Caliban - Opinion and Righteous Anger

I can reveal that the stories have not been exaggerated. New Year in Iceland is completely mental!

At 23:15, we put Eloïse in the pram, wrapped Lucas in the sling, and headed up to Hallgrímskirkja, the famous church located on a square where many of the side-streets heading up from Laugavegur converge. Many people head there to watch and set off their fireworks, so we thought that would be a good place to go.

People clearly can't wait for midnight, because the sky was already incandescent a good twenty minutes before the witching hour commenced. The air was acrid with the stench of spent gunpowder. An ambulance crew carted off the night's first casualty, who had probably fallen victim to beer, rather than an errant firework.

I couldn't help but be reminded of Amsterdam on New Years Eves long past.

At midnight, all hell broke loose. I struggled without a tripod to take some usable photos of the mayhem exploding all around me. Fireworks are tricky things to photograph well. Eloïse and Lucas remained surprisingly calm as explosions shattered the night sky.

I couldn't help but spare a thought for the people of Gaza, who, for days now, have also been subjected to loud explosions of a much more sinister nature. One can only hope that continued international pressure on the shameful government of Israel yields fruit sooner, rather than later.

But I digress.

As we headed home, it was close to 01:00, and people were busy piling into the city's many clubs and bars for one of the all-night parties going on at most of the city's nightspots.

In other news, protesters stormed our hotel this afternoon and disrupted the traditional annual broadcast that features the prime-minister and other politicians, discussing the country's future in the year ahead.

People are pretty pissed off here by what has happened to the country's economy in recent months and tempers are running high. Many are calling for the resignations of the country's leaders and I can't say I blame them.

We were walking across Austurvöllur when the shit hit the fan. Fireworks and other projectiles were thrown, the hotel was stormed and occupied, a policeman was hospitalised and a few protesters were arrested. Numerous people were squirted with pepper spray and dragged away by their friends. Video footage is now available at various locations around the Net.

I managed to get to the front of it all and take a few close-up photos of the police staring down the protesters. People were standing right in front of the police, calling them fascists, giving them the finger and spitting at their feet. The police kept their cool, though, and a full riot was averted.

The broadcast was forced off air, though, because the TV company's cables caught fire and were damaged. The protesters thus achieved a major objective, causing massive disruption to the proceedings.

It was one of the more unusual things I've witnessed in Iceland. Like most things Icelandic, it was more low key than it would have been in another country. The police here clearly have less experience of dealing with public disobedience, which is refreshing.

Almost everything was closed today and it will be even deader tomorrow. Most shops don't actually reopen until Saturday, giving people plenty of time to recover from the hangovers incurred tonight.

What a great day.

It was very rainy today and the sky was so overcast that I'd hesitate to call even the brightest moment of the day twilight.

We went to Laugardalslaug swimming pool in the afternoon. The last time we were there was without children, so that means it was probably in 2004.

The whole family had a great time. The icy rain fell on our heads, whilst our bodies soaked in the steaming hot tubs. Eloïse loved it, as did Lucas.

The pool was incredibly busy, because it was the only one open today. In fact, it was just about the only place of any description open today. Apart from a few cafés and restaurants (and I do mean a few), the city was lifeless. Most tourists probably headed out on excursions.

Reykjavík is so small that you keep seeing familiar faces. Not only were we recognised in this hotel and my favourite CD shop, but we've also spotted people who were on our flight from Boston. To top it all, we passed in the street a couple of the people featured in the Icelandic documentary, Hlemmur, for which Sigur Rós provided the soundtrack. It really is a small world here.

It continues to be very mild weather here, some 8°C. Amsterdam, on the other hand, appears to be -7°C at the moment. Brr. I hope our heating hasn't given up the ghost this time. Providence, Rhode Island, where we spent Christmas before we came here, is somewhat warmer at -1°C, although it's still the mid-evening there.

One has to conclude that Iceland is the better place to be right now, although that's debatably true, regardless of the weather conditions.

Another lazy day in Reykjavík. We never do much when we're in the capital, defaulting instead to the lifestyle we'd probably lead if we lived here. It involves clean air, coffee, cake and probably other things that begin with the letter 'C'.

66° North have put up their prices to compensate for the nosedive taken by the Kronur. They have jackets there now that would have cost €800 before the crash of the local currency. Today, they cost a mere €400, but there's no way they were ever twice that.

Most places, however, especially clothes shops, haven't yet raised prices, because they're still selling collections purchased before the crash. Prices are bound to rise this year, however, as retailers have to hand over twice as much cash as before for the same imported goods. Inflation is rampant, too, running at some 15 to 20%. It will be interesting to see how Iceland recovers from this. I'm sure they will, though. They've braved far worse in the past and it's not as if they have any choice this time around.

We saw the people from the Hlemmur documentary again today. And on Skólavörðustígur this afternoon, Sarah spotted a couple of violin cases on the pavement. One of them had a strip of masking tape with Sigur Rós written on it. I looked back as we walked past and I'm sure that I recognised Hildur Ársælsdóttir from Amiina, perhaps better known as the string quartet that have performed with Sigur Rós in recent years.

Dinner was at the ever excellent Þrír Frakkar on Baldursgata. The skyr brûlée that I had for dessert was particularly memorable.

And did you know that skyr is now sold at selected Whole Food supermarkets in the US? I saw it in the Providence branch while I was there. What a shame you can't get it in Amsterdam.

We're clearing out of Reykjavík a day early tomorrow and heading for the Northern Light Inn, quite close to Keflavík airport. This is to save ourselves some time Sunday morning, when we have a 07:50 flight back to Amsterdam. If we were to stay in Reykjavík, that would mean getting up at 04:30 for a 05:00 hotel bus pick-up. This way, we can get up closer to 06:00, which is a small mercy to be grateful for.

There's not much on the agenda for tomorrow, except for a visit to Bláa Lónið, better known as the Blue Lagoon. No trip to Iceland is really complete without a few hours spent soaking there.

The next morning, we'll be back in Amsterdam, which, I hope, will have warmed up a little by then.

Well, we didn't get the nice, late 06:00 start that I'd hoped for. Our alarm had to go off at 04:45 today in order to make our 05:30 minibus from the Northern Light Inn. Even when you think you have almost nothing left to do in the morning, except for putting on your clothes, zipping your bags and walking out the door, two children will slow you down a surprising amount.

Breakfast was gobbled down at breakneck speed and consisted of a slice of bread, two slices of ham, a slice of cheese, a hard-boiled egg and some orange juice. It's not often you'll find me eating breakfast at 05:30, but today was one of those days.

The one bad thing about flying to continental Europe from Iceland is the time of the flights. Whether you're flying to Oslo, Stockholm, Copenhagen or Amsterdam, the flights all leave before 08:00. The airport is really busy at this time of day, but dies off after the European flights leave. It doesn't get busy again until the afternoon, when the more reasonably scheduled flights to North America leave. So, flying into Iceland from North America is hell and flying out to Europe is hell, so we got the worst of both worlds on this trip.

The day before had seen us leave Reykjavík and enjoy an afternoon at Bláa Lonið. Eloïse and Lucas both had water-wings on this time, and I found I could keep Lucas afloat by just resting a hand under his head. He loved the warm water and looked at one point as if he might fall asleep.

Eloïse, too, was in her element. Once she realised she could float with the water-wings, she was propelling herself between Sarah and me under her own steam. She was so excited to find herself basically swimming on her own and had one of the biggest smiles you've ever seen.

We could scarcely have been more relaxed, then, as we began our departure from Iceland.

Everything went pretty much like clockwork, although it was extremely busy at Schiphol when we landed. You couldn't get near the luggage belts and there were no spare luggage trolleys. Our bags, all five of them, also took a long time to come out. We had so much luggage (including a toddler's car-seat and a Bugaboo pram) and carry-on bags that we could hardly balance it all on two trolleys.

Anyway, we finally made it home, where I'm happy to report that our heating was on and working properly; just as well, as it's colder here than in Iceland. The thermostat gave an error code this evening, however, so I'll need to call about that in the morning. Here we go again.

As I write this, I'm ripping my latest batch of Icelandic CDs, so that I'll be able to listen to them on the Sonos tomorrow.

It's good to be home again. The nicer we make our home with little luxuries, the more I miss it while we're away. It's always fun to travel, but with two children, the getting there has become an unavoidable chore, and only the time spent at the destination can be described as actual enjoyment. It used to be that the holiday began as soon as I got on the plane, such was the excitement. I've flown so much in the last decade that that's also had an effect, of course.

So, tonight we sleep in our own bed again. I'm looking forward to it.

It's distinctly frigid here. In fact, we're experiencing the coldest weather in ten years. The temperature in one part of the country got down to -18.3°C last night. That's colder than Providence, which I think of -- some would say unfairly -- as the coldest place on Earth.

As I write this, Reykjavík is a full ten degrees warmer than here. Strange, but true.

The rather large pond around the corner on the Sophialaan has frozen over and children have been out there skating for the last couple of days.

Icebreakers are clearing some of the country's waterways, allowing maritime traffic to continue to move.

300,000 pairs of skates have been sold in the last couple of weeks. Supplies are rapidly selling out. Skate sharpeners are working until after midnight to meet the demand.

The uppermost layer of tarmac on the A6 came loose today, but the MInistry of Traffic and Water can't repair it until the sub-zero temperatures relent.

Multiple races on the ice have been approved by the skating union and will be ridden over the next couple of days. An Elfstedentocht isn't quite on the cards just yet, however.

I hope our car will still start. It hasn't been driven since 20th December. I'll find out by Saturday.

Eloïse's playschool was forced to close today, because their boiler had given up the ghost and the building was ice-cold.

Yep, to be sure, it's cold here.

The title of this entry lacks any subtlety, but the strength of the statement accurately conveys my feelings towards the government of the state of Israel.

There are no words to describe my disgust for the actions of this rogue state, governed by villains and cowards who have repeatedly shown themselves to be bereft of all human decency and empathy. Loveless sociopaths, the lot of them.

I feel similarly about Israel's puppet-master, the US, which funds the israeli military and supports Israel's apartheid regime, human rights abuses and countless war crimes and atrocities. Expect more of the same from Saint Obama, who has pledged his support for ally Israel many times. A vote for Obama was a vote for Olmert.

The new 3 hour per day ceasefire is a bad joke. Relief workers say they can't even begin to make a dent in the mountain of human misery that Israel has already caused, utilising such a brief window. And even that 3 hour window wasn't instituted until the US finally relented and put pressure on Israel to make a gesture of goodwill after it shelled UN schools in the Gaza Strip.

What country shells UN schools, for crying out loud? Do you see any of the so-called axis of evil states doing that? No, there's only one nation that would dare do such a thing, secure in the knowledge that it is virtually exempt from the international laws that govern the behaviour of other countries. As long as its lord and master, that other notorious rogue state and the greatest threat to world stability, the USA, continues to apply one law to Israel and another to the rest of the world, Israel need fear nothing from the international community.

Don't talk to me about Hamas and the need to stop the shelling of Israeli towns across the border. Nothing justifies the actions and tactics that Israel employs, which is one of the reasons the country is so reviled in the first place. Israel is the engine in the anti-semitic machine. It'd be funny if it weren't so sad.

It continues to be cold here. Earlier this week, a temperature of -20.8°C was measured in the town of Ell in Limburg. That's sub-zero even on the Fahrenheit scale.

Here in the capital, it's been down to about -9°C at night, usually remaining just under the zero mark during the day. Biking is at once exhilarating and head-numbing. The country has become a skater's paradise.

As I write this, it's about -6°C. Cold, but I can at least turn the heating on, unlike those poor people in eastern European countries such as Bulgaria, where the gas has all but run out. Yes, the Russians and Ukrainians are at it again, accusing each other of interfering with the gas supply. I'm glad we live somewhere that imports hardly any Russian gas.

Tomorrow will be another sub-zero day with the forecast predicting that things will slowly start to warm up on Sunday.

Given our recent boiler problems, there isn't a day that I take the heating in this house for granted. I hope it keeps running for a while yet.

So far, Israel has:

• bombed 3 UN schools being used as refugee centres, killing dozens of civilians. An entire family of seven children perished in one of the raids. The UN had given the Israeli army the GPS coordinates of the schools and told them they were being used as refugee centres, after the Israelis themselves had told these people to leave their homes.
• shot at a UN convoy, bringing aid to Palestinian civilians. The driver of a lorry was killed.
• interfered with Red Cross workers trying to help victims of the violence. In one now notorious incident, the Israeli army left several Palestinian children inside a house to starve at the side of their mothers' corpses. When the Red Cross wanted to search for further victims in the bombed out houses, they were told to leave the area by the Israeli army.

And today, reports reach the world that Israel evacuated around 110 civilians to a building on the 4th of January, and then proceeded to bomb it the next day. 30 people were killed, including a 5 month old baby.

The UN security council accepted a resolution today, calling for a lasting solution to the conflict and unfettered access to the wounded for relief workers. The US actually abstained from the vote. I suppose we should be grateful they didn't veto it.

It didn't really matter in the end, of course, because both Israel and Hamas blew off the resolution.

The scale of the Israeli disregard for international law does at least seem to have invoked the ire of at least some at the UN and all of those engaged in helping the victims of the conflict. There are now calls to investigate whether Israel is guilty of war crimes (yeah, I wonder), but let's not cheer too soon. No-one who cares currently has the political clout to actually make such an investigation go ahead and western reporters still aren't allowed into Gaza.

While I'm venting my spleen, I mustn't fail to recognise the cowardly inaction of the Dutch government, who have so far defended Israel with the usual has-the-right-to-defend-itself nonsense, which is intended -- and serves -- to distract and deflect attention from the atrocities being perpetrated. A lot of people understandably find the notion of self-defence a reasonable one, but what is happening today in Gaza has little to do with defence. Clearly, in the eyes of Israel, the only good Palestinian is a dead one.

We installed our eighth Sonos zone yesterday, with a new ZP-120 in the bedroom. This is also our first wireless zone, because we don't have Ethernet running to the bedroom.

A couple of modified KEF iQ50 speakers provide the sound, via the KEF wireless system. The wireless receiver units, which are usually externally attached to the back of the speakers, have been manually built into the chamber of each loudspeaker. One of the speaker connectors has been removed from each of the rear panels to enable the receiver's power cord to pass through to the outside. The connector isn't needed, because the receiver is attached on the inside.

This was the perfect solution for our bedroom, where running cables isn't really practical. We've been very happy with the KEF wireless system that powers the satellite speakers in our TV room. That the shop we're dealing with was willing to perform this unique modification for us is testament to the great service they offer.

And so began another glorious gadget day.

Our three year old Philips 37PF9830 TV went upstairs to the bedroom, to be replaced by a full HD Sharp LC-46HD1E in the living-room. Thanks to the ZP-120 in the bedroom, we can also play the sound of the TV over the iQ50 speakers.

Similarly, our old Logitech Z-5450 digital speaker system has been consigned to the cellar. Our existing KEF iQ9 speakers and Rel Quake subwoofer have now been connected to a new Cambridge Audio Azur 740A amplifier, which finally allows us to integrate them with all of our living-room equipment. Our old Sonos ZP-100 is now connected to this, as is our MythTV box and a new Sony BDP-S550 Blu-ray player, which replaces our rather awful old Philips DVDR 7300H DVD player.

The Sony Blu-ray player can be made region-free for DVD playback (not for Blu-ray), but rather unusually, this can't be done using its own remote-control. One has to use codes that the standard remote-control is unable to send. Normally the installer would have done this for me, but he had forgotten his master remote-control. I was pleased to discover, however, that I could perform the operation myself, using the IR transmitter on my mobile phone and a program called irRemote. That's the first time I've found a use for the IR capability of my phone.

The amplifier is also connected back to the auxiliary input of the ZP-100, which, by linking Sonos zones, enables us to pipe the sound of the TV through the ceiling speakers in the kitchen and dining-room. That's a nice bonus.

Last, but not least, after eight years of sterling if not stylish service, our trusty old IKEA TV furniture has been retired and replaced by a sleek-looking piece of slim-line glass furniture from Spectral. I'd become so used to the sight of the old thing that I was desensitised to it and finding a replacement that was both practical and attractive has proved surprisingly hard. The new piece is much more in keeping with our living-room.

In the process, the plate of spaghetti behind the furniture has been thinned out, shortened, bound and hidden. This removes an eyesore that has persisted for years, which pleases Sarah no end.

I do love big gadget days like this one.

Did you see the unveiling of the emperor's new clothes on television yesterday?

I caught only some of it, but I marvelled at the masses, awestruck and unable to see that their new emperor was as naked as they day he was born.

I was surprised that Jesus Christ himself didn't put in an appearance. You'd almost have expected him to, given the level of rapture that was present. He probably didn't want to be upstaged by the people's new messiah.

The new saviour evidently brings salvation from a sordid history of slavery for the blacks and liberation from generations of hereditary guilt for the whites. Everyone's a winner; except for Afghanistan, Palestine; and anyone else who stands in the way.

At the end of the day, when the rose-tinted spectacles are removed, there's nothing but rhetoric and histrionics. Only this time, it's met by blind faith and blinkers by the masses.

Desperate people want nothing more than something all-consuming to believe in, a sense that there's something more to life than their own insignificant existence. That's why prison inmates are susceptible to religious conversion and it's why so many people are now entranced by the lure of an erudite man with half a brain. He represents hope, and for many people, the absence of hope is something with which they cannot cope.

The fact remains: the emperor has no clothes.

Far be it from me to withhold credit where it's due, so without the slightest reservation, I hereby commend Obama for the following deeds:

• Ordering the closure of the detention camp in Guantanamo Bay (although it's still outrageous that he's given them a year to do so). The existence of that place is an abomination and makes any claim to having a free society absurd.

• Ordering the cessation of torture by the US military. Again, civilised countries do not torture (or put to death, for that matter) their prisoners. There's no word yet on capital punishment and I'm not holding my breath.

• Ordering the cessation of secret CIA rendition flights to transport foreign nationals, kidnapped by the US, to CIA-operated prisons in foreign states, where they were subject to torture. You remember these flights, don't you? They're the ones Condoleeza Rice, Bush's defence minister, denied had ever took place. Odd that Obama feels the need to put a stop to something that never happens.

• Ordering the closure of the aforementioned secret CIA prisons in foreign states.

I must admit, I'm pleasantly surprised by the extent and promptness of some of the above actions.

On the other hand, he told Hamas to end their rocket fire into Israel, but urged Israel only to reopen its border with Gaza. Nothing short of a full condemnation of Israel's recent actions is acceptable, together with an immediate of US military aid.

Obama also pledged his support for efforts to prevent Hamas from rearming, which is excruciatingly hypocritical, given his country's continued military aid to the other side. You can't claim to support the peace process whilst continuing to arm one of the warring factions.

But like I say, credit where credit's due, even if it is only a drop in a very deep ocean.

On Wednesday and Thursday this week, I went to see Oasis play two nights at the Heineken Music Hall. Odd though it may sound, I'd somehow not managed to catch Oasis live before.

Liam's voice, a subject of much recent discussion, sounded a bit strained, but actually held up well both nights. All of the beer throwing and post-ban smoking got on my tits, but at least no-one threw any fireworks indoors. That has apparently happened at some recent concerts. Getting wet and smelly is one thing, losing an eye is another.

High quality torrents of the first and second nights are up on DIME, so go and get them if Oasis is your bag.