I share my time between my native Helsinki (Finland) and Dortmund (Germany), where my football team Borussia Dortmund lives. This blog is about my puzzling actvities in these cities.
Nice little puzzle with a funny cut. Loved the image by Toulouse-Lautrec. Even the dark parts had some variations in shade, which helped.
At the Moulin Rouge by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, D-Toys, 515 pieces. Completed on July 20, 2021.
I think I was almost a third in when it struck me that all the pieces have the same basic shape. Usually I find this annoying, and I would probably get tired of this, too, in the end, but I found it a lot better than having only the usual two-tabs-oppsite pieces. The cut was advertised as difficult on the box, but it didn’t seem like that to me. If anything, it was easier than doing a puzzle with exclusively two-tabs-opposite pieces, because there was always just one way the pieces could fit together.
Great collage of (mostly) Finnish matchboxes. Despite the name, there’s at least one that says “Made in Sweden”. According to the box, the designs are from about 1930-1985, and I do recognize a few. While many were produced for the domestic market, there are some more exotic designs as well.
Finnish Matchboxes, Lautapelit.fi, 1000 pieces. Completed on July 19, 2021.
The puzzle was produced directly for one of my favourite puzzle vendors, Lautapelit.fi, and made in Poland. The quality is nice, with a good mix of piece shapes.
This are two of my favourite designs: on the left a rather gruesome ad for insurance (in Swedish), and on the right for Philips radios.
Some of the matches were produced for use in other countries, like the USA and Saudi Arabia:
The most instantly recognizable design is this:
The brand of Sampo matches is still available and they still use a similar design, although with different colours. Since 1995, however, they are no longer produced in Finland.
Great image by Loup showing Notre-Dame in Paris. The church was severely damaged in a fire in 2019, and Heye paid tribute by releasing this lovely image again (it was previously released in 1991, although some characters have been added for the new release).
Vive Notre Dame! by Loup, Heye, 1000 pieces. Completed on July 16, 2021.
This is my favourite kind of Loup puzzle, with funny details but not too busy. And it did turn out to be very enjoyable and quite easy.
Exorcism with a broom, a fleeing ghost and a flying nun:
Great image and great puzzle! The cut was perfect, no danger of placing a piece wrong. I was expecting it to be more difficult, but this came together really fast because the quality was so good.
The Temptation of St. Anthony by Salvador Dalí (1946), Ricordi Arte, 1000 pieces. Completed on July 12, 2021.
I’ve been puzzling a bit less lately, and I’ve now used up all my photos. I’ve decided to abandon my schedule of posting always on Fridays and mostly on Tuesdays as well. Whenever I’ve finished a puzzle and written a post about it, I will publish it right away. I may still do in progress-posts about larger puzzles, but there may, of course, be longer periods when I have nothing to post.
But onto Hotel World, a great Heye puzzle from 2002!
Hotel World by Hugo Prades, Heye, 1500 pieces. Completed on July 6, 2021.
The fit was a bit loose for my taste, as it often is with Heye puzzles from this time. There was also something else that I noticed while working on Space Diner (1999) as well: while there is a good mix of piece shapes, there are no pieces with two tabs next to each other. All other common grid-cut piece shapes are present.
There are, of course, a lot of funny details. One of my favourites is the blob in the kitchen. Unlike in the movies, this blob looks as alarmed as the people around it:
I don’t remember where the blob came from in the movies, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t from a tin:
Is that supposed to be “Marinated blob”?
Here some horrified hens catch a cooking show:
There are some activities I would definitely not associate with a hotel, like surgery:
One theme that repeats throughout the puzzle is how everyone is online all the time, and it’s not presented as a good thing. Even in the surgery, everyone is looking at the screen.
In the chapel, the internet seems to have replaced the deity…
… while elsewhere people worship at their computers:
The internet also causes problems in the toilets:
There’s also an image which is much more political than I would expect in a puzzle like this:
A bunch of pigs are celebrating and playing with the world, and in the background a poster says “Be rich – Be happy” (I think it’s “happy”), and shows a small creature crushed under a boot. The pigs are entertained by the “Poor Band”, consisting mostly of non-Caucasian musicians. I can’t remember seeing anything this political in previous Hugo Prades-images that I’ve done, but there may of course be something that I just didn’t recognize.
Anyway, I loved this puzzle, the loose fit was the only thing I didn’t enjoy.
Somehow, I usually pull out something more colourful and exciting when choosing what to puzzle next, but when I do a traditional image, I almost always enjoy it. I only bought this Alpine landscape because I wanted to try the brand (Pelikan), but it turned out to be a very enjoyable puzzle.
Klausen Pass, Switzerland, Pelikan, 1000 pieces. Completed on July 10, 2021.
The pieces are thick and only fit where they belong. The cut was fairly tight, and the majority of pieces had two tabs opposite, while a few had a curved side with no tab or hole (very much like Educa, except with better precision). I was expecting the meadow in the foreground to be much harder than it turned out to be. The dandelions helped, I could usually tell which way was up for the piece thanks to them.
There’s no date on the puzzle, but it says “Made in Germany” (not “West Germany”), dating it after reunification in 1990. I think it’s from the 90’s.
A lovely image by Guglielmo Zocchi, with two girls reading a letter. I think the girl in red has received a love letter, and is sharing the good news with her friend. The puzzle was easier than I expected, but the white bits would become difficult in a larger piece count.
Confidences by Guglielmo Zocchi, Anatolian, 1000 pieces. Completed on May 23, 2021.
Well this was fun and easy! I sat down basically just to spread out the pieces and intended to continue the following day, but then I put a few pieces together and couldn’t stop. I never time myself puzzling, but this was definitely under two hours, perhaps even 90 minutes. Loved it!
Venetian Lagoon, Clementoni, 500 pieces. Completed on June 30, 2021.
A bit more colour would have been nice, but it was still a very enjoyable puzzle. I like the square 500-piece puzzles by Ravensburger, the pieces are especially nice and a bit larger than usual.
Happy Heart by Anna Flores, Ravensburger, 500 pieces. Completed on June 29, 2020.
I’ve arrived safely in Helsinki, and am now quarantining at home.
A cartoon version of the famous Abbey Road album cover with the Beatles. If you were to write down what “Beatles” sounds like to a Finn, you might end up with “Piitles” (especially if pronounced by a Finn). The background is completely different from the famous album cover.
Mauri Kunnas is most well known for his children’s books, but before those, he used to do cartoons for a youth music magazine called Suosikki (“Favourite”), and later he did an entire book about the Beatles.
Piitles by Mauri Kunnas, Peliko, 500 pieces. Completed on May 21, 2021.
Puzzler1909 