Summer news about Finnish men at work
COMMENTARY
|
|
|
By Joanna Palmén
A lot has happened in Finland this summer, much of it while we were away.
Firstly, at the beginning of June a 20-year-old man in Suomussalmi shot his sixteen-year-old former girlfriend and then himself. Then a 19-year-old man used a crossbow to kill two women of 22 years and 26 years of age while they slept in his apartment in Pori. And a 26-year-old man assaulted and killed a 50-year-old man at his home in Rauma.
Another 26-year-old man killed a 45-year-old man on the victim's doorstep in Espoo, such that the victim's aged mother was a witness to the event.
Then there was the case of the 42-year-old man who stabbed a 47-year-old man to death in the course of an after-party party at a summer cottage in Helsinki, and one in which a drunken 35-year-old man stabbed and killed a 75-year-old Dutch tourist in front of the Citymarket - and numerous witnesses - in the centre of Porvoo. At Midsummer a 33-year-old man torched a car in Järvenpää, killing the 31-year-old man who was sitting in the car at the time.
At the end of June a 20-year-old drunk driver man killed a police officer by running over him in Kälviä.
Then in early July two young men of 16 and 18 years and an 18-year-old woman assaulted a 22-year-old male colleague using a knife, a bottle and a large stone, and also kicking the victim repeatedly. Later in the month a 56-year-old musician man killed his 29-year-old wife in the cellar of their apartment block in Helsinki, and a man from Vihti stabbed another man from Vihti on his doorstep.
There have been festivals this summer, too, and there have been a number of unfortunate accidents and incidents.
A man born in 1986 choked on his own vomit while he was asleep at the Raumanmeri Rock Festival at Midsummer.
At the same event two 20-year-old men died of carbon monoxide poisoning after firing up a grill in their tent, and a 20-year-old man was found unconscious in the shallow water by the shoreline.
At Ruisrock in Turku in July, a 26-year-old man, who disappeared while extremely the worse for drink, was later found drowned in the sea.
In addition to these above incidents, in Raahe, Kemi, at the aforementioned Raumanmeri Rock Festival, in Tampere, and in Vantaa, several women were raped.
In the case of rape news items it is possible to use the passive voice, which does at least make for a welcome variation in sentence structure.
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print in the August issue of Kuukausiliite , the newspaper's monthly colour supplement
JOANNA PALMÉN / Helsingin Sanomat
joanna.palmen@hs.fi
