My bus stop

To continue today's "inclement weather" theme (also related to the fact that I was actually carrying a camera about with me) here is a pic of my bus stop on the way home from work after the blizzard had blown through. I thought it was somehow atmospheric...

Soggy Blizzard

Helsinki after a soggy blizzard. The ice on the lake was all pristine and white but has gone blotchy with all the heavy sleet.

A definition of brave

I've taken the picture of above from a NYT multimedia presentation that everyone should have a look at. It's words and pictures telling the story of a Marine patrol hit by a sniper whilst on patrol in al-Anbar province. What has happened in this picture is one shot has rung out hitting and injuring the radio operator. The sniper managed to aim for a gap in his body armour and the bullet went through the marine's arm and on into his chest. An Iraqi colleague who was by him has run for cover so the radio-guy is now lying on the ground completely exposed and unable to move into shelter. His sergeant has worked out from which direction the shot came and has now stepped into the line of fire covering the injured soldier with his own body. Watch the multimedia presentation and you can see how he then drags him into cover. I wonder if the sergeant even thought about it? Using your own body to provide cover is a complete irrational thing to do - you could say stupid - and the fact that he does immediately also make it rather heroic. I hope someone gave him a medal, or at the very least bought him a few beers.

I don't think there is a wider point here - it's just one very brave but perhaps common act in a war zone that happened to have taken place in front of a NYT photographer. I expect insurgents do similar things to their colleagues as well, it's just that they might shoot any western photographers trying to snap them doing it. Anyway - watch the whole presentation, it's worth it.

Cheers to Akinoluna as I spotted the link on her blog. Again.

BTW - it took me age to find a way to "borrow" that photo. The presentation uses Flash and I don't know if there is a method to copy a picture direct as you can normally do by right-clicking on jpeg. I had to take a screen print and then use a picture editor. If anyone knows a better way, do tell.

Winter has arrived

Brrrr... chilly out:

Taken at about midnight, saturday 4th

A week of sub-zero temps so we took a chance to take our ice gear out to a crag near Helsinki and see what was freezing. Thin early season conditions, enough to do a couple of lines, but not enough to put any protection in. This is me on the easy lefthand icefall at Kauhala:


Thanks to Tony for snapping away. Here's Tony climbing the same line:

Radio OpenSource

I've just been listening to the Radio Open Source show on Somalia from a couple of days ago. I had left a few comments on their blog and they read them out on the air. Hooray! I'm officially glowing with pride. ;-) Right - I'm off to find an over-priced London cup of coffee with a good view.

Hello from London

I'm writing this in London on my mate's iBook, looking out from his window towards Canary Warf, the Millenium Dome and Greenwich. The sky is blue and it's faintly like being in an American movie set in London where the characters always have a perfect backdrop of the city's skyline behind them. When you're not from London, there's always something a bit surreal about being here, knowing it so well from film and television. My limited experience of New York is exactly the same. Its very still and quiet up here near Blackheath, there are parrotkeets flying about outside and a very healthy looking fox was trotting past us last night as we walked back from the pub. Planes flying above towards Heathrow are about the only reminders that I'm in a city of 7 million.


Anyway, I'm on my way back to Finland having spent the last few days at Wilton Park (see picture) at a fascinating conference. I'll write about that more in the future, but this is more to just show I haven't given up blogging or been kidnapped by space aliens.

Caption Competition

I was just looking at the photo of Tony Snow in the last post from earlier in the week - that's a caption competition just waiting to happen isn't it?


On the basis of the recent "no brainer" comment from Vice President Cheney on whether torturing people is a good thing or not (a comment he is now trying to weasel out of) I think perhaps Mr Snow is saying "the President is only going to put him this far under just to remind him not to do it again before the elections..."

Alternative suggestions are most welcome in the comments.

"Stay the Course" leaves the field

Sorry for mixing the sporting metaphors in the title but: thank the lord! I've just heard on the radio Tony Snow (photo left), the Whitehouse press secretary, say that President Bush is no longer going to use the phrase "stay the course". Regardless of the politics, this cringe-inducing cliché should have died a natural death long ago. It is my second most hated cliché in international politics after "boots on the ground", a horrible phrase that the BBC doesn't seem to be able to fully rid itself of although you don't hear it quite so much as over the last couple of years.

The presenters on "Today" on Radio 4 were amongst the worst abusers of "boots on the ground" - it got to the point where I actually imagined that John Humphrys might really believe that the way to stabilise Southern Iraq was to turf a load of boots out of the back of a C-130. I never really got their fondness for it - "boots on the ground" is four syllables, "soldiers" is two: life is complicated enough already.