Chris Worfolk's Blog

I am pleased to unveil my new book, Finland Restaurant Guide.

It is a very short book. I have not visited every restaurant in Finland. Believe it or not, we are not even close. However we have reviewed twelve of the restaurants we visited while in Finland and will be expanding the guide over time.

It is available on Amazon now. I had intended to give it away for free. However, the Kindle Store does not support giving away free books, so I have set it at the minimum price possible – 99p.

What do you get when you book a party barn and fill it full of Fins and Brits for a wedding? The answer is a damn fine party. I like to think that is down to the excellent team that Elina’s mum Riitta and I make. Riitta organised everything, and I resisted the urge to try and control everything, and everything worked out well.

We started with a champagne reception. Elina and I even had our own non-alcohol tray. We then sat down for a formal meal and then the cutting of the cake, which involved the usual awkwardness of everyone gathering round taking photos. Then we partied.

The barn had seating areas downstairs, including a bar with saloon doors and a dart board, and then an open area upstairs with a poker table, pool table, ping pong table, two table footballs and an air hockey table. There was also a TV with a variety of games consoles and a karaoke machine.

Oli won the book on Kieran’s arrival time after he turned up 2 hours 34 minutes late, beating out Cara’s guess with four minutes to spare.

I don’t have many photos of the day because I was busy being the groom and everything, but some more should hopefully turn up.

Elina and I would like to say a big thank you to everyone who made the trip over from the UK, from Sweden, and from the various parts of Finland too! It was wonderful to celebrate the day with so many special people!

For the first half of our wedding we travelled to Finland. I do me “we”! All together we took a contingent of 17 people there. Elina and I flew out in advance to spend some time in Helsinki.

We stopped by Stadi Talkers Toastmasters club and then checked into Hotel Haven. Haven is my favourite hotel in the world. However, Helsinki is the only place we stay in a luxury hotel, so there isn’t really any competition. But it is really nice. I couldn’t blag us a suite for the wedding, but they did give us a celebratory box of chocolates!

Moomintroll looked very pleased to be back.

We then headed off to have dinner. The first time we were in Helsinki we had seen Ravintola Nokka but decided it was too expensive. This time, we were here for our wedding though, so decided to splash out. It was awesome. The best food I have had in Finland.

Below is a panorama from our dockside meal.

On Tuesday we visited Helsinki Zoo who had elk this time, and in the evening meet up with my family for a steak at Goodwin. We spent the day with them on Wednesday when we visited the island of Suomenlinna.

On Thursday we set off on our own again to visit Moominworld, before having lunch on a riverboat in Turku and meeting Elina’s mum for dinner in the evening. We even had time to stop by the yarn shop.

Then on Friday, we headed up to Pori to spend a day on the sandy beach up there, before having a late lunch in the town.

James took this photo of the beach.

Saturday was the big day itself. I will write that up separately.

We spent Sunday touring the lakes around Laitila, going for a dip in two of them and making use of the beach sauna too. Trouble was ahead when Norman managed to lose his glasses in the lake, but Dr Barr came to the rescue by managing to dive down and find them – and they laughed when I said I would go fetch the PhDs…

Helsinki was good, but relaxing over in the west was one of the best parts of the trip. We’re already eyeing up summer cottages for when Worfolk Limited makes its IPO.

In August we did an engagement shoot, which apparently is a thing now. It was a good chance to get to know our photographer, Dan, droll over his camera gear a bit, and get some practice at posing for non-posed photographs. We’re also using the photos as part of our UK wedding so keep an eye out!

It was a lot of fun. I felt like a celebrity as we were guided round Temple Newsam while a giant camera lens was pointed at us.

Those of you who did computing with me at Leeds will no doubt remember Jack Kelly, also known as Aussie Jack. He spent August doing a world tour to catch up with friends and dropped my Leeds for some food or conversation.

Having had my wallet battered by a week of Finland we ended up having lunch at the Cuthbert Brodrick. A place where you can buy a meal cheaper than you can buy a pint in Helsinki. We ended up having lunch at Wetherspoon’s again the next day – this time at the train station – to meet up with Sarann and Chris. Some might worry this would give off the impression that we’re just alcohols that spend all our time at ‘Spoons. However, Jack was here for a year, so probably had us down that way anyway.

In the evening we held a small gathering. I managed to cook a reasonable amount of food (as opposed to way, way too much) and a good time was had by all. I even went out of my way to not be a grumpy bastard and joined in the card game, Love Letters, which turned out to be a lot of fun.

In 1954 Aldous Huxley, author of Brave New World, took a load of mescaline to see what would happen. Mescaline is a hallucinogenic substance that produces a similar result to LCD.

Using his own memories as well as transcripts and records of the events as recorded by an observer he then wrote a short book about it. His conclusion is that it is quite good. Certainly superior to alcohol as it leaves you with no hangover. However, it is difficult to control the length of the trip, which is rather inconvenient.

Having finally arrived in Helsinki after an exhaustive day of travelling there was really only one thing to do – find a local Toastmasters meeting. Actually, I had already found the club online. There are half a dozen in Finland but only one was meeting while we were there. Stadi Talkers is a President’s Distinguished Club, the highest honour a club can earn.

Meetings are conducted in English. Although some clubs speak in their own language, Toastmasters is generally like the British Empire – they go into other people’s country and insist their speak English. You have to learn Swedish as a second language in Finland. That means that the people at the meeting who were speaking more eloquently than I was were mostly doing it in their 3rd language.

People were friendly and welcoming. It was a mixture of Finns and immigrants, and the standard of English was high. A lot of cool people there too. I got chatting to a guy who used to work at Rovio, the maker of Angry Birds. They have something like 900 people working their now, which I assumed meant they were branching out into more games. However, it turned out that was 900 people all working on Angry Birds!

The meeting format only had minor differences to ours. They had Table Topics in the first half and a seperate person from the Grammarian introduced the word of the day. Every time someone slipped it in they pounded on the table. They even had an educational on Easy Speak – it would have brought a tear to Euan’s eye. Guests were only introduced at the end of the meeting, after they had had time to settle down and get comfortable.

I spoke twice. I did the toast of the meeting, which we do not have in Leeds but makes perfect sense when you are in a pub. I also did a Table Topic and came away with the ribbon. Not a bad start to the trip!

Suomenlinna is a fortress island in the bay of Helsinki. It was originally built by the Swedes to stop the Russians from invading. Ultimately it did not work, but it is now a UNESCO world heritage site (one of two we visited on the trip, the other being Old Rauma).

The island has a selection of bars and cafes, six museums and a few shops. It claims to have a memorial to prisoners of war as well but it clearly is not where it is supposed to be according to the map. The island also has several hundred permanent residences ensuring a good ferry service. During the day it runs every 20 minutes and the day runs from 5am to 2am the next morning.

You have to walk on Suomenlinna, there is basically no disabled access due to the cobbled streets, hills and dirt tracks. However, the mile to the other side of the island feels a lot shorter because there is so much to see and do.

Some panoramas too. Click for a larger version:

Up until this week, I feel like it has been easy pickings for the judges. Stu, Dorret, Sandy and Marie were obvious choices to leave the tent. As of week five though, things have started to get tough.

This week we lost Ugne. It’s a shame to lose the new Chetna this early on. She did some brave things and they consistently came off. Just not consistently enough to save her from elimination. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying she was kicked off the Great British Bake Off because it’s a racist show that gets rid of foreigners. I’m not saying that…

I’m actually not. Anyway, here are my thoughts on the remaining contestants:

Alvin

Alvin has had some bad bakes. Watching him cry at his pile of build-it-yourself box pieces was heartbreaking. Then other times he is finished in half the time and sitting around waiting. He does consistently produce excellent flavours though, so I think will hang on in there as long as there are other less-than-perfect bakers. Whether he will go all the way though seems unlikely.

Flora

Ah, the token posh girl. She reminds me a lot of Martha from last year. A good solid baker, but a lack of flair and consistently will eventually be her downfall.

Ian

I can’t believe Paul described Ian as being in trouble. It would have been stupid to eliminate someone who had so far won three star bakers out of five. He is likeable and modest, definitely a potential winner.

Mat

Mat is not the most exciting baker in the world, but tends to perform consistently middle of the field. I think he will continue on until the competition gets really tough.

Nadiya

Yeah, go Nadiya, flying the flag for Leeds! If she can nail more of the technical challenges, she could be a potential winner too. Which makes sense given she is from the town that invented jelly tots and Thai gumbo.

Paul

Paul produces some incredible stuff. He had some shaky moments early on but could continue to improve and go a long way.

Tamal

Injecting cakes with a syringe? This man is amazing! Whether he can consistently deliver with enough flair though, I’m not sold.

Predictions

If I have learned anything from the books I have been reading it is that predictions are almost certainly going to be hopelessly wrong. However, that is the fun. Here are my top three potential leavers this week:

• Tamal
• Flora
• Alvin

The Virgin Way: How to Listen, Learn, Laugh and Lead is a 2014 book by Richard Branson in which he dispenses advice.

Some of it reads like a Toastmasters manual. He encourages readers to make notes constantly, and develop their listening skills. Cndense your message down to be short and to the point. Twitter is a great format for this. Keep emails short. Make a pitch document one A4 sheet at the most. Do the same thing with presentations.

Avoid “that said” as it destroys any argument you have just built up. Avoid “no comment” either as it just annoys people.

Be your own customer. He often goes around the Virgin businesses both to talk to his staff but also to play at being a customer and often to make phoney complaints to see how they are handled.

I disagree with him on some things. He is not a big fan of mission statements. I like them because they keep you on purpose. Also, I think the mission statement they came up with for Virgin Mega Stores was nonsense. He said keep it real but theirs was actually full of jargon.

He also cited Kodak as a case of when they were not forward thinking enough because they did not embrace digital. This is probably true. As Steve Jobs pointed out if you do not cannibalise your own market, someone else will. However, Kodak was really killed by the rise of camera phones, something it was difficult, if not impossible, for anyone to predict in advance.

Luck is also a tricky subject. I agree with the phrase “the harder I practice the luckier I get”. However, as Branson himself admitted it is difficult to know where the luck ends and the skill begins. Capital breeds capital so once you have been lucky one, it is a lot easier to be lucky again. That is not to say it doesn’t involve hard work as well though – it is probably both.

He discusses Netflix’s policy of not tracking holiday. I am not sure I would like this as an employee as it kind of admits there is no work life balance outside of the office and forces you to strike an awkward balance between getting your fair share and not taking too much. However, I could definitely be sold on the idea.

The core of The Virgin Way is people-centred. Put your staff first, be fun and develop a great culture in which people are empowered to take a lead. Have lots of staff parties.

Stay nimble and small. Collaboration tails off after you get more than 20 people in a team, so try nd keep projects down to that. Whatever you do, do it with passion.