Author: Kári Tulinius
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So What’s This I Hear About Iceland Almost Being In The World Cup?
If you have sat next to an Icelander while watching this year’s World Cup, you will have heard that Iceland…
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So What’s This City Election I Keep Hearing About?
Oh, you heard about it? It seems like a lot of people did not. Turnout was at an historic low…
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So What Are These Shitballs I Keep Hearing About?
If we are to have any hope of discussing the very serious matter of an ecological collapse in the unique…
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So What’s This Christmas Tree I Keep Hearing About?
Every year since 1951 the city of Oslo has presented the city of Reykjavík with a goddamn enormous spruce tree,…
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So What’s This Trip To Ukraine I Keep Hearing About?
Iceland’s Minister for Foreign Affairs Gunnar Bragi Sveinsson went on an official visit to Kiev on March 22. There he…
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So What’s This Silly Talk In Parliament I Keep Hearing About?
Politicians say the darnedest things. That has been true at least since their words were commonly recorded in hieroglyphics. For…
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So Who’s This Tony Omos I Keep Hearing About?
He is a Nigerian who applied for asylum in Iceland two years ago. Late last year he was escorted out…
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So What’re These Elves I Keep Hearing About?
The long answer is that it has been reported by the Associated Press, and subsequently hundreds of media outlets around…
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So What’s This Christmas Book Flood I Keep Hearing About?
If you have read any guidebooks about Iceland, you will have read about the Christmas book flood, or jólabókaflóðið, which…
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So Who’s This Jón Gnarr I Keep Hearing About?
The boring answer is that he is the mayor of Reykjavík. He has been in the news lately because he…
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So What’s This Beautiful Word Contest I Keep Hearing About?
The Icelandic state broadcaster RÚV and the humanities department of the University of Iceland have launched a contest to find…
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So What Are These Sandstorms I Keep Hearing About?
People tend to forget that Iceland is about 25% desert, or more, depending on what you consider the line to…
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So What’s This Overpriced Rental Market I Keep Hearing About?
As Jimmy McMillan, founder of New York’s The Rent Is Too Damn High Party, who released the album ‘The Rent…
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So What’s This Icelandic Horse Competition I’ve Been Hearing About
Since 1991 there have been world championships of the Icelandic horse. In case that sentence makes absolutely no sense, I…
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So What Is This Reykjavík Mosque I Keep Hearing About?
On July 6, the Reykjavík City Council gave permission to build an 800 square metre mosque in Reykjavík, Iceland’s first…
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SO WHAT’S THIS POLICE BRUTALITY I KEEP HEARING ABOUT?
A couple of weekends ago, a police officer was filmed having an altercation with a drunken woman in downtown Reykjavík….
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So What’s This National Culture I Keep Hearing About?
After any election there are always surprising developments. One of those after the last election in Iceland was that the…
So What’s This Airport Dispute I Keep Hearing About?
Like many long-running political disputes in Iceland, it’s the fault of the British. During World War II, the UK occupied…
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So What’s This State-Run Liquor Store I Keep Hearing About?
The Icelandic government, like governments in most of the Nordic countries, several US states and some other countries around the…
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So What’s This Hunting Of Endangered Whales I Keep Hearing About?
Hvalur hf., an Icelandic whaling company, has announced that this summer it will resume hunting fin whales, an endangered species….
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So What’s This Right-Wing Election I Keep Hearing About?
To put it in simple terms, the two right-wing political parties in Iceland, The Independence Party and The Progressive Party,…
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So What’s This Dying River I Keep Hearing About?
A river in the east of Iceland called Lagarfljót has had its ecosystem collapse. The river originates in the Vatnajökull…
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So What’s This Porn Ban I Keep Hearing About?
Minister of the Interior Ögmundur Jónasson said last month that he is considering proposing legislation that would, among other things,…
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So What’s This Asylum Tourism I Keep Hearing About?
After spending a gazillion dollars convincing foreigners that Iceland in winter is not an uninhabitable rock floating in the colder…
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So What’s This New Year’s Eve Sketch Comedy Show I Keep Hearing About?
There is a long answer to that question, but the short answer is that every New Year’s Eve, the Icelandic…