Irish days

Irish days in Akranes are celebrated every year now with music, games and competitions. Irish days in Iceland? Akranes, just a little north of Reykjavík and reached through the long tunnel beneath Hvalfjörður (whale fjörd) was founded by two Irish brothers. So for the last few years all things Irish have been celebrated at the start of July in this little coastal Icelandic town.

This year, on the Friday afternoon and on the Saturday night I joined a Scottish friend and her friends for a spot of music and song. I really enjoyed it. The girls were so much fun and so talented and three guys joined us .. two Icelanders on banjo and Ukulele and a Quebecois fiddle player. I hope to go next year too.

Photos taken by Sylviane Lebon

Montreal colour

I am sat in a rocking chair by the window listening to reels and jigs played on a fiddle wafting from across the street, the music dancing through the leaves of the trees and landing softly on the windowsill beside me.

It has been a warm day, okay, rephrase that .. very hot .. my head hurt from forgetting to drink enough and not been covered up. It is still warm at 7pm-ish, warmer than it ever gets in Iceland. I have wandered, in and out of streets, shops, cafes, watched salsa dancers dancing in the street and sat in the park under the shade of a big maple where the ground was cool and the grass fresh-smelling.


It has been a day of green tea. I started the day by ruining my first cup by automatically, sleepily putting milk in first.. then the second cup was better and accompanied by interesting conversation from E my host about immigration and multiculturalism. She is a port in a storm or in a lost at sea feeling anyway for Brazilians visiting or moving to Montreal which I think is such an excellent purpose for a guesthouse. A home from home really, and a lovely one at that. I'm not sure how intelligent it is possible to be at breakfast for me .. but I was awake from 5am thinking I had slept in (slept out) in Iceland! Cups two, three, four, five, six and probably also seven were served with delicate tea service and beautiful wooden implements, a clay teapot and the tiniest little cups.. hence the number. I am waiting to meeting a Montrealler from Montreal .. so far everyone is at least one generation or less away from being an immigrant.. it is fascinating. An Iranian-Canadian geography masters graduate drove the taxi from the airport to my guesthouse, the lady who runs Chez Brasil where I am staying is a psychologist from Brazil (obviously) and the Taiwanese tea fan who treated me to tea and Taiwanese shortbread (really) was a Scottish Canadian.

I am relaxing now listening to Irish fiddle music, snacking on cherries and black olive bread and feeling very comfortable and happy. Maybe after two years of being different it is nice to be somewhere where everyone is so different. I do believe it is easy to fall in love with Montreal. Still, I know at night I will lie in bed, sniff the city air, and hear the buzz of night here and remember my Icelandic home with a gentle, fond thought.

Big day for Iceland

Last night we sat watching elections all night. First the Eurovision Song Contest which Iceland was knocked out of quite unjustly because of neighbourly voting in eastern Europe and a limited Scandinavian population to back up a pretty good attempt, by Eurovision standards, by Eiríkur Hauksson. Perhaps not being a beautiful blond model didn't help either. Still, being knocked out before the final didn´t stop folk taking everything seriously and being outrageously irritated by the unfair, political voting. This year west versus east Europe it seems. It didn´t help pointing out that it has always been like that. Also didn´t stop Iceland voting for Sweden and Finland at 10 and 12 points.

Then, to my horror, before the winner was announced, just seconds before the finale and replay of the winning song, the TV cut to watch the other big event of the day.. watching the ballot results coming from across Iceland. For yesterday was the Icelandic parliamentary elections that threatened at least to be a pretty close run. In the end the two parties in the ruling coalition were voted back in, but that wasn´t too clear until around 4am.

Of course I couldn't vote for the politicians but it was pointed out to me to soothe the loss that I had one big advantage over everyone here .. I could still put my political ideas into practise by voting twice for the Eurovision, once with my Icelandic mobile and once with my British one.

A suitable follow up to Lordi? Photo by Peter Stubbs

This all reminded me of the recent elections in Scotland. I couldn't vote there either because it was deemed not to be a national election despite being my nation. I had some lively conversations in Edinburgh and was brought close to tears at the unusual levels of hope and community strength in the city. Perhaps for once we Scots were able to believe that there could be change and hope for the country, that we could make a difference and be proud. For how can you proudly hold your head up to the world if you have no power to make decisions for your own country? Keep harking back to the great Scots of old and those who went away from Scotland and did brave and exceptional things abroad? Or am I just getting all Sean Connery-like and getting more pro-Scots than any Scot still living at home? Not sure I want that to happen. Or is it just more noticeable to me now that a small country can do well as an independent nation?

If an independent Scotland were entered into the Eurovison which political connections would they be trying to maintain through the media of drag acts and sparkles? Well, apparently there was a Scot there, singing for Montenegro, who´s ancestor "William Faddy, .. came through Montenegro on the Crusades and fell in love with a local girl and decided to stay". He hoped that would help his song win Scottish support. Viewed that way, the Norwegians, Danes and Irish should have voted to keep Iceland in the contest and perhaps Iceland would have won Eurovision.. just like they should have done of course!

Fashionable folk?

Talented, fashionable folk! A happy night with friends, January 2006.

I like listening to the radio. I remember well Karen sitting in the wooden summer-house style room in the west of Reykjavík that we lived in consecutively listening to late night shows from an opinionated old guy. I should find out what that is - maybe I´d get some more of it now. My Icelandic is still less well tuned .. I listen to RUV 2 and Bylgjan, equivalent to BBC Radio 2 and Forth FM, and try to understand repetitive song lyrics and adverts for special deals at Bónus. Don´t eat the special offer meat.. just a warning.

I heard a few days ago on a very straight-laced radio program, Woman´s Hour, to which I am a devout expat listener, that folk music is fashionable. I tune into it to get a taste of home and intelligent (sometimes) conversation or when I need to just get a background noise that is relaxing. . translating ads occupies too much of my brain for a sideline activity. It is truly the best place to hear about women´s rights, medical scare stories, old fashioned recipes and excuses for sticky puddings and very proper, slightly blushingly announced, discussions of rather intimate matters!

So, folk music is fashionable.. never thought I´d be a particular fan of fashionable music. Actually, I thought folk was somehow independent of fashion, routed in the past, yet still alive, never really likely to go in phases of popularity like mini skirts or shoulder pads. But now folk is blending so much more with other types of music .. my all time favourite ceilidh band, The Cutting Edge, for example, skillfully plays traditional Scottish folk with a salsa beat.

The Cutting Edge, men in kilts for felis!

Six months ago or so a friendly Icelandic girl asked me which Icelandic music I liked. I was embarrassed to admit I only knew three bands.. not counting Björk who is really less well liked here that in the UK.. 1. Bubbi Morthens, one the nation´s most famous singers, more favoured than Björk at home. His songs are the ones that many people listen to but don´t admit to and they are always the ones people sing when drunk at the end of parties.. 2. Hjálmar, a Swedish-Icelandic reggae band (not joking) and 3. Jeff Who? who are poppy-indie stuff with english lyrics and I mainly remember because I once lived round the corner from the guitarist who stopped me in the street to promote a gig.

Since then I´ve explored a bit more and living with a fiddle player introduces you to more music, though definitely with a folky slant and an awful lot originating in Ireland, Scotland and Nova Scotia rather than in Iceland. The bothy ballads (e.g. The Barnyards o Delgaty) I grew up with, which are proudly attached to a small agricultural heartland in the north of Scotland, are played here with Icelandic lyrics. Iceland in many ways reminds me of Buchan in its fishing and farming heritage and perhaps the songs fit in as well in both homes. I wonder whether they came from north east Scotland or if the Norse left them there on their route north and westwards.

These day in Iceland folk is very alive and blends seamlessly with other influences. There are so many unsigned bands here playing in bars and clubs and living rooms around the town it amazes me. And so many are so good. So, for those of you interested in the Icelandic music scene, have a look at these folk (now try not to read anything into the names, be thankful there's nothing dangerous in there like trolls, Christmas lads or hidden people):

Ljótu hálfvitarnir, the ugly halfwits.. a play on words, I´m told.
Hlynur Ben
Papar, the Irish monks, the Icelandic-Irish folk band
Búálfar, the leprechauns, of course!
My Summer as a Salvation Soldier
Hraun, lava

Apples, oaks and (mis)translations

Ever tried translating sayings into another language? Imagine from the point of view of a non-native English speaker (sorry all non-native English speakers but this is to make a point): Picture the scene and translating this:

Poor, withered old codger, he popped his clogs and they all thought it was just old age. His old lady though knew that the others were barking up the wrong tree. You see, his niece had this butter wouldn´t melt in her mouth look. She was sweet, pretty with big blue eyes and an innocent air but somehow the old lady just never took to her... just said "I´m not going to bother beating around the bush at my age, she´s not my cup of tea and thats that". Maybe when you are someone´s niece you have some sway with the will-writing plans and this idea just wouldn´t budge from the widow´s head. But would anyone believe her, an old lady, slightly not there in the head, long since lost her glow? She didn´t think so."Lost the last of her marbles with grief and years of bottled up jealousy" they´d say. That girl was going to run off with all the gold and get off scot free.

And, haven´t you always wondered, what was the "best thing before sliced bread?"

In Iceland you can say "Ég borga bara með reiðufé" mistranslating to "I will only pay with an angry sheep", "Hver á þessa bók?" being "Hot spring river this book" or "Hann stóð á öndinni", "He stood on the duck". In Iceland also no apple falls far from the oak tree! Apparently. But then apples are giant heavy American ones with little taste and oak trees are few and far between.

Here is the ever-present issue about how much one understands as a foreigner in a country. I always wondered if many foreign students I met were desperately shy or had little sense of humour but I realise being in Iceland and often being lost in conversations that it is really hard work listening to a foreign language you are not fluent in. Add sleepiness or background music and it is virtually impossible. So.. one can easily become quiet and drift off in conversations to a dreamy world of ones own and rarely will you laugh at jokes or crack your own. It takes a determined and outgoing person to avoid this trap. Things get better though and after a phase of being silent as your learn some words yourself, feeling lacking in a sense of humour and being really frustrated, once in a while you'll laugh out loud at something or answer wittily to some over-blunt Icelandic comment and my, it is nice to feel more part of things. It is like being released from some sort of cage.

"Epli og eikur" (apples and oaks) is a new musical production from the theatre group Hugleikur, written by Þórunn Guðmundsdóttir. I went with Óli to the premier last Friday. It is a twisty-turny story of love and confusion and criminal activity.Even foreigners can follow the plot and get at least one pet worm joke. Many of the songs and jokes are constructed on plays on words so that is difficult, but very funny if you get it.. and if you don't there are always the slap-stick moments and the musical interludes that will keep you amused. If you can go, do.. Möguleikhúsið near Hlemmur for the next few weeks. This is of course a blatant plug for a play with my boyfriend and the two English gentlemen in so I´m not particularly objective. But it is fun. Truly. The music is fun and the acting is really professional. They are another bunch of super-talented musicians and artists, jacks of all the entertainment trades (almost) and masters of many. Möguleikhús is really intimate so you feel like you are in someone´s living room. It´s cosy and nice. I´ll go again.

chocyamo

She is so wonderful.. watch their Bernard Drake video