Spying, Housing, Farming, Waterfalling & Bubbing

The Reykjavík Grapevine's Iceland Roundup brings you the top news with a healthy dash of local views. In this episode, Grapevine publisher Jón Trausti Sigurðarson is joined by Grapevine’s Editor-in-Chief Bart Cameron, and Grapevine friend and contributor Sindri Eldon to roundup the stories making headlines in recent weeks. On the docket this week are:

The Russian Spying Vessel Yuri Ivanov Within Iceland’s Exclusive Economic Zone
Since a Nato exercise in the North-Atlantic in May, the Russian spying vessel Yuri Ivanov has been sailing within Iceland’s 200 mile Oceanic Exlusive Economic Zone, and is now west of Iceland, which is highly unusual. The Icelandic coastguard has been watching the vessel and the Icelandic Foreign Ministry says it poses no threat.

Around 70-80% Of Iceland’s Farmsteads Do Not Engage In Traditional Farming
The Agriculture University of Iceland held a seminar to discuss a new report on who owns farmland in Iceland. Around 600 farms are owned by estates of deceased farmer, and 13% of farms in Iceland are not in any use, while between 70-80% of farmland is generally not used for traditional farming. The report also points out that around 40 farms are owned by two foreign billionaires, one of which Jim Ratcliffe, is also the fourth largest holder of farmland in Iceland, behind the Icelandic state, municipalities and the Icelandic church. The report creates questions about whether or not current laws in Iceland on farms need modifications to deal with a changed reality in the use or - as in this case - the non-use, of farmland, and does actually suggest that changes should be made to the law to deal with specific aspects, such as unclear ownership, unclear use, foreign ownership, and better data collection with regards to use and ownership, citing numerous cases where such changes have been made in recent years in neighboring countries.

Dettifoss Side Hiking Route Closed
New research has revealed numerous fissures under one of the popular hiking routes from the west towards Iceland’s (and the whole of Europe’s) most powerful waterfall Dettifoss. Dettifoss is located in North-East Iceland, and is a popular tourist destination, made famous by its prominence in the opening sequence of Ridley Scott’s 2012 film Prometheus. New research has revealed that the area is a fissure zone under a hiking route called Fosshvammur, and the route has been permanently closed. Other hiking routes on the west side of the river in which the waterfall is located are safe, and so is the viewing platform on that side of the river.

Two Tourists On Bikes Rescued By SARS Teams In The Highlands
Tow tourists who were attempting to bike a well known highland road in the southern highlands of Iceland had to be rescued by SARS teams, when snowmelts got the better of them.

The Federation of Icelandic Industries Warns Of Increased Indebtedness In The Construction Industry
Not only that, the chair of the Icelandic Housing and Construction Authority  says that apartments and neighborhoods have been planned for people that don’t exist. Housing prices have fallen in real terms, the number of apartments for sale has increased, and it is taking longer to sell properties, especially new apartments. The outlook is dire.

Bubbi Morthens 70th Birthday Concert Last Weekend
Bubbi played two shows for more than 10.000 people total in Laugardalshöll stadium this weekend. He dropped some comments between songs on inflation and said it was time to say either “yes” or “no”. While Bubbi didn’t explicitly mention the upcoming referendum on restarting negotiations with the EU on accession, the crowd non the less booed his statement. A few songs later he talked about his dismay about the importation of politics to Iceland that targeted minorities, before launching into his 1984 hit “Strákarnir á Borginni”, and important song for championing gay rights in Iceland in the 1980s. No booing was heard following the latter statement. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:09

Hello and welcome to Iceland Roundup where me, Cynthia and Arsted Roundup last week of Icelandic News. We started with the main news event of of today. It's my birthday! Cynthia Golman has a birthday. He's celebrating with a bottle of Johnny Walker double black. Yeah. It's the only thing that'll do, I guess. Let's uh silence the screams of my midlife crisis. It's uh it's 10 15 on uh Monday morning, why not?

SPEAKER_05 0:44

I don't gonna do any fucking work on my birthday.

SPEAKER_01 0:47

Um you don't work on your birthday?

SPEAKER_05 0:50

Nobody should. It should be against the law. I woke up to an alarm clock this morning. Really felt the injustice there.

SPEAKER_04 0:57

Alright, uh that's given that my birthday is at the beginning of January, it's often not work, so I guess it's yeah, it must be nice. Often, but not always. So uh today we're gonna talk about uh a few different things. We have uh some news of a Russian spying vessel uh in Icelandic waters. Sweet, I love John Lakari. And then we talk about uh farming in Iceland.

SPEAKER_00 1:27

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 1:28

Uh dat depos, the I guess the most the yeah, the falling water. The most debt the most uh powerful waterfalls uh waterfall in Europe. Not to mention the most deeply indebted some uh tourists that had to be had to be rescued from the highlands, an evergreen piece of content. Um what many years is this? How long have we been doing this now? Worries from various um authorities and associations of the Atlantic housing construction industry, I would say. And then if we get around to it, uh my highlights from uh Puppy Morton's 70th birthday concert.

SPEAKER_07 2:09

Oh, you you did go to that. Yeah, I did go to that. I didn't even watch.

SPEAKER_05 2:15

While you read those, I will simultaneously read the highlights from my birthday party that you did not come to because you went to this concert. We'll see. Uh I will dislikes on YouTube. Do we want Puppy share our birthday? Fuck no. I would have killed myself years ago. Nah, he's two days ahead of me. He is two days ahead. I have to share it with uh fucking Kanye West and the and the Dilbert guy. Oh, that's nice. Is it?

SPEAKER_04 2:42

So yeah, he's uh he is two two uh days and thirty years ahead of you. Well, yeah, obviously.

SPEAKER_05 2:51

The the Dilbert guy wasn't my age. I mean on Pippi.

SPEAKER_00 2:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 2:55

No, he neither is he.

SPEAKER_04 2:58

Okay. So where do you guys want to start? Beautiful Monday morning. I wanna oh, we forgot one major we we forgot one major piece of news. Yeah. Uh the journalist asked in uh Castason, which is you. You are now officially a carpenter.

SPEAKER_06 3:16

Well, I I finished uh journeyman exang this weekend.

SPEAKER_04 3:20

Excellent. Watch out for those cables. Oh, sorry.

SPEAKER_05 3:23

It didn't teach you about those in the exam. That will set the entire building on fire immediately.

SPEAKER_06 3:28

Yeah, I have thinking about the constructional integrity of this building when I was walking up the stairs.

SPEAKER_05 3:34

It is. I don't breathe too hard when I'm in here, honestly. I just try to keep my oxygen to myself. I mean, it's whole integrity is just based on age at this point.

SPEAKER_04 3:42

Yeah, yeah. The fact that it has stood for so long must mean that it will stand for longer.

SPEAKER_05 3:47

It's as true now as it's ever been.

SPEAKER_04 3:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 3:50

It's an engineering model.

SPEAKER_04 3:53

Well, let's thank God we don't really have a lot of termites in Iceland. That would maybe worry a lot. Yeah. We have some. Why didn't they say not a lot? We have some, I think. We have? I don't we? I think somebody I think I remember a person I know knowing having like a termite problem. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:10

What?

SPEAKER_04 4:11

Like a nice fear unlocked for me. I think it's an isolated incident. Yeah, someone like brought termites in their like underpants bag. Yeah. Yeah, something like that. So maybe I'm mistaken. There was something that screwed up his house house.

SPEAKER_06 4:28

So do you remember when some house had this thing called a rat?

SPEAKER_05 4:35

Puck buck. Probably sounds worse than it is, I'm imagining it.

SPEAKER_06 4:40

I may have is like a terrible thing. You have to like immediately evacuate the house and it's like plastic all around, they cover the house and then they like uh basically bomb it with some chemicals and you can't be in there for weeks.

SPEAKER_04 4:59

Wow, no, I'm I think if I have ever heard of that, I have blocked that from my conscious.

SPEAKER_06 5:05

Yeah, and there was a case a few years ago of or of the need it, and it's just like I can't think of the word without like feeling it's basically Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 5:14

Bugs should be illegal. Yeah. Yeah. How are they still like gone? They just have like millions of kids, and then you know most of the millions die, but then a few of them survive, and this has been working for what, 500 million years? All the rats. No, just bugs in general. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 5:33

It's it seems to be a pretty safe system.

SPEAKER_05 5:36

I should just have had like, you know, a bunch of kids and not given, you know, one shit about them, and they would just be fine, and this would be a more successful evolutionary strategy than than what I am doing.

SPEAKER_06 5:48

This is just the whiskey talking about.

SPEAKER_04 5:50

Yeah, but this is also this is also This is also like hearing a lot of that, I think. This is also like the strategy that brought you both me and Arsted.

SPEAKER_01 5:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 6:00

Yeah, because I raised you.

SPEAKER_05 6:02

No, no, no. Look my back raising you guys overpay me. We have a lot of siblings. The lead story isn't my birthday. It is. I'm gonna disown both of you. Yeah. Should we get there?

SPEAKER_04 6:14

Wait, did I start with a Yeah, we should start. I'll speak with your birthday. Yeah. Yeah, everything is recording.

SPEAKER_05 6:20

Yeah. So for 40 years, I have contributed heavily to Icelandic society.

SPEAKER_04 6:25

You have?

SPEAKER_05 6:25

No. But you know, let's I wish you had. I mean, don't we all contribute in some way? Would this place really be the same without without any of us? No. No. No, it wouldn't be the same. I mean, we're a significant fraction of the population. Yes. The three of us are what, you know. We are some 100,000 of our country. We're uh we're uh yeah, we're kind of like uh We're as accurate a sample of uh of our nation's opinions as anyone. I think an interest in the opinions of Iceland is an interest in us, which is why I think this whole episode should just be about me. No, okay. We can do the same thing. Is it like technically speaking, aren't all of these episodes technically just about you? I don't know. I mean uh it's interesting because I I saw the a comment on the the last one, which is I think has been brought to our attention before by the same guy who is uh an astute viewer and uh and master of um this guy's master of uh what's it called? Constructive criticism. Yeah. And uh, you know, that that was uh talking about how the interruptions irritated him. And it's like I I get that. Yeah. Because I sit some episodes I sit here sort of waiting for like the right moment to jump in. To interrupt. Yeah, and it but it's hard to to be here like and wait for that moment because you you wait the whole episode and it just doesn't come. Like this is a this is like a tricky sort of it looks harder than it is. Well, no, it looks easier than it is doing. Like you're you're having like a conversation where everyone has to sort of contribute, yeah, and it has to happen, you know. It's like lightning in a bottle. Yeah. You have to sort of yeah, and like if I, you know, I have had this conflict. You know, I've watched all the episodes and and thought about it. And should I interrupt more? Should I interrupt less?

SPEAKER_04 8:06

You have watched all the episodes. Yeah, yes. That's what I'm thinking out of this. I've never watched that episode.

SPEAKER_05 8:11

I I just I I want to get better at this, and I think the only way that that's gonna happen is if I sort of study it and listen to just what works and what doesn't work.

SPEAKER_06 8:19

I just read the hate mails again.

SPEAKER_01 8:22

That's my study.

SPEAKER_05 8:23

It's like the highlight reel, basically. It's just like everything worthwhile you said, somebody hated it somewhere, so it's like yeah.

SPEAKER_04 8:30

Yeah, I revel in hate mail, actually. It's my favorite thing.

SPEAKER_05 8:34

You'd have to be considering for how long you've kept the Ricky Vitals up and running. Amazing.

SPEAKER_01 8:38

I mean, I don't hate hate mail, but I like it isn't my favorite thing, but I I try to read it.

SPEAKER_04 8:45

Well, it it like when it's actual like constructive criticism, yeah. That that's good.

SPEAKER_03 8:50

And it kinda kinda hurts.

SPEAKER_04 8:52

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_03 8:52

It hurts because it's true. But the like just to like you think it's true.

SPEAKER_04 8:57

But the the criticism that hasn't any constraint like any value to it, which is just pure hitman. Yeah. That I enjoy. When I work uh uh at Raust Vuhr, the radio thing. The public broadcasting. Yeah, I a colleague of mine got an email, which was just like I dislike your voice.

SPEAKER_00 9:18

I was like, There's not much you can do about that. Yeah. Thanks. Thanks a lot.

SPEAKER_04 9:23

Ouch.

SPEAKER_00 9:23

Thank you very much. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 9:25

I remember getting like uh like some of these um these videos that I've hosted, especially for the eruptions, have gotten hundreds and thousands of views, and then you obviously get you know a lot of comments. And in and in and out of those, you'll get something like, you know, this person has as much stuck of therisma as a that dog or something, like in that lane. Yeah, like kind of hurt.

SPEAKER_05 9:50

Death dogs can be like they they watched, they were under no obligation to watch or even comment, you know. What does that tell them to tell you about them?

SPEAKER_04 9:57

You know, is there empowering that post? Uh just the music it kind of amuses me. I think I put one of like the more hurtful ones as uh somewhere like a on my profile someone some social media. Like what was it? Uh a personality. Free song, I think it was something like that. Yeah, personality warmth free song. Yeah, okay. That's a mouthful.

SPEAKER_05 10:18

I feel like there could be a more you know concise way of saying that. Yeah, like that guy socks would have probably done it instead. I think a funny thing to do is like compare your hate mail and and be sort of aware of the hate mail that you're not getting, and what does that tell you about you? Because I've never, you know, I've never been no one's complained about my lack of charisma, but they've you know complained about my lack of of content, you know.

SPEAKER_04 10:41

Uh yeah, uh on the bright side for that particular video, a lot of people noticed how cold I was. I remember this because I was really cold.

SPEAKER_01 10:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 10:52

And they were like asking how where they should send their knitted like socks or whatever.

SPEAKER_01 10:59

Okay, it's yeah.

SPEAKER_04 11:01

People care. Some people do, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 11:03

Some people don't.

SPEAKER_05 11:04

So I think it's very heartwarming how many people care. It's it's nice to see. Yeah. People really people really love the show. There's not a lot of you out there, but you know, it's there, you're seeing your viewers.

SPEAKER_04 11:15

So uh unfortunately, like this since this is not vodka, I don't care, I can't sort of like segment the thing I wanted to talk to into your your whiskey drinking. But uh so there's a Russian spying vessel called Yuri Ivanov uh that's been hanging out within the athletics.

SPEAKER_05 11:32

Russians love Jack Daniels, I've found. I don't know if that counts as whiskey, you even really, but they mostly sugar. This is something I've learned though, that Russians, you know, they if they don't want vodka, they want Jack Daniels.

SPEAKER_01 11:44

That's a terrible thing to do.

SPEAKER_04 11:45

Yeah, but so within so there's like a screen before you?

SPEAKER_01 11:49

Yeah. This is related. This isn't like me interrupting with totally different thoughts.

SPEAKER_04 11:55

Could you check who the guy was they named the ship after? No, did you? No. Do you want to do it now or even though okay. So the Russian Spanish vessel Yuri Ivanov uh has been hanging out within Iceland's exclusive economic zone, which is the 200-mile radius of ocean around Iceland. So it's not Icelandic sort of sovereign territory, but it's uh where we can fish and nobody else can fish. And that particular vessel has been hanging around Iceland since uh May when there was a like a NATO exercise in the area, which I kind of didn't know about. And uh what is unusual this time around is that it's now have has been sighted west of Iceland, but it's usually been sort of between Norway and Iceland and the Barents Ocean.

SPEAKER_05 12:41

Oh, so they're they're creeping west. Yeah, that's unusual.

SPEAKER_04 12:45

Uh and you know the Coast Guard has been monitoring it and flying its helicopter towards it, and the foreign ministry for some reason uh made sense of the statement saying that this vessel poses no threat. Uh I I I guess it's Russian. I I just kind of feel that uh this is a case of like uh we should be uh be like appreciate that uh Russians care enough to have a bolt here. But uh what can you tell me about Yuri Ivanov?

SPEAKER_05 13:12

Uh it's gotta be like 500 fucking dudes called that. I I I sympathize with Russians because they sort of have the same problem as we do in Iceland. It's like there's only 12 fucking names and they've been around the block so many times.

SPEAKER_06 13:22

Is this Yuri Ivanov was like the head of GRU? Oh. Uh at when that's not a menace at all. In like 2010, he washed up uh his body washed up, I'm sure, in Turkey.

SPEAKER_05 13:34

A tragic accident, I'm sure.

SPEAKER_06 13:36

Yeah. I believe it's a good one.

SPEAKER_04 13:37

Yeah, probably nothing from his.

SPEAKER_03 13:41

You know, it sounds like it got sort of evacu like dumped out of a U-boat in a in a boat.

SPEAKER_05 13:49

You know, anyone who hasn't accidentally washed up dead on the shores of the Black Sea. Well, I haven't still Yeah it's uh it's a it's a little among us can can judge.

SPEAKER_04 14:00

What do you call these things? It's a trope. Like it's it's a classic classical trope from like Greek Greek classics.

SPEAKER_01 14:07

But they have like four seats called Yuri Ivanov or something.

SPEAKER_05 14:11

Oh, okay. Each one named after a different Yuri Ivanov. I guess they really miss him. I don't know. It's the Russian way, right? They like secretly you know ill at people and then revere them as heroes that decide for the the the motherland.

SPEAKER_04 14:25

If it was an inside job and he got, you know, whacked by by Putin, isn't like four different boats named after that guy kinda overcompensated?

SPEAKER_01 14:36

Yeah, I'm maybe I'm missing I don't really read Russian.

SPEAKER_04 14:40

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 14:41

You're trying to read Russian over there? Yeah, I'm no shit.

SPEAKER_04 14:46

Well, uh so much for uh But I've been to Russia twice. It's a lovely country. I've been once.

SPEAKER_01 14:52

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 14:53

Did you manage to write the postcard saying from Russia with love?

SPEAKER_06 14:56

No, I was like drinking a lot of vodka both times.

SPEAKER_01 15:01

Well the first time I actually like I had a plottigart and I couldn't like move freely.

SPEAKER_02 15:08

Explained.

SPEAKER_06 15:09

I was uh competing at uh European championships in like ballroom dancing. Okay. And they had from your other life. Uh it was like they really were conscious about security. And we were basically locked inside the hotel. It was nice, five-star hotel. But we couldn't go.

SPEAKER_05 15:32

Were they worried about like, you know, conscious about security? I hear a lot of bad things said about Russians, but that they're not conscious enough about security, that's yeah, they could uh log down.

SPEAKER_04 15:43

Were they that's good? Were they worried that uh some some other competing dancer would beat the crap out of you or something? No, no, no, because only hurting you all that error.

SPEAKER_06 15:52

All the competitors were staying at the same hotel, so that was basically the people we could associate with.

SPEAKER_04 15:59

So they were not uh they were not securing you from each other.

SPEAKER_06 16:02

No, but it was like really strange because we just uh I was eighteen at the time or something, and I travelled there with uh m my partner uh who was seventeen at the time, just the two of us flying to uh Russia.

SPEAKER_05 16:17

That's like how old I was in Russia.

SPEAKER_06 16:19

Yeah, and then we just found a cab at the airport and like we had an address. We had no idea how long it would take or how much it would cost or anything. But it wasn't until we arrived at the hotel that the security things got thieved up.

SPEAKER_04 16:34

So kind of glitchy security, if you think about it. Yeah. Is it Moscow or more for show than actual effect, I would say.

SPEAKER_06 16:42

Yeah. But then I went like from kind of like the Russian school and uh down to Sotchi for a ski trip. Oh, nice in 2020. That was nice. Nice.

SPEAKER_04 16:52

Well they didn't wash up on the little shores of the 16 now.

SPEAKER_05 16:57

Uh not yet, but you know, a man can dream. You know, you just hope it's important to set attainable goals.

SPEAKER_04 17:02

No, I mean uh for people washing up on the shores of either the Black Sea or the Mediterranean, I I hear the movie The Odyssey is coming out soon.

SPEAKER_05 17:10

That's nice. Which is it's a time-honored tradition to watch up dead on the shores of the Black Sea.

SPEAKER_04 17:15

So uh this is kind of a uh pet peeve of mine, but uh there is uh the Agricultural University of Iceland was holding a seminar to discuss, and you reported that they did on uh on the laws around agriculture in Iceland. Um according to this report, there are around 7,000 farmsteads technically uh in Iceland, of which between 70 and 80 percent are not in traditional agricultural use, yeah, which is a lot.

SPEAKER_05 17:46

And what is non-traditional agriculture, just so I can picture it. I guess anything that's not sheep, cows, or horses or whatever. Oh, it's sheep and cows. Are we talking like metals, hydroeconomics here or uh public that's untraditional?

SPEAKER_07 18:01

No, that's I mean that's the three things we can grow according to pool or something we've got.

SPEAKER_04 18:06

According to whatever you call that, yeah. Um so some of the interesting things were like you know, you know, okay, 600 farms are owned by uh the estates of deceased farmers. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 18:22

And uh 30% of our makes sense though.

SPEAKER_04 18:25

Yeah, 13% of farms in Iceland are not in any use whatsoever. Um this report also uh reminds us of the fact that uh Jim Radcliffe is the fourth biggest owner of uh farm land in in Iceland.

SPEAKER_06 18:41

Isn't he the guy who like fought for Brexit and then moved to Monaco or something?

SPEAKER_05 18:46

Yes, he's exactly that guy. Just farming grudges.

SPEAKER_04 18:50

He's also also the guy who likes to like uh take a helicopter to his um bathroom.

SPEAKER_06 18:57

Yeah, uh the airport. We actually have an international airport at Eilstais, which is like this, I have to say, amazing village in the east part of Iceland. I said my wife is from there, and she sometimes listened to the show.

SPEAKER_01 19:13

Uh they have like a it's like a backup airport.

SPEAKER_05 19:18

It's not like the inter It's like how do you have uh it's more the idea of an airport. Yeah, I mean they have a landing strip.

SPEAKER_04 19:27

They have a gigantic landing strip.

SPEAKER_01 19:29

Yeah, but it it can like it's a comfort airport. Any plane who can land in Iceland can land there. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 19:35

Uh uh because they're a backup, but it only functions as like uh a private jet uh airport for and his friends. That's like at an at any given time there is at least one private jet associated with him uh just sitting there. Yeah. It's his playground. Yeah, and then he takes the helicopter down to Waterfillers.

SPEAKER_05 20:00

Yeah, and we actually house. Yeah. Any public asset that goes underutilized eventually just gets exploited by rich people to kill.

SPEAKER_04 20:08

You you know, he like because he loved uh land thrower cars so much. Yeah. And then they like discontinued the he just made his own version. There was a specific land rower, wasn't it? Uh no, it was not Discovery, it was Defender, yeah. Defender, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 20:23

The old uh we actually have like uh in Iceland, because you I I don't believe you can easily buy these vehicles around the world.

SPEAKER_01 20:31

It looks like it's they're not in hot demand, but we actually in Kraour have uh uh an authorized uh pan panic metal like specific cars, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 20:49

Isn't that isn't that basically an antique dealer? I mean if you if you pander in something that's no longer being manufactured, it would hit the it's crazier than you think.

SPEAKER_04 20:58

So they stopped manufacturing the land thrower defender, which is the kind of the classic look of sort of rocket ass landowers. And Mr. Radcliffe disliked this so much that he stuffed it his he licensed the design and started his own factory making kind of a variation or copy of the defender. Yeah, which you can't buy and they're very expensive, but they are being produced.

SPEAKER_05 21:24

And they're nice. It's nice to hear about a man that hungry for his youth to come back. It's inspiring because it makes me feel like my midlife crisis will be easier to deal with. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 21:35

Yeah, most people just settle for your human growth growth hormone illegally, but he's building his own uh Lanthro defenders.

SPEAKER_03 21:42

Yeah. Uh so sad really. So I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 21:46

It it's uh basically what uh interested me, because it this has been a thought of mine for a while, is that this report was basically suggesting legal amendments to the uh law surrounding farming and athlete.

SPEAKER_06 21:58

Acting off the warmth of the

SPEAKER_04 22:01

Yeah. Pointing out pointing out that the current legal environment can't really deal with the modern use of land in Iceland.

SPEAKER_01 22:08

Yeah, and now I'm like on board.

SPEAKER_04 22:10

And I'm so with them there. They point out that these things have been invented in Scandinavia, but we have lagged behind. Yeah. And this has to do not only with like people acquiring a lot of farms like Mr. Ratcliffe has done, but also they're like them not being used appropriately or etc.

SPEAKER_06 22:29

I want to like stop there, not not to segue from this. But did you notice that for the first time, how many years have been doing this? One, two, two, two years. Yeah. Like the first time he he like says Mr. something is when it talks about Tim Radcliffe.

SPEAKER_05 22:47

Yeah. Yeah. I I like not know I like not using his first name because I can pretend in my mind that uh Daniel Radcliffe owns a lot of Iceland land. Uh Harry Poppet. Yeah. Yeah. Because it seems fucking.

SPEAKER_04 23:00

Uh I think it's it's time that I've disclosed that I am such an egalitarian uh piece of shit that every time I actually say Mr. I think I don't mean it in a nice way.

SPEAKER_05 23:10

Yeah, yeah, I've I've noticed that about you.

SPEAKER_04 23:12

Yeah.

unknown 23:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 23:13

So yeah, how are you doing Mr. So and so or senior? Yeah. For the almost very senior cathans on. I do not. You are you are now making lies. You lie. Senior.

SPEAKER_06 23:27

Senior, you're late for the episode. Yeah. You're late for recording.

SPEAKER_04 23:31

So anyway, there is an like the reason why this has been an issue of mine is like uh because We had tell us two quick things. Yeah. Like tourism has not been accounted for in these laws, and obviously a lot of land is used for that. And it Yes.

SPEAKER_06 23:51

A lot of isn't it mostly like the golden circle?

SPEAKER_04 23:54

No, like in developments with regards to tourism.

SPEAKER_06 23:57

All the tourists are tourism.

SPEAKER_04 23:59

Yeah, they're all here in the South.

SPEAKER_01 24:00

And they don't go anywhere else.

SPEAKER_05 24:03

It's like travesty levels of ostrich, how our laws do not reflect tourism in any way. It's like it doesn't exist.

SPEAKER_04 24:10

No, so that that is like that is currently leading to things happening to farmland in the south of Iceland that I don't think is a great idea down the road. And the other thing is that when you have um private property that has something on them that tourists like, you can't really like do any development on the thing on the site unless the owner of the property is interested in participating in that. And then you have some locations that have tourists, but everything is in shampoos, and I don't think that's and it does it doesn't seem like there's any regulation for the people who privately set up like tourist facilities on their land.

SPEAKER_05 24:48

Like it doesn't seem like it's regulated in any way.

SPEAKER_04 24:50

Not in a meaningful way. And then the last thing I think is that uh we've kind of been learning I do, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 24:57

I I honestly believe that like regulation uh you know in moderation can save the world.

SPEAKER_06 25:03

Okay, it's the whiskey talking.

SPEAKER_05 25:05

Yeah. Uh talking about regulation. If you haven't even heard the whiskey talking, you want to get, you know, Marxist-Leninists, like let's fucking go.

SPEAKER_04 25:14

The other thing that has kind of been become evoke uh invoke as a thought in the past two years is like supply chains. Yeah. And we are an island and we rely heavily on importation of foodstuffs and whatever else we need. Yeah. And the fact that uh our farmland is being used for anything but farming at this point, or at least 70-80% of it, may become an issue in the near future if if our problems with globalized supply chains continue to be for like there isn't easy like we can't. Well, that's the thing. It's not easy to farm in Iceland.

SPEAKER_05 25:54

Yeah, you've gotta you gotta have like a side way of making money to make it happen. Yeah, like like those uh tomato farmers.

SPEAKER_04 26:00

I I think I can I can frame this perfectly how how difficult it is. Uh so even during the thousand or twelve hundred years prior to modernity that people lived here, yeah, let's say before the n 20th century, uh, Iceland wasn't fully self-sustainable. We had we needed imports.

SPEAKER_01 26:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 26:19

And the total farmland of Iceland being used as much as possible during those centuries was only able to sustain around 50,000 people.

SPEAKER_08 26:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 26:28

We are now at 400,000, so Bob's your uncle or whatever, but uh you can kind of figure that if we didn't have supply chains, we couldn't survive here.

SPEAKER_05 26:37

Yeah. From my understanding of Icelandic history, it's the periods of deepest, most horrid misery on this island coincided with the years that we were self-sustaining, you know, quote unquote. I think everything good that's ever happened here has happened sort of on the shoulders of of the rest of society.

SPEAKER_01 26:57

Yeah. Like Nordic countries. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 27:01

Yep. Yeah. So, you know, our our number one buddy.

SPEAKER_04 27:05

So uh we have uh kind of a service announcement from uh for for tourism. Uh so we were talking about Dachtifos earlier, uh the most powerful water the fall that falls. Yeah, the sort of like least impressively named waterfall in Iceland. Waterfalls? Waterfall? Yeah. Fall falls. Fall Falls. It's uh people could have done it with more creativity there.

SPEAKER_05 27:30

Yeah, but why? What is it like the most common name of a farm in Iceland is Grave, right? I heard somewhere.

SPEAKER_04 27:38

Uh not necessarily like most common, but it's quite common.

SPEAKER_05 27:42

Yeah. I like that. I mean, I think it could have kind of mean like a different, it could just mean like a dig, like anywhere you had to dig. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 27:52

Um I like how the n all the neighborhoods in in in Reykjavik are named after just like you know how they have like the different sort of the second half of the name is like localized to an area. I'm explaining this to foreigners.

SPEAKER_00 28:07

Oh, you weren't explaining it to me.

SPEAKER_05 28:09

No, because I mean I you know, you guys designed it around Reykjavik, you know, perhaps not to the extent that I have. No. Uh but you know you note your way around. But yeah, I mean, essentially when I try to translate to foreigners like what our street names mean, it's always just hill, essentially. This is like hill, it's like hill, hill, different kind of hill. It's like hill, yeah. I live is like it was a male high haramelish, like all these places I live next to. It's like it also it's like hill, different variations of hill. Or something like that.

SPEAKER_04 28:39

Yeah, it's all different variations of landscape descriptions, I guess. Um so anyway. Have you guys been to Datibosh?

SPEAKER_01 28:48

Uh yeah.

SPEAKER_04 28:50

Did you enjoy it? Yeah. Yeah. It is a it's an impressive thing f thing. Like you can feel and hear the uh waterfall before you see it, because it's very powerful.

SPEAKER_01 29:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 29:03

It's a a towering scepter of natural majesty. I mean, how wide is it?

SPEAKER_00 29:09

It's massive.

SPEAKER_05 29:10

You'll find it's taller than it's wide.

SPEAKER_04 29:12

No, I mean I know it's tall, but the thing that like I remember being a surprise uh how wide the river is here. It's like it's huge in every in every way. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 29:23

And it's a tall drink of water, as they say. It is uh it's it's an ladies describe Yumti.

SPEAKER_04 29:29

Yeah, yeah. It's uh it's the it's a glacial it's in a glacial river in north of Iceland that goes from the waterfall now from Wachtnegut Glacier and out to the ocean in the north. And um some people may not uh remember it from the opening scene of Ritley Scott's 2012 um Profit News.

SPEAKER_05 29:50

For me the yes, which I worked on. Yeah, yeah. I was just at runner. Yeah, yeah. I uh I I drove um I drove around. I drove around the country in the middle of the night. And thanks to the airport.

SPEAKER_04 30:03

Thanks to tourism, the kind of like the transportation infrastructure and the parking and uh facilities there have well they've become quite a lot better in the past fifteen years than they were. Like there are new roads there.

SPEAKER_05 30:18

Thanks really Scott on the west side. But it's on the north. I'm looking at the map. Just to be clear, you know, to to to impart, you know, try to impart the the the significance of the visuals of Dathiphos. Yeah. Is that, you know, the man responsible for giving us like the first alien movie and Blade Runner and Gladiator saw this waterfall and decided, yes, this is the place where I will depict aliens giving birth to life on Earth. Yes. Yeah. Makes sense. Yeah, like an alien engineer like sacrifices himself and falls in there, and his DNA gives birth to life on Earth. And while there's a lot of CGI in that opening scene, it is not the waterfall. Yeah, that's very tastefully done, the CGI in that film. It's very understated.

SPEAKER_04 31:08

Uh but so But the Linia is also nice.

SPEAKER_05 31:13

So at least See, this is the whiskey talking. I start liking the waterfalls and not the water waterfalls of Iceland. Yeah, but by now, it was power of it.

SPEAKER_04 31:23

Well my god. Yeah, but you can approach the waterfall from the east and from the west. You can like drive towards it from the east. Yeah, yeah. Uh, and you can do it from the west. And this is on the west side, and it's not thought like there's a bunch of different routes to get there. Yeah. And they're closing one of them down permanently because they've discovered there's like a massive fissure system under there.

SPEAKER_05 31:41

Oh, so you were gonna say there was the the rat bug he was talking about bugs. Uh a colony of millions just hanging for necessary.

SPEAKER_04 31:51

Which is, I guess, like uh this could be a segue to a story about Grintavic, because that's a lot. I think we're not gonna talk about it, but uh, you know, it's still a lot of people.

SPEAKER_05 32:04

What do we talk about when we talk about Grintavik?

SPEAKER_04 32:07

Uh fissure systems who live there.

SPEAKER_05 32:09

The demise of society or humility in the face of nature.

SPEAKER_04 32:14

Yeah, and then uh just you know, another tourist tourism thing. You know, a couple of people were rescued on their bikes in the Southern Highlands last weekend. They were trying to bike um Vyatla bike, I think. That's like a great thing to do. And the uh conditions were so snowy and slushy, it was kind of melting snow that they gave up and called for help. Could I think I figured like why didn't they turn around is what I'm confused by.

SPEAKER_05 32:42

Well, I'm just gonna stop and sit here and call somebody on my I mean if you ever bite to any significant degree, it's like you get fuck-ass tired. It's like the last thing you want to do is keep going. When you give up, it's just like time for a card.

SPEAKER_06 32:56

They have a longer way to go to their destination than just to go back. Yeah, I don't get it.

SPEAKER_04 33:03

It's like so it wasn't that thing that they were too tired to go. I think they were just You're saying they were just too stupid?

SPEAKER_01 33:10

Well, he's thinking like i i i if they decided to give up, they're just like, oh, then I'm not gonna do anything. I'm gonna have someone pick me up.

SPEAKER_04 33:17

It's a two fucking gen gen zeros or something.

SPEAKER_05 33:21

Yeah, yeah. I'm never bike across Hempabuck.

SPEAKER_03 33:33

No, that's true, and I didn't do that either, so I can't tell really.

SPEAKER_05 33:37

Yeah, I but I I Does that speak to our tragic lack of ambition, perhaps, rather than their foolishness.

SPEAKER_04 33:44

I did put in like you know, a couple of work disks within each uh each day of summer from the age of ten or something, so yeah, to be able to use that view or the S Island. Yeah, it was still functioning then.

SPEAKER_07 33:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 33:57

Um it's just a tourist trap. No, it's just a massive tourist trap. What is his farm?

SPEAKER_05 34:05

Ah Well, I mean that's not a sign of the times, I don't know what is.

SPEAKER_04 34:10

Well, speaking of that particular farm near Lorat, um the farming officially ceased uh last fall.

unknown 34:17

Right?

SPEAKER_04 34:17

Oh, it really did. Yeah, when they the the rest of the sheep were went to waved by waived waved by. Yeah, did uh did they like do the halal thing? Uh no, I when I when I was in the whole sheep killing business, we would do the halal thing, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 34:33

Because now SS, you're they announced that because of like some phone calls of angry people, they will stop using the halal method.

SPEAKER_04 34:44

Why? I really don't know. They're they're killing sheep. Like it doesn't really matter. Uh no.

SPEAKER_06 34:51

And it it's like, do we have like a Christian way of killing sheep? So why can't we do it the halal way?

SPEAKER_04 35:00

Same result. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 35:03

Beats me.

SPEAKER_01 35:03

I give it on the table.

SPEAKER_04 35:05

Yeah, that that sounds uh incredibly racist to me. Yeah. I think it's nothing but that, probably.

SPEAKER_05 35:11

You're saying because Christians don't really give a shit, we should just s slaughter lambs the way that that other religions prefer. I mean, if someone they pre shit. Yeah, if someone gives a shit, uh, that should be the preferred method.

SPEAKER_04 35:24

I can't yeah, like uh it's kinda like uh I I don't remember if halal is basically the same as kosher here.

SPEAKER_05 35:34

Kosher, the people the people they come and they inspect, you know, to make sure that everything is kosher.

SPEAKER_06 35:39

I think that this might surprise you, but I've never killed a sheep. So I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 35:44

Well, your brother is now a sheep farmer, so you have ample opportunity to show you. Yeah, I'm not gonna help him. Tell him to call me. But you're a journalist, you can at least document it, right?

SPEAKER_07 35:54

Now I I I mean I didn't eat meat for like seven years or something. It's I mean, it's not my thing.

SPEAKER_03 36:00

Fair enough.

SPEAKER_04 36:01

Yeah, well. Uh okay, so uh we're gonna end with Bootbin. Sorry. Yeah, sorry. The other birthday boy this week. Um I got thoughts. But we we have to talk about our favorite pat uh subject.

SPEAKER_06 36:18

I heard a great story about Boot B just yesterday. Oh boy.

SPEAKER_05 36:24

Because he's even he's dreading it. He's like a pink to the hand. I can I can't oh no, let's figure it out in the room, at least because he's taller than he is substantially taller.

SPEAKER_06 36:36

Substantially would Yeah, I'm like tiny when I stand next to you. Yeah. My wife commented on that when we saw you running yesterday.

SPEAKER_04 36:46

No, she didn't. No. You're making like shit up.

SPEAKER_00 36:48

Who was that tall guy you were running with?

SPEAKER_02 36:49

She doesn't she doesn't see it but I'm not sure.

SPEAKER_06 36:52

I was like walking slowly. No, I was on a bike. You're on a bike. Yeah. But uh yeah, Puppy. Uh he was like built himself a house in Kiosk, which is like this uh the rich people's lake.

SPEAKER_05 37:04

Yeah, it's yeah but it's like uh you know, one and there are many rich people's lakes. Northwest. Northwest away go lake. No. Even that, even the rich people have taken that number for sure.

SPEAKER_04 37:19

No, the our uh no, we're too poor to afford water.

SPEAKER_05 37:22

So by Tjotnin, there's like uh was it that all had a booster or whatever that is.

SPEAKER_04 37:26

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 37:28

Have you seen that when it's been like it's like parked up when with all the SUVs? Yeah, black Mercedes SUVs. Nice guy. They also just spent more than 400 million renovating. Renovating it, right? Because it's all like fresh paint. Some of that was what we're gonna say.

SPEAKER_04 37:43

A hundred million that they spent on wallpaper, which is kind of a stunt. I don't get it. How can you spend that much money on wallpaper?

SPEAKER_01 37:50

I mean, if it's like a gold wallpaper, do you need to talk about the gilded age?

SPEAKER_05 37:55

Are we still running this propaganda thing about how there's no classes in Iceland? How we're a class free system.

SPEAKER_04 38:02

Oh that's not propaganda. That kind of used to be true once, but that's definitely not true anymore. Nope. At some point.

SPEAKER_06 38:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 38:09

Uh Bippi was building a house in Kielz. Yeah. Right. And then he needed to rent a place in Lakewick. Wildness. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 38:16

Uh and his wife, Rapildus. Uh she went to the it's like a guy who was trying to rent out his own house. And he was like, I will uh if it's okay, I'll I'll come by tonight with my husband, Auspit. And he was just like, Yeah, sure.

SPEAKER_01 38:32

Yeah, that's that's fine.

SPEAKER_04 38:34

Uh and then his wife like opened uh the door's photo when they arrived. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 38:42

And they just went looking at the house, and then this guy came back to his house and found Bippy standing in his living room. And it was just like, What the fuck is going on? Because nobody talks about him as Auspit. Exactly, it's his wife, yeah, apparently. Normalized uh marriage.

SPEAKER_04 39:00

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Kind of level it down. There's in this marriage, it's Auspit. There's no Bippi in this.

SPEAKER_05 39:06

Yeah. So to explain to the context of our foreign viewers, you know, I told it for you, guys. Uh, you know, and his his name is like yeah, I mean uh would it be the same as Bubba? I think Bubba is a bit too uh trashy. Too trashy, but it's more like uh, you know, like like I don't know, Jimmy or Johnny or something like that. But his actual name is like Ausbit, which is like the equivalent of like uh a rare name. Um Theodore or something.

SPEAKER_04 39:42

Yeah, it's not it's not it's not that common. Theodore called Bubba.

SPEAKER_05 39:45

I mean that's no, I mean Auspit is pretty common. I I guess it's more common than Theodore. It's like uh Travis. Travis Moffins.

SPEAKER_01 39:56

Yeah, Travis more common than Theodore.

SPEAKER_05 39:59

I know I feel like I know a few Travises.

SPEAKER_04 40:01

I I mean uh I've looked this this this is an old joke. I've looked this up in my gut, and according to my gut, that's true. But please don't look that up.

SPEAKER_05 40:09

They're all named after the Blink182 drummer. Yeah. Yeah, okay or the or uh uh Robert De Niro's heartwarming character from Taxi Driver. Uh but uh man anyone would name their son after.

SPEAKER_04 40:21

Have you been paying uh attention to the discussions about the indebtedness of uh the construction industry in Iceland? So yes, I have because I'm trying to enter this uh industry as a carpenter. Yeah, yeah. And it's not it's not looking good. So it's like probably the worst time ever to be in the construction business. Yeah. So the Federation of Athletic Industries is such jerks all the time.

SPEAKER_06 40:47

No construction worker, it's something that they teach at school.

SPEAKER_04 40:51

So the uh Federation of Athletic Industries was warning of increased indept uh indebtedness in the construction in the construction industry.

SPEAKER_05 41:01

The B the B just doesn't exist.

SPEAKER_04 41:03

And then the uh the chairman of the I guess you can call it how the State Housing Authority or something. Home S was uh pointing out that uh apartments and neighborhoods are have currently been planned that uh for people that do not exist. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:22

And uh the you know housing prices have been falling in real terms, and the numbers of apartments are on sale have increased, and it's thinking you want to sell them, and new apartments are not selling, and apparently with these interest rates, these construction companies are stacking up in l uh in interests that they have to pay, and they're yeah, and it takes a lot of time from when you have to when you're in a uh like if if you're a constructor, you take out an al loan uh on like eight percent, nine percent interest rates. Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_06 41:56

Uh and then you have to wait for the municipality to like like give up permits and uh stuff like that. And then the cost just piles up. Accumulates. Accumulates, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 42:09

Or or piles up.

SPEAKER_07 42:12

Yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_05 42:14

Okay. I and I mean this is the smoothest way I've done what you're if you're talking about, you know, money or feces. This is this is this is the smoothest way I've been told to fuck off for a long time, but continue.

SPEAKER_04 42:24

The feces accumulates.

SPEAKER_00 42:26

The feces, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 42:27

Yeah, the fees. That's true.

SPEAKER_06 42:31

Uh and I mean And then before it was like unattainable to buy a house because of the market situation, and now it's gonna be even worse in like two or three years. And we basically are doing nothing because the only economic policy in place uh with the government is uh balance the budget. It's like they're not doing anything else. That's their only plan.

SPEAKER_04 42:59

No, it's it's been a long like a long time uh annoyance of mine that the government has just seated all worries usually about um the inflation in Iceland. Which is what they're trying to do now. To the central bank, uh who whose only tool basically is this crude uh uh interest rate tool, which just fucks everybody up who's not really responsible for the inflation. And yeah, and then on the top of that doesn't actually work because it isn't actually affecting the people who are creating the inflation. Yeah. And now we're s situated in a situation where apparently uh the policy of building in the city has led to a lot of uh apartments now in this uh environment of inflation and a high housing market which just aren't moving. They're not selling. And the people and The companies who built them obviously took loans out who built them and those are just inflating. Yeah. And it kinda looks like a you know unstable situation that might have like a catastrophic catastrophic domino effect.

SPEAKER_05 44:20

But it it already is. It already is having a catastrophic domino effect.

SPEAKER_04 44:26

Yeah, but in a sense that it will actually kinda lead to some sort of domino thing on the Atlantic just general economic market. Because it's just they're they're just hanging on for dear life. I don't know how they're paying off their interest rates. I suspect they're just like the banks are probably taking up apartments every day or week or something to pay for these, which they can't sell anyway. But the banks obviously don't want them to default on everything, which lends them with all of these apartments which sold.

SPEAKER_05 44:51

Because the banks have a vested interest in not allowing them to fail.

SPEAKER_04 44:54

So if we have 1700 unsold apartments, I think in Iceland or something, that's just like a gigantic just like only 400,000 people live here, so we only have so and so many. So this is like a large portion of like the housing market and the disproportionately properly in Reiki. So this is like a massive hiccup. And it's kind of stuck in limbo and nobody wants to own it. And that's at some point it's gonna have to go somewhere, and then we're gonna have some sort of ripple effect, I just barred it.

SPEAKER_05 45:20

I think you know it'll just continue the same, just SSDD. I've been waiting for the bottom to fall out of this in like any kind of meaningful catastrophic way for like 15 fucking years. And it just they always find a way to just keep their racket going.

SPEAKER_04 45:36

Yeah, but every so often in Iceland history, like every 20 years or so, give or take, we have a decent fuck-up. I mean it uh unemployment uh is going up now, and it's 5.2%, which is a new should have for Iceland. Um, you know, there's a bunch of clouds on the horizon. Um Yeah, I'm excited. Yeah, package be fun. And we didn't even mention like like the last time we didn't even talk about the Icelandair thing, and we I don't know if we should be bothered now too, but that's one of the things they were worrying about.

SPEAKER_06 46:08

Yeah. But Icelandair is like a company that's too big to fail.

SPEAKER_04 46:12

It is too big to fail. It will be bailed out no matter what. But they are like they're still having an ongoing labor dispute with their pilots, which kind of probably doesn't act like nobody's gonna bail them out, you know, when they're talking about their pilots' fucking salaries. Yeah. Yeah, and I mean it's well there that can't be the like the real problem with the business model.

SPEAKER_06 46:36

I mean, they've been run at a loss for years and years and years.

SPEAKER_05 46:41

Yeah, I was thinking about that because the good like Morgumplay ran like a headline saying, you know, that the CEO or whatever was complaining that they would be, you know, they were gonna run at a loss this year, that they weren't gonna you know, and it's just like doesn't that happen a lot? I mean, is this really news?

SPEAKER_06 46:57

Yeah, but the share uh this time around since that the CEO took over.

SPEAKER_04 47:01

Yeah, this time around the shareholders, however, uh have uh are kind of fed off with feeting as their liquidity, so that's a problem.

SPEAKER_01 47:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 47:09

But uh I mean it's like I have nothing against uh the CEO, but if I was like a shareholder of Iceland data, I would we would start to basically have another.

SPEAKER_04 47:21

Yeah, I mean uh God all help us if you had any any say in that. Anyway, uh you you would be the scourge of CEOs. Yeah, you're gonna be the scourge of CEOs. Yeah. So uh I want to end on like uh No, I'm gonna We began with you, we're gonna end with you. Uh before we end with you, we're gonna talk about Puppy Most, whose 70th birthday concert was in Lotus at the Sport Stadium.

SPEAKER_05 47:52

Yeah, and he's got exactly what 30 years older than me is. So every time he has a big one, you know, like every time I have a big birthday, he has a big birthday.

SPEAKER_03 48:02

Yeah, just I mean you know, kind of uh let's say there's a 30-year gap here.

SPEAKER_04 48:07

I think uh just general population uh statistics uh indicate that you will then have a nice run where he is not having a birthday.

SPEAKER_05 48:19

Well, I mean if I if I make a whiskey faster than he can go through, you know, enemas or whatever rich people do.

SPEAKER_04 48:28

So Bibby I went to Bibby's 70th birthday concert on the Saturday. He did have another concert on the Friday because the first one sold out. And my taxi driver told me that. Yeah, and so I guess he played for like 10,000 plus people this weekend. And it was a three-hour show, it was like a full-on Bruce Springsteen length thing. Just for him. And I have a few observations that I'd like to share with you on this thing. Uh first of all, it's not unusual for Boopit to be chatty between songs, and he was. And his chat's usually related to like whatever song came next, so it kind of made sense. And his first sort of long talk was about inflation in Iceland, and he was saying stuff like I've been living here for 70 years, there's been like inflation all this time. It's making livelihood for like the poor in Iceland terrible, etc. etc. etc. And then he said, now it's time for us to decide whether it's yes or no. And it didn't say it explicitly, but it was implied that he was referring to the EU OTS4. And then he obviously played a song that was has the refrain Yao Yao Me. Like and it's about parliamentarians, lying politicians, basically. Which he kind of talked about to it.

SPEAKER_05 49:43

The lying politicians, do we want them to be foreign or domestic?

SPEAKER_04 49:46

And what amused me, or like what has surprised me or not actually did not surprise me was that the the the crowd booed. So the public crowd was not interested in the EU talk.

SPEAKER_05 49:59

Is that really surprising? No, it didn't surprise me that. But he didn't If you've accumulated any wealth in this country, and the wealth to go to this concert anyway, then you wouldn't need wealth to To buy that ticket.

SPEAKER_04 50:14

How much was the ticket? I had no idea. I can't tell you. Obviously.

SPEAKER_06 50:22

He bought the ticket and doesn't even he didn't even check how much.

SPEAKER_05 50:26

I didn't buy the ticket. Uh it's not a purchase ticket. He went as a journalist. No. I and the pig the ticket was bought. Are you paying for all the tickets you're s they're sending you to?

SPEAKER_01 50:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 50:35

So um a matter of principle. So the the second thing he decided to talk about, and this was kind of interesting too, but kind of like right on brand for Pipe and his his morals, was he talked about uh what he called the imported disgusting politics of hate.

SPEAKER_01 50:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 50:54

That had been and like and that those who were touting that were absolute pieces of shit. And then you know, went into like everybody has the right to be loved, no matter who they are and how they are. And then he played his 1984 hit Straugan Raborki, which is calling them a lot of people did all some heavy lifting in in sort of normalizing homosexuality enough back in the 80s. And at this this time around nobody like booed, which was good. But then he started talking again like a few songs later, and then I heard some guy behind me scream like Half to spirit or sink the like hold like shut up and s and sing.

SPEAKER_05 51:34

Yeah, shut up and play your guitar. Yeah, something like that.

SPEAKER_04 51:37

Yeah. Um the I think the other observations I have for this is that uh He's bitch a tease though, because he didn't name any names, did he?

SPEAKER_05 51:44

He was just like, oh, the you know, the imported politics of hate, but you know, he he didn't put names to it.

SPEAKER_06 51:50

Into some specifics. I mean it's obvious who he's talking about.

SPEAKER_03 51:53

It's very obvious. What do you think about it?

SPEAKER_05 51:55

Obvious to us, but I mean I feel like you know I think it was very obvious to the crowd.

SPEAKER_04 51:59

It was obvious to me. But uh he then uh so the other things that were surprising to me, and and I'm I've been told afterwards consider because he named my name back in the day. I think I think it's uh I think it's now a thing with concerts like these, because I was at this basically exact same concert twenty years ago and so were used. That the people were just screaming sing-along, like it was a screaming sing along for three hours. Which apparently is something that happens in like Taylor Swift concerts. But Jung's chili, when I go to a concert, people are concert are listening, not if you're singing along.

SPEAKER_05 52:31

But if you throw like a giant anniversary show and you invite a bunch of Icelandic people, they're gonna get drunk and sing along.

SPEAKER_04 52:36

Yeah, but they that wasn't the my memory of the 20 years ago show that people actually listened. Ah, not Romeo Yuri, I remember that. No, no, no, that makes sense, but not the whole set. And I was like l looking to the soul set, realizing, okay, I've been exposed to by association, like radio or something. I never really deliberately listened. These people know their lyrics. Peace of Christ, and they just screamed the whole time.

SPEAKER_01 52:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 52:59

The last observation I have, which may also made this an unusual experience for me going to concerts, is this was like a sweetable.

SPEAKER_02 53:06

Oh, really?

SPEAKER_04 53:07

This was it it had the exact vibes of a sweetable. Sweetable is like a you have a cover band playing in, you know, somewhere in the house on the counterset in the summer, and you have like hundreds of really drunk people trying to like you know, hit it off with somebody.

SPEAKER_00 53:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 53:28

Yeah, and and trying to make friends. Or, you know, getting up fights. You describe it, you know. It's uh I mean it's like a vibe everyone would recognize, but nobody can really describe, isn't it?

SPEAKER_04 53:37

That's so so like while like I was not in the seating area, but the people around me who were like from being teenagers up to like people in their late middle age and late 80s up in the in the seating area, they were rowdy, they were drunk, there was a lot of drinking going on.

SPEAKER_05 53:57

And like because 20 years ago it was very suburban, wasn't it? It was very it was almost like wine mom. It was very like Yeah, but this was like then the cats were hammered.

SPEAKER_01 54:06

Yeah, yeah. And he he was like wearing a tuxito 20 years ago and had like a big band with it.

SPEAKER_05 54:12

Yeah, I um I don't think it was him so much as just the Zika. Iceland like pre-collapse, you know, was so like, oh, we're this like very refined nation, then we're really coming into our own. And now it's just like we're all gonna fucking die anyway. Like let's just get trashed.

SPEAKER_04 54:28

But uh the the the the other thing that you that I picked up from the vibes of vibes of uh Sweetabal was that uh you know people really drunk in Rotti, and that usually ends up with like confrontations completely sent to somebody and it happened, but I knew from the vibe that it was never gonna end with like violence because people were too wiped up somehow. But the other Sweetabal element was that a lot of people there, especially the younger people, they were there for other people, they were there for the event, they were like fishing, they were not there for the show because they were turning their backs on the show trying to like connect with other people in the crowd. That amused me greatly because I'd already seen that in the others I didn't for the night or for life, who knows?

SPEAKER_05 55:11

For for better or for worse, he is you know just like a cultural institution. Oh, yeah, people regard I think a lot of people probably regard going to his show not as seeing a concert, but just like being there at this big event, you know.

SPEAKER_03 55:25

Yeah, it happens. But I mean like m like slaying white stuff with a event almost.

SPEAKER_04 55:31

Fucking Tour de Force, I mean w well executed, well planned three-hour thirty-six songs at.

SPEAKER_07 55:40

I mean that is so long. Yes.

SPEAKER_06 55:45

I could do it. I mean I obviously don't listen to music, but if you did, you would feel that would be a long stint.

SPEAKER_04 55:53

Yeah, and uh, you know, it it it's uh it takes physical, it's physically strange you to stand for three hours. Yeah. But that's it's a thing.

SPEAKER_05 56:02

Even if it's a band I I mean, I went to see like Guy by Voices and they played for like two hours, and that was good. It's just like, okay, I'm this is I'm ready for this to be done.

SPEAKER_08 56:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 56:10

Like who wants their fate like even their number one favorite in the entire universe, who wants them playing for three fucking hours?

SPEAKER_04 56:17

Yes. Well, I mean, I think you wanted to give people's uh money worth money's worth or something. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 56:23

I guess the set list was probably like, you know, there were there were like rises and falls and sort of if you would objectively look at the build-up, it would be very well executed in terms of like how you do a long set.

SPEAKER_04 56:38

It had like a one-mountain and ended on like a higher note. Yet he got everybody everybody completely nuts on like a couple of old songs like uh Hiroshima and uh Fedanawaka, and then played Romeo and Julia to kind of let everybody smoothly out close.

SPEAKER_05 56:55

Yeah, well, he tried having Romeo and Julia kind of in the middle 20 years ago and that was like, yeah, you can't really you can't really it's hard to get people ramped up again after that.

SPEAKER_04 57:07

Yeah, but um yeah, that was uh that was uh that was the uh the my short pipe review. Uh that's nice, thank you. Let's now review the uh the uh personally I didn't make it to because of this. Oh was it?

SPEAKER_05 57:20

Yeah, I mean talk about you know sort of uh interesting choices with regards to set list. I mean the karaoke was kind of all over the place. Uh any highlights? Uh yeah, somebody did Pantera. That was pretty cool.

unknown 57:37

Who?

SPEAKER_05 57:38

Uh Pantera. They were this metal band.

SPEAKER_02 57:41

No, no, who did the who covered Pantera?

SPEAKER_05 57:44

Oh, uh you don't know. Uh fuck.

SPEAKER_02 57:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 57:47

Uh I don't know. It's it's a it's a shit vibe up there, the karaoke at A's Hut. Like if I was doing karaoke, if I had to pick a place in karaoke nice, and this is relevant to the podcast. I thought about this. This is actually useful information. Don't do it there. Uh yeah, Pablo Discobar is sort of the runaway winner, in my opinion. Okay. They sort of have the right combination of these sort of vague but important elements in karaoke. Like it needs to be, even in a private room, there needs to be a certain amount of public, I feel like. There's none of that at Ayos Hutch, but Pablo has these windows into the like the rest of the bar. Okay. And it's pretty easy for randos to just sort of walk in. Which a lot of people say is a bad thing, but I kind of regard it as like a necessary feature of karaoke to be repeatedly telling drunk people to to fuck off. Okay. Or or maybe some of sometimes let them in, you know. So so it somebody comes in and says, Oh, can I please do one song? It's just like, you know, oh yeah, if you seem cool.

SPEAKER_04 58:44

So if I understand the saddle of Pablo, is that they they will show you the rest of the crowd, but shield that crowd from whatever noise you're making.

SPEAKER_05 58:52

Sort of. I mean, there's windows which are not totally noise proof, but like but but in Pablo they will be playing loud music, you know, which will overwhelm whatever's going on in the karaoke. Oh, yeah, go, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 59:02

My office is like across the street from Pablo. I can tell you for certain that codes are not soundproof in the literature.

SPEAKER_05 59:09

Yeah. And especially yeah, like late at night on weekends, you walk past, you can hear the karaoke, you're like, I think something else. I mean that being also like a necessary aspect of karaoke, is like you don't really want people to hear you singing, but you also do kind of want people to hear you singing a little bit. So it's like it's like a good combination. You can't see them, but you can hear them.

SPEAKER_04 59:30

Well, for people who have been listening to this podcast for some time now, I can tell you that the building that ho h hosts this karaoke bar or something else, couple disco bar, is of the same thing. Yeah, they're about as this thing. They look about the same. You people know that this place is not soundproof whatsoever. It's nice. Yeah. Yeah, no, it's it's it's cozy.

SPEAKER_03 59:53

But I think we're done.

SPEAKER_04 59:55

Happy birthday again, Cinder. Oh, thank you. I love you. Yeah, I love you too. I think give me a hand here. Let's do this. Yeah. What are we doing? We're just uh thanks for listening and watching. We are Iceland round up. Uh goodbye.