So I’m back in Helsinki. What can I say, I like the place. Christmas always seems more natural when you’re inadvertently gliding on black ice or dodging slabs of melting snow that had grown bored of life on the rooftops. Glögi is a fine, fine thing and if you believe the rumours, even Santa Claus hails from these parts. If it’s good enough for the fat man, its good enough for me.

So Saturday just gone was Finnish Independence Day, in itself no bad thing. But instead of being celebrated like any of the other 2,500+ national Finnish celebrations – where you might light three candles and spin twice, balance a slew of berries on one shoulder or answer the door to a torrent of song from young girls in pinafores – Finnish Independence Day sets aside a very special form of torture.

Yes, at 7pm sharp on the 6th December, life as we know it – in Helsinki at least – takes a drastic turn for the worse. For the next three hours any Finn of any note ever forms a black tie line-up to meet and greet the President. And I’m talking any Finn, of any note, ever! Weather girls, lowly politicos, pop idol contestants, Eurovision also-rans, the list is long and nauseating. The action repetitive and self-indulgent.

And far from presenting itself as a sound reason to leave the house or at the very least, change the channel, the majority of Finns I know sit glued to this spectacle. They actually look forward to it and plan little events around it.

Still, you can leave the room, I hear you cry! Normally, without question, but on this occasion I was at one of these little events – a house-warming – where all the action took place in a tight-knit semi-circle around the tele. I was doomed to one hundred and eighty minutes of hellish teev, that is, until I was introduced to the Criminally Bad Elf.

The Criminally Bad Elf was a not a kleptomaniacal escapee from Santa’s Grotto as the name implies, but rather a British barleywine weighing in a hefty 10.5% alcoholic volume. And after a pint of it’s berry flavoured loveliness I could have been the President for all I knew.

So my advice to you when next you’re confronted with a night of local customs that you’d rather flee than endure, invite the Elf and get updates from a friend the following day. It worked for me.

Me: So I’m thinking of giving this whole blogging thing a bit of a go. What do you think?

My Friend: A blog, what the hell for? Haven’t you got like ten web-sites sitting out there silently gathering cyber-dust already? Why not re-vamp one of them?

Me: Because I want to write what I want to write, when I want to write it, I’m slightly aroused by the ease with which I can incorporate WordPress plugins and none of my sites up until now have had a yellow logo……but mainly the writing thing.

My Friend: What are you going to call it?

Me: Astray buffet dot com.

My Friend: Ashtray buffet, you don’t even smoke, that’s just weird!

Me: No, astray buffet.

My Friend: Oh……that’s weird too, and nonsensical!

Me: So what, it rhymes. That’s important right?

My Friend: What are you going to write about?

Me: I dunno, all sorts of stuff.

My Friend: You’re going to get on your soapbox aren’t you?

Me: No!

My Friend: I bet you will. You’re going to rip the piss out of easy targets like late night informercialists, Judge Judy and Eastern European fashionistas.

Me: Easy tiger!

My Friend: You’re going to rant and rave about the fundamental genius in films like The Kentucky Fried Movie and Top Secret, you’re going to rally for the return of Arrested Development and you’re going to call for the culling of a largish percentage of TV chefs.

Me: So?

My Friend: I bet you’ll write a piece a week pretending to be someone else like a Russian oil tanker captain, a Moldovan farmer or a Cuban dissident. You’ll play on national stereotypes, prefix every noun with about eight adjectives and look for cheap laughs using gutter humour.

Me: You going to take a breath?

My Friend: You’re going to incessantly bang on about how crucial coffee is to morning productivity, you’ll wax lyrical about advancements in toothbrush and razor blade technology and you’ll talk with forged authority on far away places that you know no-one else has visited. One day in a fit of desperation after a prolonged bout of writer’s block you’ll share your chicken and mushroom risotto recipe with your oh-so-lucky readership, building it up to be some top-secret ambrosia and not the crunchy white mud it is.

Me: I hate you!

My Friend: You’ll blather on about Formula 1 and Le Tour de France like you know an air intake valve from a 48 tooth sprocket and I’ll put money on you eventually mentioning you wish you: a) could play the guitar b) were a carpenter and c) had perfect teeth. Oh……and I bet there will be some links to your second rate photography somewhere on……are you crying? You are aren’t you, you’re crying! You’re bloody pathetic, you know that! I’m outta here!