This is sort of old news, but I came across this article telling how a bloke named Colin Slater tried to take Mika Waltari’s book The Roman, change the name to Lindum Colonia, and sell it as his own work. Waltari wrote some real masterpieces, and all or most of them are also available in English. The most famous is Sinuhe, The Egyptian also know simply as The Egyptian. What an idiot to think he could take such a master’s work and try to call it his own, thinking noone would notice.

In a way it is flattering that someone would see the potential in such great works, but it is a pretty lowdown deliberate crime to take it, call it your own work, and then sell it to a publisher. If you want to make money selling Mika Waltari’s books, why not sell them as Mika Waltari’s books. The dude probably would have been stupid enough to move on to The Egyptian, and try to plagiarize it, when a Hollywood movie has even been made from it. This might also be an indication that it is time to make a new round of publishing Mika Waltari’s books.

If only more people spoke Finnish, there would be so much more good stuff that never gets translated into English that could be published.

One small piece of news in the Iltalehti today struck me as a reminder of a past era. I guess it was the so-called “IT boom” in the late 1990’s in Finland that drew me along, so much I decided to change careers. Of course those guys who were in the forefront starting it went much higher up catching the stars - but they also burned in re-entry. According to the IL Jaakko Rytsölä was sentenced for more or less for “deliberately misallocating money from his debtors - read: tax office” to a year and six months in jail (probational) and 50 hours of community service.

Now you might ask “who”, but the Rytsölä brothers, Antti and Jaakko especially were branded as the icons of the new success story Finland was launching in the late 1990’s. Two brothers from a regular family had started from scratch in 1995 establishing DLC, one of the first ISP’s. Jaakko had started his own IT business when he was 16 selling computer parts, and when his little brother Antti joined him in Helsinki, he was selling hotdogs at the Helsinki Railway station to make the ends meet while the ISP business was in its fledgling state. A few mergers later the Saunalahti was formed and the young men in their twenties were all of a sudden millionaires, remembering that in 1992 the whole country had been more or less bankrupt. Of course the press hounded the new IT millionaires - after all a Lamborghini Diablo as a “company car”? The two young men were favorites in the tabloid headlines. Finnish envy nonwithstanding the flamboyant lifestyle annoyed some, so the police found a red Ferrari in Helsinki traffic a red flag and Jaakko Rytsölä was fined a whopping 100 000 euros for speeding in his Ferrari (oh, he had about seven cars at one time).

The laws of physics say what goes up must come down, unless the escape velocity is fast enough. A Lamborghini is too slow in Finland. When the “IT-boom” as the “dot.com bubble” was called in Finland turned into the bubble that burst, Jaakko Rytsölä lost overnight a record 6 million euros of his calculated wealth of 10 million in the autumn of 2001 when the Jippii group stock crashed 90%. By the spring of 2002 the tax office had filed him bankrupt, but the tax office was still after money, and the result of the trials that followed was handed out today. Jaakko Rytsölä has claimed innocence and stated that the money wasn’t hidden anywhere but was invested and thus was lost in the stock crashes.

The boom/bubble era had a lot of similar from rags-to riches-to rags stories. Many of the people were young and maybe perhaps been hearing from their parents the “no money” saga growing up so once money was coming from the doors and windows the “crazy years” of the 1980’s came back overnight. It was an era to seize the moment - but there were other people running away with the money. As the dot.com bubble burst in the USA, the flash downed several Finnish companies who had gone venturing to Europe such as Jippii and Sonera which lost huge investments in Germany. And the aftermath was bankrupcy trials, insider trading suits… USA had Enron but we had our own scandals we remember the 2000’s for.

Comparing to the “crazy years” of the 1980’s the dot.com bubble years in the 1990’s could be called “riot years”. If you haven’t seen it before, try to find the documentary Riot On!, its about a small Finnish gaming company Riot-E which got 20 million dollars of venture capital… and ” where the f*ck did it all go?”.

But at the end of the day - regardless of how far the frontier is - the tax office is the last man standing.

There is an old saying: “The manure pile won’t stink unless you go poking it.” and it seems there is nothing better to do than go poking during the summer. In the beginning of the summer there were some remarks made of doping in Finland, and as a few former skiers denied vehemently the use EPO-hormones or any knowledge of blood-doping - last week the ex-coach Kari-Pekka Kyrö came forward making a number of statements implying that the Finnish Skiing Association wasn’t as clean as they presented themselves during the 2001 Lahti Hemohes scandal. And his stories have been corroborated by others, so the story is opening up daily. As the Finnish News Agency chief editor and reporter were convicted of libel in 1999 due to claims of doping that were at the time “unfounded”, the NBI has reopened the investigation. Better late than never I guess.

Another case not as ancient re-surfacing is the infamous Sonera-book which the supreme court returned to the assizes overturning the inadmissibility of evidence. Now the public opinion on the case would be rather than trying to find the author to find “Where disappeared the money of Sonera” as the book title reads. They bought some air in Germany if I recall it correctly.

Maybe I should start a properly to go with the retro feelings and buy a Jopo.

And I’d say this is a pretty remarkable piece of news. Traditionally the combination of alcohol and boating has resulted in at least half a dozen drownings. The statistics this year weren’t looking good as the thin ice caused a whole lot of fishermen to get into peril. The least drownings during Juhannus was in 2003 when the toll was four.

Otherwise the death toll so far has been 6 people. The most violent incident was in Kouvola, where three army conscripts were stabbed, one fatally and another in critical condition. A middle-aged couple had a beer-fuelled argument and the woman stabbed the man dead in Helsinki. The heavy holiday traffic went relatively safely but with several accidents, two fatal, and the police otherwise has been kept busy by drunk drivers. In Keuruu two men were found in the sauna, one dead and the other unconcious - possibly from cabon monoxide poisoning. Another man was found dead on a beach in Lappeenranta ant the police state they’re not suspecting a crime.

Otherwise the country has been doused with rain and hailstorms, maybe inhibiting the partying a bit. The police has had its share of domestic calls, and a man was shot in the leg while threatening the police with an axe. While the police say the amount of calls has been regular for a midsummer, the Coast Guard has stated it has had approximately half of the amount of calls to assist boaters than usual.

Update: By Sunday the death toll has risen to eight with another stab victim, and of a boating party one man found drowned and another missing - so that makes the inevitable drowning statistics. The Finnish swimming and lifesaving association’s spokesperson says that the bad weather did contribute, but he says he hopes that the downward trend is due to the efforts in public awareness as well. The return traffic is expected to be slightly congested even most people have started their summer vacations.

Finland is one of the largest consumers of energy in the EU and one of the worst for cutting back emissions…

Finland has fallen far behind the other Nordic Countries in cutting back on greenhouse gas emissions. Finland ranks 36th on the Climate Change Performance Index (CCPI), putting it on a par with Algeria and Belarus. Sweden is at the top of the list, and Denmark is in third place.

Finland’s sauna culture is no doubt partially to blame for this…

According to a fresh Finnish study by the Ministry of Employment and the Economy, desktop computers consume an average 500 kWh of electricity a year, which is the equivalent of a refrigerator-freezer. If the computer is kept on all the time, it uses about as much energy as an electric sauna that is heated twice a week.

Saunas are as necessary as SUV’s. Finns expect Americans to get rid of their SUV’s to help save the planet, while Finland should do the same by ending electric sauna use.

Few people know that Finland—Helsinki, in particular—is probably the gothiest place on Earth. One might ask, did Finland’s Goths arrive centuries-ago seeking refuge from Attila? Or did they move directly from Gotland? Nobody really knows their origins, but Saturday nights downtown can be a real costume party.

Sadly, the inventor and inspiration of this macabre fashion statement, the goddess of gothic garb herself, died recently in Hollywood. Maila Nurmi, the former TV personality known as Vampira, was 85.

Her real name was Maila Elizabeth Syrjaniemi (later changed to Maila Nurmi) and she was born in Petsamo, Finland (now Pechenga, Russia) on Dec. 11, 1922. At age 2, she and her family emigrated to Ohio, in search of a better life.

RIP, Vampira.