well, its been a year since i moved from ireland to finland. its been about four hundred times harder than i thought it would be.

the absence has been caused by several things. boredom, nothing going on and general “here comes the winter” blues. but, due to several factors including helsingin taiteiden y� (helsinki’s art night) last night and cashing in 140� worth of coins has made the situation a bit better.

anyway, last night was spent walking around a clogged city centre. thousands of people going from event to event, museum to museum, alko shop to park to discos. it was the 15th annual “art night” here in helsinki. we started off watching propoganda movies from the 40’s onwards in lasipalatsi (but they were all in finnish/swedish/german, so we left). then onto the helsingin kaupunginmuseo (helsinki’s city museum) to see the history of the city. then onto sanamato to see two photo exhibitions, then finally to the tulisirkus (fire circus) that was taking place in the park beside t��l�lahti. amazing stuff, huge crowd. the walk home was spent staring at the dominant 1952 olympic tower that i walked by on the way home. (see this picture)

last night was one of the highlights of “helsingin juhla viikot” (helsinki’s party weeks), which goes from 22.08 to 07.09, that i think marks the end of summer.

may 03

sofar, the extent of my radio appearances is ringing in to “century radio” in ireland back when i was 11 or so, it was for a competition. they played a series of noises that represented some song. i rang in saying u2: “rattle and hum”. the correct answer was gloria estafan: “cuts both ways”. needless to say i was gutted, but i did get to talk to irish legend, marty whelan. anyway, ive been asked to do a radio show here in helsinki tonight. i, along with another person who goes to my school, will be interviewed where we talk about the way foreigners are thought finnish by the finnish government.

if you are in the helsinki region tonight, check it out l�hiradio 2200 to 2230 and you can find it at 100,3fm. all in all very exciting stuff.

u2’s old studio was demolished a few years ago to allow some redevelopment in the dublin docklands area. as part of the deal that allowed redevelopement, u2 got space in the new building, and after a long competition, the winner was craig henry architects and burdon dunne associates.