Saturday, August 21

The city of Helsinki has arranged two Art Gift weekends during which you can book a free five minutes performance by an artist. You get to say what kind of thing you like, in general terms, and then the organisers dispatch an artist to your chosen location.

Because of the pandemic the artists can only perform outdoors or in large spaces. To my surprise Irma arranged one for us, and then invited the neighbours. Kepa and Lumi turned up, and very suitable that proved.

The artist pulls out his double bass, explains that he usually plays jazz but also improvises solo, and then proceeds to improves solo for five minutes.

We follow this with a short question and answer session and then off he goes to his next booking.

Later we will go to Kamppi to watch the one Irma has booked for her mother. This artist will phone in with a migraine. We will discover, though, that we would have got a “performer” which sounds dangerously close to a juggler or mime artist.

In which case I fell glad for everybody’s sake that they did not turn up and try to entertain Irma’s mother.