Tomorrow could be boring

When Twitter is Good

Twitter is at the bottom-feeder end of Information Overload. Ipad is at the top. Both can be useful and delightful, but recently, I've decided to develop a much stricter attitude to what kind of information I give room in my life to. I don't need to know everything. I don't need to have access to more books than I can read in a lifetime. Frankly, the thought depresses me.

I can choose what and when I think about things. Thinking. Remember that, people? Stuffing every orifice full of media and everyone else's inane chatter is not good for you.

Yes, read. Yes, talk to people. Of course. But for Heaven's sake, don't binge on all the chaff, Z-list celebrity gossip and tiniest minutiae of peripheral news items. You don't need it. Don't grant space in your head for it.

The thing about Twitter and any tool is learning how to get what you want out of it. Use it cleverly. Don't allow it to suck you in and convince you that it's important. It is not. Take control of it.

Many people seem to throw themselves at online forums, blogs and social networking sites like an inexperienced rider on a Ducati motorcycle. They think they can ride it, but the bike takes off under them and the machine is driving them.

I love online forums, blogs and social networking sites. I've been active online since there was such a thing as 'online'. It's just now I'm finally learning to use these damn things properly.

Twitter is for getting to know what my favourite people and companies are up to. It occasionally also just makes me giggle. Like this morning, when someone wrote: "Dear delusional teenage girls. A guy who glitters and won't have sex with you is not a vampire. He's gay." Twilight, The Eclipse is released in UK this weekend and it's Gay Pride today. Blam. What a lovely little witticism. Then it's time to turn off the computer and go outside. Or to the cinema.

'tis the time for scanners and printers to explode!

We've moved to Farnham. It's an old market town, fairly rural, but still close-ish to London. Timo's new journey to work will take about an hour by train and another half an hour by tube. My trip to Poole will be shortened significantly and will take similar sort of time if all goes well. So geography certainly influenced our choice.

Yet there is an extra quality about this place - something I was trying to explain to Timo before he'd been - it's a little bit out-of-time, an imaginary England not quite stuck in the past, but neither apparently present in our world. It's how I imagined England to be before I came here, almost 18 years ago. Of course my ideas were quickly crushed by Streatham, Old Kent Road, Elephant & Castle, New Cross Gate, Peckham, Morden and all those lovely South London places. Years living in greasy flats above chip shops, damp basements and ex-council blocks made me hate London. I'm sure I would have loved London a lot more, had I lived in a W8 terrace.

And I do love London too. I love its theatres, museums, colleges, parks, shops, buzz, ideas and people. The mishmash of cultures and languages. But like a rich pudding, it can only be enjoyed in small doses. I have always had a tendency to absorb a great deal from my surroundings and it's useful when creating because inspiration and ideas seem to fly out of my head with ease, but there is a saturation point. This point is reached very quickly in London these days. It's too stimulating. Exhilarating in small doses.

Our new home is a dinky one bedroom house. We're renting it for (what what we hope for is a) shortish period before buying our own place around here. The mortgage and housing market is scary at the moment, so these plans are not much more than hopes for now.

There are beautiful woods and parks, cobbled streets, old architecture, friendly people and nice little shops. We do now live right next to the train track, so the current nuisance (still preferable to a chip shop) is the house-train-effect. Every time a train goes past, the building vibrates. There are several cracks on the walls and ceilings, which the owner pointed out to us when we moved in. I definitely wouldn't buy this place.

Timo and I have decided that at night, when we're drifting off to sleep and the train rumbles and the house vibrates, we imagine that we're on a big sleeper house-train, journeying somewhere new and exciting. It's that, or constantly stress about the noise. 

We seem to be on a neighbourhood cat-path. There's a tabby, black, bushy ginger and a half-moustachioed Poirot cat. They skulk past our patio doors to the woods opposite.

I finally have my new computer. We can't get broadband connected until mid-January, so it's been a little ironic to stare at the shiny new machine without being able to do much on it. Not to mention the irritation of troublesome new printer installation. Well, we've not managed to install it, put it that way. It's driven Timo to declare he never wants to see another bit of technology again (a threat which was immediately broken as he hurried back to his game of Civ).

And there's another kind of headexplody-risk around here - this one for the idea-rich/time-poor/impatiently wanting to try and learn and do too much-type Barbara Sher calls Scanners. At my fingertips in this town, I have opportunities to rekindle Russian (something I've wanted to do for a long time), learn to ride a horse (something my mother promised me when I was a child, but then never followed through), go on drawing and illustration classes, learn yoga, go to theatre, go see sock puppets, opera streamed directly from The Met, learn pottery, fabric printing, jewellery making... and I could go on. I have had to force myself to put all this to one side for now and argue that it'll all be still there once I've completed my perfumery and chemistry studies, written my nonfiction cosmetics industry novel and finished my picture book. I am wearing a wry smile as I write this, but the crazy part is that there is a crazy part in me that believes I can do all this stuff. This place is a scanner's dream or nightmare. Depends on your outlook.

Chemicals and mind-crushes

Isn't the picture Grant drew adorable? It makes more sense if you read my new column at Basenotes. This is the second in the series, entitled "A Very English Problem".

I've also got a new mind-crush in the form of Dara O'Briain. His rant about homeopathy and nutritionists is brilliant. Best quote: "Science knows it doesn't know everything or it would have stopped."

I brought back a toxic book from the library: "Toxic Beauty: How Hidden Chemicals in Cosmetics Harm You." It's written by a Reiki-healer who is convinced she knows what she's talking about, a bit like an astrologer might be convinced she knows better about heavenly bodies after talking to some people at NASA. I would despair, but luckily I've built up some resistance to this by now and my own chemistry studies are adding a whole new backbone to the way I view these scare-mongering messages nowadays. Once I finish my course I should really focus on the book I've been researching for the past few years and get it out there. It's time people stopped worrying about insignificant things and started worrying about stuff that could cause real harm instead. To themselves, to the environment and ultimately to the existence of human life itself. Trust me, whether we ingest a bit of lipstick isn't on that list.

What is the difference between 15/km2 and 392/km2, other than 377?

Finns are drowning, getting drunk and crashing their cars this weekend. They are also building big bonfires, eating sausages, swimming naked in the sea or in one of the 155.000 lakes, heating up saunas - and some might even be collecting wild flowers and putting them under their pillows based on old love spells.

It's Juhannus (Midsummer) in Finland and I feel homesick. I miss some of the above. Not the drunken, drowning part. I miss the odd, golden haze of Finnish summer evenings. I miss Puffet ice cream sandwiches. I miss the way supermarket cash register staff don't look at you in the eyes and how you have to pay for your plastic bags. I miss the cheesy Finnish soap operas and reading old, yellowing Aku Ankka (Donald Duck) pocketbooks at the summer house. I miss having space to move around, even in the cities, without feeling suffocated.

I would love to go for a midnight swim, or for a stroll in the forest.

When I moved to England over 16 years ago, one of the many things I didn't quite realise was that I'd be swapping space for crowds.

Today the population density of Finland is 15/km² and the population density of England is 392/km². Even the numbers tell you that one place is crowded and the other one is not, but I made an image to illustrate the difference. Whilst the figures would have changed in 16 years, the ratio would have remained similar.

Of course one has to take non-arable land into consideration (there are all those lakes in Finland after all. And when you take a birds-eye view, the whole country looks like a giant forest, splattered about with water and the odd field and town). Most of Finns live in the cities and down the south. There is a tendency for city-dwelling Finns to huddle together for warmth and resources; it is normal and expected for people from all sorts of backgrounds to live in blocks of flats. Sharing the heat, sauna and laundry facilities makes sense in the harsh conditions that are the norm for majority of the year.

The Finnish summer is bittersweet; heart-breakingly beautiful, but so fleeting that half of it is spent recovering from the winter and the other half anticipating its return.

Even keeping all of the above in mind, one place is crowded the other one is not. There is a difference in how it feels to be here and how it feels to be over there.

But here's the real catch: I've grown accustomed to having lots of people everywhere. Visiting Finland makes me feel a little uneasy. Where is everybody?

Yet in my heart I crave space. The wonderful duality of expat psyche.

Finns are, generally speaking, rather homogeneous. There is the same stuff in the shops, the same aesthetic preferences, the same morals, the same political leanings. When viewed from the outside, that is. And when generalising rather broadly. Nevertheless, the homogeneousness is noticeable from this angle and is perhaps one of the other reasons why, after a while, staying in Finland makes me feel like I've been sealed in Tupperware. You have to get out and take a deep breath. And of course, living away from it all, I fill my home with reminders from Finland. The same stuff, the same aesthetic preferences, the same morals, the same political leanings. I finally found a guy with whom a relationship seemed easy and right. His mother is half-Finnish. Etc, etc, etc.

There is a deep comfort in being among people who, without any effort, think and feel like you do. Living abroad is a constant daily mental effort; I once assumed that this would be eliminated over time, but I'm not so sure any more. On the surface (spoken language, body language, writing, appearance, manners, rituals...) one can become very well adapted; almost indistinguishable from the real deal. A bit of an accent in everything you say or do, but almost, almost. I think and dream in English. I no longer accidentally offend people quite so often (reading "Watching the English" helped with that). I blend in locally, in London and almost anywhere in England and the UK as a whole. There are so many different types of people living over here anyway that this is relatively easy.

But your deepest feelings, memories and psyche remain rooted in where you came from. Ironically, when I lived in Finland, I never felt I belonged there either. Only once I'd moved away, I gradually realised just how Finnish I really am.

The summer holiday season will soon be over. The Juhannus-celebration marks the start of the real Finnish summer. This year I may be able to pop over in September, but by then, I won't find fresh berries on the market stalls or get to swim in a lake. But this year is different - my best friend is becoming a mother and her baby is due then. She only recently came to visit London with her mum, but I miss her already. And, as I've mentioned before, she's the only reason it truly sucks to be away. With everything else, one can make do.

Things and how to use them, part 1*

I used to really love writing lists. Then I wrote so many of them about so many things that they started to feel strangulating. And the tool became the point. Luckily, I was able to go on a Time Manager International course (I don't work for them, no, really, I actually found a corporate-sounding course genuinely helpful) and decided to have a go at NOT writing lists (and using their methods instead). So I stopped writing lists for a bit.

When I say I used to write lists, I'm not sure if the extent to which this habit had been ingrained into every aspect of my life is clear from the deceptively simple word "list".

The course tutor didn't know how to arrange his face when I explained the system I had developed to cope with my juggling. (I really like having a variety of things on the go at once, but I do have an upper limit to how many plates I can spin. The older I get the better I get at noticing when I'm reaching that limit before I drop any plates).

The system went like this: Normal Word document with a 3-column (multi-row) table. Each type of task was categorised a little bit like one might categorise blog topics: "homelife", "reading list", "health & fitness", "project name blahblah", "project..." etc. Each of these categories had its own colour. I had matching colour set in mini pens too; so any notes I made after I'd printed the current list could be made in the same colour.

The columns were: TASK (written in the appropriate colour, so I'd know by just looking at it whether it was work-stuff, my own stuff or other stuff), STARTED and FINISHED.

I would update the list about once a month. I'd print it off for the rest of the time and update things by hand (here's where the coloured pens became relevant) as I went along, so I always knew where I was with everything.

Obviously I still used a diary too, plus I had a year-planner where I could see at a glance what was going on.

What made that quite good is that it minimised post-it-notes and separate bits of paper. What made it quite clumsy is that updating it on my computer took too much time and it wasn't that easy to update on the go (despite the coloured pens). Plus, by the time I really started juggling (i.e., I started my current job and became even more of a plate-spinner), the list would get several pages long and it was beginning to seem like a millstone rather than a helpful tool.

Then there was the annual list. Now this, I'd been doing for years, at least for 10 years if not more - and it consists of just a simple A4 typed list of all the boxes I want to tick that year. It would include things like "finish X course" or "read X book" or "change address at X" and bigger things too; goals that might transfer from one year to the next.

I could also talk about cataloguing because it relates, but that's another topic. I have a feeling that all geeks like cataloguing things (and it's a really slippery slope - once you've catalogued your current reading list & written cute little book reviews for everything you read, then what's to stop you from cataloguing your entire book collection, or CDs or...).

Anyway, so after the Time Manager course, I put my lists to one side and really tried to survive without them. In the beginning I found it quite difficult, but not impossible. In fact, I had been expecting the transition to be harder. It would have been, but the new style of organiser was awesome - and completely suited to the whole plate-spinning way of life (working parents might enjoy this, or anyone running their own business, or working freelance on multiple projects): each main area of your life/work has its own numbered category. Each category has its own segment at the back of the organiser and what makes this superior to my list system is that you can react immediately if some new info becomes available. You can just put it in the right section - and the next time you are dealing with that topic/person/project, you just open at the right section and ta-dah, you pick up where you left off last time. No more trying to hold too much stuff in your head, or finding where you wrote that important bit of information.

It also has sections for "ideas" and "notes", which is lovely for those yet-to-be-categorised things on the run. The diary segments are awesome too; much more room to schedule your days and weeks than in any other organiser I've seen.

The downside? It's HUGE (I needed the larger size to fit everything in). But - you can just remove relevant bits (mini diary which is detachable & notepad) & take them with you on trips or to meetings. Though that then puts you back into the whole updating in one big chunk, rather than on the move. Still; small price to pay for the awesome tool. I now really rely on this and it almost feels like a Personal Assistant.

I've thought about electronic personal organisers, but so far, none have grabbed me. I also really hate the inability to "leaf through" stuff in a natural papery way. There is something necessary about paper in these for me.

The Annual List has stuck with me. I thought about what I was using it for and realised that it was still serving a purpose. It's a nice, reassuring, focusing, self-motivating, anti-flapping tool I will probably continue to use forever. I just tore up the 2008 list (only 4 things on it I didn't tick off; pretty good) and wrote up the 2009 list. The biggest item on the 2009 list is "Sell property/buy property/move house?". That's the aim, but who the hell knows what's going to happen. Luckily there are lots of other things on there that I can get done. The moving house thing might be a bit more complicated.

So now I'm friends with lists again, but in a new way. Our relationship has been re-defined. So far so good. And luckily, there's always Facebook and its list-writing-bandwagon for when I get cravings.

* This in no way implies there will be future parts to this series, though there may be, depending on circumstances and availability of loose thoughts in need of a home

Bimbo day

I sent off my assessment for the nutrition course this week and finished a big report for work. Today is the first day in months where I've not had something hanging over me and I feel empty-headed and bimboish in a good way.

Wanted to do my nails, but I've ran out of nail polish remover. Oh well. Have been watching silly films and not doing a lot. It's hard not to start listing all of the next big things to do (because there are plenty), but like grandma said "work doesn't disappear by doing it".

Is kitchen table a luxury?

Or a kitchen, for that matter? What about a bedroom?

The other day Timo and I were trying to see the silver lining to our extended stay in the studio flat. (We didn't plan to stay here long after we got married, but that demented brand of breakfast cereal called Credit Crunch made us pause and hold until house prices might come down to something approaching normal).

Timo said: "Well, look at it this way. It must say something about our relationship that we've been able to live in a studio for this long and we're still together."

He's right. We're very happy and very much in love. Every day I have a moment or two when I stop to think how lucky I am. I have had my share of absolutely abysmal and simply disappointing relationships so perhaps it's about time. Still, nobody is born entitled to anything, and just because you go through some shit doesn't then store that in the Karma bank (sorry Buddhists), so I still count myself lucky.

For my entire life up until I met Timo I was deeply suspicious of the "and then they lived happily ever after". And until we do, I obviously won't be in any position to guess whether we will. But I had reached a point where I didn't believe I was ever going to dare take a deep enough emotional risk to have a go. Timo changed that.

We'd love to live in a nice house with more than one room. Preferably at least two bedrooms. For a real dash of luxury, I'd love a spare room to set up as a home office and workshop. My work stuff and project stuff sort of needs its own place. There is something charming about how we live now, literally surrounded by stuff (I saw this documentary where they interviewed a mad professor and our flat looks not too dissimilar to his live-in library with piles of newspaper cuttings and bottles and magazines and books and computers). But charming quickly turns into an euphemism when you have to live it. You know the old saying "Oh, I love kids as long as I can hand them back." Kind of like that.

I'd also love to have an actual kitchen - not just a kitchenette. I'd love a kitchen table; a long, old-fashioned kind on which I could roll out pulla (bun) dough with a rolling pin. For a couple of years now I've gone to the trouble of making traditional imelletty lanttulaatikko (swede casserole) and perunalaatikko (potato casserole) from scratch. The process takes 2 days and in our tiny kitchenette, I haven't got enough room, so I have to juggle dishes and trays in and out to the main living area. They end up on chairs, our bed, on the tiny little table next to our TV. I also make Finnish star tarts (tähtitorttu) filled with plum jam. I cheat and buy the puff pastry and plum jam from the annual Finn-Guild Christmas fair at Rotherhithe.

Maybe next year we could move. Maybe we could spend next Christmas in an actual house. I already tried that once, but with the wrong guy. Even at the time, I kept worrying that it could all be snatched away.

What about this time? We live in an eccentric over-filled little love nest. We're happy here, but as Timo keeps saying: "I do look forward to the day I won't bump into your chair every time I come out of the kitchen."

What if we are stuck here for an indefinite length of time? Can we stay happy? Or what if we find a nice place, but we lose the magic? Or could it be that one day we might be lucky enough to have a proper home and a happy relationship? It seems like too much to hope for. I'm allowed, right?

When something feels like a Schroedinger's soap bubble

You know when there's something you've been only dreaming about, then daring to actually hope for and then it finally happens? And you're left with a surreal feeling of "if I examine it closely and really allow myself to accept that it's real, then by simply by doing so, I might make this lovely thing cease to exist."

Or maybe it's just me.

There are some stories about how person X did Y and due to sheer effort and perseverance they "got there in the end". I've cynically often wondered how much of such narrative is re-writing history after the event for the sake of nice storytelling.

The thing is; I might be on my way to becoming one of those stories. I just can't quite accept that yet, just in case. It feels very odd. Like I've crossed some previously invisible boundary.

I must immediately start adding bits of fascinating back-story. But before I have the chance to do that, here's the first related post, Why I think I'm a Nose, posted in 2005, and its follow-up Perfume; the book, the film and my obsession, posted about a year ago, in February 2007.

Last summer, I was given permission to hijack one of the existing product developers from the company I work for to help me - and we spent a week making prototypes (and back last summer I was still based part in the shops/working on projects, so that felt so amazing and surreal...and wonderful).

We made lots of different products and I developed some simple fragrances. Two days after the products had been packed up into brown cardboard boxes and left in the care of company directors I had a call from one of them (the chief perfumer and one of the founding members, no less): "I think these are lovely and you are very talented."

Somehow I still feel like I'm not allowed to say that out loud, or to think it even.

Months passed and I kept tinkering at home and filling up notebooks with more ideas.

Come January, I was completely moved out of the shops into various head office tasks, on the basis of some of the other work I'd done - and became too busy to pontificate about anything other than "when is my next flight/train/meeting/deadline". Which, by the way, was entirely a good thing, or I might have focused a little too much on wondering about what-ifs.

I decided to enrol on a basic science course at the OU to brush up on maths and chemistry. Then I rang the director of a part-time Diploma course in Cosmetic Science to discuss entry requirements (only to be told that due to my experience in the industry, they'd take me without any further questions asked. Oh).

In February, I was asked to research and write a report for the Research & Development team. I loved doing that. It felt like an unexpected, yet perfect marriage between my inner geek and outer cosmetics junkie. When I submitted the report, I was told they'd like some more in the future and this made me very happy indeed.

Couple of weeks ago, I received a short message: "You are wanted in the lab for a review of the product prototyping work you did for us last summer."

I went, and spent a day with the inventors. I didn't know what to expect, but I certainly didn't expect to be addressed throughout the day in a way that explicitly implied that I would now be allowed to conduct further experiments, work on R&D projects and help out in general.

Did I imagine all that?

In the week just gone, after coming back from Eastercon, I've suddenly had a shower of new things to work on, some of which are for the R&D department.

Right now, I would be happiest than I have ever been to date with my life and what this all implies and looks like, if it wasn't for the way I've had to store this Schroedinger's soap bubble away in a box and not look, not even peek at it, because it might just go *pop*.

--

EDIT: Find out how it all started and what happened next...

On geeks, categorising and marketing

"The more I think about it, the more geeky I realise I am," I said to Timo today. Having just returned from Eastercon, it's no wonder I've not floated down to "somewhat normal"  yet.

"What, you're surprised by that?" Timo replied.

"No, what I mean is that there are a few things I'd always taken to be my little quirks, which I now realise are traits shared with many others. This sounds so naive, but I really didn't think that there'd be so many people for whom having complete sets of things, or having such sets categorised and organised in some specific way would be as important."

I'm not a collector; not exactly. There are very narrow areas in which I'd say it's important to have the set for its own sake. Mostly that happens to me with books.

Today, whilst dusting the shelves (and looking for Timo's copy of Coraline, which Neil Gaiman's comments during the Darker than Potter panel made me want to read), I spotted a pattern.

The book series for non-SF/Fantasy fiction, say, by a Finnish crime publishing house, are uniform in colour and typeface, but don't have numbers on the spines. Same goes for "modern classics" and, upon further inspection, all other mainstream fiction series we have knocking around. Hmm.

Whereas - most of the SF/Fantasy book series are numbered. Even "...best new SF" uses this device, even though it might have made sense to print the actual year for which these are meant to be the "best" collections for. Instead they've sequenced using numbers. And the numbers are big on the spine too; it'll be really obvious if you've missed one.

I wonder if this is a deliberate attempt by marketing departments to tap into the geeky tendencies of the target audience for these books. If it is, it's working and I'm impressed.

Something else that's impressed me - Neil's business sense and his ability to use it in subtle and effective ways. Coraline did get mentioned rather a lot during the con and what do you know; it's due to be released as a film soon.  And if you're quick, you can still download a free copy of  American Gods from his website (but expect to feel the urge to buy it afterwards - the sales of this book have gone up significantly since the freebie offer).

Someone asked Neil: "Since you record and sell audio books, does it bother you that these have been made illegally available via peer-to-peer download services?"

He replied by asking how many people in the audience had found their favourite author by buying a book they knew nothing about, apart from the blurb on the cover. Some hands went up. He then asked: "How many of you found your favourite author for free; through borrowing a book, or by some other means?" A forest of arms shot up.

"See?" said Neil.

By doing this sort of thing, he is clever on so many levels. Instead of demonising potential fans, he works with them. Instead of struggling upstream against the inevitable changes in how the market and technology is evolving, he swims with the current and uses it to his advantage.

I've got into the habit of listening to podcasts and audio books whilst sat at airports waiting for delayed flights, or trying to relax in uncomfortable hotel rooms. I found Stardust as an audio book on iTunes, narrated by Neil - and am now tempted to buy it. Can't decide whether it would be silly, considering I have it as an actual book (now also autographed; thank you very much!).

There is no way I'd use a peer-to-peer service, just in case you're wondering.

Turns out the Chinese invented Breakdance

Shaolin Monks was great. A mixture between Martial arts prowess, energetic dance and stagemanship; it was a Martial arts circus. Definitely something to see (I could add the nauseating: for the whole family). There were spectacular shows of well-practiced moves, the circus-element of brick-breaking and balancing on sharp spikes seemed to appeal to the younger audience and there were moments when the cartwheels and rolling on stage held a striking resemblance to Breakdance.

The highlight of the show was a double-act by two very young boys - they looked like they were under 7 years old, but their size might have been misleading. They effortlessly sparred, skipped and hopped through complicated Kung-Fu moves with the sort of ease that usually follows years and years of tireless practice. Watching them was like an optical illusion that made the audience gasp time and time again; it was like watching miniature adults.

We did notice one thing - the audience was completely different from the last Sadler's Wells production we went to see. Yes, lots of families, but also people who looked like they'd never set foot in the theatre before. Many people arriving really late. Or talking during the performance. I don't care if it's your first time when you're 48 years old, but you could at least observe some polite common sense rules on how to conduct yourself.

Heheh. I know. I can be so snooty. But seriously. Granted, not everyone was taken to their first concert/opera/theatre performance at under 5 years old, taught to sit still and focus, taught to figure out the plot of an opera sung in another language from looking through the programme booklet, but I do idly wonder whether common sense about certain things has to be taught too. Is common sense something you can, or have to teach?

It seems that many Finns still value opera, classical music and the theatre in the sort of way I was used to. In that you don't have to be wealthy, or in any kind of particular social category to take yourself (and your kids) off to see the latest production of The Magic Flute. At least that's the impression I get from the delightful film "Pelikaanimies" (Pelican Man), a film we watched yesterday. I bought it on our Finnish trip this summer, but we hadn't got around to watching it until now. Pelican Man is a simple, but delightful fantasy aimed at children, but entirely watchable by adults. One day a pelican decides to turn himself into a human by landing on a beach and putting on human clothes. The film explores human perception, what it's like to be an adult and what it's like to be a little boy whose parents have just divorced. There is lovely Finnish scenery and a beautiful feel to the whole film.

I'm going to head into work soon. It'll be a late night (stocktake). Tomorrow I'm partly working in store, partly from home. I need to finalise Christmas rotas for the store, as well as complete a number of forms and other paperwork. So far, this retail Christmas has been vastly different from the previous ones I've had as a store manager. I feel like everything is ticking along well without becoming a big burden. I reserve the right to change my mind in December.

In a couple of weeks I will be taking another work-related trip. After that it'll be more or less a straight run through to Christmas without stopping.

Soy or not to Soy, that is the question

First, a small aside: I was listening to Radio 4 yesterday on the way to work (as I always do when I drive in; it's the sort of thing that seems right in the mornings) and the decline of "traditional newspapers" was being discussed. Apparently newspapers, in their frenzy to halt the declining circulation figures, have given away more DVDs in UK this year than the UK consumers bought from shops. That definitely smacks of desperation.

However, I don't think the newspaper will die entirely. There may be some form of the "paper" left, even if the best part does happen online. Take The Guardian. A little while back, one of the supplements in the Guardian newspaper published an article entitled "Should we worry about Soya in our food?". It was a well articulated and effective article. As someone who has been lactose intolerant from birth and always hated the taste of neat cow's milk, I've been a mass consumer of soy milk products for years. And here, in this article, a reputable newspaper was saying that, actually...

...soya contains toxins and plant oestrogens powerful enough to disrupt women's menstrual cycles in experiments. It also appeared damaging to the thyroid." James's lobbying eventually forced governments to investigate. In 2002, the British government's expert committee on the toxicity of food (CoT) published the results of its inquiry into the safety of plant oestrogens, mainly from soya proteins, in modern food. It concluded that in general the health benefits claimed for soya were not supported by clear evidence and judged that there could be risks from high levels of consumption for certain age groups. Yet little has happened to curb soya's growth since.

That was uncomfortable reading, but the article had more in store:

...raw mature soya beans contain phytates that prevent mineral absorption and enzyme inhibitors that block the key enzymes we need to digest protein. They are also famous for inducing flatulence.

Christopher Dawson, who owns the Clearspring brand of organic soy sauces, agrees. He lived in Japan for 18 years and his Japanese wife, Setsuko, is a cookery teacher. "I never saw soy beans on the table in Japan - they're indigestible."

Dawson describes the traditional craft method of transforming the soya bean through fermentation, so that its valuable amino acids become available but its antinutrients are tamed. The process involves cooking whole soya beans, complete with their oil, for several hours, then adding the spores of a mould to the mix, and leaving it to ferment for three days to begin the long process of breaking down the proteins and starches. This initial brew is then mixed with salt water and left to ferment for a further 18 months, during which time the temperature will vary with the seasons. The end result is an intensely flavoured condiment in which the soya's chemical composition has been radically altered. Traditional miso is similarly made with natural whole ingredients, slowly aged.

The article presents quite a few alarming points for consideration. That the soy bean was not even considered fit for animal feed in its natural form; that the isoflavones (supposedly famed for their health benefits) may actually be doing us harm, and so on and so on. Reading through it, I felt fairly convinced. I would have to cut out soy milk and find an alternative that wasn't cow's milk. Fermented Tofu, Miso and Soy sauce would still be okay to eat.

And here's the bit where my aside from the beginning becomes relevant. I decided to look the article up on the Guardian Unlimited website, just in case there had been any further discussion on the topic. A rebuttal was posted and entertaining comments added. Too right there had been discussion! This is the bit where the Internet wins hands down. I've touched on this subject in my own posts before (about how the "article" - be it a blog post or a newspaper article - is only the beginning, where the Internet is concerned, whereas in a dead tree publication you may get a few letters to the editor, or may not, but there is unlikely to be instant and comprehensive two-way dialogue about the subject).

Sadly, the quality of the rebuttal in the case of the Soy argument was not particularly high - it really did seem more Ad Hominem attack than a proper counter-point that would have attacked the original article's research instead of attacking the people behind the article. Nevertheless, it is always good to have more than one viewpoint, particularly since most people have an agenda to promote something or another.

One of the most amusing comments posted as a reply to the rebuttal, comes from someone calling themselves "germanvegan":

I find it rather silly that the motivation of vegans to oppose or support a view is projected onto the same level as commercial interest, thus greed. People seem to either deny, forget or ignore that vegans are ETHICISTS. Like, hello?

Secondly, and to increase the silliness, one should know that the defamation of soy started the second it was clear that it contained all essential amino acids. You know, like meat. This sent all the people with their claws hacked into the glass of the meat counter into a panic frenzy. In their mind, this was a threat to their beloved meat. This continued even when common nutritional scientists backpeddled on their antivegan stance claiming plant proteins are inferior, when in reality all one had to do is eat two different plants at different times with different protein contend to have a complete dietary protein ratio.

Germanvegan makes some good points there. His comment goes on beyond the bits I quoted. He fails to consider that promoting a vegan lifestyle could still be considered a business interest. Nothing is ever that black and white. Sadly. Life would be so much easier if that weren't the case.

It's usually best to take everything with a pinch of salt (or should that be with a pinch of soy sauce?) and do your own research if you are truly concerned about something. So my question "to Soy or not to Soy" has therefore not yet been answered to my satisfaction.

One of my biggest pet hates about people, is the frequency with which you bump into single-minded blinkerdness (sorry, I just made up that word; hope you don't mind). People with such need to be right about something that they willfully ignore evidence, or don't even realise they're ignoring it, or interpreting it to suit their agenda. Having said that, it's almost impossible for any human being to be wholly objective, but that's another blog post's worth of material, so I'll leave that there for now.

Hello from HelSTINKI

Just a quick "hi" from my friends' computer at Helsinki's Punavuori. It's been a mixed visit so far. I am over the moon about being with my family (that's who they are, really) and it is wonderful to eat lots of Finnish chocolate, sleep enough and mill around aimlessly. Kind of like being on holiday, oddly enough.

But there's a melancholy tone to this visit. It breaks my heart to see a certain kind of veil - part dirt, part apathy - covering what used to be my old hunting ground. I've posed a question to my dear friends: what the hell happened to Helsinki? More to the point: what the hell happened to Finland?

The standards of maintenance, availability of fresh produce and type of customer service you might expect now resemble any random European country, but before they used to be better. It really used to be true when we described Finland as a clean and pure place. It doesn't appear to be true any more. I'm so saddened by the drop in standards that I've considered sending a letter to the editor of Helsingin Sanomat (Finland's largest daily newspaper).

Anyway. It's not all doom and gloom! I guess I'm just feeling a little odd at the moment. Trying to establish how much of this is the outside-in effect of coming back year after year to an ever changing country and how much of the change is actually for worse.

Meanwhile, Timo and I have started to make real wedding plans. We're meeting a Finnish wedding planner tomorrow and we might end up booking their services. Depends how complicated an affair it's developing into. We're still not in favour of pomp, but it seems that Timo has a guestlist three times the size of mine, so we may need some help in arranging even a simple kind of party!

I'm not really on the computer much this week (we'll be in the countryside tomorrow, swimming in a lake somewhere), so apologies if I don't reply to comments until I return to UK.