Happy New Year!

Hi all, and Happy New Year! Life changes, life goes on - I think this year I'll have more time for blogging, so hopefully if you keep dropping by from time to time there will be more regular random scatterings of my thoughts and photos to amuse, bemuse or annoy you.

Thought for the day: isn't it a bit depressing that we have to have the following entire section in bookshops nowadays?

But never mind, the world is still lovely at times. Here for your delectation is a delightful, wintery, English rural scene. The ducks waddled off just before I snapped it though, so apologies for the lack of suitable waterfowl.

Autumn Colours

The trees were so pretty as I rode to work this morning, I tried to video them. I think autumn is my favourite time of year.



That's it. Hope you enjoyed. Nothing else to see here I'm afraid. You can move along now...

Work, and other excuses

Globalization - in its cheap and orange form - arriving in Manchester

More apologies for the lack of blogging in recent weeks to anyone who clicks over here from time to time to see if I have anything interesting to say or interesting pictures to show. I do have a pretty good excuse though, as last week I successfully defended my PhD thesis in an, as ever rainy, Manchester. I have some changes to make as suggested by the examiners, but this is normal in the UK system, and in a couple of weeks time it should all be over. I guess then I’ll have to take the “perennial PhD student” bit out my profile on the right, but I won’t until I have the degree in my hand in order not to jinx it!

Ahhh.... merry old England! At the baggage carousel

Anyway, whilst I don’t have anything exciting to write myself I would really recommend reading the piece on Petesy’s outdoor equipment blog about his visit to the factory of PHD in Stalybridge. For those who don’t know, PHD, or Pete Hutchinson Designs, makes very high quality clothing and sleeping bags for mountaineers and other visitors to very cold places. The piece isn’t really about the gear though, it is about work and craftsmanship. I used to live just up the road from Stalybridge – the water that rushed down that valley started the industrial revolution and mills built there supplied fabrics to the world. Those times are gone – and to grasp why is to understand much about globalization – but the great mill buildings remain and it is good to see them being used still by skilled crafts people (most of the sewing teams seem to be women) making things, even if it is on a rather different scale. There is something good, maybe even noble, about the whole thing.

More cheery British humour

Perhaps Petesy's piece just resonates for me right now. I was back amongst those great brick buildings of Lancashire's industrial past last week to see the closing of the circle of one part of my life. My PhD has been a slog - jammed in around getting a job, having kids, buying a house - but getting a product out the far end, even if it is a rather specialist one of little interest to most, still feels good.

Nothing stops the parcel guy

This is a screen shot of the UPS tracking record of a parcel coming from the UK to here in Helsinki. It seems to have met with some volcanic activity along the way, but not for very long. Keep on truckin' dudes.

Never trust a viking

BBC News headline today:

Icelandic volcanic ash alert grounds UK flights

You have to wonder don't you - is this some very sneaky Icelandic revenge for the British government using anti-terrorist legislation to freeze the assets of the Icelandic banks that went belly up in the financial crisis - to the cost of many British savers including quite a few local authorities?

Cool footage of the eruption here.

Norway calling...

In a week I will be leaving Finland behind, literally and metaphorically. I'll be off for a week's holiday in Northern Norway - ski mountaineering and ice climbing hopefully - that's the literal half. I'm also making the final changes (hopefully) to my PhD thesis on Finnish security policy, and before I go on holiday I plan to hand that in. Hence I'll also be leaving Finland behind metaphorically - as a subject of study, at least for some time. But anyway, you'll have to excuse the minimalist blogging for another few weeks.

I got big parcel through the post today - RAB have sent me a bunch of interesting items to review for UKClimbing whilst I'm in Norway. The kit include one of the new Podsacs and the Alpine Pull On - something halfway between a windproof and a softshell - both of which are new products so I'll be really interested to see how they work. Opening the box with childish glee just made me even more excited to be heading off to the big hills in seven days time.

100,000 visits.

Some relaxing Northern light - with ducks for added value

I've just noticed the little hit counter at the bottom of this blog has passed 100,000 hits since I started it in 2006. Even accounting for google bots, spammers and the numerous people who come here via search engines whilst looking for "gay penguins" or "how to carry an ice axe" - that's still a huge number of people choosing to visit my blog and read my ramblings. Thank you to everyone, knowing people are actually reading this is the main reason why I keep at it.

I can't promise anything else than more semi-regular mid-grade climbing reports; a smattering of photos - some good some not; rants about people parking on cycle paths; reasonably informed opinion on the bits of international political life that I know something about and uniformed guesses about those bits that I don't know about; and my continued observations of things about Finland that amuse or annoy me - but that seems to be enough already to help you pass a few minutes of your day!

Of course if I find out anything about how gay penguins carry ice axes I will let you all know.

Low profile

I'm PhD wrestling currently. I've nearly killed it, but it refuses to lie down and go quietly. Please excuse the lack of much posting currently. Normal wittertainment will be resumed shortly I hope.

Almost summer

I swam in a lake today. It was bloody cold. But the beer was good after. The beer was some sort of german weissbier, the name of which I can't remember. I thought it was rather good despite being assured by my friend that actually it's a bit of a girls beer. Perhaps women just have good taste.

Don't forget to be impressed.

In the morning I'm going to hop on a couple of planes and by the end of the day end up one ocean and one continent away from home. That is completely amazing isn't it? I'm staying in a friend's house half the earth away, in a place I've never been within 1000 miles of, and thanks to Google Street View I've already have had a look at my temporary digs. That also is completely amazing isn't it?

If you don't think so - watch this:

Words I can never quite remember and mix up when I'm trying to

Psephology - the study of elections
Campanology - bell ringing

Yes I know they aren't really very similar, but the thing that links them in my brain is that I can never remember either of the words when I'm trying to.

How to learn to tour-skate

Waiting for the couple of people slower than me to cross the line.

Tour skating, or long distance skating on lake or sea ice has become really popular in recent years in Finland, mainly as an import from Sweden it seems. I've never done it, always thinking it looked fun but never quite getting around to finding out more. But now I have, and this is how I learnt:

1) Sign up for the Finland Ice Marathon in Kuopio
2) Hire skates
3) Drive 400 kms to Kuopio
4) Work out how skates attach to boots
5) Get on the start line for the 50 km race with ski poles
6) Skate 50 kms
7) Come in at a very credible not-quite-last-position
8) Take lots of ibuprofen
9) Decide the ibuprofen alone isn't cutting it and drink large amounts of beer
10) Sleep very soundly and ache a bit the next day.

Please note: there may be other and better ways to learn how to tour skate.

American Hero

I forgot to post something about the amazing bit of flying that put Flight 1549 down safely in the Hudson river last month. But just listen to the utter the calmness of all concerned on the released tapes of the radio between the ATC and the pilots.

If you are going to be in a plane crash you want someone with a such a fantastic name as Chesley Burnett "Sully" Sullenberger III as your pilot. Somehow, I just think you would know it was all going to be ok with a man with that name at the helm.

If you haven't heard Garrison Keillor's "Pilot Song" in Cpt. Sullenbergers's honour - do. It's here.

CDG:Term1

You know what they say - that if you put enough monkeys in front of enough typewriters, eventually one of them will write Hamlet? Of course an awful more of them won't. So it must be the same that if you give enough bored punters enough camera phones, eventually one of them will make art. Of course, others won't.


CDG from Toby A. on Vimeo.

This is my latest conceptual work that I'm calling CDG:Term1

I hope you find it as moving an emotional experience to view as I did making it.

Paris

Bon soir mes amis – I’m in Paris just in case you couldn’t guess, and it also seems that someone is trying to remind somebody else that France is in the EU.

It’s a few years since I last visited, but my opinion hasn’t changed – its rather like London isn’t it? This might sound sacrilegious for both Londoners and Parisians but it's true.


Lots of trees, tourists and illegal immigrants flogging tourist tat to them, roads going in random directions, parks, crazy traffic, cops everywhere, a big river through the middle etc. Obviously they aren’t identical, but they ‘feel’ very similar. I've even got a hotel room a bit like the ones they always have in Hollywood movies - where you can always see the Eiffel Tower, although I have to look sharply upwards to do so.

Listing good intentions

I enjoy blogging and I'm constantly amazed and grateful that people visit and read, but sometimes I'm just knackered and don't have chance to write. So things I've wanted to blog about in the last few days but haven't had time:

• The Wire - we've just started watching season 5. It's just so good.
• Finnish Trains - no Mussolini needed here.
• How the Finnish media can't get its head around immigrants and foreigners not necessarily being the same thing in covering the upcoming local elections.
  
• Finnish attitudes to Black Finns. Not good at all.
• Voter caging in the U.S. election - a case of if you make a big enough fuss about a non-existent scandal people might not see the real scandal.
• Bike lights.
• The effect of the financial crisis on firms that related to mountaineering.
  

I have something to say on all of these, and no time to say it. My apologies dear readers. Another time.

I'm back...

...just in case anyone wondered, I was in England last week getting fat, then Kustavi (SW Finland) this weekend (see pic above) getting mashed by granite cracks and stung by annoyed wildlife. All good fun, but need to sleep now!

Random International Relations Fact of the Day

Did you know that besides Russia, Nicaragua is the only state in the world to recognise the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia? Weird eh? They must really hate 'dem 'der Yankees. The name of Nicaragua's president, Daniel Ortega, takes me back to my childhood - it somehow reminds of me packed lunches at school (ask Thatcher why we didn't get a hot meal) and Arthur Scargill.

Spooky technology and gear porn

My iPod likes Francophone hip-hop. I'm sure Apple will claim there is some clever algorithm that means the shuffle function is completely random, but I don't believe it. I've only got one MC Solaar album on it, but Solaar comes up more often on the shuffle than any other, I swear. The fact that my iPod is developing artificial intelligence should worry me, but actually we're cool. If it didn't have such good taste in music though, I might be concerned.

And then the gear porn. Patagonia, maker of clothing that I like too much, has a new very cool multimedia section of its site - "the Tin Shed". Amazing films of Sonnie Trotter flying off Rhapsody; House, Anderson and Prezelj making cutting edge alpinism look like a fun day out; but showing the utter sad gear freak that I am, Steve House talking us through his ice axe collection was just, as Steve would say, "super cool". I'm totally in sympathy with his suggestion that you never get rid of an old axe, although my family both in Finland and England might not agree.

The Tin Shed works via Flash so I can't do links to the exact films. You need to just go in and explore.

All at sea!

I'm blogging this from the cafe on the Silja line ferry somewhere in Baltic south of Finland and north of Estonia. How cool is that? I have absolutely nothing interesting to say besides the sun is shining and it's very beautiful, its more just to say - wow, I'm on a boat. Blogging. :-)

Right - off to check out the duty free prices now.