While We're On The Subject Of Guitars

Well, we weren't, until I spotted this article from Helsingin Sanomat, a Finnish newspaper whose editors are kind enough to translate selected snippets into English for those of us who are linguistically-challenged. Um, me.

Yes Ladies and Gentlemen it's the 13th Air Guitar World Championships, held in Oulu. The article cheerfully comments that it's perhaps Finland's best-known event. But I'm not so sure. To grab that title it would have to beat the Wife-Carrying Championships in Sonkajärvi, and the Mobile Phone Throwing Championships, both of which demonstrate either the ingenuity of the Finns or the reaction to extreme snow-bound boredom which locks them indoors for an obscene number of months.

But fret not, I'm not about to partake in Finn-bashing. On the contrary, I've tried to learn the language, and a years' diligent study* has led me to the conclusion that I'll need another years' diligent study before I'll have the language skill to visit the supermarket. This has given me a whole new appreciation for the country as a whole. Any place that has a language that hard has to be full of smart people.

~ Elisa



* Diligent, as in, two days per week at a community college. Yes folks, it really is that hard to learn.