January 2006

Saintly Silvio

January 31, 2006

This just in: Italian Prime Minster Silvio Berlusconi has made a public vow to remain celibate until after the national elections on April 9. “I will try my best not to let you down. I promise to abstain completely from sex for the next 2 ½ months, or until 9 April,” he graciously informed his [...]

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Good news

January 30, 2006

Hats off to Fréttablaðið, who today announced that they will be giving out an annual ‘Community Award’ to individuals that have done something to help improve Icelandic society. The first such will be awarded on 23 February. With this action, the paper intends to help highlight the positive things that most certainly are happening all [...]

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Lucky me

January 29, 2006

So having had my gripe in the last blog session, I’m delighted to announce that I’m back to being exceedingly grateful for what a great kid AAH is. Truly. Consider: here in Iceland we have community recreation centres, run by the city in conjunction with education authorities. They are located in every community [more or [...]

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De-crowned

January 27, 2006

You know what drives me bananas? The extreme self-centeredness of adolescents. I heard someone say the other day that living with a teenager was like living with an alcoholic – the same degree of self-absorption. Do adolescents eventually grasp the idea that ‘parent’ does not equal ‘servant’? That ‘parent’ can actually be tatamount to ‘person’? [...]

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Of pools and outlaws

January 26, 2006

Was a bit knotted in the shoulders today, and as my next massage appointment is more than two weeks away I decided on the next best thing: a trip to the pool for a water massage. On entering the showers before going into the pool, it occurred to me that while the smell of the [...]

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Popular bollocks

January 25, 2006

Apparently, the most popular type of food consumed during the month of Þorri here in Iceland are the soured ram’s testicles. Who knew? Certainly not YT, who balks at the idea of eating them, and this despite the fact that she does not call everything her grandmother* on the putrid-food front. Thus I’m sure you [...]

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We now interrupt our regular programming to bring you a hissy fit

January 24, 2006

There are not many things I miss about living in North America, but one of the things I miss a lot is the high standard of service in shops and restaurants. That service-oriented mentality just does not exist in the same way in Europe, particularly not in restaurants where the wait staff does not receive [...]

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The history of rotten food

January 23, 2006

Lest you think that feeding your man putrid shark on Bóndadagur is just another capricious whim dreamed up by weird Icelanders, think again! In fact, there is a perfectly logical reason: that day marks the start of the traditional midwinter festival known as Þorrablót, where people get together and imbibe rotten food and drink lots [...]

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Bóndadagur

January 20, 2006

It’s Feed Your Man Putrid Shark Day again. [Amazing how these things sneak up on you. It's only been a year since the last one.] Undoubtedly you will be shocked to learn that we’ve decided to bypass the putrid shark, pickled whale blubber and Black Death this time around, and are going straight for the [...]

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YT the Mogul

January 19, 2006

My bank’s been running this very persuasive ad campaign featuring an extremely happy-looking man and woman who exhort the virtues of investing in shares. In conjunction with this, the bank craftily offers a free course on learning to play the stock market through your online bank. YT allowed herself to be reeled in without any [...]

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