Reykjavík Grapevine - 07.12.2018, Blaðsíða 4

What Are Icelanders
Talking About?
The gripes and snipes of social media
Words: Andie Fontaine Photos: Jón Benediktsson
If there is one topic
of conversation that’s
always relevant in Iceland, it’s
the weather. To no one’s great
surprise, autumn barely made any
kind of impression before winter
weather came rushing in at the end
of November. As the month drew
to a close and December began,
high winds swooped down on the
country, battering us with gale-
force winds. In the midst of this,
tonnes of snow were dumped all
over the north of the country, while
those of us in the southwest were
mostly spared. Then the thermom-
eter plunged, and temperatures
dropped to -10° in coastal regions,
but sunk as low as -27° in the High-
lands. The jubilant coda to this
symphony to climate change came
a couple days later, when snowfall
finally blanketed the capital region,
albeit precariously. And all this is in
the span of a week. The weather is
indeed a dynamic force in Iceland,
but even by our standards this is
pretty ridiculous.
One thing the aforementioned
high winds made clear to Reykjavík
area Icelanders was how filthy this
town is. After the first night of
the wind storm, few people living
in Iceland’s capital woke to clean
windows, as it seemed every pane of
glass in town was now covered with
a thin layer of dust. This is often the
case in the late fall and early spring,
as the overlap between winter tires
and summer tires happens during
this time, but Iceland’s construc-
tion boom may also be playing its
part. Reykjavík is currently awash
in construction sites, and all that
unearthed sand and soil doesn’t just
lay there, least of all in high winds.
Things are unlikely to improve as
long as Reykjavík continues to inex-
plicable practice of sanding icy side-
walks while salting icy roads. It’s
not like the sand magically disap-
pears or something.
Of course, no one issue is domi-
nating Icelandic social media quite
like Klausturgate (see page 16),
wherein six members of Parliament
were recorded at a local bar talk-
ing all kinds of misogynist, ableist,
homophobic trash about their
predominantly female colleagues.
The only woman in the group, who
was only present for the beginning
of the conversation, has been the
only person so far to even hint at
resigning from their post. The five
men in the group have been diligent
in issuing half-assed non-apologies,
to blame the media, to quote Jesus
Christ, and to offer up all kinds of
hyperbolic and puzzling defenses
and excuses for their behaviour.
This has impressed exactly no one,
and the latest polls show the vast
majority of Icelanders want them
all to resign. How and whether this
will happen remains to be seen, but
don’t hold your breath.
4The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 21— 2018First
Icelanders in "talking about the weather" shock
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