Reykjavík Grapevine - 29.07.2011, Page 6

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The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 11 — 2011 Do you wish he were YOUR mayor? Why/why not? We have a
fully functional letters page for you to tell us all about it.
Reykjavík | Welcome to!
Dear reader,
Welcome to Iceland. Whether you’re
here for fun and travel or for business, I
hope you’ll enjoy a good time here and
will get to know some locals. I would
also like to make a special request that
you spend a lot of money throughout
the duration of your stay. Do not save
on dining and drinking. Allow yourself
some luxury. You deserve it, and it is
good for the economy. I ask that you do
not visit the retail outlets run by the Sal-
vation Army (Garðastræti 6, 101 Reykja-
vík) or the Red Cross (Laugavegur 12,
101 Reykjavík). Even though they are
fun shops, they are rather inexpensive.
You should rather visit more expensive
shops.
A lot of tourists that visit the country
wonder why it is called Iceland, be-
cause—despite what the name might
indicate—it isn’t at all cold here. The
average temperature in Reykjavík is
1°C. Nowhere in the world has bet-
ter summers than Iceland. It might
snow in the month of June, however.
That is called ‘a spring snowfall’. July
is the hottest month. When it comes
around you better have a t-shirt handy,
because the temperature can reach up
to 20°C. Weather.com often states a
temperature followed with a “feels like”
temperature. When the heat in Reykja-
vík reaches 20°C, they will often say it
“feels like” 15°C. That is probably due
to something known as ‘the wind chill
factor.’ No Icelander understands this.
If we had this “feels like” feature in our
weather reporting, we would say that it
“feels like” 40°C whenever the temper-
ature reached 20°C, without exception.
This demonstrates the importance of
‘mentality’ and ‘attitude.’
But how can it be that such a warm
country came to possess such a frigid
name? Yes, the explanation is simple:
MISUNDERSTANDING. Ingólfur Ar-
narson, the first man that found Reyk-
javík, wasn’t on his way here at all. He
was en route to the United States of
America, to buy grapes and other fast
food that grew wild there in those days.
He was very interested in food. And
also homicide. On his way he noticed a
cloud of smoke ascending to the heav-
ens from an unknown country. His cu-
rious nature got the best of him, and he
changed his course and set sail to Reyk-
javík (Reykjavík literally means “smoky
bay”!).
As he disembarked his ship, he saw
that the smoke was in fact steam ris-
ing from Reykjavík’s many swimming
pools. He was therefore quick in tearing
off the suit of armour that he had worn
in case he’d encounter some Native
Americans while picking grapes, and
jumping into some swim trunks. After
swimming a good 500 metres he sat
in the hot tub and relaxed. After a fun
chat with the locals he had forgotten all
about America. Who needs to travel all
the way to America to pick grapes when
there’s a shop on Laugavegur called
Vínberið (Vínberið literally means: “the
grape”)? Ingólfur decided to settle here.
He rented a small apartment along
with his wife, Hallveig Fróðadóttir, who
many claim was the daughter of Frodo
from ‘Lord Of The Rings,’ Nothing has
been proven about that, however.
One day Ingólfur and Hallveig were
taking a stroll around town. They were
walking their dog, who was called Plútó
and was a Great Dane. It was a sizzling
hot summer’s day. It was long before
the t-shirt was invented. They were
both dressed in full suits of armour,
with swords and shields and helmets
and everything. They stopped by at Ís-
búð Vesturbæjar in Hagamelur to get
some ice cream and cool down. The
story goes that Ingólfur asked the clerk
whether she knew what the country was
called.
She thought it was called Thule. In-
gólfur felt that was a stupid name.
“No country can be called Thule,”
he said.
Outside the ice cream shop, a crowd
had gathered. They had heard that
foreign visitors were in town. A lot of
those people were elves. Ingólfur then
approached the crowd, raised his ice
cream cone aloft and shouted:
“Henceforth this country will be
called Iceland, because one can get the
world’s best ice cream here!”.
Today we have a statue of Ingólfur.
The statue depicts Ingólfur dying of
heat, leaning on his dog.
Don’t be a stranger, be like Ingólfur!
Best regards,
Jón Gnarr
Mayor of Reykjavík
Mayor’s Address:
WELCOME TO REYKJAVÍK
The accurate etymology of the name
Iceland continuously remains in
question. Some claim that since
Iceland was a lush green paradise
while Greenland was basically a
huge block of ice, the Vikings, in
their attempts to detour further in-
vaders, ironically named the coun-
try Iceland. This one is quite popu-
lar with foreigners, who take pride
in their supposedly off beat tid-bit.
However, others (like Reykjavík
Mayor Jón Gnarr) insist that Ingólfur
Arnarson decided to name his new-
found country Iceland “because one
can get the world’s best ice cream
here!”
Although the reality may never be un-
veiled, the loving bond between Iceland-
ers and ice cream persists. Dairy has
always been a major food group in Ice-
landic culture, with the average Iceland-
er eating about 100 gallons of dairy per
year. Many ice cream locations across
Iceland receive their supply of frozen
deliciousness from Kjörís. The company
has been actively supplying Icelanders
with their favourite treat since 1969 and
has remained throughout the years a
consistently family run business.
“Ice cream makes people happy,”
says Guðrún Hafsteinsdóttir. Her fa-
ther was one of the original founders
of Kjörís, and she has been part of the
family business from early childhood,
and witnessed a steady increase in ice
cream consumption for the past twenty
years. Guðrún explains that the patterns
of consumption have changed. "Now
a-days people eat ice cream all year
round." Instead of savouring ice cream
for the rare sunny day, people are willing
to enjoy it for what it is, a delicious treat,
fitting any occasion. And weather. Yet,
some things remain the same. The ma-
jority of their income is still made in the
summer months: June, July, and August.
Guðrún says that they have been try-
ing to introduce new flavours to excite
the consumer. They have come up with
flavours like strawberry, chocolate chip
mint, hazelnut. There’s even an ice
cream shop serving beer flavoured ice
cream. However, "vanilla is always in
highest demand," says Guðrún reas-
suredly. According to statistics, vanilla
is overwhelmingly the flavour of choice
in most countries including Iceland and
the U.S. “The Icelanders are more like
the Americans,” explains Guðrún, “we
love chocolate, caramel and the juicy
stuff.” Which are usually nicely accented
with vanilla. Speaking from a lifetime of
experience in the ice cream business,
Guðrún says "nothing can be compared
to a good vanilla ice cream. It's because
vanilla is a very sophisticated flavour, if
it's good it’s good alone but also with
cakes and many dishes."
After a long dark and dreary winter,
with only about five hours of daily day-
light, Icelanders are bordering insanity
when spring approaches. When the first
rays of the spring sun hit, Icelanders
tend to gather the whole family in the
car, grab everyone an ice cream, and
simply drive around whilst eating their
treats. Guðrún explains: “Icelanders
get that summer feeling. I have always
found it very special that even if they
must endure the gruelling winters, they
still manage to get that summer feeling
very strongly each year.”
Yes, it is impossible to keep a good
Icelander down. Their optimism always
seems to shine through come summer.
When the temperature is breaching
11 degrees Celsius, (which feels like 9
degrees Celsius) the good Icelander is
wearing a summer dress or a T-shirt,
while tourists are bundled in wind-
breakers and snow pants. They may
be skipping enthusiastically down the
street, hopefully giving out high fives
and spreading smiles. Yet there’s one
thing that both tourists, Icelanders and
foreigners will all probably be doing:
grabbing a mouth watering, icy cool,
yummy in my tummy, worlds best, ice
cream.
Ice | Cream
Opinion | Hildur Lilliendahl
WHY I BOTHER – PART II
MELKORKA LICEA
JULIA STAPLES
Ok. So in part one I told you
good people about some
quite infuriating examples
of misogyny in the Icelandic
media. I even explained why they were
infuriating, why the things that journal-
ists, representatives of the justice system,
and the police were saying were actually
sexist, hurtful, degrading and plain fuck-
ing wrong. So here’s part two. And yes,
there’s going to be a part three. I promise.
I’d like to keep explaining why I bother,
why I can’t help being a hard-core militant
feminist all day, every day. This time I’d
like to focus on the international media—
meaning news stories of misogyny that
make it all the way to Iceland through the
intrawebs and the power of social media.
Let’s have a look at British MP Ken
Clarke. In case you don’t know, here’s
what happened: Ken explained, in an in-
terview with BBC Radio 5, to us women, to
us who have been raped, to us feminists,
to all of us who don’t know better, how
there was an obvious difference between
being ‘raped’ and actually being raped.
It’s a long and complicated story that
you should Google. Here’s the short ver-
sion: He’s pushing for a proposal for rap-
ists’ sentences to be halved if they plead
guilty. Meaning: confession should pay
off. Makes sense, in a way. But (and this is
a big ‘but’) in a BBC Radio 5 interview, he
implied that date rape didn’t really count.
He said that the tariff was quite long when
the crime in question was "a serious rape
with violence and an unwilling woman."
The interviewer then interrupted him to
say that, "With respect, rape is rape." To
which he replied: "No, it’s not." He later
apologised in that classic appalling way,
saying something along the lines of be-
ing sorry IF he had offended someone.
Blaaaah.
And along came British MEP Roger
Helmer with a blog entry confirming his
status as village idiot. (Remember his
very homophobic tweet from last Janu-
ary? No? He wrote: "Why is it OK for a
surgeon to perform a sex-change opera-
tion, but not OK for a psychiatrist to try to
'turn' a consenting homosexual?" No kid-
ding. Google it.) Trying to weigh in on Ken
Clarke’s remarks, he described a "classic
stranger rape" scenario, where a "masked
individual emerges from the bushes, hits
his victim over the head with a blunt in-
strument, drags her into the undergrowth
and rapes her, and then leaves her uncon-
scious, careless whether she lives or dies."
He then described date rape thus: when
a woman "voluntarily goes to her boy-
friend's apartment, voluntarily goes into
the bedroom, voluntarily undresses and
gets into bed, perhaps anticipating sex, or
naively expecting merely a cuddle. But at
the last minute she gets cold feet and says
'Stop!' The young man, in the heat of the
moment, is unable to restrain himself and
carries on." Now, Helmer might not agree,
but to me it seems like the 'young man'
in question is forcibly having intercourse
with an unwilling woman. And that, my
friends, is a big fucking deal.
Let’s check out a part of the whole
Dominique Strauss Kahn fiasco: the sexu-
al violence story of the year. Here’s a real
hotshot, a high-profile, handsome and
adored politician with a history of mas-
sive chauvinism, debauchery, womanizing
and even violence, from a country with a
heavy tradition of not talking about these
things. They’re 'personal.' You know. And
here comes this nobody, this lower class
immigrant, who blatantly says: He as-
saulted me. The world sticks by her for a
few weeks but before you know it, there
are news reports saying she’s a prostitute,
she actually knows people currently serv-
ing prison sentences and she lied on her
application when seeking asylum in the
US. Oh, yeah, and the charges will prob-
ably be dropped. And here’s why this is a
problem for me: Her vagina was bruised,
her clothes were torn, her shoulder was
cut and his DNA was found on her and
around her. His semen was there. News-
flash: It’s quite possible to rape pros-
titutes and the fact that you lied while
seeking asylum does not mean that you’re
likely to accuse an innocent man of an at-
tempt to rape. Really.
You see, this is what we're up against.
Women are constantly being told that
sometimes it's almost OK to rape them.
There’s a whole world of trouble out there.
I can't stop fighting it. I won't stop fighting
it.
The Ice Cream Tradition
Myths don’t melt