The perfect form

I love simplicity and minimalism, to a certain extent. Here are three simple things I have acquired lately.

Pirkka stool by Finnish designer Ilmari Tapiovaara. I also have a bar stool and a dining table from the same range. All bought from twentytwentyone.

Villeroy & Boch's tea set from the Anmut collection

Sea Salt Spray

Picture from Amazon.co.uk

I had my hair cut last week at Tony&Guy Regent Street. My hair stylist recommended me a product I had not heard before: Sea Salt Spray. I was told it would leave hair like I had just come from surfing in the ocean. And it is true, this product gives my hair a nice and non-heavy texture, unlike wax or gel. Label.m Sea Salt Spray can be bought at Tony&Guy salons and from Amazon.

Barbados, part 3

Winter comes early this year

I got amazed when an email newsletter from Burberry Prorsum hit my inbox today. They have started selling their fall/winter season 2011 - 2012 online, maybe in stores, too. It is just early June and one can buy a winter coat already. Where is this world going to?

It seems the sales season has started early this year. For example, Harrods usually starts their sale in July. This year they will start it next week. Liberty is already having pre-sales events.

Life sweet life

I have had an overdose of sweet life in the past three weeks. As much as I love afternoon teas, candy and dim sum, it is now time to get back on a lighter track and break the pattern of sugar addiction.

A notebook

I like to buy small souvenirs when I am traveling. Those things do not have to fancy or expensive, just something special. The cruel thing in life is, though, that the nicest things are more often expensive. Anyway, it turned out to be a tricky task to find a souvenir that would not be a huge cliché in Venice. But I managed to find one, a handcrafted notebook by Paolo Olbi. The tiny shop was located at Campo Santa Maria Nova. I love the pattern on the cover.

A pilgrimage

A couple of years ago I fell in love with a dead woman. I had found Dalida. I had never heard about her earlier even though she had had an amazing career in the French speaking world. She was a super star of her era, the Marilyn of France without even being French by her origins. Dalida was Egypt born Italian. Her life seemed to be full of passion, tragedy and loneliness. If life would have been more kind to her, she would still be here. Now she rests at Montmartre Cemetery in Paris.

On my last weekend's Paris getaway I visited her grave. It is as grand as its owner. The statue with the sun beams have a strong reference to Dalida's origins and stardom. I almost got sick of Stendhal syndrome.

Breaking a pattern

I am one of those who usually buys their parfumes from tax free shops at airports. It can be a cheap option but it is a bit restricting. One can only find the most popular bulk scents from tax free shops but never anything truly new and exciting.

It was time to break my pattern today. I went to Liberty to look - or smell - for those other than usual scents. I went through several lovely bottles, but ended up with a rather boxy one. It was a scent born as a result of Comme des Garçons' and Artek's (Finnish design company) collaboration. It is called Standard. The scent is very foresty. It smells like freshly cut wood. It is also a delicate scent, not too pushy. A bit like me, really. I had to buy it.

Standard can be found at Liberty and Dover Street Market in London.

Royal Warrants of Appointment

I saved the best for the last...

Hello Blackberry, goodbye Nokia

My new Blackberry Pearl 9105 and old Nokia 8800 Sapphire Arte.

Afternoon tea at Hyatt Regency Churchill

My jasmine tea flower opening.

The Young Ones

Pictures from bbc.co.uk

Maybe I have become middle-aged, but I love BBC One's series The Young Ones. I have been nailed in front of my telly every evening this week to watch it. It is an innovative series where six British senior celebrities are put in a house for a week.

The house where they live is a replica from the 1970's, from the time when these people used to be most active and in their bloom. In their olden days they have become a bit crumpy and less fit. The house is an experiment to see if the 'housemates' become more active and gain back some their energy if they live in a place that looks like their former homes in the 70's.

The housemates also have all kinds of tasks to do that courage them to be more active. Only on the second day in the house the former celebs did things they had been avoiding to do in their normal life. I am eager to see how the rest of the week goes.

The series has an important message. It is never too late to start exercising and being healthy, but it is better to start it today. And most importantly, it is not good to be alone. One stays in better shape both mentally and physically when being among friends and family.

Beauty is symmetry - yrtemmys si ytuaeB

A soldier motif from a temple door from Bangkok.

I watched an interesting documentary from BBC Knowledge. The show was called The Human Face (BBC 2001). The episode was Survival of the Prettiest and it examined the symmetry of human face and how it is related to people's conception of beauty.

The show revealed that people with symmetric facial features are more often considered beautiful than people with asymmetric features. There is even a connection with the golden ratio and attractiveness of facial features. Model Elizabeth Hurley was used as an example. The mask below was compared to her face and her features matched exactly to the mask's symmetry. The same was done to Tom Cruise's face and other famous faces often considered beautiful. The results were always the same, symmetry is beauty.

This is, however, only one side to defining beauty. It is in the eye of the beholder where the beauty lies. Still, the symmetry theory gives me a new perspective how to look people and the next time when I see a beautiful person, I will certainly look whether there is symmetry.

Read more about facial symmetry here (PDF).

Picture from the BBC show The Human Face.

Straits Times in 3D

I know, yesterday's news is old news. Still, I must mention this. Maybe it has been done before somewhere, but it was the first time I saw a daily newspaper having three dimensional pictures and providing 3D glasses within the paper.

Wednesday's Straits Times did. A number of pictures in the paper had been retouched to be three dimensional. I think it was a well done experiment. All the 3D pictures I saw with the provided glasses worked fine. Maybe this kind of short usage of 3D glasses is better than a three our movie with the often not too comfortable glasses.

Read here the Straits Times article.

How to ice a cake?

Shot at a shopping mall in the north-eastern Singapore. Follow how the mobile phone travels around the table with knives and spoons. Very hygienic!

Tipping

I-S Magazine, a Singaporean weekly tabloid, discusses in its current issue about tipping, which has been banned in Singapore since the 1970's. Instead of tipping the restaurants add automatically a 10% of service charge to each bill and the customers do not have to guess about tipping.

I think the current policy works fine and should not be changed. Tipping in other countries always make me feel awkward; how much should I give, did I give too little or too much. For me as a Finn tipping represents something extra that I give for superb service, not for slow and unattentive one, which I should always reward automatically when in certain countries (US, UK, etc).

What do you think, should tipping be re-introduced in Singapore? Would it make the service any better?

Giuseppe Verdi: Un ballo in maschera

All photos from The Finnish National Opera / Heikki Tuuli

One of my favorite hobbies in Helsinki is going to the opera. This time I went to see a new version of Verdi's Un ballo in maschera. The Finnish National Opera makes often fresh and interesting production of opera classics.

Un ballo in maschera was no exception to this. It was based on the Boston version of the opera, but it was put to happen in our time. Reality shows and ad hoc publicity were important themes. The staging was interesting, especially in the end of the third act where the masquerade takes place. The 1960's pop futuristic setup with the extravagant costumes was pure eye candy. The costumes were designed by a rising Finnish fashion designer duo Rinne Niinikoski. I enjoyed Verdi's music too with the big chorus scenes.

A dinner in four acts

Thank you Antti & Heikki!

World Design Capital Helsinki 2012

I found this rather cool video of made for World Design Capital Helsinki 2012 project.

Btw, sorry for not posting any pictures lately. My camera is out of order and I am trying to get it fixed asap. Until that I need to use my archives.

Ladies who lunch

One of the first Chinese words (see above) that I learned was 'tai tai' or '太太'. It is a nickname for a privileged lady does not have the burden of working. She can spend her days socializing and shopping, etc. There is not a single word describing these ladies in English, but something came up to mind. They could be called 'the ladies who lunch' like in the song below. It is from Stephen Sondheim's musical Company.