15.12.2008
Iceland: frozen assets
In the summer of 1783, there was a volcanic eruption in the southeast of Iceland that vomited lava into the Skafta river, which boiled and ran with fire like a mythological Nordic curse. The volcanic gases were toxic and poisoned animals in their byres. Seething clouds of opaque ash plumed into the sky, blotting the sun. Everything that photosynthesised withered and died. There was a famine that killed a fifth of the population — a fifth of the people who had survived the smallpox epidemic that had previously seen off a quarter of all Icelanders. So the penury of the Icelandic banking system, the collapse of its currency, the parlous implosion of its economy that relegated it from being, per capita, the second or third richest nation in the world to being the shivering Big Issue-seller of Europe, bobbing in the queue somewhere behind Albania and Moldova, is not actually the worst thing that ever happened to this island. That would have to be the two occasions when the plague wiped out more than half of everybody. Iceland didn’t have any rats, but they got Europe’s worst case of bubonic deaths without them. That’s unheard of. That’s virtually impossible — but that’s how Iceland’s luck is. It’s said you make your own luck; it’s never said that your luck also makes you. Iceland and Icelanders have been forged on the anvil of hard knocks. The unfair thing about this latest paper calamity is that it happened just when they thought things were going so well. There were restaurants that sold food for people who weren’t hungry, there were international bars for international folk, there were boutique hotels with ambient music, and candles for smell, not illumination. Iceland was chic and cool, not just in a cold way. “This summer,” a pretty girl with a red nose and a pink scarf told me, “everybody was here on a small patch of green in front of the parliament” (which itself is smaller than Elton John’s guesthouse). “We came to cheer and drink, because Iceland had won a silver medal at the Olympics for handball,” she said. “It was huge. We’d never won a medal before.” Who came first? “Who cares? We came second. Everything was going so well.” Reykjavik is littered with the detritus and shells of things that were once going so well and now aren’t going at all. Like the big four-wheel-drives, bought on a promise and the never-never. The biggest is a Babel-ish building site, palisaded by protective cranes, which was hoping to be a music hall, the Sydney Opera House of the far, far north. There is still a visitors’ centre, with a girl on the phone looking for a new job. There’s a toy model of what it is now unlikely to look like. You can peer through a telescope at nobody working. I watched one ancient traffic warden give a ticket to a solitary pick-up, abandoned on a patch of rutted wasteland that was going to be a smart amenity area. This was all financed by Landsbanki, one of the raiding banks that spent like mullered fishermen and borrowed like agoraphobic Vikings, who leveraged the economy into the stratosphere without a Keynesian parachute, along with every other bank in the monetarist world. The difference here was that in every other city centre, they can run home to Daddy Government and have their gambling debts paid off. The Icelandic government is a dozen shepherds and a couple of grocers in Specsavers and M&S suits. One of the reasons they say the financial risk was so precipitous was that the entrepreneurial pool is so small. The bankers and the regulators, the ministers and the judges are all the same people — they’ve known each other all their lives, their wives and their children are friends, and nobody wanted to be the one who said no. And why should they? It was all going so well. Down by the container port, where the derricks droop idly, is a car pound the size of half a dozen football fields, circled by defunct iron boxes. It’s full of hundreds, perhaps thousands of cars. Behind them, across the grey fjord, black pumice crags are scarred with snow. The cars are going nowhere, dumped here at the end of the world: a great, windswept, conceptual monument to the hubris of Mammon, laughed at by black-backed gulls. These testaments to excess are now the most tasteless things to be seen in. They call the puttering Range Rovers “Game-Overs”. Further down the shore is a speculation of modern flats, expensive, insubstantial urban penthouses that may well remain empty for ever. A young man passing by, dressed in the winter uniform of Icelandic youth — skinny jeans, T-shirt with ironic postmodern slogan, Converses and a bit of a useless scarf, hunched shoulders and a general air of thermometer-denial and hungover insouciance — stops and laughs. “Who did we ever think was going to live here? Now we look back and it seems mad. Anyone could have told them. I could have told them.” Outside Reykjavik, there are suburban developments for new commuter suburbs. They put in roads and street lights but the houses have yet to be built, or stand blankly unfinished. Outside, a little girl plays in the gloaming with her sheepdog. It’s a strangely surreal image: the silent cul-de-sac, like a model of the middle-American ’burbs, with just this child, a character snatched from an Edward Hopper painting. Further along a road called End of the World we find a self-employed electrician. His company is called “Why Not Me”. When he has finished here, he is going abroad to find work — “Poland, probably” — and he smiles a crooked Icelandic smile. It’s a joke. There used to be lots of Poles here doing the dirty bits of the economic soft times. Now they have all gone home because the Icelandic krona has become shrapnel in the explosion of free markets. Kaupthing, Landsbanki and Glitnir sound like elf characters from The Lord of the Rings, and there is an element of fairy-tale comeuppance to these three backwater banks. Only when you’re shown their headquarters do you realise how bizarre and unworldly their success was. They look like small city shops, branches of Bradford & Bingley. One of them was run from the floor above a fast-food restaurant. As with every great disaster the world over, the moment after it happened, the scales fell from every eye and all could see that it was inevitable. Where were the white-collar jobs for the commute back from the brave new garden suburbs to come from? Where was the black-tie audience for the opera? How could Iceland have the sharpest cashiers in the world? How could this nation sustain just two main industries: cod-fishing and international high finance? And, most importantly, most damningly, how did they ever think they could buck the Icelandic luck? Now everyone looks back at the road they’ve just travelled and wonders why none of them mentioned it was made of marzipan and Rolexes. The act that tipped the last Icelandic bank off the edge of the cliff was delivered by Gordon Brown, who froze Icelandic assets in the UK using our new, gleaming anti-terrorist legislation. The Icelanders mind that — they’re hurt by that. You see, they always imagined they were one of us, not one of them. But Gordon needed to do something cheap to look competent, so he beat up a smaller kid. Not just a bit of a slap, but a vicious kicking. Showing off to impress the girls. He would never have started it if the banks had been German or French, or even from Liechtenstein. The Icelanders mind about the terrorist thing. They don’t even have an army. They barely have a jail: it’s more of a drop-in centre. The police drive you home if you’re too drunk. This is the most liberal, reasonable, hard-working, decent, moral, amusing and well-educated people on the Continent; a nation who are temperamentally the furthest away from terrorism. Remember that about Brown — the man who said he wanted to prevent the export of terrorism. Remember it when he puts on his Save the World, Mr International Harmony hat. He put an ally into intensive care for the sake of a headline and three points in a weekend poll. Perhaps he didn’t notice. Perhaps he was looking through his glass eye. Let’s just be clear about what Iceland really is. Most people think it’s the size of the Isle of Wight with the population of, say, Holland. It’s bigger than Hungary, bigger than South Korea, which has a population of 50m. There are just over 300,000 people in Iceland. So that’s a country the size of Portugal with the population of Bradford. Those are Mr Brown’s terrorists. Iceland imagined that Europe and America would help it out. After all, it has always helped us out. Keflavik was a vital Nato base between the east coast of America and the west coast of Europe in the cold war. We were all in this together. Except, as they were to learn, we were only in it together if we were fat enough to buy ourselves the solution. The Russians bailed Iceland out: Reykjavik could be a very useful place to launder money and cock a snook. And the Faroe Islands, bless them, population 48,000, lent £34m. Everyone in Iceland signed a thank-you card. And finally the IMF came up with a rescue package. Oh, but Gordon Brown — or you and me, as he is known abroad — leant on that so that fat, stupid English councils could get their greedy noses in the trough before Icelandic children got a banana. That’s not hyperbole — because they have so little foreign currency, imports are graded into three categories: essential, necessary and luxury. Exotic fruit is a luxury, but then in Iceland a tree is an oddity. If you want fruit, eat fish liver or a puffin. Sitting in the happy, healthy organic cafes of downtown Reykjavik where the hippie kids blog (there are more bloggers here than anywhere else) and girls with blond babies laugh at each other, you wouldn’t know this was an economically dead country walking. In the 101, a New York-brittle boutique hotel built and patronised by the bankers and speculators, you couldn’t tell that nobody here has a pension or savings. The groups of svelte and confident girls flick their hair, neck cocktails and make blatant passes at the men with face hair like mangy seals who are downing beer and shots. Icelanders react to bad news the way they always have. It’s the same way they react to good news: they get hammered. Properly Valhallaed. The bars and clubs are full, the booze is expensive, and they toast each other with a grim irony. There are still redundancy payments around — they’re cash-happy. The crunch will come in the New Year when the brass handshakes run out. People may be hurt by Brown and the British, and embarrassed by the gluttony and ineptitude of their own businessmen, and they are angry with their government. They want an election and someone to be Icelandic enough to grasp the blame and responsibility. But about themselves and the future they are remarkably, Nordically sanguine. A very direct woman in a bar said: “All that money, all the things and the stuff, it’s very un-Icelandic. The wanting, the conspicuous consumption, the avarice and ambition, the pathetic jealousy, that isn’t us. A great weight has been lifted now the money and the desires are gone. We can get back to being who we are.” Who the Icelandics are is one of the great enigmas of northern Europe. They speak an ancient, pure Scandinavian. They are horrifically hard-drinking, maudlin and prone to flights of dark nihilism and lengthy bitterness. They are taciturn fishermen and farmers; stoical, practical and moral. They have published more books and produced more chess grandmasters per head than anywhere else. They read more and write more, they sing and play instruments. Everyone here can change a tyre, strip an engine, ride a horse, sail a boat, dress a sheep and cure a salmon. They have grown through a hard Calvinism to a moral atheism while maintaining an open mind about elves. Roads are moved to avoid the homes of the hidden people: elves have to be asked permission before new buildings are built, and country folk see them regularly, not always when drunk. The fairy folk who share this empty island with the humans are Adam’s other children: the unwanted, cloaked by God in invisibility. There is also a deep handmade seam of nostalgia that links all Icelanders. Families are going back to the old ways — to buying the autumn-culled sheep. Traditionally you get an odd number, and the whole family comes to make slatur, a sort of fatty haggis sausage that is boiled and tastes like warm, meaty fat. The warming cabinets of convenience stores offer vacuum-packed, ready-cooked, laterally sliced halves of sheep’s heads, which I’m told are selling like boil-in-the-bag halves of sheep’s heads. The women are going back to knitting rough, tarry wool into the mentally geometric jerseys that feel like wearing St Francis’s wife-beater. A big second-hand shop has become a smart and fashionable place to shop, though not for anything that is fashionable or smart. The contents are commendably and pathetically meagre and practical. The boxes of second-hand records hum the contradictions of Iceland’s long winter. There are lots of romantic choral works, home-grown folk songs from men in third-degree knitting, and heavy metal and prog rock. On the second-hand-magazine rack are piles of practical outdoor-activity manuals and a copy of Hello! commemorating the death of Princess Diana. The designer interior-decorating emporiums that sprung up in the last five years now stand empty and sulky, like party-dressed girls with panda eyes waiting at morning-after bus stops. There’s a large new mall on the outskirts of Reykjavik, neon-bright and desolate. The girl who takes me there says, “A mall — nothing could be less Icelandic than a mall. All this will go,” and waves a mittened fist at the prefab warehouses, the new homes and the loneliness of the long-distance car park with its flapping flagpoles, “and we can stop pretending to be little Americans, or Danes, or British.” There is something invigorating about Iceland at this moment — like being with people waking from a dream. It’s exciting and instructive. It’s a patronising cliché to say that people have wealth beyond mere riches. Nobody is better off for being poor. But this tight-knit, undemonstrative community at the edge of the world has been woven together from sterner stuff than I think we could muster. “We’ll be all right — we’re not going to starve,” a shopkeeper told me. “We have fish and rye and mutton and barley. We can grow the odd tomato in a polytunnel. We have skills — useful skills, practical skills. And, you know, they’re under-heating the pavement outside my shop so it won’t freeze in the winter. All our energy is thermal and free. So maybe I can’t have a new mobile phone, but when I get drunk and fall over, the pavement will keep me warm.” From the 12th century a miraculous thing happened here: one of those eruptions of creation that defy the laws of culture and make civilisations briefly pyrotechnic. A series of books were written to illuminate the dark: sagas, secular stories of life, of mystery and mythology, of lords and farmers, politics and revenge, love affairs and voyages. Stories that were the first to be written as narratives with parabolas of plot and evolving characters. Nobody anywhere else had ever done that before. It is the birth of literature. They are as inexplicably, breathlessly awe-inspiring as the conception of the Renaissance a hundred years later. It was the Icelandic sagas that inspired Tolkien to write The Lord of the Rings, because he wanted Britain to retrospectively have a creation myth. Nobody knows what inspired Iceland or what precipitated this volcano of clear, collected genius. It was just Iceland: out there, sparse and treeless. In the howling gale where the water boils and the volcanoes rumble, and the earthquakes make the ground liquid, and black shores crash and smoke, it is a landscape that fills you with either dread or stories. And it’s shared with the hidden people and the heroic solitude, a brooding presence to measure your height against. Iceland has grasped this weakness, this greed, this business with money, and turned its back to take an unsentimental look at itself. They will be all right. This is the nation that made the first democratic parliament — the Althing — that fought the Royal Navy to make the first sustainable fishery in the northern hemisphere, produced three Miss Worlds and one Nobel literature laureate — then came second at handball. You are measured by how squarely you stand against bad luck. Not how you squander good luck. Michael, Pueblo, CO, USA Iceland is the test center for our development in the west. Haukur A Fridriksson, Eyrarbakki, Iceland I love this article; it reveals, against the backdrop of Icelandic experience, just how far humanity has strayed into the wasteland of empty, soulless consumerism. Yes, the Icelanders, bless them, will be okay. They have a strong sense of community and a rich, deeply rooted culture to carry them. Keith Rowley, Centurion, South Africa Keith Rowley, Centurion, South Africa This is a fantastic article. Icelandic people are not quitters, we always bounce back. We'll be alright, this will only make us stronger. I'm relieved we'll finally get rid of all the ostentation that came along with this small group of extremely rich businessmen, which made us bankrupt in the end. Jon Hrafn, Reykjavik, Iceland I have visited this beautiful country .I can say from the bottom of my heart-that I have never met a warmer,more honest,more hospitable group of people.Their ways have touched the core of my being and I will forever more consider them "TRUSTED FRIENDS" . Nancy Phillips, Sarasota Fl., USA thank you...Mr Gill you are best :) Guðgeir Fannar, Stodvarfjordur, Iceland I think our folk songs show best that Icelanders are not to mess with, even though we are few. I want to note that British people are always welcome to Iceland including Mr. Brown, if you want to be forgiven, you have to forgive yourself. Long live the British people, probably nicest people you meet Jóhann Grétar Kröyer Gizurarson, Reykjavik, Iceland Thank you for this article. We are now again a nation of people defined by the fact that we are all the same, on the same boat, not one person in my country is better than the next, not the president to the garbageman. We are simply one class of people, "the Icelandic Class" Linda , Reykjavík, Iceland Halldor Laxnes said once; This will all turn out somehow, even though you can find people who say otherwise. I think he was right. In a sense Icelandic character needed serenity as much it needed toughness. I think, and hope, in the end we have that serenity. Gunnar Kristinn Thordarson, Reykjavik, Iceland What an absolutely lovely article! So true. Thank you. We do need friends out there these days. U. Einarsdottir, Mosfellsbær, Iceland Dawes, London, UK: Actually mr. Dawes, we Icelanders are quite rich compared to many other nations. The thing we are wanting right now is temporary help to recover from the doings of a very small group of our countrymen (who have already left the country by now). And economic crises can strike..... Katla, Reykjavik, Iceland Thank you for a fantastic article. I agree with Unnur, I've been wondering for years what these men do with all that money and why they always need more! It could only end badly. These men and their friends in high places fooled us. Now some of them have fled the country and I say: good riddance. Gudrun, Kopavogur, Iceland I agree, the Icelanders will bounce back. I still think a large part of the population is saying to itself, What, do I suddenly (along with every single other Icelander) owe 62,800 pounds to "someone"? I think every European would feel as if he had been hit by a train, would he receive such news. Hinrik, Reykjavik, Iceland I had the great pleasure of spending a few days in Iceland back in the 1960s. In all of my travels, never before or since have I met people who were more kindly, hospitable and seemingly well adjusted. There is an inner strength one senses when encountering Icelanders. This too shall pass. Clement R Knorr, Tucson, Arizona Tank you for this article, I live in 101 Reykjavik, but go to the highlands every yeare to pick up Icelandic Moss and I know what is happening , we are changing the karma of the nation now. Helga Nina Heimisdottir, 101 Reykjavik, Iceland Many thanks, Mr Gill for wanting to understand and for sharing your views with the world. Rosa Eggertsdottir, Akureyri, Iceland Spare a thought for all the depositorsof Kaupthing in the Isle of Man. Icelandic savers are protected by Iceland, English by Gordon Brown. But Brown's snatch of our 550 million of individual retail savings held in KSF UK means we all face ruin and the loss of our life's efforts. steve servaes, dougklas, isle of man Actually, belief in elves is not common in Iceland, we drink less alcohol than most European nations and supermarkets carry everthing we need, including fruit. Makes me wonder what sort of crowd mr Gill was associating with and what information they were feeding him. Overall excellent article though Jon Harry Oskarsson, Mosfellsbær, Iceland Thank you for your kind words Mr Gill. You manage to capture the emotion of the catastrophe that we are going through. We will return to the basics and we will rise from this steep fall with a richer understanding of what really matters and what doesn´t. Iceland will emerge stronger and even better. Baldvin Johnsen, Vestmannaeyjar, Iceland Thank you Mr. Gill Halla, Selfoss, Iceland Good luck Iceland. Lyn, Chester, UK, Very elegantly written, as one would expect from Mr Gill. On a point of fact, Little Icelandic children need not be deprived of bananas as they are grown in geo-thermally heated greenhouses in Hveragerdi. As to the the Icelanders, they are lions led by donkeys. Nita, Milton Keynes, Bucks Mr. Gill, thank you for writing this fine article - obviously you have spent some time here, you capture our spirit accurately. We will be OK - though it will take some time. Árný Guðmundsdóttir, Reykjavík, Iceland A nice article but a tad romantic, perhaps. I for one do not know to change a tyre, strip an engine,sail a boat, dress a sheep or cure a salmon, and neither do most of my friends. My grandfather may have been a farmer, but I barely know one end of a sheep from another. Anna, Akureyri, Iceland thank you very much for your fair assesment .hope you will have your say on more things in the same problems.thanks again regards. Thorir Gíslason, Hafnarfjörður, iceland Thank you, you are good. Björg Jóna, Hafnarfjörður, Iceland Great article. Thank you for that. Yes, we will get around. We will learn from this and bounce back. It is said that the self-realization happens in the calm after the storm. Now it is our to grab the opportunity and move to the next level. We will be back stronger than before. Marino, Kopavogur, Iceland Wonderfully written. Chris Wills, Glasgow, United Kingdom Thanks for seeing things the right way. Me and my dad have been saying that this collapse was kind of a blessing, we can fainally go back to what we were and always will be, Icelanders. Ive been saying it for years now how I hate it that the big guys are trying to make Iceland something that its not Unnur Jónsdóttir, Garðabær, Iceland Thank you so much for this article, so true and amazing how you can put this bizard situation in words... you just got yourself one more fan...one of many I suppose.... Iris, Hafnarfjordur, Iceland If this would have been done to an American company there would have been serious consequences, perhaps military. Is it really ok to "bully" a small state, with no defenses to reach political success at home? Is that a policy that the British want their leaders to act on? Kristján, Reykjavík, Iceland Andy, Saffron Walden, Thank U Adrian. But Mr. Brown is not the only one to blame in the matter. We have our culprits too. None the less what Brown did was uncalled for and will have consequences for the british people for which I fear. Icelanders have backbone to bounce back but can you weather the storm coming your way? Kristján Örn Friðjónsson, Reykjavík, Iceland Like Kári I smiled it was so nice to read this, Diana Sigurdardóttir, Reykjavik, Iceland Thank you. It is of no surprise that Yoko Ono placed the Imagine Peace Tower in Iceland in memory of John Lennon. All the more ironic that the tower now lights up the skies in a country, listed by Mr. Brown as a terrorists nation. Thank you AA Gill for capturing the spirit of my people. Eygló Ingólfsdóttir, Stockholm, Sweden I thank you with all my heart. Logi Unnarson Jónsson, Reykjavik, Iceland Thank you so much for this excellent article. Gunnar, Reykjavík, Iceland I loved this article. Very well written and oh so true:) Nina, Reykjavik, Iceland The Icelanders were never rich. They simply borrowed the largest amount of money and refused to pay it back. The EU has backed the UK, NL and Germany in getting tough with Iceland. Iceland refused to listen to warnings, refused to ask the IMF or the ECB for help. Iceland is responsible for its fate. dawes, London, UK As someone who has worked frequently in Reykjavik for the last two years I found this article perfectly captures so much about this wonderful unique country and its people. I feel sure they will survive and recover despite what our unelected leader did to them. Simon , Ash Vale, England You realy know Icelanders and how we think. Vilmundur Sigurdsson, Selfoss, Iceland Thank you for this great article. Even though Brown´s childish act pushed us over the egde, the main responsibility of this crisis lies with only 30-40 greedy businessmen. These men are not welcome here anymore, but you British people sertainly are. We do not need gifts, but your visits do help us. Saevarsson, Reykjavik, Iceland Thank you Mr. AA Gill. Ólafur I. Hrólfsson, Reykjavík, Iceland I have spent decades reading peoples views on Iceland, those who have visited, those who have studied our country, and those who call Iceland their home. But this was quite the best analysis ever. Thank you Mr Gill for your insight, for your clear writing and for reminding us of what we are capable. Mikael Magnusson, Pruna, Spain I never thought I would find the woman of my dreams, but when in Iceland 7 years ago, I did. I still can´t believe my luck. Icelandic woman are the best, I tell you. Difficult, yes but worth it. Strong, smart and inhibited. Give them slack and a bit of adventure and they love you unconditionally. David C. Tornell, Reykjavik, Iceland An excelent artical about my Loved Country on top of the world. Heiðar Þórhallsson, Keflavik, Iceland Dear Mr. AA Gill. Svavar Benediktsson, Reykjavík, Iceland It felt so vvery good to read this so well written article on the Björg Ingvarsdóttir , Reykjavik, Iceland One of the best holidays of my life was spent touring this beautiful island and meeting its people, I would (and have) recommend it to anyone. Browns actions were shameful but sadly typical of this government. Bill, Ramsey, Reading this article this morning was a good way to start my day. I read it again just now to make sure it really was that good. Needless to say, I smiled and emailed it to my closest family to make sure they read it as well. It is nice to see that not everyone thinks we're a bunch of terrorists! Kári Sighvatsson, Hafnarfjörður, Iceland AA Gill´s astute observation and sharp pen capture the ambivalence, pride and humiliation, of a nation still in shock. Bjorg Sveinsdottir, London, Well written article about my country, thank you mister Gill. Greetings from Iceland. Jóna, Seltjarnarnes , Iceland Brilliant article Mr Gill. I just wish I had planned to spend Christmas there this year. Eddie Lucas, Gibraltar, Gibraltar Brilliant article on a country I have known intimately since 1974! Iceland has grown rich too fast in an inorganic way and the "hero worshipped" gamblers have slipped away to leave the innocents to suffer. Whats new? Oddson will not explain why Brown acted like he did but we make good scapegoats!! paul, cambridge, UK I agree with Erling, all British people are velcome in Iceland excluding Mr.Brown!. Guðni Þorvaldsson, Reyðarfjörður, Iceland Thank you for this article A.A. Gill, it is refreshing to read something other than Icesave and how 'Icelanders' have squandered the savings of the British. A good articles that captures what we as Icelanders are all about. D. Thor, Reykjavik, Iceland You article brought tears to my eyes. I guess you wrote what I have been feeling lately, but have been unable to put my finger on it. But you're right. We'll be all right. Omar, Reykjavik, Iceland For an outsider to capture our Icelandic spirit so well is brilliant. One of the best articles I've read in a long time! I can't wait to go home now! Diana Olafsdottir, London, Thank you for your kind words. Elin Laxdal, Reykjavik, Iceland Congratulions Mr Gill, a splendid article. Robert, Madrid, Spain an excellent article. i hope that we are able to emulate the Icelanders 'bouncebackability' when the pigeons finally come back to roost over here. jim, london, We have a saying "it's not the same being John or father John". We have not until recently had a division between classes here. We have all been just John. The classes Super rich and the Follower's are gone now and that's good. You are right we don't love Brown and his darling but we'll survive. Anna, Reykjavík, Iceland A very fine article. Icelanders feel betrayed by a Scot named Gordon Brown, not the British people: we sent loaded fishing vessles to Britain after WW2 to feed the needy and would do it again. We will get through, wiser. But Gordon Brown´s place in our minds and history is secured forever. G Arnason, Reykjavik, Iceland I just returned from spending a week in this amazing country. This article is spot on regarding the great irony occurring there right now. Jay Liou, Fremont, California, USA Great article! When arriving to Hull in 1982 on a fishing boat I was worried that the people there would greet us with animosity as the town was in a slump after the cod wars but instead we were met with nothing but friendliness. The same will apply to the British coming here (excluding Mr.Brown!). Erling Ingvason, Akureyri, Iceland We have a saying in Iceland: Life is tough, but we are tougher! Hildur Hardardottir, Keflavik, Iceland Brilliantly written. Could Iceland become like Bhutan - largely shut off from the rest of the world, following their own measure of Gross National Happiness? Nigel Grimshaw, Cambridge, UK Your best ever Adrian. It's a pity it is about such tragedy. But as they say..."We'll be Ok" I'm sure they will. Geoff, birmingham, uk Another superb article from one of my favourite writers. miko, Singapore, A superb article, written on two levels. It starts off rough, almost on purpose, and ends as one of the best written articles I've read in recent years. I've never been to Iceland, but surely I want to go now, if only to meet some of the folks who have survived more than most nations ever could. Stephen Churchill, Brockton, USA I have never read a more elegantly written article in my life. Michael Fernandes, Chapel Hill, USA A gifted scribe indeed, writing about a place in need of gifts. Yet which also evidences the consequences of seeking easy wealth. daniel hamilton, Chelsea, United States Exceptionally good. And true to life of all the Icelanders I have met in several countries. Austin Scott, Chicago, I've been to Iceland many times over the years, organizing tourist trips centering on the Medieval sagas. But best of all I have made friends there, and the integrity and the courage of Icelanders will take them through this. A. A. Gill did a fantastic job on capturing the spirit of Iceland. Bob Wilhelm, Hagerstown, USA This is definitely one of the best articles I have ever read on this website. Kunal Chakraborty, Cambridge, UK This article is staggeringly well written. Iceland is a fascinating place, made all the more intriguing by A.A. Gill's evocative writing. The Icelandic attitude is apt: while nobody enjoys being poor, adversity can be a reinvigorating test of character - e.g. late 70s Britain, early 90s Australia. Luke Critchley, Toowoomba, Australia
http://www.netsaga.is/media/files/NyttEnGamaltLag.mp3
Iceland: frozen assets
Six months ago, Iceland was one of the world’s richest nations. Now it’s bankrupt. AA Gill visits the first victim of the economic ice age
From what little I've heard, the comparisons between that "music hall" and the Sydney Opera House are quite justified. I hope the Icelanders are able to build it in its full glory, someday.
But we Icelanders are still here, its just the question how hard is the test "they" want to give us now!?!
Nice to see some positive newsarticle about the reality!
Greetings from Niceland.
We will come through this stronger than ever.
To Mr Brown I say "Shame on you" for using the terrorist act on the Icelandic people.
This beautifully written article brought tears to my eyes.
The majority of us is furious with the selected few who got us into this mess and their friends in high places.
For what little it is worth I'm deeply ashamed at what the goverment of the UK (my goverment) did.
Brown should hang his head in shame as should every member of parliament for allowing him to despoil the name of Iceland and its people, he is without honour.
I know we will be ok, this has been a good and hard reality check.
Thank you for the article
I'd just like to recommend Halldor Laxness' "Independent People"- the Nobel Prize winner. An incredible book which bears out Gill's impressions.
Oh, & then listen to some Bjork.
think you for seeing us like we are but not a bunch of terrorist and welcome back to our litle island in the north. Merry Christmas !
I say we got us into this mess our selves, WITH A BIG HELP from Mr. Brown though.
It brought us down to earth again and maybe to our knees but "what doesn't kill you, makes you stronger" so we will rise up again like we have always done before.
Thank you for kind words.
We wont let this get us down, we'll just drink a bit more so the world will make more sence;)But we can not be held responsible for our feelings to Gordon Brown, probably the most hated man in Iceland right now.
Live goes on and we have to use this situation to make new and better Iceland.
I think most Brithis agree with you if they know anything about Iceland - Gordon Brown - I think that this is his way of saying thank you for all the lives Iceland lost during the war bringing fish to starving England - So to Mr. Brown - you are welcome.
Straight to the point and informing about the present and past and most of The Icelandic Psyche , actually gave me goosebumps while reading.
"Glöggt Er Gests Augað"
You just made my week Mr. Gill.
Thanx From The Land Of Fire And Ice
I read the article outloud to my family. Your story took us all for a journey through time and our own history and culture. What a great magical way you have of writing.
Ps. Give my best to Mr. Brown when you see him. He will be in our semi christian pagan preyer this Xmas.
situation. One of the 310 000 inhabitants of Iceland
none remotely connected to terrorism . Will never forget
mr Brown. We have hade storms earthqaeks but Brown was the worst.
Good luck Iceland - you'll get through this adversity as you have others in the past
A nation that´s been taken for a ride by unscrupulous ´city boys´, overlooked by a dozing government and fascilitated by an ideal of a free market.
Giving up is not an option.
Prov 11:28) "He that trusteth in his riches shall fall: but the righteous shall flourish as a branch."