Category Archives: Trivia

On the ferry to Helsinki, I study the comprehensive FCO brief on Finland.

This provides the following useful information:

• Finns drink more coffee per capita than any other nation in the world.  Belgium are second and Norway third;
• Finnish speeding fines are based on your annual income.  In 2004, the 27 year-old heir to a family-owned sausage empire received a record €170,000 ticket for driving at 80 kph in a 40 kph zone;
• There are very few original Finnish words which commence with the letters b, c, d, f, q, w, x or z.  Most of them are loan words  with Swedish, Germanic, Russian or English origins;
• Finland is home to the world mosquito-killing championship, the world mobile phone-throwing competition and an annual national wife-carrying competition (for which the first prize is the wife’s weight in lemonade);
• 10% of Finland’s land area is covered by water and 69 % by forest;
• Finland has 187,888 lakes and 179,584 islands.  The surface area of Finland is growing by about 7 sq km a year due to uplift following the last ice age.

All this is tremendously interesting stuff, with which I hope suitably to impress any Finnish politician with whom I may fall into conversation this afternoon.

Glancing at a map of Estonia, I was amused and astonished to see that the large lake that forms part of its eastern border with Russia is called Lake Pepsi.  The ultimate product placement, I thought.

A second look revealed that it is in fact Lake Peipsi.

I wonder how much Pepsico would have to pay the cash-starved Estonian government to drop that first “i”?

Listening to Andrew Lansley explaining Conservative dental policy on Today this morning, I heard him say: “Clearly, dentists will need to have open access.” 

Quite right, too; in fact, it’s hard to see how they could manage without it.

Scanning the BBC News website whilst waiting for Mr Speaker’s statement this afternoon, I did a double-take when I saw the headline: Bear prepared for new Chief Scout role. 

Closer inspection revealed that congratulations are due to Mr Grylls on his appointment as Chief Scout of the United Kingdom.

 The experience reminded me of the famous 1970s headline: Salmon appointed to Court of Appeal.

More seriously bad news for farmers in today’s Farmers Guardian.

How much more can our beleaguered agriculturists take?

At least March is now safely out of the way.

Nice Côte d’Azur airport has an area called “Kiss and Fly”.  It is, in fact, just a quick drop-off zone outside the terminal building, but the very name “Kiss and Fly” conjures up the image of a headscarfed Grace Kelly bidding adieu from the wheel of the drophead Sunbeam to a departing Cary Grant, about to board the evening Constellation for Idlewild.

Today we hear that Warrington Bank Quay railway station has established “kissing” and “no-kissing” zones, to avoid unreasonable delays to passengers.  A spokesman for Virgin Trains said:

“It’s just a quirky thing; it’s nothing more than that. It’s a light-hearted way of getting the message across.

“We are trying to tell people not to wait too long in the drop-off, but we don’t mind people waiting there for a short time.”

I’ve been to both Nice Côte d’Azur and Warrington Bank Quay.  I don’t think Grace Kelly would linger long in Warrington.

It has been announced that a 164 foot statue of a white horse – as tall as the Statue of Liberty – is to be constructed at Ebbsfleet, in Kent.  The statue, to be known as the “Ebbsfleet Landmark”,  is intended to be the south’s answer to Anthony Gormley’s Angel of the North.

Having seen a mock-up of the proposed work, I’m sure that the proprietors of a certain brand of scotch whisky will be rubbing their hands in anticipation of all that free advertising.

There are still some real silly season stories about, despite the seemingly non-stop stream of bad, serious news that assails us from quarters as diverse as Threadneedle Street and the Caucasus.

I particularly liked today’s story about the Italian priest who is arranging an online beauty pageant for nuns, “to erase the stereotype of them as being old and dour”.

Apparently, Fr. Antonio Rungi, of Naples, will start the contest on his blog in September. He stresses that nuns are not being invited to parade in bathing suits, saying that it will be “up to them whether they pose with the traditional veil or with their heads uncovered”.

I recall that the late, great Dave Allen got into terrible trouble with the Catholic church over a number of TV sketches that seemed rather similar in nature to what Fr. Rungi is now proposing.

Dave described himself as a “practising atheist”, but, if he did call it wrong, I’m sure he’s having quite a chuckle in whichever part of eternity he ended up.