The Happy Quarter is yet another miserably failed idea produced by bureaucratic
state machine. Finnish
government bureaucrats found The Happy Quarter (
Iloinen Vartti, in Finnish) in 1997 in order to celebrate the
Independence Day.
The official vow of The Happy Quarter was "emme emmi mämmiämme" ("we don't hesitate our Finnish Easter dish") that should be repeated numerous times. The vow should be consider to sound funny. Quite describing is that instead of 15 minutes The Happy Quarter lasted only about 10 minutes in many places..
I can remember myself sitting in a restaurant where The Happy Quarter was welcomed with a contempt and disgraceful laughter. The general judgment was that we are not going to follow the orders. George Orwell and 1984. The Happy Quarter certainly gave us some cold shivers and deja-vu kind of feeling.
I'm not quite sure but I think that The Happy Quarter is forgotten since that. 1997 was anyway consider as a special year because Finland turned 80 at that day. In terror I wait for 2017; what they are going to invent for us..