Most Awesome Letter of the Issue
Bjork
1. Bjork, you are protecting the «Pussy Riot» ? OK. Then you will haveto jump and shout at the altar of St Paul’s Cathedral in London, inthe mask … This is the most effective support of the «Pussy Riot» …And when you are taken away by the police, the International HumanRights organization, Amnesty International, immediately recognizes you as a “prisoner of conscience”…
2. Bjork, I need your big photo (with a wide forehead) for my website of the pathological russophobes : http://tchaykovsky.com/rusphobi/edward_lucas.htm
Sergey Selyunin. Russia.
Dear Sergey,
We are not the singer-songwriter Björk. We are a magazine called the Reykjavík Grapevine. Hi!
1. We aren’t sure you really “get” this whole activism thing or what effective support means. We are also pretty sure that there are not as many judiciary-religious cahoots in England that would make it so someone doing such a thing in St-Paul’s would reduce them to a political prisoner. I mean, you saw the London Riots last year, right? Most of those folks got a misdemeanour charge at most, so you know.
2. Since we are (still) not Björk, we cannot provide you this image for your fucking hilarious website, but here is a free t-shirt for you. Hopefully it does not end up pictured on your website with PATHOLOGICAL RUSSOPHOBE emblazoned over it!
Sincerely,
Not-Björk

Dear Grapevine,
I’m sure we share the same passion in trying out the best parties in Iceland, and this year that quest took me to Þjóðhátíð in Vestmannaeyjar. I’ve been to many festivals all across Scandinavia but they all seem quite low-key compared to one that has thunderous firework displays, a gigantic exploding bonfire, a long line of bright flares, and a politician shouting “Djamm!”. There was great partying indeed, but also some unfortunate encounters with a certain tribe of people that we could just call douchebags.
For example: I was as usual wearing my festival hat (a big fancy officer’s hat from Ukraine) which at one point was taken from me by a girl that hid it in her tent. Since I didn’t know which tent was hers I had to ask her to bring it back to me. She refused to admit that she ever had the hat, and instead started to rather aggressively try make me leave the camp. Of course I wouldn’t go without my hat, and a long and very silly discussion ensued until finally one of her friends started to feel sorry for me and brought the hat back. On my way out of the camp I poured out a bottle of the girl’s gin all over the ground as revenge, and was promptly pushed away. I know I’m not the most morally perfected person around, and pouring out her gin was an immature thing to do (even if she deserved it). I would have apologized for it, but in that case I would have expected her to apologize for trying to steal my hat.
But that’s not as bad as what happened to a friend of mine. We had gotten separated and she was looking for me near the stage when all of a sudden two guys lifted her up high and ran away with her. She screamed at them to stop but they just shouted “Hooga chaka! Hooga chaka! Hooga chaka!”. Then they threw her across the bar at the candyfloss place, sending her crashing down on the machines. A lot of people at the stall got very angry and wanted to cut her wristband and kick her out for it. But she started crying and said it wasn’t her fault, so one man offered to help her find the guys that did it. They went out and saw one of them near the entrance, so the man wrestled him down and told my friend to kick him in the balls. Which she did, twice. Immediate payback, and she left it like that.
What’s to learn from all this? Well, if you mess with The Random Swedes you will get your gin poured out and/or your balls kicked. But let’s not go down that road! Let’s all be nice to those we meet at the festival, and keep the douchebaggery to a minimum. Let’s have Þjóðhátíð for meeting new friends, partying and making love under fireworks.
So everyone just behave well! And I’ll see you next year.
Karlmundur
hópleiðtogi, The Random Swedes
Dear Karlmundur and The Random Swedes,
First of all, we sorry that people stole your belongings back and that your friend got assaulted. These things are not cool at all. If you had asked for our advice about the best parties, we probably would not have recommended Þjóðhátið as their douchebag quotient is notoriously high, amongst a slew of other issues we take with it. But we digress!
That being said, we are not super impressed by your retaliation tactics. You responded to theft and violence with theft and violence, some of it much worse than what was done to you – you got your hat back, but did that girl get her gin back? Your friend shouldn’t have been tossed around like that, but she could have reported it rather than inflicting a much more severe assault on that guy’s nuts. Two wrongs don’t make a right and takes a douchebag to know a douchebag.
If you do come back for Þjóðhátið next year, practice what you preach and behave yourselves. Be constructive, be creative, be proactive, but don’t be a dick.