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The Icelandic Rap Scene Is “Dead”, And Its Women Are Ignored
A recent article published on the RUV website, has been making waves by announcing the death of Icelandic rap music. The article, written by Davíð Roach Gunnarsson, slammed the rap scene, saying that, although a lot of good music was still being…
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Capitalism Will Prevail: Businesses Use Hatari’s Aesthetics For Fun & Profit
“If we manage to overthrow capitalism, that would also be a measure of success. Preferably selling some branded merchandise along the way.” – Matthías Tryggvi Haraldsson of Hatari “You can see [racism in Iceland] with the refugee crisis that’s happening now, and…
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Major Icelandic Wholesaler Threatens To Raise Prices If Wage Rises Are Approved
With the signing of an agreement between labour leaders and management, many breathed a sigh of relief; the strikes will be over, and more importantly, the lowest paid workers will be getting a pay rise and other benefits. However, the fight isn’t…
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Broken Chains: The Struggles of Foreign Fast Food in Iceland
On New Year’s Day, Icelanders woke to the closure of Dunkin’ Donuts. The American doughnut chain, perhaps better known for its coffee, made its Iceland debut in 2015 to great fanfare but closed with little more than a shrug from locals. Dunkin’s…
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Landmark Gender Equality Law In Iceland Not Producing Significant Returns
A law passed shortly after the 2008 financial crash which was supposed to strike a gender balance in the directorship boards of Iceland’s largest companies has yet to yield such results, RÚV reports. In fact, men are in the majority of these…
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Iceland’s Richest 5% Own About Half The Country’s Wealth
Wealth inequality continues to grow in Iceland, to where the richest 5% of the country own nearly 50% of all available money. These levels are comparable to where they were just before Iceland’s financial collapse. Stundin reports that this information came to…
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Eaton Vance Invests In Iceland’s Rental Market
Eaton Vance Management, an American investment company with partial to majority ownership of several Icelandic companies, is now setting its sites on Iceland’s rental market. Fréttablaðið reports that investors at a shareholders meeting for Heimavellir, Iceland’s largest rental company, were informed that…
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A Letter To Capitalism
Dear Capitalism! I know you want me and other able adults to work. We each need to contribute to maintain the system you, with the help of your henchmen (read: those in power for the past 200-ish years), have bestowed upon us.…
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“Don’t Give Up! It Is Possible!”
Last week, Icelanders woke up to find that the front page of the newspaper Fréttablaðið was now a full page ad. This was not unusual in itself, but the ad’s purpose ended up kicking off a veritable cyclone of rage. The ad…
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Iceland V. Iceland Squares Off In Reykjavík
Iceland (the store) has sent a delegation to Iceland (the country) to discuss a trademark dispute over the use of “Iceland” with the Icelandic government. The Guardian reports that the frozen food retailer has sent a “high-level delegation” to Reykjavík to meet…
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Country Without Thanksgiving Celebrates Black Friday, Because Capitalism
Any excuse is the right excuse to promote sales, and that includes adopting quasi-holidays from abroad. Over the past week or so, Icelanders have noticed several retail outlets offering sales for Black Friday, or “Svartur föstudagur” as it is called in Icelandic.…
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Imported Ice Cubes In Iceland Cheaper Than Domestic Ice Cubes
Not only do Icelandic retailers import ice cubes from abroad; they are also cheaper than ice cubes made in Iceland. As reported, imported ice cubes can be found in a number of stores around the country, some of them touting themselves as…
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What Does A Utopian Iceland Look Like? Five Icelanders Talk About The Future
We regularly see articles published in the international press about Iceland, touting it as some kind of ultra-feminist, anti-banker paradise of clean living and social welfare. While we admittedly have it really good, there’s still a great deal that could stand to…
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Man Dies Fearing His Insurance Company Would Drop Coverage
A British man who died from injuries sustained from falling from a horse in Iceland did not disclose to medical staff at the National University Hospital what caused his injuries, out of fear that his insurance company would consider horseback riding a…
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“Sorrowful Stories About Our Sector”
Iceland’s relationship with heavy industry has finally come full circle. Just over ten years ago, the same two parties who are currently ruling the government pushed the idea that the construction of aluminium smelters in Iceland would be great for the economy.…
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Even Iceland Unsafe From “Black Friday”
The Icelandic media has now started warning people about “Black Friday”, despite the absence of Thanksgiving, and many local shops have reportedly taken up the tradition. For the unaware, Black Friday is the day after Thanksgiving (which always falls on a Thursday).…
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Reality Bites
What do multi-level highway interchanges, cheeseburgers and donuts have in common? No, this is not about the police. Discordant harmonies Discordant intersections. That’s the verbatim translation of an Icelandic term curiously popular among the country’s city planners and in news reports around…
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Potential Closure Of Downtown’s Music Venues: It’s About More Than Music
It’s Faktorý all over again. The buildings that house downtown’s booming music scene—venues like Húrra, Gaukurinn, Paloma and Dubliner—will likely be renovated into “tourism-related businesses.” The news is reminiscent to the sad fate of Faktorý, a popular Reykjavík music venue that was…
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Icelandic Firm To Gather Credit Info In Eight West African States
The Icelandic credit bureau CreditInfo has won a contract with the Central Bank of West African States (BCEAO) to manage a regional private credit reporting system, the Private Credit Bureau (PCB), collecting and mediating financial information within the West African Economic And…
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All Highly Unlikely
The freedom fighter Last things first: Styrmir Gunnarsson, former editor of Morgunblaðið, has published his memoirs from the Cold War. As reported, these disclose, among other things, that during most of the 1960s, Styrmir provided the Independence Party’s Chair and Minister of…
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Make Yourself at Home
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Hs0C2UvVBY Air-bnb has announced its future vision —and a new logo. Supposedly composed from a heart, a location marker and the letter A, the logo has already been the target of much ridicule, needless to repeat here. The logo is not the…