Bad Dads

I have read many gruesome news this Summer about men in Sweden who has done so horrible things against their families so it has made me very sad.
The Zyklon-B man that I wrote about earlier got nine years in prison, the punishment wasn't longer because nobody died. I think of the children, what a memory to grow up with. Another man struck his daughter 14 times in the head with a wrench in Denmark. She died. The criminal that got half his head chopped off in Vojakkala here, I have written about it before, went to his daughter's school in Karungi the other day, she had fallen when they played and got hurt in the head. He shouted to the staff and the children that he shall kill all there. He is in such a bad shape that he can't sit in prison, he is sentenced to 70 days for another crime, but he can go to school and say that he shall place every body against a wall and shoot them. He looks very gruesome too, now the parents have taken the children from school. Poor girl with that father. Finally, this week a man has killed his ex with a boltgun three hours after she had got the custody of their little children. It happened in a village outside Luleå, her name was Frida Stenberg, 24 years old.The child saw it.He had earlier destroyed the car with the tractor when she was in it. All children need a good start, these children and their families will have these bad memories for the rest of their lifes

Knapsublogg

I use to follow another blogger from Haparanda, www.knapsublogg.blogspot.com, he is very socialdemocratic, I don't know who he is, but he is mostly very interesting to read and he has good pictures. He has also interesting links to other bloggers from this region. He writes in Swedish. Knapsu means a girlish man, a sissy. I saw one yesterday, I know that one shall be openminded, but it felt strange to see this Jan-Olov Madeleine, maybe I have lived in the Valley too long.

A memorable Summer

This Summer is something to remember because I don't usually get so many new impressions and friends, mostly because I never go anywhere, but now, after my Scotland-trip and with this blog I have met more interesting people than before.
I have learnt about Sames and Finnish speaking natives in North America and that Meänkieli and a certain Meänkieliauthor is very important in USA,I had no idea about that before. I have got a Grandson, my youngest son is going to a University on Saturday, the first of my children to do that. I have seen Prince Charles and Camilla, and today I will look at Crownprincess Victoria and her parents.
The Summer is over,it was -5 C last night, and I shall go to work next week.
I came to think of a Monty Python song when I read some of the comments on my post Etnic clean, it's called Never be rude to a nigger. If you read the comments you see what I mean.Hasse,the busdriver I wrote about before is retired, I sort of missed him when he didn't drive the Stockholm bus, I heard that he had been angry to a little old lady, 73 years old. I have also learnt a man to eat Salmon, he didn't like it before, and about whiskytesting in Scotland, many people that I speak with dream of that, it is everywhere there, in ordinary shops, in the taxfree at the Airport, and it is free, costs nothing.

Ethan Noel

The main purpose for my trip to Scotland was to see my Grandson Ethan Noel for the first time, he was born 30/6. It was such a great feeling to hold him the first time,to know that a new generation continues in my family. This is what life is all about, to give birth to children and hope that everything goes well for them. Ethan is now number 20 in my family tree, the first was born 1425. Grandfather Keith has him as number 13 in his new Harri-clan. He is the first Grandchild in both our families. My wife who believes in astrology says that his future will be bright, that he will be successful. I think so too. It is a great joy with grandchildren.

Dolly the sheep

Dolly was the first cloned sheep,it happened in Rosslyn near the chapel I wrote about earlier,we visited the museum in Edinburgh where they showed up Dolly. She looked very much alive complete with shit on the ground and on the backside.
My daughter in law's Grandfather was a pioneer in cloning, according to an article in a LIFE magazine from the sixties, he was involved in cloning experiments. An interesting man, I have mailcontact with him. I didn't know before that Scotland has been first in many branches of Science and Technology. It was free to go in too, we have to pay in Sweden.

Aboriginals

I shall tell you more about the etnic problems here. The Same people is the aboriginal people here, they have lived here thousands of years, the ice age ended 7000 years ago, but as it is in Greenland, there were icefree areas at the Norweigan coast where people lived, the Komsa culture north of Tromsö. The reindeerowning Sames have certain rights to fish,hunt and driving with vehicles in the mountains that others don't have. Here in Tornevalley there is another group Finnish speaking Kväns. Finnish speaking people in Norway is called Kväns. Lapland is called Finnmark in Norway. Finland and Sweden was one country until 1809, when Finland was lost to Russia, the Finnish speaking people on both sides of the Torneriver was divided into two countries. Some of them think that they have been treated very bad by the Swedish Governement, and the last years a new movement has come, the Kväns. They claim that they were here before the Sames, that they shall have the special rights that the Sames have now. Some years ago, in Karesuando,in one of the northernmost schools in Sweden, the Samechildren stayed home from school because of the Kvänchildren. The road signs are in two languages in these areas, and very often the Samesigns have been thrown out in the terrain.

Edinburgh

Edinburgh is full of interesting places, really scary graveyards, I walked there in daylight, but I wouldn't had liked to go there at night, it was Dracula and Frankenstein feeling over them. There were even a house were somebody lived in one of them. In older days there were graverobbers there, so someone lived there to protect the graves. There had been a koncentration camp there too, and there were ghosts and poltergeists, people had been attacked. The Walter Scott monument was impressive, a big statue and a very big tower over it. Sir Walter Scott wrote Ivanhoe. Keith and I walked up to the castle, the oldest chapel is 1000 years old, it is built on an old vulcano, we met the owner of a souvenir shop there, he hadn't opened yet, so he sat there in his underwear and dressed himself in his kilt. He took off the underwear when he had the kilt on, they don't have anything underneath.
The weather changed several times a day, sun,rain,sun again, more rain, I sang a song for myself, It always rains in Edinburgh,Caledonia. It was no problem, I had clothes for it. Most people there had no rainclothes, as I didn't have so much clothes with me, I didn't want to get wet. It was a charm with that too, but I recommend Gore Tex if you go there.

Etnic clean?

I am critical to separatistic movements in Tornevalley as I have written earlier about Bengt Pohjanen. In Haparandabladet 4/8-09 there is a text written by Polo, it says;" And Meänkieli shall us unite, it shall be the bottom and the base, and we all shall be etnic clean, of the Tornevalleykvän rase".
Joseph Goebbels couldn't had said it better. I am so allergic against people who says things like this, look at Bosnia, same movements there.

Okie from Muskogee

Okie from Muskogee is an old country song that by some reason is in my head. When I was in Edinburgh I had to speak English most of the time so that my Canadian friends there should understand me. After a week there I even talked English even if I didn't have to, with my son. I found a friend there, Keith. I sang Okie for myself, and he remembered it too from his youth. This is a little greeting from me, Keith.

Parkbenches Edinburgh-Haparanda

I have been walking around in Edinburgh and in one park there were benches with brass plates with names of donators on them. Very beautiful benches with surface like a sailingboat, not a mark on them. Back in Haparanda, the City has for the first time since I came here put benches between Marielund and central Haparanda, and what happens? Shit happens! I saw one bench today turned over, vandalaized, some Jeesus bullshit was written in Finnish on it. What's the point? why must we who like to walk,walk two km to find a place to sit? It was friendly people there too, I didn't see kids who were kicking on things like it is here. Edinburgh has 100 times more inhabitants than Haparanda, an IKEA, and Centre full of life. Haparanda's is dead. They have also their own Scottish money and flag. Look at that! Meän Kielians.

Scotland

I have always, since I read Walter Scott as a teenager, been interested in Scotland.
Now I have been there in ten days, I am on my way home and I am for the moment in Stockholm. Tomorrow I will go home with Tapani's. Scotland was all that I had hoped it should be, friendly people, a fantastic town, Edinburgh, a beautiful,wild landscape, highlanders with an appearence that I had never imagined, some looked like vikings. I was at a clangathering, Prince Charles and Camilla were there, I saw them on a bigscreen. Some of them had long swords to the ground, some had old fashion tartans, a very long blanket wrapped around them like a kilt and over the shoulder. Some looked like Willie in Simpsons. I saw also a clanleader, a Laird, he had an aura of a man with hundreds of years of tradition behind him. My reason to go to Scotland wasn't this, it's only a bonus, it was to see my Grandson, four weeks old today. His other Grandfather from Canada was there too, we met for the first time, and we became friends. Our first Grandson is a big moment for us. We saw a lot interesting, for example Loch Ness, Rosslyn Chapel, known for the Da Vinci Code. A very interesting thing about that chapel, built 50 years before Columbus is the statues and carvings in the walls. They show corn, an American plant. There was a text there that said that Temle Knights had been in America in the middle of 1300 and met indians who had corn. Many of them we talked with seemed to know their history much more than we know about our. I'll finish here for today, but I will write more about Scotland later.

Zyklon-B

I read today in www.nsd.se about a man who is in court in Luleå for trying to assasinate his ex with Zyklon-B or Uragan as it is called in Czechia, and Cyanide. Zyklon-B is the same gas as they used in Auschwitz. he had put the gas in her car, cyanide in a bottle under her nose, in her Christmas porrige and Zyklon-B on paper outside her door, he has also druged her and raped her.He had gas enough for killing 42000 people, and says that he should only scare her. The gas is for rats, he says. He is in chains in court, it is very seldom that happens. He is an ordinary Swedish man, and I notice that there are very few comments about this compared if a Gypsy chops a criminal in the head with an axe. I wonder how many comments it had been if a Gypsy or an immigrant had done it.

Nameology

The names of places here in the neighbourhood can seem to be Finnish, but are often Swedish or Pre-Nordic. One example is Röyttä, South of Haparanda in Finland. The Swedish colonizers came here by boat 700 years ago and gave names to islands and shores in their language, which is similar to the Kalix dialect. An old Swedish word for stony shore is gryt, in Pre-Nordic, Kalix dialect it is gröyt. They came here,saw a stony shore and called it Gröyt. The Finns can't say two consonants in the beginning of a word, so they called it Röyttä. An other example is the island Kraaseli. Gråsäl, Grey Seal, Kraaseli. In Luleå one island is called Gråsjälören. One island in the Torne river is named by Germans, Tanskinsaari, Danzig Island. Danzig is now called Gdansk, in Poland. An interesting word is the name of the island Suutari, shoemaker. In Latin sutor means shoemaker,taylor. In ancient English sutere and Eng. dialect souter.In ancient Sw. sutare,swthar. In Sw. the island is called Skomakaren. There is also a fish named sutare.

Hasse, the busdriver

I will go on my annual bustrip to Stockholm, 1100 km, on Saturday, after that to Skavsta Airport, Nyköping and Ryan Air to Edinburgh. I use to go with Tapani's bus every year. they change driver in Sundsvall, Hasse takes over, he is the buscompany's answer on Basil Fawlty, always angry if the passengers put the bags wrong, don't know the bookingnumber and so on. He was angry to many people the first time I heard him, even to me because I had asked if i could go off the bus in Haparanda. I had the ticket to Tornio. It is cheaper to buy the ticket from Tornio because they reduce a tax when you travel over the border to Finland. It is only 500 meters between the two bus stations. He had already put in my bag to Tornio and didn't like to move it.
It is the same every year, I listen what he has to say, if he is angry to somebody. I even said it to Tapani's once at a market that I have never seen that kind of busdriver before. It is cheap to take the bus, only 900 SEK to Stockholm and back to Haparanda. But it takes 16 hours one way. Luleå-Stockholm with Norweigan is also cheap,600 SEK, but it costs money to go from Haparanda to Kallax Airport. I recommend you who is keen on visiting north Sweden, take the bus, www.tapanis .se, they drive three times a week. Norweigan has plans for a direct flight from Luleå to maybe, it's not sure, London. One alternative is to go from Helsinki to Kemi, Finland, it is only 25 km from Haparanda. There is a famous snowcastle in Kemi every winter. This was a little touristinformation, I use to do that too from time to time.

The Northbothnian way of saying yes (Sw. ja)

There are many various dialects in Sweden, in Skåne, southernmost Sweden they use a lot of vocals and diphtongs, yes (Sw. ja) is jeou in Skånish, Roger is Rougörr. In Gothenburg yes is ja vesst. The Northbothnian, my way, of saying yes is the most timesaving way of speaking in the world, we say yes when we inhale. We say jo when we take a breath. It is like whisteling backwards. The Sames say it in a different way, they start in the back of the throat like a Hindu. Joo.