National Jealousy Day: the day Finland publishes everyone’s income
Once a year Finland publishes what every adult earned, and anyone can go and look. What is actually released, what is not, and the date almost every English article gets wrong.
Funny protest signs: what makes one work, and 26 ideas that do
Funny protest signs are the only part of a march that reliably outlives it. Here is what separates the ones that get photographed from the ones that go in a bin at the end of the road, plus 26 ideas you can take.
Protest chants: how they actually work, and the ones worth using
A protest chant has about four seconds to be learnable by a thousand strangers. Here is the mechanics of why some spread down a whole street and others die in the third row.
Viking names: what the real ones were, and what they actually meant
Most Viking name lists online are half invention. Here are names that genuinely appear in Old Norse sources, what they meant, and why the nicknames are better than the names.
Viking tattoos: six symbols that don’t mean what the internet says
Most Viking tattoos are not Viking. The compass is from 1860, the helmet is from an opera, and nobody knows what the valknut means. Here is what the evidence actually says before you book the appointment.
Königsberg: the 700-year-old city that was taken off the map
Königsberg stood for seven centuries, produced Immanuel Kant, and was erased in under two years. The buildings, the people and finally the name. What is there now is called Kaliningrad, after a man who never went.
Karelian evacuees: the 400,000 Finns who lost their homes twice
Finland lost a tenth of its territory and moved twelve per cent of its population. Then most of them went home, and had to leave all over again. The story of the Karelian evacuation, and the names that vanished with it.
Finnish Sauna Gifts: The Ultimate Guide
Sauna is not a hobby in Finland. It is part of everyday life. That is why Finnish sauna gifts carry unusual weight. There are more saunas than cars. Business is discussed in them. Children are introduced to them early. Arguments dissolve in them. If you understand sauna, you understand Finland. That is why Finnish sauna…
5 future predictions we’re still waiting to come true
The year 2025 still sounds somewhat futuristic. We have some neat things here in the future. We can Facetime people in different time zones. We are living longer. We can order treats from our phones. But this would disappoint a few scientists of years gone by. Many dreamers had far-out ideas that never came to…
The 20 American things that horrify Brits most
The United States and the United Kingdom share many cultural traits. This is expected for a former colony. George Bernard Shaw allegedly noted that Britain and America are two nations divided by a common language. Cultural friction remains common. Redditors on AskReddit recently discussed the American habits that most disturb British people. These observations highlight…
