Tommy Tabermann

Tommy Tabermann (3 December 1947, Ekenäs – 2 July 2010, Helsinki) was a Finnish contemporary poet and politician, radio personality and journalist. Since 1998 and until 2006 he was known to Finnish audiences for his witty role as team captain in the weekly Saturday night television show Uutisvuoto, the Finnish version of Have I Got News For You, opposite the bestselling author Jari Tervo. Tervo recently characterised his popularity with the following anecdote: "When he was sixty, nine out of ten persons in an elevator at the Stockmann department store (in Helsinki) recognised him. The tenth person was Japanese."

He left the show in the spring of 2007 in order to run for the Parliament of Finland. Running as a Social Democrat Party candidate, he secured a nomination with 4,972 votes.

Tabermann came from a bilingual Swedish-Finnish family, both languages having been spoken in his childhood home. Despite being bilingual he wrote all his books in Finnish.

In August 2009 Tabermann was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor and he died on July 2, 2010. He is buried in the Hietaniemi Cemetery in Helsinki.

Tabermann was first and foremost known as a love poet, and was actually sometimes referred to as an "apostle of love". His good friend and Uutisvuoto co-team captain Jari Tervo wrote of his feelings for Tabermann with the following words: "Now I personally know what the price of love is: it is sorrow."

Lähikuvassa Tommy Tabermann, a biography of the poet by Juha Numminen, was released in the autumn of 2010.