June 2010

I mean, I knew we had global warming, but this is ridiculous

June 24, 2010

Bizarre news item of the day: police in Selfoss [town in South Iceland] apprehended a metre-long lizard* in someone’s garden last night, according to a report on RÚV. So clearly Midsummer Night is not just about cows talking and seals changing into people, but also about lizards turning up in Selfoss gardens. Of course, in [...]

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Midsummer

June 23, 2010

It’s Midsummer Night in Reykjavík, meaning all kinds of wild and crazy things happen [folks getting naked and rolling around in the dew, that kinda thing]. People also go for long hikes in the middle of the night. Fimmvörðuháls is one of the most popular — hundreds of people have hiked it on this night [...]

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Iceland, the EU and that pesky rebellious streak

June 23, 2010

The Financial Times has a good piece today on Iceland’s potential [or more likely non, according to the article] membership to the European Union. So Icelandic entry into the EU is far from automatic.  It is a well-off, well-organised, law-abiding, creative society, and in this sense Iceland is far ahead of other countries queuing up to [...]

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On loan takers being held responsible

June 22, 2010

In the comments to the last post, a few readers expressed their views — which note bene we have heard before — that the people who took the foreign currency loans were really the ones to blame and should be held accountable for their actions. It was they who failed, not the system. Others, more [...]

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The huge significance of the foreign currency loan ruling

June 21, 2010

As we reported a few days ago, the Icelandic Supreme Court passed a ruling last week that loans indexed to foreign currencies are illegal in Iceland. For anyone unfamiliar with the concept, Sigrún Davíðsdóttir explains over on her blog [also exposing the further incompetence of the Icelandic bankers, as if we didn't have overkill on [...]

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The new mayor opens a diary and other fun stuff

June 20, 2010

So, as most people reading this will know, we have a new mayor here in Iceland in the form of comedian Jón Gnarr, of the Best Party. The Best Party essentially stormed out of nowhere last spring and stole the Reykjavík local elections from the [corruption-ridden] Independence Party [who despite their corruption-riddedness still have loads [...]

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More on the disappearance of Julian Assange

June 19, 2010

Apropos the last post, here are a couple of interesting links discussing the predicament of WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange, who recently leaked a video showing US troops opening fire on a group of civilians in Iraq. First, the Daily Beast has an interview with Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the Pentagon Papers back in the 1970s. [...]

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ABC on Iceland, WikiLeaks and the disappearance of Julian Assange

June 18, 2010

As some readers may recall, WikiLeaks recently released a video entitled Collateral Murder, showing US troops shooting at civilians in Iraq back in 2007. [We wrote about it here.] Predictably the video generated a bit of attention, and the US military has now detained a soldier named Bradley Manning, who it suspects of leaking the [...]

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EU formally approves accession negotiations with Iceland

June 18, 2010

So, as had been expected, the European Council voted yesterday to open negotiations with Iceland for accession to the European Union. The Ministry for Foreign Affairs sent out a press release in which it points out the obvious: that Iceland is already a member of the internal market of the EEA and a participant in [...]

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Best of Reykjavík: Icelandic food

June 17, 2010

A few people remarked on the last Best of Reykjavík post [Cheap Eats] that we we were focusing only on ethnic food and left out the Icelandic food. There’s a reason for that. One, there’s the tricky business of defining Icelandic food. Are we talking traditional Icelandic food — the kind that the tourist brochures [...]

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