Richard Robinson is the proud owner of a delightful new jacket.

Twelve days ago, I arrived in Helsinki to shy sunshine and a temperature in which I could just about justify my decision to wear no more than a bright yellow t-shirt. My girlfriend, a real-life Finn, looked at me and my optimistic fashion sense with a critical eye. “It won’t last,” she said. “You should be thankful for every hour of sunshine you glimpse over the next few months.” I nodded and told her she was absolutely right, while secretly smug that I had seen past Finland’s overarching stereotype: its cold, depressing climate.

My smugness lasted a total of 18 hours, at which point I opened her flat door to explore the city and stumbled ego-first straight into “a light shower”. It was, to put it mildly, somewhat colder than I had anticipated – after 10 minutes outside I could no longer feel my eyebrows. After 20 minutes, I came to the uncomfortable realisation that my “all-weather alpine jacket” was leaking in a number of places. My girlfriend took this opportunity to inform me that it was not only “not an all-weather jacket”, but that it was not, in fact, “a real jacket at all”. Thanks.

Despite my apparent naivety, I had bought a proper jacket in London before moving out to Finland. However, I made one fatal error – I went shopping with my Dad, a man convinced that the Finnish people do not have any fashion sense because “up there, it’s too cold to care what you’re wearing”. With his guidance, I ended up in a London hiking shop, staring forlornly at a dispiriting array of jackets. They were of the sort aimed exclusively at fathers who had reached the age of 45 and decided that, yes, a mountaineering anorak is indeed the trendiest attire for the high street. Horrified, I tried on one of the least offensive ones – it was one of the few that did not have a whistle attached to its collar. I looked like the sort of trainspotter who only drinks chocolate milk and carries a walkie-talkie in an un-ironic manner. My Dad gave me a thumbs-up and told me that I looked “rather snatty”. I had absolutely no idea what “snatty” meant, but I was certain that it was not a good look. Still, after a little coercion, I ended up buying the jacket – it would be practical, and, of course, there was absolutely no fashion in Finland to be concerned about, was there?

Of course there was. Even on the bus from the airport, I became aware of two important points. The first was that most of the people on the bus appeared to be casually dressed in a selection of tasteful coats. The second related point was that there was a distinct lack of mountaineering anoraks. In fact over the next week, I only spotted two jackets as cringe-worthy as mine. One was being sported by an elderly lady feeding ducks, the other by a man shouting at the fruit machines in a supermarket. I concluded that I would rather risk hypothermia than dress like that.

And so it came to pass that, five days into my new life in Finland, I bought yet another jacket, from a most-definitely-not-a hiking shop in Alek-
santerinkatu. This one was both “real” and tentatively stylish, and was hopefully not in the slightest bit “snatty”, although Dad has yet to comment.