Finland in 5th place Blog Explosion Radio Top Countries
Mood:  celebratory
Now Playing: Midnight train to Georgia - Gladys Knight And The Pips
Topic: Music
Since we first introduced Bloxplosion Radio to Finland in February the Online Radio Channel for Bloggers (We Blog To Our Own Beat) has been seeing a relatively quick uptake in Finland, now in Fifth place.

Top Countries

1. United States (3113)
2. Canada (134)
3. Netherlands (117)
4. United Kingdom (53)
5. Finland (42)
6. Switzerland (31)
7. Japan (11)
8. Spain (9)
9. Argentina (9)
10.Norway (8)

Tune in to BE Radio from Helsinki Times Music Studio

Traffic Report
Mood:  incredulous
Now Playing: As Time Goes By
Topic: Technology
Helsinki Times is getting more and more visitors, even from Finland nowadays: 20% of the visitors of the Helsinki Times website are from Finland.

Most visitors are from the United States (23%), while also Germany, Italy, Canada, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom are among the most visiting countries.

That doesn't mean that Helsinki Times is not read anywhere else in the world. Just this week, we've welcomed visitors from faraway places like Brunei, United Arab Emirates, Venezuela, Costa Rica, Macedonia, Japan, Taiwan, you name it, alltogether over 60 countries.

I like that about the internet. How people can 'travel' at the push of a button ;)

Closed for Easter
Mood:  hug me
Now Playing: We Are All Made of Stars - Moby - 18
Topic: News
Because of the easter celebrations most of the shops will be closed this Friday and Next Monday. Also offices are being given time off.

This may cause a run of many people on the supermarkets today, because people do groceries for 4 days.

Post offices, Alko, and Banks will also be closed and will open first next Tuesday.

Of course if one runs out of groceries one can still go to the Pikkolo shops or gas stations that double as mini-markets, or go out for dinner and enjoy the city.

Happy Easter!

Anne Gray's creative writing course
Mood:  energetic
Now Playing: Bonzo&T?un
Topic: Language
Today, two editors of Helsinki Times participated in a creative writing course. The course took place in Kallio Library and was held by Mrs. Anne Gray from Scotland.

Under inspirative guidance the "pupils" (about a dozen of them) had to write two little stories and read those out load to the others. It was quite a task even for people who make a living out of everyday writing in one form or another.

The first topic was "A clothing item I am wearing right now". It was amazing what kind of touching, funny, descriptive and personal stories people came up within 15 minutes about their shirts, pants, socks and necklaces. It felt almost like as if we actually don't even realise, what kind of historical packages we are carrying with us every day by a simple choice in the morning - what to wear today.

The second topic was "Somebody I like". Once again, there was a large variety of approaching the subject - the best friends, own children, father-in-laws, shopping bodies and pets were taken into a brief but intimate focus. In those short stories one could live for a moment in another person's inner world. This is what writing should be about.

There will be eight gatherings of this group this spring. The editors intend to attend all of those and hopefully, as an outcome of Anne Gray's initiative, you will read better quality stories on this web site in the future.

WorldWide Quality of Living Study
Mood:  quizzical
Now Playing: God Killed the Queen - Louis XIV -The Best Little Secrets Are Kept
Topic: News
Subjective as they might be, it is always interesting to find out how they come to the end results in any 'Worldwide Quality of Living Study' (Scroll down to see the overal scores).

This study by Mercer was conducted between September and November 2005 and covers over 350 cities, that were evaluated on 39 different topics such as political, social, economic, and environmental parameters, like education, public services, recreation, consumer goods and housing.

New York is taken as the base city with an index score of 100.

In the results, we learn that in this study Helsinki is ranked in a shared 28/29th place, having the same score as Adelaide, Australia, only two places below Honolulu.