On Tuesday I travelled the 200 km from Helsinki to Tampere. Since my colleague had a last minute change of plan and could not drive me I ended up taking an InterCity train. The trains are taller and wider than in the UK and it was very comfortable in the upper deck with a great view over the countryside.

The photo shows the train after arriving at Tampere station.

Not many relatives of mine like black pudding - I am the exception. Until I first went to Tampere I always thought that black pudding was a solely British and Irish thing. I have eaten it as part of an English/Irish/Scottish breakfast in hotels and when I lived in Scotland the fish and chip shops offered "a black pudding supper" which is deep-fried battered black pudding with chips. On the East side of Scotland there is also white pudding which has no blood, and tastes of oatmeal, sage and (very slightly) pork.

German Blutwurst has a very different texture as it does not include oatmeal. I tried it a few times but must admit I was not keen on it. I was therefore suprised on my first trip to Tampere a decade ago that the hotels included black pudding (the Finns call it "black sausage") that was remarkably like the Scottish one. I have never seen it on offer anywhere else in Finland and the folks in Tampere are very proud of it. Since the Scots helped kick off the industrial revolution in Tampere in the early 1800s could there be a connection?

The rather poor photo shows my selection from the breakfast buffet. The "black sausage" is oatmeal-based and does not have the slightly greasy taste of the Spanish morcilla that I have tried in tapas bars. People seem to eat it with a sweet sauce of berries which the hotel translated into English as "lingonberries". I have never heard that word used in English and the berries seem identical to what the Germans call Preiselbeeren.