Learn Finnish with Finn-Guild in London

Ever wanted to learn Finnish or brush up your knowledge of the language?

Finn-Guild is organising two Intensive Study Days this spring, where you can really get to grips with the language.The intensive days will be held on 29 March and 17 May 2014 at Finn-Guild offices, two minutes from Mornington Crescent tube. 

These study days are real hothouses for learning Finnish, and include refreshments, lunch and five hours of intensive study. Both days start at 10.30am and finish at 5pm and include coursework and a Certificate of Attendance.

The prices of the Intensive Study Days are £65 each for Finn-Guild members (£85 for others). 

Spring Offer

Attend both Intensive Study Days for £120! (Finn-Guild members only)

For more information and to sign up for the courses please contact Finn-Guild at mail@finn-guild.org or on 020 7387 3508 . Book early to ensure your place.

Tervetuloa!

Finn-Guild online: http://www.finn-guild.org/en

Finn-Guild AGM and Turkish soul food at Green Lanes, North London

My first six weeks as head of Finn-Guild, the Finnish British cultural association have been - to say the least - hectic. This is partly due to my desire to run before I can walk, but also due to the timing our AGM, the biggest event in the Finn-Guild members and volunteers' calendar, which took place yesterday.

The preparations for the event aside, I was quite worried about my speech to the members (I can admit this now). I was appointed to develop the organisation, and this was my first chance to tell the wider membership what my plans were. As it was, my ideas were very well received (phew) and the day itself, as well as the evening before, where I met some newly recruited and 'old' representatives of the regions in the UK and Finland, was excellent.

We had a record crowd - over 70 people gathered in the hall at the Finnish Seamen's Mission in Rotherhithe. Many people commented on the positive and enthusiastic atmosphere that prevailed during the day. Finn-Guild is lucky to be supported by the Finnish Church in various ways, and we were even graced by the presence of The Finnish Ambassador, Mr Pekka and Mrs Liisa Huhtaniemi.

Finnish Ambassdor to the UK, Pekka Huhtaniemi,
making an after-dinner speech.

There were also representatives from Guild Travel, Finnish Expatriate Parliament, many Finnish Saturday Schools in the UK, many members of our Friendship Network, as well as some of the other Scandinavian organisations, and Finland Society from Helsinki.

I had also recruited The Englishman to do a comedy routine on his views of Finland, which got an raucous reception, so all in all the day was a huge success.

Of course, this being a Finnish event, many of us carried on the discussion late into the night in the oldest pub by the River Thames, The Mayflower.

I think there might have been a few sore heads around this morning, because mine certainly was, which is why the Englishman and I decided to go and have the best hungover cure there is: Turkish food at the Green Lanes in London N4.

Son and Daughter-in-Law who know this area well, recommended a new (to us) place called Gökyuzu, and boy was it excellent. Hugely busy, we were lucky to have a table at the back. My brain being a little tired, I asked Son do the ordering. He went for a Mezze and a Charcoal Grill Platter to share. The meal was supposed to be for 2-3 people, but the four of us struggled to eat the grilled lamb and chicken in various forms with cracked wheat, rice and grilled peppers and tomatoes. The flat bread that all the Turkish restaurants excel in at Green Lanes was equally delicious here, and as usual I had too much of it with the Mezze starters, leaving little room for the main meat dish.

The staff at Gökyuzu were incredibly friendly.

Now all I want to do is lie down on the sofa and fall asleep....

The Englishman is now available in paperback!

The paperback copy of The Englishman is finally here! My copies of the novel arrived on Thursday and you may imagine this caused some jubilation in Halme Towers. I very nearly gave this lovely (though a little embarrassed) delivery man a kiss and hug...

  

Signed copies of the book can now be found at my favourite bookshop in London, West End Lane Books, but they'll soon be popping up all over town.

The lovely Joey sold the 1st even bookshop
copy of The Englishman! Way to go!

The Englishman will also be available at Finn-Guild offices in Camden, where tomorrow there will be a Finnish book sale. And to celebrate the publication of the paperback copy, all Finn-Guild members can get the copy at the discounted price of £5-00. So, not only will you get the book at a lower price, but you will also help Finn-Guild, because £1-00 of each copy will go to support this worthwhile charity. 

If, however, you cannot get to London, do not fear! You can order your copy of The Englishman paperback online (but shh, don't tell those nice folks at West End Lane Books!). Just follow the link here.

West End Lane Books

277 West End Lane

London NW6 1QS

Tel: 020 7431 3770

info@welbooks.co.uk

Finn-Guild

Second Hand Book Sale

Saturday 30 November at 11 am to 2 pm

1A Mornington Court

Mornington Crescent

London NW1 7RD

Tel. +44 (0) 20 7387 3508

mail@finn-guild.org

Lenny Henry in Fences

On Tuesday when I saw Lenny Henry talk about his latest play, Fences, on BBC London News, I immediately wanted to go and see it. I love him and I also love the post-war era of the Great American Play, though I'd never seen any of August Wilson's plays.

Later that same afternoon something remarkable happened. The Travel Team at Finnish Guild Travel (where I work a couple of days a week) often get last minute offers to London plays and guess what, I was asked if I'd like to go and see Fences that very same night. 'Of course!' was my immediate reply.

Last time the Englishman and I saw Lenny Henry on stage was in Bath. I think it was his first comedy tour sometime towards the end of the 1980's and he was brilliant.

Picture: Lenny Henry. net 

In Fences, Henry doesn't play a very loveable character. He's in the role of a life-weary bin man called Troy Maxon. While Troy tries to appear strong and determined, he is also weak and duplicitous. He wants to stand up for what is right, but often ends up hurting the people he most loves.

The whole of the play is acted on a single set, in the backyard of Troy and his beloved Rose’s (Tanya Moodie) house in Pittsburgh, in 1957. Rose wants Troy to finish putting up the fence around the house, and this task of protecting the family from the dangers coming from the outside also becomes a metaphor for the main character.

But sadly, putting up a physical, or a metaphorical, fence doesn't stop the outside world from coming in, or anyone in the family being affected by outside events.

There are conflicts between Troy and his sporting son, Gabriel, played by Ako Mitchell. Troy doesn't want his son to suffer the same discrimination and disappointment he himself suffered and so denies Gabriel the chance to even try to succeed. His other son from a previous relationship, Lyons (Peter Bankole), wants to be a musician, but even this career is not safe enough in Troy’s eyes. At the same time as he disapproves of his off-springs’ career choices, he himself is getting involved in something he shouldn’t. Eventually Troy’s actions come to light and destroy his friendship with his Friday drinking partner, Jim Bono (played by the excellent Colin McFarlane).

But Fences is about so much more than just the life of the main character. It's about the changing social structure of America, it's about race, about justice and about fairness. And ultimately about love and forgiveness too; and about how life and the need for survival changes a person.

The performances in this serious play were outstanding. I came away thinking that I had not only seen a remarkable play, but also some extraordinary performances. I was on the edge of my seat for the whole time. (The brilliant seats we had in the stalls helped the experience too, thank you Encore Tickets). 

The audience at this play was a real mix, which was more than refreshing. It made me realise that the theatre we generally see is incredibly white and middle class. It's about time this changed.

I was the guest of Encore Tickets

Fences is at DuchessTheatre

until Saturday 14^th September 2013

Is the e-book revolution passing Finland by?

Ulla-Leena Lundberg Picture: Teos.fi

E-book sales have been sluggish in Finland, as displayed by the sales figures of the latest Finlandia Prize winning novel, Jää, by Ulla-Leena Lundberg.

According to the Finnish newspaper, Uusi Suomi, Lundberg’s best selling book has sold over 100,000 old-fashioned paper copies, but only 100 e-books. That’s a mere 0.1 percent of the total sales. And this is even less than the total Finnish e-book sales in 2012 , which made 1% of total book sales, compared to about 10 % in Britain.

But Jää may be a bad example. It’s a high-end fiction title, a genre which often attracts a different kind of buyer. Award-winning books are also often bought as a present, which could explain the low e-book figure, say the Finnish publishers of Jää, Teos.

At the other end of the spectrum, titles such as Fifty Shades of Grey (all three books in the trilogy were bestsellers in Finland) have done much to increase the popularity of e-books worldwide. This may be due to privacy issues; no-one can see the cover of an e-book and judge its reader accordingly.

In spite of the disappointing sales of e-books, the trend is definitely on the up, even in Finland. According to the Finnish Book Publishers Association, printed book sales went down in 2012, while the sales of e-books rose in the same period by 8%.

Because the cost of publishing an e-books is negligible, there has been an explosion of independently published e-books by author/ entrepreneurs worldwide. The Fifty Shades trilogy is one such success story, which has made author E L James a millionaire. 

This trend is bound to be mirrored in Finland, so who knows, at this very moment there may be a Finnish independent author who is penning his or her best-selling e-book. In my view, that is when the sales of e-books in Finland will also explode.

This article was also published in the summer issue of the Finn Guild magazine, Horisontti.

Finnish Easter shopping

Last weekend, during a Finn Guild friendship network event, I joined a group of Finnish ladies in Brighton to discuss multicultural marriage and the bringing up of bilingual (or in some cases trilingual) children. Whilst listening to an excellent talk by Maria Onuigbo on multicultural relationships, I realised that a huge element of how I've kept my Finnish identity intact all these years living in the UK, has been the upkeep of certain traditions.

So Easter to me is not just a holiday, it's about getting all the old decorations out, dressing my home in spring colours, being with the family and eating Finnish (and Swedish - see below) foods, with the occasional hot cross bun thrown in.

Finnish goodies at the Easter Fair

Which brings me onto the shopping bit of this post. Quite often in the past, I've timed a visit to Finland (or Sweden where you can buy most Finnish foodstuffs nowadays and which to me is a little bit of home too) to bring back such goodies as Fazer's Mignon chocolate eggs, Mämmi (a dessert with molasses and sugar) and quark-filled pastries.

This year, however, I haven't managed a trip back home, but will visit the next best thing - Finnish Church Easter Fair. This is an event which mirrors the hugely popular Christmas Bazaar in the Finnish Church and Seamen's Mission in Rotherhithe, East London. The Easter Fair is this coming weekend, so if you are looking for some unique Nordic Easter foodstuffs and decorations, East London is the place to be.

Because my roots are also partly from Sweden, where I lived as a child, I tend to mix into my Easter something from there too, such as these colourful feathers the Swedes attach to birch tree sprigs. I think you can buy these feathers in some florists in the UK, but luckily I've got some left over from last year.

Finnish Church Easter Fair is open:

Friday 15.3. 12-20
Saturday 16.3. 10-18
Sunday 17.3. 12-17