Blog

Today I went to view a garret room I was thinking of renting, to enable me to write my rants without the inevitable distraction of Overflowing Laundry Basket or Dishwasher Screaming to be Emptied. It was all very bohemian and small, but the downside is that it would...

Yikes! The first proper snowfall of the season – and were Icelanders prepared? Heck, no. Going for a short spin last night was like a throwback to my Toronto days, when five snowflakes falling caused massive delays and pile-ups on the expressway. The traffic...

“So tired ... of always being sick and tired...” la la lalala... There was a time in the not-so recent past when you could not go anywhere without hearing that song playing, which in was sort of OK because it’s not bad as pop songs go. Except maybe when you’ve heard...

One by one Iceland’s oil company bosses come crashing down from their pedestals like the infamous statue of Saddam Hussein. By dinnertime yesterday I’d lost count of how many had resigned from this board or that board, or severed ties with this company or that. Am...

Iceland’s teachers – those faithful public servants whom we entrust with the education of our children – are back to the drawing board. The strike resumed at midnight when it became clear that they had rejected the mediation proposal and there was nothing new in the...

Well, Esso has come forward with a public apology presented in a full-page advert in today’s Morgunblaðið. Call me a cynic if you will (if you shall if you must…) but I’m slightly nauseated by the shameless manipulation of the thing. What we have is a large photograph...

Still crouched in the corner. This is so very rudimentary and charming, like the being-online version of the Russian chandelier*. Nothing like a little return to basics to break up the complacency and make one appreciate one's creature comforts. Started by taking...

In the Big Annoyance sweepstakes, computer malfunction is a hands-down winner every time. Which is why I have been stalking around like a raving lunatic for the last couple of hours in a fit of frustration, screaming WHY CAN’T I GET ONLINE??!!! PREQUEL: It all started...

YIPEE!! They let me in! Yours truly has been suffering from itchy finger syndrome today, blog words swishing around in the mind like liquid, desperately needing to be spilled; meanwhile those nice people at Blogspot have spent the day Keeping Me Out. Error messages...

SNOW!! It's what we had this morning, everything covered by a thin layer of the white stuff. There's always something fantastic about the first snowfall of the season, isn't there? Particularly when it's dark outside. Like it's happening for the very first time ever....

Once upon a time the Icelandic nation was blessed with only a single television station - the Icelandic National Broadcasting Service. Broadcast hours in that faraway time were from approximately 6pm to midnight. There was no television on Thursdays and no television...

So exciting! A volcanic eruption in Vatnajökull glacier! The earth shakes, the ground quakes ... all beneath a layer of ice 100-200 metres thick. How cool is that? Actually flicked on the TV at noon today to catch the extra news report. Killer shots of smoke drifting...