November 2004

Sleepy Tony

November 30, 2004

WHAT I WOULD LIKE TO KNOW IS What the bejesus is happening to The Sopranos?? A full head-scratching episode last night that jumped from one baffling scene to another, beginning with Tony’s girlfriend setting herself on fire and progressing bizarrely to Tony renting a suite at the Plaza Hotel in New York, ordering a hooker, [...]

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Lost innocence

November 29, 2004

A comment in the editorial of Saturday’s Fréttablaðið caught my eye. It concerned the abduction of the little nine-year old girl last week, the perpetrator of which has not yet been found. “In a large part of the world, including the one which we inhabit, a large portion of the population watches the same TV [...]

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What genious invented XP??

November 27, 2004

Well, Windows XP has come sashaying into my life with all its snazz, flash and (misspent) pizzazz. YT is not impressed. In fact my acquaintance with XP has so far been a brutal disappointment. Whereas me and ME didn’t get along famously, particularly not in the last while, we’d formed an uneasy alliance based on [...]

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How to survive redundancy in style!

November 26, 2004

Was at a gathering last night where somebody described a recent illustration in The Economist (UK), which showed the diagonal lines of the Union Jack being painted over with blue, thereby creating the Icelandic flag – all because Icelanders are systematically invading the British market. YT was immediately drenched in nationalistic pride! I mean, who [...]

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Beware the ideas of Marx, dum dum…

November 25, 2004

EPI told me a funny story the other day. There was a guy he knew up in Akureyri (in the north)who immersed himself in the writings of Friedrich Engels. One suspects Marxist theory. Anyway, this guy sat and sat, studied and studied, working his damndest to get a grasp. One day, he was sitting in [...]

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The amazing Belafonte

November 24, 2004

Harry Belafonte was in Iceland last week to promote UNICEF. I confess I knew very little about him before he came (except that he sang songs and has a daughter named Shari who is an actress). Last night, however, I got around to watching an interview with him on Icelandic TV* and am completely smitten. [...]

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Burning rubber

November 23, 2004

Cripes! Big, bad blaze last night. Down at Sundahöfn harbour, in a recycling lot. Immense piles of rubber tires, rubber tire bits, scrap metal and other mish-mash. All set to be transported out of the country (not to some obscure garbage dump at sea, one hopes), but unfortunately it caught on fire before that happened. [...]

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Of sleepless insanity

November 22, 2004

Today YT got the deja vu taste of what it’s like to be a nine-to-fiver in an Icelandic winter. Spent the day reading proofs and editing copy for my friends up at Iceland Review, which meant that I left the house in the dark and arrived home – you guessed it – in the dark! [...]

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Social studies

November 21, 2004

Interesting experience last night. Went to dance mentioned in previous blog. It was held at a community centre out on Seltjarnarnes, which is a tiny municipality adjacent to Reykjavík (which makes up for in affluence what it lacks in size). Now, here in Iceland one gets the cultural phenomenon known as the ‘country dance’. Basically, [...]

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Balmy

November 20, 2004

Today it’s a balmy –1 degrees Centigrade, a veritable heatwave compared to temps in the –20s that we’ve had lately. The wind has picked up, making it safe to go outside again, and the weatherman promises that we’re in for a warm spell, with rain and the accompanying slush and grind. AAH went off this [...]

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