Reykjavík Grapevine - 04.05.2018, Blaðsíða 17

The Crazy Flight
Of The Bitcoin
Bandit
A genius escape plan
or just a coincidence?
Words: Kinga Kozłowska
Photo: Logi Hafþór Hlynsson
With only a month to go before
municipal elections and a pleth-
ora of problems to solve, political
parties scramble to rescue Reyk-
javík from the clutches of the bad
guys currently in charge. They
claim that yes, they can make
all our problems disappear. And
what’s the best way to lure some-
one into the madness of electoral
campaigns? Videos, of course.
Let’s just make it instantly clear
that Icelandic electoral campaign
videos are not there to share knowl-
edge relevant to their political
parties’ platforms. That’s simply
not what this is all about. Instead,
the more bashing, the better; the
more nonsense, the better; the
more slogans, the better.
These videos are not coherent,
funny segments like the glori-
ous 2016 campaign video made by
Gerald Daugherty, where his wife
begged voters to get the man out
of her sight. However, precisely
because nothing in them makes
sense in the slightest, they are a
gem of modern surrealist cinema
that candidly capture the absurdity
of Icelandic elections.
Who can trust the
Vikings?
In Miðflokkurinn’s video, we half
expected Centre Party’s Vigdís
Hauksdóttir to
burst into the
frame riding
a m a j e s t i c
black horse,
but she ended
up going for
a much more
quaint appear-
ance. As what
is presumably
Celtic music
plays loudly
in the back-
ground, Vigdís
stands fiercely
against the backdrop of an uniden-
tified shore somewhere in Reyk-
javík.
“We will build Sundabraut,” she
says, r eferring to the controversial
route that is supposed to cut the
gulf between downtown Reykjavik
and Mosfellsbær in half. “But we
can’t always trust the Vikings to get
us across places,” she adds, as she
eagerly steps into a boat alongside
two authentic Vikings, paddling
away to sea.
Even if you understand Icelan-
dic, the whole video arises a jumble
of existential questions within 35
painfully cringeworthy seconds.
Is this real? Is life real? What have
Vikings got to do with anything?
Does Vigdís do Crossfit to be able to
work the paddles with such vigour?
Perhaps psychiatrists will one day
be able to answer our dilemmas, but
for now, we’ll just be content with
watching Vigdís try to awkwardly
paddle back to shore dragged on a
rope by a mighty Viking.
Outrageous seaty
elections
As far as nonsense go, however,
nothing beats the video released
by Framsóknarflokkurinn (The
Progressive Party) where one of its
candidates Ingvar Már Jónsson gets
mad at a strategically placed bench.
For about 30 seconds, Ingvar has
been criticising the fact that a traf-
fic-packed road has been modified
in a way to hinder traffic instead of
reducing it.
But what makes the hair on the
back of his neck suddenly rise with
indignation? What outrages him
about this preposterous crossroad
where cars can’t turn left or right
unless the lights are green? A lonely
b e n c h t h a t
faces the road.
“I have never
seen anyone
s i t o n t h i s
bench,” Ingvar
e x c l a i m s
d r a m a t i -
cally. “This is
just a waste
of taxpayers
money!”
You’ve got
to hand it to
him: it’s not
l i k e p e o p l e
are voluntarily flocking en masse
to Grensársvegur to breathe in as
much CO2 as they can, but what has
this bench done to Ingvar? Was he
perhaps bullied by a mean bench in
elementary school? Or did a bench
refuse to be his date? Put an end to
bench-shaming, man. Leave them
benches alone.
Too cool for school
As much as we love poking fun at
The Centre and The Progressive
Party, it’s always cool to see them
try. What matters is to participate
after all, and there is something
admirable about their fearless-
ness and their willingness to be
out there. Not like Vinstri Grænir
(The Left Greens) or Samfylkingin
(The Social Dems) who are just too
cool to make fools of themselves
on video.
Or Viðreisn, The Reform Party,
whose online videos were noth-
ing but hours and hours of filmed
powerpoint lectures. Another Party
who has never heard of making
learning fun is The Pirate Party,
who released a series of short
profile interviews where their
candidates go over their platforms
with astonishing sobriety and
coherent sentences. Boring. Who
has ever heard of such a thing?
Drama queens
The cherry on top, however, has got
to be the series of videos released
by Independence Party candidate
Eyþór Arnalds. Clad in pristine
coats and with his salt and pepper
hair carefully slicked back, Eyþór
walks around Reykjavík point-
ing out how dirty its roads are.
Dramatic shots of snow-soaked
streets and banana peels peeking
out of rubbish bins with suspicious
precision are carefully edited to
induce fear and disgust.
“ C h o o s e c h a n g e ,” E y þ ó r
concludes. “Let’s clean up Reykja-
vík!” Mate, there are many things
wrong with this city, but cleanli-
ness isn’t one of them. To make
matters worse, for the entirety of
the series nobody has any idea of
what change really means to Eyþór.
Perhaps a change of clothes, as he
kindly demonstrates in his videos?
We can only hope Eyþór did not
have a shivering intern follow-
ing him around in the snow with
a suitcase full of alternative ties
to go with every scenery. But hey,
with that enviable tie selection to
go through, who could blame him
Rich & Conservative Icelanders
Least Worried About Poverty And
Corruption
The poll results that surprised
exactly no one
Words: Paul Fontaine
The results of a new poll from
Market and Media Research (MMR)
will likely come as a surprise to
exactly no one.
The poll focused on where
Iceland is doing well, and in what
areas there is cause for concern.
Generally speaking, most Iceland-
ers (57.9%) believe the country is
headed in the right direction, up
from 45.7% in 2017.
Demographically, men were
more likely than women to believe
that Iceland is improving. In
addition, the more education an
Icelander has, and the more money
they earn, the more likely they were
to say that Iceland was on the right
track. Voters for any of the three
parties in the ruling coalition - the
Left-Greens, the Independence
Party and the Progressive Party -
were also decidedly more optimis-
tic than any other voters.
So where can we do
better?
In the second part of the poll,
things start to get interesting.
Respondents were asked to name
three things they were most
worried about in Icelandic society.
The top three categories chosen
were health care, corruption, and
housing, while the three categories
Icelanders are least worried about
are unemployment, terrorism, and
access to loans.
The top three categories are
fairly unsurprising. Issues involv-
ing health care, corruption and
housing have not only dominated
headlines; they have also featured
very prominently in the campaign
promises of the different parties
running in municipal elections
this month. So it makes sense that
these issues would weigh heavy on
Icelanders’ minds.
When these responses are
broken down by demographics, a
clearer picture emerges.
Money really does make
all the difference
The very rich (those earning 1
million ISK per month or more)
were the least concerned about
poverty and corruption in Iceland.
The same can also be said about
voters for the Progressive Party and
the Independence Party. In fact,
Independence Party voters showed
the least concern about poverty by
far – at 10% – and the least concern
with corruption, at 22%.
The results are especially tell-
ing when considering that most
Icelanders do not believe the coun-
try is headed in the right direction
in combating both poverty and
corruption. In every other category,
though, most Icelanders have faith
that their society is developing
normally.
Of special note is that voters for
the Left-Greens showed significant
levels of concern about poverty and
corruption. Can a party that cares
about these things work effectively
with two parties who do not? The
months to come, as this conten-
tious government plods along, may
ultimately tell us.
17 The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 07 — 2018
An Instagram photo by Hafþór Logi Hlynsson, Sindri is on the left.
instagram.com/haffilogi
Meanwhile in Tortola…
“The twist in the
story is that it’s
questionable
whether or not it
was legal for the
police to keep
Sindri in custody.”