Reykjavík Grapevine - nóv. 2020, Blaðsíða 6

Landspítali, Iceland’s national hospital,
has often operated at a loss. Last year,
they reported a 3.8 billion ISK deficit,
and responded by making numerous
cuts in management and reducing
certain departments.
However, the hospital is now facing
an “optimisation requirement”—
essentially, spending cuts—totalling
some 4.3 billion ISK, RÚV reports.
Ólafur Darri Andrason, the head of
Landspítali’s finance department, says
this will extend to 2022 and necessitate
even more cuts to staff and services in
order to close the gap.
“Parliament needs to
change this”
That a hospital would need to make
cuts in the midst of a global pandemic
was not greeted warmly by members of
Parliament.
“It is dangerous to place strict spend-
ing and optimisation requirements on
health services in the middle of a global
pandemic,” Social Democrat chair Logi
Einarson said.
Social Democrat MP and chair of
the parliamentary welfare committee
Helga Vala Helgadóttir characterised
the cuts as “pissing in one’s shoe”, and
offered a simple suggestion of her own:
“I want to see that more slack is given,
that the government funds the health
care system as needed, as is being done
in countries around us. It’s all about
priorities.”
Sparing patients
Ólafur is mindful of these concerns,
telling reporters that they are trying
their best to ensure the same level of
service despite the cuts.
“We’re trying of course to cut and
optimise where it will impact patients
the least,” he told reporters. “We’re
trying to optimise hospital manage-
ment, in certain projects that don’t
concern the daily service of patients.
Our main goal is to be able to give
patients the same good and secure
service despite the need to optimise.”
Iceland has certainly made a name
for itself as a seemingly boundless
source of great music, starting with
its full-armed embrace of the rock
revolution of the late 1950s. The
early days of Icelandic pop music
are sometimes a bit murky, though,
so we turned to sociomusicologist
Dr. Arnar Eggert Thoroddsen to ask
a question that had been burning in
our minds for years now: what was
the first guitar solo in the history of
Icelandic music? Turns out, it’s not as
straightforward as you might think:
There is an Icelandic wiki-page which
states that the first Icelandic guitar
solo was performed by guitar virtuoso
Óli Gaukur on the track ‘Vegir liggja til
allra átta’, which Ell! Vilhjálms sang in
1963. And a great solo it is; drawn out
and tasteful, replicating the song’s
melody.
If only it was so simple. It’s hard
to nail the exact date of the first ap-
pearance of a bona fide Icelandic
guitar solo, but in rock terms, they
came flooding in—naturally—with
the advent of rock’n’roll. Icelanders
were just a tad behind developments
in the U.S. For instance, Erla "orstein-
sdóttir’s polite rocking up of "When
The Saints Go Marching In," released
in 1957, does feature a brief, sting-
ing guitar solo, as was the wont with
rock’n’roll numbers of the time.
So, dear readers, this is as close
as we get to dating the first Icelan-
dic guitar solo and any challenges
to these oh-so-scientific results are
welcome at the usual address. Next
up: The first use of cowbell in Icelandic
heavy metal.
ASK A
Music
Historian
Q: When Was The First
Icelandic Guitar Solo?
What’s white,
salty, thick and
only eaten at
Christmas? You
guessed right, it’s
Uppstúfur—o#en
called Jafningur—
or white sauce.
You put it on hot
potatoes and spray
it all over Hangikjöt
and you have the
most Icelandic dish
of them all.
Jafningur is
more or less made
out of flour, milk,
sugar, salt and a
lot of butter. It’s
fairly easy to make.
And if you are in a
really raunchy kind
of mood, you can
buy some smoked
sausage to douse
in the white bliss of
jafningur, wash it
all down with some
good old fashioned
Malt Extract and
contemplate how
your life ended up
so terribly sad.
Jafningur is
surprisingly sweet
and is more or less
the only reason
anyone would
eat hangikjöt, or
smoked lamb.
The meat is o#en
served cold and
tough, reminding
you of how it must
have been abso-
lutely miserable for
the old Icelanders
in a turf house in
the middle of a
December storm
with nothing more
than dung smoked
meat.
Uppstúfur is
probably, like
all nasty things,
Danish. The word
comes from the
Danish word
"opstuvning."
Icelanders used to
use this recipe to
make their sauces
thicker but some-
how it ended up
as an unbreakable
part of Icelandic
Christmas tradi-
tion—forcing in-
nocent children to
eat smoked lamb,
which they drown
in the white sauce
to avoid the bitter
taste. It doesn’t
work. But you can’t
help trying. VG Uppstúfur
Hospital Asked To Cut 4.3B ISK
MPs question the wisdom of the move
Words:
Andie Sophia
Fontaine

Photo:
Art Bicnick
First 6 The Reykjavík GrapevineIssue 09— 2020
FOOD OF ICELAND
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