Helena Halme's Blog, page 38

I've won an Alice Award!

I am absolutely thrilled and amazed that the lovely people at Displaced Nation have given The Red King of Helsinki an Alice Award!

Here is what the Alice Award is all about:

Displaced Dispatch presents an “Alice Award” to a writer who we think has a special handle on the curious and unreal aspects of the displaced life of global residency and travel. Not only that, but this person likes to use their befuddlement as a spur to creativity.




To be honest, when I thought of a name for my Cold War Russian spy character, I wasn't thinking of the Red King in Through the Looking Glass. Strangely, though, my King does have some connotations with the 'baddie' in Lewis Carroll's ageless tale.

If Carroll intended to portray the red side of the chess-game as being representative of the negative sides of human nature, then the vice he had in mind for the Red King was idleness.

Well, Kovtun isn't idle, but he certainly has some negative sides to his character!

Plus for me, even to be mentioned in the same sentence as such a classic writer, makes my head spin more than Alice's ever did.

Thank You Displaced Nation!
Here is the full list of all the hugely deserving Alice Award recipients.


I am in receipt of an Alice Award!

Finnish Music Video

Daughter showed me this when I was talking about a Finnish singer called Danny this morning. (Like you do). I laughed so hard that I very nearly peed my pants.



'See what I saved you from,' said the Englishman.

To be fair this video is from a 1970's TV show (I think and hope!) and Danny was never my favourite…sorry my fellow Finns, but this is truly funny.

Another 5:2 Diet Update

Today is my second fast day this week, but I haven't been so very good lately…

Since the start of summer, I've had weeks when I haven't even managed one fast day and unfortunately this shows. I've gone up four kilos, so my total loss is now at a mere 4 kilos since I started the Fast Diet about a year ago.

The reasons behind my fall from grace have been many.

Holidays are always a hard time to do a fast, and to be honest, in Provence I didn't even really try. How can you fast when your family are all expert cooks in their field? We have a master baker, a Spanish drinks expert and the rest are just general foodies. And there was an outdoor BBQ, and we were surrounded by vineyards. My love of French rose and champagne is well known.

Another reason may be that the Englishman, having lost the weight he intended to, is now permanently on the 6:1 regime, and annoyingly, he seems to be able to do it even on holiday. Having the bloody extra 100 calories helps, I'm sure! (Men do have it easy in every way, right???) Because I've been on my own for the second fast day in the week I've found it more difficult to stick to the 500 calories. Even if the Englishman's routine shouldn't matter to me, it does.


But I hate the feeling I get from having that extra weight back on, so I am again determined to try to lose the additional bulge, hence it's strictly back to 2 fast days per week!

I'm lucky that Daughter is now at home and also on the 5:2. She has a steely determination (where did she get that from??), which helps. And then there's this wonderfully active Facebook group, so I should be fine, right?
Makes a 'Scream' face.

Book Review: Tread Softly by JJ Marsh

I read Tread Softly by JJ Marsh while on holiday in Provence, and although the book is set in Spain rather than France, the theme of wine and food suited my mood perfectly. This was my first introduction to Beatrice Stubbs, a police detective from the Metropolitan Police, who in Tread Softly is on a sabbatical in Northern Spain, with a plan to sample the regions fine wine and foods.

Beatrice's holiday in Spain is interrupted when an old acquaintance, the young and strikingly beautiful investigate reporter, Ana, asks for her help to track down a missing colleague. Before she can stop herself, Beatrice is knee-deep in intrigue and corruption, and getting into trouble not only with the police in Spain but also with her bosses back in London. 

Tread Softly is a brilliantly executed police drama. The start is quite violent, and I was a little afraid there’d be more scenes like that (The Englishman says I can't watch anyone break as much as a fingernail in police drams on the telly). But I needn’t have worried, because although there are more scenes like the first one, the violence is never gratuitous, or too gory. The character of Beatrice, an older woman with some stress-induced mental health issues, is very well drawn. The reader is often made to feel very worried about Beatrice, and at the same time in awe of her persistent, and intelligent, pursuit of justice.

The story is skilfully paced, with lovely, atmospheric descriptions of the Spanish town of Vitoria, as well as the food and wine Beatrice manages to consume in spite of the intensity of her investigations. After reading Tread Softly, I downloaded the other two detective novels by JJ Marsh, featuring Beatrice Stubbs. I can’t wait to devour them in the same quick manner as I did Tread Softly. 

Tread Softly by JJ Marsh 
is published by Triskele Books
www.triskelebooks.com
£6.99 Paperback£2.68 Kindle version

Free book offer!

For a very limited time, you can download my Cold War spy novel, The Red King of Helsinki, FREE!

Click here for your free copy of this wintry tale of lies, spies and gymnastics on Amazon.co.uk and here for Amazon.com.


This crazy summer holiday offer starts today, Saturday 27th July and ends Wednesday 31st July.


The Red King of Helsinki 

Nordic Noir meets Cold War Espionage.
Pia’s ambitions to win a gymnastics competition between her Helsinki college and a school from Moscow trigger a set of dangerous events when her best friend disappears and a violent KGB spy, The Red King of Helsinki, threatens her. Will a friendly British ex-navy officer, Iain, be able to save Pia before its too late?

This fast-moving novel, set in Finland, has everything - a young, feisty protagonist, Nordic Noir and old-fashioned chivalry.

Happy reading and if you really like this offer, please hit the share button!

And if, after you've read my novel, you'd like to share your thoughts on The Red King of Helsinki, a review on Amazon or Goodreads would be much appreciated!

The Royal Baby Boy!

I wonder if the first night of Kate and William's newborn baby was as disturbed as ours. In our part of North London the heavens opened during Monday night. Violent storms with thunder and lighting raged until the early hours of Tuesday morning. As dawn broke, the weather was only a touch cooler, but as soon as the sun peeked out again, temperatures soared and we were in for another scorcher of a day in the city.

While I was trying to get my bleary-eyed self into gear and into the office in Camden yesterday morning, journalists and Royal followers were in a frenzy of reporting and expectations for that elusive glimpse of the new heir to the English throne. Outside the hospital, they waited and waited, while a steady queue of people ran past the scroll bearing the news of the birth at Buckingham Palace.

At around noon there was news of Kate's hairdresser being spotted entering the Lindo Wing of St Margaret's Hospital and that two gun salutes were also happening that afternoon in London; one in Green Park and another by the Tower Bridge. Since I was stuck in the office all day, I sent my very willing roving reporter @shmonn to capture some of the action, and here's what she came back with.

The King's Troop Royal Horse Artillery in full dress uniform...  performing a 41 gun salute in Green Park, London. Reporters were sited under cover outside Buckingham Palace
You can just see the scroll announcing the news of the birth of a baby boy .And here's the first appearance of Prince George yesterday with his very proud-looking parents, Kate and William.

Photo: mirror.co.uk

Interview with Swanlake Reloaded Director Fredrik Rydman

Since its premiere in 1895, Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake has been an inspiration for generations of choreographers and directors. Now Sweden’s Fredrik Rydman brings Swan Lake Reloaded - where Tchaikovsky meets Street Dance - to the London Coliseum for seven performances only from 6 – 10 August 2013.
Fredrik RydmanThose of my friends who've seen Swan Lake Reloaded in Stockholm, tell me Rydman has created an eclectic mixture of street and contemporary dance, which fuses with modern technology to transport Swan Lake into the 21st century. I've not yet had a chance to see this re-imaginined version of the classic ballet, but knowing as I do Rydman from his time as a member of Bounce, the dance company which staged the Michael Jackson tribute street dance 'Beat It' on Stockholm's Sergel's Torg in 2009, I know I'm in for a treat.

You may imagine, therefore, how delighted I was to be asked to interview Fredrik about the forthcoming debut of Swan Lake Reloaded in London. (He ain't bad looking either, which obviously had nothing to do with  my enthusiasm…) Here's what the man himself said about this extraordinary piece of dance theatre.
1.     What made you want to remake Swan Lake? Was it the story, the music, or something else?
Well it was the idea of how to interpret the classical ballet that made me want to do it. I got the idea in London actually, I was window shopping and saw some furs on display looking very much like the cliché-picture of a prostitute. At the same time they looked like swans and I thought that maybe the swans are prostitutes in Swan Lake… It fitted the story very well and it made the story up to date, and my one main goal has been to make the story clear for the audience, one thing I think is frustrating watching the classical version. Also in the back of my head was the music that I knew was very good, since I danced to it in Mats Eks celebrated version.


2.     How did you come to re-imagine such a romantic tale as Swan Lake into the modern, and  - one might say – scary modern world? Swan Lake is such a classic; changing the story so dramatically must have been risky? Can you tell me a little about this process?
I actually thought it was such a good idea, the way to do it, so I never really saw the risk. You know, when you are “obsessed” with something that you believe in you are highly motivated. Of course there were some obstacles along the way (dramatically and musically), but if you know where to go it is somehow easier to progress. The idea of having new music composed (it is 50/50 Tchaikovsky/newly written) made it also a bit more free to make the ideas to happen. One funny thing is that from the beginning I thought the old music would be most suitable for expressing love and more sensitive feelings, and new music for aggression and power. It ended very much like that, but when the couple fall in love, I used a song originally composed for a scene about heroin abstinence, and for the most powerful scenes, nothing could compare with the original score. There is something so powerful about classical music sometimes, so even if we have all modern technology today it is in the end of the day down to how you write the music.

 3.     Your work includes being creative director for the Swedish X-Factor and working with the Eurovision Song Contest, which was recently held in Sweden.  How do you find working with both the more commercial side and the more serious - and high-brow - side of dance and choreography?
That is actually something that I try to do. I think it is interesting when those two sides meet and creates a language of its own. It is interesting because there is hopefully something you haven’t seen before. Today watching commercial or the more sophisticated, I very seldom get excited and surprised; even though I am enjoying it and it is perfectly performed and all that, it is like it is stuck in its own format. So trying to find a new context for a type of body language interests me..


4.     There is something of a Scandinavian takeover going on in the UK at the moment. TV series such as Wallander and The Killing, and Stieg Larsson’s novels are very popular. The Abba craze doesn’t show any signs of fading, while new bands such as Icona Pop keep Swedish music in the charts. Did this Scandinavian takeover affect your decision to bring Swan Lake Reloaded to London?
Haha, no but it´s nice to be mentioned in such good company. No London is probably the number 1 city in Europe (or the world) for theatre and that´s why you want to go there.


5.     Finally, since I am a Finn by origin, are there any plans to stage Swan Lake Reloadedin Finland?
Right now there are no plans, but I know we talked with a Finnish promotor some time ago, so hopefully in the future we will go there!
Swanlake Reloaded6-10 August 2013The ColiseumLondonTickets: £10 - 65

Five Books to Take on Holiday

For me one of the pleasures of going away is being able to read a lot of books. Before we leave I have a thorough browse in my favourite bookshop and select about four or five books to take with me. This year, however, I'm going to be reading and reviewing self-published novels for Awesome Indies, so I thought I'd ask my former bookseller colleague, columnist and book buyer at West End Lane Books, Danny van Emden, what commercially published books she would recommend to read.
I will post a list of my favourite indie books later, but in the meantime, here's Danny's list of summer reads:

1. The Burning Air by Erin Kelly This is her 3rd psycho drama and there's hardly a policeman in sight. Kelly ups the tension with a blessed family, who find themselves imploding when someone close begins to dismantle their idyll...but who? And how close - and why? Kelly is fast becoming one of our most intriguing and readable writers. Think Du Maurier. She's really that good and this novel is her best so far.

2. May We Be Forgiven by AM HomesDeservedly an Orange winner, Homes is in explosively good form in this darkly comic novel about the implosion and subsequent recovery of a family in free fall from the get go. This novel has one of the most arresting opening chapters I've ever encountered.

3. A Thousand Pardons by Jonathan DeePulizter Prize nominated Dee is in sparkling form. Newly single woman emerges from a crumbling marriage, enters the world of PR in New York City and discovers previously unsuspected unique talent for corporate apologies. 

4. Stonemouth by Iain Banks 
The most recent paperback by the lamented and wonderful Banks makes a slyly joyful slice of holiday reading. Young man returns to the home town he has left in mysterious circumstances several years before. A slow reveal gradually informs of his apparent misdemeanor, but could there be more to it than that? Genuine warmth and humour intermingled with Scots Casa McNostra, a little light drug abuse...and of course love. Missing Banks already.


5. Weirdo by Cathi Unsworth 
Brilliant British crime with a bit of a Broadchurch (British TV series for my non-UK readers) flavour. Set in a small down-at-heel, East Anglian seaside town, still shaken from a brutal school murder which everyone accepts as being long closed, until a private investigator is called in to reopen. Adolescent agnst, paganism, music and a long buried memories haunt a community in denial. Absorbing stuff! 

Thank you, Danny, for your intriguing choices. I will be reading all of these too! Of course the books are all available from West End Lane Books.

West End Lane Books
277 West End Lane
West Hampstead
London 
NW6 1QS
info@welbooks.co.uk
@welbooks

The Royal Baby - Are You Interested?

Following on from my post about British Citizenship, which caused quite a flurry on two Facebook Groups, Finnish People Living in London and Britanniansuomalaiset (Finns in Britain), I thought I'd share my thoughts the Royals and the most exciting and talked about Royal event about to happen in the UK.

You may know that one of my guilty pleasures is to follow the lives of the Royals, both here in Britain and in Sweden. (We don't have a Royal family in Finland, thank goodness).

I don't go overboard with this nonsense (which it is, after all, nonsense), but I do like to see what the Royals are wearing, read what they are getting up to, and most of all, watch the weddings, which we've had quite a good crop of recently. The Swedish Crown Princess Victoria married in 2010, followed by Kate and William in 2011, and the second Swedish Princess Madeleine got wed to the British-born financier Chris O'Neil earlier this summer. To me this is just a bit of fun, or escapism. I don't wish to make a political statement with my guilty pleasure, nor do I wish to say (or for once, think) too much about the usefulness, or not, of the Royals. To me they're just like a real life soap opera. I know this is wrong on so many levels, but there we go, I told you it's my guilty pleasure.

Picture by www.hellomagazine.comI also think that Britain really comes into its own with the various Royal events. The Queen's Diamond Jubilee celebrations last year, (together with the Olympics of course) were a highlight in the calendar and made the country generally feel great. There was a huge sense of community and positive feeling during whole of the summer.




As you can see I'm not dressed quite as patriotically as others were at Buckingham Palace last year. The crowds outside Buckingham Palace during last summer's Diamond JubileeAnd now in 2013, to top it all, there's going to be a Royal baby. The due date was yesterday, so you can imagine that the press as well as Twitter and Facebook are all a flutter.

Photo by www.mirror.co.ukWhat do you think about all this? Are you a Royal watcher like myself, slightly embarrassed about the fact that I enjoy the spectacle of weddings, births and funerals so much?

Or are you a confirmed Republican, who believes the Royals are just one of society's parasites?  

Sauna hats

Last time when I was having my hair done at the wonderful Rossano Ferretti hair spa, it was  a day before my holiday in Finland. Towards the end, when my hairdresser Clare was putting the straightening treatment on, she reminded me that I should leave my hair unwashed for 3 or 4 days to make sure the treatment works properly.

I looked at her in horror, 'But I'm going to have a sauna tomorrow, and the day after!' I gasped.

'You can't, it'll go frizzy, and then all of this is in vain.' Clare said, in a matter-of-fact tone.

Now this may seem like a very trivial thing to most of you, BUT.

For one thing, the treatment (which is also called a Brazilian blow dry) isn't cheap. Although I don't have the whole procedure, but just a conditioning product which is cheaper and has less of an effect, it's still more money to pay for a hair cut. Secondly, the stuff always makes my eyes water, so I have to sit there with a towel in my eyes (looking like a plonker) and to be honest, the 10 minutes or so Clare takes to spray the stuff on my hair is agony.

Clare looked at me through the mirror, the straightening irons suspended midair.

'I have to have a sauna when I'm in Finland,' I said.

Finns amongst you will understand this statement. To live without a sauna is bad enough; not to have one as soon as you are able, is quite another. (Sauna is like a religion in Finland. There are over 5 million saunas; that's one per head - including infants)

Clare just shook her head so I tried to another explanation, 'If I don't have a sauna my father will be offended.' I didn't say this to Clare, but to me, the lack of a sauna is the most difficult aspect of our new life here in London. In the sticks we were lucky enough to have a sauna cottage with a seating area outside, where, after a sauna, we could gaze over the paddock into the hills in the distance. It wasn't quite like sitting by a lake in Finland, but it came pretty close.

Clare and I came to a solution that I should cover my head with a towel or similar when in the sauna. I immediately knew what this would be, a piece of handy gear which Daughter convinced me to get from Marks and Spencer a few months ago.

It's a piece of towelling which wraps around your wet locks and helps to dry the hair. Both Daughter and I have very thick hair, so it can sometimes take a full 12 hours to dry (just talk to Clare - she'll tell you what a pain my hair is to blow-dry). This turban makes the process much quicker. (They are now unfortunately out of stock - let's hope more will be coming into the shop soon)


But, guess what, I bloody well forgot to take it with me, so I ended up wearing something called a sauna hat…the things I do for beauty….

With my big sister causing some hilarity with our families...The weird thing was, that this 'sauna hat' really worked! On reflection, this model below, called Pohjan Akka (loosely translated as 'The Northern Hag') might have suited us better.

Pohjan Akka sauna hat by SaunalahjaThe sauna hats, or Saunahattu are available from here or here, should you ever be in need of one. I may just surprise the sauna-loving Englishman with this combo of hat and slippers. What do you think?

Picture by Saunahattu Leeni