Laeknishendr

Not much has really occurred this week since Sunday. It's been a pretty run of the mill old week really. I spent most of it repairing the tent that was fucked in the storm the other week. This really consisted of slackening the straps and moving the poles around until they were in some semblance of an upright position, only to find the opposite one was still skewiff. Repeat the process ad nauseum. This took up all of the days until Wednesday when we finally got down to some hard-fucking-core trowel cleaning. I'm not going to continue with this incredibly tedious inspection of the minutiae of my working week, it is sending me to sleep just writing it, so Christ knows what it doing to you.

We have bee watching a few films this week, The Life and Death of Peter Sellers was one of the highlights. I found it a little post modern, but the repeats of Peter Sellers' characters was enough to hold the film together.

OK, hold onto your seats for even more navel gazing. I was thinking this afternoon about music and the music I listen to. I have had my MP3 player on shuffle and a song from Avro Part's Triodion came on. If you don't know Arvo Part is an Estonian composer who works a lot with Choral music, I particularly recommend De Profundis if you like this sort of thing. I digress.

The song reminded me of the Norwegian band Ulver. Not through the music but because I remember reading a recent(ish) interview with Kristoffer Rygg from Ulver who stated that one of his favourite albums was the Arvo Part offering Fratres. It is strange because I had purchased that album scant weeks before I read that interview. A strange coincidence indeed. I had been listening to both Ulver and Part for a several years before knowing the influence one had on the other. This also happened a while ago, I was reading an article written by Varg Vikernes of Burzum, my favourite 'band' ever. Full stop. Varg wrote that after murdering Euronymous, Snorre Ruch and himself drove back to Bergen with Dead Can Dance (Probably my third favourite band ever. full stop.) playing in the car. As much as I know about Burzum (and I know a lot. Some would say an obsessive amount...) I had no idea Varg had even heard of DCD, never mind he was a fan. Another strange coincidence when two of my musical loves cross paths...

OK enough of this shit, it probably wasn't my strongest posting so far. If anybodies got any ideas what I can do this weekend, please let me know.

Heathenpride

I forgot in the last posting that nobody got it right about the theme of the titles. Since nobody got it right or even bothered giving a decent answer, I'm not going to tell you what the theme is. So fuck off.

OK, this was probably one of the longest weeks that I have ever lived through. Finally it came to an end on Friday with an early finish because Jo and Vala were off for some Thelma and Louise road trip action in the East. I formulated a plan to stay in and drink beer for the night, owing to the fact I was getting a tattoo in the morning. I didn't want to turn up at my appointment shitfaced drunk from the night before and end up getting a fucking smurf tattooed on my cock or something similar. Before the beer, Roz, Duncan and I went to the baths (the last time for ten days, because of my tattoo healing, as it turns out...). Again, rather than actually swimming I sat in the hot tubs for an hour. We got chatting to some Danish Lady about the recession, until Duncan said something outlandish and she left.

Back at the gaff, I settled into the night with beer and Wayne's World. I've not seen Wayne's World for a long time. When it came out (In 1992, fact fans...), I was heavily into Metal and had no sense of humour, especially about the things I held dear. Like Metal. I refused to watch it for years, until I finally watched it and thought actually it's an alright film. Problem is, it hasn't aged too well. It all seems a little bit laboured now. OK, it's not an intellectual film by any accounts, but I do like my comedy a bit deeper than that. It passed a couple of hours anyway.

I got up earlyish on Saturday for my eleven o'clock appointment and got down to Sverrir's Tattoo parlour. What was thought to take two hours actually took three hours, what with all the detailing. During this time, Sverrir and I got to know each other a little better... I found out all about his wife, whom he'd married a year previously, all about the farm he owned in the North and his lack of interest in cows, but saintly offerings of his extra Salmon stocks to the local poor people. I found out all about how he started tattooing, all about how he had started dealing drugs at age fourteen. I found out all about the two men he had killed and the eight months he had spent in solitary confinement during his two year jail sentence for manslaughter as a result. Yes, you can find out an awful lot about a man in three hours. The tattoo looked fucking brilliant when he'd finished, murderer or not, he's an excellent artist.

I was finished about two and waiting outside was Roz, looking extremely nervous, for her appointment. She asked me if it had hurt, I said I didn't know as I'd passed out instantly. She didn't appreciate this, and went a whiter shade of pale.

I left Duncan and Roz to get acquainted with Sverrir and his needles and set off to Atli's gaff, where we were going to play out the war of the century on the Axis and Allied board. Lilja was playing this time, as was Hrönn and one of Atli's mates from Keflavik. Lilja drew Japan, Alti was Germany, Hrönn had Britain, Atli's mate (Who's name escapes me...) had Russia and I drew America. Things started in favour of the Axis, Germany made great gains in Africa and Russia. Japan also pushed the USSR back and knocked out America in China. It looked like the fate of the West was in the balance until the Mighty Juggernaut of American Industry pushed Germany out of Africa, took control of Western Europe, smashed Japan out of it's stronghold in India and the Pacific Islands. Surrounded on three sides, Germany surrendered without a fight and Japan followed suit. Atli will blame the fact that Japan never held India as a feeble excuse for losing the game, but we all knew it was bad tactical planning at Axis HQ that lost the day.

After the VE and VJ day celebrations had quietened down we all headed into town for Björgvin's poetry book release do. Turning up late half through the recital, the four of us sheepishly took our seats and got ready for a hard-core poetry fest. In Icelandic. I'm very sure the poems were great, the audience responded well, the background music, provided by Duncan and Hrafnkell, was good, but the only words I understood was when Björgvin told Roz to stop talking.

After this was over the remaining few of us headed out to a bar I've been in before, but cannot for the life of me remember the name of. I talked about the finer points of the game with Atli's chum and corrected a few of his misconceptions about the First World War. I tell you, I'm a fucking PARTYYYYYY GUY!!! Hrappi kindly gave us a lift home and I crashed out pretty drunk and covered in blood and ink.

I spent Sunday doing what should be done on Sunday's, nothing... I watched Monty Python and the Holy Grail and made a video for a song I recorded last year sometime. It's a cover of a Burzum Classic; Lost Wisdom and can be found here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v="cVNZqjznggo

The video is not too important, it is only there so I could post the song up.

Galdralag

On Sunday evening Jo and I settled down to make a jigsaw, one of several in the house. The one we choose was of Noah's ark and all the animals waiting patiently in line, not eating each other or fighting or fucking, to get on the Ark to be saved. Now, looking at the box lid I was wondering how did Noah decided which animals would make it onto the Ark. I'm not talking about leaving the Unicorns behind, they were shit anyway what I mean is how did he whittle it down from all the millions of animals to just two of each species. Was there some kind of test? Did they have to be good at carrying stuff, if they were, say, camels. Did their shit slinging skills have to spot on if they were Chimps. Even with all the time in the world, just setting up an Olympics style contest for animals would be a fucking task, never mind judging it and deciding on winners of each event. Surely he must have cut some corners, so this must also mean that some of animals on the Ark were not up to scratch. Maybe the two Lions he chose were particularly rubbish Lions. More like the kind of Lion that would spend it's life signing on and watching Jeremy Kyle every morning before popping down the Job Centre to pick up it's Giro. It's just a thought.

Anyhoo, we made the jigsaw, but as it progressed things took a decidedly odd turn. not all the pieces were there. This in itself is not odd, but when fully assembled the Jigsaw took on a new dimension... There was what looked like a deliberate removal of certain animals. Looking on the box to see what was missing we saw there was a rather large Tortoise in the bottom of the picture. Jo did a quick search for tortoise int he bible and found the following:

These also shall be unclean unto you among the creeping things that creep upon the earth; the weasel, and the mouse, and the tortoise after his kind, in Leviticus 11:29.

OK, you say, a weird coincidence, but as Roz was looking through her room for writing paper she chanced upon a large pad. Glancing through it there were several pictures of crude Crucifix's, a picture of Jesus with 'Jesus loves you' written underneath and creepiest of all the letters WWJD? written several times in various styles. If you don't know WWJD stands for What Would Jesus Do? and is a reminder to do what is right in Christ's eyes. Now call me cynical but anyone who needs a continual reminder on how to live their life in the correct fashion shouldn't really be let out of the house...

I sleep very uneasily in that house...

We turned up on site on Tuesday morning to be confronted with the sight of the large tent listing badly, the strong winds during the night had blown half the fucker down. Two of the heaters were smashed to the floor and the poles in complete disarray. The wind was still blowing strongly as we tried valiantly to correct the damage. It was like trying to tie sails down on the high seas during a storm on a boat with only three crew... It had to happen on the day that nobody was in as well. We managed to get the thing secure even after loosing two of our number, both within minutes of each other. Duncan had his finger trapped in a ratchet for the straps and moments later Sindre took the end of his thumb off with the same device. This led to Ace calling him Stubs today, then blaming the new nickname on me...

Speaking of which...
Atli Quotes, when I was making some derogatory comment in Jo's direction: 'You're on slippy ice.' All ice is slippy, Ace. What is funnier is I originally misheard him and thought he'd said 'you're on slippy eyes.'

Shores in Flames

Posting a comment wasn't so difficult was it? Now it means you can do it all the time. Come on people, feed my ego... Thanks for all the posting, but I can obviously see some idiots amongst you who are champions of Braveheart... Don't waste your time watching this shit, watch something good, start off with La Haine and work from there. Life is too short for Mel Gibson...

Earlier this week, we machined a large amount of material from Area B, that we would have had to have removed by hand. Now, call me old fashioned but the idea of spending a week trowelling off peat ash deposits fills me with dread for my mental state of mind. So the idea to machine layers off was a blessed relief. After this had happened a few of us cleaned up the entire tent ready for more removal of material. When this was finished I managed to be the only one left in the warm, dry tent to record the deposits. Ha! IN YOUR FUCKING FACES YOU ICELANDIC RACISTS!!! The Brits are back in charge. Everyone else was back in the cold draughty tent whilst I was living the life of Riley in the lap of luxury. I even had butler service. My well needed solitude wasn't to last and a few people were moved back into the tent after I'd finished recording all the layers.

At about eleven on Wednesday night the Northern Lights were the best we've seen whilst being here, I however was slightly distracted, so didn't fully appreciate their incredible natural beauty...

On Thursday night, Jo and I went to the cinema around the corner from the house. Despite having me only having three hours sleep the night before, fucking thinking about fucking things, we went to see 'Burn After Reading'. All I can say is, see it. Then see it again. Clooney and Pitt are so obviously having so much fun making the film it is infectious and I will never see John Malkovich in the same light again...

Friday finally rolled around and despite initial ideas to go into town, Jo and I decided to spend the night in. It was pay day (finally...) and we headed to the wine shop after work. This was a very necessary trip as of this weekend, thanks to the war between Britain and Iceland, prices are starting to go up and booze will increase by 25%!! It's like war-time Britain with rationing and everything. Before you know it we will be drinking powdered wine and shops will be displaying signs saying "Yes, we have no Putrefied Shark!". In Iceland the government controls the sale of booze and decides at what time you can buy it. Which basically translates as any time between about 1pm and 2pm on Wednesday afternoon. Or at least if feels like it. You have to get in there fast and make your purchases quickly before they pull the shutters down. This leads to a situation when you've left the shop realising that you have bought loads of shit you didn't want in a desperate rush to buy SOMETHING. I end with Cooking Sherry, Brazilian Whiskey and six cans of Egil's Malt Appelsin, and that's on a good day. Friday was no different and Jo and I left the Vínbúðin (Booze shop) with a box of 24 Budvar bottles. I tell you, that walk home was a long one... I'm sure Hercules had to do something similar in his twelve tasks, it came straight after the one where he had to clean the Augean stables in a single day. After this heroic task we decided to stay in and drink the bottles until we were stupid. I went swimming with Roz and Duncan first of all. When I mean swimming, I mean I sat in the hot pots whilst Roz and Duncan did some real exercise.

On Saturday, Hrafnkell came and picked us all up for our road trip down south, we went to the recycling centre and dropped off all the bottles we have been accumulating in the house for the past month or so (Owing to Jo's booze habit of about eight bottles of wine a night, we were at the stage of making furniture out the empties as there wasn't enough room left and they were taking over the house...). Then we headed down south to the Waterfall whose name I forget, the frozen path reached around the back of the falls and although Hrappi and Duncan made it round there, the soles of my shoes just weren't up to the task of walking on ice and I had to stay behind. The next call was at the bigger waterfall of Skógarfoss which was frozen but had much easier access. The name translates as Forest Falls, or something similar, but I was fucked if I could even see a single tree, never mind a forest... We climbed to the top of the 60 meter falls and marveled at the wonders of Mother Nature, then laughed as Hrappi fell over in the mud...

After gazing in awe at Skógarfoss we headed on East and turned off the road towards the Glacier at Sólheimajökull, which could be reached by a tiny dirt road across a wide desert like valley from where we could see Mýrdalsjökull, Iceland's fourth largest Glacier. With a couple of hairy moments we reached the Glacier and were all blown away by it's sheer size and majesty. Finally the school party that seemed to have been shadowing us all day left and we had the place to ourselves as the sun was setting. The colours of the place were unbelievable and the skies amazing. We headed onto Vík for some food and with Jo's inane directions and bad navigation searching for a place we finally ended up back at the place we started and I had fish and chips for me dinner.

After a straight two hour drive back the five of us headed out into Reykjavik for drinkies until five, when I headed for bed.

Atli Quotes: On Hrafnkell fancying Jo's Mother 'Isn't that the Octopus Syndrome?'

On the direct translation of New Years Eve from Icelandic to English: 'Old Year's Night.'

On the direct translation of slang for taking a shit in Icelandic 'Playing chess with the Pope.'

Competition Time!!

The past few posting titles have had a linked theme running through them. I'm not going to tell you which ones have the link, but if you can tell me the link you will win a Alex Sotheran pencil and a free subscription to this weblog, just put your answers in the comments...

Baptised in Fire and Ice

OK, before you read this, I have a small favour to ask of you. If you read this entry, please leave a comment. You can write anything, all I want to know is who is reading this shit. You don't even need to sign up for a Google account or anything, you don't even need to be known, just a small favour to me. A small thing, since I am keeping you entertained for free with this thing...

Last week I was talking to Bjarki about films, he said that Braveheart was one of his favourite movies, which led me onto an hour long rant about how bad Mel Gibson was. And Braveheart in particular. I mean, it's not just that it's historically inaccurate, but the plot it completely implausible. I'm not going to go into it this too much, but he says he'll never forget his wife's memory after she is killed, but promptly jumps on the first French Bint who happens to open her garlic encrusted legs. Way to go to remember your wife, William... This is just one in a long list of bullcrap that pervades this film and I don't want to go into it right now. The one Mel Gibson film I did like was Passion of the Jebus, but I do like a good comedy.

I digress. After my rant, Lilja and Davið started talking about getting Mel Gibson to star in a movie about the Cod Wars (for those of you that don't know, the Cod War was three real wars between Iceland and Britain beginning in 1958 and finally finishing in 1976. It was over fishing rights and fish are about the only thing to get Icelanders excited enough to go to war over. Iceland won, if you were wondering.). I got more of the plot out of Lilja today.

There will be three films, a trilogy, if you will. Lilja has only fleshed out the plot of the first movie. Gibson will play an Icelandic Fisherman, who lives peacefully enough (She told me his name, but being unable to even say the fucking thing, the chance of me writing it down is minimal, it translated as 'Thor Cattle') with his family, doing what fishermen do. One day whilst he is out at sea catching Cod and wearing an Icelandic jumper, the dreaded English fleet appears on the horizon and makes for shore. King Elizabeth of England has dispatched the Royal Navy to Iceland to capture one of the famously beautiful women for use as his sex slave. I should interject at this stage and tell you that the English have the appearance of Orcs (Now, everyone must have seen Lord of the Rings, so I don't need to explain what an Orc is...). Picture the scene: an English Sail ship decked out in Black, with Orcs and Goblins running wild all over the decks and rigging. Fighting and vomiting everywhere, this is the English Navy. They land the ship and pile ashore, who's farmhouse do you think is in their path? Yep, it's poor brave fisherman Mel. His wife is well known to be the most beautiful of the beautiful women of Iceland, so who becomes a prime English target? Yep, it's poor brave fisherman Mel's wife... The English lay waste to the farmhouse, kill all six of poor brave fisherman Mel's children (krakki, as they are known in Icelandic...) and capture his wife. Tying her to the mast the English fleet sets sail back home with their prize for King Elizabeth of England. Mel returns laden with Cod for his wife and children and discovers the English War Crime, he flies into a rage and goes to Reykjavik to raise an army of Fishermen to attack England in their fishing boats. They ram the coast of England (the ramming is probably the only accurate bit in the plot, but it was ramming English Navy Frigates in the real war, but when has historical accuracy ever stopped Mel before? The Patriot anyone?) and manage to sink Wales. The Icelandic army of blond haired, blue eyed, Six foot six giants led by poor brave, four foot three, brown haired, brown eyed Fisherman Mel Gibson storm Old London Town and head straight for Buckingham Palace where Poor Brave Fisherman Mel's wife is being held. Thankfully King Elizabeth of England hasn't had his wicked way with her yet and Mel defeats the giant King of England (think of the cave troll in LOTR...) and returns triumphant to Iceland, where the Icelanders are free to continue fishing as long as it's within their 200 nautical miles Exclusive Economic Zone which became recognized internationally on November 14, 1994, after having been agreed at the conference on the Third United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea in 1982.

That was the basic plot for the first film, there are two more to come...

I asked Roz if she was enjoying her job the other day, I think she was in bad mood as she said she'd rather be raped by a shit smeared imbecile than do archaeology.

Atli Quotes: on the unspoken war between Britain and Iceland over the money crisis; 'Do you know how during the Iraq war, when the Americans changed the name of French Fries to Freedom Fries, we [Iceland] have changed the name of a 'Full English Breakfast' to 'Shithead Disgusting Breakfast'

Now, it's over to you. Leave a comment if you got this far...

From Father to Son

In the last post I completely forgot to mention that on Tuesday night, Duncan and I went to Thingtak's rehearsal. Hrafnkell brought his other guitar so we could rehearse some Sudoku tracks as well. I showed the lads a few songs and we played through. Then Thingtak played a few tracks, whilst Duncan and I listened. Fuck me, those lads are good players. Steppi kept saying they were fucking everything up but it sounded fine to me.

After work on Friday I went to the English Pub to meet a few of the heads from site, but I was tired, not having slept so good all week, so only had two pints and headed for home with Jo. After a quick Friday night Kebab we both headed back and watched About Schmidt, the Jack Nicholson movie. I've saw it when it came out in the cinemas and had been wanting to watch it again as it was so good. It's very funny and sad at the same time. I had an early-ish night as I needed sleep.

Saturday saw the heralding of NERDFEST 2008! Ace and I had been talking about playing Axis and Allies (the board game...) all week and the time had finally arrived. Hrafnkell was also persuaded to come along for the ride and although Bjarki was asked he declined. He works as a bouncer and was working til about seven Saturday morning. Hitler never made such a weak excuse when he was about to take the Sudetenland. Atli brought along a mate of his, Jorn, or Jon, I'm not sure how you spell it. I took control of Russia and Britain, Ace had America, Hrafnkell drew Germany and Jorn or Jon had Japan. This is how the game progressed. Basically, Britain and Russia helped one another to crush Germany from both sides, whilst America watched, saying 'It's a European war, we don't want to get involved.' and sat on it's vast reserves and never extended the hand of help. Japan was pretty ineffective in the east except for sinking the American navy and capturing China and small bits of Russia. America still sat by, saying 'It's a Russian/British problem, we don't want to get involved.' British quick thinking combined with Russian determinism pushed the Japanese back to the sea in Asia. After the downfall and suicide of Hrafnkell in Germany Japan was finally attacked by America trying to capture the last moments of glory from the real victors Britain and Russia.Needless to say, it failed. Jon or Jorn surrendered before Britian could mount a final crushing amphibious assault. Both Jon or Jorn and Hrafnkell were executed for War Crimes against Plastic toy soldiers. Britain lost literally dozens of pieces in the fighting, Russia lost over twenty figures defending Europe against fascism. What did America lose? One tank and one bomber.

It was Margret's birthday on Saturday and she was having a party, so we all headed over about ten. It was pretty busy and there was free booze, which is always a good draw... I had intended on only staying a couple of hours, but it was the wee hours when we finally headed for home. Hrappi jumped up and played a few songs on the old Geetar, he played a fucking Queen song and dedicated it to me. The tubby bastard. A good night was had by all.

This morning, Sunday, Duncan and Roz headed into town to pick up a hire car. We had been discussing going over to Hekla this weekend. Apparently it is due to blow, the last time it erupted was in 2000 (I think), and it is well overdue throwing molten lava over the surrounding farms. All reports were that it could go this weekend. So, despite all protestations from the locals, the adverse weather outside Reykjavik, the lack of a map, warm hiking clothes, first aid kits and provision of getting in touch with emergency rescue, we set off. Jo wasn't up for it, maybe she knew something we didn't. Roz, Duncan and I travelled for two hours across icy gravel paths that passed for roads, through zero visibility snow storms, and finally onto the flat valley bottom with the oppressive mass of Hekla staring down at us. We didn't pass another car for what seemed like an eternity. Roz was the first to crack. On a road that we couldn't see for the snow and ice she decided that we were too close to an active and ready to blow volcano and wanted to turn around. Fortunately, Hekla didn't blow by the time we had headed back to Reykjavik. But phew! it was a close shave!

Valhalla

I showed up for work on Tuesday and was promptly told by Sindre that I'd be working in the new tent. A victory for the anti-Racists! I was being moved out of the cold miserable open tent to the new luxuriant, heated and well lit marquee. It was like all my Christmas' had come at once! I trembled with delight and excitement about the new opportunity, no-one else from the UK had been asked to go in the new tent. The temperature had hit an all time low, maybe somewhere in the -40c region.

The previous night the wind had blown all the windows out of the new tent. Our first task was to take down all the walls for the windows to be repaired. I was back in the biting, howling wind. at least the old tent had four walls...

In a further attempt to cement relationships between the two almost warring nations, we had a 'Play' night (as Ace McCloud called it.) . Jo came up with the idea, telling Hrafnkell to come over to play cards one night, it quickly spiralling out of control so that everyone was invited to come and play.

As it turns out, only Hrappi, Ace and Hrönn managed to make the games night. Lilja had promised to come and at the last moment was 'involved in a car accident' so was unable to make it. Even with Hrönn bringing her knitting it still turned into a drunken orgy of violence, brought on by over-excitement during games of Puck!, Cheat and Shithead.