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Around the world in six World Cup nations

12 Tuesday Jun 2018

Posted by in FIFA World Cup, football, Uncategorized

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It’s almost World Cup time again (or to avoid legal action, the FIFA World Cup 2018™). For an Englishman, or one who gives a damn like myself, this means two weeks of hyped-up, unreasonable and unjustified excitement followed by the depression of elimination, probably on a penalty shootout, followed by grudging unpartisan admiration for the good teams remaining in the later stages. We know we are not going to win it, because too many of the players have said that we ARE going to win it. Although there is noticeably less mention of the only time we did win it, in the year between 1965 and 1967, the year We Must Not Mention.

But before it kicks off, and while I’m still in the daft, initial “it’s going to be different for England this time” mode of thought, I get the chance to show off a few pics from some of the countries involved. So you don’t have to be interested in football or even know what shape the ball is to enjoy this quick pictorial distraction.

Let’s give the hosts Russia credit to start with, although not for their outrageous attitudes towards gay rights and anyone opposing Tsar Vladimir, especially journalists. Russia has taken over top spot in the nasty, nationalist, racist gang league and they shouldn’t really be holding the tournament. Not as daft as Qatar holding it in 2022 though.

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The Church of the Spilled Blood in St Petersburg. Hopefully none will be spilled in the next four weeks.

Let’s move on to Denmark. I have a soft spot for Denmark, nicely placed, I always think, between the Nordic and Central European cultures, combining the best elements of both. It has no mountains which is perhaps why the Danes are quite good at kicking balls around on the flat. I was at the stadium in Gothenburg in 1992 when Denmark beat Germany in the final of the European Championships, and that’s another reason I’ll be rooting for them. As long as they’re not playing against England obviously. As well as the fact that it’s home to some very good friends and Christian Eriksen is on the team – Eriksen being one of the stars of the English club I support, Tottenham. So, come on you Danes.

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The Opera house in Copenhagen. They like food, they like bikes, they like football. A few of them seem to quite like me. A seriously likeable country.

So to South America and Peru. Why Peru? Because I’ve just been there. They are also rated as dark horses, or perhaps that should be dark llamas.

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Resident minstrel in the Bodega Juanita in Lima, Peru. Football replays and live games are continuously shown on the TV in this bar.

France are among the favourites for this World Cup and they do have an unfair share of quite good players. As does Belgium. In fact, I might have a flutter on Belgium. So why no photo from Belgium? See the caption.

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Notre Dame, Paris. Just because I don’t have any decent shots of Belgium.

I love the idea of plucky little Japan (with a mere population of 127 million) beating one of the supposed footballing giants in the final. Germany or Argentina, for example. It won’t happen of course, but it’s an entertaining thought.

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Steamed bun food item in a Nagasaki street market. Will the Japanese diet carry them to World Cup glory? Probably not.

And last and not quite least, England, the land of my father. And my mother, who used to enjoy watching the World Cup. I was grateful for that, since the rest of my direct family didn’t really give a hoot about football. Although I think we all enjoyed it when England won the thing in the Year We Mustn’t Mention between 1965 and 1967, when I was captain of my house team at primary school. Another Tottenham player, Harry Kane, is the England captain and he’s actually pretty good. I’m not going to tempt fate by saying anything else. Just don’t mention the words “Iceland”, “Nice” or “June 27, 2016” and I’ll be fine.

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England, my England, right or wrong, and quite often wrong. This is the pier at Deal, my home town, from which the coastline of France is visible on a clear day. So close and yet so far.

The days are getting lighter. I’m not.

30 Saturday Dec 2017

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New Year’s Eve – I’ve never been a fan. If there was a bigger gap between Christmas and January 1 I might feel more like celebrating. It might be something to do with self-employment. After a week of eating and drinking too much of all the stuff I shouldn’t be eating too much of, feeling the spare chins multiply and the belt tighten with each slab of chocolate, I’m ready to get back to work. Or more specifically, get back to sending out invoices. But there is no escaping it. It must be faced up to. New Year’s Eve has arrived again. The fireworks are nice though. I do like a good firework. And there is the consolation that every day is getting a little longer and lighter, unlike myself in both respects.

I suppose I should be taking stock of the passing year’s ups and downs, but I find myself looking forward to all the stuff I want to do in 2018. Books to write, trips to take, new friends to make, unanticipated encounters. I can get excited about all that, whatever the date. Just the same, it’s as good a time as any to brag about the adventures I’ve had in 2017. I’ve been to India (twice), to Finnish Lapland (several times), on a working icebreaker in the Baltic, to Japan, to a remote Baltic island with my best friends, all over Europe from Switzerland to Denmark and from Amsterdam to Italy. I have had a book published and held an exhibition of my photographs. Not too bad then.

I just spent Christmas in Venice, a wonderful time to be there. The main tourist spots, such as St Mark’s Square and the Rialto Bridge, were busy, but it was easy to lose the crowds in the deserted back streets and canals. It’s always a challenge to see a place from an original or fresh viewpoint, but it’s a bigger challenge in a place like Venice where the beauty and attractions are so obvious. So I was up early and went out late at night to get some different perspectives. I hope.

While I contemplate the extreme measures needed to shed those superfluous kilos, here’s a quick tour – six views of this extraordinary city.

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Giant hands rise out of the Grand Canal. A sculpture symbolizing global warming, by Lorenzo Quinn. Considering all the environmental pressures that Venice endures, it’s a miracle that it’s still in such condition.

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Stallholder at the Rialto fish market in a crabby mood.

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Early morning on the Rialto bridge on the Grand Canal. Silent witnesses.

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Checking his likes on Facebook?

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A Vaporetto – ‘ little steamer’ – water bus passes under the Rialto bridge on the Grand Canal. Imagine: this city was built on thousands of wooden posts planted in the bed of the lagoon. I still can’t get my head round that. As long as they remain submerged they don’t erode or rot.

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The brightly painted houses of Burano, an island that takes a 45 minute ferry ride to reach across the lagoon from Venice. The houses follow a strict colour scheme, and bright colours have been traditionally used, they say, so that they would be visible even in the thickest fog.

Lastly, a nod to the wonderful Trattoria Corte Sconta where we enjoyed a brilliant Christmas Day lunch. Highly recommended, but book in advance. This fellow, dressed in festive finery, was having an especially fun time.

Happy New Year!

When Santa’s presence made me mad

17 Sunday Dec 2017

Posted by in Christmas, Finland, Uncategorized

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Christmas 1994, the first in our house, and the first with two little Finnish stepdaughters who still viewed their new foreign stepfather with more than a little suspicion. What better way to break the ice than buy myself a red gown and some cotton wool and dress up as Santa? Pity my wife didn’t tell me she had ordered a similarly attired visitor who rang the door bell before I had time to change into my festive kit. The little girls were happy, but I am annually reminded that, if looks could have killed, the Father Christmas who delivered the presents in our lounge that day wouldn’t be delivering presents anywhere else ever again. Thanks, Santa, for stealing my thunder.

Nothing else this time, just a taste of Christmas in Finland:

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Father Christmas’ one true home is in Lapland on the Arctic Circle near the Finnish city of Rovaniemi. The ferocity with which Finns defend their faith in this truth is almost scary. Woe betide anyone who dares to suggest that the old fella comes from Norway or Sweden or Greenland.

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Christmas porridge in Helsinki’s Senate Square. Find an almond in your porridge and you’ll soon find a spouse, if you haven’t already got one. Really.

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Woolen socks and mittens at the Three Smiths Square Christmas market in Helsinki.

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‘Elves’ choir lets off steam on the steps of the Lutheran Cathedral in Helsinki.

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Women’s Christmas Market, Vanha Satama, Helsinki.

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Helsinki’s Esplanade Park in snow and Christmas lights.

Above: Christmas in Helsinki, quickly.

Have a good one, everyone.

 

Singing the praises of the beautiful book

26 Sunday Nov 2017

Posted by in books, bookshops, helsinki, Uncategorized

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It’s probably hopelessly old fashioned of me but I love books and bookshops. Books in covers, made of paper, lovingly conceived, designed, produced and edited. I feel protected, safe and at home walled-in by them in a bookshop. Especially proper bookshops, where the books are piled high in apparent disorder but whose shopkeepers know exactly where to find the book you might be looking for.

I took to reading novels and guidebooks with Kindle on my iPad for a while, and I’m not saying that’s a bad thing. The most important thing is that people write and people read, and to some extent the format is irrelevant as long as that continues. I would say that the digital format is less conducive to concentration, however. And rumours of the death of the book are premature.

In any case, to my mind the physical, tactile, artifact book is in the top tier of creative production. Books are to keep or, at worst, to resell. Unlike newspapers and magazines, books are rarely thrown out for recycling. Opening a box of new books fresh from the printers (as long as the printers have done their job properly) and inhaling that fresh print aroma is one of the great joys of life.

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In the running for Finland’s Most Beautiful Book of the Year, with text in English and Finnish

So I was thrilled this week to learn that my latest book, Suomenlinna – Islands of Light, is being entered in the Most Beautiful Books of the Year awards in Finland by the publisher, Docendo. This is the kind of book that wouldn’t work well on an iPad. It’s a book for browsing at leisure in a way you couldn’t really do on a digital screen. Bear in mind too that Finland was rated as the World’s Most Literate Nation in 2016, so it should know a thing or two about what makes a good book.

The honorary awards (no cash or other prizes are handed out) are judged by the Finnish Book Art Committee, whose aim is…

…to draw attention to the book as an artistic whole. When choosing the Most Beautiful Books of the Year the Committee tries to find works in which form and content support each other as well as possible. The starting point for evaluating works is the overall graphic design, beginning with the typography and ending with the finished printed product. As well as classical printing skills, the Committee values fresh and new creative solutions.

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Back cover shot from Islands of Light. Suomenlinna feels a world apart from Helsinki, although it’s only a 15-minute ferry ride away.

The beauty of book, which is a collection of photographs of Helsinki’s most atmospheric and historic quarter, its UNESCO World Heritage-listed sea fortress, is largely thanks to its designer, my friend Ea Söderberg. She also designed my eBook, Motion Pictures – a travel photographer’s companion. OK, so I’ll snatch some of the credit for the contents. Especially since I’ve spent countless hours out there in all weather. But I can’t design books. That is a different talent with which Ea is blessed. The shots here are from the book.

View of Suomenlinna from Vallisaari island, Helsinki

View of Suomenlinna from Vallisaari island, Helsinki. Vallisaari is one of several islands that used to be restricted to the military for many years but which are now opening up to the public. A good thing too: why should the military get all the best islands?

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As well as showing view of the islands throughout the year, the book introduces some members of the community who live and/or work in the fortress – artists, musicians, craftspeople, museum curators, naval officers, all sorts of interesting people. This is traditional boat builder Mikael Holmström.

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If you get the chance to visit Suomenlinna on a really cold winter’s day, when the steam is rising from the sea as the mercury plummets, you might be rewarded with scenes like this. Your fingers might also drop off if you’re not wearing gloves. Then how will you turn the pages of my book when you’ve bought it?

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The view of Helsinki looking north across the South Harbour from Suomenlinna. I wish I had a euro for every time I’ve made the ferry crossing over this little stretch of water in the last few years. 

Obviously I’m not going to wind up without urging you to consider Islands of Light for your Christmas shopping list. Not as a stocking filler, unless you want big book-shaped stockings, but as a full-blown gesture-of-love top-class gift! You can order it online at this link or contact me directly if you have any trouble getting your hands on a copy! And wish me luck in those awards.

The Northern Lights are in my mind

19 Sunday Nov 2017

Posted by in Arctic travel, aurora borealis, lapland, northern lights, Uncategorized

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It’s a glum wet day in Helsinki and I intend to brighten up your virtual inner sky by sharing some photos of the Northern Lights, or aurora borealis. The techies among you will know that this wondrously surreal phenomenon – for my money the most profoundly moving, beautiful and enchanting on or around the planet – is the result of collisions between charged particles released from the sun with gaseous particles in the Earth’s atmosphere. I don’t really care what causes them, but I thought I’d better let you know that. While you’re watching them, you won’t care either, you’ll just gawp in wonder. You’ll feel like laughing. It’s too ridiculously amazing to be true.

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Minus 25, but worth crawling out of my lakeside glass igloo in Finnish Lapland just after midnight. Wrap up warm if you intend to indulge in this kind of madness: jumping around just isn’t enough.

I first heard about the Northern Lights in a song by the 1970s band Renaissance. “The Northern Lights are in my mind, they guide me back to you,” their beautiful woman singer sang, to an irresistibly catchy tune. I had no idea what she was on about then. I thought she might be singing about the nighttime attractions of Blackpool or some other northern English city. Now I know what they were on about, I wonder why there aren’t more songs about it.

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This was one result of a spectacular night that I spent entirely alone at the Joulukka Christmas theme lodge near the Arctic Circle in Lapland. It was September, so the lake wasn’t yet frozen. It is often assumed that the aurora can only be seen on cold winter nights, but autumn and spring are also good times.

The first time I actually witnessed this awesome – and I really do mean awesome – natural phenomenon was on a frozen lake in Finnish Lapland in about 1984, when I jumped around in the company of two other more-than-slightly intoxicated Englishmen, like children on a sugar rush at a magic show, shouting and pointing at the sky in mesmerized disbelief, wondering if our drinks had been spiked.

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Appearances of the Northern Lights in Helsinki in southern Finland, which is on the same latitude as Lerwick in Shetland, are not quite as unusual as people think, but sightings this spectacular, with this corona effect, are rare. I shot this from the top of my road in March 2015. I’m not sure I’ll ever see it this powerful again in Helsinki.

You can’t just see the Northern Lights and tick them off your list. Once you’ve seen them, you have to see them again. And again. It becomes an obsession. I’ve got three Apps on my phone and another one on my iPad telling me when a ‘performance’ might be possible. I’ve flown to Lapland and travelled to remote locations to freeze under starlit skies with the sole intention of watching the aurora. I wander around bumping into trees by the river near my Helsinki home, staring at the sky, in the often vain hope of photographing, or just catching a glimpse of the curtains of colour being shifted around the sky by some giant unseen hand.

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Not my best aurora shot but one that illustrates that you can see the Northern Lights as far south as Helsinki – and even in August. This is on the edge of Helsinki’s Central Park and the artificial light is from Helsinki Airport.

So that’s another confession off my chest. If you’d like to share my obsession, assuming you don’t already, you need to be a long way north, the sky needs to be clear, and it helps to get away from urban light pollution. And although it’s great fun to photograph them, try to remember not to get too obsessed with photographing them. Submit to the spectacle. Be transfixed!

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In the Norwegian mountains. My host was a fish factory manager who offered to take me for a drive into the mountains in case we could see the aurora. We waited in this spot for two hours until just after midnight to get this show. Some people in ‘aurora countries’ are inexplicably blase about the phenomenon. This fellow shared my excitement, even though he’d probably seen it a thousand times.

The Alaska Geophysical Institute has quite a good site here, with regional maps giving predictive information: http://www.gi.alaska.edu/AuroraForecast  But unlike some of the tourists who flock to northern Finland with a sighting at the top of their list, don’t assume that you can flick a switch on any given winter’s evening to make the aurora appear.

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Another rare Helsinki sighting, from the island of Harakka. I was shooting the frozen Baltic in the afternoon and started getting aurora alerts on my phone. I hung around until after dark and this was my reward.

Oh and that song by Renaissance – you’ll find it here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvFPlWh1yQY