January 2008

I had a meeting in town today, and on the way back home I walked through the area known as skipstjórahverfið, or the ‘captain’s quarter’. About a century ago, sea captains made up Reykjavík’s elite - they were the people with influence, and they were the people with money. They built stately homes in the west end of Reykjavík, near the harbour, and those are still some of the most beautiful homes in the city. The streets in the area are all named after the sea - and the sea in Icelandic has lots of different names. This house, for instance, is on Öldugata, which means ‘wave street’. Incidentally, ‘Öldu’ is a conjugation of alda which also happens to be a woman’s name. As we know.

The captains’ homes were some of the first in the city to be made out of concrete, although the timber houses with corrugated iron siding continued to be ubiquitous . Many of those timber houses have been preserved and restored, like this one. It’s on Bárugata, which as it happens also means ‘wave street’ - bára simply being another name for ‘wave’ - as well as being a woman’s name. I used to live on Bárugata, just up the street from here:

Unsurprisingly, the school for training captains, navigators and other seafaring people - Stýrimannaskólinn - was centrally located in the captain’s quarter. The building is no longer used as that, though - they built a larger school decades ago. Today it’s used for … I don’t know what. Maybe just decoration. It’s located at the top of Ægisgata - ‘Ægir’ being another name for ’sea’, and also a man’s name. Correction! It’s actually at the top of Stýrimannastígur, meaning ‘navigators’ path’. oops!

And finally we have this wee box of a house, not much bigger than a doll’s house. Methinks it may be the smallest house in Reykjavík, although this is merely a home-grown theory. At any rate, you can believe that no captains lived there - it’s located on the edge of the captain’s area, you know, where the paupers lived. It’s on Vesturvallagata, which just means ‘western plains street’ and - plainly - has nothing to do with the ocean.

Okay then! That concludes our little tour for today…

AND AS YOU CAN SEE, WINTER IS STILL WITH US
It’s actually really cold at the moment - it was around -5°C when I took those pics [I’m guessing 22F] but it was absolutely calm, so it didn’t really feel that frigid. Later in the afternoon the wind picked up, though, and now with windchill it’s liked a deep freezer out there. According to the weather office we may have record lows in the next couple of days - it’s set to go down to -8°C with considerable wind and that, my friends, translates into what the Nicelanders call kuldaboli - ‘cold bull’ [yeah, don’t ask me why]. Currently -3°C and feels like -11 [27F, feels like 13F]. The sun came up this morning at 10.16 and went down at 5.07 pm.

Shalya, that great bowman who is highly regarded joy at the
sight of this packet, and his friend from real antislavery
people. There was, however, witnessing that dreadful and
wonderful body of last night? You did, you know, philidor,
or you told his charioteer, ‘that large division which attains
to brahma. As the track of birds along with it. How lightly
hermia’s name had dropped without my jonathan meant to be
obedient, but towards prahlada the conduct which a disciple.

… Yeah. Me neither.

I WONDER IF HE CAN GIVE US THE WEATHER, THOUGH
The cold, vastly underrated proximity, restless wind, why go then? Whitecaps, faceburn vacuous smedgeling, hopeless substance, traditional generalizations from whence. Antecedent. Uniform flurries, undiluted chaste corners striving for angelica supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. Folorn molecular -1°C [30F]. Analemma 10.22 prognosis 5 pm.

I have my favicon back, HUZZAH!! Look! Up next to the web address.

OK, now that that’s sorted, I can finally get back to relating the inane details of my daily life.

So yesterday was feed-your-man-putrid-shark day here in Niceland, also known as bóndadagur, or ‘man of the house day’. It’s the day when women are supposed to go out and buy rotten food for their husbands or boyfriends or partners, and bring it home along with a bouquet of tulips. Actually, I didn’t know about the tulip thing until yesterday, when I went to Hagkaup to pick up some lamb filets and lobster tails for dinner [note that I didn’t buy any putrid shark because I’m civilized] and I noticed that all the pails that had previously contained tulips were empty [except for a couple of bouquets with pink tulips] whereas all the pails containing roses were full. Hm, thought I, and continued on my merry way, until a few minutes later when I noticed a swarm of women descending on the flower pails. Naturally I had to investigate and promptly discovered that the reason for the commotion was that the tulip pails were being filled and the women were virtually trampling all over each other trying to get at them.

Which is when I realized: I was supposed to bring EPI tulips and I didn’t even know. Damn! How had he put up with me all those years? Tulipless?? I snatched a bouquet quick as a flash, and triumphantly delivered it to an overjoyed EPI a few minutes later.

Dinner was excellent, and EPI didn’t miss the rotten food at all. Because, well, he had tulips. And an excellent bottle of red wine. And YT doting on him for the entire evening. At least up to the point where I just had to put on an episode of Grey’s Anatomy because I was getting serious withdrawal symptoms [have I mentioned my recent Grey’s Anatomy obsession? Dampened only by my annoyance that Derek and Meredith - Merde-ith - are taking the whole damn second season to get it on? Sheesh, why can’t he just accept that he really loves her and be done with it, already!*] at which point EPI made himself scarce because if there’s one thing that EPI cannot stand it is hospital dramas. And thus ended our ‘man around the house day’, with YT flaked out on the sofa watching Grey’s Anatomy with AAH, eating Ben and Jerry’s New York Fudge Chunk ice cream, and EPI in his play room, strumming his guitar.

WEATHERMAN SEZ WE’RE IN FOR A STORM
A nasty, wet-weather storm, that will undoubtedly turn our winter wonderland to slush. Winds are going to be up to 30 m/s tomorrow. Today was overcast, with hardly any wind which made it excellent for skiing. And, as promised, pictures. Sunrise/sunset same as below.

* Please, nobody feed me any spoilers!

So I suppose a post is in order, for the benefit of the thousands of people who are passing through this site at the current time [think I’m kidding? It’s enough to give a girl serious performance anxiety], in search of some outstanding brilliance, no doubt. [ahem]

YT, meanwhile, has been of a mad search of her own, namely for my little favicon [the little image that appears next to the URL] that mysteriously disappeared a couple of days ago. As soon as I noticed it missing I felt like someone had stripped off all my clothes and left me standing naked in front of an open window - and at a very inappropriate time, too, just when everyone is looking. It’s not all fun and games, you see.

Anyway, it appears that a certain hosting website has gone belly-up and taken my favicon with it. And I have literally spent hours in the last few days trying to work out how to put up another one. What a freaking hassle! I won’t bore you with the details - suffice it to say that a very kind individual who has been holding my hand in the Google support forums over the past two days has taken pity on me and offered to host my favicon for me, so I won’t have to go around naked any more. Phew!

Anyway, must run, EPI and I are heading out for a spot of cross-country skiing because it’s such a gorgeous day out there. Pictures may follow so be forewarned. Currently -1°C [32F] and the sun came up at 10.27, will set at 4.53.

So results are in for the 2008 Bloggies and … the Iceland Weather Report has been shortlisted for Best European Blog, along with the stellar Diamond Geezer, Londonist, Chocolate and Zucchini, and the hands-down winner of the blog with the craftiest moniker, Arseblog.

I suppose this is the part where I should act all cool and indifferent and pretend that I’m above this sort of nonsense, but that would be Very Stupid because obviously I’m thrilled to pieces. Because this is, like, The Bloggies, the Oscars of the blog world if you will if you shall if you must, and even if it wasn’t The Bloggies, it would still be a delight to receive this sort of accolade.

However, this would not have been possible if so many of my amazing readers had not taken the time to nominate me, so let it be said once more: you totally rock. The nominations meant that we made it to the semi-finals; however, I have to be honest and say that as soon as I saw who I was up against [I signed up as a panelist and so got to see the 30 or so blogs that were in the running for each category] I more or less tossed the idea of making it any further. Because there were some serious luminaries and heavyweights in there. Which is why this really and truly came as a surprise.

Enough talking: Now that we’re in the finals I would really appreciate your vote in the Best European Blog category. You pick one blog per category this time around, but are free to vote in as many categories as you wish. You will also have to enter your email address and verification words, and then confirm your ballot. And do keep in mind that voting closes on January 31, so cast your vote before then!!

WEATHER
Last night around midnight it started to snow quietly and everything was picture perfect. It’s still gorgeous today with freezing temps and occasional flurries. Currently -2°C [28F] and sunrise was at 10.33, sunset at 4.47 pm.

So, I’m one of the multitudes who was completely stunned and saddened to read about Heath Ledger’s untimely death yesterday. And I have to confess that I was kind of upset about it today, too, and I couldn’t quite figure out why. Because, he wasn’t like my favourite actor or anything. In fact, I hardly ever thought of him. Except, bizarrely, around six o’clock last night, when I was lying on my back in my bed resting, and inexplicably I started to think about the movie Monster’s Ball, [WARNING: SPOILER!] and how absolutely shocking that scene was when Heath Ledger’s character suddenly, without warning, blows his brains out.

Later that evening I read the news online, and thought how weird it was that I’d had that flashback to the movie earlier. [No, I’m not trying to make this about me. I’m not. Really.] And then I realized that, actually, I really liked Heath Ledger as an actor. I saw him last in that godawful, overrated Bob Dylan film a couple of weeks ago, and I’m not exaggerating when I say that his segment was the only one I could bear to watch [seriously: I have never in my life wanted a movie to end so much]. As an actor he had a certain indefinable quality about him that made me happy. In Icelandic we have an expression: Hann bar gott með sér, which literally translated means, ‘He carried good with him’, and figuratively means, ‘He had an aura of goodness about him’. And that’s the impression I had of him. May he rest in peace.

IN OTHER MISERABLE NEWS YESTERDAY…
Around noon, when that storm they’d threatened us with was blowing through here with a fierce growling vengeance, YT decided to head out for a walk – as you do. I had the wherewithal to take my car, was planning to drive out to the golf course and take a quick stroll around in the 30 m/s gale-force winds, you know, as you do. And on the way I figured I’d stop at the bakery, pick up a couple of rolls for me and AAH for when she got back from school. And that corner where the bakery is located is like the baddest wind-ass corner in the whole of the capital area. So I come out of the bakery and I’m struggling to hang on to things like gloves and keys and rolls and iPod to keep them from blowing directly out to sea, and I open the door of my car and in one fell swoop the wind whips it open with the force of ten strong West Fjords Vikings and all I hear is a sickening SNAP and SCRUNCH. And all I think is MFSBCS!!!!!!!

That single gust of wind ripped open my door, tore the hinge in two, and bent the door back so far that both the door itself and the fender next to the door were all mangled. To make matters worse, I couldn’t shut the damn door because the hinge was in the way and everything was all dented, and when I tried all I did was jam the loose hinge into the dashboard, where it dug a hole in the plastic and got hopelessly stuck. Meanwhile I was desperately holding on to the door to try to keep it from flying up again. [And then the phone rang in my pocket. ARGH!]

Thankfully there was a gas station across the road to which I could carefully manoeuvre the injured vehicle while desperately hanging on to the door. This old guy who works there shuffled out when he saw me and tsk-tsked a bit, and finally said, “You know, it’s insane to open a door when the wind is coming from that direction, it’s insane [No! You don’t say!],” after which he patted me reassuringly on the back and said, “I’m sorry, dear, but it is. It’s insane.”

YT: Okay, okay, but can you help me out with a piece of wire, and is there a body shop around here anywhere?

Believe it or not, just at that exact moment, a car pulled in and the old guy said, “Why yes there is – talk to that guy,” and that guy just happened to be a body shop owner, and his shop was just up the road. So he called ahead for me, and they tied my doors together to keep the driver’s door from flapping in the wind as I drove, and sent me on my way [and undoubtedly had a good long chinwag about stupid women who open their doors to the wind after I was gone – as you do].

Long story short, the guys at the body shop were perfect gentlemen, did what they could with the door [i.e. I can close it now] and after all that one of them went into the back and came out with a big bag of chocolates, “Because this lady is having a really bad day.” [Aw!] So now I’m just waiting for them to order me some new hinges, and then they’ll have to do all this body work on my auto, take it apart and fix it and spray it and I may even have to buy a new fender and omg I just don’t want to think about how much it’s gonna cost. And that was the weather report for yesterday.

Temps currently -2°C [28F] and the fickle wind is no longer blowing. Sunrise was at 10.36 am and sunset at 4.44 pm.

PS – YES, we made the shortlist for The Bloggies and that is because of all my wonderful, amazing readers who sent in nominations, you totally rock! And now you can all go vote, go vote, GO VOTE!!

Gahwd. What a clutch of bumbling idiots we have here on the Reykjavík city council.

Some of you may remember a post from about three months ago when – without warning – a new majority was formed in the city and before you could say whostabbedwhointheback we had a new mayor and a new city council. Well, today – some 100 days later – we had a switchback, meaning that once again we have a new local government. Except that, well, it’s pretty much the old local government.

The scenario last time around went something like this: The Independence Party, which needed one seat on the council to form a majority, decided to recruit the single member that had been elected from the Progressive Party to form their majority coalition. Pretty precarious business, since the balance of the majority hung on that one seat BUT clearly they trusted the man. [Note bumbling idiocy factor.] Before too long those two parties were enmeshed in a major dispute too tedious to record here and, well, long story short, the single council member from the Progressives decided to abscond, swung over to the other side, and presto! a new coalition was formed, and the Independence Party was in a minority.*

Predictably, the old coalition was pissed as hell, and now it appears they’ve gone out and recruited someone they thought the could persuade to cross over to the other side, to give them back the majority they needed. They found their man in one Ólafur F. Magnússon, one of two representatives for the Liberal Party on the city council, enticing him [some would say ‘buying’] by promising him the office of mayor for half of the remaining election term. He’ll sit until the end of this year, when the former mayor [who incidentally during the abovementioned dispute signed away a Very Significant Document With Serious Implications without reading it because it was written in English – note BIF] will take over once again.**

Friends: these are the people who are now going to be running our affairs in this fair city. Delightful, wouldn’t you agree? So, what I’d really like to know is, how the hell do they expect the people of Reykjavík to take them seriously – to say nothing of trust – with machinations of this sort? [BIF] Of course their argument is that they’re simply doing what someone else did three months ago, but hey, at least the guy from the Progressives had an ideological clash to use as an excuse. Whereas these people evidently have no excuse, except their blatant yearning for power. And their bumbling idiocy.

APPROPRIATELY WE HAVE A MAJOR STORM FORECAST FOR TONIGHT
With gusts up to 28 m/s and rain or sleet. Temps are crawling upwards, currently 4°C [39F], with sunrise at 10.41 and sunset at 4.37 pm.

INCIDENTALLY!
Apropos the last post – old Bobby Fisher did not have his state funeral, nor was he laid to rest at Þingvellir – apparently he had a quiet burial this morning somewhere near Selfoss, attended by his Japanese partner and four of his close friends. This was in line with his own wishes. Which begs the question why his friends were prattling on about the whole state funeral thing in the first place. Which I will not consider now because my head hurts too much. Goodnight.

* This is the short version – there was lots more dirty intrigue that we won’t get into here because actually we don’t give a damn.
** And incidentally, the other member of the Liberal Party is staying where she is. Confused yet?

Chess wunderkind Bobby Fisher died here in Reykjavík last Thursday.

Three years ago, the Icelandic government decided to extend Icelandic residency - and later honorary citizenship - to Fisher. At the time he was incarcerated in Japan for travelling without a passport, since the US had revoked his papers for playing a chess match in the former Yugoslavia while sanctions were imposed. Extending sanctuary to Fisher was a bold move by the government of this country; US authorities were opposed to it and had said so in no uncertain terms. Thumbing his nose at this ridiculous and inappropriate intervention was possibly the best thing Davíð Oddsson did during his entire reign as king of this country … but that’s another story.

Anyway, Bobby arrived on Nicelandic soil, spewing rants and the odd profanity about whatever happened to be on his mind, and I think a lot of people - YT included - thought this was how things were going to be from then on: old Bobby shooting off his mouth at every available opportunity and the scandal-hungry press lapping it up. Yet Bobby Fisher settled in to become more or less a recluse, although he did get out to the pub occasionally. He was fiercely protective of his privacy and lived a scandal-free life for the duration of his time here. There were no complaints about Bobby Fisher.

Apparently he had been ill for a while, and true to form [’eccentric’ is probably as good a word as any] he declined all medical intervention. He didn’t believe in Western medicine. So last Thursday he passed away at a Reykjavík hospital, from kidney failure.

Personally, I’m proud of this nation for having reached out to Bobby Fisher and helped him in his time of need. At the time I had my doubts - he seemed pretty much out of control and I thought he might abuse the goodwill of his benefactors. But he didn’t, and that proved that the gesture had not only been kind, but correct: to offer sanctuary to a man who was, yes, slightly off his rocker and harbored some radical opinions, but who was also a bit like a wounded, hunted animal and needed help. It seems to me that he found a safe harbour here at the end of his life, and that is good.

That said, the latest notions by his supporters concerning his burial seem completely out of whack: they would like for him to have a state funeral and to rest in a plot at Þingvellir, Iceland’s national burial ground, which is reserved for statesmen and national heroes. Which unfortunately is just absurd. Sure Fisher helped put Iceland on the proverbial map back in 1972 … but there is a limit to everything, and I’d say that extending honorary citizenship to Bobby Fisher three years ago was it. Wouldn’t you?

IT HAS BEEN COLD AROUND HERE, AND VERY WHITE
I must say, I’ve been relishing this state of Proper Winter. I’ve even taken my camera with me on occasional outings. Yesterday was very dramatic, with snow squalls and strong winds, while today was exquisitely beautiful, with blinding white sun and hardly any wind. We’re in for a storm tomorrow and rain and sleet the next day - yick. That’s the worst part of all this beautiful white stuff … when you have to wade slush up to your knees on the days it’s melting. Right now -7°C [19F] - brrrr. Sunup 10.45, sundown 4.34 pm.

Dear readers, once again it is time to sift through the ‘porno dog’, ‘naked weather, ‘exposed penis’ and ’spanking the weather girl’ Google searches to discover if there are any precious gems hidden among the rubble. There are!

We have the earnest queries:

What is the proper procedure to invite the president of iceland to dinner? (Pulaski, Tennessee)

~ send an email to dorroli@hotmail.com with the message: Ertu laus um helgina? Then wait for a response.

my cockatiel laid eggs about three weeks ago and the cage fell and the eggs fell on the floor but did not break will they still hatch (Pollock, Missouri)

~ honey, here’s a tip: there’s this thing called RUN ON SENTENCE and I’m willing to bet those Google elves that help you find things JUST CAN’T READ THAT FAR.

Is it good to put methanine blue to the water of the gold fish (Philippines)

~ somehow that ‘meth’ prefix causes me some concern. Not to mention the techno music blasting from the fish tank.

iceland is made out of what building (Horicon, Wisconsin)

~ A quiz! Let’s see … ehm … Chrysler Building? That weird hotel in Dubai? - Oh I know I know - IGLOOS!!

cold weather running penis protection (Beaverton, Oregon)

~ this one came from NIKE [honest], who no doubt is designing a cold weather penis warmer AS WE SPEAK.

We have the exceedingly polite queries:

pictures of naked weather ladies (Des Moines, Iowa)

~ you make sure they’re ladies now, y’hear! Don’t want none of them ‘iceland sluts’.

beautiful penis images (Virginia Beach, Virginia)

~ portrayed in the manner of delicate flowers …

push in the penis pics (Hungary)

~ Yeah. We appreciate your tact and everything, but you might get better results with ‘fucking’

firm penis photo (Imperial, Missouri)

~ we call them ‘boners’ around here, but that’s because we’re vulgar.

We have the usual losers who think Iceland is just a big fuckfest:

icelandic prostitution sex strip clubs guide (Rolla, North Dakota)

~ leaving no stone unturned, as it were.

date tours iceland women (Joshua Tree, California)

~ Also known as Screwing Your Way Around the Golden Circle.

inside sex life of icelanders (Indonesia)

~ soon to be a series with Sir David Attenborough.

WOMEN ICELAND SEX (Reykjavík, Iceland)

~ For God’s sake STOP SHOUTING!! sheesh. Then someone might even want to have sex with you.

pic of women of iceland (Islamabad, Pakistan)

~ errr … you’d need a wide-angle lens for all those women. VERY wide.

There is the single representative from the Besserwisser society:

it is illegal to own a dog in reykjavik. (Newcastle-upon-Tyne)

~ who knew?

And then there are the oddballs, no pun intended:

costume enlarged balls (Baton Rouge, Louisiana)

~ surely you can rent those somewhere.

led zeppelin fornicating with fish

~ methinks we’ve seen this one before

big casted penis photos (Argentina)

~ think we NEED a photo to figure out what it means.

That’s all folks!

AND MEANWHILE WE HAVE WEATHER
It’s a proper winter out there now, and stunningly gorgeous. A few minutes ago the sky was glowing pastel with different shades of pink and blue, and earlier I went out for a run in the most magical light imaginable. We probably have around ten inches on the ground and it’s set to be cold for a while, so it will stay like this for a few more days at least. Temps are around the freezing mark, -2°C [28F] to be precise, but it feels like -6°C [22F] with the windchill. The day is getting longer, too, sun came up at 10:51 and set at 4.24 pm.