Aki Riihilahti - Offisiell Hjemmeside In English Suomeksi På norsk
Nyheter Spørsmål Fakta Historie Bilder Spesial

Nyheter

Tilbake til nyheter

8.10.2001
Door sign is not a joke

Germany - Finland 0-0


If it says "drukken" in the door, dont pull it. This is how much I learned in Germany at my first stay there back in 1993. However this visit I pulled it again. You live and you learn - and you forget.


Normally one should not forget the World Cup qualification game in the new and packed (60000) stadium in Kelsenkirschen. However, despite the good set-up this game was like its score - a zero. It will be forgotten as a boring game, but remembered as a good result.


Both teams looked tired and even nervous. The game, the pitch and the conditions were hard. Not a lot good football were produced. A difficult game for everyone. I think the only star player in the field was our keeper Antti Niemi, who saved some magnificent ones. All the other players were not better or worse than the rest of the game.


The nailbitting qualifications are over now. Congratulations to England for qualifying justifiedly. Germany was a good second. Finland ended number three.
Even though we played good qualifications and showed some really enjoyable football, we were still left out. Bitterly.


So what is the difference between Finland and World Cup then? It is actually only that sign in a door. Sign in a door is just a small but ever so precious detail to help you. Before we had to try to break all the doors; now we have progressed close enough to read the signs. We definitely have the quality to open however big doors. Challenge is to do it regularly and solidly. Sometimes you need also luck to understand signs in difficult places and languages.


Finland has now the best national team ever and this is also the best football team I have played in. I have been honored. I am also proud of our small nation. We havent open the main door yet but it is just a matter of time when that one has the same sign than I have in my flat:"Welcome". Then we are home.


So Finnish football is not a joke anymore. What is a joke then? If asked a joke I usually tell this bankstampprimeminister -one. It is not a usual one and told right the response differs followingly:


3% starts to laugh because they want to be polite to me
18% laughs because they are too proud to admit they did not get it.
10% joins laughing because someone else is laughing
2% somehow thinks it was a best joke ever and tells it in an another occasion
4% complains that it was not a joke
8% says they have a better one
14% says they did not get it
1% has to go to a toilet
33% are sweating their brains off
-52% of them making stupid facials
-11% of them not sleeping next night
7% does something else
And whatever happens there is always this one geezer from Shirley who fullfills 82% of these criterias.


After awhile only 9% comes to ask to explain it. And depending the situation it is better to explain it in a respectful way to everyone.


In a traditional way one tells an old joke and the other one laughs - and forgets. However I warned you that I am a serious man. I am not traditional because I never got any joke books to X-mas present. One day I realised after all the efforts to understand and laugh, that this one geezer and me were bigger jokes than the stamp-man in the bank. That was a biggest laugh ever, I hope we all have a self irony to laugh to ourselves. This is how I learned this joke from one John Smith from Shirley.



This week I recommend:
1. Buying a traditional joke book next X:mas
2. Any stories with %:s
3. Being respectful


I do not recommend:
1. Difficult (usually German) door signs
2. Going too far
3. Songs that I cant get out of my mind



Antti Niemi liimaa kaiken,

Aki


Copyright 2001 Aki Riihilahti, all rights reserved Gå til toppen av siden