a small figurine plays guitar. an exhibition in the window across from mbar in lasipalatsi in helsinki.

living in an epicentre of mobile telecommunications i am expected (by some of my friends in ireland) to have a super fancy nokia phone (the company is finnish – ergo they must be really cheap here – the same logic that had me on my school tour to holland/amsterdam when i was 13 hoping to buy dozens of blank c90 tapes as philips were a dutch company. flawed logic it turned out to be).

phones arent subsidised here in the same way as back in ireland – something that costs 50euros (phone + contract inclusive) would cost 600€ here (phone). so when i came back last week from a few days away i noticed all these ads full of old bulky brick phones “suomessa on melkeinpä euroopaan vanhimmat puhlimet – siirry nykyaikaan” (in finland, the phones are almost the oldest in europe – come into the present). so the anti subsidising law was withdrawn for (3g) phones from april the 1st. so now there is at last some way of getting a cheap phone.

my current operator, saunalahti (a virtual operator), has these amazing deals – in most cases you get a 3g phone for free – but pay 20euros a month (including 3000minutes a month!!!!). a great offer – but a bit overkill for my needs (i make on average 8 minutes of phone calls a month) – it was tempting though!.

in conclusion, the fizzy cola sweet i got in k citymarket yesterday wasnt too nice. fingers crossed some new packages come onto the market soon that give me a free cool phone and free smses or something.

darren goes to london and takes lots of pictures. here are some

the finnish design year book goes on sale in a few weeks – presale has started here. (its in english apparently)

i finally got around to updating our tour diary with news of last weeks concerts – i added the concert pics to the sigur rós flickr site..