Lucky numbers ...

A few weeks ago, I was snapped by a Finnish police traffic camera, which was in the back of an unmarked grey van parked under a bridge on the side of the motorway to the airport. I was on my way to Vantaa to fly to see our friends in Sweden; the road was clear, the weather was good and there was only one other vehicle on the same stretch of road; a taxi which I was following that suddenly slowed and pulled in to the inside lane. I mention these circumstances, not to justify my transgression, merely to set the scene.

A few days later, a letter from the authorities arrived on my door mat. It noted that the vehicle had been observed travelling at 93 km per hour in an 80 limit and asked me to confirm who had been driving the vehicle. In the UK, one can apparently decline such questions, as you have the right not to give answers which might incriminate you. This is not the case in Finland, so I sent off my details and prepared to discover my fate.

I was aware that under Finland's system, some traffic fines are salary related, determined on the basis of a certain number of days' pay. The BBC reported in 2004 that "Jussi Salonoja, the 27-year-old heir to a family-owned sausage empire, was given the £116,000 ticket after being caught driving 80km/h in a 40km/h zone". Fortunately, our family "fortune" was made from fridges rather than their contents, and I am certainly not heir to an empire, so I was confident that I would not break Jussi's record.

Colleagues at work suggested that because I was not too far over the limit, I would likely only receive a fixed penalty, so I waited to hear from the Poliisi. The second letter, shown above, arrived this week. It is a summons to present my driving licence at the local police station, between 08:00 and 18:00, any day for the week before July 27. Frustratingly, it gave no clue to what else I might expect.

So, at 10:45 yesterday I presented myself. I took a numbered ticket and waited my turn, a very Finnish way of queueing. As I was the only miscreant there, it took just a few minutes until I was shown into the office with the two-way mirrored walls and advised that my fine would be €70 and I would have two weeks to pay. I was asked if I wanted to dispute the offence, which I did not, and then was presented with the paperwork. And finally, before I left, the very pleasant police officer pointed out the section on the forms where I could make any complaint about the way the matter had been dealt with by them.

So, that was it. Twenty minutes in the station, €70 fine, no points on my license (which would have been the case in the UK) and a lingering feeling of an efficient but very human way of dealing with the matter.

I have long considered that 93 is a lucky number for me. It was the number of my Round Table club in the UK, Basingstoke 93, which I was a member of for more than a dozen years. After these events, I shall continue to believe it to be true!

Feeling connected ...

A couple of weeks ago, I passed my second anniversary of moving to Finland and starting my new job. The combination of that together with an impending "big" birthday next year has put me in rather a reflective mood over the last couple of weeks.

Living away from your home country is a great way of learning about what you have taken for granted. Of course, top of the list are family and friends; I now value the opportunities I get to spend time with both far more than I used to. Then there are more subtle things, such familiar foods and beverages; I've noted before on this blog the challenges of finding fruit cake and Pimms in Finland. Finally, there are the experiences which give a feeling of connection to what has been left behind.

This weekend was a good example. Whilst my US friends were celebrating Independence Day on Saturday, I was preparing to have a few people at my apartment for a brunch and the chance to watch the Wimbledon Men's Finals on Sunday. Last year, I upgraded my Welho cable subscription to get live coverage, but this year, the same channel was not showing the matches. Instead, I was able to add a one month subscription to the Swedish TV4 channel, so that we could see the images at least. I had this in mind as my plan B, as plan A was to watch through the BBC iPlayer, using a UK proxy service. For those not too technical, this is a way of getting round the BBC's restriction of only allowing UK based viewers to see the program. Since I do pay for a TV licence in the UK, I did not feel too bad at finding a way around that limitation.

However, in the end, the BBC's servers were overwhelmed it seems, so I could not stream the live coverage. So, we had Wimbledon Radio via the Internet, providing an English commentary whilst watching the game with the Swedish audio off. This was also instructional, as we learned that live coverage is not always live. There was a delay of several seconds between the pictures and the sound. Initially, the commentators were describing the action before we saw it happen. (If Roddick had been able to tap in to this, the outcome might have been different!). After a while though, the sound was lagging up to 12 seconds behind the play on screen. At this point, we used the "timeshifting" feature of my cable box to delay the picture by about the same time, ending up with a satisfactory pairing of sound and vision.

It was a good match. But the enjoyment for me was increased enormously by sharing it with friends from Helsinki. We did have strawberries and cream, as well as a few glasses of Pimms, the staple fare of Wimbledon goers. And somehow it made me feel closer to my wife back at home, who I knew would be watching the games avidly, as she always does. I look forward to the simple pleasure, previously taken for granted, of being able to share such experiences with her again when my time here is done.