Magic, Itälä, spooks & Halloween

A stand-up magician by Asa Butcher
October 31st 2006 marks the 80th anniversary of Harry Houdini's death, one of the world's greatest pioneers of magic and illusion. In honour of Houdini and National Magic Day in the USA, we chat with Malcolm the Magician… (Read more)

Mr. Itälä's EU expansion by Thanos Kalamidas
Finnish Euro-MP Ville Itälä made some interesting comments that have reflected the skepticism of the last few years in Europe. He said that the EU has been far too forgiving of would-be EU members who don’t live up to their commitments... (Read more)

Sprites, spirits, spooks and slime by Jan Sand
As a young kid, I was afraid of the dark. Not for what I thought might be there but for what might be there that was unthinkable. I was scared when I didn’t see anything... (Read more)

"Hallow the eve of winter" by Christopher Wilkinson
"The poetry of the earth is never dead." - John Keats (Read more)

Online Ovi Radio

Ovi Bad Boys Radio Show Online Now!

This week Thanos is back in the studio with Asa and together we interview Johanna MacDonald, the co-director of the Finn-Brit Players' latest production The Winter's Tale.

The music has been edited out, but you can enjoy 40mins of chat by clicking here:

LISTEN NOW

The last few months have been a number of Ovi magazine copycats and Ovi magazine imitators and they have tried using names like theovimagazine, ovimagazine and others to excuse their minor and pity existence. However they tried to manipulate google and other search engines they failed for one and simple reason, their inability to be unique, to have opinion, to say the truth. How can a lier, a copycat, a bad imitation survive next to Ovi magazine, something so unique and real, a place for exchange ideas and respect to democracy. imitating a magazine like Ovi magazine it doesn't only show inability to do something, anything original but it shows clear that they are enemies of exactly what Ovi magazine represents, they are little fascists, enemies of freedom of speech and anything democratic.

There is only one original Ovi magazine and you can find it only here, the rest are just ...minor brains, petite thieves, parasites you can only feel sad and sorry for their existence.

The birth of a copycat

On Friday 13th October, Jone Nikula and Ari Halttunen published the first edition of their brand new free magazine that will be distributed across Finnish cities and we hope that it will bring them bad luck. The familiar name of this new magazine is 'Ovi'.

Yes, they have stolen our name, a name we have built a reputation upon for three years and has become intrinsically connected with everything we do here at www.ovimagazine.com as the Ovi team.

We categorically state that the copycat has nothing to do with us and we ask for your continuing support,

The Ovi Team

Below is a copy of the mail we sent to the staff of the copycat magazine:

The Ovi magazine and the Ovi team feels obliged to say that the name of your magazine is simply splendid – we bet you gave great thought to its selection, after dismissing names like the New York Times, Newsweek, The Economist, you decided to send your creativity sky high using our magazine’s three-year-old name. Your graphic designer also did a splendid job as well; we bet their portfolio features other names like Leevi's Jeans, Colpa Cabana, Roleks and others.

Just as we have done over the last four months, we promise to answer all the mails coming to Ovi magazine and Ovi lehti, both names that are registered to us, but we suppose you already know that.

Actually, in a telephone call a few months ago with Ari Halttunen, he gave the rather entertaining answer, "We didn’t know you existed; we checked the internet!" You definitely knew about us since then and you know that we are the only true Ovi magazine and are one of the very few daily magazines in the world.

We wish you luck in the harsh world of free Finland newspapers, although we are confident you will find a niche among City, Voima, SixDegrees, V, Metro, Uutis 100, Nöjesguiden, Sue and Spektr. We're sure we missed four or five – oddly, we are so organized that we have carried out research into the future of free magazines and it doesn't look good.

We are certain you will finish on top of the pile…just before they are sent away for recycling. We're joking, although you are printing your magazine on recycled paper, aren't you? It is only coming out ten times a year, so you could always pass the cost onto your advertisers - let's hope the Green Party use you to promote their candidates in the coming elections. Ahhh, irony!

Luckily, you have the web edition of your magazine to champion yourselves online at the catchy URL of www.ovi-lehti-fi. Nice. Don't most of your competitors just have their title and dot fi? Oh well, we are sure it will work out through the search engines and your readers will not stumble upon any original titled online magazines…hmm.

Seriously, we wish you the best and if a copy happens to blow down the street and strike a leg then we may scrape it off the ground and have a read.

The Ovi Team

P.S. Despite the warnings, even from Roman Schatz, that you act as a copycat and our warnings that you shouldn’t base your future on somebody else’s work, you ignored everything. It's natural that we are going to publish the truth, warn advertisers and readers at every single chance.

Reagan, Gorbachev and Iceland

Reykjavik, October 12th, 1986: "After the break, the president of USA Ronald Reagan said he had been sorry to keep the General Secretary of the USSR, Mikhail Gorbachev, waiting so long, but Gorbachev knew the trouble Americans had getting along even with each other."

The president continued by saying that he had spent this time trying very hard to meet the General Secretary's desire for a ten-year declaration. This had to be his final effort. The president then read the following text:

"The USSR and the United States undertake for ten years not to exercise their existing right of withdrawal from the ABM Treaty, which is of unlimited duration, and during that period strictly to observe all its provisions, while continuing research, development and testing which is permitted by the ABM Treaty. Within the first five years of the ten-year period (and thus through 1991), the strategic offensive arms of the two sides shall be reduced by 50 percent. During the following five years of that period, the remaining 50 percent of the two sides' offensive ballistic missiles shall be reduced. Thus by the end of 1996, all the offensive ballistic missiles of the USSR and the United States will have been totally eliminated."

These are someof the words coming straight from notes kept during the meeting Ronald Reagan had with Michael Gorbachev in Reykjavic 20 years ago. And in the last issue of the Ovi magazine there is an article talking about this strange aniversary!

Alexis Kivi

Alexis Kivi (1834-1872), originally Alexis Stenvall, is the Finnish national writer, poet, playwright, novelist and the creator of modern Finnish literature. He was the first Finn to become a professional writer and published all his works in Finnish. According to everybody who has read his work, his masterpiece is the aforementioned novel Seitsemän Verjestä (Seven Brothers) published two years before his death in 1870.

Read more in a special article about Alexis Kivi in the Ovi Magazine.

During the last years of his life, Alexis Kivi suffered from health and financial problems ending in a hospital for schizophrenia treatment, where psychiatry was still in embryonic condition and experimental treatment in the early second half of the 19th century. In the spring of 1872, his brother brought him to Tuusula, where he lived in a small cottage, to be precise, inside the sauna of the small cottage. He died on December 31st, 1872, and, as the legend has it, his last words were: "Minä elän! (I am alive!)

Now dig my grave
Beneath the bay willows' boughs
And with blackness cover it over again,
The for evermore
Go from my domain:
I wish to slumber in peace.

- From the poem Weariness

An Amish disaster

There are no answers or even questions to what happened with the school kids in that school in USA inside the Amish community.

But there are more questions rising from our own attitude and how we deal with things like that. For the last issue of the Ovi magazine, there is an article asking exactly this question and our ability to recognize what is serious anymore especially of this daily bombardment with death from the news.

The Ovi Magazine

How many magazines can have a new cover every day? Obviously Ovi magazine excuses its "we cover every issue" to the line or better to the ...cover!!!

And some of this covers are ...just amazing!!! You can see a lot of them here ate the blog as well!

The last few months have been a number of Ovi magazine copycats and Ovi magazine imitators and they have tried using names like theovimagazine, ovimagazine and others to excuse their minor and pity existence. However they tried to manipulate google and other search engines they failed for one and simple reason, their inability to be unique, to have opinion, to say the truth. How can a lier, a copycat, a bad imitation survive next to Ovi magazine, something so unique and real, a place for exchange ideas and respect to democracy. imitating a magazine like Ovi magazine it doesn't only show inability to do something, anything original but it shows clear that they are enemies of exactly what Ovi magazine represents, they are little fascists, enemies of freedom of speech and anything democratic.

There is only one original Ovi magazine and you can find it only here, the rest are just ...minor brains, petite thieves, parasites you can only feel sad and sorry for their existence.

Going Irish in Helsinki

In Helsinki nowadays is going to be Irish time with a lot of Guiness, Irish music and Irish dancing. At least that's what you can learn in an article about Irish nihgts in Helsinki in the Ovi magazine.