March 2006

Apologies if you’ve had enough of Sylvía Nótt because EPI and I were in STITCHES tonight when they premiered her new English-speaking [singing?] video for the Eurovision Song Contest. Quite possibly it’s totally local humor that nobody else in the world will get - who knows. At any rate it’s local enough for us to be rolling in the isles at the Björk references - the hairdo and It’s Oh So Quiet video - guffaw!

[Those not familiar with Iceland or Eurovision may not get their irony in the lyrics: ‘Eurovision nation… you’ve been waiting forever for me to save you…’ - a) Eurovision is unbelievably camp and cheesy and b) Iceland is ALWAYS going to win, according to the Icelanders…]

We both agree, though, that people will either totally fall for her, or she’ll go over like a lead balloon. Very unlikely that there will be any middle ground.

What REALLY got us though was the bit of video they showed AFTER the Sylvía Nótt one, which was Spaugstofan taking the piss. God I haven’t laughed so hard since… well since the video just prior to it. That one is going to be premiered tomorrow night and it promises to be a real treat, with one of the Spaugstofan guys in drag playing Sylvia replete with lips pouting and tongue sticking suggestively out to the side, and the other four playing her body guards and her back-up dancers, respectively. The part of the video they showed was one of the ‘backup singers’ dressed in gold spandex with gut hanging out and one of those sado-maso masks on, except when he tried to pull it off it got stuck on his nose. I guess you had to be there, but lemme tell you we were killing ourselves laughing.*

OK, that’s enough of that. On to more serious matters.

The weather was relatively cold today, as has been the case over the past several days. More frost and dry pollution-filled air, although thankfully there was a bit of a wind so we’re not all coughing with contaminated lungs right now. Presently there’s a bit of a wind and temps are -2°C but with windchill probably -10°C. Sunrise at 7.15 and sunset at 19.55.

* Incidentally, if you want to see what EPI and I were watching, go here, then click on today’s date [currently at the top]. There’s a bit of chin-wagging first about the US troops leaving [yawn] and then we have Sylvía.

“adopting babies in pots in Iceland”

… Yes, because we grow them here expressly for that purpose.

THE WEATHER IS…
In a word, ghastly! Freezing cold, -2°C with lots of windchill. [Redeeming factor: it is sunny.] Went out for a walk around the golf course today when it was -7°C because I am insane. With windchill it was probably around -20. It’s set to stay this way until after the weekend. And then we’ll have spring. Right? Sunrise was at 07.18 and it will set at 19.52.

As some of you may know we’re planning to spend a few weeks in Canada this summer. To that end, we’ve decided to do a home exchange, which in my opinion is one of the most superexcellent things ever devised. Truly, my enthusiasm for this newfound travel option knows no bounds. So far we have had home exchange offers from Paris, Berlin, San Francisco, Colorado, Boston… and this despite the fact that we specifically stated that we wanted Toronto. And there’s still a whole world out there with endless possibilities!

Be that as it may, this home exchange business has a slight downside - or upside, depending on how you look at it - in that you suddenly start to view your home as it would appear to a perfect stranger living in it. Inevitably this highlights a number of flaws. Meaning that the last couple of weekends have been given over to home improvement activities, as will undoubtedly the next few. Nothing radical, you understand, merely the sorts of things that get perpetually put off until you realize that you need to make a good impression so you’d better get your butt in gear and stop wasting your time on inane activities like blogging or watching stupid TV shows.

For instance. In AAH’s room there is a big standalone closet. It was there when we moved in and it’s pretty ghastly looking - sort of industrial grey plastic-covered plywood. Blech. Now if I were a typical Icelander I would have tossed it out long ago and bought a new one on payments or something; however, being a pseudo-Icelander and a very practical one at that I have tended to look at the positive side, like that is is a really good storage unit. And as such, it had a lot of potential. It could, for instance, somewhere down the road, become covered in some very cool wallpaper [see photo above].

So what with THE PEOPLE arriving, YT got on her painting clothes the weekend before last and gave the big monstrosity a good base coating of paint. Last weekend, off came the doors and YT set to work on the wallpapering, with a little assistance from EPI [the owner of the closet is so busy gearing up for her big West Side Story debut these days that she’s never around], taking great care to ensure the patterns matched and whathaveyou, and that it was cut properly so that the pattern was facing the same way on both sides. [Incidentally, I’ve never wallpapered anything before, ever.] This took the better part of Sunday and was a relatively messy experience, although the feeling of having finally got around to executing this long-delayed project more than made up for it in terms of satisfaction.

So yesterday YT was like a gleeful child, could hardly wait to put the doors back on [they needed some time to dry] so that I could inspect my work and feel infused with the great accomplishment of finally seeing the closet dressed up in its new wallpaper garb. I headed out to the DIY store [’hardware’ if you speak American] to get some cool new handles for the doors, and finally we were all set. All that was left was to lift the doors back on the hinges and affix them with the screws.

Which is when I noticed that I’d made a grave mistake: the pattern faced UP on one side of the closet [two doors] and DOWN on the other.

Did I mention that I’d never done this before?

[D’oh!]

To make a bad situation worse, the roll of wallpaper had originally fallen just short of what I needed, I’d gone back to the store and they very graciously gave me the metre or so that I was short of. So now it’s kind of embarrassing to have to go back and admit that I’d botched the whole thing and that I need another roll after all. Which is why I’ve sent EPI.

PS No prizes for guessing what I’ll be doing this evening.

AND METHINKS I’D MUCH RATHER BE OUTSIDE…
Because the weather looks beautiful. It was freezing cold this morning, -5°C or something, with flurries and snow on the ground. In the afternoon the sun came out and now it looks beautiful, although the mbl.is website now tells me that we have a perfect case of window weather, with temps still at -4. Sunrise was at 07.22 and sunset at 19.49.

I realize, friends in Blogland, that I’m probably starting to seem obsessed and more than a little psycho [I’m neither. really.] but I’ve found even more reasons to love Baugur Group. You see, as if it were not enough that they’ve overthrown the old Icelandic power blocs, donated ISK 300 million to the Hringur Children’s Hospital, brought Ben and Jerry’s ice cream to the Icelandic masses, bestowed on YT a whole leg of lamb after she only went out to Bónus for some hamburgers… yes, dear readers, even as they were carrying out these magnificent acts of philanthropy, they also managed to construct this place.

That’s correct, Penis Mall is the child of Baugur Group, built to house all the shops they’ve opened in Iceland during their 18-year rise to invincibility. This thought occurred to YT yesterday as she made the long journey to Penis Mall [it’s actually located in another town, about 15 minutes away by car] specifically in order to check out Zara’s spring collection. I love Zara. And I love Baugur for bringing Zara to Iceland. Gush.

Previously, you see, I had to travel a lot further to shop in Zara, more specifically to Spain. And this was not convenient when it came to returning clothes, for instance, as I am frequently called upon to do here. Reason: occasionally I find it necessary to buy clothes for EPI. Yes, I know, I’m loath to admit it, and ordinarily I don’t meddle in people’s affairs in such an extreme, er, fashion, but as it happens I’ve chosen as my life partner a man who, it must be said, is rather ineffectual when it comes to buying clothes. By which I mean – he just doesn’t do it. He would rather walk around wearing jeans riddled with holes [and I’m not talking the ‘trendy’ kind of holes that incidentally are no longer trendy] than get his butt to Penis [or any other] Mall for the express purpose of shopping for clothes. In other words, it’s the sort of situation that calls for a woman’s initiative. So YT treks out to Zara, because Zara allows you to return clothes for a full refund. This was a first in Iceland, a country notorious for its poor customer service, and as far as I know Zara is still the only store that does this. Which is perfect for YT, because if the clothes don’t fit EPI I can simply return them and get something for myself… er, I mean, my money back.

Now if Baugur could only be persuaded to buy out the people who sold me my [still-clicking, hurry-up-and-crash] laptop [incidentally what’s the deal with the dead dog on their website?] I’d be one happy camper.

MEANWHILE, SOMEONE WHO DOES NOT LOVE BAUGUR…
… Is old Victoria Beckham. Seems rumour started circulating recently that she was to be the new face of Iceland [as in the UK supermarket chain], which appropriately enough is [partly] owned by Icelanders [read: Baugur]. Mrs. Beckham has vehemently denied the allegations, claiming that she would rather have both of her arms and her hair extensions chopped off before she would deign to advertise Iceland. Lah-dee-dah.

AND – WE HAVE SPRING EQUINOX!
Today, which means the day and the night are of equal length. From here on, until 21 June, the day will gradually be getting longer until we have no darkness all night long. This is my favourite time, so wonderfully energizing and filled with promise. Today’s weather isn’t much to shout about though, overcast with slight wind and fairly chilly temps. Currently 2°C and sunrise was at 07.29 and sunset at 19.43.

So apropos to the last post, the Baugur family has decided to celebrate their acquittal in Reykjavík district court by donating ISK 300 million [USD 4.3 million / GBP 2.5 million] to the Hringur Children’s Hospital in Reykjavík.

And yes, I am fully aware that nobody is entirely altruistic and this may very well be a shameless plug in the interests of image enhancement, but I cannot imagine the old power blocs [Baugur’s arch-rivals] ever doing anything quite so stylish to patch up their image. Plus the old power blocs never brought affordable Ben and Jerry’s ice cream to anybody, did they? Is it any wonder that Bónus is consistently voted the most popular company in Iceland? I think not.

Meanwhile, the Spaugstofan team were in good form this evening [for those who don’t know, Spaugstofan is a group of five comedians who every week do a send-up of the week’s topical events, as some of you may recall from this post.] Spaugstofan is not worried about the US military leaving Iceland or the defense agreement or who will defend Iceland when the fighter jets are gone. They’ve come up with the perfect solution: let Baugur’s lawyers defend Iceland.

Meanwhile, we’ve been living inside a cocoon of thick fog today. Widespread disruptions to domestic flights, etcetera. Went out for a brisk walk around the golf course and wished I’d taken my camera so I could show you people just how ghostly white and spooky everything looked. And while the rest of Europe is experiencing freezing temps, we had highs of 17 in certain locations today. Sometimes you just have to wonder why they called it Iceland, you really do. Temps at the moment are 6°C and the sun came up at 7.36 and went down at 19.37.

US PULLS TROOPS OUT OF ICELAND
United States authorities announced quite unexpectedly yesterday that they will be substantially reducing their military presence in Iceland as of this fall. [In other words they’ll be moving out virtually everybody.] For those that don’t know, Iceland has a NATO base that is manned by US troops, as Iceland was considered a strategic vantage point during the Cold War. However in recent years the military presence has become increasingly superfluous and about three years ago US authorities announced that they’d be pulling out. This was met with a flurry of panic on the part of the Icelandic authorities, as the removal of the base will have a major socio-economic impact on the Keflavík area, where the base [and the international airport] is located. “Negotiations” between the US and Iceland got underway at that point to determine the best way for the army to ease out of the area. These were supposedly ongoing – until yesterday, when one of the “negotiating” party announced its decision unilaterally.

While I personally don’t give a donkey’s ass about whether the US army stays or not, I have to say that I consider the manner in which this news was announced more than a little arrogant. Last I heard, “negotiations” involved talks and agreements and mutual deliberation with the aim of arriving at a decision. However, as the opposition parties in government have pointed out right from the start: ‘The US military arrived when it suited the US military, and it will leave when it suits the US military.’

On the whole, though, this is sure to be a positive thing in the end. It’s like the deal with the aluminium smelters – when you get a whole community dependent on a single employer working only for its own interests, you’ve got trouble when that employer decides it is no longer beneficial to stay. To that end, it would be best for the community of Keflavík to start building on rock, rather than sand.

BAUGUR BOSSES ACQUITTED IN COURT
I’ve already given an account of the amazing Baugur case in three separate instalments starting here, and much as I’d like to recap it – because everyone loves a story in which the underdog ends up on top – I fear I’d be here all night. The important thing is that, after that long, drawn-out, excruciating court case that weighed heavily on the entire Icelandic nation [the implications are too extensive and far-reaching to do them justice here] the Baugur bosses were acquitted in court yesterday of the eight charges that remained after the Supreme Court had thrown out the other 32 brought against them.

This whole entire saga has been so intense and dramatic that if it were a mini-series people would think it was made up by someone with an overly active imagination. Forty counts of economic crime were brought against the heads of Baugur, who are wildly popular in Iceland because they were like Iceland’s version of Robin Hood – they brought reasonably-priced food to the little people and along the way rocked the establishment and the power blocs that owned everything, incurring the most incredible political wrath and ill-will from those whose empires came toppling down. Those oft-cited e-mails that came to light last August proved that there had, in fact, been a conspiracy to ‘take down’ the family behind Baugur – which incidentally not only has enormous power in Iceland but also controls around 1,000 retail outlets in the UK. This case has already cost Icelandic taxpayers millions – and it was a serious blow to the State Attorney when all 40 charges except for eight were thrown out of court after an intensive two-year investigation that was badly done and completely amateurish. Eight charges remained – and yesterday the accused were acquitted of those.

The State Attorney has yet to decide whether he will appeal to the Supreme Court, but if you ask me he’d be a fool to do so. The public is so utterly, completely fed up and most people are so completely on the side of the Baugur family. Bónus – the budget supermarket chain that started the whole Baugur adventure – is consistently named the most popular company in Iceland in surveys, and indeed just yesterday it received the ‘consumers award’ from the Icelandic Consumers’ Union for outstanding achievement. And as Jóhannes Jónsson – who started Baugur – pointed out, when there’s not enough money in the budget to run the country’s main rescue helicopter [which has been grounded now for over a month] there is no way the public is going to condone wasting more of the taxpayers’ money on a trivial court case that seems utterly pointless and founded on dubious motives at best.

And on that note I shall sign off – no weather today as this post has gone on far too long and I’m knackered. Adieu!

Thank you everyone for your kind words of condolence, etc. in the face of this current calamity. I’m one tiny step closer [although not as tiny as the Haloscan font size, which henceforth shall be my measurement for tiny] to accepting this laptop for What It Is - particularly after a fortifying ‘e-chat’ this evening with someone named ‘Wanda’, a Fujitsu Siemens support rep residing somewhere in cyberspace. ‘Wanda’ has duly informed YT that the click! click! noises are not normal [surprise] and that I must take the machine in to have a technician look at it. [Say, won’t that be fun? After all, they do love me down there and will probably welcome me like a long-lost sister, one they haven’t seen in, oh, two days.]

In other edifying news, a visit to the dentist today determined that AAH needs… BRACES!! Walking out of that office today, AAH looked as though she was being led to the guillotine. She is extremely distraught but keeping a stiff upper lip at the moment, anyway. Meanwhile, YT is wondering where to come up with the ISK 400,000-800,000 to foot the bill [USD 2,800-5,600]. Ah well, den tid, den sorg* as our cousins the Danes like to say. [Have I mentioned that we’re off for a weekend in Copenhagen in a couple of weeks? I must be the only Icelander that has never been to Copenhagen, the former capital of Niceland… but that’s just because I’m a pseudo-Icelander.]

Just as an aside, don’t you just hate it when you’re in a doctors or dentists’ office and the only magazines they have are, say, from 1997 and they’re all grubby and dirty and you feel like you’ve got cooties just because you’ve picked one up and looked at the cover? But you’re waiting for someone [like AAH] and have nothing to do and there’s nothing else to read so you pick one up and read it anyway? And then feel like your hands are contaminated and you can’t wait to get to the nearest sink with soap to wash them? - Or do you think I’m neurotic?

The weather today was pretty good, sunny and lovely to look at but a bit chilly with a fairly strong breeze. Bundled up in scarf and sheepskin mitts to walk along the shore to the bakery and tried not to stare when this jogger came running towards me wearing SHORTS. It’s an Icelandic sickness - whenever the sun comes out they start removing all their clothes, whatever the temperature [in this case 2 or 3°C]. His thighs were absolutely white except the fronts of them were RED where the wind hit them. Trés charmant. Meanwhile, the sun came up at 07.50 and went down at 19.25.

* An expression meaning something like, ‘We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it’.

So remember that cataclysmic day I had a few weeks back when my laptop and my car both went on the fritz? The car was mended immediately, whereas my laptop remained in the shop. And remained. And remained. For a whole frigging month.

In other words, four weeks later, after YT had bitched and complained and coerced and threatened and practiced ‘letting go’ and other Zen-like tactics, the shop finally caved in and presented YT with a brand-new machine – albeit a completely different model and make from the previous one, because as it happened they didn’t have any more.

[Actually, before they decided to provide me with a proper NEW machine, get this: they tried to give me a used laptop instead, one they’d had in the shop, that they claimed was nonetheless ‘better, newer’ than the last one. I went up there to look at it I just stared in disbelief when they brought it out – it was all scratched and mucked up, and they still tried to tell me it was a real nice deal I was getting. Pfft yeah! When I asked them what it was doing in the shop if it was such a great machine, they told me that it had been stolen in a break-in a few months back and the police had managed to apprehend the loot a few days later, ‘so they didn’t do anything to it, they didn’t even use it.’ Can you believe it? Talk about bad karma. And this was what they were offering me in return for my brand-new and pretty frigging expensive laptop that broke down after four months’ use and that they made a mess of fixing – I’ll spare you the tedious details. But I digress.]

So last Friday I brought home the new laptop and I tell you, it’s not love. On Friday, in fact, I was quite inconsolable, feeling like I’d been forced into an arranged marriage with someone I hardly knew and found remarkably bland and uninteresting. I know it’s a ‘stable’ machine, that it will probably prove ‘good to me’, is ‘well-endowed’ technologically and more expensive than the last one. But I’m just not smitten. The best I can hope for at this point is that I will eventually grow to feel some affection and, in the best of all possible worlds, love it.

It pales in comparison to my last one, which had one of those true-bright monitors [or whatever they’re called] and a deep, resonating sound in the speakers, and just looked really cool [even though some people maintained it looked like the Mac truck of laptops – I beg to differ]. But the main problem I have with this new addition to the family is… the monitor. Sure, the guy in the shop gave me the hard-sell, claiming this was one of the best laptop monitors around etc, but here’s the deal: in order to get a clear display, I have to set it to a certain screen resolution, and this makes font sizes – particularly on web pages, because in Word etc. I can change the font – absolutely tiny. So tiny that they’re virtually impossible to read. And If I set the screen resolution to something different, so that everything appears bigger, it also makes everything look fuzzy and very amateurish. Like someone in Kindergarten had cobbled together the items that appear on the screen in front of me. Kind of like that.

I spent the weekend fiddling around, trying to get a display vaguely resembling my old monitor and have learned how to increase the font size on web pages manually every time I load a frigging page [argh!] but this means that if I change the font on my own blog, for instance, the column still stays really thin while the font grows large so there are maybe five words to a line and it looks.really.stupid.

I suppose I could live with that, though… until I open the Haloscan box to read the comments. Because the font in the comment boxes is minuscule – and alas, there is no setting to change the font size of pop-up boxes. So here I am, like a blind mole with my face about three inches from the monitor, trying to read all the lovely messages from my blog friends and other well-wishers [spammers go home!] and getting majorly irritated because reading letters that are too small for anyone to read without a magnifying glass stresses me out no end.

To add insult to injury, this machine keeps making these tiny little clicking noises when I work. Every few minutes – click! click! click! – it’s not loud or anything, but it’s distracting. And the shop claims they’ve never heard of such a thing [and are probably shaking their heads and rolling their eyes and making circular motions with their index fingers pointing at their temples. But I swear it’s true!]

Anyway, please forgive this little rant, which I fear has come across as the pitiful peep of one resigned to utter futility. And spare a thought for YT, trapped forever in an unsatisfying relationship with a laptop too expensive to replace. Meh.

PS the weather was gorgeous today, sunny bright and warm [ish]. Current temps are 2°C and the sun came up at 07.54 and went down at 19.22.

PPS Oh and if you have any fabulous wisdom to dispense regarding font sizes etc, – something I’ve missed entirely [hardly likely] – feel free to drop it in the comments box. Ta.

Here a rundown of the main news stories in Niceland this past week, completely random and totally subjective.

JÓNÍNA BEN E-MAILS DISCOVERED IN CALIFORNIA
Remember my post about Baugur and that rather nasty e-mail leak? The one that seemed to confirm an all-out political conspiracy and was – unsurprisingly – published by Fréttablaðið, a daily free newspaper owned by Baugur Group? The owner of the e-mails, Jónína Benediktsdóttir – who happens to be an ex-girlfriend of one of the Baugur bosses – leapt into action last August when the dastardly mails first appeared and had them confiscated from the Fréttablaðið editorial offices, pending court proceedings [currently underway]. Anyway. Those very same emails – and others reportedly not even seen by Fréttablaðið – suddenly turned up on a website in their entirety. Conveniently, the server on which they appeared is somewhere in California, hence outside Icelandic jurisdiction. But who would have it in for Jónína Ben to such a degree? Who would go to such lengths to expose her backroom machinations to the world at large? The plot thickens.

YT SHAKES IN HER BOOTS [A.K.A. HER OFFICE CHAIR]
We had an earthquake last Monday, 4.5 on Richter. YT was sitting at her desk, innocuously tap-tapping away, when there was sudden uncontrolled trembling [ohmigodohmigod!] and that awful deep rumbling sound that accompanies such calamities. Is there anything scarier than an earthquake?? I think… er, probably, but at that exact point there was not. Turns out the epicentre was in Krýsuvík, about a 40-minute drive from here. Let’s hope it’s not a prelude to the BigOne they keep saying we’re overdue for here in the south. Gulp!

NICELAND THE BANANA REPUBLIC
German DIY [or ‘building supplies’– take your pick] giant Bauhaus declared that opening an outlet in Niceland is a lot more difficult than opening a store in Turkey or Poland. Reason? Seems they’ve been jerked around a bit by the municipality of Garðabær [adjacent to Reykjavík] who promised them a big-assed lot for their operations after Bauhaus wooed them by inviting them on a pleasure trip tour of the company headquarters in Deutschland. However before you could say ‘nepotizmrules’ negotiations with Bauhaus were plötzlich terminated and one of the two main Icelandic DIY chains – BYKO – was allocated the coveted lot. By some outlandish twist, this coincided more or less with the Mayor of Garðabær suddenly taking over as CEO of BYKO. She claims all allegations of foul play are ‘absolutely false’ – but hey, we love our political intrigue up here [see no. 1 above] so we don’t buy it.

CRASH TAKES HOME BEST PICTURE OSCAR
[!]

IF IT AIN’T BROKE…
Íslandsbanki announced today – completely and utterly without warning – that they’re changing their name to ‘Glitnir’. I mean… wtf? What’s wrong with Íslandsbanki?? It’s a nice, patriotic name! Whereas ‘Glitnir’ just sounds… asinine. “What’s your bank?” “Glitnir.” Yeh right. Sounds like shop that sells used automotive parts if you ask me. [Although that impression may have something to do with the fact that Glitnir was previously the branch of Íslandsbanki that provided car loans. I mean – really.]

NICELAND GETS A FEW INCHES OF SNOW
Mostly last night and today. A moment ago it was coming down in big, luscious flakes and some of it is actually sticking to the ground. This is the first snow we’ve had in a donkey’s age and it’s always a bonus when it’s this pretty. Temps are currently 2°C and sunrise and sunset times are currently unavailable due to my extreme laziness to get up from the sofa and fetch the calendar. And now I must hit the sack as EPI and I are heading to Þingvellir tomorrow. EPI’s brother and sis-in-law just bought a summerhouse there and we’re going to give it the once-over. Yowsa.