September 2005

Well good, I’m glad you’re all enjoying this story because there’s more.

It’s arrived at the point now where the initial feeling of stunned surprise has died down and the nation sort of leans back and observes the two camps going at it like wild beasts. Everybody’s demanding an investigation into everyone else, everyone is threatening to sue everyone else, everyone’s trying to smear as much dirt on everyone else as they possibly can.

HELL HATH NO FURY, ETC.
Some of the more juicy e-mails appearing in this weekend’s revelations are those written by Jónína Benediktsdóttir, an ex-girlfriend of Jóhannes Jónsson, the founder of Baugur Group. She was a fairly prominent businesswoman in her own right before they got together, operated a handful of fitness studios. JJ and JB were together a couple of years I reckon, then split. Soon afterwards she started going around spitting venom, threatening to write a book what dirty rotten bastards the Baugur camp were, etc. Incidentally, she’s a member of the Independence Party.

The other key player in this weekend’s drama is one Jón Gerald Sullenberger, a former business associate of Baugur’s, who lived – and lives – in the US. They had substantial dealings around the time that Baugur was trying to get established in the US but something happened. Something BIG. Don’t know what – but enough that Sullenberger reportedly threatened to kill Jón Ásgeir Jóhannesson [Baugur CEO] on two separate occasions. There was some serious bad blood and big-assed lawsuits on both sides, that ended – as Morgunblaðið reports today – with Baugur paying Sullenberger a grand total of 120 million kronur [USD 1.85 million / GBP 1 million] for a reason that nobody is allowed to talk about because they signed a gag order.

Now, Sullenberger evidently had information that could ‘bring Baugur down’. And Sullenberger and Benediktsdóttir were an explosive combination. What the e-mails that Fréttablaðið published this weekend reveal is that JB was working overtime, a veritable Lady MacBeth behind the scenes, holding secret meetings with her powerful friends [Morgunblaðið editor, Managing Director of the Independence Party, etc.] orchestrating the best ways to use Sullenberger’s information to get the police to launch the large-scale investigation that they then did launch. One of the things was to get a notorious attorney who is a close personal friend of the previously mentioned [see Monday post] Davíð Oddsson to take Sullenberger’s case. In one e-mail, the Morgunblaðið editor says about the attorney: “His loyalty to an unnamed individual is set in stone and absolutely solid so you and Jón Gerald need not worry about a thing.” In the end, it was this attorney who contacted the Commissioner of Police.

Meanwhile, e-mail’s from JB reveal that she was demanding – for whatever reason – that JJ pay her ISK 75 million. Her business was on the verge of bankruptcy, and it did go bust in the end. One e-mail from her to the Mbl editor reads: “You need to interview Jón Gerald in Morgunblaðið and get him to talk. Don’t do it until I’ve got the money for my apartment. Please [in English, sic], that will be next week… I think. Jón is best at describing what these men are like, how they only cash in for themselves and don’t care about anyone else. Now a new price survey has to show that Europris [a Bónus competitor] is lower [Bónus promises always to be lowest on the Icelandic market].”

Sordid. Titillating. And infinitely entertaining.

AND WE STILL HAVE FREEZING COLD WEATHER…
On account of the wind. It’s 1°C right now and still all blustery. S’posed to stay like this until the weekend, sez the weatherman. I really, really dislike the wind. When there isn’t wind, the weather in Iceland is always perfect. No matter what the temps. Daybreak was at 06.40 and nightfall at 19.54.

The rather sparse use of the comment boxes over the past couple of days would indicate that the topic under discussion is not a huge hit; however, please bear with me, it is the single most significant matter the Icelandic nation currently has to contend with and really no different to, say, an earthquake or a volcanic eruption.

The fallout continues; stone after stone is overturned and the sordid details revealed. Curiously, at the same time as the whole business appears to be deteriorating into a complete and utter soap opera, the machinations also take on a more sinister air. I don’t know if it makes sense to anyone who does not live in a nation as tiny as this one what a profound effect this sort of business has on each individual living in this community. When there are so few people, everything that happens has a more pronounced effect on you personally. Granted, nothing that’s been turned up by this messy affair is terrible for me personally, there’s nothing I need to concern myself with up close, but nonetheless it’s a new reality, a new dimension next to the one I thought I was thoroughly familiar with. Suddenly you realize how much there was that you didn’t know, how much darkness, menacing stuff that is going on in the backrooms, people pulling strings that have an effect on your life.

Maybe I’m being super-paranoid. Or maybe I’m waking up.

WEATHER
Honestly, it’s like it’s mirroring the current atmosphere. The stormy gusts, cold and aggressive, have continued today. It’s the sort of day I’d just prefer to stay inside; however, by around noon I start getting a serious case of cabin fever and need oxygen in my lungs or else my mind gets all in a muddle. So what did I do: went out and walked around the golf course, which is easily the most wind-whipped place in the entire capital area, as it sits on a spit that is surrounded virtually on all sides by the open sea. Struggling, almost blown off my feet quite literally, I found myself wondering how people ever managed to survive up here on the edge of the habitable world before Gore-Tex windproof breathables and rough-soled hiking boots came to the rescue. Like in the days when Icelanders fashioned shoes out of sheepskin and had only wool [which offers no protection from wind] with which to keep warm. A mere century ago it was. [Getting all reflective now, see? Blame it on Baugur.] Current temps 4°C plus windchill, daybreak was at 06.38 and nightfall 19.58.

Well, the earth has continued to quake here in Iceland today as Fréttablaðið kept emptying out its dirty postal bag containing secret e-mails sent in the strictest confidence between some very powerful individuals about two years ago. [Here’s a valuable lesson: Do not ever think that what you send in an email is private!]

As mentioned yesterday, conspiracy theories have abounded in the Baugur case. It is an open secret in this country that Baugur’s bosses have been at odds [to put it mildly] with Iceland’s charismatic former Prime Minister Davíð Oddsson – who sat in the PM’s seat longer than anyone in history [13 years if I’m not mistaken] and who last year at this time exchanged seats with the leader of the coalition party and became Foreign Minister, and who tomorrow will step down as such and become one of the three geriatric directors of the Central Bank, and who prior to doing so orchestrated a Big Fat Raise for Central Bank directors, and this after pressing legislation through parliament raising his own pension by something like 50%, and so now he’ll be collecting both a pension and his Big Fat Central Bank salary… and oh, it hardly bears thinking about and I can get so furious and this is another reason why I try not to touch current events in this space.

[Incidentally, Davíð Oddsson does not use e-mail. Ever.]

I digress.

So it was no secret that Baugur’s father-son team and Davíð Oddsson profoundly disliked one another. Most people explained it thus: There was a very powerful group of people in this country that controlled a lot of trade and business and had been dubbed ‘the octopus’ because they extended their tentacles into just about every aspect of the Icelandic commercial sector. These people enjoyed cotton-wool treatment and protection by Independence Party, and the Independence Party surely received some perks in return. [As luck would have it, political parties in Iceland are not required to reveal their accounts.] And it was obvious that ‘the octopus’ was beginning to be threatened by the new and fast-moving business tycoons – led by Baugur Group.

Meanwhile, the mouthpiece of the Independence Party, daily paper Morgunblaðið, ruled the Icelandic media market for decades. It was absolutely invincible. Nothing-but-nothing could touch Morgunblaðið. It collected all the advertising revenues, it formed public opinion, it was solid as rock. That is until Baugur came along and poured money into Fréttablaðið, which was delivered free to your door and which at the time teetered on the verge of bankruptcy. Obviously Baugur was pulling a Silvio Berlusconi and using the paper as a weapon. It did not stop there, however, and soon acquired a large stake in a media corporation [Northern Lights] that ran several television and radio stations.

It was then that Oddsson sprung into action, introducing a bill that would limit media ownership. Before most people could fully grasp what was going on, he had it passed through parliament. There was a massive national outcry, people took to the streets in droves to protest – the entire nation was up in arms. Not that people didn’t agree that such a law was necessary – but sympathies appeared to be on Baugur’s side since it was plain as day that the cannons were aimed precisely in their direction. The President of Iceland rushed home from abroad amidst a constitutional crisis. In an unprecedented move, he vetoed the bill and called a national referendum [this had never before been done in the history of the Republic]. Before the referendum could take place, however, Oddsson and co. withdrew the legislation.

At this time, the raid on Baugur’s offices had already taken place – the raid that resulted in indictments and caused major disruptions for the company, including major losses of revenue, not to mention blows to their reputation. And with the developments of this past weekend, it is out in the open that some of Davíð Oddsson’s closest associates conspired to launch the police investigation. One of the main players is an embittered ex-girlfriend of Jóhannes’s, who seems to have been pulling a whole bunch of strings, and there’s the involvement of an enraged former business partner who became the ‘snitch’ that set off the investigation. There are also references to a man who ‘shall remain unnamed’ – it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out his identity.

I harbour no illusions that Baugur and co. are blithe angels – their ‘Robin Hood’ aura has pretty much worn off and for all I know they may very well be guilty of criminal misconduct. What’s scary, though, is if powerful individuals in this very small community are able to manipulate those institutions that are supposed to be protecting freedom and democracy and all the rest to meet their own agenda… Oy Vey!

CUT TO WEATHER CUT TO WEATHER
Stormy [what else?] and around 5°C and it’s getting awfully dark awfully early now. Went for a run earlier along the seashore and it was a struggle, just a put-down-your-head-and-persevere. Daybreak: 06.35, nightfall: 20.01. Sharp.

Well. I think it’s safe to say that the Icelandic nation is absolutely gobsmacked over the two bombs dropped by daily paper Fréttablaðið this weekend – one yesterday [boom], one today [BOOM].

It concerns the Baugur case, which I have steadfastly tried to keep my fingers off in this space, if only because a) I make a point of steering clear of current events, seeing as there are simply too many things that could be written about, b) the Baugur case is simply too complex to be able to do it justice in this blogspace – and too interesting to just skim over.

However.

THE STORY OF BAUGUR
Once upon a time, in that distant year 1988, there was a man named Jóhannes Jónsson, who found himself unemployed. He was 48 years old and had worked for the South Iceland Slaughter Association for virtually all of his adult life. But instead of throwing in the towel and declaring himself a lost cause [being as he was of a rather unmarketable age] he decided to start Iceland’s first discount supermarket. Bónus.

Bónus was a runaway success. Jóhannes and his son Jón Ásgeir were clever and introduced new business practices and within three years had five Bónus stores throughout Iceland. They then branched out to the Faroe Islands, then the US, changed the company’s name to Baugur, and withdrew from the US in order to focus on making inroads into the UK.

Long story short: Now, 17 years later, Baugur owns UK High Street chains Iceland, Booker, Hamleys, Woodward, Goldsmiths, MK One, Jane Norman, The Shoe Studio, Oasis, Karen Millen, Coast and Whistles, in addition to having substantial interests in other major UK chains. In Denmark they have recently bought that country’s major department store chains, Magasin du Nord, and Illum. They also own half of Iceland [Including – FYI – Penis Mall aka Smáralind].

Again, this story is unfortunately too long and complex to fully do it justice here. Suffice it to say that the owners of Baugur appear to many to be the Icelandic version of Russia’s Mikhail Khordokovski. After a two-year investigation into supposed financial misconduct, they were indicted on 40 counts of fraud and embezzlement this summer. Both the raid on their offices and the timing of the indictments are suspicious – they came at extremely delicate times for the company, thwarting takeover bids, etc. The Baugur team has always maintained their innocence and claimed that the charges against them were politically motivated, and certainly there was widespread suspicion that this was so. After all, Baugur had threatened and then helped dismantle the old power structures that most people thought would never, ever crumble.

What has come to light this weekend seems to support this theory – there were stolen e-mails that passed between some very powerful individuals in this community, dirty talk like ‘make sure you remove my fingerprints from this’ etc. and all of it points indeed to widespread conspiracy. Meanwhile, Fréttablaðið – which dropped the bombs – is owned by Baugur and has been one of the weapons in this war of power, effectively toppling the main mouthpiece of the ruling Independence Party – Morgunblaðið – over the past couple of years. And it is from within the Independence Party that all this ill-will is purported to spring – and the [very powerful] editor of Morgunblaðið is one of the Main Players in this weekend’s drama.

Incidentally, last week the district court threw out the 40 charges against Baugur because they were ill prepared and basically a fiasco. Note bene, we are talking an investigation that the District Commissioner of the Icelandic Police had been working on for a full two years and which had cost millions of kronur of the taxpayer’s money. An appeal to the Supreme Court is pending. And now we, The People of Iceland, have this weekend’s revelations to digest, with the heavy stones they have turned over and the creepy-crawlies underneath.

Whoever said there was no corruption in Iceland was plainly wrong.

AS FOR THE WEATHER
It certainly pales in comparison to all this! Let’s just say that winter is here. It was absolutely freezing today [though it looked beautiful enough from inside] with windchill bringing temps down to way below zero. The mountains all around Reykjavík are white with snow. Right now temps are 3°C and there’s still lots of wind, and daybreak was at 06.32, nightfall at 20.05.

SOCIAL CALENDAR OF AAH, AGED 14

Friday, 4pm: Meeting of community centre council.
Friday, 6pm: Dinner at friend’s place.
Friday, 7pm: Joined by posse of galfriends, glam self up for…
Friday, 8pm: Dance at community centre.

Saturday 7am: Work in bakery
Saturday 4pm: Go home.
Saturday 8pm: Go to party
Saturday 12 midnight: Get ass home!

Sunday 10am: Work in bakery
Sunday 6pm: Go home
Sunday 7pm: Flake out, exhausted, after weekend’s social events. [forecast]

Studying for 2 separate exams on Monday not likely to happen. Mother likely not to be chuffed.

AS FOR TODAY’S NASTY WEATHER, PICTURE THIS:
Friday, 9.30am. Temps 1°C. A bad-assed wind from the north, bringing temps down to unholy levels. AAH is about to set off for school. YT notes she’s wearing a short-sleeved polo shirt.

YT: Better put your winter ‘úlpa’* on - it’s freezing out there…
AAH: I am putting my ‘úlpa’** on…
YT: That is not an úlpa.
AAH: Yes it is.
YT: You call that thin summer jacket an úlpa?
AAH: Yeah. I’m putting a sweater*** on under it.
YT: I’m talking about your winter úlpa.
AAH: I’m not wearing it, it looks ridiculous.
YT: Don’t tell me you’re planning on wearing that thin jacket all winter.
AAH: Sure, why not?

[and so on.]
[ Sigh.]

Current temps a whopping 2°C, still a bad-assed wind from the north, daybreak was at 06.26, nightfall set for 20.12.

* Icelandic, meaning WARM winter jacket.
** AAH’s interpretation, meaning THIN windbreaker jacket.
*** Hooded sweatshirt.

Such a serene day.

• No fear
• No anxiety
• No insecurity
• No resentments
• No impatience
• No unreasonable expectations
• No adverse reactions to others’ behaviour

… Just a buoyant heart and a sense that everything is as it
should be.

I’ll take more of those. Please.

PERHAPS IT WAS THE SUNSHINE
This morning was one of the most beautiful in recent history - bright sunshine, the sea slick and shining, like a blue-tinged mirror. No wind. A benign day - generous and kind. Later it started blowing a bit and it was pretty damn cold by around 6-ish, but that’s… [shrug]. Right now there’s a nasty wind from the north out there, whipping around my building like a maniac in a fit of rage. Temperatures are not so benign now, 3°C but with windchill probably below zero. The moon is pretty stupendous, though, silvery-white and wading through the clouds. 06.23 was daybreak; 20.16 nightfall.

There are 293,537 cellular phones in use in Iceland.

There are 293,577 Icelanders.

Which means that somewhere on this rock there are 40 poor unfortunates who are not constantly reachable on their ‘gemsi’.*

Spare a thought.

MEANWHILE, TODAY’S REYKJAVÍK WEATHER…
… ran the gamut from brilliant sunshine to slightly overcast, to drizzly, to downpour, to sleet. What the Icelanders call ‘chequered weather’. And frigging cold it was this morning, a mere 2°C. Currently it’s 4° and day broke at 06.20 whereast night fell at 20.20

* Icelandic slang for ‘cell phone’.

Tonight at dinner EPI entertained me with tales of what his daughter did at the hospital today. [She in turn had entertained him with these earlier]. She’s interning, and today it was brain surgery. Evidently they simply slice the scalp open along the hair line and peel the skin back. [”It’s loose - see, if you put your fingertips on it and move them around you can feel it.”] Then they take a saw and saw open the skull [”It’s really cool - as soon as the saw hits the brain it just stops“] and lift up the brain inside [”It’s loose, you can just lift it”] and apparently it moves, too [”With the guy’s breathing”]. Then the blood clot or whatever it was is removed [”clips put on veins on each side”] and then the whole caboodle is re-assembled and closed [”and 20 minutes later the guy wakes up and asks ‘Hey, how’d it go?’”].

“Also when the brain swells up, it can be damaged if it is contained by the skull. So they just take the saw and saw the skull open like they’re giving a bowl cut and lift the top of the head off. Then the brain swells and when it’s shrunk together again they just replace the top of the head and everything’s cool.”

Such was our lurrvely conversation at dinner this evening. Except that EPI had finished - he can’t bear hearing anything even remotely gross at dinner, whereas YT can watch an entire episode of ER while maintaining a robust appetite [Which reminds me a new season of ER starts tomorrow, whoo-hoo!] so was not fazed at all.

AS FOR THE WEATHER PROPER
Winter’s here. I swear. Today we had hail! and it’s only September. Plus for the second time in a week, Mt. Esja was covered in white - almost all the way down this time, not just the tops. [It looked beautiful.] And even though it is all the way across the bay, this morning the city smelled like snow. It has a smell, you know. That first snowfall. Went to a meeting at AAH’s school and it got pretty cold on the way back - still wearing my jeans coat, can’t bring myself to get out the down jacket just yet. It’s only 4°C at the moment [39.2°F] and daybreak was at 06.17, nightfall at 20.23. [And here I could have blogged about the Baugur case which - medical stories be damned - is by far the most exciting thing that happened today. But I dare not touch that one with a stick, because it is too outrageous and overwhelming and freaky and proves definitively once and for all that life is FAR stranger than fiction.]

A new and alarming trend has been sweeping the Icelandic nation of late. It is this: men picking their noses in public. On a grand national scale. I kid you not.

I first noticed the odd guy doing it in his car, stopped at a red light. I’d turn and glance [as you do] and there he’d be, deeply engrossed in this rather, shall we say, intimate activity, apparently considering himself alone in the entire universe.

Soon I started noticing it everywhere – men waiting in line at the bank, sitting on benches outside, leaning against light posts, waiting for their wives at the mall. I mentioned it to EPI. ‘Oh?’ he said, and then three weeks later, ‘Hey, you’re right!’ He’s noticing it, too.

The absolute worst was last week when I went to have a soak in the Jacuzzi at the Laugardalslaug pool. There was a man. In his sixties, I’d say. Sitting talking to another man in the hot pot. Picking his nose. And when he was done picking his nose, he stuck his hand into the water to rinse it off.

Very sad to say, but I think the Icelandic population has some of the biggest boors on the planet on board. Bleh.

THE WEATHER
Harmless today. Not too much wind, not too much cold, not too much anything. Went for a brisk walk around the nearby golf course to imbibe some oxygen and had to bundle my scarf up pretty tightly [but mostly because of my neck injury which converts the equation cold combined with even a slight breeze into pain. [Why does it feel like I’m living in the wrong country today?] Pretty soon I’ll be going out at noon to tank some daylight – but let us not get ahead of ourselves on that one. Temperatures at the moment are ° [sic] according to the mbl.is website and daybreak was at 06.14, nightfall at 20.27.