Hiatus

Brief update to let all you untold thousands of readers know that there will be a brief pause in proceedings between now (or rather two weeks ago) and the end of May while I focus on my other blog. This is good news for anyone with a particular interest in the 2008 edition of the Eurovision Song Contest. Normal service shall resume in June at the latest.

You could have fooled me

Delfi today has at least eight stories on its front page alone that are clearly April Fool's jokes just from the headlines.

They include 'Parliamentarians to give up salaries', which is obviously ludicrous, and 'Anu Saagim to become editor of Postimees', which I only hope is.

Now I know Delfi's is not the most educated of target audiences, but all the same: what's the point of an April Fool's joke if it's so obvious you can spot it a mile away?

The Weathergirl

In a terrible indictment of the state of pop music in this country, Niki (aka Kanal 2 weathergirl Kairit Tuhkanen) was awarded the title of Female Artist of the Year at last weekend's Estonian Music Awards, and also walked away with Album of the Year for Äike Päike. Then again, the super-talented Mari-Leen won last year, so at least the voting is consistent.

Surprisingly, the singer herself - perhaps suspecting that people might scoff at the announcement - was quick to downplay her success, as reported by SL Õhtuleht. "I'm shocked," she told her audience of peers when she took to the podium. "I'm not a singer - I'm someone's project! There are plenty of us around, but we never last long." We can only hope so.

http://www.sloleht.ee/index.aspx?id=273042

Perfectly average

Independent weekly paper Eesti Ekspress has analysed a range of surveys to produce an identikit of Estonia's Mr & Mrs Average. Here are their bullet-point findings:

Mr Average (aged 37)

*Mr Average will live to the age of 67, so he has another good 30 years ahead of him.
*His name is likely Sergei, Margus or Andrei, as these were the most popular boys' names in 1971.
*He works in the processing industry or construction or as an equipment or machine operator. He received a vocational education.
*He probably drives a Volkswagen, as they are the most common cars in the country. If not that then the number two: a Ford.
*He wears size 43 shoes.
*He smokes, having started at the age of 18.
*The most popular alcoholic beverage with Mr Average is beer (he drinks it every week).
*In the last 30 days he could well have had a bad back.
*He is a tad overweight.

Mrs Average (aged 42)

*Unlike her husband, Mrs Average will live to the ripe old age of 78.

*Her name is most probably Jelena, Svetlana or Tiina.

*She works in a factory or a shop or has something to do with education. She is probably a middle-level or senior specialist in her field.

*While she has the same i.e. vocational education as her husband (or partner), she has also done in-service training.

*She had her first baby at 25, which means that baby is now 17 years old (and called either Martin or Kristina).

*Mrs Average wears size 38 or 39 shoes.

*She doesn't smoke and is in the healthy weight range.

*She has a glass of wine or some other alcohol at least once a month.

*She most likely had a headache at some point in the past 30 days.

Other interesting titbits the Eesti Ekspress article threw up included the following facts:

*While Mr & Mrs Average do their shopping two to three times a week at big supermarkets, eschewing corner shops and convenience stores, they still get their potatoes from acquaintances who grow their own and honey from a friendly beekeeper.

*In the event that the beekeeper or anyone else tempts them into casual sex outside of the relationship, they won't use a condom.
*If this doesn't kill them, a coronary will. Or cancer.

*Mr & Mrs Average do not represent the average Estonian family at all: the most widespread family unit in the country is the single-parent model. Since they're together they are most likely an amalgam of families, with at least one child not being the fruit of both of their loins.

http://www.ekspress.ee/2008/03/27/eesti-uudised/1864-saage-tuttavaks-marju-ja-harju-keskmine

Snowed under

A week after the official start of spring, Tallinn (and the rest of Estonia) awoke this morning to snowdrifts up to a metre high, with more snow having fallen in one night than fell during the whole of winter.

This makes for rather a pretty sight when you're looking at it out of the window, but proves rather more challenging when you have to make your way through it. Apart from the obvious - broken down buses and people staring helplessly at the car-shaped piles of snow they're meant to be driving - the blizzard has seen a sharp rise in the number of perplexed tourists from southern Europe saying things like "what happened to spring?".

Great Friday

The Good Friday public holiday yesterday was marked in Tallinn by an unusual bout of sunshine lasting pretty much all day long. It inspired me to go out and walk around the Old Town, which in turn inspired me to take some photos. Here's a montage or two of some of them.

Your worship

Spring started this morning at 7.48 am with Bishop Andres Põder of the Estonian Evangelical Lutheran Church delivering a sermon on ETV's morning television programme Terevisioon denouncing the false god that people in Estonia have taken to worshipping of late.

"The only god Estonians know is money, but at least they've started to realise that it's not the only source of happiness in the world," his bishopness said. He added that they have achieved a level of wealth at which they should stop and take stock, before they burn out completely in their quest to be better than everyone else.

Interestingly, Põder did not seem to be on a recruitment drive (not that one would be very successful in a country as areligious as Estonia) and becomes the first religious leader in a long time who has said anything I actually agree with.