Having just become a dad (cash and Paypal accepted – please forward all donations via the Helsinki Times office) my foreseeable future is almost certain to involve sleepless nights, extreme amounts of baby’s bodily fluids, and watching long periods of daytime/night-time telly in an attempt to lull our youngster asleep. Unfortunately I have a bad feeling that if I subject him to a preponderance of televisual broadcasting he’s going to grow up addicted to Zumba and one if not all of the dozen or so abdomen enhancement machines advertised for about eight hours every day, the latter proving that if you can con people into thinking that spending ten minutes doing sit-ups every day is a waste of time then mega-bucks are yours for the taking.

Problem numero uno is the fact that a lot of the time morning TV in Finland consists of adverts for cooking appliances and keep-fit/torture equipment on the commercial channels, and text-based news updates accompanied by the radio on YLE. We come across problem two when we realise that, adverts and news aside, amongst all the morning studio shows, teacher training programmes and broadcasts of stalwart British soap opera Emmerdale, there isn’t really much worth watching, to be frank. Figuring that at this point the telly is going to be more for my behalf than Junior’s – in that he couldn’t care less what he’s subject to, while I would at least like some vague brain stimulation – what I’d really like to see is a few hours of BBC nature documentaries followed by endless repeats of The IT Crowd and Blackadder. However, I fear that that my fate, like that of millions before me, is to become intimately acquainted (again) with Postman Pat and Mr. Bean, God help me. On that front YLE 2 is clearly going to be my channel of choice, since as I mentioned commercial channels like MTV3 and Nelonen are clearly either not interested in providing quality broadcasts until about three p.m., or consider showing commercials for the Ab-Tronic and vacuum cleaners made out of space dust to be some kind of public service.

Perhaps I shouldn’t be too harsh, since some of these things are unintentionally rather hilarious. Who wouldn’t want to spend an hour checking out the Bullet Express? This highly advanced piece of gear is neither a genocidal killing machine nor a highly developed sex toy, but in fact a piece of culinary paraphernalia that you never knew you couldn’t do without. It does almost everything in the kitchen except the washing-up. In the old days you would probably have just used a knife – but then you wouldn’t have been able to crush ice, make a smoothie, prepare scrambled eggs and make yourself a nice cup of coffee at the same time. Supposedly you can make a casserole in thirty seconds with it. On the downside it costs 150 euros and looks like a prop from 2001: A Space Odyssey, but still…I’m tempted. My life will never be the same again.

NICK BARLOW