A Window into Iceland´s Soul
On November 14th, a total of 1.231 Icelanders gathered in the cavernous Laugardalshöll stadium, munched on snúðar and chatted over round tables, each one marked off by a white b
Stuff We Like!
It started snowing in Reykjavík this morning. This, of course, is a reason to celebrate. Many folks would disagree with us. They would maybe claim that snow is cold and […]
SADland
Imagine a morning in the middle of December. Your alarm clock goes off, beckoning you to get out of bed and get your ass to work. You pull up the […]
Fresh Stock
Say, have y’all noticed how many new stores have sprouted from the soil over the last few months? Who woulda thunk we would get such a great retail harvest during […]
When The Sun Stops Shining
Iceland is not the best place in the world to visit during the winter. Especially if you crave long, sunny days with still winds and a nice crisp, dry cold. […]
Stuff We Like!
Alright. We gotta admit. We’re feeling a little Christmassy (that a real word?) already, even though the holidays are still a month to come. Maybe it’s the fact that we
Iceland’s Greatest Spy: The Real James Bond
You’ve seen him in the movies. Most famously, he has been played by Sean Connery, Roger Moore and lately Daniel Craig. There he appears as Bond, James Bond. He appears […]
Why I Don’t Want to Grow Up
To celebrate my 33rd birthday, I went to see the GI Joe movie. What’s wrong with this sentence? Sure, the movie was crap, but I knew that going in. Still, […]
Refilling 101
Up until a year ago, Reykjavík was in the throes of a serious building boom. Projects all over town planned to tear down the old and put in new shopping […]
Topological Travelogue
It’s a tad sad that topics of discussion on band tours tend to get increasingly scatological as they progress. Maybe it’s the ever-smelly toilet on the bus or the persistent [&
Human Trafficking – Change Starts at Home
Human trafficking in Iceland has finally managed to gain more than a passing mention in the media. The subject now appears almost daily in the news, and in turn, the […]
Special Prosecutor
Ólafur Hauksson, the Special Prosecutor in charge of investigating the financial crimes that helped bring Iceland’s banking system to its knees, has said that his office is maki
Haukur’s 17th Editorial
So, they’re throwing this National Assembly event next weekend. The idea is to round up a random selection of 1.500 folks and attempt to siphon from them an idea of […]
Sour Grapes and Stuff
MOST AWESOME LETTER: Hello Grapevine, As a concerned citizen who has had the displeasure of reading your rag of a publication, I have to express my disconcertion over the repeatedl
Inflated Crowns
I know where yams come from. I can name every country through which the Danube runs. I can even bake a quiche from scratch. But when it comes to monetary […]
McDonald’s Leaves Iceland
I have to admit, it’s been a little surprising seeing the reactions to the news that McDonald’s have closed their doors in Iceland. One popular right-wing TV show host
Stuff We Like!
We have slowly but surely grown really, really fond of My Summer as a Salvation Soldier’s new downloadable EP, Nýtt, since we got hold of it a couple of months […]
Machine Gun Democracy
If you are not from the part of the world that implicitly denotes itself as “the first world,” then whatever brought you here, whether you are a migrant worker in […]
Bringing Nour Home
The Icelandic government’s hasty and unfortunate move to deport four refugees seeking asylum two weeks ago came as a shock to both the refugees and the Icelanders working on
Is Icelandic Media Being Held Hostage By Its Owners?
Everyone knows it. The smallness of Iceland leads to almost everything being contaminated by personal connections and considerations. Of course, the same goes for the nation’s me