Posted by jukkahoo
Some time ago (not that long actually) a survey was made. A lot of them are made every day, I’m shure, but this one made the headlines since apparently young Finns didn’t know where prominent Finnish cities and counties are. Sela!
Regional Development minister Hannu Manninen (Rural ie. hilly-billy) took a similar test, where he was given names of ten towns or cities and asked to place them on a blank Finnish map. I can’t remember his result, but apparently he did relatively OK.
I was happily surprised to see that the test was also available in the net at Kuntavisa.
Since I am possibly one of the three most ignorant persons I know in the field of Finnish geography, I was decidedly surprised to see that I didn’t do all that bad. I was off by mere 3041 km’s! Most of it was due three locations, which I managed to pflergb up pretty solidly. Who the [four-letter-word] knows where Homeperseensuo is? 1000 km wide of the mark on that one. Kypärävaara by 625 and Utajärvi by 423. I almost nailed Pöljä (58!) and Järvenpää (24). And before you start laughing about my Järvenpää miss, check out the site itself. I’d say 30 km is a fair cop considering the size of the map and the near-infallibility of a mouse-click.
This was of course the version with the most locations. I scored considerably better my second attempt when I hit only 1726 km’s off the mark. Then again, I managed to put Helsinki in the wrong end of a cape. I guess that this was the actual test minister Manninen did too, since this one was the one with the Finnish towns and cities (all 444 of them), whereas the first one I did had some additional locations to it (520). Not that bad, though I blundered with the last one: Kiikala (off by 477 km). I actually did know where it roughly lies, but my mousepad was slightly bent and thus I veered off considerably. Well, 350-400 km’s I’d say.
Then I decided to try an easy one: only 75 Most Easiest Locations…
My aim was off by mere 531 km’s!!! I totally blew Orivesi (off by 138) as well as Joensuu (79) and Kuopio (68). Järvenpää was off only by 13 and Tornio by measily 7 km’s. Well within the (my own personal error-margin approval of) 30 km’s. Jämsä was off by only 38! I really need to take this one again!
And voila! This time I was off by pitiful 290. Almost nailed Tornio and Kauniainen (off by 9), with Sipoo, Turku, Jämsä, Oulunsalo, Kerava and Kangasala within my 30 km error-margin. Hämeenkyrö on the other hand…
I decided to have a one more go, with cities (111 of them) only. Off by 909 km’s. Anjalankoski off by more than 300 – and then I nailed Kannus (3!!!). Sigh. This is addicting.
This weekend sees the resurrection of the old Viikinsaari picnic tradition (Picnic on the Roadside it was Then called, when the dinosaurs roamed the Earth and Finndom). I’d like to go, but it looks somewhat doubtful unless I can arrange somekind of a deal with my brother and a volunteer driver. Then it’s time for Swecon.
But there’s more!
TamFan takes place in mid-September. 
Turku Book Fair has Alastair Reynolds in early October and Helsinki Book Fair has… well Sjón, apparently.
I’d like to attend both of these; especially see Al again and participate this one panel in Helsinki, but the latter one may not happen since there’s also this little thing calles Snorfcon in Copenhagen at the same time. I’d like to be there too, you see.
Read fafblog! It’s the bestest blog in the whole world.
Eating Muffins 