What do you know about Finland?

Three Finns and a bottle of vodka. They drink in silence for three hours.

After three hours, one Finn says: “Nice vodka.”

The other Finn says, “Did we come here to talk, or did we come here to drink?!”

Mayakovsky was acting like an avantgarde artist (or, as  we call it in my country, an arsehole) before the Revolution at a dinner, and a Finnish diplomat eventually broke down in tears and yelled like a wounded walrus, in broken Russian, Много! “Too much.” I always found that scene very poignant.

Best education system in the world, even if Sam Seaborn says so: they pay their teachers gajillions, and even respect them.

They reinvented themselves from a dependency on forests to a high tech hub. Nokia, rest in peace.

I had a cousin work for Nokia a while back. There was no point ringing central office in Helsinki in July: everyone was south for the holidays.

Uralic language. Long agglutinated words. Gemination, which means the language sounds a bit like Dothraki.

Swedish minority, including Sibelius and Linus. And that kickarse general dude, who recorded Hitler.

Lordi, Santa Claus impersonators. Lakes.

Got out of the Russian Empire just in time. Had to be careful with how they handled their Eastern neighbour. Gave the Red Army what for.

They sneer at Greece these days, but then again, all of Northern Europe does.

How’d I do?