From the monthly archives:

May 2010

Eva Joly on the oligarchs’ arrests

May 31, 2010

This is slightly belated, but still fascinating: an interview with Eva Joly on Silfur Egils from May 16, in which she speaks about the arrests of the Kaupthing bankers earlier this month. I didn’t post it earlier because I was counting on Lára Hanna to post it on her blog. The RÚV website, where the [...]

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Dissecting the Best Party’s appeal*

May 31, 2010

So here we are, the day after the day after the elections, absorbing the fact that a comedian is about to become the mayor of Reykjavík and trying to figure out what this all means. I’m totally weary of the “people want change” slogan, because, well, duh! Obviously they want change — otherwise the Best [...]

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Best Party wins, Jón Gnarr for mayor

May 30, 2010

So the final results in the local elections went just as indicated by the exit polls. The Best Party got six out of 15 seats on the Reykjavík city council, the Independence Party got five, Social Democratic Alliance three and Left-Greens one. Old Jón Gnarr [the popular comedian who is at the helm of the [...]

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First exit polls: Best Party front runner in Reykjavík

May 30, 2010

Well, the first exit polls in the municipal elections are in. As predicted by the polls the Best Party is largest in Reykjavík, with around 8,000 votes of around 21,000 ballots counted. The Independence Party gets around 7,000 of those votes and loses two council seats. According to those figures, the Best Party gets six [...]

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Aaaand they’re off!

May 29, 2010

So, the municipal elections are on, with polls opening at 9 this morning. It is against the law to publish polls on this day, obviously, but the last we heard [yesterday] the Best Party was still the front runner in the Reykjavík elections, and would, according to the poll, take seven seats on the city [...]

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A brief missive from the bleary-eyed

May 28, 2010

I’m back from Brussels after a whirlwind trip to European Union HQ. It was four days in total, of which two went exclusively for travel, and I must say I was pleasantly surprised by the whole experience. Mind you, I had zero expectations at the outset — I’ve done these sorts of official trips before [...]

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The Tricking of Freyja

May 26, 2010

I just wanted to give a quick shout-out to Christina Sunley and her book The Tricking of Freya [Freyjuginning in Icelandic], which I recently finished reading and which I think is perfect for the Icelandophiles in the crowd. The main protagonist, Freyja, is a young American girl [and later woman] of Icelandic descent, who spends [...]

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Off to Brussels on important business

May 24, 2010

Tomorrow I’m heading to Brussels along with 12 other journos and bloggers to have a gander around the European Union headquarters. As many of you will know, Iceland has made a bid to join the EU and accession talks are set to begin soon. I suppose this visit is standard procedure in such cases — [...]

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Is the Eyjafjallajökull eruption over?

May 23, 2010

The volcanic eruption has been fairly low-key this past week, and according to reports from this morning it appears to have stopped altogether. At least for the time being. Reporter Ómar Ragnarsson flew over the crater this morning and told RÚV that there is no ash in the plume and it looks like the eruption [...]

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Better than best

May 23, 2010

So, as some of you have already alluded to, a poll conducted yesterday [Friday] shows that the Best Party continues to increase its substantial following and would get a clear majority on the Reykjavík city council if elections were held today. People: I cannot tell you how significant this is. This is the people of [...]

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