Helena Halme's Blog, page 44

A break in transmission

Money, money,money…Just a note to apologise that I'm going to be very light on blogging this month of January mainly due to my real other career in accountancy. For those of you who are lucky not to care (or need to care), UK tax returns are due at the end of this month and I have many nice clients who's tax affairs I look after. So since I'm barely able to talk to The Englishman for invoices and tax calculations, blogging will have to take a back seat.

But when February comes, and I will have submitted all the tax returns I need to, I will be back to the lovely world of blogisphere.

Until then, you can find me here www.halmeaccounts.com

Happy New Year!

I am feeling a little jaded today so this is just a short post to wish you all Happy 2013 and thank you for your support during 2012!

We spent last night in central London together with some 250,000 other people. The fireworks were breathtaking, but for me at least, such crowds are just too much to bear…we were lucky to watch the display from the luxurious comfort of a riverboat moored near The Embankment, so at least we were in the dry and well fed and watered by the time the clock struck 12.

Our refuge last night.
Big Ben about to strike 12.
The London Eye sprouting fireworks
More fireworks...
...and some more...
and more.

4 reasons why I'll never forget 2012

Another year is nearly over and after such an eventful 2012 in London (Olympics etc!), personally I too have had quite a remarkable year. Here are the four major reasons why.

1. In January '12 we finally took the plunge on the property market and moved into our own flat in Crouch End. I cannot describe to you how wonderful it was to set my roots down again. (A few mishaps like being shut out on the balcony not withstanding) In the last 11 months or so we have grown to really love this part of North London, from its pubs (The Maynard Arms and The Queens), to its award winning coffee shops (The Haberdashery and The Blue Legume) to its fishmongers (Walter Purkis and Sons). The End is truly a lovely place to live.

2. The year 2012 also saw the first ever Crouch End Festival, a feat of local arts in the form of music, literature, dance, performance, bunting displays around the Broadway and much, much more. The festival broke all records for both the supply of events and spectators, but to me it was a fantastic way to get to know the local arty folk. (It's reputed that over 40% of the people living in N8 are working in the creative industries - no wonder I feel so at home here). I cannot wait for the 2013 Festival which I'm lucky again to be involved in.

3. The year 2012 was also significant for me because I published my first ebook, The Englishman . As well as having wonderful support from many of my fellow bloggers, who reviewed the book and/or let me talk about The Englishman on their sites (thank you Tania, Karen, Expat Mum and Ruth), it got terrific reviews (4 and 5 stars!!!) on Amazon. It was also a choice of the month at Indy Writers and became an Awesome Indie. It also made the N10 Show locally, where for the first time I read out loud from the book. That was scary….What's more the sales of the book have completely outstripped my expectations. All is now set for the next two books to be published in 2013. My tale of displacement, Pappa's Girl, will be out in January closely followed by a gentle spy thriller, The Red King of Helsinki. All I now need to do is to finish the next one…

4. Last, but not least, this year I found a diet that works for me: the 5:2 fasting. I've talked about it  lot here, but the fact is that I lost a whopping 5 kilos in the first two months! Plus the fasting has completely changed my relationship with food, so much so, that even during this holiday season when I decided to give myself a break with the diet, I've not been overeating as I usually do either. This is truly unusual and revolutionary for me. I cannot wait for the New Year when I will be starting the regime anew. And roll on 10 January when Dr Mosley's book, The Fast Diet is out (where this blog gets a mention).

So those were my highlights of 2012 - what were yours?

Merry Christmas!

Just a little snipped from my childhood…a school Christmas end of term concert from Finland in 1979. Look at those haircuts!



Happy Christmas to you all!

The 5:2 Diet and Christmas

Like any diets the 5:2 fasting diet is difficult to do during Christmas. The additional holidays, parties and the sheer amount of food associated with the season would play havoc with anyone's resolve, however bright their halo shines.

During the holiday season there just doesn't seem any be any opportunity to have a fasting day. To follow my Finnish/Swedish customs, we have a traditional Nordic Christmas Eve which means a lot of food. On Christmas Day we are going to be visiting The Englishman's family, and Daughter's birthday falls in the days between Christmas and New Year. So the only days possible to do the fasting would be during the weekend (which we don't do - see my tips on the diet here). The Englishman toyed with the idea of fasting on Boxing Day, but that idea was soon gunned down by his (loving?) family.

So, after a lot of umming and arring, I decided it'd be best just to accept defeat before the holidays, rather than feel disappointed with myself for not making the fasting days. I have therefore decided that between 22 and 31 December I will take a break from the fasting, and go on a 7:7 seafood diet - see food and eat it.

This may sound drastic to you, especially as my experiences with the diet are going to be included in Dr Mosley's forthcoming book, The Fast Diet, and so I feel a bit of a poster girl (hah!) for the intermittent fasting idea. But there are a whole 12 months in the year 2013...

It's the season to be generous and kind - even to myself!

Christmas picture of terrier just as
a little seasonal bonus. 

I love this!

I adore old adverts and this one for Finnish coffee from the sixties (or fifties?) takes me right back to my childhood in Tampere. It evokes the smell of the coffee beans my grandmother used to prepare in her wooden grinder. She held the light pine contraption in her ample lap and with a concentrated look on her face turned the handle, and soon the coffee would be ready to be mixed with water and cooked in a copper pan on the stove.  

Childhood in a poster!

My words are being stolen

I was reading the blog of a writer friend of mine, Karen Gowen, this evening. She was discussing piracy. She posted a link to a site, Torrenz, which tracks pirated downloads of a book.


Firstly, I wanted to share this site with you, and secondly write down my mixed emotions about book piracy.

When I checked how many times The Englishman had been downloaded illegally on Torrenz, the results showed thousands of hits. Looking at the comments section of Karen's blog post, I saw that 1,000 hits could mean 10 books, which brought my pirated works down to under hundred, rather than thousands, of copies.

All the same, the fact that people out there are getting my book for nothing, left me feeling really confused.

First of all I was rather pleased that the book is still being read; the online sales have been  disappointing after my week-long free promotion (I'd expected this because everyone said it would happen, but it's still depressing). Secondly, I felt angry, mainly due to the fact it still only costs a measly £1.99…then again, my motto has always been that as long as people read my books, I'm happy.

Still…

The Englishman took me best part of two years to write, it cost me good money to have the text professionally edited and cover made by an experienced designer. It would be quite nice to at least be able to cover my costs. (Even us writers need to eat occasionally.)

End of rant.



This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 UK: England & Wales License.It means I allow you to quote freely, but you must credit my name and you can't benefit commercially from my words. WRITERS RESPECT RIGHTS

Finnish Independence Day Celebrations

My invite to the Ambassador's reception.I was delighted to be invited to the Finnish Ambassador's residence in London's South Kensington last night to celebrate 95 years of Finnish Independence. (I've written a little about our history here.)

And what an evening it was! I'm still buzzing today. I met so many old friends, including a fantastic woman with all the answers to how to remain young-looking, and who I went to school with, Marjo Putkisto. (Read all about her 'Method Putkisto' here). For some weird reason (life?!), this was the first time we'd met since leaving school at the age of 18, even though we've both lived in the UK for years and years. Marjo looked better than she did at school, so I for one am going to investigate her famous 'method'.

I also bumped into Jali Wahlsten, the charismatic owner of the Nordic Bakery coffee shops, and Helena Puolakka, the famed chef of Skylon on the South Bank. We discussed the merits of Twitter and I think I got them to agree that social media is the way forward. It's fair to say that at this point I had partaken in some of the fabulous food and drink on offer, so we may have come to a different conclusion all together!

Jali Wahlsten and Helena PoulakkaI must just mention the food at this point. Usually at these kinds of occasions, food is the least notable part of the evening, but last night the offerings were incredible. The little Karelian pies were just melt in the mouth heavenly, as were little cups of reindeer meat. I wasn't so keen on the shots of vanilla scented cranberry vodka, but the bubbly went down very well indeed. I forgot to ask if either Helena or Jali were responsible for the offerings.

The napkins had the Finnish national emblem on them.
So stylish. I also made several new ex-pat friends. There were wonderful volunteer teachers and organisers of Finnish Saturday Schools all around the UK, a talented photographer who talked to me about his new project in LA, journalists and engineers. There were Finns from all walks of life who came together last night to celebrate our quirky and wonderful country. Even the Ambassador himself was in a jolly mood and joined us in a photograph at the end of the night. (Not on my camera unfortunately).

It was as if, even though I knew a mere fraction of the people crowding the vast rooms of the Georgian mansion, we were all just one big happy family. Everyone was so jolly and friendly. I cannot tell you how magical it was. (And no, it wasn't just the cranberry vodka….OK it may have contributed!)

Lastly, thank you to my new colleagues (and friends) at Guild Travel and Finn Guild for your company last night. I sincerely hope I will be invited next year too!

Happy 'Little Christmas'!

In the Nordic countries we celebrate something called 'Little Christmas' on 1st of December. It's basically First Advent, but a less religious version. People have parties, children get presents from the elves, and the first advent candle is lit at breakfast (there's a huge FAIL in our household on this score since all Christmas decorations are still in storage - and because Daughter is the only person now who keeps us in check and she's away at uni).

'Little Christmas' also hails the beginning of the office party season in Scandinavia, just like here in the UK.

This year I thought the best way to give you all a bit of Christmas cheer is to share the Blossa Christmas ad. Blossa make the most famous Swedish mulled wine, each year coming out with a new version.


Blossa 12 Yuzu Ingefära£19.90 
from Scandinavian KitchenJust the bottle design is brilliant, don't you think? This year's version combines Swedish traditional glögg flavours with Far Eastern fruits and spices, with yuzu, grapefruit, clementine and ginger. I cannot wait to sample it!


Hauskaa pikkujoulua!

VAT on e-books - what the?

Now this is a subject where my two worlds collide - VAT on books. Both my Accountant's and indy writer's interests were alerted when I read today in The Bookseller about the latest news on this strange taxing anomaly.

There's no VAT on books, is there? I hear you enquire. That's right, there isn't, unless these books are in digital form, in which case, in their infinite wisdom the HMRC have decided they need to charge the consumer 20% on their reading pleasure. (As if we struggling indy writers didn't have enough troubles on our plate.)

The Englishman costs £1.91,
with zero VAT it'd cost just £1.59There is a very small glimmer of hope in this area, however. A law firm, Berwin Leighton Paisner believes that they can take the HMRC to task on charging different rates of VAT on the same reading material. Their case will be heard in mid 2013.

But it's not as simple as that.

HMRC have publicly claimed that if they have to change the VAT on e-books they will also have charge VAT on physical books. In other words, parity will mean VAT would be charged on all books, whether digital or physical. Obviously no-one wants this.

The tax man has pointed out that it's illegal under the European Court of Justice to extend UK's scope of zero-rated VAT. But the lawyers BLP argue that removing 20% VAT from e-books means that the Government would only apply an existing concept (of zero rated VAT) to a new technology product in the same category.

I sincerely hope that BLP win their case and 20% VAT is removed from e-books. To me, as an accountant and a novelist, it makes no sense at all to charge VAT for one but not for the other.