Back from Helsinki! An excellent time had by the Irish press mini-brigade with some forays into Helsinki nightlife with some of the British press brigade. Let me begin by saying that we had a quite ridiculously fun time using the camera phones Nokia loaned us for the two days. The resolution is pretty decent for a phone and it gets quite addictive to take shots on the go (that's downtown Helsinki; and then me and Matthew Magee of the Irish Sunday Tribune at an evening event; the phone camera has no flash and it was pretty dim inside, so the image shows what you can do...). Then we climbed the steps to the Sling In bar -- cocktails and AC/DC! What a combo for a midsummer's eve...:

 We had a group of Finnish gals at the next table laughing at us as we all tried out a little app called 'Photographer', which lets you do some brilliant special effects, like this (Matthew again):

  After a while we moved on to Memphis, another bar, and were joined by some of the Brits, incuding Andrew Orlowski of the Register, whom I hadn't seen in about two years now. This place wasn't very well lit (well, who wants a well-lit bar at midnight?!) and the poor camera phone struggled a bit. But here's Andrew, deep in conversation but secretly thinking about the plate of chips on the table to his right:

 We eventually toddled off into the night just after midnight -- but of course, this is the land of the midnight sun and it is nearly the summer solstice, the longest day of the year, and also a Finnish holiday (all the Scandinavians officially celebrate midsummer... and who wouldn't when you've come through those long winter days...!). By this time of year it never gets dark. This was the view looking north from my hotel room at about 1 in the morning. The sky is just amazing. By 3 am it is as bright as 10 am.

 That's all I'm writing for today -- plenty more but I have a conference to go to tomorrow and must admit to not having had the longest night's sleep last night, due to party and bar intervention. A bit on the phones and on Nokia tomorrow, when I get the chance.