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Ó Borg Mín Borg
Páll Einarsson (Mayor from 1908-1914.) Reykjavík’s first mayor. Originally the sheriff of Hafnarfjörður, Einarsson ran against city official for the Danish government Knud Zimsen and soundly won, thus confirming the growing nationalist sentiment in Iceland. At that time, the mayor’s salary was…
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Bolludagur, Sprengidagur and Öskudagur
Sadly overlooked by most visitors to Iceland, Bolludagur, Sprengidagur and Öskudagur are set up back to back, conveniently enough, on the last two days of February and the first day of March. Taken together, they afford you the opportunity to be a…
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“Quentin Tarantino, You Should Work for the Icelandic Tourist Board!”
Quentin Tarantino, appearing on television show Silfur Egils earlier this month, was asked what he intended to tell America about Iceland once he returned home. “Loose women and heavy drinking?” host Egill Helgason offered, as if it were a foregone conclusion that…
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Highlights from 2005
Icelandic Government Criticised for Supporting the War in Iraq On 18 March 2003, coalition forces – led primarily by the US and the UK – launched an invasion against Iraq. Along with the help of countries such as Costa Rica, Palau, and…
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“Caring About the Natural World Comes Easily”
Margrét Vilhjálmsdóttir is an award-winning actress (Falcons, The Seagull’s Laughter) who has been working mostly in the Icelandic theatre for over ten years. More recently, she was approached by the environmentalist group Hætta (Stop) to help organise one of the largest benefit…
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The Village of Hafnarfjörður
As you head south on Route 1 from Reykjavík, the first thing you see as you cross into Hafnarfjörður city limits are giant piles of lava flanking the highway, pushing up out of the lawns of apartment buildings, which make holes in…
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Protecting the Parents:
According to World Health Organisation statistics from 2002, the average number of live births per 1000 in Scandinavia, among women aged 15 to 19, is 10.4. In Iceland, it’s 19. In fact, Iceland is edged out only by the UK (with 20…
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The Opposite of Rock Stars
Grapevine: How did you get the idea to enter Musiktilraunir? Gunna: I think it was me and Alexandra, we went downtown one school day to sign up for it and just used it as an excuse to skip class. Kata: And I…
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An Interview with Arna Schram, President of the Icelandic Journalists Union
What is the position of the Icelandic Journalists Union regarding the gag order on Fréttablaðið [regarding e-mails from Jónína Benediktsdóttir related to the Baugur case]? Jónína Benediktsdóttir had a private affair against Fréttablaðið. The union does not want the police commissioner or…
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Getting More Women in Politics
The Social Democratic Party has newly formed a women’s group within their own party, and have planned a meeting for 16 and 17 September that will define their objectives. Currently, the Social Democrats have the greatest percentage of women in parliament –…
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Independence Party Contender for Mayor Has a Change of Heart
In Issue 11 of The Grapevine, we featured the Reykjavík city planning ideas currently being debated by the different parties who will be fighting for city council’s fifteen seats this spring. Among others, we spoke to Vilhjálmur Þ. Vilhjálmsson of the Independence…
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The Pagan MP
The Liberal Party was founded in 1998 and has only three seats in parliament, but the most recent Gallup poll shows their support already at 5%. Their popularity continues to rise, however slowly, despite having lost one MP – Gunnar Örlygsson –…
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Iceland Immigration, with an Eye on London and Amsterdam
The Netherlands has been a country that has welcomed many immigrants over the last 30 or so years. By the end of the sixties, we were in desperate need of extra hands, just like Iceland is now. Most men who came in…
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The Politics of Berlin
Examining the roots of fascism isn’t something that normally makes its way into a musical, but actor Felix Bergsson contends that his Theatre on Scene’s production of Cabaret does just that. The plot of the musical revolves around the experiences of a…
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Bezt i Heimi: Krua Thai
A Chinese friend of mine once told me that the quality of a Chinese restaurant is directly proportionate to the number of Chinese people dining there on any given evening. She called it “the origin of menu principle” and used it as…
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Turning the City into the Suburbs
Reykjavík is a car city, for better or worse. According to Statistics Iceland, as of 2003 there are 69,727 private cars in the city alone – one car for every 1.6 people. As Dagur B. Eggertsson, chairman of the Reykjavík Planning Council,…
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DURAN DURAN
While two young women standing in front of me scream in each other’s ear as opening band The Leaves, who present themselves as a very serious Coldplay, meander through their set, I crane my neck around to see if there’s anyone “in…
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THE SHADOWS: inside with the unknowns of the drug culture
Alcohol is Iceland’s drug of choice – a recent Gallup poll indicated that close to 86% of all Icelanders said that they’ve had alcohol in some form or another within the previous 12 months. Although the alcohol tax is high, bars stay…
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The Raven Auteur Director. On film, politics and testicles.
This is how Icelandic filmmaker Hrafn Gunnlaugsson described the opening scene of what will probably be his last film, one that remains entirely in his head, and one that bears the unmistakable qualities of nearly his entire body of work. Gunnlaugsson can…
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Nearly Independent
While my friends and I stretched out on Arnarholl on Independence Day, enjoying the sun and watching Gunnar & Felix yuck it up on stage, we noticed a ship in the harbour proudly flying a huge Danish flag. This, I thought, should…
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Nei! sagði litla skrímslið (No! said the little monster)
In keeping with our never-ending thirst for Icelandic literature, we dove headfirst into this lauded tome. Nei! won the Bookstore Worker’s Literary Prize in 2004 and was published simultaneously in Iceland, Sweden, Denmark and the Faeroe Islands. While technically a pan-Scandinavian effort,…
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THE FLEECING OF A NATION
In an even bolder move, in 1996, representatives from the three oil companies wrote up an agreement among them detailing how they would divide the gas market among themselves at nine different locations in the countryside: AGREEMENT Olíuverzlun Íslands hf. [Ólís], Olíufélagið…
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So Who Owns SHELL?
Within the course of our research into the oil scandal, we came across this press release on Shell’s website (www.skeljungur.is), dated October 25, 2004: “Hagar hf. has bought all the shares of Skeljungur hf. . . Baugur Group, Fengur hf. with connected companies…
