The Denmark Issue

I've been meaning to write this piece for a very long time and every time I start the mental planning I sigh deeply inside.

Why?

Because it's controversial? No. Because there's so much data? No. Because I've been here long enough to see the patterns repeating themselves? No, it's because I've come to realise that this issue is simply intractable. Like the Arab-Israeli issue, or Northern Ireland, or so many issues, this is one that I simply have to accept will not be resolved in my lifetime.

I had a very interesting long conversation with a close expat friend Bob the other day, who has been here slightly longer than me and has an unnervingly similar back-story, involving Icelandic females, alcohol and doses of pheromones large enough to fell oxen.

Bob remarked: "I sound like a bloody stuck record when it comes to The Denmark Issue". I agreed and admitted that I'd been through the same diatribe so many times that it was even more tiresome than explaining which part of the UK I'm from and no, it was my choice to come here, and no, Icelandic isn't difficult, and no, 'home' for me does not mean somewhere in the UK.

Bob told me that the other day in his office he got so fed up with the levels of Stockholm Syndrome on display that he played the game of dropping his British diplomacy and just blurting out the most provocative statements he could (in his near-perfect Icelandic, of course) to see what sort of reaction he could elicit from the entourage of Siggis and Siggas.

"The thing is this", he started, breathing in deeply and preparing for battle. "Iceland isn't actually an independent country at all. You're a bunch of effing hypocrites".

A suited Siggi blurted out "Waddayamean?!" through his mouthful of kleinur, not-so-gently spraying a fine mist of crumbs and barely intelligible.

Bob braced himself, mentally slapped Siggi with his leather riding glove, theatrically threw the glove to the earth in front of the etiquette-challenged office worker, and said "As long as Iceland keeps teaching Danish in schools, they're not an independent nation."

Siggi grunted, swallowed so prematurely that he had to do the uncomfortable-looking straining-neck-forward manouevre, and said "Waddayamean?", no more intelligibly than last time.

"Right, last time you went overseas, where did you go?", asked Bob, bracing for the answer like a woman about to have a strip of legwax removed.

"Copenhagen, why?", replied Siggi, indignantly.

"...and when you were there, which language did you speak with the locals?", asked Bob.

"Eerrrrr... English, why?" replied Siggi.

Bob turned to the next colleague in the slowly-growing circle of participants. "You?"

"English", replied the next victim, wincing.

Bob pointed his way through the group: "English", "English", "English", "Danish..."

"Ha!" said Siggi.

"...but they just reply in English". Siggi let out a barely audible squeak.

"Right," said Bob. "Why on earth do they teach Danish in schools?"

"It's a Nordic language" replied Siggi, displaying uncharacteristic perception, "it helps us talk to all the other Nordic countries."

"So, you speak Swedish then?" Bob asked, optimistically.

"Er, no..."

"Norwegian?"

Siggi coughed violently and sprayed a small cloud of coffee.

"Faroese?" Shaking head.

Bob eased forward for the well-rehearsed next steps in this anti-parochial pas-de-deux: "Now tell me, all these languages, they come from.....?"

"Ahem, German?" offered a helpful voice from a sideline.

"...and of all the Nordic languages, the one which has the greatest distance from written to spoken forms is..."

"Pfff! Bloody Danish!" chuckled a believer from somewhere nearby.

"So why on earth teach Danish in Iceland? It's about as much use as an ashtray on a motorbike!" asked Bob.

An uncomfortable silence descended on the group.

A few feet shuffled uneasily.

Someone coughed nervously and said meekly: "Aaah, because they're our, ah, cousins?"

"Gaaah!" Screamed Bob, at a pitch high enough that nearby dogs winced. At that point he realised he was both on to a loser and late for his meeting and made his excuses and left.

Bob explained to me that in the longer versions of this conversations he asks Icelanders to list the nationalities that most frequently visit Iceland. High on the list are Americans, Brits, Germans, Chinese and Japanese. That gives us then, in our arsenal of required languages: English, German, Japanese (or get by on English), and Chinese (or get by on English). Combine that with the fact that the international language of business is English, and the argument for Danish becomes somewhat less compelling.

...or does it?

The other day I was chatting to an Icelandic acquaintance of mine and he was complaining that the supplier he was using for importing protective footwear was being slow to respond to emails. "Oh, so where's the supplier?" I asked, already knowing the answer. "Denmark" came the answer, with an expression that implied I should have been able to guess that.

Denmark had a formal trade monopoly over Iceland for over two hundred years, but it still has a spiritual monopoly. Icelanders will almost always, when looking to import something, simply turn straight to Denmark, irrespective of whether the Danes are actually a good source of whatever they want. Some examples:

A large Icelandic bank hired an online banking security expert to oversee a security project. Source? Denmark.

A business conference needs a keynote speaker. Odds are the speaker will be Danish.

A dog show needed a judge for the finals. The judge? Flown in from Denmark.

The radiators in my house all have thermostats on them. Danish.

Yes, of course Iceland and Denmark have a long and noble history, but the point is that the Icelanders are blind. They think anything Danish is cool. They think the pinnacle of shopping is H&M.

They actually think it's cool to speak Danish. I read an article in Fréttablaðið just this week, talking in praise of 'schoolbook Danish' and how useful it is as a gateway language.

If only this sentiment were reciprocated by the Danes. They simply don't see it the same way. I know this because I've discussed it with Icelanders that have lived in Denmark for a long time and with Danes, and the truth is that the Danes really don't differentiate very much between Greenland and Iceland, and they treat Iceland with thinly-veiled contempt. A year or so ago, I was in a coffee shop in Reykjavík and the woman in the queue in front of me started placing her order in rapid-fire Danish. The young server, obviously Icelandic, replied in crisp English: "I'm sorry ma'am, I don't speak Danish". The Danish tourist repeated her order, in Danish, but much louder and slower. I am not making this up. There in one instant was the evidence of the Danish attitude towards Iceland.

If you want a fun diversion, go downtown in Reykjavík, and near the splendid 871+-2 exhibition you'll find the Salvation Army headquarters. On the corner of the building is painted the name of the organisation in three languages:

...and there you have it. A clear statement of the spiritual allegiance of the Icelanders:

Icelandic first, Danish second, English last.

Never has a national attitude been more succinctly presented.

Tamper-Free Iceland

I think I'd survive about a week in American politics. Or maybe four days. One of the greatest pleasures in my life is realisation that on any particular issue I was wrong and that I need to change the way I think. Learning a new mental approach, often one better informed, is refreshing and frees me from the drudgery of being bound to my creaky old attitudes. I think this is what Merkins refer to as being a Liberal.


Reading this interesting article from our friends at The Reykjavík Grapevine reminds me of one point of much irritation and, to use one of the many words that float gracefully in the liminal space between English and Icelandic, vexation, and has been recently resolved for me.


In common with many other civilised places, almost all foodstuffs in Iceland come with anti-tamper seals. I found myself becoming disproportionately annoyed by the way the Icelanders deal withe anti-tamper seals on certain packaging. The chief culprits being the low, oblong packages like Smjörvi, rækjusalat, or paté. The image above shows the blood-boiling behaviour. It's worthy of careful examination of what Siggi's done here in his frantic race to inhale the létt & laggot.


The foil seal has been torn back about 60% of the way, but not removed. When I see this, my ears start to make that 'WooooOOOOOOEEEE!!!!!' noise that usually precludes the sort of white-hot rage that involves sacrificing small rodents or less sturdy items of furniture. Why? Why, other than the flavour of industrial-grade laziness that can reduce someone to morbid obesity in a week, would anyone not just remove the bloody foil?


What makes it worse is a couple of blindingly obvious things, both of which seem to escape Siggi in his lust for low-fat non-butter spread:


Firstly, he's gone mining. He's left the foil on, but opened a gap just big enough to be able to dig his knife in there and mine the butter-substitute. Leaving the foil in place seems to imply that he feels it has a function and indeed his actions when his excavation is complete confirm this: he semi-carefully lays the foil back in place, before... replacing the plastic lid.


...what?! He replaces the plastic lid?! Waddayamean? Why on earth would anyone with an IQ greater than the outside air temperature in Farenheit do this? He clearly acknowledges the inherent lid-ness of the lid, its ability to close things. But the foil? Why, other than myopia so strong that he regularly buys tennis balls instead of oranges, would he put the G.D. lid back on?


So, in my quest for an explanation of what, to me, seems like utterly illogical behaviour, I started asking people:


Me: "Why did you leave the foil on?"
Siggi: "Haa?"


Me: "Why did you leave the foil on?"
Siggi: "Aah, just, 'cos. I mean, why not?"


Curious, I gritted my teeth against the rising "wwweeeeeOOOOOO!!!!!" and kept going:


Me: "...ok. What does the foil do?"


There then ensued a brief pause during which Siggi thought. A very slight smell of smouldering filled the air between us momentarily. Siggi crunched up his face and replied:


"It keeps it fresh."


I realised that I was nearing my coup de grace. I reached for the plastic lid, lifted it high above my head, sharp edge down, then stabbed it forecfully and viciously into the soft void between Siggi and me.


"Then what, in the name of holy arse, is this for?" I asked.


"Um, that's the lid?" said Siggi.


I exhaled so hard I created a new parting in his hair, admitted defeat, weakly dropped the lid/weapon and walked off, the white noise in my brain rising perceptibly.


This episode has been repeated, in various levels of diplomacy or irritation, enough times that I now don't bother because I know the outcome.


Then one day it dawned on me. Icelanders simplay don't know what anti-tamper seals are.


They've never seen stories in their media about contaminated baby food, or someone holding a mayonnaise manufacturer to ransom, or some homicidal maniac poisoning milk in the name of his twisted cause.


To Icelanders, the idea of tampering with food is completely alien. If you started explaining the need for anti-tamper seals to Siggi, his face would screw up in puzzlement, as if you'd explained to him that he needed to carry around this foil umbrella as protection against meteorites. "But why would anyone do that?", he'd say, struggling to grasp the reasoning behind such stupid behaviour.


So I finally came to learn that the teeth-gnashing and the screaming white noise in my head were unneccesary. In their place, every time I see someone half-peel a lid and start mining I now simply sigh contentedly and smile smugly as I realise that Iceland is a place in which the concept of tampering with food for evil means has yet to be adopted.


It's been so liberating to me to be able to drop this anger, the sort of lightening of spirit that comes from truly forgiving someone who's committed a serious social crime against you.


I just hope that I can have the same epiphany about some of other bloody irritating aspects of living here.

Yes! I'm famous! Sort of...

The lovely people at Reykjavík Grapevine have posted my article about why Icelanders are (possibly) sociopathic recently and it seems to have cause a mild stir.

I've been featured in 'Most Awesome Letter' and I'm a tiny bit proud of that. Y'all can find it in the pdf version of the Grapevine, a fine and worthy publication indeed.

Stockholm Syndrome Again...

Yet more evidence of the pervasive Stockholm Syndrome the Icelanders have towards Denmark:

Can anyone provide a convincing reason why CPH is top of the list on this page?

For a clear list of their prioritisation of countries, check this one out:

http://wowair.is/wow/WOWAIR_WinterSchedule2012-2013.pdf

...which gives us:

1. Denmark
2. UK
3. Poland
4. Germany
5. Spain
6. France

I suspect the UK's abnormally high placing in this popularity contest stems more from their profitability than their spectacular popularity (cough) with the Icelanders.

Bar Etiquette and Beer Ignorance

Dramatis Personæ

SIGGI: Generic twenty-something Icelandic male. SIGGI has never lived outside Iceland.
ASSISTANT: Nondescript shop assistant. ASSISTANT has never worked in a store in a real country.
AMERICAN TOURIST: Generic American citizen, visiting Iceland.

SCENE: City-centre music store. Walls lined with CDs and DVDs

Act One:

SIGGI enters stage right.
SIGGI: "Hey you! Give me a CD!"

ASSISTANT reaches behind the counter, scans a CD, presents it to SIGGI.

ASSISTANT: "Two thousand Krónur"

SIGGI hands over his credit card, whilst looking over his shoulder at a tall blonde that has just walked in. He makes no eye contact with ASSISTANT.

SIGGI pockets the CD and walks off, wordlessly, in the rough direction of the blonde.

AMERICAN TOURIST approaches the counter.

AMERICAN TOURIST: "Hi, I'm looking for the latest B-york album, do you have it?"

Fade to grey...

Sounds strange? Of course it does. It's the sort of behaviour you wouldn't expect from anyone in a music store. Except maybe the eyeing-up-the-blonde part. You'd expect people to know what they want, at least within broad genres, people to ask for what they want, perhaps even to ask for some guidance or to draw upon the experience of the serving staff.

So why is it that this is the norm for bar life in Iceland? Why does Siggi seem to assume that all beer is equal and that he has no choice? Because, to be frank, the beer-drinking habits of the Icelanders have yet to catch up with the reality of what's on offer. People simply haven't learnt yet that they have a choice, that not all beer looks like a carbonated urine sample and tastes just as bad. They have yet to experience the joys of beer that is opaque or beer that actually has more character than elevator muzak.

So here's the answer:

- Pretend you're in a record shop when you're in a bar. Pretend you need to impress a bunch of cute blondes with your sophisticated taste and worldly experience (that means outside Kopavogur). Check what's on offer, look behind the bar, ask the bar staff: what beers do you have?

- Develop your taste. Now I'm afraid there's only one way to do this. Go to all the decent bars in downtown RVK and try at least one small glass of all their beers. Get a taste for dark versus light, sweet versus bitter, wheaty beers and even beers aimed at women's palates. Life's a bitch when you need to have a pub crawl in the name of cultural education.

- Engage the bar staff in eye contact. Ask to try some of the beers, if the music isn't so loud that you're in post-midnight sign language mode. Most decent pubs in the UK will happily offer a wee taste of their beers if you ask. Imagine the novelty of drinking a beer of which you like the taste, rather than gambling on whether you'll be able to stomach enough glasses of tepid chlamydia-test sample to be drunk enough to make a credible pass on the blonde you just eyed.

Whether or not we like it as expats, and whether or not the Icelanders care to admit it, the influence of the Danish is massive here. It pervades everything, from the language we use, to the pylsu we eat, to the thermostats on our domestic radiators. So why not take it one step further? The Danes may well come from a two-dimensional country reeking of pig fat and speak like they are about to vomit, but they certainly respect their beers. They know a good brew and they're not afraid to ask for it, so Icelanders: copy your Danish cousins (yet) again and learn their beer habits.

I could go on for eloquent persuasive paragraph after paragraph, gently extolling the virtues of taste, discernment and high culture, but let's face it, there's one compelling reason to know your beers: it might just get you laid. For two reasons: firstly, being seen to be a step above the rock apes that drink simply to get pissed enough to make passes is great news, and secondly, knowing that there are beers that appeal to women may well just give you the competitive edge that you need to avoid the interminable wait 'til quarter-to-three.

Try Corona, or Freyja. They're great.

Cheers!

Symptoms of Icelandic Sociopathy: #21 of many.

Today I was out shopping, in a store with pretty conventional supermarket-style checkouts.

This of course meant that the normal challenge of shopping with a trolley needed to be managed. Most people seem to do ok, simply pulling the trolley behind them as they unload, then once fully emptied, moving it to the output end of the checkout. They then wheel it out to their vehicle (word carefully chosen so as to not alienate the 4x4 drivers) and leave the trolley either at some jaunty position in the parking lot, or if they display levels of social awareness that bely either the fact that they are foreign or that they have lived for a while in a more populated place, they wheel it to one of the collection points.

The shopper in front of me in the queue -let's call her Sigga- had no such ideas. She dragged the trolley behind her, but her purchases easily fitted into one bag, so she didn't need to wheel the trolley onwards: she just lifted the bag and started to stroll off. And left the trolley directly in my way. See picture.

So what this meant is that if I had done nothing other than walked straight ahead, I would have walked straight into her discarded trolley.

What shocked me most about this is the total disregard for other people. Once again, my fellow skerry-dwellers are showing a sociopathic level of igorance of those around them. It clearly never even occurred to her that the trolley was in my way. What did she think was going to happen to it? Would it suddenly dematerialise the moment she took her hand off it? Clearly not, since she gave it no thought at all.

This leaves me wondering what would have been a good way to react. In hindsight, it would have been fun to just walk ahead and bump the trolley into her back, forcing a reaction. Though arguably a more grown-up approach would have been to just say "Excuse me, are you planning on leaving that there? It's right in my way!"

What should I have done?

Care and Feeding of Your British Man

The cultural difference between Iceland and real countries is rarely as clearly defined as it is in relationships between Icelandic women and British men.

Here are a few simple pointers to help you keep things on the right track.

Opening car doors
British men will open car doors for women. They do it because they are trying to be polite and kind and show that they're not rock-apes. Icelandic women have a tendency to find this embarrassing and weird, or even misinterpret it as a threat to their powers of feminist world domination.

Solution: Accept it gracefully, say 'Æ,takk fyrir' and be pleased that he cares about you. Doing anything else, including laughing or explaining to him that you know how to work the handle on most car doors, is a cold rejection to him. It's like saying 'Yuck, no!!' when someone offers you some coffee or harðfiskur.

Don't call him stupid
There will be times when your man does something without thinking, something ill-informed or simply inappropriate. If he's normal it won't be malicious but probably just an oversight. The Icelanders tend to not understand the import of their words and will say something like "Why did you do that? That was stupid!", without realising that it's a deep, deep insult. When a Brit hears the word 'stupid' he will interpret it such that you think he's a complete moron. The Icelandic school system doesn't teach the finer points of the import of such words and they tend to get used without people really being aware that they're insulting people.

Solution: Be more diplomatic than you can even imagine. Imagine you're talking to your Amma, and use that tone. I know it feels ridiculous, but that's how it has to be. Your man will be grateful and receptive and not grumpily crawl into his cave.

Don't ask for help on his behalf
So the front door at home isn't closing properly. Your man is an accountant and your frændi Siggi is a húsasmiður. Of course the obvious thing to do is invite Siggi round for a coffee and to fix the door.
To do this is just about as deep an insult as you can give to your man. You're assuming that he hasn't a clue how to fix what is probably quite a simple problem and you haven't even discussed it with him. To go behind his back is deeply disrespectful to his intelligence and powers of delegation.

Solution: Gently point out the problem, in a non-judgmental way, i.e. NOT "When are you going to do something about that door? How many times do I have to mention it to you?", rather: "That front door seems to be getting worse. What do you think we should do?"
Allow him to make the decision for himself. If he's a normal guy he probably won't mess it up. Doors are generally not that complex. Under no circumstance whatsoever should you mention bloody Siggi.

Don't 'help' him drive or park
This one is only tenuously connected to the Anglo-Icelandic cultural (Almanna)gjá, but I really don't care.
When you arbitrarily help your man to find a parking space, or tell him which lane to be in while he's getting to know the finer points of Reykjavík's labyrinthine road system, you're in grave danger of insulting him without realising it. Most men will interpret any driving 'advice' as the highest form of disrespect unless delivered in diplomatic tones that would leave many a UN ambassador weeping in envy.
The point is this: he knows how to drive. He knows how to park. He was doing these things just fine before he met you.

Solution: Start from the point of assuming that he knows what he's doing and he knows where he's going. Showing a British man that you've assumed he knows what he's doing is extremely respectful. His actual level of skill is entirely irrelevant.

Do say: "You know fastest way to Kringlan from here, right?"
Don't say: "LEFT lane! You need to be in the LEFT LANE, stupid!"

Be gentle: play nicely
We're back to the old social evolotion issue. Iceland is a land of pragmatism, in which it's ok to be so curt whilst asking the time that foreigners are offended. This is because only twenty minutes ago, everyone was living in turf houses and gnawing sheep's heads to survive.
This means that when, my dear Icelanders, you think you're talking straight and trying to make a clear point, you're probably being so direct your typical Brit will feel like you're nagging or even attacking them. This particularly applies to men that haven't been here long enough to develop the industrial thickness of hide needed to deal with it.
The problem is, of course, that you don't know you're doing it. You're doing what you call 'talking'. Ok, then it's time to redefine 'talking' to mean something that doesn't leave your man feeling like a Guantanamo inmate.

Solution: Be gentle. Talk slowly. Pretend you're talking to Amma. Breathe.


I know that some of these points may refer to male-female relationships in general, but the differences are amplified by the yawning cultural gap between Icelanders and Brits.

Don't make the mistake of thinking that just because both groups are mainly white caucasians and have roughly the same number of limbs that they start from the point of being essentially similar: that's a rookie mistake and a dangerous one. It's much better to start by assuming that they are fundamentally different, then trying to find the similarities.