The edition of the weekly magazine Seura that appeared last Wednesday contained a bona fide scoop: Tanja Karpela and Matti Vanhanen met some years ago in the wee small hours of the morning in a room at the Rosendahl Hotel in Tampere.
By the next morning, Finland was ablaze with the news. A clandestine affair!
And then the coffee-table analysts began to wonder: DID something happen there or not?
Well, let us inspect the details of the incident as it was reported to us: "While Frederik'sGenghis Khan was playing in the night-club, a confidante took Vanhanen onto the dance floor and passed him Karpela's room-number, according to instructions", wrote Seura journalist Hannu Toivonen.
On the basis of this slender piece of information alone, it is possible to declare unequivocally that the story does not stand up.
Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen is a well-known tee-totaller.
And any and every Finn knows that nobody, but nobody, would dream of dancing to Frederik's Genghis Khan while even remotely sober.
Case dismissed.
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 17.4.2005
