From the monthly archives:

August 2010

Björgólfur Thor’s PR machine kicks into gear

August 31, 2010

So, my little post yesterday evidently hit a nerve with a few people. After Eyjan and Pressan picked up on it, I was quite literally bombarded with phone calls and emails from one Ragnhildur Sverrisdóttir, Björgólfur Thor’s PR representative, who was most zealous in her denial of all the “old innuendos” made in the post. [...]

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Just don’t mention the Russians

August 30, 2010

A couple of days ago I met up with a documentary filmmaker who is looking to make a film about the Icelandic crisis. We had a very interesting chat, and during the course of our conversation he told me he’d been speaking to what he called “the Viking contingent” in London — i.e. the oligarchs [...]

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Best of Reykjavík: Bakeries

August 27, 2010

Iceland does not have a long tradition of cake or bread-making … unsurprising, perhaps, since flour, sugar and other such commodities were a rarity in this country up until just a few decades ago. That said, there are a few “traditionally Icelandic” pastries, cakes, breads etc. such as pönnukökur [literally "pancakes" -- though not in [...]

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Ships ahoy

August 26, 2010

The other day when I got home from my trip, I was distressed to discover a guest post that Elisa had sent me while I was away, and I had failed to notice. [I curse that stupid gmail interface!] I would have loved to publish it then, but no matter — it’s still as good [...]

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PR cock-up of the year

August 25, 2010

A news photo has spread through Icelandic cyberspace* like wildfire today. The man to the left, looking decidedly ill-at-ease, is the current bishop of Iceland, Hr. Karl Sigurbjörnsson. The man to the right, looking decidedly smug, is Sr. Geir Waage. They had a meeting this morning because Sr. Geir announced to the general populace of [...]

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And while we’re on the subject of the church

August 25, 2010

EPI passed on this video to me, where the amazing Stephen Fry holds forth about the Catholic church and just nails it. And while his talk is specific to that church, there are so many things that also apply to the Icelandic national church at the present time — and probably many others, as well. [...]

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Ugly truths surface in Iceland’s national church

August 24, 2010

During the two weeks that I was away, a major issue reared its ugly head in Icelandic society — namely attempts by the Icelandic National Church to silence allegations and reports of sexual abuse within the church. At the centre of the maelstrom is a matter involving a former bishop of the church, one Ólafur [...]

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Back home after a pitfall trip

August 23, 2010

AAH and I arrived home yesterday after a long and arduous trip back to Iceland. We left Bulgaria at 7 am on Saturday morning [up at 4, zzzz ...] and were booked on an Icelandair flight back that evening at 10.30 pm. After a long day of shopping soaking up Copenhagen consumer culture we headed [...]

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Tribulations of an outlander in Niceland, II

August 19, 2010

For anyone who missed the last post, this is a continuation of Tom’s trials and tribulations as he tries to practice his Icelandic with the natives. Not a simple task, as it turns out! ~~~ I began wondering what, besides my obvious accent in Icelandic, led people to label me as an outlander. I didn’t [...]

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The hardest thing about learning Icelandic

August 18, 2010

Our next guest post [and final one in this round as I'm heading back to Iceland in a couple of days] is from Tom Harper, a loyal reader of this blog who is a masochist fascinated by and intent on learning the Icelandic language. In fact, he spent the summer in Reykjavík learning about declensions [...]

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