Friday, February 2

 

 

No public transport operated in Helsinki today. As YLE explained yesterday

The Local Government Employers group says that ‘traffic chaos’ is set to hit Helsinki on Friday after the public sector workers union, JHL, called a strike affecting staff on the tram, metro and bus networks in the city.

The JHL’s 019 local branch is joining the protest called by the blue-collar labour confederation SAK on Friday 2 February, allowing members to walk off the job in order to attend the protest.

The protest was called in reaction to government measures to cut the benefits of any unemployed person who fails to work at least 18 hours over three months, or attend job-related training.

The government’s so-called ‘activation measures’ have been roundly criticised by unions, opposition politicians and unemployed people. A citizens’ initiative opposing the measures quickly passed the threshold for consideration by parliament.

“We have made a decision in the union that we are supporting the demonstration on Friday,” said Niemi-Laine. “It is a political demonstration and people are attending voluntarily. This transport stoppage does not in any way relate to the negotiating table (of municipal workers’ pay and conditions) but is about the ‘active model’ and that this local branch wants to join the demo.”

I had brought my laptop home yesterday and both of us got up and began working from home. I spent most of the morning finisheing my assessment of the final assignments for the Digital Mediascapes MA course. The pecha kuchas varied a lot. Some contained research and some contained mere assertions. At least one sounded more like a commercial than an analysis.

I had asked the students to predict the state of a medium of their choice in 2030. Interestingly, a fair number contained solid research for the past and present and wild conjecture for the future, often in a thinly disguised version of “the future I would like”. Fortunately two pecha kuchas proved that you could also research the future and offer projections based on more than optimistic whimsy.

I then began assessing the final assignments for the CMS course. These proved harder, because I had not specified closely enough how the students should hand in their final work. I assessed the ones I could, and put aside half a day next week to assess the others.

Around noon the snowplough appeared and I spent an hour dealing with the mess the snowplough left. The snow has frozen into rocks and the snowplough had strewn a rockslide across the front of our drive. I moved it all before it froze solid.

I spent the afternoon trying to get Postfix to work. I had concluded that the only way that I will get the contact form to work on the Buddyschool site will involve installing a mail server, and “everyone who knows” seems to suggest Postfix as the simplest. I learned a lot but I did not get it to send me a mail. In the end I went for a short walk to clear my head.

When I get back Irma declares that the work-day has ended and we will now drive to Prisma. We get our groceries and, unusually for a Friday, a bottle of wine. I take a photograph with my phone going down the escalator to the car park. Irma’s red jacket stands out nicely among the blacks and grays that everyone else wears.

We will then go to Lidl for ice cream which will result in us watching CSI Miami while sipping prosecco and eating bowls of creme brulee ice cream.