According to a recent Reader’s Digest Europe-wide survey, Finns hated:
87% tailgating
85% litterbugs
77% queue jumpers
72% spitting
67% pavement dogturds
62% website popup ads
more below the fold
Least annoying were:
42% graffiti
30% public outdoor smokers
20% revealing clothes
14% roadworks
The average European put pet hates in a similar ranking, but a higher proportion was pissed off at everything, such as smokers. Fewer Europeans were intolerant of tailgating, and popup ads compared with the Finns.
We Finns must be a more tolerant bunch, except where our private space is intruded upon.
Let’s see how you Yanks shape up in the poll below…
I was going to first remark that Finns have no sense of what is important in life, but then I decided to assume that the war in Iraq, global warming and world hunger were not on the list of choices.
So I got into the spirit of the poll and voted for spiting. I have a question for men who spit. How the heck do you think women get through the day without spitting on the street?
Yep – it was merely a poll about everyday stuff. But you may have a point. The war in Iraq is seen as a Bush problem here. Global warming and world hunger though are BIG issues.
Teens have picked up the habit of spitting in the last few ‘gangsta’ influenced years, in order to look tough. I find it disgusting.
must be a very nice place to live if this is all you have to worry about. = )
Of course I know this is not all you have to worry about.
Can I vote twice? It was a tie between tailgating and popups. On the one hand, someone riding your ass is both invasive and worrisome. On the other, I’m in a battle to the death with Aurora popups on my computer and have tried everything short of throwing the damn thing out the window to get rid of them. Hard to choose, really…
Have you tried using Firefox as your browser?
That pretty much kills it.
I’ve been using FireFox since last fall, which has gotten rid of all popups except these #$#*@^$#@& Aurora ones, which open up in a different kind of window entirely. Thanks, though.
Tried this?
Ok, I’ll admit it. I’ve tried everything except Hijack This. I’m intermittently tech-phobic and I’ve been resistant to doing it, so I keep hoping someone will come up with a simple fix.
Of course, in two weeks I leave my job to start grad school and the popups officially become Somebody Else’s Problem. Crappy attitude, I know, but there you have it.
What are “queue jumpers” in Finland? I know in some places, like Australia, that’s what they call asylum seekers/refugees. Is it the same there?
On the poll, it’s a cross between tailgaiting and spitting. I’ve never understood the need of some people to spit all over the place in public.
I thought queue jumpers were people who cut in front of you in line, but then, I’m no Finn.
I voted for litterbugs – messing with Mother Earth!
Tailgaters are a pain the ass pun intended! but a fact of life…I just get out of their way or slow down and make them go around me…
I hate to keep picking on Trollhatten (well, actually I don’t) but based on my unfortunate ‘incareration’ there, I would have thought that swedes-telling-dumb-finns jokes would have been on the list.
I need to remember that spellcheck:
incarceration not incareration
It’s not a common problem. The ones that tried it are in hospital…
but the entire list makes me giggle. Somewhere between queue jumping and sidewalk dog turds I spit coffee on my monitor. I think it was the image of a country of folks walking down sidewalks hopping over eachother into piles of poo all the while hawking loogies all over the place that did it…
And now I’m laughing because your description reminds me of a day at Great Adventure Theme Parks…
The poll was Europe wide – don’t pick on the Finns. We have ways…
I hear they spit a lot. hehehe
My nomination from the bench would go to the morons who cough incessantly, talk, and have their mobiles switched on at chamber music concerts.
This is not the 18th Century you know – asthmatism was less understood then š
I gathered that it was high vodka prices that ticked Finns off. I never met a sober Finn that long weekend there…then again, neither was I.
In 2002, the Ottowa Citizen’s Dan Gardner took a comparative look at imprisonment in the 3 countries. Outstanding work, as was the series of which it’s an installment.
Archived at WHY FINLAND IS SOFT ON CRIME
less than half Canada’s rate of 119 per 100,000 people and a tiny fraction of the American rate of 702.”…
“Violence is rare in Finnish prisons. Officials credit this calm in part to their policy of giving prisoners as much contact with other people, both inside and outside prisons, as possible. Frequent visits from family and friends are encouraged, including conjugal visits.”…
“Mr. Salminen takes obvious pride in this record and hopes other countries draw lessons from it. He has visited Canadian prisons and, in many ways, he admires our system, particularly our rehabilitation programs. One such program is now the subject of a trial in Finland.
“But at the same time,” he notes, “there is a whole lot of Americanization.” That worries Mr. Salminen, who, like all Finnish justice officials, thinks the wave of “tough on crime” policies in the United States is folly. If Canada goes further in the American direction, he warns, “you get the American problems, too.”
Thanks for the link! Where can I find the other instalments?
The most interesting parts of the article covered a) the fact that, compared with crime trends in other Scandinavian countries over several decades, the ‘Hard’ and ‘Soft’ prison regimes in Finland seemed to have had no influence on those trends; and b) the importance of contact during and after incarceration.
Crime and punishment series