Just a quickie to say that you can now enjoy the pictures in the flash rotator on this page larger than they’ve been available before. Personally I find most displays on modern computers waaaayyy too small. [Why do they keep making everything smaller?] Consequently I have to enlarge them all the time and it was […] Read more
June 2010
Bizarre report in Fréttablaðið this morning. Seems a British [ex-] tourist who took a lava stone back home with him a couple of years ago experienced major misfortunes in his private and public life on returning to the UK. He blames the stone, and has now mailed it back to Iceland, asking that it be […] Read more
Halldór, our favorite satirical cartoonist, was razor-sharp today: Caption: “Icelanders’ culture of debate is believed to have formed during the Age of the Sturlungs.” People: this is so true. People’s propensity in this country to talk AT you rather than TO you never ceases to amaze me. I cannot tell you the number of times […] Read more
OK, so we now have the first proper review of Living Inside the Meltdown, over on Iceland Review, this country’s longest-standing and most established English-language publisher. In short, the reviewer, Alana Odegard, loves it. If you take anything away from this review, let it be this: You must read this book. Now, before any of […] Read more
EPI and I went out to Hagkaup [supermarket] this evening to buy lemons. They were out of stock. Bónus was out of stock too, last weekend. Imagine that! Being out of freaking lemons. Anyway, since we were there, we decided to see if they had any Pataks Hot Lime Pickle in stock yet. Because they […] Read more
On our days off, when the weather is good, we like to climb mountains. Happily there are a few such located within the Greater Reykjavík Area, one of which is Mt. Helgafell, in Hafnarfjörður. It’s an easy hike, the ascent is only around 300 metres [985 ft.], and from the top you have a view […] Read more
Apropos the last post, our Prime Minister Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir and her spouse Jónína Leósdóttir got married today. According to RÚV, they are among the first gay couples to legally marry under the new matrimony laws that took effect today. No formal ceremony is said to have taken place, though. I had dinner with a group […] Read more
As many readers will know, Iceland recently approved new conjugal laws that put gay and lesbian couples on par with straight people when it comes to marriage. That new law takes effect today and as far as I know there is at least one wedding planned and Samtökin 78, the Gay and Lesbian union in […] Read more
Here in Iceland there exists a narrow group of right-wing extremists who go to all sorts of lengths to propagate scaremongering and misinformation about various issues, including Iceland’s proposed membership to the European Union. These people are primarily the so-called quota kings and people close to the Independence Party who have held power in Iceland […] Read more
OK, so the World Cup has Iceland [like most places in the world] firmly in its grip — even to the point where vuvuzelas have invaded Icelandic football stadiums and are actually being permitted, even though horns and noisemakers are normally forbidden in Icelandic stadiums.* Oy. I’m kind of in the grin-and-bear-it category when it […] Read more
