Reykjavík Grapevine - 07.06.2013, Síða 8

Reykjavík Grapevine - 07.06.2013, Síða 8
Continues over 10 YEARS AGO …From Issue 1, 2003 Hooray! It's our tenth birthday, we're having a party and we'll cry if we want to, damn it! For a humble street rag like Grapevine, turning ten is a pretty big deal—we barely expected to make it to ten issues (and, indeed, all of our contemporaries Reykjavík's street rag market have long since bid farewell... miss u, Undirtónar!). To celebrate our decade of existence, we thought we'd get a little introspective. You can see evidence of that on our cover, where we are getting choice cover stars from ev- ery year to pose together, and elsewhere in this issue, where we look at some fun stats and the history of the paper. Also, we thought it would be a fun idea in our anniversary year to reprint some choice articles from the past that are for some reason significant, accom- panied by commentary and even up- dates. Call it a "blast from the past" or "a look into the dark cauldron of time" if you want to—we call it fun. Thus, for the next ten issues expect a page dedi- cated to a year of Grapevine's existence, starting RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW, with a look back into magical 2003. Keep coming back for more. And see you at our party (there is informa- tion elsewhere about this...) When the first is- sue of the Reykjavík Grapevine came out in June 2003, there were still more locals than tourists in Ice- land in the summer, the spectacular and far-sighted transfor- mation of the economy with aluminium smelters and private banks was just tak- ing off, and the Independence and Pro- gressive Parties had just been elected into office with promises of lower taxes for everyone. A decade later the paper is still here, but everything else has changed, not least the political discourse, as this article by Filippa Guðmundsdóttir from our first ever issue demonstrates. It is printed be- low, exactly as it was printed then. – Former Editor Valur Gunnarsson In the weeks before, the Party’s launched their campaigns in the traditional way, with huge pictures of smiling politicians on every billboard, over phrases like “vote for freedom” or “vote for justice”, and so on. Of course, nobody cared and when the pictures of our elected liars and thieves with fake smiles were starting to get on peoples nerves, the tone suddenly changed and the parties tried a different approach After years of silence on the matter, tax- es suddenly became the hottest campaign issue. The right wing incumbent Indepen- dence party started the pissing contest by promising 22 billion krónur worth of tax cuts Of course the mildly left Alliance party quickly pointed out that most of that money would go to the rich and instead proposed a modest 16 billion tax cut ben- efiting the poorest. The Progressive Party, the junior government partner, at the time facing political oblivion according to the polls, joined the game with their own 17 billion pledge Feeling some resentment from the voters and with the growing gap between rich and poor being a sore spot, the Inde- pendence Party raised their promise to 37 billion, making sure that everybody would benefit more from their suggestion. Stunned by this, none of the other parties dared to outbid them. The list of other campaign promises ran long and included reducing tariffs on food, higher real estate loans and lower interest rates. In fact, the Independence Party was just an inch away from promising to send everyone bundles of cash in the mail though in the end all they could manage was coffee A lot of people found it funny, how when elections were in the air, there was suddenly plenty of money to lower taxes by several percent while at the same time, the police numbers were being reduced to stay on an ever tightening budget, and with a healthcare system groaning under the weight of severe government cut backs When the votes were cast and counted, at first, everybody seemed to have won. After the election night, the leaders of the minority each went on television to an- nounce that their party was the real winner of this election. The leader of the Liberal Party proudly announced that his party dou- bled its number of parliamentarians, jump- ing from 2 to 4, while The Alliance Party got over thirty percent of the votes and became the second largest party. Even the leader of the Left Green Party felt vic- torious because they had lost less than expected. At the same time, the leaders of the incumbent coalition happily announced that they would govern this country for four more years. They shed no tears over losing the trust of the people and 7% of their vote in four years. Thanks to a surprisingly good performance from their junior coalition partners the pro- gressives they had the numbers for a third term and that, of course, is what matters at the end of the day. Personality wise election 2003 saw the making and breaking of two of Icelands´ premier political figures Late last year, Halldór Ásgrímsson the leader of the Pro- gressive Party, became a laughing stock when he admitted that he had the dream of becoming prime minister. Being one of the least popular politicians and joked about for never changing his facial expression or tone of voice, he was simply dismissed as delusional. At this time The Alliance party came forward with their candidate for prime minister, the mayor of Reykjavík, Ingibjörg Sólrún. Very popular and successful in lead- ing the city for 8 years, she now became the leader of the opposition. On the back of her heavy weight personality the Alli- ance soared to undreamed of heights in the polls surpassing their biter rivals the inde- pendence party for the first time in history. Poor Halldór, on the other hand, didn’t even look like he would make it back into parlia- ment. But, as they say in Westminster, even a week is a long time in politics never mind a few months. The alliance made that clas- sic and unfortunate mistake of peaking too early and Halldor made the most impressive return from the dead since lazarus Now, no one is quite sure how it hap- pened, but on Election Day, the Progressive Party got an impressive 17% of the votes, after having gone as low as 8% in the polls. Since the Independence Party and the Alli- ance Party are sworn enemies and the other party’s were too small, a new government would again have to include the Progressive Party, and Halldór would get to choose who went in with him. The morning after the elections, The Al- liance party, desperate to form a new gov- ernment, offered Halldór his dream job as prime minister. With that offer, he then went to the Independence party, and accepted their offer to continue their coalition, with Halldor taking over as prime minister from David Oddsen within two years, something no one would have believed a few weeks ago. The man regarded by many as the doormat of the government, finally got his revenge. As for Ingibjörg Sólrún, well po- litical fall from grace does not come much harder. Having quit her top job as mayor to run for prime minister, become briefly the most popular person in the country and the darling of the left, the cold political light of Sunday morning saw her miss even election to parliament by a handful of votes. Now, only few weeks later with high po- litical drama already a fading memory, all the promises are forgotten, the fake smiles have been removed, and most people can’t even remember who got elected. Here’s to four more years of blissful ignorance before we all become experts on politics again. Available in the following stores: Heilsuhúsið, Around Iceland, Kraum and Sóley Natura Spa. Offer ends 31st August 2013. Fall in love with your skin... powerful & pure wild Naturally pure skin care made in Iceland Sóley summer offer in selected stores: 20% off Loved skin is happier skin. Be loved, be happy, be Sóley. Organic luxury eyGLÓ pure organic moisture & GLÓey purifying exfoliator with wild Icelandic herbswww.facebook.com/soleyorganics First summer The first issue was published on June 13, 2003. As the reader should know by now, we publish on Fri- days, so the first issue went onto the streets on Friday the 13th. The thought crossed our mind that it might be bad luck, but we are still here and still going strong; knock on wood. First office Separate your personal life from your work life, they say. But what about when the work you do is what you are? When you are pas- sionate enough about something, you spend all your waking hours working on it. There is no personal life. The waking hours reached long into the night that first year, and from time to time, some of us literally lived in the office, a tiny cel- lar on Blómvallagata in 101 Reyk- javík. There was no going home; the Grapevine was home. The first office had some strange features. There was no phone line, hence no office phone, and we got our internet connection via the electri- cal lines, something that Reykjavík Energy was pushing at the time but has since stopped offering. Also, the ceiling was strangely low, at only two metres. This caused some literal headaches, as during many a stressful or exciting moment the need to jump up and down was felt and acted upon while the ceiling had other plans. Other features were the round windows reminiscent of the Titanic, the dim lights and the scent of sleep deprived, chain-smoking, coffee-drinking magazine people. Those were the days. First backstage pass After having published three issues, we decided we needed a short break and the whole staff went to a small village near Borgarnes to chill out and drink excessively. Nearby, the most popular band in Iceland since the 1970s, Stuðmenn, were playing a show. By this time we had worked up the guts to call up famous peo- ple and did just that. We asked for free tickets to the show, and to our surprise, tickets were granted. Fur- 8The Reykjavík Grapevine Issue 7 — 2013 by Jón Trausti Sigurðarson Oddur Óskar Kjartansson Valur Gunnarsson Haukur S. Magnússon G R A P E V I N E M ILESTON E S Valur was last seen working for the Berliner Zeitung. His second novel is expected in the autumn.

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