The great annual barbecue (we have now done it two years in a row, so it's practically a Lionbridge tradition) was almost shot in the head before it began. Warnings of unpleasant weather seemed to have been an understatement, and the idyllic summer sunshine of the Night of the Arts 2008 seemed a distant-arsed dream. Lightning, thunder and pelting rain abounded just an hour before we were due to turn up at Mustikkamaa, but the dauntless barbecue-goers of the Technical Writing department had no intention of flinching in the face of God's wrath, no sir! We had free shit to consume!

 

The pictures are presented in no particular chronological order.

 

 

 

I received a lift to the site, together with Wendy and four bags of sausages, booze and chicken wings, by the graceful offer of Auri, who you would never guess was an ancient and terrible Trantex dinosaur resurrected using morally questionable scientific processes by Lionbridge R&D. I mean, to look at her. You'd be surprised. Anyway, she gave us a lift and proved an excellent addition to the Mustikkamaa barbecue posse for this and many other reasons. The ride out to "the Must" was epic, and more than a little hair-raising due to the fact that the window de-fogger was not operating very well and politeness denied me the opportunity to break into the beer carton during the journey in order to dull the edges of my terror. The second leg of the trip was a trek from the Korkeasaari carpark around the coast of the island. We picked up Anna along the way as we passed by the zoo bus stop, which was great because until her appearance, I was the only person who had been to the place before and was clearly expected to act as a navigator accordingly. Boy, they were way off.

 

Still, we found the place in the end, thanks to Anna's map and a whole lot of vaguely-hopeful comments like "it's a small island, by the time we go all the way around it we'll have to find the barbecues." We arrived to find that the weather, which had been mostly-invisible to us from inside the car, had improved dramatically in the past hour and was now merely grey, humid and soggy rather than thunderous and cats-and-dogsian.

 

We also arrived to find that nobody was there with their kid, nobody had prepared for our arrival by setting the fire and getting it lit, and nobody had opted to spend some precious hours of their remaining summer holiday time to meet and greet with the peons. I began to set out our first round of sausages on the apparently busted grill. Nobody was derisive and unhelpful with regards to my attempts to fix things, more or less as expected. There was a certain amount of tension when Auri accused me of putting a piece of wood into the fire "the wrong way around", but it was diplomatically defused by the clarification that she was talking about the sausages on the grill, not the wood at all. Thus mollified, I continued to try to cook on a grill tilted at an angle of 35°, thirty or forty centimetres away from the actual fire.

 

Discussion turned to who else was coming, and I was halfway through my description of Hanna's uncertainty and sleep-deprived lack of confidence in ever finding the place when, to my surprise, she appeared. Mr. Farenheit also turned up around this time, and barbecuing duly commenced. Mr. Farenheit opted not to reprise his role as the Steakinator this year, leaving it in my capable hands. He also remembered that the grill had been busted last year as well, and that we had pulled it aside and barbecued directly on the catching-tray. So we did that again this year. Nobody claimed to have told me exactly the same thing, which was just a stinking lie.

 

Drinking also commenced. Nobody went for a jaunt around the beach with the kid, returning with a lump of seaweed on a rock as a conversation piece. It was suggested that the lump of seaweed on a rock could be our new global department manager. It was also generally agreed that Mr. Farenheit put it on his head and pose for photos, thus earning the rock with seaweed in an honoured place in the Mr. Farenheit Hall of Things I Put On My Head And Posed For Photos. The resemblance to a troll doll was initially quite clear, but faded with time. He also placed the rock under his chin as a hilarious beard. I don't know if he has a Hall for those.

 

 

Time went by. The packets of sausages dwindled, the steaks were a mild disappointment, the weather continued relatively pleasant. Nobody left. People began to wonder whether or not Antti would actually turn up. Hanna had a momentary panic attack when she thought we meant a different Antti to the one we really did mean. Mr. Farenheit assured us that Antti was coming, but would be excessively late due to a combination of work and public transport factors that I for one found highly questionable. For a moment it seemed like Antti, too, would appear the moment we started talking about his presence, but it turned out to be a female jogger. And then an old man. And then another female jogger, and then a dog. The thing about Antti is, he's so easily mistaken for any number of other things that aren't Antti.

 

Finally, though, he did show up, with some cock-and-bull story about an engineer keeping him waiting for documentation information and then forgetting he was there, as if that ever happens to Technical Writers. He then compounded his folly by making up some astonishing fairy-tale about the train being late. We forgave him for his colourful imagination, opened more sausages and began round two of the barbecuing. Hanna graced the grill with her turkey-veggie weiners, which became quite the party piece later in the evening (in the most innocent of ways) but sadly we don't have photos of that. The chicken wings also came out, and proved to be a hit.

 

Auri provided bacon-wrapped mushrooms filled with blue cheese, which I assume were nice ("Yay, it's the smallest one," Mr. Farenheit was heard to remark when his share of the delicacies were deposited on his plate). The general consensus seemed to be that all the nicest stuff had been brought along out of the attendees' own wallets, which was harsh but fair. The mass quantities of sausage and free booze were, however, greatly valued, and Wendy went on the official record as stating, via her spokesman Mr. Farenheit, that the blacker the sausage, the better.

 

On that note ... I think it was well before this point that Anna began to bombard us with her patented Anna-uendoes, combining them with bad puns because Janne Keskisaari wasn't present this year to carry the torch. But they grew steadily more blatant in their disregard of the Geneva Convention for Treatment of Language-Related Humour, and she was enthusiastically assisted in her crimes by a number of other people. This is what happens when Technical Writers go bad.

 

Time went on. Wendy left, instructing us to call her if we ended up in a bar. This seemed unlikely, but we promised, as we always do, to track her down somehow after she pulls one of her disappearing acts. Auri left too, generously upending her cornucopia of, uh, corn onto the barbecue and leaving it with us to enjoy. And we did.

 

Time continued to pass. The carton was duly emptied, as were the bottles brought along by others. I was derelict in my duty this year, in that I neglected to bring Minttu along for the enjoyment of the few. I knocked the plastic forks on the ground an inordinate number of times before giving up on them amidst "fork"-based puns that simply do not bear repeating. Hanna finished her turkey-veg weiners and departed victorious. At some point around here, we were joined by a couple of people who were scouting out the area in preparation for a birthday celebration the following day. They failed to score any free food or beer from us, and we failed to score invitations to the birthday party. I think mainly they were worried that we were still going to be there the following afternoon. By that stage, we all looked pretty comfortable and the barbecue area looked pretty lived-in..

 

Mr. Farenheit also graced us with the Beer Can Arts, achieving the Full Hellboy for the first time in my own personal experience, and recorded by cameras for one of the first times in history.

 

 

He thanked the academy for the faith it had placed in him, and put his success down to the increase in head-fat he had gained during his summer holiday, which greatly assisted in the creation of the required can-forehead vacuum.

 

 

 

In the end, Antti and Anna and Mr. Farenheit and I declared the night won, and packed our things. The fire was doused with a combination of water and Sprite Zero, which is like water with some bubbles and no more (or less) suited to dousing a fire than it is to drinking, and the leftover sodas were donated to Mr. Farenheit's Soda Saturday Foundation. Rumour has it that he soda'd, and soda'd good, on that particular Soda Saturday.

 

We walked for the metro station to find it had already performed its last run for the night, which makes sense given that nobody wants to go anywhere at eleven o'clock on Friday fucking night.

 

 

After waiting for a while we decided that we should take the bus, which thanks to our dithering was just minutes from departure. Somewhere. We struck out for the bus stop, full of hope and accompanied by a skinny-arsed teenage kid who I was sure hadn't been at the Must. If he had, I would've given him one of my steaks.

 

By the time Antti, The Kid and I got to the bus station and realised the buses were all going in the wrong direction and we wanted to be on the other side of the freeway, the nearest crossing of which was several hundred kilometres away, we had already missed the bus into town. Anna and Mr. Farenheit had presumably already realised this, because they'd turned back and we had failed to hear their shouts as they did so. They were gone. Antti, The Kid and I returned to the other side of the Freeway, and after many weeks of agonised trudging found a strangely deserted bus stop with a taxi-van parked nearby.

 

The taxi driver was enjoying a cup of coffee and a chat with a friend when we stumbled up and asked him if he was booked. He asked us where we were headed, and when we said "Helsinki" he said, "what a coincidence, I'm going that way too."

 

The strange and surreal taxi ride got us as far as Sörnäinen before Antti got out to go and attend some sort of concert, and I realised this was as far out of my way as I wanted to go as well. I gave The Kid some money for the rest of the taxi trip into town, and that was where we parted ways. Antti handed me the huge bag of empty cans (he was going to throw them away, but I have this cunning way of getting money for them at supermarkets) and headed for his concert and I, having missed the bus yet again, got another taxi out of there.

 

On the way home, my taxi overtook the bus but I was too tired to hang my arse out the window at it.

 

The end.

 

An amazing ten years later, I thought I would re-post my 21st Birthday Report just to show how little I have to report on these days and just how blessedly quiet and antisocial my 31st Birthday was.

 

Introduction by Monty as ever.

 

TAP TAP! IS THIS THING ON? ONE TCHOO! Welcome to this special addition of the Chucky Report. On Saturday 22 May 1999, Charles Hindle celebrated 21 years in The Business. It was a glittering night of nights and featured industry luminaries such as Shambles, Dirty, and Mr B. Mr B was damned toey for it by the way. He wanted a leg over and he wasn't taking lack of interest for a non-answer. I was very interested to read that on Friday, Mr B....oops this is supposed to be an introduction not a preview. Shut up Montgomery you are rambling. To the point, it was great that The Reclining Red Haired Budha Who Sleeps Until Noon found time in his schedule to make an appearance and generously stayed to the Bitter End. Staff at Club must have been thrilled to have the old Deity back on his perch in the Members Bar... ahh The Eighties... Damn it Montgomery Get A grip! Wobbly also showed up which was a treat (Everyone reckons his Lady Friend looks like someone from the Corrs - she is lucky Mr B didn't start dry humping her leg. Did I mention he was On Heat?) Let me hand over (at last) to The Expert.....wait hold on Chucky your turn is coming - as a special treat we have an interview with Chucky's dad at the end of this report - do not forget to click there.... Ok please stand at your monitors for the The Man a big round of applause .....heeeeeeerrrrrreees ....CHUCKY.....

Evening all. For various reasons my report will lack its usual exquisite details today – if you are reading this for insight concerning what you might have missed by leaving early, or not coming at all, you’re looking in the wrong direction. I don’t know how pantsed you all thought I was, but I can assure you, I was pantseder. I will deliver awards as I see fit, and run you through what I remember, and that’ll be about it.

 

Firstly, there are three ‘Best on Grounds’ to be handed out, and that is about the extent of the awards. Each one is in a different capacity though. Friday night, the night before the actual party, belongs to Mr.B. According to reliable sources, B got lucky. Nice work – I’m only disappointed I wasn’t there with my camera. (Well he must have enjoyed it because he was dangerous. He had a wild desperate look in his eye. Ed) The second award goes to Reclining, for as far as I know he was the Longest Stayer on Saturday night (That was always on the cards - The Club is his home ground. Tries were going to be scored. Ed). And he also gets a special award for following instructions laid out in the invitation, concerning milky umbrella drinks. But let’s not go there just yet. The third and most important of the B.O.G. awards goes to a non-bandsman, one Micky Plops. He came all the way from Sydney to get drunk with me, so dammit, he gets a medal. That was some sensational work. Honourable mentions to Plops and Lucky B for managing to keep the whole thing secret for three months too. Unbelievable.

 

Well, the night started at five, when I arrived with the food and commenced with jugs. Dirty and Scout arrived, and the Don popped by. Craig was meant to come, but I assume he had a very good reason for not being in attendance. Dirty presented me with my gift from the Band – a shiny red Slappers Unit, complete with shooter glasses, poopstick and Pirate magazine. I shed a tear or two over that, and began adding my own personal touches immediately – for starters, a big bastard padlock. Because at about that stage the relatives began arriving, and they are on the whole an untidy lot (untidy, ha ha ha ha). I toasted Slappers and the rellies with more of those jugs, you know those ones they give you that evaporate really really fast? Yeah, them. Um…

 

(PAGE MISSING)

 

“I won’t say much,” I said, and reached for my glass, which seemed untended and lonesome. My left hand was sticky. I tried to remember what that meant in the ‘symptom/response’ model, but wasn’t sure. As a stopgap solution I propped myself up against the bar. Timbo stood in front of me, refusing to put himself into focus in a very thoughtless manner. He asked me what my brother-in-law was drinking, if it was really iced coffee, and I assured him I’d find out, and that everything was under control. Um, Kahlua and milk, I think.

 

(PAGE MISSING)

 

Somebody (Timbo again I think) gave me a jug and started saying “Skull skull skull” in a very confronting way, and Mal and Monty were standing in front of me with a patch of Glad Wrap spread out to shield themselves from something, I don’t know, vomit I guess. I must be a big jessie, though, because I don’t recall skulling anything. I did drink the jug though. Just slowly. Oh, I just noticed Stuart was there. Hi Stuart. He was talking to the militant feminist who wants to kick Reclining’s acorns. My left hand was still sticky. My brother’s over at the other end of the bar, and as far as I recall he was singing. We got $500 worth of beer tickets, and I had a flipping great wodge of them, um, and my sister had the rest, and everybody was pestering us for them. For about half an hour.

 

(PAGE MISSING)

 

No more beer tickets.  There were a couple of gatecrashers at this stage, I know it. Pretty cool. I remember pointing at them and saying, “Who the **** are you?” The guy came up and said, “Are you Andrew?” I wasn’t sure. I said yes and he asked me how old I was and I looked at my “I AM 21” badge on my jacket and said, “30.” He said, “Oh happy birthday,” then my sister came and made them go away. I think I was talking to Michelle at some point around here – she seemed to have had a good night – if she was still there at ten or eleven, then wow. Ha ha ha. Then I caught up with some more age-old friends, God, it was bizarre. They were talking with my brother and sister and their pissy mates, and I intruded. Sticky hand. Then the bouncer said, “Please slowly make your way downstairs,” so my sister and I did two-steps-forward-one-step-back routine across the room until the bouncer was obliged to rephrase his request to, “Leave now.” We went to Club Bay View, I forget how exactly. I didn’t touch any of the bins, hmm, and there was a fight outside the club, and we got in with our passes, but they weren’t very happy about it, um, yeah. About here…

 

(PAGE MISSING)

(We interupt this Chucky Report with a brief message from Reclining. Ed)

 

The funniest thing of the whole night was at the party when Shambles told Michelle he was off to club. Michelle asked "How late will you be?" "A while." Came the reply. "Are any responsible adults going to Club with you to make sure you get home OK?" "Well...........Johno's going......" came Shambles desperate attempt.

 

The response from Michelle was a chilling stare the likes of which you wouldn't believe. Probably the fact that Shambles and I were killing ourselves laughing didn't help.

 

(Back to Chucky who takes up the story. Ed)

 

I had a poopstick – not the quality one from Slappers, just an over-the-counter one. I blew smoke on my relatives. Not as good as blowing chunks the way Dirty did, but hmm, not too bad. My brother was buying drinks for underage girls.

 

(PAGE MISSING)

 

The D.J. looked pretty scared when I popped my head up through the trapdoor to the music room up in the ceiling on the top of a ten-foot ladder, and said, “Hi. Can you play something by Faithless?” I think he said yes out of shock.

 

(PAGE MISSING)

 

I hadn’t seen Leigh Cockerill since the Old Boys BBQ. He was at the Club, he’s coming to Band for the election of playing officers. Apparently. He didn’t look anywhere near as busy as he was supposed to be. Mickey bought me a shaker of banana liqueur stuff I think it was called a hardon. I remember I got the giggles every time I ordered one, and wore my sunglasses when I was drinking it. Both my hands were all sticky. I can’t believe how many bourbons you can get for $150.

 

(PAGE MISSING)

 

Shambles was halfway down the stairs out of the place. “Shambles…” “I’m leaving.” “Shambles…” “I’m leaving.” “Shambles…” “I’m leaving.” “Shambles…” “I’m leaving.” “Shambles…” “I’m leaving.” “Shambles…” “I’m leaving.” “Shambles…” “I’m leaving.” Hey guys, Shambles is leaving. Hey, he made it to about 3. So did my Kahlua-guzzling brother-in-law and my sister, and my brother was there for the long haul. Scout was sitting on a chair, kinda passed out.

 

(PAGE MISSING)

 

“Hi. Can you play something by Faithless?” It was a different D.J., but the scared expression and the hasty agreement was the same. I climbed back down the ladder and stepped on somebody.

 

(PAGE MISSING)

 

Me and Reclining were up at the top bar, and we had giant chocolate mudslides in front of us. No umbrellas, but it was nice of him to obey the letter of my invitation. Everyone had gone home, I think. Those mudslides are an absolute treat. Except I didn’t souvenir a glass. Then the Club closed and the lights went up. The introductory notes of Faithless’ “Insomniac” thumped out of the speakers, then the music stopped and the doors opened and we were booted out. I legged it home, insisting on wearing my sunglasses, even though it was still dark. Five thirty-ish is much brighter in summer, isn’t it? I got home and ate all the leftovers in the fridge, washed the sticky shit off my hands, and went to bed.

 

Gah, the end. Thank you all for making it so ... um, memorable isn’t the word I’m after...

 

Pissy, that’s it.

 

I will be busy customising Slappers, ready for Southern Cross. What a delight that shiny red toolbox is!

 

Kindest Regards, Charles.

 

Here, as a special treat, are the details of a conversation Malcolm and Reclining had with Chucky's Dad....

Reported by Malcolm

He started relating a story about the first time he ever saw Chucky pissed. It was after some bus trip with that pesky pipe band he plays with. Anzac Day, he remembers.

 

He got some garbled indecipherable phone call from his son on the bus back and assumed that meant "come and pick me up".

 

He was horrified to see a kilted 17-year-old Gummy Bear on spat-coloured rollerskates resembling his Dear Boy, Andrew.

 

After administering assistance in removing complicated buttons and straps he put Chucky to bed with  the hall light on so he could see the bucket, repeating "spew in the bucket, not on the carpet" like some slogan for M&M chocolates.

 

Reclining and I listened in horror as he kept stressing, "God, he wasn't even 18, he wasn't even 18".

 

Yeah! Damn pesky pipe band.

 

I don't know why I keep turning up so early to these things. Sure, the alternative was hanging around at work and not getting compensated for it, but I didn't really achieve much. I waddled into Teerenpeli at about 4:00pm, after promising that I would be present to get seats for everyone and keep the early-starters company.

 

So who keeps the early-starter-company-keeper-guy company, huh? I show up, the place is packed (but not with our guys), I eventually crowbar myself into a spot at the bar and get a stool by the simple yet effective expedient of looking like I might start talking to the person sitting in it, and then the waiting game begins. At least for this incarnation of the waiting game, I had a place to sit. Place was still packed, though. All the tables were filled and the couches upstairs were piled three deep with jobless fucking hoboes. What the fuck? I thought I was living the good life walking out of the office at a smooth half-past three. Turns out these cunts had been sitting in there since breakfast. It's like the banks, and administrative offices. Nothing is set up for the benefit of people who work. Everything is set up for the benefit of people without jobs. And this is Capitalism?

 

My promise to save seats for everyone seemed futile in the face of such overwhelming odds. Every time some of the hoboes got up to leave, larger crowds of people swarmed in and took the space, leaving me helpless. And not quite drunk enough to sit down at other people's tables and pretend to know them.

 

I was ... what, maybe two and a half beers in the hole by the time ... who turned up? Veli Tuomas, Mr. Farenheit and Antti Pa (as opposed to Antti Po), I think. Yeah. I'd been there maybe an hour. And now that I mention it, I saw that bastard Farenheit go sneaking past the window at least half an hour earlier, but he didn't come in. He went to Lautapelit.fi and snubbed me in favour of board games. Actually, can't say I blame him. The main difference between me and a board game is, people give a toss for board games.

 

We made our way outside, of all places, to the Smoking Pit where the icicles dangled and the darkness loomed on every side. Tuomas and I were of the opinion that it wasn't quite unpleasant enough for smokers to really enjoy, since the cold was only moderately lethal and only after long periods of exposure. Our beloved stinktards require something a bit more dangerous to really get their nicotine-addled blood pumping. You know, something with a label on it saying "THIS WILL FUCKING KILL YOU". The chairs out there, for example, could have had bear-traps instead of seats. That would have been fun.

 

Gradually, other people started turning up. Anna T and Marleena, and the crowd from elsewhere in Kara, including our friends from India and the hero of the day, Pia "sod you all, I'm leaving for a year, let me know how the economic slump turns out" Karasjärvi. And we call her that affectionately. The precise order of turn-ups escapes me, as do the specific group dynamics of who showed up with whom. Wendy, Antti Po and Titta turned up a bit later, Nick, Mladen, Lauri and The Taj a bit later still as far as I know, and Lars didn't turn up at all. But we all expected that, because he called the meeting in the first place.

 

Mr. Farenheit, no doubt hungry after all his board-game-shopping, was the first to order himself a giant Teerenpeli sandwich, and incidentally the first to fall victim to a previously-unknown medical condition known as Sandwich Crotch. This is a malady unlike others, in that once you have caught it you become more likely to catch it again in the future, and all those nearby become less likely to catch it as a result. The joys of melted cheese and scalding-hot chilli relish on the gonads kept us all amused and, briefly, warm. Our crowd was growing but was still not quite large enough that we could huddle together for warmth like penguins. Teerenpeli management, perhaps instituting a cost-cutting policy or assuming that smokers had access to fire in order to keep themselves warm, did not switch on the outdoor heaters for an inordinate length of time.

 

Actually, speaking of penguins, Mr. Farenheit took a break from picking hot, soggy sandwich lumps out of his groinal region and enhanced our knowledge of the world by telling us about Japanese bees.

 

It seems that when a wasp attacks a Japanese beehive, the bees swarm around it, cluster together and build up tremendous friction by circling and spinning and vibrating and stuff. So great is the friction that the wasp is consequently cooked in its exoskeleton. Many of the bees also die, but this is deemed an acceptable loss by the hive in general. Apparently Japanese bees are unaware that they have stings, and that two or three of those up in a wasp's face would probably kill it as well. But then, of course, the bees would end up with an overpopulation problem, due to the lack of friction-oven casualties, and massive pay-cuts would ensue and travel and entertainment budgets would be slashed and the bees would no longer be allowed to leave the hive to look for flowers, and then one day the bees would say "hey, we have these stings..." and one of them would sting the Queen just to see what happened and that would be the end of the hive and probably, if modern environmental science can be believed, the planetary ecosystem as we know it. So spin on, you crazy spinning Japabees.

 

 

 

Jussi (the beer; many was the time I walked up to the bar with the intention of ordering something or other, and then drawing a complete blank and panicking, and blurting out the one Teerenpeli-beer-name I was at least moderately sure actually was a beer name) gave way to Hoegaarden and very drinkable but hugely overpriced Teerenpeli whiskey, and we finally got a foothold inside on the couches. Within half an hour, we were filling most of the upstairs area with our exclusive and inimitable conversation. SME, PM, BSC, GCD and TS-fucking-plus peppered the dialogue like cloves in a curry. Following Mr. Farenheit's sterling example, more food was ordered and consumed. Not following his example, the food was consumed directly from the plates, rather than from the layers of cloth directly covering the sexual organs.

 

We were also graced with the presence of a couple of LOC folks. Salla was kind enough to show up and order food just at the point we were all getting hungry again, and then permitted the starving Technical Writers to pick over the leftovers. The Taj, as already mentioned, showed up after sending me some text messages to make sure he wouldn't be all alone when he arrived. Why didn't I think of that? He also disparaged my estimate of "a fucking million" when asked how many people had turned up for the shindig, suggesting that maybe I was counting my dying brain cells rather than actual human company. Fair cop.

 

In the grey areas between TW and LOC, and incidentally speaking of Japanese bees, we would have been joined by our dear colleague Tiina, but for an amusing combination of factors. Her husband, a man she has described as "that utter bastard" (on more affectionate days), had arranged to spend the night out drinking whiskey with his buddies, leaving her home to look after the house and offspring. With every e-mail that went around concerning the gathering, Tiina became more bitter and vengeful. We later learned that Mr. Tiina spent the night sitting in a Japanese-style tub under the open and freezing sky, sharing bottles of whiskey with his pals and ending up catching a nasty dose of the flu which he then passed on to Tiina during the course of his still-continuing (we can only hope) hangover. What they needed was some industrious and over-protective Japabees to keep them warm.

 

Starting to sound a bit like an Eddie Izzard routine, isn't it?

 

Overpriced whiskey gave way to Tequila Motherfuckers and Lonkero, and more overpriced whiskey. I don't know why I was drinking Hoegaarden and Lonkero, but my barside panic attacks were getting worse as the night went on. The Taj even came down to buy me a beer, and I unaccountably failed to drink it. I'm not sure why he bought me a Hoegaarden when I asked for a Salmari shot, but the two are very easy to mistake when spoken in unsteady Finglish in a crowded bar. And they totally look alike, as well, when you put them on a table next to each other. This might have been a good time for me to mingle and be sociable, and at least say hello to our visiting friends from India, but alas I failed to do so and shortly afterwards they went home. Oh well. Next time!

 

Conversation went on, but was mostly beyond me. Politics was discussed, which isn't my strong suit. Ask me about the politics in an obscure science fiction series (the Old Commonwealth was governed by an elected body headed by three Triumvirs, the New Commonwealth is basically an anarchy run by Kevin Sorbo), and there's no problem. Ask me who I voted for in the recent local elections (the guy from the farm across the road, he delivers milk and eggs on time and whenever his pigs get free he's always the first one out there with a rake trying to get them back inside before they poop on something, and when his horse went nuts and kicked a friend of ours he offered to have it shot and made into sausages), and I'm in the same ball-park but not exactly watching the game. Beyond that, and you might as well be speaking Klingon. In fact, I'd do better if you were speaking Klingon.

 

Then Mr. Farenheit and some of his peeps departed for Bakers, where apparently there was a girl waiting for him. We shall call her Mrs. Farenheit for now, and await with breathless anticipation any further developments and dramas. I will depend on The Taj to provide me with accurate and trustworthy reports. Apologies to anyone I have just character-assassinated by referring to them as Mr. Farenheit's "peeps".

 

This left a few of us (Antti Po, The Taj, Ilkka, Wendy, Sanna, Mladen, not sure who else) behind to talk shop, which these days consists mostly of muttering curses. Still, most entertaining. I seem to recall putting forward my theory about why this year's sick leaves were three times as high as last year's and five times as high as the projected ideal (the theory is basically as follows: people don't feel there's anything to get better for when they're sick at the moment, and the projected ideal is a fucking daydream based on some utopian society where nobody gets sick because their B-shirts protect them from all illness), and the Seedy Ämmät (as represented at this point by Antti Po, although Wendy was also present) promising not to hold it against me. Salmari and overpriced whiskey gave way to extremely well-priced but body-temperature Minttu, a sure sign that the night is winding to a close.

 

I was also obliged to recite my hilarious How I Was Deported on the Day After My Wedding anecdote for Mladen and Sanna and others who hadn't heard it before. Always a crowd pleaser. The trials and tribulations of a foreigner trying to get paperwork done in summer always make for a few laughs. Mladen's counter-anecdote, How I Just Walked Into the Police Station And They Gave Me a House, was also funny. It's nice to be from an EU country. The question, incidentally, of why Australia isn't in the EU when its population is clearly dead-set on being part of the British Empire, has never been answered to my satisfaction. Why Israel is in the Eurovision but Australia isn't, also, is a real fucking poser.

 

So anyway, then we all left. I took a taxi, Wendy joined me as far as Hakaniemi, and I managed to get home without getting lost, or falling asleep, or being dramatically late. I could have taken a bus, since it was only around midnight, but was basically in no mood.

 

That's it for now. If you'll excuse me, I've got to buzz off and do some work.

 

 

On Saturday night we were honoured to attend the Lionbridge Christmas Party, held over from 2008. Before getting to the report, I should hand out the obligatory awards.

 

Best on Ground: This is a difficult one for me to judge, since my memories of the evening are foggy at best, but I have it on good authority that Mladen and Titta were still up and kicking after 2am, at which point they called around to various mobiles looking for company in a second leg to the drinking tour. I also have to give Lars points for being the sensible one, and getting me into a taxi and home in one piece. He didn't even lose his bottle when I failed to turn up a wallet at the end of a €35 taxi ride, leaving him with the bill. Sorry about that, man.

 

Lamest Excuse on Ground: Gerry, gifted with the perfect excuse of having kidney stones a few days before, instead opted to go with the irretrievably lame "I missed the cut-off date for signing up" excuse for some reason. That's not an excuse. I can fully understand not being in the mood to attend, or not being on form, but just say it. Shame, shame, shame.

 

Pissiest Pants on Ground: I'm sure there were people as drunk, or maybe even drunker, than I was. But I don't remember them. And I think this photo says it all.

 

 

Special thanks for my hairdressers for the night, Jenny and Wendy. Janica was totally appreciative of your efforts.

 

Mad Dancing Fool: Mr. Farenheit was absent from this year's party and was therefore unable to defend his crown. Again, I seem to recall Mladen and I tearing up the floor on a couple of occasions, even dragging Niina along for the ride. Also, I recall attempting to headbang, and falling over in the process. Few were hurt. But this year's Mad Dancing Fool Award goes, no questions asked, to a worthy runner-up of 2007: Mr. DJ Kalakukkos, aka. Mild Mannered Tuomas T, who set stage and dancefloor alike on fire with brilliant magnificence and total, utter win.

 

 

 

The awards duly dispensed with, I will start at the start, which was Om'pu bar at about 4:00pm.

 

I turned up early, and alone, and was debating whether to sit in the main bar or in the room Wendy had booked for us. Either way, I knew I'd be sitting and nursing a beer and looking very sad - although, as was pointed out, very sharply dressed. The music didn't exactly stop as I walked in through the door, and the bar's patrons didn't all turn and stare at me, but it was a close call. Wendy remarked, when she turned up shortly afterwards, that Om'pu is not exactly the sort of place where suits, even cheap ones like mine, show up very often.

 

Wendy was also apparently asked, by one of the lady regulars, "who is that wonderfully handsome man, with the suit and the long hair?" Wendy apparently laughed when she realised they were discussing me. I mean, come on. I'm as modest as the next guy, but a wonderfully handsome man? Not Mr. and Mrs. Hindle's boy Chucky.

 

 

This joke continued as other players arrived - Antti, Mikko, The Taj, Maija and Mladen, perhaps others but I can't recall - and everybody had a good laugh about what a wonderfully handsome man I was. I tried to throw them off the scent by showing them my Baby Woody, but ... oh, it's a long story. I'll have to add a picture sometime.

 

Drinking and merriment went on until about 5:45pm, at which point we tumbled out into the street and wandered around Kallio looking for MacBeth's. Antti was, I seem to recall, very pleased to be in the neighbourhood. He took a deep, happy breath of "that sweet, sweet Kallio air", and pointed out such picturesque sights as the porno shop, the Thai massage parlour, the barber's shop and the Thai massage porno barber's shop (Ask About Our Happy Endings). We caught up with Titta, Jari and Jarmo, and eventually found our way to MacBeth's.

 

 

 

 

 

MacBeth's was a very nice place, for all the understatedness of its entrance and the inordinate amount of stairs leading up to it. Axes on the walls, a good spread of wine and booze tickets on the tables, and acceptable food - plenty of it. I seem to recall The Taj folding on is second plate of mains (I could be wrong here, I'm sure he'll correct me because I would hate this blog to become a house of lies), leaving us more or less at a draw this year. I also seem to recall that I was still eating mains when everybody else was having dessert and coffee. These things can't be rushed.

 

 

 

It was around this point that The Taj called Jenny over and had her go to work on my hair. So for the rest of the night, it was down, flying free, and getting in people's drinks. Dessert and coffee were scarfed, Tuomas (before changing into his magical superhero identity) ran the beats, and dancing commenced. Shortly afterwards, Crazy Machine got up on stage and played a variety of beloved classics for us. It was a source of considerable surprise to me, when I learned that this band was in fact Mr. Burgess's band. I've never actually met him in person, so obviously had no idea.

 

 

 

Drinking continued unabated. I did some attempted mingling, going from table to table and borrowing people's drinks. Actually, I suppose it's fair to say I stole them, because I sure wasn't about to give them back (a fact for which I would imagine people should be grateful), but most of the time I had permission. Tuomas was actually generous enough to share his bourbon with me, and later on I returned to the same table by use of some kind of electromagnetic booze-migration sense, and found the bottle again. Also, for some reason, half a lemon and a pot of honey. This, in hindsight, was probably Tuomas's throat restorative, which ended up not working for him due to all the shouting that needed to be done ... that, and the fact that some fat Australian bastard-and-a-half drank it all. It was, also in hindsight, probably very stupid to mix the lemon, honey, and bourbon together and drink it.

 

I was sitting and talking with Heikki and Lauri at this point, but I'll be damned if I remember what we were talking about. I also chatted with Brendan about his studies, and with Pia about her latest project, which may end up weighing in at about seventeen kilograms at time of birth. She took my comments with what I seem to recall as good grace.

 

 

 

Crazy Machine gave way to DJ Kalakukos, who as you can see from the picture above was sporting the best costume ever. And he put on a hell of a show, in spite of losing his voice. Mad dancing and revelry abounded.

 

 

 

Hmm, I don't remember much more than that, except it was about two in the morning when we rolled out the door, and we were discussing where to go next when Lars convinced me to get in a damn taxi as we'd agreed to do, and go home. So, lucky he was there. Apparently some of the team went on to enjoy themselves elsewhere. Lars and I managed to navigate our way to a taxi stand, and I managed to direct the taxi home - or Lars did. I can't remember very much of the trip. I do remember searching my pockets when we arrived in the Hindle yard, and having a mild panic attack when my wallet was nowhere to be found. lars assured me that he would deal with the taxi fare, and I went inside for an more thorough search, during which my wallet turned up. Which was lucky.

 

I will now throw open the floor for anecdotes, missed conversations, accusations, photographs and dirty, dirty lies.

 

 

 

 

 

So, here is what I did on the weekend. Went out on the piss two nights in a row, managed to pull it off with minimal hangover and at least a little bit of flair, and then spent the time between then and now wondering at what point in my life it actually became an accomplishment to stay up until midnight drinking, twice, without actually dying.

 

I have a feeling, as the years go on, the bar will be set steadily lower and lower, until finally it will be a cause for celebration when I get to the toilet without my inner thighs experiencing the Warm Rinse of Shame.

 

Anyway, we were called in to perform our duty on Friday night, with a gathering in sunny Helsinki at a place whose name I will now attempt to spell by memory: Kellarikrouvi. Hey, it was a nice place. The organisers of this little bash, a pair of my colleagues who shall go by the titles Mr. Cream and Mr. Mahal, had decided that I would be involved in sending out invitations but not, due to my distressing habit of inviting everybody, in deciding who the invitations should go to. They also arranged the accommodations, so that when we assembled our nice group of drink-fixated co-workers, it was in a classy-ass private dining room with food and booze service laid on. There was not, to the apparently lasting disappointment of certain Technical Writing Department Players, a stripper show of either gender.

 

Team Hindle, accompanied by Mr. Cream himself, arrived unfashionably early and nevertheless discovered that they had been beaten to the venue by Team Bergius, who was determined to enjoy a long-awaited night out, and Team Farenheit (with Mr. Mahal in some sort of support role), who had decided to turn up early and alienate as many of the bar staff as possible in order to guarantee we would spend the rest of the night having our drinks and food spat into. As I said, this was mainly due to the support of Mr. Mahal, and nothing really to do with Team Farenheit itself.

 

Drinking began, or in the case of those who preceded us continued, and there was a pleasantly prevailing Thank Fuck It's Friday mood. The rest of the team arrived in easy stages until about eleven of us were sitting in the dining room and food ordering commenced. It was quite fortunate, for those of us who were drinking (perhaps less so for those who were prevented from doing so) that the food was an extremely long time in coming, which gave us several more hours to work our way through a variety of fine-ass alcoholic drinks.

 

It being a long table, conversation tended to divide up along certain axes, such as Nerdiness, Language Barrier, Interest in Strippers and What End of the Table You're Sitting At. I seem to recall there was a prolonged conversation about "coke used as birth control" at one point, during which the main article for discussion seemed to be "When Mr. Mahal says 'coke', do you think of the refreshing caffienated beverage or the powdered drug made famous by dumbass 80s businessmen?". The around-the-table vote seemed to be a resounding, if unjustified, "drugs". Mr. Mahal was devastated, and conversation then went on to just how a drink that can keep you awake all night in sufficient quantities is supposed to act as a fucking contraceptive. I never did get a clear answer on that one.

 

Other topics included Doctor Who (analysis of); Strippers (absence of); Language-Based Humour (the heartbreaking predominance of); and Sheep (fornicating with, and the group-noun of). The latter subject proved enormously fruitful. Mr. Cream was of the opinion that a group of sheep was called a herd, because the word "shepherd" obviously came from "sheep herder". The rest of us decided unanimously that the group-noun for sheep was "flock", with the amendment from Team Laine that the word "shepherd" was probably used instead of "sheep flocker" for a shining good reason.

 

Discussion moved by a process of evolution (more proof if any was needed against the merits of Intelligent Design) back to the fornication issue.

 

Eating and drinking continued unabated. The food was excellent, if erring slightly on the side of "a pea-sized lump of delicious stuff in the middle of a giant-ass art deco plate with a sprig of parsely on the side". I was certainly glad I got two courses, even though my wallet was of a differing opinion. Main course at least consisted of a decent-sized pile of meat and sausages and stuff, so that made Hatboy happy. The meeting finally adjourned around 23:30 and Team Hindle, at least, headed for the last bus that would get us anywhere near home before 6am the next day.

 

On Saturday evening, after a morning of sauna-sitting and Ikea-shelf-assembling, I and many of the Kellarikrouvi Crew were invited to a Christmas Partystitute at the home of Mr. Farenheit. Some of us, as it turns out, work for a giant faceless and heartless multinational corporation that is run by Americans and, in spite of priding itself on being a multicultural communications and localisation company, really has no idea of what countries other than America find important, nay indispensible, facets of professional life, and therefore when the wunch of bankers over in the US decided to do unspeakable things to the comatose body of the global economy, said faceless corporation decided to take certain steps to save ridiculously tiny amounts of money by sacrificing things that Americans consider a privilege but other nations consider a fucking birthright, and where was I at the beginning of this sentence? Oh yes, we are not getting a Christmas Party, so Mr. Farenheit decided very kindly to provide us with one. And good for him.

 

Of course, some people didn't show up on account of having had Christmas Parties the night before, and being too hungover to bother getting out of bed.

 

Team Hindle arrived fashionably late to the party, only to find that fate had conspired to render us unfashionable as ever, so we were still the first people there. We were therefore privileged to witness Mr. Farenheit's last-minute preparations and panic-attack, which is always fun. I recommenced drinking - enjoying most of a 12-pack of grapefruit lonkero throughout the course of the evening, interspersed with other offerings.

 

So various teams turned up as time went by. I mainly remember when Team Pohjoisaho turned up, because he brought a traditional Russian appetizer with him - pickles with sour cream and honey, with a vodka chaser. I don't know how I managed to do it, but my respiratory system somehow conspired to make me choke on the pickle and cough warm vodka out of my nose, filling my sinuses and ear-holes with sour cream, honey and pickle-brine. Seriously, I was still breathing that crap on Sunday afternoon.

 

Still, I managed to restrict the damage to internal systems, and provided amusement for the crowd as I did the traditional Russian Weeping Vodka Out Of My Fucking Tear Ducts Dance. Good times.

 

Dry Martinis were also served, and music was discussed. I was mocked savagely for not giving a flying fuck about Nirvana for some reason. I retreated to the kitchen after this, only partly because Janica had been trapped among people she didn't know and was beginning to look as if she might go catatonic at any moment. Also, Mr. Pohjoisaho was in the kitchen, dealing out booze. I allowed him to deal me in. Copious amounts of chocolate cake (Mr. Farenheit's speciality) were consumed.

 

This was about the point at which Sing Star came out, and Pohjoisaho and I began to heckle. Mr. Mahal, who had appeared briefly and been remarkably well-behaved, sat through one song and beat a hasty retreat (but did not, to his credit, beat anybody else). Sing Star <generic> gave way to Sing Star Rock, which didn't actually seem to have any rock on it, and then Sing Star 80s. Freddy Mercury was a favourite, which is why I have given Mr. Farenheit his new nickname for the month.

 

Another hour or so went by, and my designated driver decided it was time to head home. I did not, at this point, disagree very strenuously, because I was down to my last three or four lonkero and was beginning to suffer from Pickle Lung. Guitar Hero came out, and Team Hindle pulled out (a slightly more effective contraceptive than dipping your todger in a glass of coke).

 

Thus ended the weekend. Except for Sunday, which was spent in a combination of bed-ridden fugue and mounting panic as I looked out the window at the blizzard attempting to bury our house.

 

And then it was Monday.

 

 

Friday night was that wonderful, magical night when every drunk and/or insane person in Finland and neighbouring countries crowds into Helsinki, drinks every beer in the city, makes a lot of noise and then tries to catch the same bus somewhere, because all the taxi drivers are hiding in a huge concrete bunker underneath Suomenlinna.

 

Yes, it was Night of the Arts in Helsinki. Not remembering this a month in advance, I planned the TW Department barbecue night for the very same night, although "planned" might be a bit too strong a word for what I did. Is there a word for "asked everybody if they know a good place to barbecue, then suggested we all go there, then take a big pile of meat and beers there and leave it up to the others to buy all the cooking and eating utensils we might need, as well as come and pick me up when the meat and beers and I caught a taxi to the wrong place"? If so, I did that word.

 

But anyway, it all went very well. I arrived quite early, after buying about twelve kilos of meat and a bunch of coke and beer. The taxi driver took me happily through the middle of town, and we had a brief chat about what a crazy night this was going to be, and how the taxi driver was planning on hiding in this bunker. That was about when I realised I had forgotten everything - everything - except the meat, and so had to text Mr. Mahal. Mahal duly called me, and once the taxi driver had heard me speaking English into my phone, he switched to "tourist" mode and patronised me all the way to the harbour, telling me that the barbecue place we were headed to was very popular at Juhannus and asking me if I knew what Juhannus was, before dropping me at Korkeasaari, assuring me it was Mustikkamaa, and leaving.

 

 

I had a beer while I waited for Mr. Mahal to come and rescue me, which he did with a minimum (for the Taj) of offensive remarks. We headed to the barbecue site, which was very nice in spite of the mad wasps all over the place, where Janne H was already in charge of the fire, and doing an excellent job. Quite aside from the plates and cups and forks and stuff, they had purchased an additional kilogram or so of meat, in the form of pork ribs and bacon-marinated tenders of some sort. I couldn't fault them for assuming I had forgotten the meat. Better to be safe than sorry.

 

We settled in for a few drinks (the Taj opened a bottle of vanilla cola which proved to be a mistake, because vanilla cola is apparently a wasp aphrodisiac, and we'd already smoked them out of their nests so they didn't have anything better to do than to buzz us) and waited for the rest of the team. This was about 16:30 or 17:00, as far as I recall. After a long day at work and almost giving myself a stroke carrying the food from the shop, I was already feeling a little bit light-headed.

 

 

Anyway, the others began turning up in twos and threes around 18:00, which was a relief because the Taj had found a stick and was attempting to beat Janne H with it, in between innumerable offensive remarks about pretty much everyone and everything. Boy has a lot of anger. Unwilling to wait any longer, we commenced to barbecuing.

 

 

 

 

 

The battle against the wasps continued. There's nothing worse than a wasp that has been made madly horny by vanilla cola, unless it is a wasp that has also been dunked in a can of beer and allowed to reach the surly-phase of drunkenness. At one point I took a sip of my drink and thought I had accidentally ended up with the ring-pull in my mouth, only to find it was a wasp. I spat it out and spontaneously said "vi**u" instead of "fu*k", which everybody seemed to find very amusing. I found it amusing too, but only because I was giddy with relief about not being stung. That would have ruined the whole day.

 

 

This set the tone for the next, ooh, five hours. Janne H stood and cooked sausage after sausage, steak after steak, chicken leg after chicken leg, while the rest of us sat and ate, drank, and made merry until we quite literally couldn't fit any more food down. Janne H had, as illustrated, provided Foster's for himself as well as a couple of kilograms of pig products, and rather than drink them warm he bade Mahal and myself to go down to the seaside and put them in the water. We did so, at great personal risk, and I was quite surprised later on when we returned to pick them up and they had neither drifted away nor been stolen by passing swimmers.

 

I kid you not. Swimmers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So, anyway, gorging commenced. The overload of meat and charred black ashy bits may have been responsible for the excess of puns at around this time, but I tend to blame the group in general. Seems we can't go anywhere in a group without making awful language-based jokes. Among the guilty parties were Janne K with his "lefty-pihvit" and his brilliant "Koff / cough" joke; Anna with a string of increasingly-disturbing sausage-innuendoes (or Anna-uendoes, as they should be more accurately named); and Janne H with his emu joke:

 

Q: What happens to an emu on an emu farm when it gets too big?

A: It gets ostrich-sized.

 

 

 

 

The gorging went on for a staggering amount of time. Everybody seemed quite satisfied. The drinks flowed freely (special thanks to Heikki for providing some excellent "Old Invalid" port wine) and conversation was cordial and frequently in good taste, except where dominated by the Taj Mahal and his topics of choice. Into which this reporter will not delve.

 

 

 

 

 

 

That was about it for the rest of the night. We sat and watched Janne H eat his way through a kilo or two of pork ribs, some of which he rosvopaisti'd in foil and left on the grill for a while, until he got his appetite back. In spite of his pleas, nobody else really helped him eat the ribs, although he did get a bit of help with the sausages. Things began to wrap up at around 23:30 or later, as the sounds of the Night of the Arts began to drift across the bay towards us. There were even some fireworks, I think, although we couldn't really see them from where we were. We were actually quite lucky, I think, that the barbecue site wasn't as crowded as the city centre.

 

At one point, we were discussing kids and parenting (I was an interested spectator at best throughout this), although I can't quite recall the context. I do distinctly recall, however, that somebody (who shall remain nameless) expressed surprise at the revelation that the Taj had managed to breed. "Oh, for fu*k's sake!" were his or her actual words. There didn't seem to be much to add to that exclamation, so we adjourned for the night.

 

After cleaning up and risking further drownings and drenchings while retrieving water from the sea in order to quench the fire, we wandered towards the nearest public transport, which was apparently two hundred kilometres away. Pia optimistically called a taxi, and one actually seemed to arrive. It drove straight on past us, however, so she and Janne H headed off determinedly after it. Antti and myself headed for the metro, and the rest parted and made their way to the bus station.

 

There were millions and millions of people in Helsinki, and almost all of them were trying to catch the same bus as me, after I'd navigated my way from the metro to the bus station and found Janica, who had been enjoying a school reunion in the meantime. After about three loads of people (the sight of a bus lumbering towards escape velocity, crammed to the ceiling with drunk people, its doors bulging open and more drunk people chasing it along the platform, screaming abuse and throwing bottles because it hadn't managed to fit them in it, is one that I think will remain with me for a long time), we finally got on board and headed for home at about 01:30.

 

The final chapter of the night, and regrettably I had no camera with which to capture this, was perhaps the most surreal. A crazy and/or drunk woman, who had been scampering back and forth along our platform for the past hour, swearing and laughing and throwing beer bottles at things, staggered onto the same bus as we had. All was well until we got to Hakunila (the bus was filled like a sardine can, so she couldn't really get up to much mischief), at which point she freaked out. Demanding to be dropped in Hakunila (the driver's increasingly desperate shouts of "this is Hakunila! Get off my bus!" went unheeded), she became rapidly hysterical and started to plead not to be left in the dark forest all alone. The poor bus driver, displaying more decency than any other ten people in the bus combined (score one for us immigrants, I say), promised to drop her at her house as soon as he'd finished his circuit. This was not good enough for Ms. Crazy, who started to scream. This set off some of the other drunk people, who started to shout and cry and stuff. The bus was transformed almost immediately into the fu*king Gibbon House.

 

All in all, it was very exciting. Janica and I disembarked just as Ms. Crazy started hitting people. If you ask me, the dark woods would have been a perfect place for her to be deposited. But you know, nobody did ask me, so there you go.

 

Anyway, as Janica said, it was nice to get back to Sotunki, where the only crazy people were ones we were related to.

 

 

 

 

Blood on the driveway, vomit on the couch and the axe taken out of its packaging. Now that's what I call a party, and this has proved to be an absolutely epic report (came in at just over 4,700 words), so get yourself a cup of cocoa, get settled in the comfy chair, and get ready. First, the awards.

 

- Best on Ground / Barman of the Year: Lars "Da Whisker" Sundahl,
  for providing more drinks than I would have suspected possible,
  and mixing them for anyone who asked, until the wee small
  hours of the morning. Also for performing his patented Gangster
  Rap on at least two occasions, for the benefit of those who
  hadn't had their cameras ready the first time. Also for
  accepting the "he's Swedish" crap from all my relatives and
  friends, especially after Sweden had their asses handed to
  them in the hockey. An all-round well-deserved win for this great

  campaigner, as I'm sure all present would agree.

 

- Pissiest Pants on Ground / Punchiest on Ground: "The Evil"
  Sebastian, for ... well, read on. What a colourful character.

 

- Catering Award (a four-way tie): The Great Aunties (Gitta,
  Tutti) also Mommo and Anoppi, for pretty much arranging
  everything, buying and making all the food, and helping
  clean it all up the next day.

 

- Class Act Award / Last Man Standing Award: Henrik "Hena"
  Lithonius, for showing me how to put on my tie clip
  (until he arrived, it was sitting in the pocket of my jacket
  making me look a right tit), and for keeping us all
  entertained until rooster's fart in the morning, under
  near-constant threat of having his elbow broken by "The
  Evil" Sebastian.

 

- City/Country Relations Award: Juuso, aka. "Mr. Taj Mahal",
  for making a banjo joke.

 

- The Minty Goodness Award / The Pissing Off Early Like A
  Giant Candy-Ass Pussy Award: Jukka "Spamshark" Karén, for
  providing all the minty booze a growing boy needs.
  One of the bottles went straight into circulation for
  shots, as you'll see. Sadly, these two awards cancel each
  other out. Ha ha. Zing.

 

- The Druncle Award (new award): Aulis "Aukku" Palokas, for
  arriving after midnight, promptly out-drinking all his
  brothers, and falling down. Also deserves honourable mention
  for letting a bunch of assholes from the city park in his
  yard.

 

Just to put things in perspective, my day started at about midnight on Friday night, when the traditional "wake up the birthday hero in the middle of the night with a serenade" gag was played out by my mother-in-law and her aunties. Finnish Swedes do this all the time, or at least they do in our family. Anyway, I got a Finnish "happy birthday" and then hung up. Then they called again and gave me a Swedish version of the same. I had time to get back to sleep again, then they called with the English version. Then, just for laughs, they called and gave me the Swedish version again.

 

So, after a long day of preparations, we were finally under way. First to arrive was Matti, who enterprisingly caught the earlier bus and arrived just as I was getting changed. He accepted our lack of readiness with stoicism and good humour, especially after we gave him some wine. He hadn't, I noticed, brought any Criminally Bad Elf with him this time. Then Jussi, an old net-buddy of ours, showed up with this incredible vomiting machine that he calls a son. At least we know he wasn't adopted. Ha.

 

 

Yeah, so anyway, I'm not going to go through the entire arrivals list and the marvellous presents they got me, because there were about two billion people there. I was kept busy for an hour or two, running back and forth and greeting people, ordering Janica back and forth with welcome bubbly, and accepting gifts and flowers in between chipper greetings-conversations with various groups. I seemed to receive, on balance, a lot of booze-related presents. Wine, whiskey, and Minttu (Mr. Karén picked me up a bag with about five different sorts of mint alcohol in there, which was thoughtful) were represented. I also got a few books. And also books about alcohol. I also got my very own Råuskis, with sparkling wine and a lump of cheese in it. This is far too long a story for any mere Chucky Report.

 

 

 

After a while the house started to fill up, and so we opted to move out into the yard, where we had set up tents against the arctic chill of early Finnish summer. Lionbridgers began to arrive and they promptly took over a couple of tables, rearranged them so they'd all fit in typical Lionbridge style, and commenced to drinking.

 

 

 

Lars "Da Whisker" Sundahl, hands-down winner of the Best on Ground Award for the night, was able to keep the entire table well-watered and entertained just from his own stash. I don't think they even noticed when the bar opened. Juuso and Janne showed up and decided to park in the neighbours' yard, outside of what Juuso termed "the vomit zone". If only he knew our neighbours.

 

   

 

As I said, there were an awful lot of people and only fifteen or so were friends. The rest (not to say they're not also friends) were family. Namely the great gestalt village family of Palokas-Helenius-Asplund, which comprises almost the entire population of bustling downtown Sotunki. Some of you thought I was joking when I told you about my in-laws, and now you see I spoke the truth. I won't even begin to explain the family tree. Suffice it to say that at one point there was a bit of mingling between the "kyläiset" and the "kaupunkilaiset", and things were cordial until Juuso mentioned Deliverance, at which point relations became strained:

 

     I happened to utter the word deliverance at some point, when there
     was one of the villagers talking to us, and let me tell you my friend,
     he was not pleased. There was this guy trying to be nice to us and
     shit, and then he made the mistake of telling us how the whole village
     is related to each other.

 

The diplomat of the company, Juuso is. Or, in modern parlance, the Taj Mahal.

 

   

 

This family member has since been identified as Pele, son of Rafa, who is in turn the cousin of Anoppi. He was most likely not all that offended, having been brought up on far more insulting conversation at the hands of his esteemed father.

 

   

Dinner was duly served, and was a huge success. My heartfelt admiration must at this point go out to my mother-in-law, her mother, and her mother's sisters, who joined forces as they had at my wedding, to become a sort of unstoppable gastronomic Voltron. Wild pig and deer were cooked (pretty sure all red meat provided for the party was shot by my father-in-law, so thanks to him as well), sausages and meatballs were warmed, and more salad than you can possibly imagine was chopped up and mixed. Oh yes, and ten giant fillets of smoked salmon were provided, along with about five kilograms of silli. Mustard silli and silli in nettle-sauce. Nobody - and I mean nobody, not even Juuso - said "this is shit, I won't eat it." In fact, in his own words:

 

     Yeah, I would've gotten more than 2 plates of the food if it wasn't
     for people making comments like "Oh, that's a LOT of food you
     have there on your plate". And this came from a pregnant lady.

 

   

 

I received a fine, hand-carved drinking horn from my sister-in-law Bella and was obliged, naturally, to drink from it for the duration of the night. Jokes abounded about my horn, and not simply because it is such a funny rude-sounding word (try explaining how your wife's little sister gave you a horn sometime). Anyway, I was drinking wine, or something, out of the horn ... that's right, first a horn of wine and then a horn of Lars's home-made salmiakki kossu, which was excellent. Amidst all the dashing back and forth and making sure everyone was happy, though, I didn't get a chance to sit down and eat until at least the second round of diners were making their way through the kitchen to pick over the remains. I shall use this as an excuse, should it prove necessary. Lots to drink, yeah, and no solid food.

 

   

 

I was pleased to see Hanne and Niina turn up at around this point too, having driven through the area and almost ended up in Porvoo on their way to the house. But they found us, and settled in for a few drinks and a plate of food. According to Wendy, one of the more priceless moments of the evening at the Quiet Table was the look on Niina's face when Lars asked her if she wanted a shot of Moskovskaya. According to reports, she downed at least two or three like a pro, so hats off to Mrs. K.

 

     

 

When they headed off into the wilds once again, I remarked to Bella that "my bosses are leaving" and she demanded to know who they were, and that she be allowed to speak to them. I managed to avoid disaster (and incidental secrecy breaches) by delaying just long enough for Hanne and Niina to disappear out the door. Hope they made it out of the village intact. Jukka and Maarit also left a bit early, a disappointing effort from the big fellow, we all had high expectations ... but he had his excuses and that was that. Anyway, I can't complain about shattering expectations. I'm sure when my dear workmates bought me a Borat man-kini, they expected me to just throw it on right then and there. But I failed to do so, and am continuing to fail even as we speak.

 

Jussi and his little man Eero (can't believe it was so long ago that this kid was born, and nor can I believe how much vomit one small child can fit in his stomach) headed off about the same time. Jussi said that if his Boss was in an allowing mood he might be allowed to come back, but apparently this didn't happen. I give Jussi a hard time about the vomit-on-couch incident, but seriously, it was fine. Not a mark remains.

 

 

 

With Lars's incredible bounty of extra drinks, the Quiet Table was soon competing fiercely with the table where my mother-in-law and her cousins were sitting. I dropped back wherever possible to have my horn filled (see?), and to provide the Quiet Table with shot glasses. Lars was mixing shots from the recipe print-out he had brought with him (no, he really did), and the bottles he had brought along in a pair of cooler-bags, and what finesse he lacked with the layering of the Baby Guinness he more than made up for by the fact that he had brought his own can of whipped cream for the Galliano Hot Shots. He even provided cookies. Pia was a willing lab rat for all the shots, trying them all and giving each one her seal of approval (or not). I think Jenny's poor husband, Topi, was wishing he'd never been born, or at least that he'd never agreed to be designated driver, by the time they left.

 

 

 

Incidentally, Jenny told me that her son Mattias had commented on my "men's toilet" sign. We'd nailed a toilet seat to a pole, and I'd affixed a sign and an arrow pointing to our nicely curtained-off urinal area complete with hand-wash bottle. Mattias mentioned very quietly that the arrow on my sign was the wrong way around or something, because at the moment it just pointed off into the woods. Janne also came up to me at one point and asked me if it was for real, and the men's toilet really was the forest. I told him it was, and with a muttered "oh my God" he wandered away into the wilderness. Oh how we laughed.

 

 

But hey, it wasn't that bad. You couldn't get lost or anything in there. In fact, it was right in view of the neighbours' yard. I just hope neither Mattias nor Janne mistook the "toilet" for a ... ahem, a place of number twos, rather than strictly number ones. We had a real toilet inside for that, guys. Way less stinging nettles inside. Just saying.

 

Wendy has given me a small list here, including some highlights I either missed due to my hosting duties, or had forgotten in the meantime:

 

     - The look on Janica's face after tasting Lars's shot
       invention, the ingredients of which escape my mind
       at the moment. Anyone?

 

(I believe it was something with mostly whiskey [Canadian whiskey was stipulated in the recipe, I remember], perhaps some vodka)

 

(It has since been narrowed down to either a Duck's Fart, a mixture of Baileys, Kahlúa and whiskey, or a more simple whiskey coffee. Whiskey and coffee flavour can hardly be described as two of Janica's favourite things)

 

 

     - The Quiet Table cheering on anyone having a shot and
       sticking about a dozen cameras in their face. No
       pressure or anything... Teehee.

 

  

 

 

    

 

 

     - Juuso showing Nicky some moves - maybe he'll have a
       chance against Silja now. I still have my money on
       Silja, though.

 

(that reminds me, I don't know how many people were still around for the re-enactment of the Duudsons that a bunch of kids came up with, setting up a pile of wooden boards at the bottom of the slide and then sliding into it. This is the generation to which we entrust our wellbeing once we are in our feeble dotage)

 

     - Juuso trying to convince Antti to have a mint whiskey,
       even illustrating his point by picking up the two
       bottles and invitingly rubbing them against each other.

 

 

I seem to recall that where Juuso failed with Antti, he succeeded with me, because for about three hours, I was walking around with a drinking horn filled with mint whiskey. It was just bloody awful. Before I finished it, I remembered sticking the horn through the middle of our lawn table, and going to play my bagpipes while I still could. While debatable as to whether I was anywhere near sober enough to manage (the performance was one big finger-fuck from beginning to end), it seemed to go down well with the crowd. Of course, it was my birthday and they were all drunk so I would have gotten applause even if I'd played with my ass. Maybe especially if I played with my ass.

 

 

My obligations done for the evening, I went back to my mint whiskey, and I finished it at last. I think this was where about a third of Jukka's gift (one of his bottles, some sort of special green Minttu) went. I remember telling people that when I worked in the steel mill, the foreman's wife had found out I liked Minttu, and told me about her favourite drink, which just happened to be this mixture of green Minttu and whiskey. Anyway, after that we found a better use for the Minttu, namely the Dirty Girl Scout.

 

This beverage was supposed to have Creme de Menthe in it, but we only had the green Minttu so that would have to do. It also had Baileys and Kahlúa and vodka, as I recall, shaken on ice in a cocktail shaker just for that added flair. I provided the necessary additions by taking an ice-cream container full of ice (intended for the punch bowl) into the garage, and smashing it with the biggest sledgehammer I could find. The whole thing flew to pieces, I salvaged a bit of ice for the cocktail, and all was well.

 

I'm getting out of order here. But as the evening went on, some of the old folks headed for home. One had already fallen over near the punch bowl and hurt his hand (later turned out to have sprained or possibly broken his thumb), and then his wife took a nasty tumble down the driveway and cut her head on some rocks. She ended up needing fifteen stitches, but she was at home that night (ambulance never arrived, it must have been hijacked in Hakunila and drained of medicinal alcohol so her daughter drove her to the emergency room) and all she could say was that she was sorry about ruining my party. I told her Juuso had ruined my party already, but she didn't get it.

 

So, after that slight hiccup, parté-ing continued in earnest. As I mentioned, the punch bowl had been set up, resident punch expert Pete Tuisku presiding over the mix. Pete is my cousin-in-law, and was quite recognisable by the army fatigues and beret he was wearing. He's not in the army any more, I should add. I think his gear was merely a statement about the fact that I hadn't specified any sort of dress code in my invitations. Incidentally, he was apparently very drunk by the time his wife bundled him in the car. I think he used my hair as horse-reins at least twice, while singing Missä Miehet Ratsastaa, and on another occasion almost broke the nose of Sebastian's girlfriend (we told him, after that, to wrestle with Bella, who was a bit more used to his crap). He demanded coffee when they got home, but was unconscious by the time the it was brewed. Still, we couldn't have had punch without him. He's a former bartender, and he made the punch for our wedding, and for this party, and for a lot of piss-ups in between. Some people even tried the punch, which was a dangerous affair with about four litres of vodka, topped up with "Spritestitute", cider and raspberry juice.

 

Night had fallen and I dashed out to take down the flag, one of my uncles-in-law insisting on helping me so the flag did not touch the ground. I told him there was no way the flag was going to touch the ground anyway, because the ground was sodden with septic tank overflow and covered with stinging nettles. The Quiet Table all got up and stood to attention like smartasses outside the tent while we lowered the flag, and were apparently disappointed that we neither folded the flag into a triangle nor sang "God Save the Queen". Life is full of these little setbacks.

 

Pete and a very tall gentleman who introduced himself to me as "Sebastian" stood guard over the punch bowl for the rest of the night, and drank pint after pint of the stuff. Sebastian was the boyfriend of one of the other guests (who was, let me think, the daughter of one of my mother-in-law's cousins or second cousins? Yes, something like that. In fact, she was the daughter of the lady who gave me the Råuskis, and was in on the whole thing and had been one of the main perpetrators of the original Råuskis incident as well), which explains why I had no idea who he was until that moment.

 

Hena arrived, as did Che, and there was much rejoicing although Che was hungover and didn't stay more than a couple of hours. Hena gave me a gift of a "genuine replica" Viking glass, so I was obliged to use both the glass and the drinking horn from that point on. The Viking glass was promptly filled, as a calculated insult against Vikings everywhere, with Dirty Girl Scout. I was awarded shortly afterwards with a genuine (and at this point the world's only) Daughters of Handicrafts Groupie T-shirt, to thank me for my tireless efforts in drawing designs and things for the local sewing circle, and sexually servicing one of them, more or less satisfactorily, for the past eight years. I was then encouraged to give them all a hug, so I did. Now that I think about it, was Linda even involved in the group, or was she just caught in the hug-zone?

 

Juuso suggested I put on the T-shirt, and the man-kini, and pose for pictures, but for some reason this ended up not happening, and is continuing to not happen.

 

I was also charmed by another epic ballad of punnery from the talented quills of the Halén family, who had written a similar poem for the occasion of our wedding. This one featured the brilliant rhyming of "wish you luck" and "you old ... chap". I admit I wiped a tear from my eye at the conclusion.

 

Things get a little vague, I remember saying goodbye to groups of people and badgering them to sign our guest book. Lots and lots of them didn't, just buggered off without a backward glance. At some point in the evening, I also seem to recall it started to bucket down with rain. It got cold, and only one hardcore group (Anoppi and the cousins) stayed at their table outside. The rest crept in and lit a fire in our fireplace, and started to watch the hockey.

 

Finland won against Sweden, and there was a bit of good-natured ribbing directed towards Lars (because, presumably, he's a professional hockey player), who had also moved inside with the remainder of the Lionbridge group and his mobile bar. Music was demanded, I failed catastrophically to initiate anything using my iPod, and so just whacked a Flogging Molly CD on the player. Sebastian cornered me at this point and exclaimed over how much he liked Flogging Molly, which was just one more point of similarity between us (and also, it has to be added, another thing that, like the word "horn", is impossible to talk about wthout sounding rude). He also, as it turned out, loved our DVD collection, and our house, and thought our bathroom was pretty much exactly the way he wanted his own to be done. He told me that he was two years, one month and eleven days younger than I was, so he had that much time to get married, get a house, and fill up his DVD collection. I didn't have the heart to tell him how long I've been married. After all, he doesn't have deportation to worry about.

 

Lars put on a balaclava and sunglasses and did his Gangster Rap again, much to the amusement of everybody, especially those who had no idea who he was. "Do you really work with that guy?" one of my aunties-in-law asked. I admitted that it wasn't so much work, as a string of alcohol-fuelled college dorm pranks with occasional stints of sitting at a computer in between. Tuomas was giving Lars pointers on how low the waistband of his jeans should be slung to perfect the transformation to Hip-Hop Lars, and the general consensus was that it needed to be pretty low indeed.

 

In Lars's self-defense statement:

 

     As for the photographs and videos of a unknown rapper with a

 

Lars managed to get along well with everybody, in fact, and his bag of drinks and his endless supply of shots was amazing to behold, and popular with everybody. Incidentally, we did have some port wine to make whatever shot it was that required it, but Janica quite rightly pointed out that it was matured fruit port carried by suitcase all the way from Margaret River, and there was no way in Hell we were going to put it in a damn cocktail.

 

Lars had a very long and involved conversation in English with one of my cousins-in-law, who had apparently been wanting to practice English with a non-Australian for a long time. It seems Australian is too fast and badly-accented to be of much use, and English is much better. There was a call for more Galliano Hot Shots. It seems Sebastian was begging for them, but Lars insisted on fresh coffee instead of the cold stale stuff left in the pots. A man of distinguished tastes. So I brewed some coffee and we made about nine of the bastards, and shared them out diplomatically. Then the bottle of Galliano was empty.

 

A short period of silliness with the whipped cream spray ensued, and I believe Lars made some comment about somebody spraying whipped cream on, as he put it, Bella's décolletage. I told him it was a cleavage, and he rather primly told me that no, it was a décolletage.

 

"Who the fuck is this guy?" Bella wanted to know. It seemed a continuing theme for the evening.

 

Oh yes, and Sebastian - the *other* Sebastian, another cousin-in-law - had turned up by this stage, and we all marvelled at Sebastian and Sebastian having the same name for a while. I suggested that the tall, skinny, excessively drunk Sebastian with a penchant for talking about (and, increasingly, demonstrating) martial arts was the "evil" Sebastian, and the Sebastian from our family was the "good" one. This seemed to go down well, especially since "The Evil" Sebastian had a goatee.

 

I went outside briefly to check on the remaining bunch in the tents, to find that Torolf (one of my mother-in-law's cousins or second-cousins I think) had proposed to his girlfriend and been accepted. Then, he had fallen down and dragged the punch bowl with him, giving himself a nice rinse. We made some more punch, this one pretty much just vodka, in front of which we had teasingly waved a bottle of fruit juice.

 

After a while most of the people sodded off, leaving myself, Janica, Lars, Hena, Bella, her friend Linda, "The Good" Sebastian, Fiu and "The Evil" Sebastian, her boyfriend. I think it was around this point that Lars pulled out the axe and started pretending to open bottles and jars with it. Ahh, safe and friendly fun in the precincts of one's own home, with responsible adults.

 

As an amendment to this accusation, I have the following statement from Lars himself:

 

     About the ax... I was getting more and more annoyed with "evil" Sebastian

 

Now that he mentions it, I seem to recall being caught in a strangle-hold as well, and giving "The Evil" Sebastian a reach-around in response. He let me go pretty sharply, too, although since he had already done this to Lars and I definitely remember talking about it, I can only assume he liked the reach-around. From then on he concluded that he wouldn't do anything to me because I was the host and he was drinking my booze and it wouldn't be polite. Whatever.

 

Hena's jokes about martial arts had not gone down well with "The Evil" Sebastian. Hena had been telling us about a new martial art he had masterminded, by which you could totally take out a huge crowd of ninjas single-handed. The trick, he said, was to develop your kicking strength until the point at which you could kick a man in the balls so hard, his pelvis breaks. That was step one. Then, he continued (over the increasingly agitated objections of "The Evil" Sebastian), you had to learn how to do another kick that breaks the guy's knees. Then you had to step in behind, deftly, and twist his head until his neck breaks. The final step, he confided to us (while "The Evil" Sebastian started to cry), was to learn how to do all three of these steps in less than a second.

 

"The Evil" Sebastian insisted that this wouldn't work, but was unable to explain exactly why. Then, he wanted to show us the move he had learned - while fighting kung-fu against all manner of world champions - that you could perform to break somebody's elbow. I told him he couldn't. He told me that he wouldn't, but if I just gave the word, he would. Break Hena's elbow. Or mine. Or even his own. Hena's flawless recitations of "Blazing Saddles" and "Spaceballs" scenes, and a long passionate breakdown of why Episodes I, II and III sucked ass, did not dissuade "The Evil" Sebastian from his plan. In fact, on several occasions while Hena was ranting about Jar Jar, "The Evil" Sebastian was standing behind him, making elbow-breaking gestures and looking at me hopefully for the nod.

 

Oh, to put him and Juuso together for just twelve seconds.

 

Anyway, this went on until about six in the morning. Lars and "The Good" Sebastian shared a cab out of Sotunki at about four, and Fiu and "The Evil" Sebastian departed at about five. We laughed for an hour and then Bella and Linda left, Hena fell asleep on the couch, and Janica and I went and collapsed. I got up four hours later and began cleaning up. We finished cleaning up at about seven o'clock that evening.

 

And to answer Tuomas's question, my alcolemia did not bother me in the slightest. I am gradually evolving from the Kate Moss of alcoholics to the ... I don't know, the Roseanne Barr of alcoholics? Either way, I was fine. I put off my hangover by the simple expedient of taking a drink or two from the punch bowl in between picking up rubbish, so by midday I was, let's say tipsy, again. Now, I'm just tired and sore all over.

 

Good times.

 

 

 

CHUCKY REPORT
Spring Lunch, 9th of May 2008
 

Right from the start, my memory of this entire day is sort of sketchy, even the parts before drinking commenced. I don't quite know who or what to blame for this phenomenon, beyond the fact that this has been a very busy month and it is possible I managed to drink some sort of freaky quantum booze that gave me memory loss retroactively.
 
That seems unlikely.
 
So, without further disclaimers, our Spring Lunch began on Friday morning with an important discussion meeting, in which several key issues were raised and addressed by members of the committee. I don't remember the name of the committee, who exactly the members were, or what issues were raised, except for the Cream Machine, which Lars once again tried to explain to everybody. His explanation was found wanting. Unfortunately, I don't remember the names of the Loc people who attended the meeting ... perhaps Jenny can add them to the mailing list?
 
Tomi turned up to take the projector, and Jenny was unable to convince him to join the meeting. Brendan turned up again and then left. Was it my imagination, or did he continue to do this for the rest of the evening?
 
Twelve o'clock rolled around and we made for the buses. Denied access to the second bus, doubtless for reasons of prejudice, we crowded into the first and commenced to making the people sitting around us look bad. Andre asked me something at this point, possibly about my decision to sit next to him, and once I had delivered my rant about being denied access to the second bus, he described me as a modern-day Rosa Parks. I found this comparison as hilarious as it was inappropriate. Minttu may or may not have been consumed during the trip.
 
There was absolutely no vodka drinking in the auditorium before the seminar, although I will confess that Gerry and I spent a little while brainstorming ideas for next year, including a means of drinking surreptitiously through a straw or hose from a bottle hidden cunningly in the pocket, sleeve, or cleavage (or, respectively, man-cleavage). Perhaps a series of hot water bottles filled with different beverages, sewn into the lining of the jacket and connected to the mouth via reticulation pipes through the collar, would be a workable idea. We even went so far as to discuss places, such as Bauhaus and Plantagen, where gardening hose of the appropriate bore could be purchased. We don't £uck around, people.
 
After the seminar, which was very exciting (honourable mention to Hanne for keeping her talk short and sweet, and to Marja for struggling through the HR discussion amidst growing restlessness), we made our way to the restaurant. I should note, at this point, that Lars and Wendy had already £ucked off at about T minus fifteen minutes, and I later discovered a text message from Wendy on my phone, saying that she'd found a table for us. This was incredibly efficient and thoughtful of her, but naturally I am the K-Mart of telecommunications hubs and therefore not to be trusted.
 
Something in the region of eight kilograms of fish later, the starter course was over and wine was flowing liberally at the Loud Table. Also Minttu, of course. It was at this point, an astonishing hour and a half into the Spring Lunch, that my hip flask ran empty. Special thanks to Juuso who gave me his wine. We thought we were being very cunning, but the probable fact was that there was a set number of wine bottles, not a fixed number of glasses ... long story short, I think we all got as much wine as we wanted. Discussion revolved to why my old nickname used to be Chucky, and then Gerry and Jenny and Antti made light of my alcolemia, which is a very real disease and no laughing matter.
 
Main course was steak and meatballs. You could tell them apart because the meatballs were grey.
 
Kari handed out awards at about this point. An enjoyable part of any Spring Lunch. Jarmo won, among a couple of other Loc people, and earned himself a rousing cheer. Ilkka and Taru also won, as did Hanne (who got a sustained round of applause from the Loud Table) and, for some reason, Juuso (for whom the crowd went absolutely bug$hit). I seem to recall in the short space between Kari saying "Juuso" and the table erupting, there was time for Juuso to say "what the £uck?" in a small and frightened voice.
 
I started to explain my unified theory of Spring Lunch Awards to anybody who would listen, and to quite a few who wouldn't. Basically, of all the people I spam with Emails in the course of my internal communications, the ones who are least likely to reply turn out to be the ones who are most busy, and therefore most likely to win a Spring Award (also known as "a Springie").

 

 
 
Anyway, it was sunny outside and some people like that, so after the Springies, out we all went. Janne and I stood talking movies for a short time, until Wendy changed the subject by telling me Janne had made up a Spring Lunch Song, and naturally we all demanded that he sing it for us. Janne called Wendy a bad word, and refused.

 

 

Happy Hour (or, as it was renamed in the wake of the discovery that neither whiskey nor Baileys were available for free, Content Hour) began and passed in a blur of glasses and bottles and random encounters at the bar. Most enjoyable. One clear memory stands out for me at this point, and that is a memory of me, walking back outside with Juuso, and telling him that he was the Taj Mahal of mother£uckers. He was greatly pleased and amused (but not, I have to stress, even slightly surprised) to be told this. I don't remember why this even happened. I just remember that it did.

 

   

I went past a table where Verna and Matti and several others were sitting and talking, and asked them why they were sitting inside in the dark. They shot back with, "why are you standing outside in the sun?" and this struck me as such a damn good question, I think I joined them for a while. I did not, however, say anything remotely useful, or probably even comprehensible by that stage. Mladen was present, mingling at various groups in his usual sociable way, and I seem to recall he was regarding my inebriation with quiet amusement.

 

     

Back out in the sunshine, Lars explained the Cream Machine to us all again. Wendy declared that he should be known as Cream Whiskers from this point on. There was an extended discussion about the tree we were standing next to, and just what in God's name it was called (it was a pihlaja tree, which Tuomas now tells me is "mountain ash" or "rowan" in English, so there you go, another mystery solved). There was also a catfight out on the lawn between a pair of the Loc girls, but I didn't quite get to the bottom of that. I mean, figuratively speaking.

 

Mikko and some of the other Tampere folks started asking where we were headed next, and so we decided to split up and canvass the entire joined departments. It seemed like the prevailing opinion was that we would go to the Dubliner, so naturally I went back over to our group and declared that we would be going to the Berliner. "Ich bin ein Berliner", as I declared at this point. This was later, amidst what I consider to have been unnecessarily excessive hilarity, amended to "ich bin ein Dubliner".

 

     

Then, either I passed out for half an hour, or everybody vanished in the space of three seconds. I looked around and there was nobody left. I was just getting ready to venture out to the main road to see if the rest of the world's population had vanished as well, when I was pleased to see Hannele (one of our seldom-talked-to Loc colleagues, and I hope I have sent this Email to the right Hannele) desperately attempting to finish her half-gallon of gin and tonic, for which she had paid and was therefore not going to leave behind. So we stood and talked for a while and I helped her finish the drink, and while we were doing that, Gerry also appeared. I began to regain my equilibrium after everybody vanished ... as much as somebody in my inebriated condition could really be capable, that is.

 

     

We stumbled out and headed for the bus station, finding a bowl of courtesy mints in the coat room/reception area and demolishing several packets of them as we went. I still have pockets full of the damn things. We caught the bus into Kamppi and found that half of Lionbridge hadn't made it any further than that - there was an outdoor bar and concert area set up in the square, and the Loc team had nabbed themselves a couple of tables. We tried to convince them to come with us to the Berliner, or failing that the Dubliner, but they were quite comfortable and frankly if I'd known there was an outdoor bar right there in Kamppi, I would have suggested we all go to that instead. We lost Hannele at about this point and Gerry and I were just considering staying for a round, when Gerry got a call from Jenny asking where the £uck we were, so we decided to hurry on.

 

But first we went to Alko and bought another bottle of Minttu.
 
We shared the bottle as we walked, until Gerry's phone rang again and she was stuck talking to somebody completely non-Lionbridge-related for at least an hour. From that point the bottle remained in my pocket. We made it to the Dubliner and found the rest of the group. Tuomas was alarmed to see me drinking my Minttu, and I realised he was quite right and the staff would throw me out if they saw it, so I put it away for the time being. This was, I think, my last moment of real rationality.
 
Gerry started throwing Baby Guinni at everybody around this point, and I think I had a fully-grown Guinness as well, just to break the bad mojo of the last time I'd come to the Dubliner, when they hadn't been serving the stuff. Sanna also asked the barman for a Baby Guinness, and got a Guinness in a very small glass. That was funny. Antti leaned over the bar and demanded "tequila mother£ucker" and was fortunate enough to get a "siis mitä?" in response, rather than a smacking. Still, he got his Tequila Mother£ucker in good order, and duly consumed it. He also explained the beer he was drinking, I seem to recall it was Dutch, similar to Hoegaarden but with a hint of banana. I thought that sounded £ucking awesome, so I bought one.

 

 

There was no banana in it.
 
Then I attempted to send a text to Janica and explain that I would be getting the 20:55 bus home, so (since we had planned it that way earlier) she could turn on the sauna and everything would be ready for when I got home. I got a message back saying that it would be too late to sauna, at which Gerry decided my best option would be to ask very nicely, or something. She also decided that the only way I could get away with this diplomatic effort would be for her to write the message for me, so she snatched my phone. Why she thought this would fool Janica for a second is beyond me. Anyway to cut a long story short I lunged for my phone, knocked Gerry's glass of water off the bar, and she ended up wearing its contents while the glass itself ended up broken on the floor. I got a round of applause from the bar staff for that. But at least I got my phone back.
 
Gerry was most put out, declaring that she had only wanted to help, and now her pants were all wet. She was probably right (she was certainly right about her pants), but it never would have worked. Janica knows I don't ask nicely. I'm more of a whiner than an asker.

 

It was a mystery to me the next morning, although far less of a mystery now that I write it all out, how I managed to leave the pub at 20:40 and get on the wrong bus. But I did. So then I had to get picked up anyway. I have a vague but amusing memory of sitting on the bus, and being startled awake by everybody around me clapping and cheering. They were applauding the bus driver for some reason. I don't know why. Anyway, I joined in, then went back to sleep.
 
Got home and had a sauna, during which I was apparently a cause of great tension for Janica because she was worried I was going to fall onto the hot rocks. A quick check of extremities tells me I didn't.
 
Up the next morning at half-past seven (Janica had to go to school, I was meant to drive her there but opted, wisely, not to) and then a nice full day spent renovating and shopping, followed by a house party at a friend's place that started at eight in the evening and continued, at least as far as my own involvement went, until midnight. They had a DJ. A lot of Janica's students showed up. I felt very, very old, especially when one of them asked me how old I was turning at my next birthday, and I said "thirty" and he said "wow".
 
So, until next weekend, I remain your humble reporter,

 

Chucky

 

School Ceilidh after Anzac Day

Written by Chucky, editorial comments by Monty.

 

After Anzac Day some members were not sufficiently ill and decided to attend a Ceilidh at their old school (which shall remain nameless) the night after...

 

Morning. I have nothing to tell you, let alone write a report about. Best-On-Ground goes to Dirty and Shambles, who kicked on to the Bog (all night Irish bar that will feature often in Chucky's reports especially towards the end. Ed) after the Ceilidh, so maybe you can take it up with them. Honourable mentions to Mr.B for driving me home, and Andrew 'the Don' McCormack for pissing on Mr.B's car. In, I might add, the full and most unimpressed view of Mr.B and Mrs.Don.

 

Actually, there's quite a lot I could talk about. Drambuie and Lemonade (this is a decent website - there will be no blasphemy. Ed), Nuts the Cheapest @#$% Worldwide (gosh someone is bitter, it's only a raffle Chucky, find your neutral space. Ed) winning the raffle, then bitching about there being no door-prize and STILL getting a free entry ticket (while we're talking about HIM, we reached the conclusion that when God was handing out asses, [SNIP] (sorry Chucky, we can't print your views on this matter, this is the public section of the website. Ed).

 

There was the new Headmaster's wife and her worried facial expression when she saw me handing out No-Doz (or 'little white soldiers' as I was calling them, Jesus I was a pissed @#$%), and then there was the bagpiping from Dirty, and the note errors and cut-outs by Shambles.

 

Then Craig had a play. And McCormack breaking the World Record for the Longest Stretch of Time Spent Talking Shit Without Stopping to Breathe. He started at about nine o'clock on Sunday morning, and probably hasn't stopped yet. He was still going (albeit fairly blue in the face) when Margaret hauled his pissy ass home. Then there was Phil winning all the runner-up prizes in the raffle, and walking out of the function centre with enough shortbread to sink a ship, and enough plonk to sink it in.

 

World Record for Calling the Greatest Number of Women 'Pretty Little Things' in the Presence of One's Wife also goes to McCormack (McCormack's name is cropping up with disturbing frequency. Had a big night did we, Andrew? Ed), who was hopping into Phil's plonk like a man possessed. While we're talking about World Records, the Greatest Number of Tasteless 'Boarder' Jokes and the Most Numerous Repetition of the Phrase "Oooh, That's a Good Drop" also go to the Don. I am obliged to give honourable mention to my brother (James 'Drinker' Hindle) as well, for being a moderately successful (and entirely inexpensive) M.C. during the course of the evening, and to Alan Yandle  for doing a number of heroic farts. They are the reason I feel so crook - it wasn't the Drambuie and Lemonade, it was that filthy, smelly prick Alan Yandle.

 

Special thanks also to Craig, who by virtue of his amazing silver-service butler's manner managed to sell more piss than any of the waiters and waitresses (his normal procedure, a la Band Pracktiz, ran along the lines of walking up to a table and saying, "I'm going to the esky, who's up?" and other such catch-cries as "Pisspisspisspisspisspiss," and "Carn - chugalug.") It was astounding how many people were unable to resist his charms. The new Headmaster himself was reported to have at one point indignantly exclaimed, "I'm not a pansy - gimme a McEwans you big bald bastard." Also contributing was Haggis, Roast Pig, a half-baked Pig Farmer (the acorns of which McCormack was spoiling to kick even BEFORE he started drinking, and was even more inclined to kick when Phil looked in through a window and said, "Hey, that pig farmer's got his hand on your wife's breast..."), and some sort of dessert that I considered too nice to eat, however briefly I would have eaten it. Phil's dancing was noteworthy, mainly because he swept all his dance partners off their feet. Literally. Then went on to describe the husbands of his aforementioned dance partners as 'zoob suckers'.

Whatever they are.

 

But I really don't feel qualified to talk about any of that - I wussed out and went home at midnight. I was an absolute unit. I can talk about the length of the weekend, and the masses of uni assignments I had, and how hungover I was, and how little money I had ... I can talk about all that till the Cows come home (love the cows) (Gotta love the cows. Ed), but the simple fact is, I was a unit. And my performance was shameful. Bandsmen were glancing at me and crossing themselves religiously. Shambles waved at me with his pinkie finger. I didn't even vomit.

 

In all, although it was a great night, I'm sure a lot of people had a better one than me, and people CERTAINLY kicked on for longer than I did. Mind you, I hadn't promised a Chucky Report for this event, so you can go and bitch to the wall. I'll be up and running for the Dinner Dance, and following that, Bridgetown.

 

Good night.

Charles.

This isn't so much a Chucky Report, as a minute's silence in respect of a lost piss-up.

 

Except I refuse to be silent, not even for a minute! What sorry excuse for a St. Patrick's Day was this? What a tragic, senseless waste! I was ready. I'd done my very damnedest to encourage enthusiasm, to gather attendees, and to plan my Sunday - nay, even my Monday - hangover with a care and dedication seen only in the great drinking personalities of the 19th, 20th and early 21st Centuries. I had my medications at the ready, my greasy fry-up breakfast all planned, and my liver transplant all lined up, and for what? I'll tell you what. An Irish pub that wasn't serving Guinness, an hour and a half spent sitting with my wife making idle chit-chat (nothing against the good lady, but we could have done exactly the same thing at home on a much more comfortable couch, with better booze and full remote-control access to the TV), the shame of appearing in public in my green hemp shirt, cosy green cardigan and green Jameson beanie, none of which really fitted me but were the very least I could do in honour of a Patron Saint about whom I knew nothing but to whom I was willing to pay my respects in the name of alcohol on this solitary occasion each year, indeed, a perfectly good Saturday evening thrown down the toilet like so much beer and pub snacks, at least beer and pub snacks that should have been thrown down the toilet, but weren't on account of this being the most pissweak St. Paddy's Day in the history of alcoholic endeavours! That, to answer my previous question, is what! It was just sad. No, it wasn't sad, it was a fucking disgrace. Furthermore, we live way the fuck out in the boonies and getting in and out of Helsinki shoots the better part of an evening right through the bollocks, so even if we do happen to decide the whole thing is an abortion from beginning to end - and we did, with no small justification I might add - the realisation occurs far too late for us to do anything about it whatsoever, making this an even greater sacrifice for us, but one we are more than willing to make for the sake of these black-hearted traitors we call our friends, and I don't mean 'black-hearted' as in 'hearts of pure Guinness', oh no. I mean the bad sort of black-hearted traitors. Willing victims of our own solitude, we are, and we bear the necessary burden with quiet stoicism. But perhaps the odds were more profoundly stacked against us than we thought. Maybe it was the day itself that was all wrong. Who wants to go out with friends, let alone co-workers - let alone former co-workers - on a Saturday? St. Patrick's Day was on a Monday this year and that means it's going to be very difficult for most people to get out. Certainly, looking back on my St. Paddy's of 2000, I acknowledge freely that I couldn't do the same today. Times change. I'm a shadow of my former self in every sense but the literal. I have a full-time job and have already booked up way too many days off this winter, sad but true. Gone are the times when one could make a day of it, without significant planning, and although the opportunities for such planning were ample this year it seems as though nobody wished to make use of those opportunities. Since I was among those who squandered this marvellous, once-in-a-year chance for a day of responsible gorging and social drunkenness, far be it from me to cast the first stone. Monday couldn't be done and even the Irish accepted that, and so they moved the whole thing to a Saturday instead, bless their hearts. But that was the point at which the sound, sensible planning ended and the Festival of the Dog's Breakfast began. And so the inward spiral of self-recrimination begins. Was it my fault? Was I, in my over-enthusiasm, blinded to the fact that I was piling too much pressure onto my dear friends, with whom I simply wanted to spend a little time and fellowship? Were my expectations unreasonable? Were my incessant Emails in connection to various social events and gatherings so remorseless, so spam-like in nature, that they sapped the will to live of my fellow travellers, causing a loss of enthusiasm or perhaps a feeling that there were too many things to remember, too many things to do? In providing them with so many different messages on the topic of fun times to be had, did I confuse them or wear out their miniscule attention-spans to such an extent that they simply thought "oh fuck it, I can't be bothered going to any of these things or even, apparently, reading the Emails themselves anymore, let alone responding to them, I never did learn how to reply to an Email and this fat Australian cunt isn't worth the efort of learning how"? Apparently so! Now far be it from me to deride the drinking skills and dedication to socialising of my friends and colleagues, they are beyond reproach when it comes to such things and I'm sure they had their reasons for leaving me high and dry. It is pure bitterness on my part which causes me to hypothesise possible reasons for this treachery, and to conjure up in my mind's eye a secret gathering of Freemason-style killjoys who mastermind the destruction of innocent Saturday nights for nothing more than the pure pleasure of random, senseless debasement. Most likely it is nobody's fault, if not my own. People have other things to do, and can't postpone or reschedule them for the sake of anything so passé as a centuries-old tradition of good times and comradeship. And admittedly, a couple of people - yes, a precious couple - did actually show willing. So what if only one of them was Irish? In this day and age, that hardly matters! We had a pair of takers, from a star-studded field, and that should have been enough. And it was my own doing, my own crippling depression and desolation, that caused me to advise them not to waste their time hiking into Helsinki the way I had done. What is an hour or two of sitting in a pub without Guinness, I rationalised to myself, against the bygone days of 16-hour benders and thick black stout running in bountiful rivers? What is the point, when half the time is spent in transit and only I have the presence of mind to bring a flask? I blame myself, dear God, I blame myself. What have I become? Have these hands become the hands of a sad, pathetic sipper? Am I become my own betrayer, the architect of my own demise? It is a grim day for all of us, a grim day indeed, when Australians and Irish and Finns can't get out on St. Patrick's Day and have a few brewskis. Where once a dozen pints were downed and fabulous prizes won, now a botle of Corona, a pint of Kilkenny and a couple of shots of Salmari and Minttu Black shuffled their feet in the hallowed halls of Drinkerdom like a half-booked tour group showing up on renovation day, knowing all too painfully their acute lack of worth. Yes, Minttu Black, that sorry excuse for a liquor that tried valiantly, for all its flaws, to stand in the great dark shoes of Sir Guinness, a liquor chosen for a blackness that proved, ultimately, to be false advertising of the lowest and most pernicious sort, as it was neither black nor, to my lasting disgust, even Minttu. Where once I would walk home with head held high, bearing the spoils of a day and a night of carousing - including but not limited to shot glasses, barmats, pints and tumblers, swizzle-sticks, cocktail shakers and a plethora of other dipsomaniacal treasures - now there was a hanging head, a shameful mien, and a lowly cardboard drink coaster pocketed in full view and bored acceptance of the woefully underworked and embarrassingly-relaxed bar staff. But it goes beyond a simple let-down, beyond the mere bummer of an evening not satisfactorily spent - oh, so far beyond. It is, without wanting to get unnecessarily melodramatic about this, a microcosm of our social and cultural situation, a reflection of this day and age in which we live. I don't think I exaggerate when I say that these are end times, people. This is truly the end of the long march of days, and when Last Drinks are called not even the repentant will be spared. The great flood started with a single drop of water, the fires of Armageddon will begin with a single spark, and how can we, brittle, dry branches that we have become, hope to stand in the way of such a relentless juggernaut of boredom, misery and sipping-tea-with-pinky-finger-extendedness? I'll tell you how: we can not, that's how. It's over, and all that remains is the long, drawn-out whimper of a fading dream, the slow death-rattle of a once-proud drinking tradition and the passing of a legend into the realms of lame superstition and barely-remembered bygone achievements. Weep, you who dwell in such grim and dreary times. Weep for what is lost, weep for what is forgotten, for what is forsaken and what has been traded, heedlessly, for empty promises of better things, in this life or the next. And weep, my friends, for all those who do not know what is missing from their souls. They are surely the most miserable of God's creatures. But for I.

 

So, I have been browsing the old Perth Highland Pipe Band website and decided, as a special treat to you all, to be a lazy ass and copy-paste one of my old Chucky Reports from that page onto this one. As time goes by, I will add others, but this is just a taste of things to come.

 

I get lazier.

 

Anyway, this is a Chucky Report from March 17th, 2000. Back when dinosaurs roamed the Earth. A time of walkmans and The Blair Witch Project. Just to put it in context, I met Janica online around August 1999, and she came to visit Perth in February 2000. She then left, and around May, June 2000 I went to Finland for the first time. This is the St. Patrick's Day somewhere in the middle there, while I was undergoing my "Chucky the Apostate" period of total sexual deprivation.

 

Since St. Patrick's Day is coming up and we're out on the piss for the occasion this coming weekend, I thought I would add this as an historical comparison point.

 

 

St Patrick's Day and a Band Camp in the same week!
Report by Chucky, intro and editorial comments by Monty

 

 

 

Note: This report should be read with that ‘80s classic, "All Fired Up," in the background. Believe me, it works...

 

The day began, for me, at about ten thirty in the morning, on Friday the 17th. After arriving in town to find the Elephant & Wheelbarrow closed (there is a strange rule kicking about that says pubs can't open until eleven, and no matter how many times I am told this, it is still a rude shock to see those closed doors), I walked around the block grumpily. The rest of the band (and various others) were playing golf for some reason, but I really couldn't tell you anything about that. I heard that young Ritchie played a par three hole with a putter, right from the tee. He didn't do very well - equal last, in fact, with Malcolm ‘Vom-meister’ Maclean. Anyway, they were not due at the pub until after midday, and I wanted to get a head start - after all, they had. A lot of them were already well on their way to completing the twelve pints of Guinness they required to earn their special "Sir Guinness" T-shirt. I had yet to even get myself a passport to begin filling with pint-tokens.

 

So I walked around the block, and there was Rosie O'Grady's - open for business and filled with burks with green hair, green plastic bowler hats and - glory of glories at such an early hour - shiny black pints brimming with delights. With a spring in my step as I realised I could pass the time waiting for the pub to open at the pub, I went inside. And suffered my first setback for the day.

 

"We haven't got that deal on today," the barmaid said when I asked for a pint of Guinness and a T-shirt passport. It being a St. Patrick's Day thing, it only made sense that they close the offer for that particular day - I noticed she had a shirt on, though if she'd had twelve pints of Guinness in her life I'd be very surprised. [typical Rosie O'Grady's experience - that pub and the one in Fremantle are loads of shite and unfit for the presence of a Perth Highlander, Ed] I had the pint anyway. Call it a warmup, I told myself. Set myself a nice steady pace, set my eyes on the goal, and ... well, this isn't all about me. In the meantime the other guys were playing golf, and were probably drinking too - verify please, mister Editor.

 

I finished my pint by eleven and went back to the Elephant. They had passports, and they gave me one, dammit. I was a quarter of the way to my T-shirt by the time the rest of the guys arrived, and drunk? Oh, yes.

 

The day proceeded as one would assume it would from there. We had a slap-up lunch (too late for the solids to do much good, but still damn fine eating) at about one, but the shirts had begun to roll in before that. In fact, about one round after the rest of the crowd arrived (there was ten or fifteen of us by this stage), the table's dress-code began to blacken. I can solemnly say that every person who ended up with a shirt deserved to have that shirt - even Stuart "Stubaggs" MacGregor, who works at a liquor store and thus got his shirt for free, earned his cloth by the end of the day. But we've a way to go yet.

 

Disturbingly, and to my lasting disappointment, we suffered the loss of one of our more in-need-of-training recruits at about four in theafternoon. Young Ritchie, having just arranged a nine-thirty finish and lift home with his lady, suddenly departed from the scene when aforementioned lady turned up at the Elephant. Rumours that he had said the nine-thirty part of his phone conversation aloud and then whispered, "Pick me up now," into the phone cannot be confirmed, and personally I don't believe it. The fact that he made up for his lax attitude in the hours to follow makes his crime that little bit easier to forgive, but we were all a little shaken by the early casualties. Shaken, but nowhere near surprised - it is a well-known fact that more than his own body-weight in Guinness makes Ritchie sleepy, and he'd had a good four pints. Just like the year before, the Boy from Dowerin (sorry, from Gerr'l'n) missed out on a T-shirt - this time by a mere eight pints.

 

And so the hours passed. We received green plastic bowler hats - well, I say ‘we’, what I mean is the rest of the guys got one, I already had one, since the manager of the Elephant had had pity on me in the long pints waiting for the golfers to arrive. Apart from the hats, we also had tattoos, as far as I can recall they were little shamrocks, with "Jameson's" written on them. Mine was on my forehead so I couldn't see it, and it didn't last very long. Well before the sun went down, we adjourned to the park, into which Rosie's had expanded in celebration of the occasion. This is where things begin to get fuzzy. We lost Reclining, though he was most certainly one of the last men standing - it is assumed he wandered off into the actual pub, but nobody knows for sure, not even Reclining - he was well on his way to his second T-shirt by the time he realised he was at home in bed. We lost Malcolm round about sunset, and the next thing I remember is our crowd being thinned to myself, Shambles, Dirty, Monty and Stubaggs. There may have been others, who I am now going to offend by leaving out. I apologise in advance. [You have offended Finger. Ed]

 

The Police Pipe Band, grade two World Champions (our World Champions, if you believe the slogans) played in concert in the park, bagpipes being Irish and all. We thought they were good, so we pulled our pants down and flashed our asses at them as their performance was coming to an end. [One of the nicest moons I've ever done. How was Dirty's form refusing to do it because he wants a job with them one day...Ed]. Watching Bailey choke on his blowstick, and Barry try to return the moon without actually baring his ass (and I have to hand out thanks for that courtesy), was worth the jeers and funny looks from the rest of the audience. In fact, I think they thought it was pretty good too - but in their defence, everybody was drunk by now. We continued to drink. There was a stupid beer-ticket system in the park by which a person wearing a 12-pint T-shirt was expected to be able to tell what sort of drink he wanted, and buy a colour-coded ticket for that drink accordingly. Nobody seemed to have a problem with it.

 

By sheer luck, I think, I managed to buy myself a huge wad of pretty red tickets, which apparently entitled me to cans of mixed drinks, with lemon juice and coke and all sorts of stuff. Well, the time for Guinness was over. And the silliness continued from there. We met three Americans who increased our numbers for a little while - Heather, Mike, and Josh … no, wait, that was a movie I saw the other day …anyway, they were American, and pretty funny. [3 chicks one from Minnesota, one from Boston and one from New York. Minnesota went away to spew and New York left to help her. Nice girls actually...Ed]

 

Some bastard stole my hat, and we met Kate from whatever band it is she's playing in now, who told me something about Alicia, and apparently someone in Perth Highland had given her a necklace [a pearl necklace??? More details Chucky. Ed]. My personal belief is that this information was just drunk talk, or she had the wrong band, but it was pretty intriguing at the time.

 

After that, I sort of lost everybody except Stubaggs. I have it on good authority that Shambles and Dirty ended up at the Taipan Room, and then went to Subway before heading home, and were refused entry to the Elephant when they tried to go back on account of it being too full. Shambles apparently took the nasty bouncer's name - a bald fellow with a surname Walker, that's all I know. Reclining was home by half-past midnight, and the others were all home before that. Stubaggs and I walked around the park for an hour or so, sitting down at random tables and dispensing golfing tips to complete strangers. Then we joined the queue at the women's toilets for some reason, ranting about equal rights and the abolition of sexual discrimination. We were unstoppable bullshit machines - Stubaggs had already given his ‘card’ to several people needing golf tutoring, and now we were apt to talk about anything. The only objection the women had was that the men's line was moving faster. Oh yes, now I remember - we joined the women's line because although the men's line was moving faster, it was longer, because there were chicks in it. So we were evening the tables, or something. Except by the end of the line I really needed to go, and Stubaggs suddenly revealed he was only in the line for "shits and giggles." So I had to go it alone. And I pissed standing up, dammit. And when I left, I left the seat up, reclaiming my masculinity once and for all. Stubaggs was gone when I got out.

 

That about ended St. Patrick's Day. I put my walkman on and had a bit of a sleep in the park for half an hour or so, but, like Reclining and most of the others, I was on my feet and on my way home by midnight. And the next day, well, you know what happened. I had a shower, a vomit and a litre of milk, and we did it all over again.

 

 

Right. This one was ugly. And sketchy, since by lunchtime I was - and most of the people who celebrated St. Pat's the day before were - pissed again. I shall hand out awards, though, since they were difficult to hand out for the previous evening. The St. Patrick’s Award would have to go to Reclining for almost doing two shirts, but Last Man Standing Awards should go out to Dirty and Shambles. Anyway, that was then, and the Band Camp sorts out the dross. Generally, all of us. Last Men Standing were myself and Dirty on this particular night, and I am giving the Best on Ground Award, and the very close runner-up BoG to a pair of drummers. BoG goes to Scout Walker, for an incredible demonstration of shotgunning cans. Oh, you may argue that he spilled almost as much as he drank, and compared to some of the older campaigners he wasn't anything spectacular, but it still added up to about six cans in as many minutes, and that was as impressive as anything else done that night. Well, almost anything else. Before I get onto that, I should mention that a very close runner-up BoG goes to young Michael Hunter, not for any particular achievement, but on general principle. I don't know whether I should say if he had anything to drink or not - but he did. A glass or two. And they were only little glasses. But he did well, remaining quiet (apart for the occasional smart-ass comment that he seemed to think I would forget) and as well-behaved as can be expected, and apparently not vomiting, despite ... well, everything. [I think I heard him vomit some time - I heard someone vomit. Ed]

 

It's odd, in all fairness, for two drummers to take out the Best on Ground, as normally they are a sensible lot, happy to sit back and watch the pipers make twats of themselves while drinking at least their own share of the beer. And there's nothing wrong with that at all - a notable exception being Monty, and Rolf, of course. Tonight, however, it was the drummers that did well. I still have an award to hand out, and that is for Punchiest on Ground - usually reserved for Mr. B, or Dave Reilly, or occasionally Shambles. This award combines the Surly Medallion and the Pissiest Pants Award, and today I award it to the Don. Even though some would argue he was merely a victim of circumstance.

 

Funny calls: "Oh, you’re a c*nt and a half." The Don, to Ritchie, after Ritchie said something not-nice.

 

"<insert unpronounceable crap here>" Ritchie, screaming at Phil in ‘Gin’, a language that seemed to consist mainly of high-pitched obscenities and anal-sex hand-gestures.

 

"What can I say? I like blokes." Monty, when questioned by Shambles as to why, the fuck, he was drinking a coke at lunchtime. [Shit Chucky how did you remember that one? Ed]

 

"Doesn't matter, you won't remember this anyway." Mickey Hunter, to me - and it wasn't so much that he said it, rather the scorn with which he said it. Well, I thought it was funny.

 

"Hang on, I’ll ask him." Peter Maclean, after being asked by the Don whether Phil knew what it felt like to be rogered by the ‘nuggetty end’ of a pineapple.

 

"They were going through puberty." That was me, in response to the Don's question of where the younger members of the Band had been when he was young and in fighting trim. Then Reclining pointed out that my comment could have been perfected by saying, "They weren't actually born yet," so partial credit must also go to him.

After the playing ended, the drinking began in earnest. A big-ass dinner of sausages and steak followed a MacDonalds breakfast, a Chicken Treat lunch and several Perth Highland cheese-boards (special mention of the Don's pickled onions), and then out came the Euro-porn, which was placed firmly in front of our youngest member. Viv Reilly (did I spell that right, mister Editor?) turned up, which sort of threw everything off-centre a bit, and we had to get the porn away from Mickey Hunter (with a crowbar, I might add) lest he be spotted and a stink kicked up.

 

Viv buggered off after a while, and the shooter glasses came out and the Shambles Game was officially commenced. A very basic game involving six shooter glasses of beer, each with a number from one to six, and a dice. You roll a one, you drink number one. You roll a three, you drink number three. You roll a five, you drink number five. You roll another three, or a one, or any empty glass, and pass the dice on. You roll the dice off the table, you drink all remaining glasses. Once all the glasses are empty, you fill them up and the last person to drink rolls again. It sounds easy, but it was about eight or nine o’clock when we had to send Shambles for more piss - making a grand total of four EB blocks, and a couple of mid-strengths, I think. It must have been no later than nine we sent for more beers.

 

The Shambles ended rather raggedly as Peter, the Don, Phil and Reclining all joined in, with the express purpose of rolling the dice off the table and chugging the lot, and then telling mudflap jokes. At ten or eleven it was decided Dave Reilly had had simply too much sleep, and the time had come to serenade him. Peter took the bass drum, the Don (or was it Phil? Or both?) took pipes, and we all ran over to the Catholic hut. Peter drummed like some sort of duracell bunny on crack, and everyone laughed, even Reilly. Then, as near as I can recall, the shotgunning began. Scout cut his lip on a popped-open shotgun can, and then Ritchie seemed to think he could do it better (and I have to concur that what he lacked in speed he made up for in not spilling as much - once he got it right), and then Phil and Shambles both had a turn. In all, a lot of beer was wasted. And it was at about this stage the fights started up.

 

I can't remember who started it, I think it was Ritchie and Dirty who decided to have a little rumble. Shambles was refereeing, anyway, and the rest of us heckled from the sidelines. Then the Don and Ritchie had a go, and all was in good fun. Then we adjourned to the grass and Dirty and Shambles had a bit of a box, introducing the keep-it-between-the-neck-and-groin rule, and the two of them pummeled each other until they both had athsma attacks and a lie down. Then Ritchie tackled Richard ‘Richo’ Wilson, and they had a roll around until drunken agility won over against drunken strength - not before Jiggers copped a head-butt in the jatz crackers, which just goes to show that even being a spectator can be dangerous if everybody's plastered. Finally, it came down to the Don and Dirty. And in all fairness, the Don was being a silly cu*t, and should have gone to bed long since. [My last conscious memory was lying in bed listening to The Don complain to Phil after leaving Reilly's room where he had woken Reilly up for the third time with bagpipes drums and flicking light switches "What a surly humourless c*nt" said the Don. I knew then that the Don was heading for trouble...Ed]  In fact, Scout pointed that out to him, but the Don kept talking about there only being two hits in a fight with the Don - the Don's fist hitting your chin, and your ass hitting the ground.

 

Punches were swung. Dirty insists the Don got him a shiner on the nose which enraged him, and the Don protested loudly that Dirty was going closed-fist and if that was the way the wind blew then that was fine with the Don. Either way, Dirty walked away from it virtually unmarked, and the Don spent the whole of Sunday morning - and probably the rest of this week - wearing sunglasses to conceal a rip-snorter of a black eye.

 

Everyone went for a bit of quiet time after that. Dirty and I followed the sound of Phil’s laughter to one of the other huts, where the Don had decided to wake Peter and Phil up and show them his eye and rant about how much of a bastard Dirty was. Dirty sat in the corner and said, "Turn it up," every so often. After running off to Reilly's hut at about two o’clock in the morning to wake him up again, and almost copping a matching set of shiners, the Don stormed off to bed, calling everyone cunts. After all was said and done, I am led to believe that only Ritchie vomited that night, which was a bit of a disappointment for a Band Camp, since there are normally at least three, and Ritchie is a notoriously difficult person to find while unloading (though I have to add, once found, he is remarkably easy to photograph). And, well, once it was made clear that we were no longer welcome in the Don's hut, Dirty and I briefly entertained thoughts of going back to the esky, but went and passed out instead.

 

And that was it. The last two.

 

This might very well be my last Band Camp, and I'd have to say it was a mint one. Once again, a special hello to the Don, and also to Phil and Ritchie, none of whom have modems so they can't read this Report, even though they'd probably want to. Also a special hello to Cam Alder, who, even though absent, bitched so much about my last Report he's copping a special greeting this time. Well, that's it, Campers. Till next time. I'm off to bed.

 

 

The End

 

The Hindles' Norwegian Experience began on Thursday morning, bright and early, with a dash out to the airport and an ad-libbed breakfast of coffee, hot chocolate, sandwiches and cake. The journey itself provided little in the way of sustenance, with stewardesses stalking through the cabin with credit card readers in their hands, looking for stuff to bill us for. Luckily, the flight was only about an hour and a half - actually, only about half an hour, once time differences were taken into account. We left Helsinki at 7:30am and arrived in Oslo just after 8:00am. Now that's speed. I barely even had time to get comfortable, accustomed as I am to aeroplane flights that take at least ten hours.

 

I was distressed to find, almost immediately upon landing, that a long-held suspicion of mine was in fact true. Finland is the only country on the planet to not have Burger King, also known as Hungry Jack's. It's just not fair. Also, they have gourmet burgers at McDonald's, but that's a story for another time. We grabbed our bags and met the Lady Morelin at the arrivals gate. She was holding a very professional sign for the two of us, just in case we all failed to recognise each other after so many years without a photo update. The sign, I should add, was part of a larger folder with our itinerary and tour pamphlets and everything in it. That whole folder was professional as fuck, let me tell you. Morelin has way too much time on her hands.

 

So we headed into downtown Oslo by train - a very quiet and clean and wood-panelled train, I'll tell you - and immediately began scouting out historical-ass buildings and monuments. After a bit of orienteering, we went to lunch at Norway's own fast food chain. Yes, the unfortunately-named Smak house was our first port of call. It was quite funny, considering the fact that our hotel was on a street clearly given over to prostitution, that there would be a place called "Smak" right there too. But I digress.

 

The vast burgers at Smak gave us the energy we needed for a full afternoon's wandering around castles and military barracks, specifically this "Akershus" fortress we'd heard so much about. I lost count of the number of different uniforms represented in the area, but there were an awful lot of funny hats. And both of Norway's tanks were on display. This was fun for several hours and then we went back to our hotel with Morelin, and took ruthless advantage of the hotel's "free waffles" policy.

 

Also, we watched "McGuyver". Rather disturbinly, it was "McGuyver and King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table", and McGuyver made some sort of chemical analysis kit to figure out a poison's origins. Well anyway, it ended on a cliffhanger and now we will never know if McGuyver and Merlin fell into the volcano. In Medieval England. Yeah, look at you, you think I'm joking.

 

So after that we met up with Shannon and went to have dinner at a Bedouin restaurant called "Sahara", which I suppose makes sense if you think about it. When we tried to get a table at the place, we were pressured into confessing that we were tourists, and both Shannon and Morelin claimed to be Canadians which just made everything a lot less awkward for everybody. Everybody likes Canadians. We were welcomed into the restaurant and had a very nice meal there. I took the time to read some more of the menu, apart from just the food list. I put this down to shock over the fact that I had just paid €12 for a glass of beer. Maybe it was the cost, or maybe it was the very presence of alcohol in a Bedouin restaurant ... maybe I should have asked them if they did pork ribs.

 

I was interested to note, in my perusal of the menu, that the Bedouin tradition obliges them to offer their hospitality to a visitor in their tent, for three days and three nights. I mentioned to Janica that if we'd only known this a couple of weeks ago, we could have saved an awful lot of money on our hotel bill. It also explained the source of Pratchett's Klatchian "71-Hour Achmed". Brilliant.

 

We then repaired to our hotel room and amused ourselves for the rest of the night with a television that actually picked up more than one channel, and beds that went up and down like in hospitals. Boy, we slept that night.

 

The next morning saw our first assault on the hotel buffet, which was a great success, followed by a bit of orienteering, by bus and on foot. With the aid of our intrepid tour guide Morelin, we found our way to the Viking Ship museum and from there it was only a short hike to the Kon-Tiki exhibit. Actually, it was a lot easier to find than Bothwell Castle in Scotland, on account of the fact that there were signs pointing us in the right direction, and a big old Easter Island head when we got there.

 

We basked in the historical glory of the old burial ships, and the slightly creepy 60s and 70s vibe of the Kon-Tiki exhibit. There was something eerily "Dharma Initiative" about Thor Heyerdahl's plans, getting people from all different "races" and seeing if they could work together. Groovy. Still, it seemed to work, and he has a museum full of giant wicker boats to prove it, so take that, Establishment.

 

Both places had well-stocked and bountiful gift-shops, at which we picked up an assortment of presents for people back home. Also, a plush octopus for me, because it was so God damned cool. Also, it made a fearsome hat. Although nobody agreed with me on that one.

 

After that, we swung by a wonderful nerd store called Outland. While we would have been insane to buy a lot of books, DVDs or indeed pretty much anything there - they all cost upwards of double Finland prices, even those DVDs that were "four for the price of three" or whatever - we did find some gems. The Douglas Adams book on endangered species, that we had assumed was out of print - there it was. And, even better, I asked the guys behind the counter whether they had ever heard of Johnny the Homicidal Maniac, a comic I'd read some ten years ago on the slightly manic urgings of my good friend Mister C. I'd never seen it anywhere, and had assumed it was no longer being printed either. But amazingly, the boffins behind the counter had heard of it, and they did have it right there on their shelves! A Director's Cut, no less.

 

He he he. Cut.

 

So, with plush octopus and copy of Nny's biography under my arm, I was a happy geek as we made our way to the grocery store. We had decided to impose further on the Drake code of hospitality by appearing at their house and messing up their kitchen. So we picked up some basic food ingredients, at which point I was thrilled to find that they sold peanut butter in supermarkets in Norway. I'd only ever seen peanut butter sold in one shop in Finland, and that was this weird American shop in the WTC plaza, where they sold peanut butter and "jelly" for about €8 a jar.

 

Well, in Oslo, it was about the same price, but we still bought some.

 

Dinner was a great success, and I was even able to park myself on the couch and watch a couple of episodes of The Simpsons amidst my cutting shit up and frying shit duties. Shannon, I ought to point out, was trapped in his chair and unable to move. He's lucky to have survived what was obviously a terrible chair-assembling accident. We had also picked up a tax-free bottle of Salmiakki, and another bottle of minty booze called "Winter War" that we gave to the Drakes as gifts. They didn't open them, but I'd be curious to hear their reactions when they do.

 

Anyway, we ate, and then we watched The Simpsons Movie on HD-DVD. I can't say I could really tell the difference, myself, but I suppose the picture was crisper. And as funny as I remember. While I'm on the topic, Shannon has a girly giggle that makes my girly giggle sound like the hearty rumbling laugh of a Welsh coal miner who has just been told a particularly bawdy joke about turnips. Just thought I should get that out in the open right now.

 

We found our way home by tram and on foot, through the slowly-awakening drunken revelry of an Oslo Friday night. It was at about this point that Janica and I made the mutual leap of intuition about the assortment of ladies standing on each and every street corner leading up to our hotel. We didn't want to make obvious generalisations about their ethnicity, their state of dress, their habit of approaching men walking alone on the streets or walking up to any car that happened to slow down and open a window ... but it struck me that these ladies in the night were most likely, as it were, ladies of the night.

 

Once this cognitive leap was made, the sight of one car driving past us, slowing at the corner to talk to the women there, before accelerating slightly and slowing at the next corner ... well, it stopped being strange and became funny. Prostitutes are funny, and don't let anybody tell you differently, my friends.

 

We got back to our hotel and enjoyed a bit of channel-hopping, some free drinks and stuff from the lobby, and hours of clean, wholesome fun in our motorised beds.

The next day, Shannon and Morelin met us at midday for a visit to the famous Vigeland Sculpture Park of Oslo, in which naked people cavort and juggle babies and all sorts of weird shit. The centrepiece of the park is a huge stack of contorted bodies that looks like something out of Call of Cthulhu, and we walked around the place with a weird sense of amused dislocation from reality. I found myself wishing I'd brought my plush octopus. I could have placed it on strategic body parts and taken photos.

 

Funniest of all, there were a lot of people walking their dogs and stuff in this park. One woman was walking a pig. Just after having seen The Simpsons Movie the night before, Shannon and I found this vastly amusing, severing conversations with exclamations such as "that pig has a straw hat!" and "you can't kill it, it's wearing people clothes!". Good times.

 

Oh yeah, and there was a lot of ice lying around. Shannon slipped on some of it and injured himself in some undefined but probably hilarious way, and soon found himself apparently unable to walk.

 

I finally got my chance to go to Burger King that afternoon, where I chowed down on an "Angry Whopper", fries and onion rings. The Angry Whopper had jalapeños and "angry onions" in it, and it was pretty hot. I'd go so far as to call it "cranky", but it fell short, as almost all mass-market fast food burgers do, of true anger. Still, I was satisfied.

 

We wandered the town for a while after that, and Shannon and Morelin went home to put whatever part of Shannon's body he'd injured into a plaster cast or under a bag of ice. I couldn't possibly comment. Anyway, we agreed to meet up later for dinner and booze, a prospect that left me dizzy in the walletal region. We returned to our hotel for more free waffles.

 

Morelin joined us that evening for dinner at a nice place called "Egon", which I was hoping to find full of Ghostbusters memorabilia and perhaps some sort of Slimer-themed marmalade dessert, but no such luck. It was, in summary, one of those places that is a pub in the awkward phases of metamorphosing into a restaurant, all squeaky voice and lack of coordination. They did a nice Iguana platter, even though they had no idea what an Iguana platter was. We were still quite full after our waffles, but managed to demolish a pile of chicken wings and mozzarella sticks and all the usual stuff. I ate the salad, the sauce, the chicken bones and the napkins, on the basis of what it had cost us. I stopped short of actually tucking the plate down my pants.

 

As I mentioned (with great glee) Shannon passed on his apologies, so there was little call for male bonding under the guise of a booze-fest that night. A few very civilised drinks (at uncivilised prices ... without wishing to endlessly repeat myself on this topic, but I think the Mexicans would laugh their sombreros off if they knew people were paying €10 for a bottle of Corona) and a nice meal, and that was that. Maybe next time, the Drakes will come to Helsinki and we shall get sloshed at Third World prices.

 

We returned to our hotel to lie around on our motorised beds like ... well, the "beached whale" comparison is perfectly appropriate, I suppose, since it's Norway. On Sunday, as per Shannon's advice, we enjoyed an episode of Skippy the Bush Kangaroo which is, for some bizarre reason, showing on Norwegian TV on weekend mornings. The similarities to the Late Show's Charlie the Wonderdog featuring the Pissweak Kids were truly uncanny. In this episode, Skippy helped an old man lost in the bush, operated a police emergency radio (admittedly without much success) and helped a dancer get to her audition and land a lead role in an up-coming ballet. What a clever rodent.

 

With only a couple of slight mishaps, we purchased our last bottom-violating train ticket later that morning and made our way back out to the airport. Our Oslodyssey was finally over.

Oh yeah, and when we got back to Helsinki we dropped by a supermarket to pick up some dinner ingredients. And there was a whole shelf full of American stuff there, including pop tarts, hershey bars, and - yes - peanut butter.

 

Motherfuckers.

 

 

It was a lovely weekend to visit Tampere. Visibility was down to about fifty metres, the temperature was just on the soggy side of freezing, and the rain was sort of hanging motionless in the air. An excellent day to spend indoors, with our dear friends Snacks, Booze, and relative newcomer to the gang, Total Crippling Guitar Hero Humiliation.

 

Yes, the Tampere Sauna Ilta was finally under way, after months of planning and Emails; laughter and tears; plotting, whispering, alliances and betrayal. How difficult is it to get a dozen Technical Writers from one city to another for a Saturday evening? Forget about it. Just be glad we didn't have to screw in any lightbulbs while we were there.

 

Due to a terrible oversight in the planning phase, one fatefully mis-sent Email that ended up going to the entire office instead of just the technical writing department, we ended up getting takers from Outside as well ... but I justified my blunder by pointing out how few Technical Writers had signed on, and how, basically, the more the merrier. We have that budget for a reason, you know. And if the boring lame killjoys of the TW department want to complain about it, I think I have a special hotline somewhere around here. Ah yes, 1-800-BLOWME.

 

Anyway, we ended up with a nice crowd. Festivities, as always, began for some people earlier than others. I will allow those involved, for example, in the Viking Restaurant Jukebox Adventure tell you about it themselves[1]. For the rest of us, it began at 5:00pm at the sauna place. I arrived to find several of the Tampere locals already present, and I was handed a beer as soon as I walked in the door. Now that's service.

 

I saw, with mild curiosity, that Mikko had brought a Playstation 2 and a couple of guitar-controllers with him, along with Guitar Heroes I, II and III. I'd never seen a Playstation up-close before, and I'd only read about Guitar Hero on Ctrl+Alt+Del (Guitar Hero III, for example, was nothing like this), so naturally I was curious. Still, in the meantime there was snacking, drinking and mingling to do. And trips down memory lane to be had, courtesy of the locals' music selection.

 

Wendy soon arrived with €200 worth of CDs and DVDs that she had just purchased. You know how it is, you go into a music store with the intention of buying a couple of CDs for the purposes of entertainment, and you just go crazy. Obligatory comments about Project Managers being paid too much were duly noted. Wendy took over the serious business of providing music to the group, and insisted that we refer to her by her stage-name of "DJ Wantone".

 

The rest of the crowd turned up, and boozing and snacking continued with gusto. It's amazing how many instant pizzas you can get with a €300 food budget. Juhana brought his own beer with him and therefore decided that he would not be needing his company-provided beer ration. This news couldn't have come at a better time, so I adopted the poor orphaned beers for myself. I gave them a good home with a lot of friends.

 

The sauna system was agreed upon with a "ladies first" policy, on the basis that after the ladies had been in the sauna, they would take ages to faff around and get ready and things, leaving time for the guys to commando-roll into the sauna, talk about sport, and then commando-roll back out and get back into their jeans and T-shirts. Hey, not my words. I'm just the messenger. Anyway, a few people opted to sauna and the rest opted to sit around and listen to an increasingly terrible degeneration of musical reminiscence.

 

And if you were thinking that Technical Writers weren't cool, think again! This is about the point at which Wendy's beloved NWA hit the stage, to universal acclaim. Strutured FrameMaker, homeboy[2].

 

Ahem.

 

After the girls had their turn, the guys went and did their brief sauna session. Discussion ranged from making a visually-impaired Mikko sit on the sauna rocks, to the cost of vomiting in the sauna (cleanup would cost us €45 per vomit, so we decided that any vomiting to take place would all have to happen in the exact same location on the floor, so we could then pass it off as one single colossal vomit from the Lionbridge Vomiting Champion, Chunderous Pete), to the obligatory sports topics. Mladen was in charge of the löyly, a job he performed splendidly. He also stayed in the sauna at least half an hour, maybe an hour, longer than everybody else, with the possible exception of Juhana. The rest of us simply had to get out of there and back to the musical extravaganza outside.

 

Somewhere around this point, Mikko plugged in the Playstation 2, and the Guitar Hero Contest began. I was going to call it the Great Guitar Hero Rock-Off, but thought people might get the wrong idea. Anyway, Mikko showed us how it was done (I have to say I was a little drunk at the time so didn't quite follow, but there seemed to be a lot of coloured blobs sliding across the screen and a couple of CGI musicians dancing around as well), using the wireless guitar to show off his mad fret skills, and then Mladen took over.

 

Since he'd never played before, he went with the tutorial, which was an interesting experience. Something I probably could have done with myself, actually. Being a Sega Megadrive man myself, I'd never seen a game with a tutorial. I have to say, it was amusing. The voice-over dude was a lot of fun, and probably somthing we should take into use in the writing of our own documentation.

 

After the tutorial, Mladen felt more than qualified to move directly on to the Expert difficulty, something not even Mikko had tried before. Mladen was subsequently booed off stage, and went crawling back to the Beginner. He did very well, really, and failed to smash the guitar over anyone or anything. Video game violence is once again shown to be a myth.

 

Everybody went on to have a turn. Undisputed rulers of the game, and official winners of the Queens of the Stone Age Award for the evening, were Eeku and Meeku, with their mad rocking skills. Sure, they never did quite figure out which one of them was Player 1 and which was Player 2 (or at least Meeku got it but Eeku was having real trouble), but they made up for it with sheer enthusiasm. Eeku, for example, was the only contestant to pull the control cable out of its socket, causing the game to pause and display a message saying "You are rocking out a bit too hard." Hell yeah. Close runner-up was Matti, in whose veins flows the blood of a thousand Ancient Gods of Rock, who taught us all that it doesn't matter if you don't press the buttons or even hit the fret bar, as long as you have the "phattitude". My term, it just seemed right.

 

Boozing continued unabated. Anu-Riikka and I attempted to play a duet, and failed miserably, getting booed off stage at a sorry 22%. My strategy of just holding down one note, and strumming the fret-button whenever that note went past, should have guaranteed me 33% at the very least, since there were only three notes in Easy mode. I think I was let down by my costar. Later on, I went back and played song #1 (I Love Rock 'n Roll), and totally kicked ass.

 

Many people left around midnight, leaving the Tampere locals to booze it on. Some people, naming no names, left a good deal earlier, heading back to Helsinki by train to watch their DVDs. After six beers and two hip-flasks full of Minttu, I found myself in sudden need of fresh air, sleep, and a new liver. I found my way back to my hotel room and crashed for the night. Oh wait, no I didn't - I watched the end of Goldfinger on TV, and then crashed. Damn, that Oddjob guy cracks me up.

 

Breakfast the next morning consisted of eggs, coffee, nakki and absolutely no black sausage.

 

The end.

 

[1] There was a jukebox at a Viking Restaurant. I don't know that an adventure is even necessary to make that a five-star anecdote.

 

[2] It's more stable than Word, yo.

 

 

 

The social event of the Lionbridge season began earlier for some of us than others. I arrived at the William K bar on Annankatu at about 4:00pm to find Antti Pohjoisaho and Matti Leinonen already well into their drinks. Matti, I was soon to learn, had finished three rounds of 'Criminally Bad Elf', a Christmas ale with a 10% alcohol content.

 

He was quite merry. He had no intentions of attending the actual Christmas party, having left his suit in Oulu, but by the time some more people had arrived and some more rounds were finished off, he was talked into coming along. In an unexpectedly wise move, he got it officially on record that if he said or did anything to get himself fired, he would blame it on Tuomas Tiainen. Which is fair enough. He was awfully merry at the time.

 

When the time came for us to - rather unwillingly - leave the William K and head around the corner to the Astoria, Matti did a bit of a disappearing act. The possibility that Tuomas rolled him up in one of the rugs the William K staff used as tablecloths, and threw him in a dumpster somewhere to keep him from attending the party, can not be ruled out. The rest of us - Jenny, Katy, Petri, Juuso, Gerry, Janne, and a great many more had showed up by that stage, and even Andre had come out of his study leave hibernation - strolled over to the Astoria.

 

I learned a little while later that the Tampere folk, having moved into a hotel about ten metres away from the William K, had decided not to join us. This monumental piece of laziness was, I maintain, not an act of conscious maliciousness on their part.

 

 

We were each given a glass of bubbly (or, for Juuso and others, a glass of limu ... or, for Gerry, two glasses of bubbly) and sent upstairs to take part in the traditional Christmas toast, delivered this year by Kari in his new role. Juuso was still laughing at his new favourite term - "lolly water" - which is an apparently-unusual Australian expression for the stuff he was drinking at the time. Before the toast was even completed, Gerry and Wendy were spotted sneaking away in the direction of the stairs. They were found a few minutes later, down in the lobby, drinking glass after glass of bubbly from the leftover trays.

 

We were then herded into the party hall and given our booze tickets. This was where the first of many indignities and injustices was apparently inflicted on some employees. Personally, I didn't see it. So some people got two booze tickets and others got six. So what? This is nothing more than a measure of the confidence management has in the teamworking abilities of Lionbridge Finland. Indeed, no more than half an hour later, roving packs of thirsty Technical Writers and Localisation Specialists were marauding through the hall, taking over tables by force and stealing booze tickets.

 

 

 

Tables thus settled and with lines for the buffet table immediately reaching intolerable lengths, we waited it out with our remaining bubblies, some wine, and possibly even a little Minttu. Also, it became clear that several people had digital cameras, and weren't afraid to use them even though they probably should be. Juuso challenged me to an eating competition, staking his reputation on the fact that he would eat six pieces of chicken.

 

"I'm not going to compete," I said, "I couldn't do it."

 

I don't think Juuso believed me, though. In fact, when I said this, he may have even upped the ante to seven pieces of chicken. He continued to offer commentary all through dinner. I'm not sure if he managed his target of six pieces of chicken, but I know he managed more than my pathetic effort of three. I shouldn't have filled up with bread and meatballs.

 

 

 

Since our booze tickets would not become usable until after 9:00pm, we enjoyed wine with our meal courtesy of Lionbridge. Juuso still wasn't drinking, although you could swear he was right on the edge of alcohol-related brain-death when the waitress came past and asked him if he wanted red or white, and he said "no."

 

After several of us convinced him that he did in fact want wine very much indeed (and I'm not saying it was easy, we had to practically draw the bastard a picture), he changed his mind and asked for a glass of white, which he then generously and spontaneously shared with us. Brendan, sitting a bit too far away to take advantage of Juuso's generous spontaneity, was outraged by the injustice of it all and demanded that I hand over some of my booze tickets.

 

 

He cheered up later, though, when after-dinner drinks came around and he got two glasses of brandy, by the ingenious method of saying, "I wouldn't mind having two glasses of brandy." I got two as well, by the slightly less-elegant method of saying, "Juuso would also like a glass of brandy."

 

 

At around the end of dinner, we were treated to what some people described as "a special surprise" and others described as another of those injustices I was talking about earlier. A magician got up and made handkerchiefs change colour in a very clever way for a while, and humiliated several of the people sitting at the tables closest to the stage. He was really quite funny, but some people were less impressed. I was personally of the opinion that he could have dispensed with the magic tricks, and just stood on stage with a couple of hapless volunteers, talking in funny voices and pretending it was the volunteers actually talking. Ah, that's top-shelf comedy right there. Juuso quite reliably informs me that by the end of the magician's show, he and I were the only ones still laughing, and people around us were starting to give us funny looks.

 

My sympathies are with Liisa Jalonen and Jukka Ylikitti, who were the unsuspecting guinea-pigs for this ground-breaking bit of comedic exploration. Wendy, by contrast, seemed shocked, stunned, and offended by the entire magician thing. She stole my wine and cheered up significantly.

 

 

 

After the magician, we were treated to a genuine special surprise: Jenny and Tuomas took to the stage and performed a double-act, Jenny on vocals and Tuomas on the drums. It was arguably the best performance of the night, with a sort of fusion thing happening with the Kenyan singing and the subtle background humppa-beat. Tuomas displayed additional talents in the field of spontaneous percussion, doing the "ba-dum-tish" when Jenny told a joke. Brilliant stuff. Had us in stitches. All in all, this performance was easily the highlight of the evening. While I'm on the topic, I have to add that Jenny rightfully takes the award for Best Dressed on Ground 2007, she was a class act all 'round as you can see from the photos.

 

The party wound on, and inevitably the hired band (another feature of the party that many people considered to be an indignity/injustice) got to playing just the right blend of humppa and 80s cover tunes, and people opted to get up on the dance floor and strut their funky stuff. The Mad Dancing Fool 2007 Dance-off was away!

 

 

 

I think the less said about the Dance-off, the better. Last year's reigning champions, Lars and Antti, were not able to defend their titles this year - Lars due to absence and Antti due to the fact that he didn't get up on the floor. Janne Huovinen accepted the challenge, and won by a landslide. A landslide, funnily enough, is something to which some of his dance moves could accurately be likened.

 

At around this point, I believe I explained my theory of Anti-cool to Tuomas. I had to stress that Anti-cool is not the same as uncool. Uncool is, after all, no more or less than an absence of cool. No, Anti-cool is something quite different, and Tuomas promptly illustrated it by putting his tie around his head and wigging out to a Bob Marley cover.

 

 

 

Just to show how successful the wine, brandy and booze ticket system had been, the band was called back for three encores. Much fun was had by all ... except Wendy, who was shocked, stunned and offended all over again.

 

 

 

A certain amount of mingling and cooling off was done after that, as the Astoria began to think about closing its doors on us. Last drinks were consumed, jackets were retrieved (I attempted to swap my coat voucher for a beer, since it had 'Olvi' written on it, but was unsuccessful), and talk turned to where we were headed next. The Tampere people, once again making their opinion of us known in no uncertain terms, opted to go off to some nightclub or other. If there was a line, they stated, they would turn around and go to Bakers instead.

 

Some of us, myself included, ended up back at the William K for some reason. So perhaps it is unfair of me to blame the separation on the Tampere people. Confusion reigned. Somewhere around this point we lost a bunch of people, including my Irish colleagues. Wendy vanished into a puff of shocked, stunned and offendedness, I have no idea what happened to her. I think, as a creature of pure cool, she was driven away by the Anti-cool all around her, and went to recuperate in a cool-rich environment. I seem to recall telling some people about this, at great length.

 

 

Still, there were a few people at the William K, and drinking continued. The virtues of Minttu were discussed, as well as various stories about where people's parents met for the first time. That was kinda funny. Mladen also told us how he ended up getting stuck in Finland, too. I can't remember the specifics, but those stories are always amusing.

 

 

 

Jenni was present, as was her significant other, whose name I believe was Ville. Ville, for those of you who have not seen the Technical Writers' introductory slideshow, was a World of Warcraft addict who played all the time, neglecting Jenni who had come to refer to herself as a "World of Warcraft widow". I asked Ville about his gaming habits, and to his credit he barely twitched. He did seem surprised at how much everybody knew about each other in the Technical Writing department, and I agreed it was a mystery. Anyway, he is apparently all better now, no longer addicted, and he didn't go out to play WoW once while I was there. Unless he did, and I missed it. He and Pia did go out for cigarettes on a regular basis, so he might have been taking the opportunity to, you know ... level-up, if you know what I mean. If you do, you're a nerd.

 

 

Speaking of significant others, we also got the chance to meet Hanne's husband. He seemed less than impressed with the whole lot of us, although he was polite and friendly throughout. As the hours went by he picked up his bags and walked out at least twice, and finally Hanne got the message and left too.

 

   

 

So then it was just Niina, Mladen, Verna, Pia, Jenni, Ville and myself. Who have I forgotten? Oh yes, there was a long-suffering Bar Guy who came around to clear up our empties, and may even have attempted to steal our chairs in an effort to get us to leave, but that might have just been my imagination. Oh, Mikko also turned up for a while, having apparently decided to come and see this 'William K' place he'd heard so much about but never bothered to visit. I am also informed, in late dispatches, that Mikko was not the only Tamperelainen to come to the pub, but at least three or four others did as well. I neglected to mention this not because I wished to impugn the drinking credo of the good denizens of Tampere - far from it, I assumed they had gone to another bar to continue drinking with wild abandon - but simply because I, in my dazed state, completely failed to notice their presence. Mikko does have a way of dominating the room.

 

The bullshitting continued into the wee small hours of the morning.

 

   

 

I departed at about 2:45am, had an enjoyable stroll across town and then an even more enjoyable wait in the taxi line. There were about a hundred people lined up, and it took us about an hour to get out of there. Ample time, in short, to get to know some really fascinating people.

 

 

I was feeling quite cheerful at the time, the near-comatose state forced upon me in the bar having dropped away into a mere pleasant tipsiness by the freezing cold and the biting wind, and so I stood and chatted with the people behind me in the line, sharing my Minttu and hoping that the offer of alcohol would help them overlook my awful pidgin Finnish and my outrageous Australian accent.

 

At one point I was offered a handful of money in exchange for the sips of Minttu I was handing out. For some reason I refused, but when I was offered chewing gum instead, I accepted. I was also shouted at by a woman because I had weird hair, and a weird pipo, and weird clothes, and what the hell did I mean by it all, exactly? I explained that I was ulkomaalainen, and she said, "yeah, no kidding." She must have liked me, though, because she got very upset when I told her I was married, and ranted at me for a while about how crappy her day had been. I made it very clear that Minttu was the best she was going to get out of this whole situation, so she might as well take it.

 

Not to be sidetracked, she told me my tie was a fake. Having thought all this time that I had the actual Bayoux Tapestry around my freaking neck, I was stunned by this revelation. Another guy in line came to my rescue and began chatting with us, and sharing his Jägermeister. He told the lady that it wasn't very nice to shout at the nice foreign guy, especially since he was sharing his lovely Minttu with everybody. The crowd tended to agree.

 

Complaints about the weather abounded. I cheerfully said that sure, it was minus three degrees and there was a nasty wind, but at least it wasn't snowing.

My taxi arrived, it started to snow, and I departed with a "muahahahaha".

 

The end.

 

 

 

 

 

This is a small Chucky Report just to keep my hand in before the big Christmas Season reports start rolling in.

 

Additionally, if you do not work with me, this blog entry contains classified information and you will have to submit to the memory-erase flashy thing after you've read it. Which is all worked out, because as soon as you click any button or link to leave this blog page, the computer will flashy-thing you on my behalf, leaving you with a vague memory of having read someething quite boring and unfunny.

 

Without going into too much detail about Ooky Secret Matters™, I will say that our Department Day was a lot of fun and it's always nice to see all the Technical Writers from various offices and customers. Well, I say "a lot of fun", but that might just be the free sandwich talking. We got to bitch about bad customer service experiences we'd had, which is always therapeutic. I'm not too sure about the philosophy of the Four Major Personality Types, though. I'll clarify in an additional blog entry. We also had a hilarious look at chair adjustment and exercises, and oh yeah, a sandwich.

 

After that it was "everybody onto the bus" and off to our dinner venue, the Glass Palace. There are so many of us now, it was a wonder we managed to fit into one bus, and it was one of those big double-buses with an accordion thing in the middle. I migrated to the back of the bus, not out of any particular coolness but because I was forced to by my drinking companions. If I had sat up the front with my Minttu, I probably would have gotten in trouble - not just with management, but with the hardcore alcoholics I call my friends, who would have crucified me for not sharing.

 

So Minttu was consumed. The bottle shops were almost all closed due to strikes, so I was glad I'd stocked up ahead of time.

 

Our next challenge was finding a table. This always has a "school lunch room" feel to it, or perhaps a "prison lunch room" feel. Since I haven't experienced either of these things, I only have movies to go by. Story of my life. But anyway, the problem always persists. Where to sit, what will people think, who will be upset ... it's difficult being such a pillar of the drinking community. I jest - the important thing is that you sit next to a food-conscious woman, or a diabetic, or both. I scored a couple of extra desserts due to my placement. Not that they were great desserts ... but they were free. Like the sandwich. Did I mention the sandwich?

 

Drinks, food and hilarity ensued. We were accused of being the loudest table, and duly marked that off our checklist. Wine was consumed, but they weren't exactly generous. There were two refills, and none of them quite measured up to half a glass. Not that I wasn't in fascinating company, but I was glad for the Minttu. At around main course time, talk turned to where we should go next. Apparently our table was seen as the hub for this sort of decision for some reason, with several people coming over to consult us about boozing locations. I want new business cards, damn it.

 

Wendy, of course, opted to recommend some place near her house, so she could roll home. That, and she had promised (for reasons that escape me but were probably booze-related) to help a friend move house - that night. Anyway, she ended up missing the chance, although for a few minutes the idea of the entire Technical Writing department coming with her to help with the move was thrown around the table. Nobody moves house like a Technical Writer, and the one thing better than one of us is fifty.

 

For a time, Antti P was sitting with us, but then he left to take advantage of some poor saps holding some sort of party somewhere. I assume he survived. Antti P always does. But we did manage to revive and revisit our old movies-and-actors discussion from previous boozing sessions, which is always fun. To be honest, I have no idea what I was bullshitting about at this stage.

 

In the end, we decided on a bar and all bundled outside, after a short but heartfelt congratulations-gift-farewell for one of our colleagues who will be leaving soon. It was suggested that he sing Oh Danny Boy for the occasion, but didn't.

 

Boozing at bar progressed about as normal. It was a Friday night and there were fifty of us, so finding a bar capable of holding us all in the comfort to which we were accustomed (or, since we are cubicle monkeys, the comfort to which were were not accustomed) proved impossible, but after a couple of rounds we managed to hack out a table for ourselves and sat down. Drinking with English Language Specialists is always a bad idea, because their natural smartass tendency to make puns is no longer suppressed thanks to generous doses of alcohol. Just a warning there. I myself was not guilty of any atrocities, although there was one minor incident up at the bar. A colleague told me that he owned a share in a whiskey distillery, amounting to about a square inch, and I made some comment about him removing his square inch and the barrel leaking as a result. It loses a lot in translation, but it was hilarious. And, now I come to write it down, possibly dirty.

 

My performances overall were very sad, whether in the drinking, staying late, or punning-my-friends-to-death stakes. I had three beers, two scotches, and another snort of Minttu, and then called it a night. Another esteemed colleague instructed me to steal a whiskey tumbler, and led as I am on the dual fronts of Australian genes and the inability to refuse a dare, I did so. Another nice glass for my collection.

 

That's about it. Bus home at 11:00pm = softcore.

 

 

 

Several years ago now, a good friend of my wife's decided to get married, and my wife and her friends agreed on an amusing bachelorette party (also known as a hen's night) for their old chum.
 
It was arranged that, blindfolded and a little tipsy, the bride-to-be (aka the hen) would be taken to a local farm that is just across the road from our house. At this farm, she would be obliged to undergo a series of marriage-related ordeals, such as washing a large poo-covered pig; chasing a collection of chickens around and collecting their eggs; feeding a horse without getting bitten, and so on.
 
It was a big success. The farmer (let's call him Igor) told us that the farm-chores-themed hen's night was surprisingly popular, so much so that he hadn't needed to feed the chickens or wash that damn poo-covered pig in years.
 
This weekend, another friend of my wife's, this one a university acquaintance, embarked upon her own hen's night, once again arranged by Janica and her colleagues. Once again it was agreed that the hen would go in for the pig-washing. Chicken-chasing was off the menu, because a few days ago a wild mink got into the chicken coop. It excelled at chicken-chasing in a way few humans ever successfully manage, whereupon it killed all 22 of them and tore them to pieces, leaving the farmer with a lot of feathers and unprocessed nuggets.
 
Anyway, aside from that little setback, all seemed to be going well. I picked up the car from the bottom of the hill and silently got into the driver's seat as the party-goers made their way up to the farm. The hen was blindfolded, you understand, and there was to be no talking so she wouldn't know where she was. I then went back to our place and awaited further instructions. Or, more accurately, made noodles and prepared to couch.
 
My plan was to put the oven on, wait for it to heat up, then throw in the pie and make myself scarce. A bunch of women would then descend on our house to eat said pie, drink a mess of wine, and use the sauna. I was at no point to spy on proceedings.
 
The pie, as a matter of interest, was an amazing piece of work. One of the party-goers was lactose intolerant, and this meant the cheese and feta pie was some sort of magical creation using lactose-free ingredients. How this works, I have no idea. We still have several mostly-full boxes and bags and jars of lactose-free crap in our fridge. We are never going to get rid of them.
 
Anyway, the pie was almost cooked and I'd just finished preparing my own dinner when I got the call. The hen had been kicked by a horse and would need to be rushed to hospital. I went up to the farm to find an ambulance on its way. Nobody seemed to know what had happened, and it was difficult to get to the accident site because it was down in an inaccessible field - a field still containing a crazy horse.
 
Ambulance, emergency rescue van and, for some bizarre reason, a fire truck all duly appeared, and people in day-glo overalls ran back and forth for a while, obviously having no idea what was going on but seemingly quite cheerful about it. Something a bit more interesting than the usual stomach-pump for a Saturday night, I suppose. I wondered briefly whether the guys in the fire truck might use the hose on the horse, to calm it down or something, but it would seem not. That would have been funny, though.
 
Igor the farmer, at this stage, confided in me that the horse, a known kicker, was about to get a long-overdue name-change: Meetwurst. I was - and still am - of the opinion that at least one leg should be donated to the wedding couple, and roasted and served at the feast. But the bride, tender-hearted as she no doubt is, might object. Also, I'm not sure whether horses are lactose-free.
 
After a lot more running around, I gave Janica and the majority of the party-goers a lift into Helsinki where we waited in the hospital waiting-room for news. We took the opportunity to watch one half of a British murder mystery show (I will never know who killed the unpopular factory owner with the Russian trophy-wife) and the first half of a God-awful Finnish comedy show called Romano TV. The hen had apparently been semi-conscious and nauseous in the ambulance, and was suffering from a mild concussion. The groom-to-be was in the waiting-room as well, having cancelled his own bachelor party, and he was of the opinion that concussions were perfectly harmless, having experienced several of them himself and being the better man for it.
 
At around 10:00pm we had found out that there was no lasting damage, besides a minor fracture in the leg from the actual kick and a little concussion and temporary amnesia from either a bump or a kick to the neck/shoulder area. It could have been a lot worse. The hen has scored herself three weeks off work, which means her sick-leave (dare I say, kick-leave?) will end around about her wedding day. Nicely planned, eh?
 
So then we went home.
 
The good news: After getting to Helsinki and realising they would have to walk for a bit to get dinner and make their way home, the party-goers donated three-quarters of a carton of long-drink and half a carton of beer to the boot of my car, and insisted that I keep it. Also, the hen turned out fine and is apparently not upset at all. She can't remember the actual kicking, so with some careful psychology we can probably convince her she was just drunk. And, since dinner was cancelled, the wine Janica purchased for the party went un-guzzled.
 
The bad news: The dinner, namely the weird dairy-free cheese pie, was cancelled, leaving a huge mess of food-free food in our fridge. Even this, however, can be seen as good news, since the pie provided a couple of meals for us. It's okay as long as you throw enough sweet chilli sauce on it to disguise the flavour of anti-food. Another piece of bad news is that my dinner, which I had just cooked, was cold and congealed by the time we got home. But some of it was nice enough cold, and the rest could be re-cooked. Which I did. And then watched Star Trek.
 
The end.

 

 

As I said to my sister-in-law on our way home early Sunday morning, I never realised that I was nothing more than a wide-eyed and innocent child, lost and oblivious in the deep dark woods of human depravity, completely ignorant of the poisonous mushrooms of sin and the prowling wolves of perversion all around me.

 

Or at least I said something like that, but you must understand I had just finished about a half-pint of Fisherman's Friend-flavoured vodka, so it might have actually sounded more like "ashu bwa, mrmfrm musha, ha ha ha ha burp ha ha."

 

This weekend, you see, I was honoured with an invitation to the wedding of a man who shall, for the purposes of Internet publication, be identified only as the Groom. I have likewise disguised the names of the other main players, although to say this is to protect the innocent is, as you will come to realise, a misphrasing of colossal proportions.

 

 

 

 

The hero of our tale is, of course, the blushing groom. My relationship with this fellow stretches the bounds of "friend of a friend" to the absolute limit, but he is a Hell of a nice bloke for somebody I barely know. My wife's uncle (the youngest prince in an earlier fable on this blog) plays host to this bloke and other friends from time to time, with car-fixing and other technical stuff on the agenda, and it was through my uncle-in-law that the Groom discovered my modest bagpiping ability. For a while he was shy about contacting me, worried as he was that I would insist, in my mean and nasty way, on speaking English. When he discovered that I was capable of communication in Finnish, the Groom phoned me and made a booking. Up until the day before the wedding, I thought he was one of the other guys who hung out at my uncle-in-law's place. But that's another (hilarious) story. Turns out, I'd put the wrong face to the name. I guess it wasn't so hilarious after all.

 

 

What is a good hero without his leading lady? I don't know if I'd ever met this lass before, but knowing people is not a prerequisite for playing bagpipes in their vicinity. A very nice young lady, but if you have recently had your nipples pierced and she comes at you with a ping-pong bat, be afraid. Be very, very afraid. This disturbingly-specific piece of advice will make more sense later.

 

 

The Groom's little brother, a nine-foot-tall dude in suspenders, was a definite ray of sunshine at this wedding. He was, to further extend my introductory metaphor, a hearty smiling woodcutter brandishing a shiny axe of bullshit negation. Big Little Brother wins Best Speech award for his masterpiece, "You always used to tease me when I was little, and you're still a prick. Congratulations."

 

 

This poor, dear old lady comes a very close second in the Best Speech award, for describing her son as "tämä iso vittulainen" (roughly "this big cunt here"). She was an extremely cheerful old boiler with a ciggie in one hand and a bottle in the other - I think my sister-in-law and I were the only people at the party who weren't smoking - but her cheerful, open-minded demeanour started to fall apart as the night progressed and the depravity continued to darken. She ended up hiding at the bar with my sister-in-law and I, as the sounds of whips, screams, clinking chains and laughter grew louder in the party hall.

 

 

This escapee from the Jim Beam Distillery maximum-security wing for the Alcoholically Insane wins Pissiest Pants on Ground by a clear body-length. His pants were so pissy, he couldn't even keep them on. I have to thank him for unconsciously buying me a massive number of drinks, and offering me another piping gig, even if he had the information-retaining ability of a half-chewed piece of bacon. He was another constant companion of ours at the bar, no matter how hard we tried to get rid of him.

 

 

This guy was, and presumably still is - I shit you not - spokesman for the Finnish Perversion Society. Or something like that. I'm pretty sure I talked to him earlier in the evening, before finding out who he was, after which I became too shitscared to even approach him. Apart from the nipple piercings (which he did himself, and also did for the Groom a few days earlier) and the studded black leather girdle, he apparently also had five piercings in his penis. I heard, from various sources, that using the sauna with him was a frightening experience, because his penis would go "clonk" whenever he sat down. This comes in at about #684 on my list of Reasons I Wouldn't Want to Share a Sauna With Big Giant Pervert Guy.

 

 

Bar Dude was a recovering alcoholic, and the wedding planners must have had an all-night think-tank about where to put the poor fucker for the duration of the night. The wedding was held at the Groom and Bride's house, the party hall was one of their big farm-style sheds, and one room of this was set aside for a bar. Once the complimentary beers and wine ran out, the bar opened for business, selling soft drinks, beers, ciders, and assorted whiskey and vodka shots (including the marvellous "Fisu") for two euros a pop. Hopefully the Bride and Groom will be able to pay for their honeymoon with the proceeds. I'm proud to say I didn't pay for a thing all night. Pipers - make a note of this - do not pay for shit.

 

 

Punchiest on Ground goes to the Best Man, who started the evening as a jovial helpful sort of guy with only the best intentions at heart for his oldest friend, and ended the evening as a festering clump of directionless anger in an orange shirt. I don't know what that was all about, but his transformation at about 1:30 in the morning was our cue to leave.

 

 

There was one at the wedding.

 

 

The bar situation was such that several people were running up tabs, and Frustrated Girlfriend was merrily running up her boyfriend's tab for him. Romantic. Another commonly-seen face down at the Syväjoki bar. Or, indeed, commonly seen face-down at the Syväjoki bar.

 

 

On the understanding that she would drive us there and home again, and help out behind the bar for a few hours as well, on top of her many-years acquaintanceship with the Groom via her uncle (are you keeping up? This really is pretty simple, as far as my in-laws go), my sister-in-law also scored an invitation to the wedding event of the decade. She has to win some sort of award in this report, simply for getting through the whole night practically without alcoholic enhancement. I know the only way I got through it was with generous doses of Minttu, Fisu, and allied inebriating agents.

 

 

I think it's a rule that every party needs one of these. It's just really funny when the party also features a bagpiper.

 

So, with the main cast duly described, let us continue.

 

Things didn't get off to a great start. The map directions included in the invitation were shithouse, and we drove almost 80km to get to Syväjoki, which was in fact less than 40km away. We ended up being pretty late, but that was fine because everything was late and the wedding hadn't kicked off yet. As the old saying goes, a bagpiper is never late, nor is he early. He's just a noisy cunt at any time of the day.

 

I knew this wedding was going to be a little bit unusual when the Groom came over a couple of days beforehand and explained a bit about what was going to happen. He said the dress scheme was pretty casual, and that he himself would be wearing a bright orange suit. I thought he was joking, but apparently not. Groom, Best Man and assorted close friends of the bridal party were all wearing prison outfits, and the decorations had a sort of orange theme. It was actually pretty cool.

 

My second clue was when I marched into the wedding hall and played my piece. I was intended to be a surprise, and I guess I was that. Only the groom and my sister-in-law (and my aunt- and uncle-in-law, who were attending as guests and knew about my unfortunate habit of ruining parties) knew I was going to be playing. So I marched in and played, while the Bride got down on her knees and attached a ball and chain to the Groom's ankle, which he then wore for the rest of the night. I also apparently missed the part where the priest said "you may kiss the bride" and then kissed the Bride, rather than letting the Groom do it. Also, the party hall was full of chains, hooks, cages, and crucifixes with studded leather straps on. My spidey-sense started tingling, even as I ran the classic spiel of "Highland Cathedral" into "Scotland the Brave." I was going to go with "Amazing Grace", and later events would prove my instincts to be right on the ball, but decided against it on the grounds that it was a funeral tune.

 

I was, incidentally, one of only three people in a suit. Everybody else was in jeans, T-shirts, leather jackets, and so on. One of the other guys in a suit was this little Asian bloke, who I never quite managed to talk to all night - but I've never seen anybody quite so out-of-place. Not wishing to stoop to stereotypes, but he looked like he'd wandered away from his tour group and ended up lost in Syväjoki somehow, where mobile phone service was patchy at best, thus preventing him from calling for help. On the other hand, this was the first party I'd been to in years where nobody even mentioned the fact that I had long hair. This was mainly because most of the other guys had long hair too. Or mohawks. It was quite refreshing.

 

After my first set, I was standing in line to congratulate the Bride and Groom (I noticed at this time that congratulating the Groom involved getting one's ass fondled, regardless of one's gender), and had the distinct misfortune of standing behind the Music Critic. He told me, in extremely slurred Finnish, that my tune had been crappy, and the composer had been shithouse, but it hadn't sounded all that bad, and hopefully I knew other tunes. I assured him I knew a lot more tunes, and he might even live to hear some of them if he shut the fuck up immediately. My uncle-in-law later explained that the Music Critic was a twat, which I had more or less figured out for myself, and that he'd destroyed his brain by sniffing and drinking petroleum byproducts, which I was really only minutes from figuring out as well.

 

I got a cordial handshake from the Groom, then a sneaky spanking when I turned my back. I obviously looked crestfallen that I had been the only person not to get his or her ass fondled.

 

There were a few short, sweet speeches (Big Little Brother carried the day with a sixteen-word shiner) and dinner was served. It was freaking excellent, and not spoiled in the slightest (and I say this, at least, without sarcasm) by the fact that the meat course was a spit-roast pig, thus preventing me from having any. The meal was great, and after two heaping platefulls of potato wedges and pepper sauce, washed down with several free beers, I was absolutely stuffed. As a consequence, my second set was pretty shithouse, but nobody seemed to mind.

 

My uncle-in-law was amazed to see a very rare breed of butterfly near the entrance to the party hall during dinner, and told us that it was the largest butterfly species in Finland, and extremely endangered. We watched it flap around at ground-level, bonk into walls and generally get underfoot, and agreed that there was a damn good reason it was endangered, and that was because it was a great big dumbass. Then, after we managed to guide the first butterfly to safety at my uncle-in-law's insistence, a second one flapped across the yard, and we concluded that they couldn't be that rare after all.

 

After this ecologically and statistically sound agreement, we went back to attempting to figure out who would be the first person to vomit, pass out, or get in a fight. Unlike the butterfly conundrum, this question wasn't so easy to answer. Usually, at parties, there's a clear leader in such things, but in this case, it seemed like practically everybody was in with a chance. It was just too close to call.

 

Then, something happened that has now become quite familiar to me, and restored a little of my equilibrium after the prison overalls and the weird sleazy priest with the Leningrad Cowboys hairdo. The Bride was kidnapped. She was picked up by Big Little Brother, and driven away into the distance by the priest, in some sort of clapped-out old Ford. Jokes abounded concerning the Ford's usefulness as a getaway vehicle, and how the Groom could catch up with the kidnappers if he just ran a bit, and how the Bride would soon be back, behind the Ford, pushing the Ford, which had shat itself two kilometres out. Repartee, in short, sparkled.

 

Then the games began. These, too, should be more or less familiar to the discerning attendee of Finnish weddings. The idea is to get the groom to do various things in order to get his wife back, such as build castles out of empty beer cans, or sing a song in front of the audience, or ... get into a cage ... and get ... spanked ... by a leather-clad Dominatrix.

 

Yes, the comforting feeling of familiarity faded quite sharply at that point. I decided I needed more alcohol, and applied myself diligently to finishing an entire carton of Blue Nun. Preferably before the Groom was set his next task which could, for all I knew, involve a donkey.

 

Anyway, I'm fairly sure the Bride was returned in good order. At about this point, my Sister-in-law went for her first stint as official barmaid, and after mingling for a while without much success, I opted to join her, and at least provide a semi-sympathetic presence in the bar area so she wouldn't get too freaked out. I'm just nice like that. Also, plenty of people bought me drinks, either intentionally or otherwise, and I soon had a nice stash built up.

 

Bar Dude had explained the system by the time I arrived - everything costs two euros, there are a few people with running tabs, some other people have their own drinks in the fridge, the shot measuring cup needs to be wiped clean with toilet paper after each shot of Fisu poured ... you know, typical five-star hotel stuff. Fisu, by the way, is vodka with a bunch of Fisherman's Friend throat lozenges dissolved into it. If you haven't tried it, I suggest you do so. An excellent way to make shit vodka drinkable.

 

It was also at about this point that I first met Tattoo Artist Guy. He was swaying gently back and forth in front of the bar, and having trouble maintaining eye coordination and facial expressions. He also had no idea what language I was speaking, what language *he* should be speaking, what my relationship with my Sister-in-law was, where I was from, and a great many other things. And he didn't just have trouble with these things, he had persistent trouble. I explained that I was from Australia and that I spoke both English and Finnish, and that my Sister-in-law was my wife's sister. This somehow got turned around in his mind so that I was from Iceland, and my Sister-in-law was in fact my girlfriend. Which was briefly awkward, since I don't know much about Iceland.

 

He told me that he was getting married next summer, and asked if I could play the pipes at his wedding. I was tempted to say that if he was getting married, I could arrange an entire pipe band to play at the ceremony, composed entirely out of monkeys that had just flown out of my butt, but Tattoo Artist Guy was already confused enough. He asked me where I was from, and seemed amazed when I answered in Finnish. Then he pointed at my Sister-in-law and said, in an eerily-passable Australian accent, "she's your girlfriend, eh?"

 

Amidst our many hilarious hours spent at the bar, things were rapidly degenerating in the main party hall. I went out to look for more free alcohol when I heard punch was being served, and noticed as I did so that Big Giant Pervert Guy, previously seen only from afar, had stripped down to a sort of pants-and-girdle combo, and the Dominatrix was back, with a whip. I returned hurriedly to my place of safety.

 

Tattoo Artist Guy (I noticed the ink stains on his hands, and asked him if he learned to tattoo on pig skin the way I've heard it's done, but he told me no, he learned to tattoo by tattooing himself, and also some of his friends) asked me where I was from, and whether I would be able to play pipes at his wedding next summer.

 

Then, in between sets by a band - really a very good band, actually, I can't recall what they were called but they're already making a name for themselves and are worth listening to - things really began to get weird. There were several more S&M-style performances of increasing lewdness, by the Dominatrix and the Big Giant Pervert Guy and the Bride and Groom. There was dancing, and garter removal, and in between all of this everybody got steadily drunker. I returned to the bar and had the distinct pleasure of talking to the Music Critic again.

 

This time, he was of the opinion that I should have played "you know, that song, they always play it in American movies, when the army guy dies and they have the funeral and they fold up the flag and give it to the wife and there's guns firing and stuff, you probably don't know it."

 

I told him the tune was probably "Amazing Grace", and in fact I did know it, and I had in fact played it during my second set. He couldn't remember that far back, of course, but still seemed doubtful that I knew it. I hummed him a few bars, and that shut him up on the subject of American army funeral movie songs, at least. Sadly, he started to talk about Australia next, as specifically relates to Foster's and Crocodile Dundee. He told me that he'd started to drink Foster's a few years back, and that he really liked it. I told him that Foster's was not, as such, Australian for beer, and the beer itself was made in England and bottled in Scotland, and no Australian worth a damn would ever drink the stuff, and the whole thing was a cynical marketing ploy, and he had been drinking English soccer hooligan piss for the past three years under the misconception that it was some sort of exotic Aussie booze. He was a bit deflated on hearing this newsflash, but he probably should have thought about that before telling me "Highland Cathedral" and "Scotland the Brave" were shithouse tunes written by lousy composers. The twat.

 

He also wanted to know if Crocodile Dundee was a real person, and several people standing at the bar laughed at my series of facial expressions as I tried to decide which smartass answer to give him.

 

At about eleven o'clock, Bar Dude snapped. As a recovering alcoholic, he had been put in the worst possible place, and he realised that if he didn't get out of there, the one or two little drinks he'd been taking would turn into bottles, and he'd find himself back in the wagon-ruts. So he ran away, leaving my Sister-in-law in charge of the bar. With me as Associate Junior Vice President in charge of Marketing (Fisu branch). It worked out very well.

 

Frustrated Girlfriend, in between racking up a huge bar tab, managed to strap her boyfriend onto the Wheel of Pain, and on one of my hourly punch-runs I was amused to hear her whipping him and shouting "When are we getting married? Name the day! Give me a day!" while the guy squealed like a pig. That was just funny. Especially when he started, "the year nine thousand and-" and she whopped him in the balls with a riding crop. I don't care what you have between your legs, that's got to hurt.

 

Tattoo Artist Guy invited me yet again to play pipes at his wedding next summer, and I once again promised that I would definitely think about thinking about it, if the time came and I wasn't on holiday in Australia - which, I stressed, I definitely would be. At the same time, I wondered who the fuck would be marrying this dude. Perhaps my uncharitable amazement was plain to see on my face, because Tattoo Artist Guy started a rambling explanation of his wife-to-be, and how they were getting married in a year's time. He confided in me that he was having doubts, and wondered if maybe he was too young to get married. When we compared ages, and found out that he was two months older than I was, and I told him I'd been married for seven years, we concluded that he wasn't too young to get married - although he was, in all likelihood, too much of a booze-fucked basket case.

 

The bar, as I've sort of attempted to explain, was built into a side-room off the main party shed, and it was packed with a lot of shed-style stuff, like old lawnmowers and furniture and things. When the Best Man stumbled into the piles of junk, rummaged for a while, and produced a huge metal-edged plank of wood and carried it purposefully back outside, we decided it was time to steal as much booze as we could from the bar and leave before ... well, I was going to say "before things turned ugly", but we were a bit too late for that. I played my third and final set, just to clear the way to the main doors, and we bolted.

 

All in all, a fascinating experience. I'd volunteer to play at their next anniversary, but I don't think Janica would let me.

 

DISCLAIMER #1: At no point should it be assumed that any of this is even slightly normal for Finnish weddings. The bride kidnapping and removal of garter with teeth, yes, okay, those are normal. But the rest is weird.

 

DISCLAIMER #2: Some people have had their faces censored in the following pictures, out of respect for their privacy. I used my own judgement concerning this, since these people seemed to be professionals. And I really don't want them mad at me.

 

 

 

On Saturday, I treated myself to another lovely two-day hangover, courtesy of our excellent neighbours. They were celebrating a joint birthday party - 50th for the mum of the house, 20th for her son - and doing it in style. As always.

 

These neighbours of ours also happen to be relatives, one of the many benefits of country-town life. After a blissfully domestic afternoon of car-washing, I got myself all dressed up, filled my Minttu-flask, and joined my wife and paying guests (that's my in-laws, at least until their house is done) in a wander across the front yard at about 14:00. The festivities began promptly with a champagne toast to the happy 70-year-old.

 

Actually, there wasn't much else to it. Drink, sigh, repeat. We were at a sort of in-between table with friends and relatives of the birthday boy, many of whom were bemoaning the fact that they were so old, and how old they would be when the youngest member of the family turned 20, and generally just making me feel old by moaning about how they were almost, like, 25.

 

The beer ran out at about 17:30, and the hosts were a bit hesitant in replenishing the wine boxes, but that didn't bother me because I was drinking beer anyway. And the beer ran out, which was a tragedy that led me to drink lonkero for almost half an hour.

 

The beer and wine were replaced by a big bowl of extremely vodka-rich punch at about 18:00. In fact you could quite accurately call it "vodka with a twist of orange juice", or even more accurately "vodka near which an orange, or at least an imitation orange, had been sitting at some point in time". Anyway, it was nice, and plentiful.

 

The mosquitoes came out at about 19:00 and proceeded to feast upon my blood, which I hope cost more than a few of them their lives due to alcohol poisoning. How small must a mosquito's liver be, anyway? By God, I'm a mess of mosquito bites even as we speak, so I hope I have something more to show for it that a bunch of red lumps and a plastic cup with a pathetic collection of squashed insects in it. It was funny to see one particularly inebriated guest smack herself in the face and get a wonderful big splash of alcohol-rich blood down her forehead. And then be too drunk to really do anything about it.

 

It must have been around 20:30 when I was encouraged to pull out the bagpipes and have a blast, which I did as briefly as possible. Everybody seemed happy. I have a genuine "gig" coming up on the 30th, where I will be expected to play them, probably with a certain degree of sobriety and aptitude. That should be fun.

 

The sun went down at about 21:00 or 22:00. The older, more genteel guests had, I think, gone home by that point, leaving the usual crop of ne'er-do-wells. I couldn't be sure, of course, because it seems I am one such ne'er-do-well. There was a certain amount of dancing, stumbling, shouting and Finnish-English bullshitting.

 

Janica went home at about 00:00, and I think the Minttu came out at about the same time. I sat around with various relatives, and was forced to dance at one point. I remember it distinctly. The birthday girl refused to dance, saying that "the new Tarja" (read "the drunk Tarja") had not yet emerged. So I had to break the ice.

 

It all gets a bit misty after that. I remember watching a guy dance a'la Angus Young for a while, shirt-off, and then watching the same guy roll down the hill. For once, it wasn't me. I also remember being told by one of the visiting uncles that I was a really great guy, and shaking hands with him about fifty times. Fucking Finns. I'm never going to get used to the idea of people saying nice things about others while drunk, and not actually being sarcastic.

 

Home by about 03:30, and off to bed for perhaps six hours. Wasn't actually too hungover the next day, although loss of blood surely made matters worse.

 

Had a fun weekend. Didn't do an awful lot. Went on a shopping expedition on Saturday, picked up a bunch of DVDs including the first season of the new Doctor Who, so I no longer have to worry about trying to tape it off the extremely-undependable TV. Also picked up a blender, in the new "Chilli" range, for all our smoothie-making needs. Had a smoothie on Sunday and it was excellent - mango, banana, strawberries and yoghurt. We're beginning to put serious thought into this home-making thing, see, and the blender was the obvious place to start. It just makes sense.

 

Came home and watched Clerks 2, which was awesome. Might add a quick review, depending on how quickly work starts arriving on my desk this morning. Sunday was my grandma-in-law's nameday, which meant excitement and waffles for all. I was antisocial and retreated to the back room with my computer. Didn't get a whole heck of a lot of sleep last night, because some unutterable moron put the dog outside, so she was barking non-stop from midnight onwards. Again. Like always. Note to self: this is the last time I let that happen.

 

Well anyway. Friday night was the fun one. We went to a fancy-dress party for Janica's university faculty, Historicus. Big bunch of Swedish-Finnish (or is it Finnish-Swedish? I never get it right) students in an assortment of costumes. The theme for the night was "Revolution", so there were a great many Che Guevaras and a couple of Fidel Castros, a very neat couple dressed as French aristocrats (they won best costume) and one brave soul dressed as the Sexual Revolution (or perhaps Dr. Frank N. Furter).

 

Janica was dressed as the Chinese Cultural Revolution, about which I know sweet sod-all except for the fact that apparently they broke a bunch of old pots and vases, because Janica had a broken pot made of styrofoam on her head. It was very neat. Some of the more deep-thinking party-goers figured it out. I was dressed as the Australian Revolution. Since Australia is still clinging desperately to Mummy Britain's leg, the revolution has not, as yet, actually happened, and so I was not, to the casual observer, in a costume at all. But that's just because people are ignorant. Anyway, I had been considering putting a CD on a string around my neck and putting my hair in pigtails and claiming to be the Dance Dance Revolution, but the idea was vetoed by my last remaining survival instincts.

 

I was caught in conversation at one point with a young party-goer wrapped in a red sheet, with a blue sheet over the top, sandals and fake beard. I tried my very best to figure out who this costume was supposed to represent, and finally had it pointed out to me in a very wounded tone of voice that it was Jesus. I must have been thrown by the fact that she was a woman. I was also a little curious as to what revolution Jesus represented. But then, he was a bit of a trouble-maker for the Romans, I suppose, so there you go. Perhaps he was the Entertainment Revolution. The Circus was never quite the same again after Christians started turning up.

 

I told Jesus that maybe her costume would have been more readily-identifiable if she'd been carrying a handful of long iron nails around with her. She seemed to think that was very tasteless, and walked away. Well excuse me for not dressing up as Jesus. Maybe I should have suggested a crown of thorns instead. Or as well as. That would have made it unmistakable. Janica pointed out that Jesus was a little bit sensitive, and didn't make those sorts of jokes. Several other people agreed that she was a bit odd, and cited assorted other parties as precedent. I, having absolutely no knowledge of the person involved, respectfully disagreed. She would, I maintained, lighten up after a few drinks, and turn out to just have a bit of a weird sense of humour. This diagnosis was at least partially confirmed later on, when I talked to her again and she told me how many people at the party were going to Hell for making fun of her beard.

 

She also said she'd been to another party, with a fancy-dress "pirates" theme, at which she had been the only person dressed as a real, historically-accurate pirate, whereas everybody else had just been wearing hats with feathers in, parrots on their shoulders, peg-legs and hook-hands. I asked her if she'd gone dressed as Jesus to that party as well, and she told me I was definitely going to Hell. I asked if I'd have to sit with Frank N. Furter in Hell, and she said no, because Frank N. Furter was going to Heaven - she had helped him apply his makeup, and getting your lippie fixed by Jesus is apparently a one-way ticket to salvation.

 

The night went on. I was sitting at one end of the banquet table with a very quiet South American Revolutionary of some sort (red headband, cammo shirt, plastic gun, very quiet and polite) and a very cheerful old fart who turned out to be one of the founding members of the Historicus organisation (that was, I remind you, the university faculty throwing the party), which was celebrating its 45th anniversary that year. As luck would have it, he was the official alcohol-procurer for the organisation back in the day, and by amazing coincidence he was completely drunk off his 'nana when he arrived at the party. Much hilarity ensued. He criticised me roundly for learning Finnish "just like so many other newcomers to Finland do", instead of applying my valuable time and resources to learning the far more useful language of Swedish. He was funny.

 

Janica was sitting next to the actual founding father of Historicus, and his wife. Their daughter had just married a guy from Perth, which was a weird coincidence. I commiserated, but Mrs. Historicus said that it was really okay, he was a nice guy. I marvelled that both the nice guys in Perth had married Finnish women, and wasn't it a funny old world? The Historicus Founding Booze Procurer asked me if I was talking about the Perth in Scotland. I told him no, I was talking about the original Perth in Australia. Didn't even get a laugh. Except from me.

 

Oh yes, and speaking of language snobbery, the Finnish-speaking delegation stood up at this point and made a little speech about how happy they were to be there, and how they would like to beg a moment of everybody's time to sing a quick drinking song in Finnish. There was much booing, jeering, and catcalling from the Swedish-Finns (or is it Finnish-Swedes?) in the audience, and I decided fuck it, I would just speak English for the rest of the night if that's the way Finnish-speakers are treated.

 

Considerable mingling, talking of crap, and waiting in line for the toilets followed. I was stuck at the bar with Frank N. Furter for a while, I seem to recall, singing the Philosophers' Song from Monty Python. I think he made me sing that last time we were at their place for New Year's Eve, too, possibly because of my nationality. Then I spent a while talking to the girl behind the bar, who was moving to Australia shortly, to live in Canberra and help the local Aboriginal people. I hope that works out okay for her. I asked her if she liked the heat, and she said no. So she's off to a good start there. I didn't have the heart to ask her if she liked sand.

 

I told her, very briefly, about Canberra's illustrious history, like for instance how nobody could decide whether Sydney or Melbourne was the capital of Australia so they made Canberra in between them, and called that the capital. She told me at great length about the Australian government's mistreatment of the Aboriginal people, and how they refuse to apologise for the terrible things that happened, and are still happening. She wanted to know if I felt guilty, and I had to say, "no, because my father's side of the family moved to Australia in the 1930s, my mother's side of the family in the 1960s or something, and none of us have ever shot an Aboriginal, and besides I've done my part for cultural understanding by moving my marshmallow-white ass back to Europe, as far as I'm concerned they're welcome to the place, if they love it so much why don't they marry it."

 

She was not to be sidetracked.

 

I also talked to the French aristocrat at around this point, and asked him if he was aware that his mole was now on the other side of his face. He obviously wasn't a Mel Brooks fan, because instead of saying "I have a mole?" he said, "it's not a real mole," which is nowhere near as funny as the actual line from the movie. I despair for these modern kids.

 

Engaged in conversation with the guest professor, who had made an interesting speech earlier about the 7th Century cultural revolution among the Muslims in Iran (at least I think it was - it was in Finnish, he started out by apologising to the crowd for not being able to address them in Swedish, a fact which he blamed on a birth defect [he was born in Oulu]), I wandered over to join the line to the toilets. As luck would have it, this was where we found Jesus, crashed out in the "The Morning After The Last Supper" position on a convenient bench. No wonder the Romans caught him so easily.

 

Sadly, all the jokes ("He'll be back in three days", "Guess he never got around to curing his own narcolepsy", "Let's shave him ... yoink!" and other classics) had been made by this point, so we settled for laughing and pointing. The last laugh was on us, however, as Jesus rolled over and puked all over our shoes.

 

To be honest, I didn't even notice it at the time, as I was looking down the line with the dawning horrified realisation that there were about twenty people in front of me and (in spite of the fact that I'd really only wandered over this way because I was still jabbering with the professor) I really actually needed to go to the toilet. When the guy behind me, who happened to be the Historicus Founding Booze Procurer, said "voi herre Gud" and ran past us all, I thought, "gee, must suck to be an old guy with no bladder control". He was admitted to the bathroom, where I noticed he began desperately washing chunks off his pants. That's when I looked down and saw that Jesus had produced another miracle, turning wine into chopped carrots for some ineffable divine reason.

 

My own pants had escaped unscathed, but my shoe was a mess. I was boundlessly amused.

 

"Ah, that's nasty," one of the guys I was waiting in line with said sympathetically.

 

"Are you kidding?" I danced a gleeful jig, "my leprosy is gone!" This time, I know I was the first in with a Jesus-gag, and a Jesus-gag of top-shelf quality into the bragain. Life doesn't get much sweeter.

 

Of course, this left me with the problem of a vomit-splattered Rossi (one of the very few pairs in the greater Helsinki area, I think), and the next day's shopping trip wasn't much fun on account of the smell ... but I washed it off after that, and now there is only a faint stain, in the shape of the Comatose Madonna, on my shoe to tell the tale. That, and in spite of all the wine, cider, beer, vodka, schnapps, punch and gin & tonic I drank, I didn't have a very bad hangover the next morning at all.

 

Miracu-lush!