No one could explain the puzzle of last Saturday. Not even puzzlwe exptert hashim!
That is probably going to be the case this Saturday as well.
Give it a try.
Annikki and Jacob Matthan live in Oulu, Finland. Annikki is a Finn, Jacob an Indian. They are the founders of the Findians Movement way back in 1967. Both are now retired. They have been married for 56 years. This blog is an account of their lives and thoughts as reminiscenced through Annikki's and Jacob's eyes.
Our neighbour in Kampitie has two apple trees, one of which overhangs the 6B compund. They look absolutely gorgeous as they are now in full blossom.
Yesterday, at about 11:30 am, after a 14 hour drive right across Sweden and over the top of the Gulf of Bothnia, Tony, Samu and Tony's dad, Seppo, arrived in Oulu. They had earlier made the crossing by the ferry between Newcastle and Gothenburg.
Samu read several books on the way and went to sleep only at around 3 am.
It was really great to see our grandson again and I am looking forward to a wonderful summer with both Samu and Daniel.
I had a circular email from Sarasu Isaac, a Maliyakal located in the US.
Hi all,
I thought I would share a few memories of Thathen with you all. It will be nice if each one of you can share memories and stories of our Maliyakal appachens and ammachies.
I do not have the email addresses of all our cousins and neices and nephews. If each of you can please take the time to get email addresses that are missing from this list, I can create a group in Yahoo and start a Maliyakal news letter.
I think, Sushil (Achayan) Matthen, Finland will be the ideal person to guide us on that .
Roshini, please get Graceykochamma to share some of the wonderful stories of her younger days with all her cousins, uncles and aunts.
Regards,
Sarasu
Today morning, I managed to go and see Soda and his Tervarit Blacks side play a friendly football match against the Tervarit B Juniors trained by Englishman, Mark Dziadulewicz (formerly of AFC Wimbledon - 1978 - 1980). The B Juniors won quite handsomely 4-1, mainly because they took every opportunity to score when the ball came their way.
Soda played part of the game. He really needs to fix his fitness.
Natural talent is just not enough when going up in the football world. Players have to be where the ball is before anyone else. That depends on speed and stamina. That, unfortunately, requires very very hard work and dedication. Turning up at team practices does not provide that ingredient. Team practice is where teamwork is built, not personal performance capabilities.
It was reallly refreshing to see the young members of Mark's team sprint hard and get to the ball before their opponents. That made them a much superior team to the Tervarit Blacks. Mark knows dedicated talent when he sees it. That is why he has chosen the players for his side.
And, in football, one must love to hold on to the ball, dribble, and make the best pass at the right time. One has to draw away a defender before making a crucial pass. It is not enough to send the ball on to the next player as soon as it touches the foot!
Joanna and Daniel spent their first day in Oulu at Kampitie.
Both of them loved it. Joanna was able to enjoy the feeling of home - having her mother cook them French fries and lolling of the sofa, with the smell of "home" around her, while her younger son was busy enjoying everything, especially his grandmother carrying him all over the place and sharing all the wonderful things that she has put in place for her grandchildren - butterflies, dragonflies, goldfish and thousand and one other delights.
The ice cream was enjoyed by all. Then it was time to go shopping to make sure Samuel and Tony came home to "their home" with a similar homely feeling.
The day was busy for Joanna as all her friends sent her text messages welcoming her back to Finland. It appears she is going to have a very busy summer enjoying it in the way you only can in Finland!
Later in the evening I spent quality time with Joanna and Daniel at their home, just relaxing and enjoying that wonderful grandfather feeling! Was Annikki jealous?
Yesterday, I had to go to pick up Joanna and Daniel from the airport at past midnight. On my way there, I went to pick up a Flap for her and another for Daniel, in case they were hungry.
As I drove into town, on a slightly northwesterley direction, there was a fabulous sky ahead of me, which made me take out my camera and try to capture it. Sadly, my camera is not so good, so this shot is the best that could be got.
In addition, as I parked my car to go and get the Flaps, I noted a one in a "?" chance. There were two cars parked outside the restaurant, one behind the other, and both had the same 3 digits 757 in the number plate!
I tried to capture this, but I do not think I caught is sharply enough for you to recognise the digits as they are.
Joanna and Daniel had a huge Reception Committee when they landed, as Pailin, Unnop, Soda and Kim, were also there to receive them.
Soda captured some great photographs of the arrival.
Our dear friend from Tampere, Prof. Ajeet Mathur, and his colleague, Sari Joutsimäki, arrived yesterday around noon to take part in a discussion with foreigners who have some business interests.
I met them at the station.
The Pendelino from Helsinki, the superfast train, arrived half an hour late. If we had more time before our next engagement, Ajeet would probably have taken issue as you have to pay much higher rates for tickets on the Pendelino!
Sunday was an incredibly busy day. We had our regular CHAFF meeting which was attended by so many that we were packed like sardines in the Thai Pailin Restaurant.
We may live in a high tech city, but I never thought that Physics would go upside down here in Oulu.
Saturday was a rainy day. We had a few thunder showers and quite a bit of lightning. As Kannan was driving me near the Oulu river, I noticed a streak of lightning very close to us, and the reaction was not the usual fast dissipation of the lightning fork.
I wondered why that was.
I forgot the matter, although I did say in passing to Kannan that the lightning must have struck quite close to us.
In the evening, Unnop of the Pailin Restaurant rang me and said that the lightning had caused the his card swiping machine to burn out. Luckily, the service engineer came and fixed it. It was only then they knew that it was the transformer and not the machine that had been damaged.
When they looked around they did not seem to find any place the lightning had struck but they saw something most strange.
The birch tree next to the door of the adjacent department store was burnt from the bottom up causing the tree to split along the centre.
It was not as if the lightning had hit the tree at the top, but it had hit the ground, causing mud to be thrown out of the ground and the tree to be split the reverse way - upwards.
The tree had split right through. A close examination of the second picture will show the crack down the centre on the reverrse side to the burn.
The weather expert had commented that although there has never been a case of anyone travelling in a car being hurt by lightning, he came to a conclusion that it was not due to the rubber tyres. He compared the case of the protection being provided by rubber boots when lightning strikes near a person wearing these boots.
Sadly, the weather man should have stuck to commenting on the weather and not about rubber technology. The two cases are vastly different.
Rubber shoes are insulators protecting a light charge from affecting the wearer. The tyres of a car have a high amount of carbon black, making it a conductive mass which ensures that any charge is dissipated to the ground. That is why people travelling in a car are not affected by lightning as the lightning tries to find the shortest way to dissipate the energy.
In this particular case, the conductive tyres permitted the charge to enter the car through the tyres and then blew off the insulating plastic which developed the opposite charge to the metal body which was charged by the lightning.
Physics certainly took a beating today in Oulu!
Friday night.
I went to bed at my usual time - around midnight. Annikki was still working in the garden. She must have finished well past midnight, had her night snack (a Thai Sweet Chilli Wrap from the Pailin Restaurant) and was just washing up the dishes when she saw smiling faces in the garden waving at her through the kitchen window!
(Cross-posted on my Jacob's Politics Blog.)
On the Mike Malloy Liberal Talk Show this morning I heard him mention a web site which had an article which is worh reading. (Mike Malloy is the No. 1 Talk Show Host in the US - he offers no solutions, but he tells THE UNVARNISHED TRUTH. I listen to him daily between 5 am and 8 am Tuesday to Saturday here in Finland.))
Butler was known for his outspoken lectures against war profiteering and what he viewed as nascent fascism in the United States. His book War is a Racket(1935) presents a highly critical view of the profit motive behind warfare. Between 1935 and 1937, Butler served as a spokesman for the American League Against War and Fascism, which was considered by many to be communist dominated[5], and gave numerous speeches to the Communist Party USA in the 1930s, as well as to pacifist groups.[6] The following, from "the non-Marxist, socialist Common Sense magazine"[7] in 1935, is one of his most widely quoted statements:
I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902–1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested.
Malayala Manorama is the largest circulating newspaper in India and it is where, as a child, I got my grounding as a journalist and an editor under the tutelage of my grandfather, the late K. C. Mammen Mappilai.
The Malayalam version of the 'Da Vinci Code' novel, which is a work of fiction, translated by a Malayala Manorama journalist from Delhi, Jomy Thomas, and R. Gopikishnan of Mangalam, has proven a great hit, raising the ire of the Roman Catholic Church in Kerala.
The book has been published by a company called DC Books and the limited first edition was sold out on release.
The owners of the Malayala Manorama are Orthodox Syrian Christians. Although they are not in any way associated with the publication of the book, the fact that one of their journalists is in the limelight for translating it, may raise some eyebrows.
The Roman Catholic church says the film will hurt the religious sentiments of the Christian community.
The timing of the release of the Malayalam version with the release of the film and the controversy associated with it, has undoubtedly helped the book become a hit.
The Malayalam version of the book is priced at Euro 4 (Rs. 200).
(Cross-posted on the Chaff Blog, the Cathedralite Seventh Heaven Blog and the Stephanian Kooler Talk Blog.)
I must thank Naval patel, a 49er from my old school, me being a 59er, having passed out in 1959, for this important post.
USEFUL TO EVERY ONE AND MAY BE FOR OTHERS AS HELP EVERYONE MUST KNOW THIS
Let's say it's 6.15 pm and you're going home (alone of course), after an unusually hard day on the job. You are really tired, upset and frustrated.
Suddenly you start experiencing severe pain in your chest that starts to radiate out into your arm and up into your jaw.
You are about five miles from the hospital nearest your home. Unfortunately, you don't know if you will be able to make it that far.
You have been trained in CPR, but the guy that taught the course did not tell you how to perform it on yourself.
HOW TO SURVIVE A HEART ATTACK WHEN ALONE
Since many people are alone when they suffer a heart attack, without help, the person whose heart is beating improperly and who begins to feel faint, has only about 10 seconds left before losing consciousness.
However, these victims can help themselves by coughing repeatedly and very vigorously. A deep breath should be taken before each cough, and the cough must be deep and prolonged, as when producing sputum from deep inside the chest. A breath and a cough must be repeated about every two seconds without let-up until help arrives, or until the heart is felt to be beating normally again.
Deep breaths get oxygen into the lungs and coughing movements squeeze the heart and keep the blood circulating. The squeezing pressure on the heart also helps it regain normal rhythm.
In this way, heart attack victims can get to a hospital.
Tell as many other people as possible about this. It could save their lives!!
A cardiologist says If everyone who gets this information and then sends it to 10 people, you can bet that we will save at least one life.
Dare to think the unthought known?
International Perspectives on Group Relations
Edited by Ajeet N. Mathur
Price: EUR 38 + postage
Publisher: Airoairut Oy, PL 836, FIN-33101 TAMPERE, FINLAND,
This volume, a collective international endeavour, brings together twelve influential scholars and practitioners in group relations. New ways are presented of managing oneself in groups and for the design of management processes. Developments in group dynamics and social innovations are explored at the cutting edge of practices in a variety of settings: families, schools, local governance councils, factories, hospitals, trade unions, prisons, business enterprises, research institutions, religious organisations, higher education institutions, voluntary work and international organisations. Issues are raised for consideration and interpretation about the hidden life of organisations and institutional processes. Novel ideas include suggestions for educators and consultants on group relations training and experiential learning methods. Problems that arise in teams relevant for persons in expert roles or management, administrative or governance responsibilities in private and public systems are discussed. New approaches for working with groups address unique challenges and opportunities that individuals face in stressful roles during turbulent times. This is an important book for anyone trying to understand small and large group behaviour to engage effectively with the politics of relatedness.
"Groups are created, sustained and accepted not because they are necessary evil residues of the group mentality. Without groups, complex transactions of society that require open systems, porous boundaries and the bridging of frictions of space, time, technology, task and sentinece to enable flows of goods, services, capital, people and ideas would not be possible."
Last Monday, 15th May, I had an inkling that all was not well in the worldwide money and share markets. I had noted a slight but significant fall in the entire group of mutual funds where I have my small long term pension savings. It was not as if one or two of the funds were dropping, but all of them were showing the same signs.
The pension amount is not very much, but enough to give me a small additional pension to my state pension in a couple of years.
When I went into this private pension saving system many years ago, the stocks fell so that my initial investment was actually almost halved. But, I stayed in the funds and over the last 3 years the value first equalled and went above my initial investment.
So, at this juncture, when I am about to cash in on this pension, I did not want to take a chance, as I am not going to wait another 4 to 5 years to recover any substantial losses.
As I looked a little deeper into the world markets last Monday evening, I saw in the figures around the globe that something radical was happening in the share markets. First thing on Tuesday morning, I called my financial adviser in my bank and asked her to move my whole pension funds into a safe fixed interest account. Since I have had this pension fund for many years, I can transfer freely without incurring any cost.
I was out the whole day, so when my adviser called Annikki, she said that if she did not hear from me by 15:00 hours she would carry out my instructions.
I got home after 15:00 and found an email from her telling me that she had executed my request. Luckily, I had not had a chance to reconsider my decision.
The following week has seen share markets around the world in a nose-dive, with trading on the Mumbai exchange being halted for a period yesterday after the BSE fell 1100 points from above 10,800 - but it seemed to have recovered 654 points during the day. (I do not have any investment in the Indian share market.)
During the last week Helsinki fell 12.5%, Frankfurt fell by 9.1%, Tokyo fell by 8.3%, and Paris by 7.9%. London fell by 7.8% while New York fell by 4.9% but I had moved out of all UK and US Stocks and Shares as a protest after these Governments illegally invaded and occupied Iraq.
It is interesting to see how the OMX Helsinki behaved since last Monday:
Monday: 9400
Tuesday: 9400 (Here is when I moved from the market to fixed interest)
Wednesday: 9800 (+400 from Tuesday)
Thursday: 9500 (+100 from Tuesday)
Friday: 9600 (+200 from Tuesday)
Saturday: 9000 (-400 from Tuesday)
Sunday: 8400 (-1000 from Tuesday)
We continue to enjoy a very early onset of summer, although we did have a light snowfall a few days ago.
The reindeer has found its resting place for summer in the greenhouse.
Several new plantings have been settled in by Annikki.
Annikki is working round the clock, such as repairing the pergola. She is a real monkey when it comes to getting things done. I just stand and watch, and take photographs! :-)
The flowers are arriving in different strategic places.
The fishing nets at the beachside are now in place.
The umbrella now provides some much needed shade from the hot sun.
On the whole I can safely predict that the Kampitie garden is going to be even better this year than last, and that may be an understatement, as Annikki has some exciting plans on paper!
Usually, when an animal is dead on a major thoroughfare, it is reduced to pulp by the passing cars in a matter of a few minutes, or at the most an hour.
Yesterday, the main road linking the north of Oulu to the south had a dead bird, in the smack centre of the road. I noted it on my first drive through about noon, but I was surprised to find it still intact and lying in the centre of the this busy road, even as late as 6 pm. I had passed it a couple of times during the day, and took care not to run over it.
Why?
My first thought when I had seen this bird in the middle of the street was that, if it was an animal which had died from bird flu, I did not want the infection on my tyres. So, I was particularly careful to avoid running over it.
It occurred to me that almost all the motortists that passed that spot, and there must have been several thousands of us, yesterday, must have had the same thought cross their minds.
Unfortunately, as it was a busy thoroughfare, I could not snap a photograph of the bird in the middle of the street.
I wonder if anyone called the police or the health authorities to come on check on it?
It is very very unusual for a dead bird to be lying for many hours in the middle of a busy road in the centre of Oulu.
Not in my 22 years here have I had this experience.