So, Reykjavík Mayor Jón Gnarr has decided not to run for re-election next spring. He announced his decision this morning. He also announced that the Best Party, which he fronted, will cease to exist. Its members who wish to continue in politics will join a party called Björt framtíð [Bright Future], which basically grew out […] Read more
October 2013
So the campaign for next spring’s Reykjavík elections is off to a roaring start, with endless sponsored posts and pages on Facebook for this candidate or other. The election promises are already flying, too, with one Independence Party rep promising better weather in Reykjavík if he gets elected. And lest you think this is modelled […] Read more
"Just stay cool and don't screech like a seagull. According to the breadcrumb theory it is most likely for the 1% to… Posted by The Iceland Weather Report on Tuesday, October 29, 2013
Here’s an interesting situation: an Icelandic telecommunications company (Tal) has started offering a new premium service that basically consists of assigning the customer a foreign IP number, which gives him or her access to streaming sites like Netflix and Hulu. Technically this is illegal. You see, most of these services, like iTunes, Amazon, and presumably […] Read more
Hey everyone – I have a little favour to ask. As many of you reading this will know I’ve published a couple of books on Amazon. I’ve sold a respectable number of copies, but unfortunately the reviews coming in from readers haven’t really kept pace. Amazon’s reader reviews are vastly important for indie authors. The […] Read more
Some things, bizarre as they may seem at the time, later turn out to have a perfectly rational explanation. Take that road they want to lay across the lava to Álftanes, for instance. Now there’s a bizarre undertaking if there ever was one. There’s a perfectly good road that is already there, which if it […] Read more
This has been a bad day for nature conservation here in Iceland. A group of protesters who have been tirelessly campaigning against a proposed new road out to Álftanes were arrested this morning and forcibly removed from the site. The protests concern a stretch of lava field that lies between the road from Hafnarfjörður to […] Read more
Apparently there was an earthquake of magnitude 4.8 this morning just after 7.30 am. The epicentre was on Reykjanes, the peninsula that has Keflavík airport on the end, about 3 km from what the Icelanders bizarrely call Reykjanestá or “Reykjanes toe” [it looks more like a heel to me]. I was happily lulling about in […] Read more
When I received the event invitation via Facebook I thought it was a joke, but apparently it’s not. There’s something on this evening called Freedom Dinner, held to commemorate the 5-year anniversary of the meltdown. The keynote speaker is … [wait for it] … Davíð Oddsson. Yes, that Davíð Oddsson. Disgraced ex-Central Bank director, and arguably the […] Read more
It is five years ago today since then-PM Geir Haarde made his address to the nation, announcing that Iceland was on the verge of bankruptcy and that there was a very real danger of it being sucked into a whirlpool of financial annihilation. About a week earlier the first of this country’s three commercial banks […] Read more
