And thus we have entered the final (and about seventh, by my calculations, based on how long it has felt) week of November and a good week it has been so far, what with the time being half past noon already on a Monday afternoon as I write this and nothing unpleasant having taken place so far. In a burst of spontaneous slackness I took the initiative and prolonged my weekend on both ends, taking last Friday off from work, and not bothering to go in today, either. No one has called and inquired as to my whereabouts, not very surprisingly in the light of current developments in the weather front and how it affects everything in my line of work. Yesterday morning the streets were barren, black and dry, and now the world is filled with snow. It started to pour down yesterday afternoon and has been going on for most of the night as well, judging by the amount of it. The overall feeling is surreal and dreamlike, partly because of me having skipped work and partly because of the muted and immaculate quality of the view outside my kitchen window. The layer of snow on the trashbins looks to be at least 40cm thick. The trees loom large and seem to have acquired entirely new forms of gnarled shapes. The caretaker radiates the bleak air of a man defeated, shoveling away among the towering snowdrifts. The bears tear at the corpses of unfortunate postmen whose mailsacks are blown open in the icy wind and the wolves gnaw at the bones of hapless ex-janitors who fought the storms of last night and lost. All this in my backyard. I wonder what it must be like in the streets out there but am not that eager to go and find out. I’m very content here, now, indoors, reading a book of latin aphorisms and preparing adventurously marinated garlic cloves to pester (and present) the relatives with come Christmas. In crastinum differo res severas.

Almost completely unrelated to anything at all, here’s the “Happy Happy Joy Joy”-song by Ren and Stimpy.

THIS WEEKS’ BOTTLES OF CHOICE:
La Cuvée Mythique, red wine from France. Here’s what it says (among the usual blah blah promises of outstanding quality and earth shattering drinking experience) on the label of the bottle: “Since 1990, a group of wine growers in the South of France decided to create a “mythical” wine that would express the best that the Languedoc has to offer. To symbolise the painstaking task of tending vines in an untamed environment, they chose the Owl of Minerva, the goddess who taught men how to master Nature.” And true enough, the Owl gawps at you, in an enigmatic way, from the mythical label, probably symbolising and expressing all kinds of things among which I’m sadly forced to count also The Mediocrity So Often Present In Red Wines. I really wanted to like this wine very much but couldn’t find anything remarkable to say about it no matter how I tried. Very decent and very forgettable. I breathed in the unextraordinary scent of it, marvelled at its’ almost black colour, gurgled, smacked my lips and swallowed down to get the hang of the taste of it and still couldn’t think of a better description than “nice”. Which, of course, is extremely preferable to, say, “unnice”. The Owl of Minerva, of course, is not something to be dealt with lightly, but I’m quite sure I can’t be bothered to buy this wine again.

La Guita Manzanilla, sherry from Spain. I’ve always overlooked fortified wines, probably for good reasons, but I’ve also always kind of lumped them together in my mind, port, sherry, madeira and what have you. Recently, the craving to taste sherry has been nagging, unexplainably, in the back of my mind. So I went out and got a small bottle of this bone dry manzanilla sherry, and some olives and manchego cheese to go with it, not knowing what to expect. I’m able to survive without olives but the combination of sherry and manchego was marvellous and really impressed me. This clearly was my best experience ever on combining wine and cheese and I will definitely start keeping a bottle of sherry in the drinks cabinet from now on, to wash down my experiments with tapas once I get going with this book of tapas recipes I recently acquired. Drinking sherry without food could turn out to be too much for a novice such as I although me and the Loved One were able to finish the 0,375 sized bottle in only two days.

Cidraie, cider from France. “Just as the ladybird associated to its name, Cidraie can be placed on any table and make any moment of the day sparkle.” Said to be the flagship and most sold cider in France and utterly lovely and charming it is too. I hadn’t had this for too long a time but after finding myself in an actual bar a few days ago gladly had several bottles and was pleasantly reminded that this is my favourite of all the ciders I’ve tasted. With the alcohol content of only 4% it’s easy to drink 3 or 4 bottles of this without turning into a drunken nuisance. I’m very partial to this cidre blond indeed and the only downside to it is it’s limited availability and rather a steep price in Finnish bars.

November. If you gaze long into November, November will gaze back into you. It’s not even necessary to gaze as such, stealing a tiny glimpse will do just as well to attract the attention of November. And once its’ focus is set on you, you will wither under its’ stare. I have strong evidence on this, based on self-observation. November is hardly a walk in the park at the best of times, on years when a dry and gentle autumn has ventured deep into the enemy territory that is winter, refusing to give up the stage but bullheadedly carrying on regardless of what the calender might say about the changing of seasons. I like those prolonged autumns a lot, the kind that go on and on until suddenly it’s Christmas, snow falls and covers everything overnight and the temperature drops below zero to a comfortably dry and crisp frost. Tidily and neatly changing seasons. I’d like to have more of those thank you very much.

Of course it’s absurdly too much to ask. The wet, rainy and cold season seems to take six months of the year nowadays. Sometimes it grudgingly gives way to another wet, rainy and slightly less colder season like it did this year. Titles like “summer” and “winter” are becoming obsolete and increasingly non-descriptive of these new seasons. We need to invent new, more suitable terms to apply to these new divisions of the year. Were I not so daunted by this November, I’d gladly take on this task of renaming our two remaining seasons. An autumnish one with echoes of winters gone by and an occasional flicker of proper coldness, forever looming in the horizon, and another one, distantly resembling spring with a faint promise of summer that will mostly remain unfulfilled. I would launch the new more fitting names right here, right now, were I not so daunted by this November. But I am, so I won’t.

And this years’ November isn’t even of the worst kind. There’s probably been many that were a lot worse but I have mercifully forgotten about them. But this year November drains my energy more thoroughly than it has for a long time, this year it sits on my chest heavier than it usually does and this year it holds my zest for life by the throat more firmly and with much more determination than on average years. So it’s a slight inconvenience.

Knowing it will pass makes it easier to tolerate, and feeling down now and then is healthy. But. I’ve been too tired lately to do anything significant. I’ve been too tired to think about anything too complicated. I’ve been too tired to stay awake from morning to evening. I haven’t been too tired to feel frustrated about getting nothing done though, and feeling frustrated about getting nothing done doesn’t improve one’s chances of getting something done at all. I feel I’ve had my healthy dose of feeling down by now and I’m very very ready to let this state of mind pass already. I need the Sun to shine extensively on my hypothalamus and various other places as well while it’s at it. Sadly this, too, is absurdly too much to ask at the moment.

THIS WEEKS’ SOURCE OF DELIGHT:
The surprise birthday party of my dear friend Markku last Saturday. It was utterly, utterly lovely and just the kind of thing that helps to keep going and survive this desolate season.

THIS WEEKS’ BOOKS OF CHOICE:
The Da-Da-De-Da-Da Code by Robert Rankin. This months’ book of choice morelike, since I’ve been reading it for the past three weeks. The link, once again, describes the book much better and much more in detail than I would. Robert Rankin is among my all-time favourite authors and I’ve always enjoy his books, to some extent at least. Although, to be honest, I can’t remember when was the last time “this is brilliant” came to mind when reading a book of his. The past five years or so have seen a considerable drop of standard in his characters, plots and, well, the overall quality of everything in fact and his latest novels have been very forgettable and full of old ideas recycled and/or repeated. Therefore it’s all the more surprising and delightful to find out that his 29^th novel is probably the best he’s ever written, or at least among the very best ones. I enjoyed it immensely and right now it feels like I might still be able to remember the main parts of the plot in a few months’ time from now which certainly hasn’t been the case with some of his weaker efforts.

“A headless corpse was floating on the ornamental pond. It troubled the view and it troubled the ducks and it troubled the two park rangers.” With these opening lines it instantly grabbed me and went on to showcase Rankin at his sharpest and wittiest, with a good storyline for a change and his usual mannerisms unusually entertaining and funny. Familiarly it all culminated in an almighty explosion, as it so often does in his novels, but even the ending was a fresh one now and somehow quite touching too.

THIS MONTHS’ ALBUM OF CHOICE:
I may have stated in previous blog entries that Genesis, to me, is The Most Important Band Ever. This is not true. Marillion has been, still is and will infinitely continue to be Above Everything and Beyond Comparison. I left them behind for 10 years in mid-90’s when they started coming up with albums I found appalling and empty of qualities I used to look for and find in their music. On 2004 they set everything straight again and restored my faith in them with a stunning “Marbles” double album. Unfortunately the follow-up to that album included only one song that I could honestly call brilliant. So with mixed feelings have I waited for their new release, again a double album, called “Happiness Is The Road”. And now it’s here, and for the first week it sounded like if the previous single album’s great tracks numbered one, this new double one’s great tracks are none. But I’ve given it time, patiently, playing it over and over and over again, for hours at a time, refusing to accept my at first enormous disappointment, and now I feel the album has found its’ place in my heart and time will show how well it can establish its’ position as a rightful owner of that place. “This Train Is My Life” is at the start of the album, and “Real Tears For Sale” finishes it. In between all kinds of things happen and emotions emerge, some of which would have been better left off the album. There should be strict regulations against making double albums because the weaker songs always, always drag down the overall quality of the album, no matter how brilliant the stronger songs might be.

Here’s a video for “Whatever Is Wrong With You”.

THIS WEEKS’ BOTTLES OF CHOICE:
Petit Bourgeois Sauvignon, white wine from France. This came recommended by a wine guide and if it wouldn’t have, I would probably never have thought to buy it. And would have missed out on an amazing and utterly adorable wine. Of course I then wouldn’t have been aware of any kind of loss on my part because technically there wouldn’t have been a loss. All the sauvignon blancs I’d tasted previously had been kind of so-so, even the French ones, but this one from Loire Valley changed everything. The first suspicious sip from the glass filled my mouth with a harmoniously delicate and fruity sensation of summer in liquid form and washed away all the scepticism in an instant. The wine complemented the food beautifully, and yet it overshadowed it too, to the point of wiping away the memory of what the actual food was, although it was only a week ago. No need to point out that the whole bottle was gulped down during the evening by me and The Loved One, who loved it as much as I did, and we went out and bought another bottle of this only a few days afterwards. Normally a bottle of white lasts for at least two days in our household, and never before have I rushed out to buy another bottle so quickly. This was up there with the best albarinos I’ve had, with a lower price and a much better availability in Finland. Definitely a favourite to recommend to anyone and to elevate the deflated spirits of late autumn by bringing a little summer into November.

Norton Barrel Select Cabernet Sauvignon, red wine from Argentina. As November clearly calls for extreme measures, this was opened on a particularly bleak Monday evening to brighten and enliven things for a bit, and it did just that, without leaving much of an impression. Cabernet seems to be an ideal choice for drinking in larger quantities (although this didn’t happen on this particularly bleak Monday evening). It tasted watered down and thin in an easy and uncomplicated way. I wouldn’t have two glasses of this but one glass served its’ purpose well enough. It was recommended by a wine guide too but clearly me, my mouth and the stars were in a position that prevented me from enjoying it more.

Laroche Chardonnay, white wine from France. Another wine guide recommendation but nowhere near the loveliness of Petit Bourgeois. It was ok with creamy chicken pasta but on its’ own a bit too fruity and full for my taste, with a hint of something probably indentified as apples. The Loved One liked this much more than I did. I’ve yet to taste a chardonnay that would impress me. We soldiered on and gulped down the whole bottle during the evening (as it was Friday evening) but it took some effort and I don’t see myself buying this again in a hurry. Actually I don’t see myself buying this again at all.

Well Grandma’s still alive (although not exactly kicking, I’d presume) so it’s no use moping around and feeling miserable about it all the time. Of course my overall mood tends to drop towards melancholy when I think about her but grieving in advance will not lessen the amount of actual grieving one bit, when the time comes around for that. So, preparations have been made and steps have been taken to perk up and not feel sorry for myself and the inevitable loss. One has availed oneself of alcohol in large quantities, causing bodily tiredness but also smoothness of mind. One has ordered the sun to shine and quite amazingly, against all odds and expectations, during the past few days it has done just that, shining very brightly and nicely in an entirely non-Novemberish way. One also summoned one’s brother and his family to visit for one’s brother’s kids are of the variety whose company is guaranteed to put a healthy (and at times weary, too) smile on ones’ face. This didn’t fail to happen this time either. It’s impossible not to feel better after having observed one’s nephew (pictured here in his pacifier-ridden phase of life) derive such pleasure from intently running some 50 times around a single pillow placed on the floor. And to top it all, one popped into the internet and booked a flight to London for oneself and one’s Loved One, with hotel room reservations and a firm resolution to visit all kinds of museums, restaurants and bookstores but also to enjoy the much needed leisure.

THIS WEEKS’ GLIMPSE INTO VISUAL ARTISTRY:
To me the name Rubens brings to mind only ladies with generously proportioned bottoms. Quite a generalization, I know, what with the works of this Old Master apparently being amongst the most valued paintings of all time. Still, my only impression of him is his fixation on large and exposed female backsides. Or was, until I saw his portrayal of the Roman God Saturnus, in the act of devouring his own son. Fearing a prophecy that one of his children would overthrow him, Saturnus ate each of his children upon their birth. No secretive smiles and exposed backsides here but sheer naked terror and anguish, in graphic and ghastly detail. I was aware of Francisco de Goya’s take on the same subject, being a lot more familiar with the works of Goya in general, but the earlier version of Rubens is way more disturbing and frightening, with Saturn oozing cold calculation and determination but not insanity at all. This lack of the absolving cushion and the excuse of madness makes the scene way more shocking and effective. See for yourself.

Hmm. The two pictures of this post may seem a bit contradictory to some. But not to me and I can safely say that although they both feature a boy child the similarities are purely coincidental and I wouldn’t be interested in devouring my nephew at all, him being the entirely lovely little fellow he is, and me not being a paranoid member of the pantheon of Roman gods at all.

Anyway, returning briefly to the painting itself. It didn’t make me a big fan of Rubens but it made me pay more attention to his works. “Two Satyrs” somehow reeks of evil too, in a very unsettling way. Look at those eyes.

THIS WEEKS’ BOTTLES OF CHOICE:
Chianti Colli Senesi from Tuscany, Italy. Lasagne needed company and chianti was an apt and fitting choice. This was during a dinner party for four people, and after a bottle of cava (Castellblanch Cristal, my current favourite when it comes to cavas) for aperitif and another of albarino with the antipasti I must admit that my recollections of this chiantis’ specific characteristics are a bit on the hazy side. In the light of this it’s a bit surprising that the after-dinner bottle of Santa Helena Varietal Cabernet Sauvignon from Chile left such a clear and positive impression. For the price of 6 euros this is a remarkably good wine, somewhat yeasty of taste, pleasantly light and mildly sparkly at the tongue, although the wine itself definitely wasn’t sparkling at all, it just tasted that way. Warmly recommended whenever in need of budget priced red wine that’s easy to drink. Might be a decent partner for some kind of food as well. Might not be worth the bother of finding out which food, though.