Islande, 12 points...

Last Saturday evening was an important evening for Icelanders: they had to vote for the band representing Iceland in the Eurovision song contest.

Eurovision in Iceland is something sacrosanct. If you were to walk in Reykjavík on Eurovision night, you would have the feeling that you've entered a ghost town.

After Saturday's votes, this is what you have avoided: Merzedes Club, a group of half dressed men with a cumulative IQ slightly superior to the one of a goldfish... But I might be wrong and maybe it might turn out that they all spent 10 years in a Conservatory of Music.

Instead, we are sending the Euroband with the song "This is my life" to Serbia:

Other Eurovision related news: Ireland is sending Dusting the turkey, a puppet from the RTÉ show The Den. Here is an interview with Dustin before Saturday's show.

This is Dustin's song: Irelande Douze Pointe

Weather outside: Sunny, -3°C

Coalition of the willing...

Whenever Iceland is featured on TV, the following day you are sure to get some email about it. This time was not different. They spoke about Iceland on The Daily Show. "Correspondent" Jason Jones states that the US are not winning the war in Irak because Iceland left the coalition of the willing. These 2 videos were shown on January 22nd and 23rd.

I searched a little bit and found that Jason Jones was here around mid-October to produce his "on location report".

10/18/2007 | 12:03

The Daily Show Urges Iceland to Dispatch Its Soldier to Iraq

Jason Jones, a correspondent of the US comedy news program The Daily Show, has urged the Icelandic government to reconsider its decision to withdraw "Icelandic troops" from Iraq.

Ingibjörg Sólrún Gísladóttir, Iceland’s foreign minister, decided to withdraw an Icelandic Crisis Response Unit (ICRU) member from a NATO training program for the Iraqi army in Baghdad last month. The ICRU-member, who holds the rank of major, was the only Icelander working for NATO in the country.

Jones, who has been here since Monday producing a story for The Daily Show about the foreign minister’s decision, held a press meeting at the Hilton Reykjavík Nordica yesterday. Dressed in a red robe and with a stars-and-stripes hat on his head, the comedian told attending journalists that Osama bin Laden hated Björk, according to Morgunblaðið.

Earlier he interviewed Herdís Sigurgrímsdóttir, the withdrawn ICRU-member whose name ironically means “a war diva”, and Stefán Pálsson, leader of the activist group Campaign against Militarism.

weather outside: snow showers, -1°C

35 years ago...

35 years ago, in the early hours of January 23rd, 1973, an eruptive fissure appeared on the island of Hemaey. The eruption was to last for 155 days.



One of the most famous pictures taken during the eruption is the one representing the church covered with ashes and the volcano behind.

Heimaey being an important fishing port, it was a priority to stop the flow of lava that was risking of blocking the entrance of the harbour. Powerful pumps were flown in from the USA. Each pump had an output of 1000l per second.




Nowadays it is possible to climb Eldfell, the volcano created by the eruption. You can still feel the heat under your feet even 35 years after the event.




About 400 houses were covered by lava and ash. When you walk around the lava field you can see plates reminding you that a building used to be standing under your feet.




A project called Pompei Norðursins (Pompei of the North) started a few years back. The main goal of the project to remove the tons of ashes covering 7 to 10 houses of Suðurvegur, a street of the old town.

Weather outside: snow, -3°C

French films...

The 8th edition of the French films festival is starting this week (January 11th). 11 films will be shown in Háskólabíó and will open with the animation film "Persepolis".

Last year premiere was the very interesting "Paris, je t'aime", which is made of 18 short films and directed by over 20 film directors. My favorite short film was the one directed by the Coen brothers (Tuileries segment) featuring the actor Steve Buscemi in a hilarious quid pro quo in the Metro station of Les Tuileries.

A part from Persepolis, the films programmed this year are:

• Molière - directed by Laurent Tirard.
  
• Promets-moi - directed by Emir Kusturica
  
• L'avocat de la terreur - directed by Barbet Shroeder
  
• L'enfer - directed by Danis Tavonic
  
• 2 days in Paris - directed by Julie Delpy
  
• Serko - directed by Joël Farges
  
• Le dernier des fous - directed by Laurent Achard
  
• Changement d'adresse - directed by Emmanuel Mouret
  
• Dans les cordes - directed by Magaly Richard-Serrano
  
• Douches froides - directed by Antony Cordier
  

Very cold weather is announced for the week-end: a very good reason to go to cinema. Nonetheless, cold weather often means clear skies, and clear skies in means stunning sceneries. Below is a picture of Esjan taken yesterday from work around 2:30pm. The picture was taken with a phone so the quality is not there!

Weather outside: mostly cloudy, 0°C

Da Vinci Code...

It looks like 2008 is going to be a funny year....

Yesterday we were told that a group of scientists believe the Holy Grail may be hidden in Iceland!!! Icelandic architect Þórarinn Þórarinsson and Italian cryptographer Giancarlo Gianazza seems to believe that the artifact is hidden somewhere in the Hrunamannahreppur region and therefore have asked the local authority to dig around Skipholtskrókar (in green on the map).

How does someone come up with this idea??? Well, Mr Gianazza "found" important clues in poems by Dante and artwork by Leonardo da Vinci... Sounds familiar??? Sure does, it's written Robert Langdon all over the place.

One of the far-fetched clues are the fact that you can overlap da Vinci's Last Supper with an aerial photograph of the region. What are the odds?


With such conclusive evidences, they have been granted the permission to dig a two meters deep and five meters wide ditch with a condition: they have to close the ditch after the research is done. They will be looking for a five meters large secret underground dome that would be the resting place of the Holy Grail.

Now going back to new year's eve, it was not the noisiest celebration I have witnessed here. Because of the strong winds, people must have decided to blow up their fireworks the following day (as we did) but just to give you an idea here is a small video of the evening:

Weather outside: Rain, 7°C

Fireworks...

We had our white Christmas: hvít Jól. Icelanders, and I do agree with them, like their Christmas to be white. Surely the result of global warming, snow falls in Iceland are not what they were and nowadays it is not always sure to have a white Christmas. In that case you have a red Christmas: rauð Jól. It was snowing almost all day on Christmas day and Reykjavík covered itself with a "thick" (about 20cm) blanket of snow.

Over the next few days tons of fireworks (flugeldar in Icelandic) will be sold in Iceland. These fireworks sales are organized by the Icelandic association of search and rescue: Slysavarnafélagið Landsbjörg. All profits made are going to the rescue services.

To give you some figures, it's an extimated 800 tons of fireworks that will be blown up and this figure is always getting bigger year on year. "Only 638 tons" were imported in 2005.

As a result of this huge fireworks display that last hours over Reykjavík, peaks of air pollution are recorded every year on new year's eve.

Most companies will be giving their employees some fireworks. Most of fireworks have names of famous characters from the Icelandic sagas. Last year we got from work a box of fireworks named after Hallgerður Langbrók and this year we are getting a box named after Grettir Ásmundarson, from the saga of the same name: Grettir's Saga.

FARSÆLT KOMANDI ÁR - HAPPY NEW YEAR - BONNE ANNÉE

Weather outside: sunny, -8°C
I just realized it was +7°C last week, a 15° drop over a week, not bad!

Fish à la piss...

The dreaded day is almost upon us!!! On December 23rd, Icelanders are celebrating Þorláksmessa, Þorláskur's mass, patron saint of Iceland. So nothing wrong so far...

The problem with Þorláksmessa is what Icelanders traditionnally eat on that day: skata (literally skate in english). Nothing wrong there again with eating skate...

I do eat skate/ray wings in Brittany. We have a traditionnal dish called "aile de raie au beurre noir" (ray wing with black butter).

So what is wrong with skata???....

The skata tradition is supposedly coming from the west fjörds. A hole is dug on the beach, the fish is then buried in the hole for several weeks. Skate, like sharks, don't have a urinal track and therefore release urine through their skin. This means the flesh of the skate rotting away in its hole is saturated with ammonia. The finished product smells like... well, it smells like piss!

It's not Þorláksmessa today but it's last day before it in the company and for that matter, it will be served at lunch today. Luckily for me the skata won't be cooked here but the fumes from the "ready-made" trays will still make the building smell like urinals from the rarely cleaned bathroom of a railroad station.

Being French I should be used to strong smells. French washed rind cheeses are the smelliest cheeses in the world but they still smell way better than skata.

To read an oposite opinion about skata, have a pick at the article posted yesterday by Bjarni on Iceland Review: click here.

Gleðileg jól - Merry christmas - Joyeux noël

Weather outside: Mostly cloudy, 7°C