OUT of all the places in Helsinki, where would you think mums go out to celebrate? Your first pick is likely to be far from DTM, aka Don’t Tell Mama ­– a nightclub proud to be the largest combination of Gay Café, Disco and Night Club in Scandinavia. This, however, is exactly where a Europe-wide happening in celebration of Mother’s Day will take place. The event here in Finland is put together by the Family Federation (Väestöliitto), a social and health sector organisation that works with families and youths, including sexual minority families as one important part of its services.

POOR Iceland has been pummeled with blows of karmic justice lately. The erstwhile economic miracle has turned into a banking garbage heap, and now the eruption of Iceland’s Eyjafjallajökull volcano has resulted in the evacuation of hundreds of people and brought most of Europe’s air traffic to a halt. There were no casualties.

FROM liposuction to implants, hair removal, piercings and tattoos, the pressure to transform oneself in the titillating public’s own image these days is stifling. One of the more popular ways to change one’s appearance is altering skin colour. With an array of tanning salons and fake tans-in-a-can on the market, there’s something for everyone. Oh, your skin’s already naturally dark? Well, let’s not forget skin whitening cream, as the grass is always greener, right?

Wait a minute; do we really need streets pulsing with the orange hue of collars smudged with fake tans? And what of the skin bleaching products running rampant across Asia and Africa? Oh yes, those with the skin tones westerners salivate over are queuing up to strip their skin of its enviable colour.

JUDGING BY how much attention is devoted to the contestants and national qualifications, the Eurovision Song Contest has an important place in Finnish cultural life. Nevertheless, compared to their Nordic neighbours, the Finns’ take on Eurovision is modest and down to earth.

Norway’s Eurovision fever is obviously in full swing right now, and Norwegian internet sites like eurovisionnorway.no are quite confident that they can win twice in a row. Their song is also leading the polls as the best Nordic entry. Sweden actually named Norway its strongest opponent (and vice versa, according to Norwegian bloggers).

Next to hockey, maple syrup is the pride of Canada. It’s a naturally sweet compliment to any breakfast food, and a key ingredient in many delicious maple-flavoured recipes. It’s also a part of Canadian history. The process of creating maple syrup from sap has been recorded over 300 years ago, when European settlers first came to Canada and saw aboriginal people making sugar out of sap.

The sugar maple tree is the usual and most common tree for extracting sap for maple syrup. The aboriginals started by cutting a slanted gash in the tree and inserting a chip of wood. Birch bark buckets were placed below to collect the dripping sap. Filling hollowed out logs with the sap and adding hot stones boiled out the water until the sugar was made.

AUSTRALIA. Land of kangaroos, barbecues, ex-convicts, aboriginal genocide and now, unexpectedly, hilarious slapstick humour.

David Collins and Shane Dundas, otherwise known as The Umbilical Brothers, met in an acting class at university in Sydney in 1988 when Dave broke Shane’s nose. Clearly a match made in heaven. Since then the “brothers” have developed and, dare we say it, perfected a unique brand of comedy containing elements of slapstick, puppetry, mimicry and audience participation.

YOU could be forgiven for thinking that postcards are just an envelope-free greeting card, but to many, they stand for so much more. For a deltiologist (a postcard collector to you and I) they are a hobby, or even a profession. To participants of projects such as PostSecret, where anonymous postcards tell a previously untold secret, or Postcrossing, a worldwide postcard exchange project, they can be inspirational and empowering.

Learning the Finnish they don’t teach in school
David Brown and Mimmu Takalo

Spurgu (noun)

English equivalent: Drunk, hobo, bum

Example of usage:

- Yök! Miks tää penkki on ihan märkä? Ja mikä täällä haisee?

– Se on toi spurgu tossa viereisellä penkillä. Tupla yök!

- Yuck! Why is this seat wet? And what’s that smell?

- It’s that drunk on the next seat. Double yuck!

AS PARADOXICAL as it may seem, closing down in order to stay in business is fast becoming a popular business strategy. Temporary trading is no longer the preserve of liquidators or seasonal shops; the day-glo signs and megaphoned rouser that once seemed to epitomise such shops have scarpered. Appearing in unexpected locations for indefinite amounts of time and with no ridiculous overheads, the reinvention of the vacant units in our recession-battered shopping centres is boosting the economy and diminishing the power of ruthless landlords. To open and close in the blink of an eye is the key to success in our high-speed, short attention-spanned and fad-driven society.

AH YES, the good ol’ book burning: thousands of blood-thirsty goons gathering around a pile of burning paper, chanting in protest to appease their offended values. While this is a sight unseen for quite some time, the recent announcement of the Apple iPad has spewed forth such a torrent of rage in chat rooms worldwide that one could be excused for thinking another such occasion is on the cards – of the electronic kind.

Although it may remain a curious blend of just about everything, most interestingly this product signals the arrival of the big player to the e-book marketplace.