Reykjavík Grapevine - feb. 2021, Blaðsíða 6

When we saw
what The Google-
Mangle™ had done
to Vísir’s report of
Bríet’s triumph at
our recent Music
Awards, minds at
the Grapevine spi-
ralled into feverish
conspiracy mode.
The title of the
article, “Bríet tónlis-
tarma(ur ársins hjá
Reykjavík Grape-
vine,” translates as
“Briet is musician
of the year at
Reykjavík Grape-
vine.” But if you’re
Google Translate,
the decidedly
Icelandic Briet is
being declared the
“British musician
of the year at Reyk-
javík Grapevine.”
We haven’t the
foggiest idea what
The GoogleBrain™
intended here.
Ignore, if you will,
the obvious similar-
ity between the
name of our Artist
Of The Year and that
of Boris Johnson’s
“newly-indepen-
dent sovereign
state.” We’re con-
vinced that, in the
hope of diverting
attention from his
botched Brexit and
his failed attempt
to start a new Cod
War (this time with
the EU), bungling
Boris is sneak-
ily attempting to
steal ownership
of Iceland’s finest
musical artists.
We see you,
Boris, we see you.
Hands o$ our Bríet.
And don’t you even
start thinking
about those north-
Atlantic fish.
Next up, the
GoogleGrinder™
didn’t disap-
point on January
27th, providing a
spectacular English
shredding of an
Icelandic headline
about party-goers
breaking alcohol
licencing laws.
The phrase
“ball#yrstir kær(ir
fyrir brot a sót-
tvarnarlögum”
is probably
best translated as
“thirsty partygoers
accused of break-
ing quarantine
laws”. But good ol’
Google insists that
“ball-thirsty ac-
cused of breaking
anti-trust laws”
is actually what
the RÚV journalist
intended to say.
Now that sounds
like the party we
wanna be at. A%er
all, who hasn’t been
ball-thirsty at
some point? And
we want to know
how antitrust laws
were violated. Did
some of these
ball-thirsters get
together and try to
fix the open-market
price of balls? Was
their thirst for balls
so great that they
would risk every-
thing to keep the
price of balls under
their control?
We’re thirsty for
knowledge. And
balls. JP
Iceland is not a country known for
political violence. Typically, the most
heated event to unfold in any politi-
cal sphere is a well-attended protest.
However, the recent shooting of Mayor
Dagur B. Eggertsson’s family car has
had a number of Icelanders concluding
that this act did not happen in a vacuum
and perhaps political discourse itself
contributed to it.
Opposition
For context: Dagur hails from the Social
Democrats, a party long subject to
heated criticism when it comes to city
politics, as they are more often than
not leading or a part of the Reykjavík
City Council majority. This alone does
not explain the attack.
Ho w e v er, i t w a s Ól a f u r K r.
Gu!mundsson, a vice councilman for
the Independence Party for Reykjavík
City Council, who unwittingly got
people considering how discourse can
contribute to violence when he made a
Facebook post shortly after the shoot-
ing that essentially blamed Dagur for
bringing the shooting on himself.
Ólafur would later delete the post and
apologise, but the ball was already roll-
ing.
Misinformation
Later, the creator of a video from a
group called “Open Downtown,” which
opposes the closing of Laugavegur
and Skólavör!ustígur to car traffic,
requested that the widely-circulated
clip be taken down, as it falsely
contended that Dagur had bought
three parking spaces from the city.
This false claim and the video featur-
ing Dagur’s home and environs, the
creator believed, was irresponsible.
The language we use
Most recently, Left-Green MP Kolbeinn
Óttarsson Proppé brought up in Parlia-
ment that heated discourse and the
language we use can fan the flames
that lead to violence. He pointed out
that politicians and journalists alike
have reported refraining from discuss-
ing certain topics because of the
threats they receive, and the chilling
effect this has.
While all of this may be true, it does
leave open the question of what possi-
ble solutions there may be.
Travellers o"en arrive at a new desti-
nation harbouring nagging anxieties.
Will the taxi drivers try to rip me o#?
Can I put toilet paper into the toilet?
And—the perennial favourite—can I
drink the tap water?
In Iceland the answers are no,
please do and absolutely, in that
order. What comes out of Iceland’s
cold taps is famously some of the
purest water in the world. But what
if—for some reason best known to
yourself—you decided to drink the
infamously eggy-smelling hot water?
We chatted to Dr. Arna Pálsdóttir,
research project manager at Orku-
veita Reykjavíkur, the company that
supplies Reykjavík’s hot water.
"The hot water smells of rotten
eggs because it contains hydrogen
sulphide. There are basically two
hot water systems in the city, one of
which gets hot water directly from
geothermal wells within the city lim-
its. The water in those wells naturally
contains hydrogen sulphide, but not
in dangerous levels of concentration.
"We also take cold water from the
ground, heat it up with geothermal
energy and send it to the city. The cold
water doesn’t contain hydrogen sul-
phide, but actually we add hydrogen
sulphide to it. The reason we do that
is to prevent corrosion in our pipeline
and the radiator systems in homes. The
hydrogen sulphide reacts with oxygen
and provides a natural way to prevent
corrosion.
"I’d say that 90% of the time the
hot water does fulfil drinking water
standards. I mean it’s not classified as
drinking water, but most of the time it
fulfils the standards.
"So there you have it—straight
from the scientist’s mouth. But if you
decide to top your sulphate levels up
with a glass of Icelandic aqua from the
red tap, be warned that it can reach
temperatures of up to 80°C! Maybe
blow on it a bit first." °
ASK A
Scientist
Q: Is It Actually Safe To
Drink Water From The
Hot Tap?
Ball-Thirsty
Crooks & Bríet Is
British Now
In Wake Of Shootin%, Iceland-
ers Reflect On Discourse
What we say and how we say it
Words:
Andie Sophia
Fontaine

Photo:
Art Bicknick
First 6 The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 02— 2021
LOST IN GOOGLE TRANSLATION
NEWS
Dagur B. Eggertsson, who is, according to the spicy right-wing, omnipotent within Reykjavík city limits
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