I’m now, rather unexpectedly but not entirely unhappily, entering the fourth and final week of my summer vacation and can honestly say that the stressed-outness mentioned on the previous post is presently only a distant fleeting memory. I’m also quite certain that I’m thoroughly unable to fit in anymore when it’s time to return to the kind of work you actually get paid for, in actual money, instead of this “writing down a word then another word then another until they form a sentence”-thing which sometimes feels like very hard work, although usually not, and only very seldomly if ever leads to the kind of situations where I’m paid in actual money for what I’ve written.

A close friend of mine called me a few days ago and asked if I was interested in coming up with an albums’ worth of lyrics for a project he’s starting up. The concept as he explained it sounded very good and challenging and as I haven’t got anything relevant to focus on at the moment, with all the needed Sinisthra lyrics completed, I accepted and am now wondering if I’m able to deliver what I promised to deliver. It’s an all-stars kind of project involving various well known Finnish metal musicians and I’m happy to have a minor part in it.

That was the mandatory musical activities blah blah part. The situation of Sinisthra remains unchanged so there’s no need to further whine about it now. As soon as I’ve written and posted this, I will step outside on the streets and sell the album to the first person in the music business I stumble upon. Here’s some holiday photos.

It’s been a lousy summer in Finland so far with unreasonably low temperatures and heavy rain almost daily so it was lovely to stop complaining about the weather in Helsinki and fly out to Costa Del Sol for a week. One might find a thing or two to complain about the weather in Spain as well if one was willing to (but is not at the moment) with the temperature rising to 40 celsius in the afternoon, but we welcomed it all with open arms and immediately after arriving at the house we were staying in, removed most of our clothes permanently. During the hottest hours I was forced to consider what else to remove after removing most of the clothes already and still feeling uncomfortable, and the only option seemed to be to remove all of the clothes and try to avoid getting your private parts sunburned. This somehow restricts the amount of photos I’m prepared to put on display here since as far as aesthetically pleasing sights go, a naked and sweating 38-year old male who doesn’t work out regularly (but is planning to start any day now) isn’t up there in the Top 100 of Wonderful Things To Ogle At.


Here’s me with a map, assuring the Loved One that of course I know where we are and yes the place where we’re heading for seems to be located just around the corner. The amount of one way streets and cul-de-sacs caused a lot of distress and after going astray you couldn’t take shortcuts but had to retrace your steps and start again. The streets took a hapless tourist to unexpected places and heightened states of frustration and although clearly leading from place A to place B on the map and on the way crossing several other streets, never seemed to do so in real life. This reminded me of a theory presented by Robert Rankin in one of his books. If you take a map of the world and try to wrap it around a globe you’ll find out it will not cover the whole globe. These bits that are left out are called Forbidden Zones and you can only enter them if you have the special means needed to do so. The book is probably called “Raiders Of The Lost Car Park”, I can’t be bothered to check out right now. Look it up if you felt your curiosity aroused, and while you’re at it, check out the whole bibliography of mr. Rankin. There’s good stuff in there.

We were very fortunate to have a bicycle at our disposal. Otherwise the trips to local supermarket would have taken more than we had in us, what with all the 6-litre bottles of drinking water and other liquids we carried into the house and poured into ourselves to stay alive in the heat. The local supermarket had a selection of very reasonably priced wines, starting at 1,15€ a bottle. We were not brave enough to try them out. The ones we tried out, starting at 3€ a bottle were all unreasonably horrible but the reds went well when poured into sangria and the whites went well when poured down the kitchen sink.

The Spanish albarino white wine is utterly lovely and I hunted down numerous bottles of it in various locations from around the town. It’s quite expensive compared to other types of wine they have on offer, mostly costing over 10€ a bottle but I was happy to fork out the money when I found a bottle I was looking for, and extremely happy (as the picture shows) when the opposite of getting short-changed happened in one liquid store. The price was 11.95€, I gave 12€ and the clerk at the desk gave me 8€ back instead of the 5 cents I was due. I opened my mouth to rectify the situation, then quickly thought again and only uttered a heartfelt “muchos gracias” and left the store. God rectified this a few days later when I was charged an outrageous amount of money for two beers at the local zoo. Thanks, God. Keep the change.


Here’s me, all out at sea but enjoying it very much anyway, and suddenly remembering that Sinisthra has no recording contract. And later on, here’s also me, The BBQ Master Of Wieners And Other Stuff That’s Easy To BBQ, suddenly having forgotten that Sinisthra has no recording contract.

My fingertips are all typed out now. And, judging by the amount of thoughts sloshing around in my head, there’s still a lot to write out. This writing out of thoughts is now rescheduled to take place tomorrow since now I need to go outside for a bit. Summer seems to be happening outdoors at the moment and I don’t want to miss its’ happening entirely.

THIS WEEKS' BOTTLES OF CHOICE: