August 2005

Joe Cocker is in Iceland to give a concert later in the week. Consequently we the poor innocent radio-listening public are being constantly subjected to Joe’s slaughtering of various well-known tunes in his trademark growl-slash-constipated vocals. EPI and YT have had just about enough because, not that we have anything against old JC, but he just doesn’t seem to do anything creative with any of his covers except, well, growl and pretend to exert himself terribly. This evening, for instance, as we were chowing down on pizza for dinner [yes we’re imperfect, yes we eat junk food, yes yes] a song came on the radio that sounded really promising – so promising, in fact, that both EPI and myself sort of cocked an ear [haha, I kill myself!] in the general direction of the radio – until it transpired that it was in fact a rendition of Jealous Guy by – yes, you guessed it, mister JC.

At which EPI suddenly launched into a perfectly-conceived Joe Cocker impression, complete with rigid backward-leaning tactics and furiously trembling hands – like a howling Frankenstein. And had YT spewing half-chewed pizza across the table. And then topped it off by saying that He Had Heard that Joe Cocker got the idea to do the cover that made him famous – The Beatles’ ‘With a Little Help From my Friends’ – while sitting on the toilet in this outhouse he had in his backyard.

EPI swears it’s true. And YT is inclined to believe him because as a theory it computes perfectly, what with all that constipated growling.

MIND THE FAMOUS PEOPLE, DEAR!
Here’s a story: a colleague of EPI’s was driving down Reykjavík’s main drag Laugavegur on Friday night around 11 when he saw a couple of people sort of strolling along the sidewalk, joking and having a laugh. He stopped the car to let them cross the street [on Laugavegur people sort of cross the street at will anyway, meaning the cars have no choice, well unless they want to run the people over, but I digress] and saw that this carefree couple were no other than Iceland-regular Harrison Ford, with his lovely-but-skeletal squeeze Calista Flockhart clinging to the arm. Just having a boo at the nightlife, like.

ALSO HAVING A BOO
… at Iceland, these days, are: Clint Eastwood and Frau, plus daughter, plus all his Hollywood male starlets like Ryan Philippe, Adam somebodyorother, Jamie Bell [a.k.a. ‘Billy Elliott’], Paul Walker… ach, truth be told I don’t know what they’re all called but I know they hang out at ‘Prikið’ all the time. And Cameron Diaz was here last week but I think she’s left because nobody talks about seeing her any more. And Alice Cooper was here, but he’s definitely gone. And there were some other famous people here too but I… just… can’t… remember who they were now.

AND THE WEATHER WAS BETTER THAN IN THE U.S.
Thank God! Basickly it was fine. Started out with rain this morning until around noon or so and then it slowed to a trickle, then stopped. Since then it’s just sort of been nondescript, light winds [not from the north, phew!], overcast, reasonably mild. Temps now 9°C. Daybreak was at 05.06 nightfall at 21.48.

EPI and R battle it out with water pistols by the hot tub.

One made sure One took along One’s personal chefs.

Water water everywhere….

… everywhere…

Ten points if you can guess what this is.

Is there any greater work of art than that created by nature?
I ask you!

… Did I already say ‘everywhere’…?

The wall holding up the bridge spanning the river running from the waterfall. It was put up there in the 1930s when the King [of Denmark, and at that time of Iceland, too] came on a royal visit. They even made him a special ‘road’ so he could ride from Þingvellir to Geysir; they call this ‘King’s road’ and today it is little more than a mud track. But one very convenient for accessing the waterfall, which is named ‘Brúarfoss’ - Bridge Waterfall.

Lake Laugarvatn. Taken after the steam bath on our way home today. In the distance: Mt. Hekla, our resident active volcano that entertains us by erupting every 10 years or so. As you can see the weather today was overcast and absolutely calm. Temps are 9°C at the time of writing. Daybreak: 04.59; nightfall 21.56.

Going here.

Going to do this.

The weather is gorgeous - sunny and bright, with just a hint of wind. Temperatures are 10°C at the moment, daybreak was at 04.59 and nightfall set for 21.56.

Back tomorrow!

Have just returned home from the funeral of a relative. In Icelandic we say ‘frændi’ - being a term that covers all male relatives. Similarly, ‘frænka’ covers all female relatives.

He wasn’t a very close relative - he and my father were cousins - but one dear to me nonetheless. When I was small, he lived in the same apartment building as us, and his daughters were my best friends. I then moved abroad, where I lived for over 20 years. Somewhat serendipidously, one of his daughters and I wound up living in the same apartment building again [although a different one from childhood] upon my return to Iceland. I would sometimes run into my ‘frændi’ out on the street in front of the building and he was always warm and enthusiastic, interested in what I was doing and how my life was going. He was a journalist and teacher, and helped me a great deal when I embarked on my journalistic career here in Iceland. He was a kind, gracious man, and he will be missed.

Having spent a good deal of my life ‘away from home’ - growing up and living in other countries, I am repeatedly reminded of the satisfaction of being close to ‘my clan’ - being surrounded by my kin and taking part in the cycle of life, with births, christenings, confirmations, weddings, deaths and funerals as milestones. It is different to what has become the norm in many Western countries, where families are often very scattered and people often become alienated from the heartbeat of their lives.

It’s good.

THE WEATHER IS…
Beautiful. An appropriate setting for the departure of a very kind man. Brilliant sunshine, some strong winds but that’s OK, life isn’t always filled with calm anyway. Iceland looks beautiful in the sunshine, the colours are so brilliant and the ocean sparkles. It’s 10°C right now and daybreak was at 04.56, nightfall is set for 22.00.

Back by popular demand, we give you more immortal words from The Plumber:

ON SHORT TENDONS
‘I was thinking that your problem might be a leak behind the bathtub. I started thinking about that while I was soaking in the bath this morning. I have short tendons. When I was a kid I used to go up on my toes all the time but I don’t tend to do that anymore. I take baths to deal with the problem. When I soak in the bath my tendons lengthen. I couldn’t function if I didn’t soak in the bath once a day.’

ON FAVOURITE BATH SALTS
‘Do you know kelp? Kelp? My son’s friend runs a wholesale business that imports, what do you call it, you know women’s stuff, stuff that women buy for no reason. Like ornaments and things you put on side tables. And she has these bath salts and she gave me a bunch of samples, she made me smell them and was all promoting them and everything and I just smelled this one called ‘kelp’ – that means seaweed – and, mmmm I didn’t need to smell any more. She was all like, ‘smell this’ but I said, ‘no’, and now I have this big jar of it and I use it all the time.’

ON TWO TYPES OF TILE IN OUR HOUSE
[Disdainful] ‘I see somebody’s been doodling, putting tiles down here. Whoever did this didn’t have the first idea what they were doing. They’ve put down two different kinds of tile. You never, ever do that. If an architect walked in here he’d have a stroke. And at least if you’re gonna do that, you never, ever try to make the patterns match. He should have made one diamond-shaped. What you need to do is get a [some special kind of]-saw and you saw this bit here and make a threshold… [YT interrupts, saying that it will never happen, as both she and EPI have other priorities when it comes to time.] [Plumber picks up Europris flier from the kitchen table.] Hey, look! Here’s the saw you need right here!’

ON WHETHER ALL THE PIPES SHOULD BE REPLACED
‘Hell, no! I don’t bury people until they’re dead.’

What a card. Yuck yuck.

MEANWHILE, THE WEATHER HAS BEEN…
Wet. It rained buckets and buckets and buckets today. The kind of rainfall you never used to get here before Climate Change, which now is a lot more like Status Quo. A tropical-shower-like rainfall – vertical rain, and lots of it. Oh, and it’s getting just a wee bit cold, too. It’s 10°C at the moment. We’re in for wind from the north tomorrow – yech! The worst kind of wind you can get here in Niceland – because it comes from the North Pole and it’s nasty. Daybreak today was 04.45 and nightfall is set for 22.09. Getting dark pretty early now.

One of the very best things the current municipal government has done is to launch the annual event known as ‘Reykjavík Culture Night’. It started off ten years ago as a moderately-sized end-of-summer diversion, but has morphed into the biggest bash of the year, outshining even the 17 July Independence Day celebrations and the 23 of December downtown party. Yesterday, around 100,000 people were expected to hit the city centre - one-third of Iceland’s population.

It kicks off with the Reykjavík Marathon at 11am [and before you ask, no, I did not take part] and progresses into an action-packed day, filled with just about anything and everything that can possibly be classified as ‘culture’. [Which of course being a highly elastic category, means virtually anything.] Just about every venue in the downtown area has something going on – and I mean every venue. Banks transform into cultural institutions, shops into concert halls and galleries, balconies into stages, streets into theatres… in short, there is something going on wherever you turn. Restaurants set up grills and tables outside [and in the event of rain, put up party tents], or alternatively have topless young ladies peddling beer; there are stages for live music performances on practically every corner, and everywhere there are people mingling and having a great time. Some years there are flight shows, and yesterday’s main attraction was a poltergeist house that featured famous ghosts from Iceland’s history. The whole thing ends with a flashy fireworks display down at Reykjavík harbour at midnight.

[The downside is that, in recent years, there’s been a lot of drunkenness and disruption after the fireworks finish and the family people go home. Last night was no exception – evidently the police were kept super busy and there was at least one stabbing downtown. There was also a murder in Reykjavík yesterday morning – thankfully such incidents are rare in this country, but evoke all the more horror as a result. That had nothing to do with culture night, though, I hasten to add.]

YT and EPI didn’t get into town until around 9pm, as we were invited to a lovely wedding in the afternoon. However, we did catch a lot of the action, as well as the fireworks display, which was spectacular and also extremely wet. Just when it started, a torrential rainfall hit, so the masses were absolutely drenched. Lucky for us Icelanders, we’re used to that sort of thing, so people just sort of ignored it and kept watching.

Today’s weather is much the same as yesterdays: intermittent sunny spells [very intermittent!], some showers, and wind. Fall is just around the corner – no doubt about it. Current temps are 12°C and daybreak was at 04.37, nightfall is set for 22.21.

It’s Reykjavík Culture Night and the weather is fine, lalala….

Yesterday I had the great fortune of having a plumber here for the better part of the day, who knew absolutely everything there was to know about everything. And was passionate about sharing that knowledge with YT. To the point where it was difficult to ascertain if the plumber had actually come to repair a pipe or to take YT hostage. Some excerpts:

ON STRONG COFFEE
‘Weak coffee will kill you. They’ve done studies. My son is a mathematician and he’s worked it out that when you pour water onto coffee the first two times it releases oil and flavours, but if you pour it more than that it releases all these toxins that poison you.”

ON COFFEE IN AMERICA
“You can’t get good coffee in America. The only place to get good coffee in America is in the Polish quarter in New York City. I know because my daughter lived there.”

ON MAKING DECISIONS
“I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about how we make decisions. Not we as individuals but as nations. It’s all in the rationale that lies beneath our thought processes. I’ve spent a lot of time travelling and thinking about this.”

ON THE CRUELTY OF WOMEN
“Women are a lot more cruel than men. They’ve studied it at Oxford. There’s this TV programme about ‘human behavior’ [he used English] that they keep showing on BBC Prime. They got this cute little dog – you know, really cute with the eyes and everything – and they said to people, ‘this dog shat on the floor and I want you to go in and punish it.’ The men went in and shouted at the dog. The women went in and… [long whistle]. They had to replace that damn beast several times because the women just… . This was a study they did at Oxford.”

ON REVENGE
“The best way to punish somebody is to use their own conscience against them. I know, because I was married to an alcoholic for 20 years. Whenever she’d disappear for four days straight, I’d go out and buy her jewellery.”

…. Needless to say, this guy was worth his weight in entertainment value. The only thing he didn’t seem to know was how to use his own plumbing properly and direct his urine into the toilet bowl, rather than on the floor all around it. Eww.

MEANWHILE WE HAD FINE WEATHER TODAY…
Even if there is a very slight chill in the air. The sun came out this morning and stayed out, albeit with intermittent clouds. Went for physiotherapy [bad neck, whiplash injury] and then to the pool to flake out in the hot pot and soak up some rays. Mmm, very nice. Our current temps are 12°C and daybreak was at 04.26, nightfall at 22.34.

Last night, after a lurrvely dinner at home with some great company, YT retired at 12.50am. Precisely one hour later, at 1.50am, she was shaken out of her slumber by a highly agitated EPI standing over her and declaring, “We’ve got serious trouble!”

EPI went on to mutter something incoherent about a puddle, trickling water and a bucket, and stormed out of the room. [Although on reflection it is possible that ‘incoherent’ was more about YT’s processing of information]. An exceedingly groggy YT followed, stumbling down the hallway, still very much drifting on that white cloud of sleep that had so deliciously enveloped her moments before.

But alas! What did I see when I entered the pantry? There was, indeed, a puddle on the floor, and a bucket next to it with a mop, that EPI had furiously been using to soak up the water. ‘Put your ear to the wall!’ EPI demanded, while YT was still trying to get her head around the fact that she was in fact standing in the pantry in the blinding electric light and not, in fact, dreaming. So I put my ear to the wall and had to concede that, yes, there was indeed the very soothing sound of trickling water inside it.

Meanwhile, EPI had had more time to get worked up about this and had progressed to the pulling-his-hair-out stage. YT just leaned on the mop, sort of stunned, and stared at the puddle that was growing larger by the minute. EPI was going on about having to wake the neighbours, etc. and suddenly he was out the door.

So YT mopped and mopped, and went and put on some clothes [because I evidently was not about to wake up from this bad dream] and then mopped some more, and now that her mind was working again, worked out that it might be a good idea to call the insurance company.

By that time EPI had returned so I told him of my brilliant idea and he got on the blower and called the emergency number at the insurance company. Much to my amazement, a moment later he was actually talking to a real live person on the other end. [No, I have not had much experience with this sort of thing. Thankfully.] To my further amazement, that person appeared to be calm and was making eminent sense. A plumber would be dispatched. The plumber would assess the situation. It was all under control.

By that time, two of our neighbours had arrived, so YT did what one does in these sorts of situations: made tea. Eventually, around 3-ish, the plumber arrived, looking and acting perfectly chipper, as though 3am were a perfectly civilized hour to be going out and visiting people. He went into the basement, turned off the cold water, instructed us to inform the rest of the people in the building so they wouldn’t turn on the shower in the morning and scald themselves [because our hot water is geothermal, meaning it comes directly out of the volcanic ground at a temperature of around 60°C/140F], said he’d turn up between 9 and 10, and then left.

So of course, we didn’t get to sleep until around 4 am and were up at 7.30. At which time EPI blithely left for work. The plumber showed up at the stipulated time and proceeded to demolish the wall between our pantry and our bathroom, locating the offending leaky pipe. Long story short, it was a dirty, messy, yucky, noisy day – and that plumber was a piece of work, let me tell you, fancied himself a bit of an armchair philosopher that one. Some of the pearls of wisdom that came rolling out of that guy’s mouth were just too precious for words. And clever YT actually collected some of them and will definitely post them, but not tonight because I am – justifiably – totally – wasted.

Oh, and the weather was fine. Cloudy I think, mostly. Temps around 13°C and daybreak was at 04.22, nightfall will be at 22.39.