Reykjavik is Burning!!

as promised here is the latest post from the front line of the Reykjavik protests. It all kicked off yesterday about one o'clock, where we heard chanting outside the Althingi, yesterday was the opening of parliament after the Christ's Mass break. Gathering our hats a few of us made for the parliament building, where the police had cordoned off the front of the place with barrier tape. Just like Iceland, a jogger ran through the Police cordon and in front of all the protesters who had gathered banging various pots and pans. It didn't take long for the barrier tape to be ripped down and the crowd to converge on the building front. The egg throwing and snowballing started pretty soon after that.

Presently a woman jumped up on a bollard and told everyone to go around the back of the building. We all did and found that there were no police at all round there. Everyone was banging on the glass windows and I was caught up in the moment and joined in along with Angelos. It was great to be part of something so big. The Police arrived in riot gear and forced the crowds back with pepper spray and heavy handed brutality. Fucking fascists. But there were still people in the garden throwing snowballs at the building and banging on the windows at the back. Everybody seemed to have an implement for banging on and some guy even brought a drum kit in order to disrupt the parliament session.

It went on all afternoon and into the early morning by all accounts. The whole thing was organised by a new group of protesters, who go around in ski masks or with their faces covered by scarves. They are a lot more 'direct action' than the earlier protesters. I think this is great, the time for peaceful protest is over. The Government haven't listened to the voice of the people, no matter how loud they shout.

I was watching the news report later in the evening and who should pop up in the report, banging on the windows? Yours truly! I've now been on TV in at least four countries; Iceland, the UK, Japan and Canada! Maybe that's my new calling.

Donar's Oak

My computer died on Thursday, I brought it into work so Igor could have a look at it and he took it home for the weekend to test if it was just fucked or really fucked. Turns out it's fucked, so Hrappi took it into his local Computer repair shop Koporvogur, the cheapest one in Iceland, apparently. They didn't seem to understand the concept of the word cheap and told him (who told me) that it would cost approximately one hundred to one hundred and fifty pounds to repair. I think my response was somewhere along the lines of 'Fuck that shit...', so now I don't have a computer to while away my evenings with. But I'm getting ahead of myself...

Roz and Duncan left for a week so I had the house to myself and I spent Friday evening in the company of General Atli (As he now wants to be known) playing Axis and Allies D-Day and eating Pitsa. I played the Germans and held the American forces at Omaha Beach, just like in real life, but eventually, airstrikes and lack of reinforcements led to an Allied victory with St Lo falling in the last turn to the Yanks. again Atli was the victor and I am beginning to think I am losing my touch. It's like the last days of the Reich all over again.

I drowned my misery with several cans of booze after Atli left and watched the rest of Seinfeld Series Eight. I awoke quite late on Saturday morning and headed into town to pick up some booze for Mark and Sarah's arrival. They were coming to stay for the week and the house was dryer than it was when the Jesus Freak ex-alcoholic lived there. I bought some booze and a Johnny Cash CD and a DVD in the sales at a record shop.

Mark and Sarah appeared Saturday evening and I showed them the local swimming pool; mainly the hot pots. Then we went out for a meal at the Indian place Margret had recommended before. Again, a great meal. A few drinks later we headed back to the house where Mark and I sat up drinking and talking shit about shit.

On Sunday I took the two of them round Reykjavik, I dropped them off at a Vegan Cafe, where we all had Vegan soup with bananas in it. Make your own mind up about this... I didn't really want to spend my Sunday afternoon tramping round Reykjavik, so I headed back home. Sunday evening was spent in the cold comfort of Icelandic TV. Mainly Britain's Next Top Model.

At work on Monday we found a Whale skull, the first I have ever seen, excited? I nearly shit. Today we found another one!! Holy crap. What is weird is that both are in association with dog skulls. I'll leave you to ponder on the meaning of all this....

STOP PRESS!! The opening of the Althingi today was interrupted with protests all round the building. The Icelanders took to the streets and made their voices heard!! It´s been going on since one today and is still showing no signs of stopping! Brilliant I say! get the people out on the streets, everyone is out making noise! I´ll post more on this tomorrow!

Aduatuza

What can be said about this week? What can I tell you? well let's start at the beginning. Monday is a good place to begin I guess. We had a site meeting that lasted for two and a half hours and the main achievement of it was that we sorted out who would be washing up the cups at the end of each day. We then carried on with the work in Area C, i.e. cleaning off more dumping layers. We also had a new addition to the team in the shape of a fish bone expert. I can't remember what the real name for fish bone experts is or be bothered to look it up. Do it yourself if you're that way inclined. It's your life that you're wasting, not mine. Anyhoo, she now wants the entire tent sampling for fish bone. I told Vala I'd do the fish bone report;

'Small Fish: 134678 fragments.
Medium Fish: 467890 Fragments
Big Fish: 123314 Fragments.

Conclusion: People in the old days ate fish in Reykjavik.'

That'll be 50,000 Kroner please. Can I have it in Dollars though, it's a much more stable currency? Thanks.

Atli came over on Monday night for a game or two of Memoir 44, the game I bought a while back. I told him 'It's easy to learn, any idiot will be able to play it, so you should have no problem.' My over confidence was my weakness, he was such an idiot he beat me three times to nothing.

Tuesday passed with no incident to speak of. Actually it was so incidental that I don't remember anything that happened at all. No, a complete blank. Wednesday evening was passed with me cooking a Mexican meal for Roz and Duncan as they had cooked for me on Sunday evening (A lovely vegetable stew. Om nom nom.)

I awoke this morning with my back locked up, I must have slept funny on it as I could hardly move at all. I took the day off work to get the back back in order [sic]. It happened before when I was living in Dublin, it passes soon, but is another symptom of this fucking job that I call a career.

...As Long As Winds Will Blow...

Jo left on Saturday morning for a month. She's gone back to Auld Landan town, innit? We all spent Friday night watching Batman 'Dark Knight'. An excellent film, that I was wanting to watch again. I like Batman more than any of the other Superheroes. He seems more real than, say, Superman. Superman is just up his own arse. 'Oooh look at me, I've got all these powers. I can burn through steel with my eyes. Yeah, that's right my fucking eyes!' Batman seems far more human. It's not just him doing the crime fighting. He has a back up team. OK, so it mainly consists of the old fart Alfred, but at least he has help. I also like the Joker as a character and not just in the film. I used to have this old collection of the greatest Joker stories ever told. Right back from some of the first Batman comics in 1940 he was a crazy fucking murderer. No rhyme or reason to him. This is what Heath Ledger portrays much better than Jack Nicholson did. Obviously in the 1960's when Comics came under the crushing influence of the Comics Code Authority, Joker was stripped of all this menace, as was Batman and he became as ludicrous as the TV show of the same time. It was only after Watchmen that Batman and the Joker by proxy recovered. Arkham Asylum, Year One, The Killing Joke are all worth checking out from this period. Also any of the Legends of the Dark Knight comics series. Mind you, all this was made possible with the brain drain of British talent to the States, mainly from writers of 2000AD.

Enough about comics. I spent Saturday in town buying board games expansion packs and tidying my room and the bathroom. The bathroom needed it. No one had touched it for about two months and I'm sure there were things living in between the tiles. I could feel tentacles reaching out for my whilst shaving, like some Lovecraftian dank horror had bred in the filth. I headed out to TÞM to see Gone Postal play a gig for the release of their new album. There was three bands supporting them, I missed the first two, but managed to see Severed Crotch. I've seen these lads play before and I've a real soft spot for them. Ball crushing Death Metal, their singer is pretty amazing with his vocals. Both bands put on a really good show, but I can't help but laugh at badly translated songs. One of Gone Postal's tracks is called Void of Torment.I mean just think about that for a second. Void of Torment. What the fuck does that even mean? You are not being tormented? Surely that's a good thing? Why is a Death Metal band promoting good things? Or does it mean you're in a void, where you will be tormented? I'm confused, if anyone can help me on this one, I'd love to know...

After the gig, which was what appeared to be a youth club (No bar and full of teenagers... dear God help me...) I met Angelos for drinks in Dillon. I can't remember much else about Saturday night except I know some shots were involved, as was a chicken burger and a taxi ride. I woke up about two in the afternoon, so I'm assuming I had a good time. I spent Sunday recovering and fannying about all day.

Vanadis

I've been wondering why no one is commenting on this blog anymore. I know you're reading it, I've got stalker software installed on it so I can see exactly who (almost) is coming on and reading it. Please leave comments. It only takes an minute. You can even tell me this is a pile of shit and I should stop. Whatever.

This has been the first week back after Christ's Mass, James went back home on Tuesday after a meal at the East India Company restaurant which was fantastic. I promised myself a return journey to this place at some point. I like Indian food, very much and this was good stuff.

The rest of the week was dominated by work, as boring as this is. Trowelling off piles of dumping layers is not the most stimulating work I have ever done and I am dreaming of the days I can buy a fuck load of military books off Colin and start selling them. Mind you I made myself a little more comfortable on Wednesday by setting up a painting table and prepping some WW1 British Infantry. I may as well fill my evenings with something more rewarding than watching America's Next Top Model.

I bought Series 8 of Seinfeld yesterday, I bought it from the music shop up Laugarvegur, instead of Elko as I was advised by Margret and Lilja. Infact all week they have been on at me to buy all my products at Elko.

'I need new Headphones' I idly mused

'You'll get them at Elko' Cried Lilja and Marget

After I'd bought (from the same shop as the Seinfeld DVDs) them they asked how much they were and was told they would have been cheaper at Elko. I then went on to mention I was thinking of buying the last two series of Seinfeld that I didn't own. Where do you think I was advised to buy them? That's right... Elko. It's like they have second jobs working on the sales committee at Elko. I'm surprised they don't have Elko tattoos.

In other news, my so-called 'friends' have been writing a blog together (they are so dumb they couldn't do it on their own...). Yesterday the latest piece of shit was published and lo and behold who is in it as a minor character. Yes that's right, it's me. Here is the address if you wish to read this shit, but I wouldn't bother. You'd only be wasting your valuable time.

Midgards Eldar

After a good long sleep James and I headed into town to grad something to eat and then ended up in Dillon where we met Duncan and Roz. I also got chatting to a guy called Atli, who had set up the Fuck Christmas festival that I attended before going home. We started chatting due to mutual t-shirt approval. Mine for his Autopsy shirt and him for my Gorgoroth shirt.The next morning we headed out earlyish to get to Akureyri to meet Hrafnkell and Iris. There was little to tell about the journey except that we passed through several beautiful mountain ranges on the way. We me H-bomb outside Akureyri at a local hardware shop and followed him to the house we'd be staying in for the next night at least. The place was a homage to the seventies and was well received by all of us. We all headed out to the local Akureyri fire, which I can say without a shadow of doubt, was the biggest fire I have ever seen in my life. Then we were treated to the firework display which was pretty amazing. Especially the final ones which went off like Tall Boy Bombs...
Hrafnkell's family very generously opened their house to us and we were served cakes and coffee and listened to Hrappi's younger brother tell us about his Lego Town. It's a pity we never go to see it... After this we left the family to watch the Icelandic end of year show and headed back to the house. About 11.30 it started to sound like downtown Baghdad outside. The town folk had started their own fireworks displays and by gum, it beat the local council one into the ground. It was so intense I was having flash backs to 'Nam. Tottenham, mainly. after this amazing display we set off into town for drinkies. Lilja and her other half joined us, as did Stefan and his other half. Finally crashed out about six am.The next day Jo, James and I headed up the fjords to see Ginavik and some turf houses there. Very nice little buildings in a beautiful setting. The rest of the day was spent recovering and heading out to Dalvik to Iris' father's house were we would be staying for the night. Iris showed us around the Museum her father curates, and I tried on the tallest man in the world ever's shoes. In the morning we headed out to Mývatn and Dimmuborgir, the eerie lava formations the band take their name from. The path was a frozen solid and it took a while to get around without slipping on our arses. Which most of us did anyway. With the light against us, as usual we headed to a crater with a lake in the bottom, overlooking some power stations that harnessed geothermal energy. Clever people these Icelanders... Then forging on we headed to Námafjall to see the billowing fumeroles. Again this country never ceases to amaze. After the light had fallen we headed to the spa baths at Mývatn and spent an enjoyable two hours and one pint in the healing waters. We headed back to Hrappi's and played on the Wii all night.

The following morning we were treated to the unmitigated horror of the Christmas shop outside Akureyri. The less said about this horror the better... The light was dropping out of the day as we hit the road back to Reykjavik were Duncan, Roz, James and I painted the town red. Another six AM finish... A lazy Sunday was what I got today. Relaxation in the local pool's hotpots and a kebab in town then home to a nice sit down.

Norvegr

The rest of Christmas was spent rather quietly with the exception of showing Steve, Lauren and Clare round Rotherham on Saturday night. Rumble Strip were playing in the SNAFU and as they are the second best band that play there we stayed and watched them until closing time after visiting several other places of local interest. Mainly the massive TV in the town center. I basically got drunk Sunday night then Monday afternoon with Mark, and then Justin and Lucy on their way back from Northumberland to Brighton. It was strange to sit in one of my local pubs drinking with two people I only saw in Iceland a few weeks previously. The flight back to Reykjavik was a nightmare. The original time for the flight was set at 7.30pm, both myself and my brother had received an email to tell us the flight was being delayed until 10.30pm. When we arrived at the airport about 8.30 we were told the flight wouldn't be leaving until 11.55pm. We dutifully took our seats on the plane about 11.45pm only to be told that there was a problem with a leakage on the nosecone and the technicians were coming out to fix it. It turns out the technicians didn't have the right piece of paper with them. They had the tools alright, but NO PIECE OF PAPER!! So they went away again, to try to find their piece of paper. Meanwhile the stewards started giving out drinks as complimentary, I thought the logic of this was a little off. A plane packed with angry people in a confined space, the best thing to do? Ply them with booze! Finally the technicians found their piece of paper and sellotaped the nosecone up or whatever it was they were doing and we were off. At 2am. Only a mere six and a half hours after the original time I had booked. I finally crawled to bed about 6.30am. Thanks Iceland Express!!

If you're wondering why there are pictures in this post, it's because Dave said it was boring just looking at blocks of text, so I thought I'd break it up a little. See, I listen to you, my loyal readership. Any more ideas, you know where to send em!