as you will), but since last week was one of the most professionally challenging in living memory – for reasons that I'd better not go into on this forum – I think I can be excused a little self-indulgence.

After a week of unfounded criticism of my work, the seeds of doubt having been thoroughly sown in my mind (but let's not even go there), it was heartening to come across this review in the New Statesman of my recent translation of Maria Peura's At the Edge of Light (Maia Press). I spent a few days at the Edinburgh International Book Festival with Peura at the end of August (post here), and was very pleased at the reception with which her book was met. What's most pleasing about this review is that the reader has actually taken the time to put the novel in its proper context – a context with which most UK readers will be largely unfamiliar – and has realised that, though death is omnipresent, this is ultimately a book about survival, about living. A fascinating read, I'm sure, for all those with a Scandinavian bent, or does such blatant plugging count as one blow of the trumpet too many?

Itchy Feet

2007-10-03T13:39:00.001+03:00

The autumn is well underway here in Helsinki; the view from my window is fresh and colourful. I like autumn, the colours, the cripsness in the air, gradually having to wrap up warmer and warmer before leaving the house. The thought of winter, however, is somewhat harder to deal with. In Finland it's long, dark and – if you're lucky – cold. There's nothing worse than a slushy winter with no snow (last year, for instance). But global warming is just a communist myth, right?

To help alleviate the darkness, two friends who have just embarked on trips to far-away climes have started blogging to help us all keep in touch. Anyone interested in reading about how other people are having a great time while we're stuck here may enjoy reading them too. The only drawback for our international friends is that both blogs are primarily in Finnish.

One friend, the cellist from our summer Schubert project, has taken off for Australia and New Zealand where she'll be travelling around until the end of November. We all met up at the Aussie Bar in Helsinki (where else?) for a final drink beffore she left, and I really encouraged her to establish a blog to keep us up to date on what she's been getting up to. The results can be seen at The Australiasia Trip 2007, where Eevukka has promised to post photographs as soon as she finds a computer that can cope. Apparently the computer in the hostel is State of the Art 1983.

The other new travel blog of interest is Iranoia, written by a translator friend who has set off for Tehran for at least the next six months. There he plans to, in his own words, "brush up his Farsi"... As you do. Posts at Iranoia tend to be in a mixture of Finnish and French, with the occasional smattering of Arabic and Farsi, so anyone with those languages should check out what must, I'm sure, be one of the most enthralling travel diaries on the net. There can't be too many Finnish translators living in Tehran :-)

All this talk of travel is making me restless... O is off to India in a couple of weeks, another friend is in Cyprus, another just came back from two weeks in Thailand and Laos, the list goes on. The furthest I'm going to get this autumn is probably the UK - I don't think a travel diary will be necessary!

Farewell, Canteen!

2007-09-18T16:01:00.000+03:00

While going through my pile of papers ready for the recycling bin, I came across this article from Metro magazine, which I thought I should share. Jukka Relander is an astute social critic, and this article, entitled 'Better People', certainly doesn't spare the wrath. It links in nicely with two previous posts I wrote on the subject of the relationship between Finland's new foreign minister, the loathsome Ilkka Kanerva, and his counterparts abroad (and here's the other one). I'll provide an English translation of this as soon as I have enough time to do one. Until then, here is the text in Finnish.

Parempaa väkeä
Jukka Relander, Metro-lehti 28.08.2007

Pääkirjoitustoimittajat ja iltapäivälehtien lööppiosasto huokaisivat helpotuksesta, kun ulkopoliittinen edustajamme sai viimein kutsun valkoiseen taloon viime keväänä. Ilkka Kanerva tapasi Condoleezza Ricen. Pääsimme viimein pannasta! Samat tahot eivät ole lainkaan huolestunieta siitä, että ulkopoliittinen johtomme ei ole pitkään aikaan vieraillut Burkina Fasossa. Siellähän asuu afrikkalaisia. Mitä lie hottentotteja. Paljon tärkeämpää on päästä vallan salonkeihin.

Maailman poliittiset tosiseikat osoittavat, että jenkit ovat hölmöjä. Mutta eivät ne niin hölmöjä ole - kuin me, esimerkiksi.

Totta ihmeessä tuore oikeistopuolueen ulkoministeri saa viivana kutsun terrorismin vastaiseen sodan pääkallonpaikalle (tämä muuten EI ollut metafora). Amerikkalaisten politiikan päätavoite on ollut jo vuosikausia se, että yritetään etsiä liittolaisia, tukijoita ja myötäjuoksijoita, jotka silkkaa hölmöyttään ovat valmiita siunaamaan minkä tahansa verilöylyn, johon maailman johtava valtio ryhtyy saadakseen öljyä.

Jopa CIA kykenee saamaan selville sen, että sosiaalidemokraattien, vallankin Tuomiojan, ulkopolitiikka on veistetty eri puusta kuin kokoomuslaisen Kanervan.

Amerikkalaiset tietävät senkin, että Kanervalla on erityistä tarvetta oikeistolaiseen kunnostautumiseen vastapainoksi veljeilylle Neuvostoliiton kanssa 1970- ja 80-luvuilla. Jenkit luultavasti tietävät senkin, että Kanerva ei sano niin hanakasti vastaan kauniille naiselle kuin miehelle. Näin helposti Suomesta saa poliittisen liittolaisen.

Ja katso: Suomi on keskittämässä kaiken ulkopoliittisen tarmonsa amerikkalaisten ja Naton vetämään kriisinhallintaan Afganistanissa, hyljeksiäkseen YK:n vetämää rauhanhanketta Sudanissa. Darfuriin virtaa rauhanturvaajia Intiasta, Pakistanista ja Nigeriasta.

Heikolla identiteetillä varustetun napaseudun edustajilla ei ole mitään tarvetta profiloitua tässä seurassa. Afganistanissa voi sen sijaan piipahtaa burgerille mukavassa valkoihoisessa seurassa ja samalla tukea maailman mahtavimman valtion ullkopoliittisia ja taloudellisia intressejä. Miten laulettiinkaan taistolaisrallatuksessa "Lenin-setä asuu Venäjällä": "Kyllä pienikin jaksaa taistella".

Keväällä, kun lehdistö päihtyi Condilta saamasta huomiosta, Kanerva supatti kauniin kollegansa korvaan, että kyllä, me olemme mukana. Kokoomus on siitä alkaen vaatinut, ettei Afganistanissa olla vain kanttiinihommissa, vaan tositarkoituksella. Me olemme mukana. Ihan missä tahansa, kunhan vielä kutsutte toisen kerran.

Joskus vain tuntuu siltä, että 1970-luvusta ei sittenkään ole kulunut kovin pitkää aikaa.

When toilet paper runs out

2007-09-03T11:02:00.000+03:00

After a relaxing weekend at O's cottage, I came back home last night and, fresh from the shower, turned on the computer to see what had happened in the world since I had been away. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the headline "Sorry I quit, says anti-gay senator arrested in airport toilet" grabbed my attention.

The article in question, from Sunday's Observer, deals with the antics of now ex-senator Larry Craig in a toilet at Minneapolis Airport. Craig is alleged to have solicited sex from the man in the adjoining cubicle. Unfortunately for Craig, that man happened to be an plain-clothed policeman.

Naturally, Craig has denied the allegations, claiming that he is not gay and that it was all a big misunderstanding; what he was actually doing was groping around the floor for some toilet paper... Now, why do I find this so difficult to believe?

The police version of events is simple. The toilet was known as a place where men came for sex. They would sit down in the stalls and use a recognisable series of foot movements and hand gestures to signal their intentions. That is, according to the police report, what Craig did.

He settled himself into the toilet, tapped his feet and moved his right foot over to touch that of the policeman in the next stall, and then slid his hand under the dividing wall. The policeman responded by showing Craig his badge. Craig was arrested. Or, as one unkind headline had it, he was 'flushed'.

Just for the record, I've never had anonymous sex in an airport toilet, and neither do I intend to. This explains why I am unacquainted with the "recognisable series of foot movements and hand gestures" one uses to procure it. In fact, I can only think of one friend who might know the ins and outs of this etiquette. The crucial point here, I feel, is that you are unlikely to know this system unless you are intending to use it. This fact certainly won't help Craig's defence.

The debacle over Craig's fall from grace has highlighted a number of interesting side-issues. According to the Observer, in his police interview Craig complains of being "entrapped", and argues that, had he had a sexual encounter that day, it would have been entirely consensual. Well, yes... Following on from this, many people are beginning to ask why it is only gay men who are targeted for such "entrapment", when it is a well-documented fact that all kinds of people – even heterosexuals (gasp!) – are often partial to a spot of al fresco fun. These are questions which rightly need to be asked and to be addressed, so why wasn't senator Craig using his influence in political life to ask and address them, instead of campaigning against the furtherance of gay rights and in favour of the very legislation of which he now claims to be the victim?

Whether senator Craig is gay or not is entirely beside the point. If he is, I feel sorry that his degree of self-loathing is such, that it has driven him to become one of the most rabid anti-gay campaigners in US politics. If he isn't, then we can only guess at his motivations that day in that toilet cubicle. He isn't the first politician to be caught with their pants round their hypocritical ankles, and he certainly won't be the last. In Britain, the Liberal Democrats' Simon Hughes came out (not that it was a great surprise to anyone) in January 2006. However, the fact that, in the vitriolic 1983 Bermondsey by-election, he was billed by his party as "the straight choice" against openly gay Labour candidate Peter Tatchell, makes his admission all the more incomprehensible. Tory MP and shadow environment secretary Gregory Barker left his wife last year for his [male] interior designer – after voting against numerous gay rights bills in the House of Commons. The list goes on and on and on...

Chinese Whispers

2007-08-22T02:22:00.000+03:00

Translation is a funny business. Finding exactly the right word, the appropriate turn of phrase, is an arduous task and a skill to be held in the highest esteem. With this in mind, I'd like to extend my profound thanks to the translator of this menu, posted at Rahoi.com.

I've eaten some strange foodstuffs in my day, but some of these delicacies really take the biscuit... or something. And what's with all those cowboys? Can anyone enlighten me? This may read like Lost in Translation meets a game of Chinese Whispers, but the diners' loss is certainly our gain. How I giggled :-)

Perfect Partners

2007-08-16T03:33:00.000+03:00

There are two principal reasons for my recent lack of contact with the blogosphere: a) I have had an immense amount of work to get done and b) I have been gallivanting across Europe (photographs from Gran Canaria hopefully to follow soon...) Now that the majority of this work has finally reached my big Outbox in the sky, I can finally sit down and return to more pressing matters.

Wandering through Foyle's in London yesterday, a place which is arguably one of the most amazing bookshops in the world, I was interested to discover a stand of books being sold in pairs. Amazon has been using its Perfect Partner scheme for years, and it seems to work very effectively - or rather, it certainly works on impulsive internet shoppers like me ("People who bought this item, also bought this item. Buy them both now for only £n!"). With this in mind, I suppose it's not too much of a leap for publishers to start doing something similar, in this case by packing two novels together in a plastic wrapper. Altruistically thinking, this will not only increase their sales, but will bring readers into contact with books they might otherwise have overlooked.

Be that as it may, I couldn't help being puzzled at some of the publisher's Perfect Partners. The Grimms' fairytales and Angela Carter's The Bloody Chamber seem a sensible pairing, as do AS Byatt's Possession and George Eliot's Middlemarch. But when we get to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein paired with Jeanette Winterson's Sexing the Cherry, one has to wonder at the logic of it all. Would customers who bought Mary Shelley really also buy Winterson, and vice versa? But despite all this, the oddest couple on the stand has got to be the pairing of Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting with Oliver Twist! Both are depictions of squalor, but that's about as far as I can connect them. Any guesses?

And while we're on the subject of books, I have to give a particular mention to a novel I read last week which utterly blew my socks off: The Half Brother by the Norwegian author Lars Saabye Christensen. This Friday I'll have the honour of meeting and interviewing Mr Christensen at the Edinburgh International Book Fair in a panel discussion with Finnish author Maria Peura, the translation of whose novel I have just completed. At 764 pages, The Half Brother is a fairly hefty tome, but worth every minute I spent reading it, and although I'm very nervous (especially as, when I went to look for the hyperlink to the above event, I noticed it's SOLD OUT...), I'm immensely looking forward to the whole event. Further posts doubtless to follow...

Deathly Hollow?

2007-07-23T01:25:00.000+03:00

I came across this marvellous article, entitled Harry Potter and the Death of Reading, over at the Washington Post website. Critic Ron Charles makes some very interesting points about reading and literary phenomena in general and the cult of Harry Potter in particular.

Having never read any of the Potter heptalogy (gasp!), it's hard to say one way or another, though I can well imagine that, for many people, the admittance of not liking them is met with astonishment – everybody likes them. Ron Charles puts this very well:

"How do you like 'Harry Potter'?"
Of course, it's not really a question anymore, is it? In the current state of Potter mania, it's an invitation to recite the loyalty oath. And you'd better answer correctly. Start carrying on like Moaning Myrtle about the repetitive plots, the static characters, the pedestrian prose, the wit-free tone, the derivative themes, and you'll wish you had your invisibility cloak handy. Besides, from anyone who hasn't sold the 325 million copies that Rowling has, such complaints smack of Bertie Bott's beans, sour-grapes flavor.

Personally I tend to be rather sceptical of the Potters and books like them (eg. The Da Vinci Code, the works of Paulo Coelho), and find myself asking whether they are popular because they are truly good, or whether they are simply 'good' because they are popular. Can they be both?

Another argument I've often heard about Harry Potter is that if these books inspire people (especially young children) to read, then they are fulfilling a very valuable pedagogical function. However, as Charles points out, this is not always the case. The new Potter book may be the only work of fiction that many people read all year. The fact that the Potters are so hyped, not released before a given day (what is that all about?) and so on, removes the spontaneity of reading, as Charles puts it, denying readers "that increasingly rare opportunity to step out of sync with the world, to experience something intimate and private, the sense that you and an author are conspiring for a few hours to experience a place by yourselves".

Perhaps I may yet read a Harry Potter book, just to say I've done so. I recently watched Borat, not because I particularly wanted to, but because I feel it is set to become one of the significant cultural reference points of the next few years and, as such, I ought to have seen it in order to have an opinion about it and be able to engage in fruitful debate about it. That being said, I'm quite content for Harry aka Daniel Radcliffe to continue taking on challenging, engaging roles such as that of Alan Strang in Peter Shaffer's Equus (see photo). I was very disappointed to have missed this show (for reasons both artistic and otherwise) due to not living in London, and even more disappointed to note that the production will be touring to Bath Theatre Royal (the theatre closest to my parents' house) while I will be visiting, but that, alas, Daniel is to be replaced by someone else... How late it was, how late.

Täydellinen euroviisu

2007-07-20T13:43:00.001+03:00

This song, Täydellinen euroviisu ('The Perfect Eurovision Song'), was created at around the time of this year's competition, held here in Helsinki. The idea was to cram as many Eurovision clichés into one song as possible. This one certainly has the kitsch factor: it comes complete with at least three modulations!

Just to put this in some sort of context, Jari Sillanpää (the singer on this video) was voted the Finnish Tango King in 1995. For years his homosexuality was an open secret, but he only officially came out about two years ago. This video seems to be a real celebration of... something. It reminds me of the work of Pierre & Gilles. The airbrushed ice cream moment says it all!

Boring, Mendacious and Vapid: Being Victoria Beckham

2007-07-19T13:16:00.000+03:00

It’s at moments like this that I really miss having a television. Given my history of highly discerning viewing under the premise that ‘crap is good’ (Wife Swap, Family Holiday Showdown, etc etc etc), Victoria Beckham: Coming to America sounds like a real gem.

I love the Guardian, but don’t you wish they’d tell you what they really think? Here is a link to the blog review that I read yesterday. The blistering headline says it all: “Victoria Beckham: Coming to America was utter crap. The programme and its subject – the Beckhams’ relocation to the US – were boring, mendacious and requiring the invention of a new vocabulary to describe its unreserved vapidity.”

I always seem to have an axe to grind about pointless celebrities, but this summer there has been something of a bumper crop. Paris Hilton’s joke of a prison sentence made a mockery of the concept of ‘justice for all’ (if the person caught driving under the influence, without a licence and in violation of their parole had been a young African-American man, I’m sure the sentence would have amounted to rather more than 45 days in the local nick…) – and now this!

And while it doesn’t surprise me that Posh Spice or her move to the US [Apologies, by the way, to you all. We have to put up with Madonna, so I suppose now we’re even…] isn’t exactly the most interesting subject for an hour-long documentary, the following extracts do sound like choice and excruciating – therefore, riveting – viewing:

I’m sure that some of her more incredibly moronic moments were intended to be send-ups of her celebrity status – if only because if she really did think the people at the driver licensing centre were asking for her autograph instead of a signature on official documentation or that they would retouch the licence photograph, this would surely require her instant diagnosis as a dangerous sociopath – but there was a disturbing absence on her part of any sign, be it by look, smile, or intonation, that this was in fact the case. And the fact that she could simply sit looking vaguely appalled at the heavily-surgeried 60-something woman at the Beverley Hills socialite lunch who modelled herself on the Little Mermaid and gave herself over to ululating like a dolphin within minutes of the canapés being served suggests Beckham is largely divorced from natural human responses.

Most interesting here, and with the phenomenon of Celebrity as a whole, is that these people are convinced that we, the public, actually care about what they get up to. How much they care about us, however, is another matter entirely. As Lucy Mangan puts it, Posh’s demeanour “betrayed the fact that this was someone for whom other people have long ceased to exist in any meaningful way.”

Perhaps, deep down, we all love to hate celebrities. Part of the ‘enjoyment’ of watching such programmes is the voyeuristic pleasure one takes in observing the lives of people who give the impression of having it all, yet who often lead very lonely, tragic lives and / or are deeply disturbed (Michael Jackson is perhaps the best example; the Bashir interview was painful to watch). In a tradition that has existed for hundreds of years, the mass media feeds our hunger for scandal and intrigue (“Britney splits from Kevin!” / “Britney checks into rehab!” / “Britney shaves her head!”). Though I really don’t care what Britney gets up to, I find it hard to imagine a culture in which such trivial events were not general knowledge. More to the point, even if one wanted to, it’s impossible to avoid these headlines – how do I know all these things?!

I often think that, if only the papers would excommunicate these people, they would soon get bored and go away. However, the desire to sell newspapers apparently goes above all other scruples. In Finland, recent examples include the Prime Minister’s ex-girlfriend Susan Kuronen, who has sold her ‘story’ to almost anyone who will listen, and when interest started to dwindle posed in a series of ‘saucy’ underwear pictures in Hymy, one of the sleaziest magazines in the country, with the headline "Matti [the PM] was a boring lover!" Former ski-jumper Matti Nykänen is another prime example. Winning a few gold medals in the 1980s apparently means not only that the entire country is interested in (constant) stories of his drunken antics, but that many tacitly accept the widely publicised fact that he routinely and systematically beats his wife. But if you’re a Celebrity, isn’t everything forgiven?

The Last Temptations

2007-07-07T13:21:00.000+03:00

Hello all!

I've been rather incommunicado this week. The reason for this is that I've been away in the deepest Finnish countryside, far from the nearest WiFi signal. Being away from the internet has its benefits, as when I can't read my email, address work issues, read blogs etc etc, there's no point in fretting about doing so. The minute I arrived in a slightly larger town, the first thing I did was, of course, look for a pub with a free internet connection... Admitting you have a problem is the first step :-)

Not that it's been a particularly relaxing week, mind. I've been on an island called Aholansaari (the adopted home of the 19th century lay preacher Paavo Ruotsalainen and centre of the Finnish revivalist movement) rehearsing every day with the chamber orchestra, Aholansaari Sinfonietta. Our concert this evening, at the annual Finnish revivalist festival (which, though I'm not a member of the church, is a fascinating branch of Christianity, and warrants a blog entry all of its own), doesn't start until 10pm, so I have the whole afternoon to relax and catch up on everything that's been happening in the blogosphere.

Our concert programme is very interesting. We start with the overture to Mussorgsky's opera Khovanshchina (orch. Rimsky-Korsakov), followed by a selectioon of arias and interludes from Finnish composer Joonas Kokkonen's opera Viimeiset kiusaukset ('The Last Temptations'), which recounts the final days of the life of the afore-mentioned Paavo Ruotsalainen. The music is marvellous, as is our soloist, Esa Ruuttunen. We finish the concert with Mendelssohn's Fifth Symphony, 'The Reformation'. Hopefully my fingers will still be up to the tempi of the final movement by ten this evening...

Brown & Harman: Cabinet Makers

2007-06-28T13:06:00.000+03:00

NEWSFLASH: David Miliband is appointed Foreign Minister; Jack Straw tipped as new Justice Minister! Full coverage available, as always, on the good old Beeb.

It looks like, finally, after ten years of "centre-left", "New" Labour, the new (with a small 'n') Brown administration is taking a distinct step back to the Left. Miliband, 41, almost stood against Brown in a leadership context, but declined (in my opinion, and with any luck, so that he can stand at a later opportunity). Jack Straw was (in)famously removed from the foreign office, allegedly at the behest of the US administration because of certain comments he made regarding their forein policy. His return to the reshuffled cabinet is most welcome.

Another marked step to the Left is in the appointment of Harriet Harman as deputy leader of the Labour party. I was very pleasantly surprised that she won the party vote (albeit by the narrowest of margins); she was my personal favourite, though I didn't fancy her chances of beating Peter Hain or Hillary Benn, both of whom were eventually eliminated at a relatively early stage of the game. Moreover, I am glad to see the position occupied not only by a woman, but by a woman with distinctly "Old" Labour sensibilities.

The above photograph is not very flattering – Brown looks drunk, and just what is he doing to our Harriet? I googled the net for an image (this is from the BBC) of the two new leaders of the party together, but amusingly, the first link to appear was for antique furniture restorers, Brown & Harman – Cabinet Makers. You couldn't make it up, could you!

Energetic, moi?

2007-06-27T23:06:00.000+03:00

I'm indebted to Sean from Alone and Unobserved for introducing me to The Onion, which, after reading only a few articles, really sounds like my kind of newspaper! I trust he also noticed the following article, but thought that my Late Review readers would appreciate it too. Enjoy!

Where Do Homosexuals Get All Their Energy?

Boy, am I beat. And it's not like I have some crazy life where I'm working three jobs and going to night school. No, I just have one job and a...

After reading all that, I think perhaps I should reassess my view of myself. I never feel full of energy – at any time of day; my idea of being super-organised in the morning is not missing my bus, or at a stretch, getting up in time to have something resembling breakfast and maybe make a pot of coffee, and still not missing the bus. As for going to the gym and running six miles a day, you've got to be kidding. Mind you, I have been known to spend a great deal of time at book launches, hobnobbing with authors, ambassadors and the like. Well, if you can't laugh at yourself...

Blair's Legacy

2007-06-27T14:55:00.000+03:00

What a week it’s been in British politics! The removal companies will certainly have their work cut out in Downing Street this week: Tony Blair has finally bowed out (where is he going to go, what is he going to do?), leaving Gordon Brown as the new PM.

The last ten years have been something of a mixed bag for Blair, though sadly the latter half of his tenure has seen far more downs than ups. He never really managed to recapture or capitalise upon the sense of awe that most of us (bar the Tories) experienced when Labour first swept to power in 1997 (the mood was accurately captured in Stephen Frears’ recent film The Queen with Helen Mirren; read my review here).

I’m not sure what to make of Blair’s time in power. Whatever my reservations about some of the decisions he made, I’m certainly happy that he was the one making them, as opposed to, say, William Hague (I shudder to think…) Sadly, Blair will be remembered more for his allegiance with the US administration and for the ensuing calamity in Iraq than for the many positive things he achieved: brokering the peace agreement and implementing a system of power-sharing in Northern Ireland; his focus on eliminating child poverty; improvements to the NHS; the minimum wage; equality for all; civil rights for gays and lesbians; the repeal of homophobic legislation such as Thatcher’s infamous Section 28. The list goes on.

[Having said that, the progress Blair’s government has made in the areas of equality and gay rights was all cast in a rather dubious light yesterday with the announcement that he is to convert to Roman Catholicism. As an atheist, I often find it hard to reconcile faith and issues of sexuality. How can someone who believes in gay rights, or someone who is gay, for that matter, become a member of an organisation that has systematically oppressed us for centuries? Moreover, why would they wish to do this? Of course, you could write a book on this subject.]

Neither am I sure what to make of his resignation speech, a minor PR stunt in itself. But when he said, “Hand on heart […] I did what I thought was right for our country”, I tend to believe him, though I wouldn’t trust those words from the mouths of many other world leaders. And though I vehemently disagree with a number of Labour’s policy decisions over the years (for instance, I still can’t quite believe that it was a Labour government that introduced university tuition fees), and in particular with the whole debacle in Iraq, I feel I can trust the reasoning behind their decisions, and am glad the Tories weren’t making those decisions instead.

Why is it that we trust Blair? I can’t say. Ultimately, this is the reason we elect leaders, in order that they may make agonising decisions which affect us all, so that we don’t have to.

Nature's Call

2007-06-24T23:37:00.000+03:00

This afternoon I got back from a very relaxing Midsummer break in a Finnish countryside idyll, where I spent the weekend with my friends E and O at the latter's family cottage. Good food and much beverage was consumed by all; we sat in the porch all day reading detective novels and generally soaking up the lazy Midsummer atmosphere.

O's cottage is wonderful: walls of old logs, low ceilings, mice, the real deal. There are only three drawbacks: no lake, no electricity and no running water (= outdoor loo). For men, having a toilet that flushes perhaps isn't such a big deal – after all, most of the time you don't need to sit down. E, on the other hand, bemoaned the fact that she had to squat ungraciously and uncomfortably every time nature called. À propos this very subject, our translator colleague L last week edified us about women's britches in the 19th century, which had a flap in the middle for easy access and the use of stand-up female urinals. A quick look on Google reveals a few very interesting articles on the subject, notably this one.

Now, however, it looks as though women's days of squatting in the bushes are over. While reading an interview with our favourite author Sarah Waters, we came across the following marvellous link. What I like most about this are the blurbs, the photographs and, above all, the name. Why would a woman running along a sand dune be carrying such a thing – in her handbag? Oh well, going to the summer cottage will never be the same again...

Compelling, Inscrutable, and Relentless

2007-06-18T23:13:00.000+03:00

Apart from seeing me into my fourth decade, June 8th saw the English-language première of Laura Ruohonen's Queen C ('Kuningatar K'), a play I translated some five years ago. The play was finally performed in its entirety in English by the Lit Moon Theater Company in Santa Barbara in a production directed by their in-house director, John Blondell.

I was unable to attend to the performance, partly because of my busy schedule, partly because I wasn't invited (grrr...), and have been keen to find any information about the production online. This morning I came across Elizabeth Schwyzer's review in the Santa Barbara Independent. The photograph is great (depicting, I assume, Queen Christina and the Friend) and the review is generally very positive.

Needless to say, the translator doesn't get a mention anywhere. This is a common phenomenon. Do people think texts translate themselves? Initially I was slightly concerned about this project, as the performance was to be in the States, while my translation is very much in British English. After working on the text for over five years, I was keen that the director consult me on any potential alterations. Thankfully, it would appear that none were necessary; perhaps British English suits the monarchical tone and milieu of the play.

Looking on the bright side, not getting a mention in the review means that the translation didn't make its presence felt at the expense of the drama. The British English was acceptable. The audience was 'unaware' of the translation, allowing the 'foreign' original to shine through unhindered. More often than not, when translations are mentioned in reviews it is to comment that "the translation was clumsy" or "the play doesn't translate well" – though quite how reviewers have the linguistic knowledge necessary to make such claims remains a mystery. In this instance, however, Schwyzer rounds off her review with the following comment:

John Blondell’s direction captured the play’s layered, poetic, and metaphorical nature — letting out the script’s humor and absurdity, as well as its deep ambiguities and tragic moments. The playwright took it all in, rapt and beaming.

I may not have got a mention, but I think there is some consolation to be had in these words.

Solitude (Part II): Further Musings

2007-06-15T12:39:00.000+03:00

I’ve now thought about the issue of the afore-mentioned article overnight and discussed it with two friends. After much debate, we finally arrived at the following interpretation.

Harakka, who has also written extensively for the left-leaning environmental magazine Vihreä Lanka (‘Green Thread’), has long been a supporter of Halonen’s (re)election and of her policies. Halonen is even to appear on his TV programme ‘Ten Books that Changed the World’ on Monday 18th June. Perhaps what his column is trying to say (if rather unsuccessfully) is that the obsession in Finland with America in general and with Kanerva’s hyped visit in particular is so great that even Halonen herself is beginning to yield to the pervading opinions, as expressed in the final paragraph of the column.

Tuesday’s papers were positively frothing over news of the ‘successful’ meeting between the two foreign ministers. Iltalehti featured an entire two-page spread about it, complete with photographs of the pair shaking hands and beaming at one another, and bearing the cringe-worthy headline, ‘Call me Condi!’ On a new page, Iltalehti continued by claiming that ‘ministers congratulated Kanerva’ on the ‘success’ of the meeting. And who were the ministers interviewed? None other than Ben Zyskowicz and Pertti Salolainen, both from Kanerva’s own party! At least they also interviewed Liisa Jaakonsaari of the Social Democrats, who pointed out that preparations for Halonen’s proposed visit to Washington were already in place well before this meeting, and that we shouldn’t blow things out of proportion. Some common sense at last!

Perhaps what Timo Harakka is ultimately calling for in his Monday column is a show of restraint. For all its obvious faults, the monologue was not so much a parody of Halonen as of the hysteria surrounding Ilkka Kanerva’s visit. Just because Condi deigns to meet the foreign minister of a nice enough though largely irrelevant country (I live here, I’m allowed to say that), and even hints that she might come here on a state visit (bookies are already taking bets on this!), doesn’t mean that we should discard our principles and blindly go along with everything the other administration suggests, let alone seek to emulate their way of life – something Tony Blair might have thought of before entering into the Faustian pact that was to be his downfall.

Marija Šerifović on Finland and Finnish people

2007-06-14T11:38:00.001+03:00

Like everyone else in Finland, I read about Marija's disparaging comments on the Finns a couple of days ago when it hit the headlines. I didn't realise the extent of her derision... Neither did I realise that the man asking her the question is my former flatmate's boyfriend! How's that for six degrees of separation? My Serbian is a bit rusty ;-) but never fear: someone has kindly translated the interview on YouTube. Go figure...

And here's the translation courtesy of Belgradeinsideout on YouTube:

Female host: We have here with us Marija Šerifović, the talk of the town these days, Sasha Mirković, her manager and her friends, yadayadayada (not so important for translation)...

Male voice (journalist): Ristić Miloš, magazine "Ana", I've been reporting for "Politika" from Helsinki. Many of my Finnish friends were cheering together with me for Marija and for her victory, they voted for her, and it would be nice if Marija can share with us her impressions of Finns and Finland, and if she wants to send them some message, because I'm heading there again in less than a month so i can bring her message with me for them.

Marija: I don't think I have anything smart to say about the country of Finland, so I have to ask you not to bring my message over to them. I'm joking. Erm, the country didn't particularly suit me, and I don't like those yellowish, "see-through" people, I despise them... but let's not talk about that again... All in all, I respect that they were totally organized, and that was the only thing I liked so far. Actually I think it will stay that way because I don't think I will go back there ever again.

Four Years of Solitude

2007-06-14T02:05:00.000+03:00

Whether or not I agree with them, the columns in the free paper Metro are invariably thought-provoking and interesting. Today’s column (12.6) by Timo Harakka, however, has left me bewildered to say the least. Because, as I mentioned some time ago, Metro is only available online as a pdf, I’ll try to give a brief summary of what this column was all about. As you’re about to see, this is no easy task…

The column takes the form of the fictitious musings (written in the first person) of the Finnish president Tarja Halonen. In her monologue, she bemoans the fact that the new foreign minister Ilkka Kanerva has been sent to Washington to meet Condoleezza Rica (the two met on June 11th), while Halonen herself is stuck at her summer residence with her sleeping husband. She dreams of what she would say to Rice upon meeting her (“[…] we’d talk about Iraq, Israel and Cuba. Full points to me. I found all these places. Google Earth is amazing!”) and watches baseball [what?] with a number of other world leaders, showing her great support for the team from Texas [what???]. She concludes with the words:

I’ve made my decision. We’ll join NATO this autumn, once all the lingonberries have been picked. We’ll send our boys to Iraq, we’ll keep women at home, we’ll put Bible lessons back into schools, and we’ll change the rules of pesäpallo” [a Finnish variety of baseball] “Larger cars, lower taxes, defence in space! God Bless Finland.

What perplexes me most about this column is that, after reading it several times, I’m still not sure what point Harakka is trying to make. The title Neljän vuoden yksinäisyys (‘Four years of solitude’) refers to the fact that it was, according to Halonen’s unconvincing internal monologue, 1,515 days, nine hours and forty-three minutes since the last time she was invited to Washington. It also refers to Sauli Niinistö’s book Viiden vuoden yksinäisyys (‘Five years of solitude’), which he published in the run-up to the presidential election in January 2006. Niinistö’s party (Kokoomus, the National Coalition Party) have for many years made it their priority to lessen and undermine the president’s powers of influence regarding matters of foreign policy and have been keen that the foreign minister take part in important international summits instead of the president. I don’t think there is any doubt that they would soon have changed their tune had the honourable Mr Niinistö been elected in 2006 – perish the thought!

So, taken at surface value, this article seems to speak in support of Kokoomus’ sentiments regarding the restriction of presidential power in Finland. But if we assume this to be the case, the final paragraph no longer makes any sense. Halonen was the foreign minister with the Social Democratic government at the end of 1990s, and has never espoused any of the policies mentioned: she is sceptical of NATO, she refused to send Finnish troops to Iraq, she has worked tirelessly for equality between the sexes (in the early 1980s she was also the chair of the Finnish sexual equality organisation SETA), she has defended in no uncertain terms the division of church and state, she doesn’t want to introduce lower taxes for the rich, and so on, and so on. These are all Kokoomus policy issues!

What, then, are we to make of this mish-mash of an article? Who is the butt of the joke? Is Harakka attempting to parody Halonen’s policies / Kokoomus’ policies / suggesting that Halonen would adopt right-wing policies if it would get her an invitation to Washington, where she could be all chummy with Condi (something I find it hard to imagine she would actively wish for)? Those with access to the column in question (I’ll continue looking for a link) can make of it what they will / can. Anyone who can further enlighten me, please feel free to do so!

Where's My Clock?

2007-06-10T14:23:00.000+03:00

I just opened up my blogger page and was about to sit down and write a new post, when – to my horror – I discovered that my clock is missing! (It should be in the right hand column under the section 'Tempus fugit'.) What has happened to Clocklink? If anyone knows how to help, do get in touch and let me know what can be done about it... Thanks!

The Importance of Being Ken

2007-06-06T14:06:00.000+03:00

Did anybody else know that there are in fact two Lord Mayors of London? I didn't either – until last night that is.

A couple of weeks ago, I received an email through our orchestra mailing list about a string quartet gig at Helsinki City Hall organised by the British Council. Their guest of honour was to be 'Lontoon kaupungin pormestari'. The opportunity to meet the great Ken Livingstone, I thought to myself in excitement. With this in mind I duly signed up for the gig and started thinking about what to wear.

As the morning of the concert dawned, I was in a bit of a tizz, having selected a lovely red tie in honour of Mr Livingstone's visit, and constantly reminding myself that at no point must I implore him to stand for leadership of the Labour Party... We arrivde at City Hall and set up for our performance, and my eyes immediately started roving across the tables and the seating arrangement to see where Ken would be sitting. To my dismay, I saw a card at Table A which read "The Right Honourable Lord Mayor of the City of London John Stuttard". This can't be right, I thought. There's only one mayor of London, and his name is Ken.

To my great chagrin, it turns out that there really are two lord mayors. Ken is the Lord Mayor of London, while Stuttard is the Lord Mayor of the City of London (all of one square mile). So after all that build-up, my encounter with one of the great names of British socialism was sadly not to be... Perhaps another opportunity will present itself. Who knows?

Savuton Suomi!

2007-05-31T12:43:00.000+03:00

It's finally going to happen. I've been looking forward to this moment all year and counting the days for the last couple of weeks. Here we go: As of tomorrow smoking will finally be banned in all bars and restaurants in Finland! Last night was probably the last time I'll sit in my (extremely smoky) local, and after yet another night of coming home with my skin stinking and having to air my clothes, I can truly say that I have no sympathy whatsoever for those opposed to the ban.

I did giggle upon reading an article in Iltalehti (the link to which I can't find at the moment), in which the eponymous Hannele Lauri expressed her disappointment at the new ban: "Alkaako se tosiaan jo perjantaina?" (Does it really start on Friday?) Yes, Hannele, it really does... Here's another entertaining column from the same paper (in Finnish), in which the columnist Vexi Salmi says he's planning on sitting in his local this evening and smoking so much that the smell of tobacco will linger for months. You go right ahead, Mr Salmi, because it'll be your last opportunity to do so.

They say that reformed smokers are the most militant of all. I can easily accept that statement. I smoked – often quite a lot – from the sixth form until I finally gave up in October 2001. I can't help thinking that, had a ban on smoking in pubs, clubs and restaurants existed back in those days, I and scores of other people may never have started smoking in the first place. It's all very well for Mr Salmi to say that he's been smoking for fifty years and that smoking was more socially acceptable fifty years ago than it is today, but that's not an argument against a smoking ban. We now have the benefit of years of research into the damage that smoking causes, and turning a blind eye to this is plain foolhardy.

Widening my Perspective on Everything

2007-05-30T00:42:00.000+03:00

Since moving into my new flat in August 2006 I have, for the first time in my entire life thus far, lived without a television. This has been harder than I ever could have imagined. Only in its absence have I realised quite how addicted I am to the often mindless audio-visual entertainment which television provides. Before my self-imposed lifestyle change, I watched almost anything, and what’s better (or worse), I was able to find a reason why the pointless programmes I watched were in fact educational and deep. To choose a random example, Wife Swap really does offer a fascinating look at the dystopia of the modern heterosexual couple and the class divides of Britain today. Honestly.

Despite my constant cravings for the agony of sitting through Wife Swap and the like, one of the more positive results of not having a television is that I’ve been forced to look for entertainment and stimuli elsewhere. As a news junkie, none of these is more important than finding alternative means of feeding my news habit. Podcasts from the BBC (Newsnight, possibly the best news and current affairs programme in the world) and the Guardian have quite literally saved me from some serious cold turkey and kept me sane during the darkest winter months.

Online media are a great resource, but still there’s nothing like reading the morning’s paper when it drops through the door. Reading the daily Helsingin Sanomat was something I enjoyed in my old flat, but that too has now come to an end. Nonetheless, this week I took a decisive step to rectify the situation. A friend asked me to pick him up a copy of Kulttuurivihkot (which contained an excellent review of his compositions), and while browsing through the magazines in Akateeminen kirjakauppa I decided to pick up a copy of the New Yorker too, leaving the girl at the counter in no doubt about my political affiliations whatsoever…

What a revelation this magazine turned out to be. Without wanting to sound, in the words of a certain US ambassador, like a ‘superior Brit’, I can honestly say that I’ve never read such high-quality journalism in any other American newspaper or magazine. The articles are interesting and informative, thoughtful and insightful, not to mention the fact that, generally speaking, everything is written with a comforting, cosy left-wing slant. Yesterday I decided to take the plunge and took out a year’s subscription (for only $112 USD including postage to Finland!). Apparently it’ll be another 6-8 weeks before my first copy arrives, but I can’t help thinking it’ll be well worth the wait.

Putting Things in Context

2007-05-26T15:41:00.000+03:00

Having dragged myself out of bed this morning (at around 1330), making myself a breakfast of burana on toast, still suffering and feeling generally wretched with the after-effects of my good friends' wedding last night, how nice it was to read in my Inbox about a newly established blog to be maintained by members of the Konteksti translators' list.

I joined Konteksti, a forum for translators of literature, about a year ago now, and in that time it has steadily become an indispensible tool of my trade. Given that most translators work by themselves, locked away in offices, chained to their computers, and don't necessarily ever come into contact with one another, forming networks with other people working in the field is important from both a professional and a personal perspective. Being a member of Konteksti, one has access to the largest virtual translation library in Finland and has the privilege of working with a set of colleagues whose combined knowledge and expertise is formidable. Konteksti itself is non-public forum, which is probably where the idea for this new blog arose. That Konteksti should have a blog of its own seems so obvious, that I can't believe nobody thought of it sooner. Well done to those who did!

I've already added the link to my blogs list, and eagerly await the first instalments of what promises to be a truly fascinating read.

What's Right with America

2007-05-24T12:33:00.000+03:00

As one reader pointed out in a comment on Al Gore's blog column in today's Guardian Unlimited, sometimes we read things which remind us of Bill Clinton’s words, "There's nothing wrong with America that what's right with America can't fix." Wise words indeed from the wisest US president of, at least, my lifetime.

Gore's comments in his column are typically articulate, and his opinions relevant and important. It goes without saying that, had he been elected in 2000 (of course, he probably was elected, but that's a different story altogether), the world would be a radically different place and we more than likely wouldn't be in many of the quandaries in which we currently find ourselves. Many have speculated that, despite regular statements to the contrary, Gore is planning a last-minute run for the 2008 Democratic nomination. Indeed, many of the comments posted in response to his column today urge him in no uncertain terms to announce his candidacy. Though I would have no objection whatsoever to a Gore administration, I have reservations as to whether this would ultimately be in our best interests, and whether this would truly represent 'what's right with America'.

To put this in context, here's a response from JCortese to this morning’s blog:

Mr. Gore, I know everyone else is telling you to run – I'm telling you not to. Politics is poisonous and evil; you were only able to speak truth like this after you left that arena, and since doing so you have become a much, much greater force for good that you ever could have been. […] I’ve never heard a politician speak so plainly and accurately as you are doing right now. They can’t. As president, you can’t do good – all you can do is choose to do less harm. And at the moment, we don't even have that.

The more I think about this, the more I tend to agree. Since leaving the political arena, Gore has had a greater effect on attitudes to, say, the climate change debate than almost anyone else in the US. His film An Inconvenient Truth (which, to my shame, I admit that I still haven’t seen) presents us with extensive, compelling and fairly conclusive research on the matter carried out by the scientific community; he appears at film festivals; he gives lectures around the world on subjects ranging from climate change to economic policy and social welfare in which he is unreservedly critical of the current administration’s stance. Had he remained in politics, he would have been unable to do any of this without losing credibility. As JCortese points out, Gore has become a formidable ‘force for good’ in the seven years since that election, and his potential to continue as such could be significantly diminished were he to take office.

Bringing about a Democratic victory in 2008 is by far the most important objective any candidate must have, and anything that threatens to jeopardise this objective (personal rivalries, differences of opinion over the minutiae of policy) must be temporarily set aside in order to achieve it. I would have no objection to Hillary Clinton in the White House either, but it is my understanding that many people – even other Democrats – would. As I see it, we can’t risk a third election in a row fought on a knife-edge. The margin of victory must be clear and unequivocal. If HC cannot win by a landslide, perhaps she should reconsider her position. These are the issues the honourable Mr Gore must consider before he is, in the words of David Miliband, ‘seduced’ into running for office.

Den första kyssen

2007-05-17T11:04:00.000+03:00

I really seem to be getting into this whole poetry translation thing – who'd have thought? This time it's a translation from Swedish of a poem by the national bard J. L. Runeberg. I was asked to translate it for a friend's wedding next week, where this will be sung in a rather dark setting by Sibelius. This translation was a challenge because of the iambic metre and rhyming structures of the original, and here's what I eventually came up with. All comments most welcome!

På silvermolnets kant satt aftonstjärnan,
från lundens skymning frågte henne tärnan:
"Säg, aftonstjärna, vad i himlen tänkes,
när första kyssen åt en älskling skänkes?"
Och himlens blyga dotter hördes svara:
"På jorden blickar ljusets änglaskara,
och ser sin egen sällhet speglat åter;
blott döden vänder ögat bort och gråter."

(J. L. Runeberg)

On silver clouds there sat the evening star,
when through the dusk a maid called from afar:
"O tell me, star, will heaven think amiss,
when first I bless my lov'd one with a kiss?"
And heaven's bashful daughter thus did sigh:
"A choir of angels lifts their heads up high,
and sees their grace reflected in night's keep;
so death doth turn his eyes away and weep."

(trans. DH)

Marija praying in Finnish

2007-05-15T23:15:00.001+03:00

For those of you who missed out, here's the video of Marija (though apparently it's not actually her) singing her winning entry in Finnish. Good translation, and the pronunciation is passsable. Enjoy!

The Politics of the Power Ballad

2007-05-15T17:35:00.000+03:00

I’ve been rather quiet over the last few weeks. This says a lot about quite how much I’ve had to be getting on with. I’ve realised that a great many of my recent posts deal with political issues in some form or another, so I thought for a change that I might move on to a somewhat loftier subject...

The Eurovision Song Contest has always been one of the highlights of my year. As a child I used to watch it to listen to people singing in fascinating and incomprehensible European languages – something which sadly disappeared from the competition some time in the mid 1990s. Since the repeal of the rule about singing in your own language, another constant source of amusement has been to listen to many weird and wonderful things that apparently count as ‘English’, especially in the entries from Eastern Europe. [One of my favourite examples is the 2002 Russian entry ‘Northern Girl’ performed by boyband Prime Minister. What endearing pronunciation!]

This year’s contest held particular interest by virtue of its being held in Helsinki. A year ago, nobody could have predicted the landslide victory of monster rockers Lordi. In keeping with the trend of previous years, the 2007 competition offered up another cavalcade of drag queens and freak shows in addition to the more traditional boybands and power ballads. The Ukrainian entry, a drag queen clad in tin-foil and chanting numbers in German, was a marvellous parody of old DDR music (and even reminded me of the Leningrad Cowboys); the Slovenian opera singer was solid, though entirely out of place, while the Irish group Dervish were simply out of tune; and as for the British entry... Make it stop!

The winning entry from Serbia, Molitva sung by Marija Šerifović, was a good winner for many reasons: it was a powerful song, not an empty, high-energy dance track, and it was sung in a language other than English by a performer who was not a size zero, scantily clad, conventionally ‘beautiful’ woman. That aside, the oddly dykey narrative of the choreography (with the distinctly butch soloist surrounded by femme backing singers dressed as men who spent the whole performance clutching longingly at her) still mystifies me. Serbia, after all, is not exactly renowned for its tolerance when it comes to gay rights...

Molitva was also a controversial winner. For years the ESC has been plagued by allegations of political voting. Italy withdrew from the competition in 1997 after accusations that juries voted politically. Now that the old juries have been dispensed with and replaced by telephone voting, we are left with a strange hybrid of political and diaspora voting (i.e. the large Turkish immigrant population in Germany means that they always give Turkey 12 points). On online forums (such as ESC Today, YouTube etc.), Eastern Europeans furiously deny that political or diaspora voting takes place. It’s one thing to say that you voted for a song that you liked (why else would you vote for a song?), but this argument wears thin when we consider that all six former Yugoslav countries gave each other between 8 and 12 points for songs which were aesthetically radically different. I for one am not entirely convinced that this speaks merely of an open, unprejudiced musical appreciation.

All that being said, the image of the short, dykey Marija being kissed by Santa in May is surely set to become one of the defining, iconic images of our age. Must book my ticket to Belgrade for next year...

Dedicated Followers of Fascism (Part II)

2007-04-24T11:38:00.000+03:00

Another marvellous link I must post here is to Naomi Wolf's article in today's Guardian Unlimited about how the path taken by my favourite administration in the world mirrors that of fascist movements in interwar Europe. Though it's pretty scary stuff, it does make for excellent reading. Well done, Naomi!

PS: While we're on the subject of heinous fascists, thank God Le Pen didn't get through to the second round. Allez Ségolène!

YS goes Turku

2007-04-24T11:30:00.000+03:00

On Saturday Ylioppilaskunnan Soittajat visited my favourite city in Finland, the former capital Turku. Sadly it was sleeting all day, and there wasn't much time to hang around the town soaking up the culture (must come back in the summer). Still, lots of people enjoyed a trip round the medieval castle – the oldest in Finland.

As for the concert, YS played very well indeed, much better than in the previous concert on Thursday. Apart from a slight hiccup involving the celesta (too long a story to interest anyone; suffice it to say that I spent about three hours sorting this out yesterday when common sense should have prevailed...), the only unfortunate matter was that there were so few people in the audience. This always seems to be the case with our concerts outside Helsinki, though this time we imagined that the composer (who himself studied in Turku) might have rallied all his friends to the concert.

One of the members of the audience was a reviewer from Turun Sanomat. His review demonstrates that, though many may find this hard to believe, people in papers other than Helsingin Sanomat can write thoughtful, insightful reviews that put concerts in their proper context. The subject of HS's music criticisers :-) is one I'm sure I'll come back to many times in the future.

You lay the table...

2007-04-18T23:29:00.000+03:00

The revelation that somebody actually reads this blog (you know who you are and, though we disagree on many things, your readership is very valued) has spurred me on to post here more often. Here is an unpublished translation that I did years ago of a poem by Mirkka Rekola.

I had just spent a weekend at an old ramshackle cottage in Pukkila with an eminent Finnish poet who was trying to encourage me to venture into poetry translation. We had talked about many different poems, and miraculously during that drink-fuelled weekend we managed to come up with some pretty good translations of a number of challenging poems. This one caused us a great deal of frustration. Rekola's imagery is always challenging, and I remember sitting on the backseat of the bus on the way back to Helsinki (with said eminent poet and half a box of wine) discussing the implications of the imagery in this poem – after we'd already debated it all afternoon! Here it is, so make of the translation what you will.

Katat pöydän, näe nyt nälkäsi.
Puolikas leipää, lasillinen punaviiniä.
Kukahan osti sen toisen puolikkaan.
Selkeää puhetta yhteisestä ateriasta:
suupalat samaa leipää, puolilasillista viiniä.
Ei täällä ole ketä katsoa. On.
Juo pois kuvasi ja lakkaa sinuttelemasta.

– Mirkka Rekola

You lay the table, now witness your hunger.
Half a loaf, a glass of red wine.
Who could have bought the other half?
Simple talk of a shared meal:
morsels of that same loaf, half a glass of wine.
There's no one here to look at. Oh yes.
Drink up your reflection and stop calling yourself you.

– trans. DH

How wrong we can be

2007-04-17T13:08:00.000+03:00

Just when we all thought things couldn’t possibly get any worse, the full horror of the new Finnish government was finally revealed yesterday. Some people may think that the appointment of incompetent ministers to positions in the government was what Kokoomus meant by the slogan “Finland’s Hope”. For anyone else, however, the grotesqueness of these appointments verges on a something of a sick practical joke.

Of course, given the results of the election overall, it was always going to be impossible to find a foreign minister as competent as Erkki Tuomioja. In many ways, Tuomioja embodied what it means to be truly European: he speaks a multitude of languages, he has international roots; he is extremely articulate, well-read and sophisticated, with a long grounding in international diplomacy. What’s more, he wasn’t going to be told what to do by a certain president of the United States (conspiracy theorists may wish to read this article by the Times' William Rees-Mogg on the subject of Jack Straw’s unfathomable removal in the 2006 cabinet reshuffle from his post as foreign secretary. Given the audacity and arrogance of the present US administration, nothing would surprise me…)

And so, despite offering ‘hope’ (albeit of a rather dubious nature) to the citizens of Finland, the Kokoomus, in their wisdom, has offered us Ilkka Kanerva. With most Conservative governments, sleaze only begins to seep through their squeaky-clean exteriors after several months in power (e.g. the Conservatives in Britain during the Thatcher / Major years, and more latterly the new Swedish government, whose culture minister, it was revealed, had neglected to pay her television licence for years, and whose trade minister was found guilty of tax evasion and resigned after one week in office. Of course, the US administration goes without saying. Will these people never learn?) But now, to add to the sheer perverseness of the new Finnish appointments, we have a series of ministers touted for government positions whose shady dealings have already been exposed on more than one occasion.

So, as foreign minister we now have a man not renowned for his social, political or linguistic adroitness, but who has throughout his political career been embroiled in countless scandals, notably one involving several young women and a series of lewd text messages, and whose stubborn demeanour makes him utterly unsuited to a position in international diplomacy. The question as to how (or, indeed, whether at all) he will cooperate with President Tarja Halonen (who vetoed his appointment as head of the Bank of Finland) remains to be seen. Cynics and conspiracy theorists may also see this as yet another concerted effort to make sure Halonen no longer takes part in EU summits. To quote a colleague, it’ll only take a few excruciating evenings at the same table with him to make Halonen stay at home of her own accord…

Then there’s the former culture minister, Suvi ‘golf course’ Lindén, who resigned after it was revealed that she had secured government funding for a golf course in which she owned a considerable number personal shares. Conveniently for her, she’s now been moved to the department of communication, where her shady dealings won’t cause as much harm. I was very surprised to read that student organisations were largely happy with the new government. Jyrki Katainen (one of the many current parliamentarians who believe that universities are factories and that students should be forced to graduate regardless of whether they have in fact learnt anything) has predictably been appointed chancellor, and the idea that he, of all people, is prepared to give students a penny extra to alleviate their poverty is absurd in the extreme. At least, in a show of some sanity, Astrid Thors has been appointed Europe minister.

Anna mun kaikki kestää…

Dedicated Followers of Fascism

2007-04-13T12:19:00.000+03:00

Here's a link to Sarfraz Manzoor's review in today's Guardian of what sounds like a very interesting film indeed – and what an excellent heading! The issues this review points up are worthy of much further discussion later (when I've got less work to be getting on with...)

Without having yet seen it (why does it take so long for British films to reach Finland?) Shane Meadows' This is England seems to continue in the footsteps of other recent British 80s and 90s Zeitgeist films (Billy Elliot, The Rat Catcher, The Queen – see my post below). I'm sure I'll eventually write a more extended piece about this film once it arrives in cinemas here, so if anyone from Finnkino is listening, you know what to do!

The Burden of Freedom

2007-04-10T12:53:00.000+03:00

It's hard not to take issue with the news in this morning's Guardian Unlimited (which you can read here) that plans are afoot to introduce a programme of "civility enforcement" throughout the blogsphere. The need for a set of guidelines on how to behave within the online community is perhaps timely, though it does raise the issue of to what extent freedom of speech can be exercised in a forum that is at once private and public.

Freedom of speech is something of a problematic concept. In the West, newspapers claimed that freedom of speech gave them the right to publish potentially inflammatory cartoons depicting the prophet Mohammed. It seemed (at least in the press here) that many people were surprised at the scale of the backlash in the Muslim world against these "innocuous" cartoons. People failed to see that, under the banner of freedom of speech, Muslims were exercising their right to say that they found the publication of this material offensive. Freedom (of speech or any other kind) is a subjective category and has to work both ways, something that blogger 901am is quoted on in the article in today's Guardian (though I fail to see what the issue of censorship has to do with "rabid feminists"... Explain?) Freedom of speech gives the BNP the "right" to whip up tension in volatile areas of the country and spread a message of hatred and intolerance; David Irving and others like him have the dubious "right" to deny the Holocaust if they wish. Orhan Pamuk most certainly has the right to touch upon unfortunate aspects of Turkish history.

At the Edinburgh International Book Fair in August last year I went to an event held by the International PEN, an association "promoting literature, defending freedom of expression". There are far more journalists around the world facing prison sentences than we can imagine. The list of examples on PEN's website of journalists imprisoned for doing their job is too long to comprehend. In the light of this, the idea that blogs too should be censored, and that those who breach the "contract of civility" criminalised, is hard to swallow. Freedom of expression comes in many forms. Murdered journalists Anna Politkovskaya and Veronica Guerin felt not only a right but a duty to expose facts for what they are and to hold those responsible to account. Guerin was murdered by the very criminals she was writing about, and as for Politkovskaya...

Suomen toivo?

2007-03-27T12:10:00.000+02:00

Further to my previous post about the disastrous Finnish general election, I came back from Lapland (blog entry to follow) to find this article in Friday's Metro. Because the paper is only available as a PDF, I'm not sure how to create a link to it, so will copy it here in its entirety. I'll translate it at some point, but for now here it is in its glorious original form. Well done, Kaarina!

Suomen toivo (– Kaarina Hazard, Metro pe 23.3.07)
Sitä olisi joku hölmömpi kolumnisti voinut ennen vaaleja olla hyvinkin sitä mieltä, että ei voi mitenkään kokoomuksen hörökorvaleikki upota kansaan, että ei tässä nyt lukutaitoinen suomalainen sillä tavalla vietävissä ole, että hullunkuriset perhekortit kävisivät noin niin kuin poliittisen agendan vakavasta esityksestä. Sama kolumnisti olisi hyvinkin voinut olla sitä mieltä, että Niinistön ja Kataisen muodostama parivaljakko on jotenkin nolo, sillä tavalla läpinäkyvän isäpoikainen, että ei voi täysi-ikäinen äänestäjäkunta nauramatta tuommoista katsella. No, katselipa hyvinkin, eikä nauranut yhtään, korkeintaan yhteisestä mielihyvästä. Ei ollut kokoomuksen kampanja huono, ei, vaan onnistunein aikoihin. Suomen Toivo -kampanja on kuulkaa semmoinen sulka mainostoimisto Bob Helsingin hattuun, että ei ikinä.

Kysymys kuuluu: Miksi yli 60 000 suomalaista äänesti Sauli Niinistöä? Tämähän on se sama mies, joka puoli sukupolvea sitten ei muuta tehnyt kuin hokenut inhimillisesti ikävää, mutta systeemin kannalta välttämätöntä leikkausta ja monoa. Tämäkö on kaikki nyt unohdettu? Mitä ilmeisimmin. Tuolloin Niinistö niitti mainetta miehenä, joka nimenomaan pystyi kävelemään valuuttalainatakausvelkavankeuskärsimysten lihaisien kasojen yli silmän rävähtämättä, katse suunnattu kansakunnan ja valtiontalouden horisonttiin. Ja nyt samaa miestä halutaan kosketella kauppakeskuksissa. Mikä tässä välissä on muuttunut, maailma vai Niinistö? Arvatenkin molemmat.

Pirullisesta, tylystä leikkurista on vuosien saatossa kasvanut mediaan henkistynyt mies, viestinten leiritulille nyt saatu semmoisissa inhimillisissä kärsimyksissä marinoitu possu, että maukkaampaa saa hakea. Kun Tanjan kanssa polut erosivat, jäikö mies tänne tekstareita salarakkaille lähettelemään, ei jäänyt. Sen sijaaan hän arvokkaasti liiteli Eurooppaan, vetäytyi niin sanoaksemme, kuka tietää, ehkä rakkauden satuttama mies.

Ja sitten tuli tsunami. Jos Niinistö olisi löydetty lyhtypylväästä keikkumasta paikallisen misukan kanssa, olisi hänen julkinen tarinansa tällä haavaa ehkä toinen. Mutta lomalla oman pojan kanssa. Ja sitten, yllättäen, todistaa tämmöistä hirveää kärsimystä. Ja nähdä paikallisten ystävällisyys. Euroopan rahamaailma ja aasialainen lähimmäisenrakkaus, nämä kun yhdistää, niin... tämähän on... kuin lähetyssaarnaaja, Tarzan ja Stanley yhdessä ja samasssa persoonassa! Ei jäänyt maailmalle vaikka miten anottiin, vaan palasi meidän luo! Niin – kun asiaa oikein silmin katsoo, alkavat Sauli-rakkautemme osaset kuin itsestään ajautua paikoilleen.

Leave our music alone!

2007-03-22T02:33:00.000+02:00

I recently wrote a customer review of a recording of Walton's sublime Viola Concerto for Amazon. I was a bit worried that they wouldn't publish it, as it is rather harsh. Violinists (Vengerov included) should keep their hands off our music, or, in the words of William Primrose, they "should be shot". Here is the full review, including the bits I borrowed from other reviewers, which the Amazon staff deleted...

Leave our music alone!
When oh when will violinists learn to leave our music alone? To quote from another reviewer: "I was left speechless and wordless [...] you will notice things you never heard before in this concerto however well you know it." I am always left speechless at the audacity of many violinists, who seem to believe that they can simply pick up a viola and play it - I was under the impression that this took years of practice and dedication. [Here I must add that Nigel Kennedy is an exception to this principle: his recording of the Walton Viola Concerto is superb.] I know this concerto very well indeed, and the list of things I had "never heard before" is far too long to outline here.

Mr Vengerov is clearly an exponent of that insipid Romantic school of violin playing - eschewed by most serious artists - whereby an almost hysterical use of vibrato and grimacing through every cadence is apparently the only way to reap artistic dividend, or to compensate for the lack thereof. That said, no amount of throwing oneself around the stage can save this truly shocking rendition of a wonderful, important piece of music. Walton was first and foremost a modernist (something Kennedy fully understands in his recording), and there is no place in this concerto for gushing Romanticism, even less so for such sloppiness (tuning, bowing etc) and disregard (contempt?) for the sound qualities of the instrument as are displayed here. I couldn't agree more with another reviewer: stick to the violin, playing the viola is not a circus act.

I am less well acquainted with the Britten concerto, though I have no hesitation in concluding that better recordings must surely be available. A quick glance through Amazon reveals a Decca re-release with Mark Lubotsky conducted by the composer - I rest my case.

Turning the lights off

2007-03-20T23:01:00.000+02:00

Even as I begin writing this I'm unsure whether it's wise to get myself started on the (deplorable) outcome of Sunday's general election in Finland. I don't think the result could have been any worse: for anyone involved in the arts, anyone on a low income, anyone with young children (and – God forbid! – only one income), the homeless, the infirm... the list goes on.

What riles me most of all is the cynical fashion in which these right-wing candidates (and, here, I suppose I mean specifically those of the Kokoomus) pitch themselves at young voters. Living in a world where, by and large, the only people I come into contact with are people who think like I do, it's easy to forget that our planet is apparently populated with idiots – after all, W was elected twice. Are people really so stupid that they look at a brightly-coloured poster and think "I'll vote for them", without thinking for a second about what these people stand for? Katainen and his cronies want to turn Finland into a mini-USA, where everybody fends for themselves, and where relying on the state is frowned upon. This from a party whose election slogan was "Suomen toivo" (Finland's Hope). What hope? What hope is there for anyone who suddenly loses their job, or who is unable to work because of an illness? What hope is there for artists who can barely support their families because grants are almost non-existent?

Another element of Americanised politics to be found in the imminent new government's plans is that of Reaganomics: of investing in big business and introducing tax cuts for the already phenomenally rich in the misguided and misleading hope (Suomen toivo...) that this increased wealth will filter down to the less well-off members of society. Apparently Katainen, Niinistö et al haven't taken the time to look at the effects this policy had during the Reagan years. His administration (and Thatcher's for that matter) saw the gap between rich and poor widen more than ever before. I suppose we shouldn't be surprised, seeing as Thatcher claims that society doesn't exist.

All politicians – in Britain, Finland, the rest of the EU, though sadly not in the USA – are keen to woo voters with their green credentials. All too often, however, things are not what they seem. David "Dave" Cameron is perhaps the finest example of the great green swindle: cycling to Westminster while his papers travel behind him in three cars; travelling by private helicopter to Manchester to be photographed stepping on a tram, and so on. Katainen and the rest of the Kokoomus want to make us think they're green, but jumping on the climate change bandwagon isn't enough. Where are the caps on emissions for big business (of course, there are none, because business is everything in their world), the targets for emission reductions? One thing is clear: building the sixth nuclear reactor in Finland, thereby shunting the problem into the future, is not the answer.

The environment secrtary David Miliband deserves a lot of credit for the very real work he is currently undertaking in the UK to introduce a legally binding policy for emissions reduction through until 2050. Let's hope the new Finnish government will follow suit, though sadly this looks increasingly unlikely. Would the last person to leave the country please turn off the lights?

A soothing, milky bath alone

2007-03-07T01:07:00.000+02:00

The trend of publishing entertaining little snippets on the sides of milk cartons seems to be spreading fast. I know in America they often print public information, such as missing persons' announcements, but in Europe it seems we stick firmly to the literary. When I was in Iceland in summer 2005, each milk carton carried an Icelandic proverb complete with an accompanying illustration, all drawn by children under 10. These certainly make for great teaching material: needless to say, my host – who studies Icelandic – started collecting them all. Perhaps I should have started collecting these Finnish "maitorunot" (milk poems), because should I ever take leave of my senses and embark upon teaching Finnish they would undoubtedly come in very handy.

I was recently asked to translate one of the milk poems for a competition (goodness knows what kind of competition...). Complete with metre and rhyming structures, the poem chosen was a challenge to translate – not least for someone who doesn't normally touch poetry with a bargepole. Here's the translation I eventually produced and the original, so that those of you with Finnish can see how it was all done!

Vain maitokylpy rauhoittaa
herkkänahka prinsessaa.
Ammeessansa kruunupää
joka ilta unelmoi:
”Kun lempilehmä laulaa,
kun ukulele soi,
niin joku, ihan kuka vaan
minut hakee tanssimaan.
Poljen maata, pyörähdän,
kenkäni niin hävitän!”

Eppu Nuotio

A soothing, milky bath alone
can satisfy the haughty throne.
Soaking in her tub each night,
the crown princess dreams with delight:
"Whensoe'er my pet cow sings
and the ukulele rings,
then someone, given half the chance,
will come and fetch me for a dance.
I tread the boards, I spin around.
and dash my shoes into the ground!"

Trans. DH

Kersti Juva on hyvin vihainen!

2007-03-06T01:02:00.000+02:00

Here's a photograph of a group of SKTL members (with me on the far left) at the protest outside the parliament on Friday afternoon. It was a cold, wet, grey day, but at least we all had fun and the politicians were doing their best to convince us that they were actually listening to what we had to say... We'll see if anything ever happens, and whether the next government takes the financial struggles of those working in the arts any more seriously in the future.

Undoubtedly the wittiest placard of the day was Tiina's "Kersti Juva on hyvin vihainen": this just goes to show that, even if you live in darkest Wales, you can still make your voice heard in a protest at the other side of Europe. That's commitment for you!

The sheer Britishness of it all...

2007-03-05T17:46:00.000+02:00

Having lived outside the UK for most of the time that has passed since Princess Diana's death, it's interesting to revisit that moment in history from a foreign context, almost as an outsider. Sitting in the cinema this evening, I was struck by the notion that perhaps only Brits can truly appreciate the significance of the British monarchy, and thereby also fully understand what it is that makes this film such a towering piece of cinema.

As another reviewer has pointed out (on Amazon), Elizabeth II is omnipresent, permeating every facet of British society, and it is in its very attention to detail that "The Queen" triumphs. At first I was taken aback by the striking similarity between the actors and their real-life counterparts: Helen Mirren (who deserves the Oscar for this, perhaps her greatest performance) is frighteningly like the Queen in every respect, right down to pronouncing "Diana" with the stress on the first syllable - something only the Queen does. Michael Sheen's Blair was spot on too: that nervous chuckle, the grin, the walk. James Cromwell is uncannily like the Duke of Edinburgh...

I'd forgotten that these events took place almost immediately after New Labour's accession to power, and thinking of things in these terms sheds new light on the significance of the public reaction. The Tories had finally been kicked out of Westminster, there was a great sense of expectation, of change, and the questioning of the monarchy's relevance seems to go hand in hand with that new-found optimism. The film reminds us that Blair at least set out to be a "moderniser", and the Queen even asks whether he is "planning to modernise us".

Whether or not what happened during that week can be called "modernisation", it certainly shook the very foundations of the institution of the monarchy in Britain. I found it interesting how often people in the audience here laughed at what they saw. Yes, some of it is comical, but it's important to remember that the Royals really are like this; one of the many strengths of the film is that it never descends into parody and caricature. All in all I found watching "The Queen" a truly visceral experience - the likeness of the actors, the real archive footage, the sentiments of the time, the hysteria - and wept through much of it. I'm not exactly sure why. Perhaps it's something to do with our shared humanity, the unifying power of grief, and the sheer Britishness of it all.

Finished Product

2005-12-24T15:06:00.000+02:00

After a year's hard work, how wonderful it is to be able to hold the finished product in my hands! This selection of Finnish fantasy literature (perhaps 'speculative fiction' would be a better term) offers a broad cross-section of writing both new and old, and demonstrates that elements of the fantastical have always existed, even in a body of literature as young as that in Finland.

Dedalus Books publishes an entire series of anthologies of fantasy literature in translation. A friend recently asked me whether there is a market for this kind of book in the UK. Perhaps an anthology of this kind will cross the boundaries between the fantasy / sci-fi readership, and the readership for all things Scandinavian.

My personal favourite is perhaps Pentti Holappa's 'Boman': the story of a talking, literate dog who through sheer power of will grows herself a pair of wings. Holappa's career has been long and varied, and in 1998 he won the Finlandia Prize for his novel 'Ystävän muotokuva' (Portrait of a Friend), a moving depiction of the relationship between two men in the post-war years in Helsinki. 'Boman' dates from 1959, but still I think there is a queer reading to be had. The more I read this text throughout the translation process the more this idea began to make sense to me. I'll read this text again and formulate a more coherent argument over the holidays.

Vases

2005-12-14T12:53:00.000+02:00

The art of poetry translation is - like Sudoku (to which I am utterly hooked) - thoroughly mind-boggling. The ability to fit the full meaning and sense of a poem from one language into another, whilst retaining the feel and intensity of the original, is almost a holy grail in the world of translation. The aphorostic work of the Finnish poet Eila Kivikk'aho offers the translator a particular challenge: a vast body of her poems are written in haiku or tanka form, allowing only a given number of syllables per line (5-7-5 or 5-7-5-7-7 respectively). Here is one I translated several years ago, perhaps this will encourage me to have a go at some others.

'Ruukut'

En ole enää
sirpaleitten varassa.
Sain ehjän onnen.
Mitä kätken sen maljaan?
-Vanhan ruukun kappaleet.

(Eila Kivikk'aho)

'Vases'

No longer shall I
stand amidst the shards. I have
received pristine joy.
What shall I hide within it?
-The pieces of my old vase.

(trans. DH)

Much Ado About Nothing?

2005-12-10T18:56:00.000+02:00

Another year, another Finlandia Prize, another furore. This competition always sparks controversy, and given this year’s shortlist Paavo Lipponen’s decision was bound to awaken strong feelings whichever way the prize finally went. The decision this year to award the prize to Bo Carpelan, an author who has already won the prize once before, for his novel Berg (‘Mountain’), together with the fact that the shortlist included another previous winner, has prompted a much-needed debate on the nature of the prize in general. Many of the arguments presented could equally apply to competitions of any kind.

I was somewhat surprised to read articles, notably in Aamulehti, condemning the prize, the recipient and this year’s ‘dictator’. The idea that an author should not be allowed to win the same competition twice – for two separate works – seems absurd, but far more absurd is the notion that the point of the prize is that every author will eventually has his / her turn at winning. If everybody takes it in turns to win the prize, winning itself has no value or meaning.

Aamulehti’s esteemed literature critic Matti Mäkelä claims that the credibility of the Finlandia Prize is now irreparably damaged by virtue of its being awarded to the same author twice. Perhaps he should consider the fact that, whether we like it or not, the outcome of the prize IS subjective, the final decision is left to a single reader. On the contrary, the credibility of this institution in very much intact, as Antti Majander pointed out in today’s HS, the winner should represent ‘the best, not the most appropriate’ work of Finnish literature. If a writer is consistently excellent, should that go unnoticed simply because s/he has been acknowledged once before?

Last month, on the day the Finlandia shortlist was announced, I happened to bump into a nameless publisher in the Academic Book Shop. The said publisher was shocked and outraged that none of their books were to be found on the list. I couldn’t help wondering whether it had ever crossed said publisher’s mind that perhaps none of their books that year were worthy of a place on the shortlist amongst the crème of new Finnish literature this year.

Time and again it occurs to me that publishers are entirely blind to anything outside the ‘business’ of the book world. It seems that selling copies of a book is more important than rejoicing at the quality of that book. Similarly, the ability to assess objectively the quality of one’s own publications seems sadly lacking: not all books are great works of literature, no matter how much one publicly lauds them to anyone who will listen or dismisses the opinions of anyone who cannot see the emperor’s new clothing. In the tiny Finnish book market, winning the Finlandia or similar prizes ensures increased sales figures (naturally, the winner is always announced in the run-up to Christmas…) and continuing publicity for both novel and author. For the publisher, it seems that of primary importance is having the kudos of being able to say that ‘our book’ won the prize; ‘our book’ was shortlisted.

Media circuses like the Finlandia Prize or, say, the recent Sibelius Violin Competition, are becoming increasingly detached from what ought to be their fundamental raison d’être: to celebrate art, creativity, flair, genius. One need only read a single column in Helsingin Sanomat dealing with the Violin Competition to realise that what is most important is not musicality, but which of the automatons on stage can perform a Paganini caprice without making a technical mistake. Or one could listen to Madonna’s latest travesty to good taste and realise that what sells records is not creative genius (the woman’s sheer lack of originality never fails to astound me) but good marketing and pilfering the right pieces of music from real artists. No wonder Sony delayed the release of Fiona Apple’s marvellous third album for so many years: after all, if it’s not going to be a commercial success, what’s the point?

A Haunting, Haunted Memory

2005-12-01T20:51:00.000+02:00

This morning I spent two hours rehearsing Alfred Schnittke’s String Trio (1985). It’s an enthralling work, at once taut and ridden with anxiety, yet at the same time highly emotional and very moving. Schnittke is a composer who has always commanded great fascination for me, and it has been both a pleasure and an honour to work in such detail on this piece. These rehearsals coincided with a series of lectures I have been attending on formal elements of sonata form, focussing largely on the first movement of Schubert’s String Quartet in A minor op. 29, the Rosamunde. It was only later, upon reading Richard Whitehouse’s introduction to the Schnittke Trio in the inlay cover of my CD (an excellent Naxos release of Schnittke’s chamber music for strings and piano) that the idea of a kinship between the formal approaches of the two composers became clearer.

It was interesting to learn that Schnittke wrote his String Trio in response to a commission from the Alban Berg Society of Vienna, and the idea of Vienna itself, almost as a mythical entity, ‘a haunting, haunted memory’, seems to be present throughout the work. Whitehouse talks of a ‘sensation of creative amnesia’ about the work, and it is this which makes me think most strongly of the Rosamunde. “The proceeding Adagio does not develop or especially intensify the material already heard, as prolong the sensation of creative amnesia; the composer striving for some semblance of formal logic, against overwhelming creative and emotional odds” (Whitehouse 1999).

The idea of striving towards formal logic – indeed, the very inevitability of formal logic – recalls for me the transition of the development back into the recapitulation in the first movement of the Rosamunde. The development reaches its climax at the massive diminished chord in bar 140. As far as the parameters of sonata form are concerned, Schubert has by this point already created a number of obstacles for himself, the minor / major tension of the first theme being perhaps the most obvious, and now finds himself at the end of the development on a vii°7 chord of A, being the dominant of D minor, not A minor in which the recapitulation must begin. In a discussion of this potential structural problem in the piece, the lecturer brought our attention to the idea of ‘hope denied’, something which by the late Romantic era had become a cliché, but which for Schubert perhaps represented genuine frustration, if you will, at the constraints of the form. No matter how far one develops thematic material and no matter how many tonal regions the development explores, it has to return to the tonic for a resigned recapitulation of the first theme.

The idea of ‘hope denied’ runs through Schnittke’s String Trio just as much. Tonality in the broadest sense was as much a feature of Schnittke’s idiom as it was of Schubert’s. The major third descending into the minor (seen, for instance, in the first theme of the Rosamunde and more specifically during the transition back to the A minor recapitulation) is also in play in Schnittke’s work, though in perhaps a more gestural way, by contrasting sections of music that allude to major and minor sensibilities. In rehearsing the piece we spent some time discussing a recurring section of the second (final) movement: cello harmonics (later in the viola), in a melodic fragment formed from a major triad, appear out of nowhere, a sunbeam momentarily perforates the greyness. What does it mean? Perhaps this is what Whitehouse means by the idea of composing ‘against overwhelming creative and emotional odds’. The harmonics offer us a glimmer of hope, of something that might have been or might be, but that hope is dashed three times (the number three holds particular formal and numerological significance throughout this piece). For me, this is the same glimmer of hope offered by Schubert in bar 140. Could the recapitulation really occur in D minor? Could it? But this, of course, is hope against hope, and after extensive searching for a tonic, the recapitulation arrives back in A minor after all, just as Schnittke’s faint sunbeam is quickly extinguished with ferocious, unrelenting minor ninths and tritones. “Muss es sein? Es muss sein.”

2005-11-30T00:46:00.000+02:00

First Contact

2005-11-29T22:28:00.000+02:00

What exactly is to be the purpose of this blog? I’m uncertain myself, as I tentatively type these first words. On the one hand it is what it says, a late review, a forum for views and reviews, ideas and opinions; a meeting place for the literary-minded, the critical, the humorous; a melting pot of minds, languages, cultures, politics. I see this blog as almost like a play with me and my closest friends as its cast of characters. Moments shared, thoughts provoked.

As the page develops I hope to share my thoughts on everything from books, theatre, language, the noble art of translation, music classical and otherwise noteworthy to the quirks of living in Finland, all things queer and subversive, eating in and out, travel, and the little observations that make life so endlessly fascinating.

Myself a Braidottian nomadic subject, this page should and will naturally develop into a multi-lingual forum, alternating primarily between English and Finnish, with a pinch of Swedish if I’m feeling lucky. Primarily, I would like to showcase notable works of new Finnish and Nordic literature, and explore the world of classical music, cinema and the arts in Scandinavia for the English-speaking reader. There are deplorably few works of Scandinavian literature published in English or films shown in the UK, so perhaps in some small way I can open the door ajar.

Mainittakoon, että pysyn ainakin vähäksi aikaa blog-vammaiseksi, joten nämä ensimmäiset viikot ja viestit menevät lähinnä kokeilun piikkiin. Ajan myötä sivu laajenee ja paranee, ja teknologian tuntemukseni senkun kasvaa – toivon mukaan!