Welcome To Cucumber Season

Trouble in Moomin paradise

Plans of opening a Moomin-themed playground in Kjarnaskógur forest near the town of Akureyri under the name Múmínlundur (Moomin Grove) have been temporarily derailed because of copyright issues. The forestry association of Eyjafjörður had previously announced that they would be opening the playground this summer. However, it turned out that the association had not discussed the copyright aspects of their plans with the copyright holders, Moomin Characters Oy Ltd. in Helsinki, Finland. While negotiations are underway, the playground will be open, albeit under another name, and those parts of the playground that are currently infringing on the copyright, such as a statue of the Snork Maiden, have been removed.

The MRI scanner saga

The capital area of Reykjavík currently has a population of approximately 250,000. The city’s two main hospital buildings, located at Fossvogur and Hringbraut, share between them three MRI machines. On June 12, the single MRI machine located at the hospital’s Hringbraut location was rendered unusable when a cleaning employee mistakenly drove a floor scrubber into the MRI room, resulting in the scrubber getting magnetised onto the machine. A week later, June 19, it was reported that the floor scrubber had finally been detached. This was achieved by turning down the magnetic field of the MRI machine, which is done by releasing helium from the machine. The hospital is currently waiting for a new shipment of helium to start the MRI scanner back up, while the rest of us ponder whether having a backup MRI machine at the hospital might be a good idea.

President (sort of) endorses heart-shaped traffic lights

While other heads of state are busy sculpting a new world order, President of Iceland Halla Tómasdóttir has had her eyes on the heart-shaped traffic lights in Iceland’s second city (read town), Akureyri. The Icelandic Road and Coastal Administration (IRCA) recently announced that it wants the Cupid-inspired traffic lights removed, claiming they pose traffic safety risks due to them being a “popular photo subject for tourists.” Some residents of Akureyri have objected to the planned removal and have welcomed the president’s support. If the IRCA’s logic is followed, we wonder what will be next on their list? Making sure all horses who are “too cute” are removed from sight of roads all over Iceland, or setting up fences to block the view from the road of some of the more impressive waterfalls and/or glaciers? We don’t know. But as we all know, the view in Iceland can be damn distracting.

The Ring Road shortened

By the end of this year, the Ring Road, currently measuring 1,321 kilometres, will have been shortened by 12 kilometres when a new road and bridge opens just north of the town of Höfn í Hornafirði in South East Iceland. The construction of this new part of the Ring Road has been underway since the summer of 2022, and will make three single-lane bridges obsolete — one of them the longest single-lane bridge in Iceland, sitting at 255 metres. Since opening in 1974, the Ring Road has been shortened by around 100 kilometres, as many a detour has been cut from the highway by new stretches of road and new bridges. However, the biggest single change to its length came in 1998, when the tunnel under Hvalfjörður fjord opened, shortening it by 42 kilometres.