Bloggfćrslur mánađarins, desember 2008

Venus og Máninn dansa tangó á Gamlárskvöld ...

 

venus-gamlarskvold-2008_760489.jpg

 

Reikistjarnan Venus er langbjartasta stjarnan á kvöldhimninum ţessar vikurnar. Á gamlárskvöld má búast viđ skemmtilegri sjón skömmu eftir sólarlag, en ţá verđa Venus og Tungliđ í návígi á suđ-vestur himninum.

Myndin er úr Starry Night Pro og sýnir hvernig stađan verđur um klukkan 18 á gamlárskvöld séđ frá Íslandi.

Ţessi danssýning Venusar og karlsins í Tunglinu  stendur ađeins yfir í skamma stund eftir sólarlag. Skötuhjúin munu síđan draga sig í hlé í skjóli nćtur og svo ...   og svo ...


 

Máninn hátt á himni skín,

hrímfölur og grár.

Líf og tími líđur

og liđiđ er nú ár.

 

Bregđum blysum á loft,

bleika lýsum grund.

Glottir tungl og hrín viđ hrönn

og hratt flýr stund.

 

Kyndla vora hefjum hátt,

horfiđ kveđjum ár.

Dátt viđ dansinn stígum

dunar ísinn grár.

 

Bregđum blysum á loft, ...

 

Nú er veđur nćsta frítt,

nóttin er svo blíđ.

Blaktir blys í vindi

blaktir líf í tíđ.

 

Bregđum blysum á loft, ...



                                                       Jón Ólafsson

 

 

 

 Fćđing Venusar. Botticelli Sandro 1482-86.

 

 Ţađ er engin furđa ađ Máninn skuli vera í návígi viđ Venus á nýársnótt Smile

 

 

 

Gleđilegt ár !

Takk fyrir áriđ sem er ađ líđa í aldanna skaut…  Wizard

 

 

Venus og Tungliđ á Gamlárskvöld

 

 

 Svona litu skötuhjúin út klukkan 17 á Gamlársdag
Ţau eiga eftir ađ fćrast nćr hvort öđru ţegar líđur á kvöldiđ...

 

 

www.spaceweather.com

www.stjornuskodun.is

www.astro.is

 

 


Sherry-trifli uppskrift...

 

 

 

image001_761137.jpgVinsćlasti desertinn í fjölskyldunni er Sherry triffli.  Ómissandi á Ađfangadag og Gamlársdag.

Sherry trifli er mjög ţekktur ábćtir og til í mörgum útgáfum eins og sést ef  „sherry trifle“ er sett í Google leitarvélina. Um 90.000 tilvísanir birtast.

 

Ţessi uppskrift hefur nokkra sérstöđu. Amma mín Sigríđur var ađ hluta alin upp í Bandaríkjunum í lok 19. aldar og kom međ ţessa uppskrift ţađan. Hún var dóttir Jóns Ólafssonar ritsjóra og skálds, ţess er orti m.a. Máninn hátt á himini skín. Mađur Sigríđar og afi minn var Ágúst H. Bjarnason prófessor í heimsspeki. Líklega er réttara ađ uppskriftin hafi komiđ međ langömmu minni, Helgu Eiríksdóttur móđur Sigríđar, en fjölskyldan fluttist heim 1899. Ţessi réttur hefur alltaf veriđ mjög vinsćll hjá afkomendum Sigríđar og Ágústar, og hjá mögum alveg ómissandi á stórhátíđum. Grunnuppskriftin er alltaf eins, en útfćrslan getur veriđ mismunandi. Neđst er ţó alltaf blanda af sherry, makkarónum, sultu og súkkulađibitum. Miđlagiđ er eins konar ísblanda eins og notuđ er í heimagerđan ís en blönduđ smá matarlími. Efsta lagiđ er ţunnt lag af rjóma. Efst er svo skreytt međ t.d. rifsberjahlaupi, muldu suđusukkulađi og öđru sem matar-listamanninum dettur í hug. 

 

 

Í eina skál:

 

3 eggjarauđur
2 ţeyttar eggjahvítur
1 peli rjómi auk rjóma sem fer ofan á. Líklega tćpir 2 pelar alls.
1 msk sykur
2-3 blöđ matarlím
Sherry
Muliđ suđusúkkulađi
Sulta (jarđaberja eđa hindberjasulta í neđsta lagiđ, rifsberjasulta í skreytingu efst).
Makkarónur.

 

 

Makkarónur og muliđ súkkulađi í botninn, og sulta eftir smekk. Sherrý (a.m.k. 50 g, sjá aths.). Makkarónurnar ađeins muldar, súkkulađiđ og sultan sett saman viđ sherrýiđ. Ţetta ađeins hrćrt međ gaffli.

Eggjarauđurnar hrćrđar međ sykri til ađ blandast saman. Eggjahvítur ţeyttar, síđan rjómi ţeyttur, og ţessu blandađ saman.

2-3 blöđ matarlím vćtt í köldu vatni og kreist út í og sett í pott sem er hitađur í heitu vatni.

Matarlíminu er síđan hellt í hrćruna mjög mjórri bunu og hrćrt varlega svo ekki kekkist.  Látiđ stirđna í kćliskáp.

Síđan lag af hvítum rjóma efst og skreytt međ rifsberjahlaupi og röspuđu suđusúkkulađi. 

 

 

 ---

 

Ath. Ţetta er uppskrift fyrir eina stóra skál. Sjálfsagt er betra ađ nota tvćr skálar ţannig ađ pláss verđi fyrir rjómann í efsta laginu. Yfirleitt voru búnar til tvćr skálar og veitti ekki af   :-)

Oftast var sett töluvert meira af sherry en stendur í uppskriftinni, enda ţótti flestum ţađ sem á botninum var langbest. Börnin voru ţó oftast hrifnari af efri lögunum.

Ţađ sem er vandasamast er ţegar mararlíminu er hellt í hrćruna. Ţađ ţarf ađ gerast mjög varlega til ađ forđast kekki. Ađ öđru leyti er mjög auđvelt ađ útbúa ţennan ljúffenga desert.

 

áhb



 

 


Tíu bestu stjörnuljósmyndir ársins 2008

 

Stjörnufrćđin er einstaklega myndrćn vísindagrein. Á hverju ári eru ţúsundir ljósmynda teknar af undrum alheimsins, hvort sem er af stjörnuáhugamönnum, stjörnufrćđingum eđa sendiherrum jarđarbúa úti í sólkerfinu. Margar ţessara mynda eru í gullfallegar og verđskulda sannarlega ađ sem flestir fái ađ njóta ţeirra.

Sjá Stjörnufrćđivefinn www.stjornuskodun.is

Myndirnar sem ţar eru valdar sem tíu bestu stjörnuljósmyndir ársins 2008 voru fyrst og fremst valdar út frá fegurđargildi, en ekki síđur vísindalegu.

Viđ hverja mynd er lýsing á ţví sem fyrir augun ber, enda eru fyrirbćrin ekki síđur áhugaverđ en myndirnar fallegar.

 

Myndin hér fyrir ofan er ein ţessara frábćru mynda.  Viđ myndina stendur ţessi skýring Sćvars Helga Bragasonar:

Ţessa ótrúlegu mynd af rykstormi viđ gljúfrakerfi á Mars tók Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter geimfariđ. Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter er útbúiđ gríđarlega öflugum myndavélum sem gegna ţví hlutverki ađ kortleggja yfirborđiđ mjög nákvćmlega svo unnt sé ađ draga upp sögu fljótandi vatns á yfirborđinu. MRO gegnir auk ţess hlutverki veđurtungls sem fylgist stöđugt međ veđurfarinu á Mars. Stundum sér geimfariđ storma verđa til á yfirborđinu, líkt og á myndinni hér fyrir ofan.

Rykstormar á Mars verđa til ţegar vindur lyftir rykögnum upp af yfirborđinu og hátt upp í lofthjúpinn. Vatnsís í lofthjúpnum ţéttist á rykagnirnar og mynda ljósleit ský. Stundum breytast litlir stađbundnir rykstormar sem ţessi í einn risavaxinn hnattrćnan rykstorm sem hylur allt yfirborđiđ svo ađeins hćstu tindar eldfjallanna á Mars standa upp úr.

Á hverju degi verđa talsverđar breytingar í lofthjúpi Mars. Ţessar breytingar má ađ hluta rekja til ţess ađ á Mars eru engin höf eins og á jörđinni. Á jörđinni geyma höfin mikinn varma svo hitasveiflur hér eru ekki ýkja miklar milli dags og nćtur. Yfirborđ Mars er ein eyđimörk sem hitnar fljótt á daginn en kólnar jafnsnöggt á nćturnar, líkt og í eyđimörkum jarđar. Daglegar hitasveiflur upp á 100°C sem endurspeglast í breytileika lofthjúpsins.

Veđurfariđ á Mars er óskaplega heillandi og lćrdómsríkt fyrir okkur sem lifum á tímum loftslagsbreytinga á jörđinni. Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter er sendherra jarđarbúa á rauđu reikistjörnunni og er ćtlađ ađ afhjúpa leyndardóma hennar.

Mynd: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

 

Skođiđ hinar níu myndirnar á vefsíđunni www.stjornuskodun.is.

 

 

Tíu bestu stjörnuljósmyndir ársins 2008

 


 


Myndband í Wall Stree Journal: How Iceland Collapsed ...

 

wall_street_journal_logo.jpg

 


 

 

Myndbandiđ hér fyrir neđan birtist 26. desember í Wall Street Journal. Ţađ gefur nokkuđ góđa mynd af ástandinu á Íslandi.

Myndbandiđ á Wall Street Journal er hér, ef innfellda myndbandiđ hér fyrir neđan virkar ekki sem skyldi.

 


Ókeypis og auđvelt myndvinnsluforrit: Picasa-3 frá Google...

 

Picasa

 

 

Picasa-3 er einstaklega ţćgilegt forrit til ađ halda utan um ljósmyndir, lagfćra ţćr, prenta eđa setja í myndaalbúm. Ţađ besta er ađ forritiđ er ókeypis. Gott eins og flest sem kemur frá Google Smile.

Forritiđ byrjar á ađ finna allar myndir sem eru í tölvunni, jafnvel einnig ţćr sem mađur er búinn ađ týna, og rađar ţeim í myndaalbúm.  Ţannig hefur mađur gott yfirlit yfir allar myndirnar í tölvunni.

Síđan er auđvelt međ einföldum ađgerđum ađ lagfćra galla í myndunum.  Sumar myndir halla, ađrar eru međ undarlegum litblć, rauđ augu, óskýrar, of dökkar, o.s.frv. sem flestir ţekkja. Jafnvel má búa til vídeó úr myndunum og flytja yfir á YouTube.

Ţađ besta er ađ lagfćringarnar hafa engin áhrif á frummyndina sem er varđveitt óbreytt.

Eftir lagfćringar getur mađur merkt bestu myndirnar međ stjörnu og flutt yfir í nýja möppu ţar sem auđveldara er ađ njóta ţeirra og skođa sem "slide show".

Hćgt er ađ fá ókeypis pláss á netinu (1Gb) fyrir myndaalbúm sem auđvelt er ađ flytja myndirnar í. Sjá hér.   Útprentun mynda er sáraeinföld.

Ég nota Photoshop töluvert fyrir betri myndir, en Picasa-3 er miklu auđveldara og fljótlegra í notkun og meira en nóg fyrir allar venjulegar myndir.

Mćli eindregiđ međ ţessu góđa forriti frá Google.  Heilmikiđ kennsluefni er á netinu, eins og sést međ ţví ađ leita međ Google.

 

Forritiđ má sćkja hér: http://picasa.google.com

 

 

 Kynning á Picasa-3:


Vetrarsólstöđur 21/12: Bein útsending frá 5000 ára gömlu grafhýsi á Írlandi...


 

 

 

Í tilefni Alţjóđalegs árs stjörnufrćđinnar 2009 verđur á vetrarsólstöđum bein útsending á sólarupprás frá 5000 ára gömlu grafhýsi á Írlandi, sem er eldra en Stonhenge. Eđa er réttara ađ kalla ţetta 5000 ára gamla stjörnuathugunarstöđ, eins og Ásgeir Kristinn bendir á í athugasemd sinni? Ţađ er gaman ađ velta ţessu fyrir sér. Menning, trú, tímatalsreikningur, ...  

 

Smelliđ hér til ađ sjá útsendinguna frá Newgrange sem verđur frá klukkan 8:30 til 9:30 á morgun sunnudaginn 21. desember.

 

 


Hér sést hvernig fyrstu sólargeislarnir á vetrarsólstđum berast eftir 18 metra löngum gangi sem er fyrir ofan innganginn ađ grafhýsinu og lýsa upp gólfiđ fyrir framan skreyttan stein. Fyrir 5000 árum hefđi sólin náđ ađ skína á steininn á vetrarsólstöđum. Sjá nánar hér.

Myndin er fengin ađ láni á APOD síđunni hér.

 

aas2009_sma.jpg

 Vefsíđan www.astronomy2009.org

Íslenska vefsíđan  www.2009.is

Vetrarsólstöđur á Stjörnufrćđivefnum

Newgrange - Winter Solstice

Útsending frá vetrarsólstöđum 2007. Ţá var veđur hagstćtt.

 

 

Bloggiđ Vetrarsólstöđur, hćnufetiđ, tíminn og jólakveđja

 

 

 

 
 
 
 
 

Gleđileg Jól

 

 

 

 
 

 


Hvađa loftslagshlýnun? Ţannig spyr prófessor Ole Humlum...

 

hvada_loftslagshlynun.jpg

 

 Frétt Morgunblađsins í dag, bls. 17.

Allt bendir til ţess ađ áriđ sem er ađ líđa verđi ţađ kaldasta á öldinni og ekkert hefur hlýnađ síđastliđin 10 ár.  Samt halda margir ađ hlýnun lofthjúps jarđar sé í fullum gangi. Er ástćđa til ađ staldra ađeins viđ og íhuga málin? Ţađ er einmitt ţađ sem prófessor Ole Humlum er ađ gera.

Vissulega hlýnađi á síđustu áratugum síđustu aldar og enn sem komiđ er hefur lofthitinn haldist ţokkalega hár. Hann hefur ţú ekki haldiđ áfram ađ hćkka í nokkurn tíma. Ţví verđur ekki á móti mćlt.

 

 

smoothedmonthlyco2vstemps_751318.jpg

 

Myndin sýnir ţróun lofthita síđastliđin 10 ár, mćlt á tvennan hátt.

Blái ferillinn er mćling frá gervihnöttum og rauđi ferillinn hefđbundnar mćlingar á jörđu niđri.

Grćni ferillinn sýnir aukningu koltvísýrings.

Ferillinn er frá miđju ţessu ári og er ţví ekki međ nýjustu gögnum, en ţau má sjá á vefsíđu prófessors Ole Humlum sem fjallađ er um í fréttinni hér ađ ofan, www.climate4you.com

 

 

Umfjöllun Ole Humlum om loftslagsbreytingar

Greinar eftir Ole Humlum

Áriđ 2008 er kaldasta áriđ ţađ sem af er öldinni. Blogg eftir Emil Hannes.

 

 


Frábćr grein um Ísland í Sunday Times

 The Sunday TimesTimes Online

 
Adrian Antony Gill skrifar frábćra grein međ miklum húmor í The Sunday Times í dag. Eiginlega er ekki hćgt annađ en birta hana hér, jafnvel ţó ţađ sé í óleyfi. 
 
Auđvitađ kemur óvinur Ísland númer 1, Gamli Jarpur (Gordon Brown), viđ sögu og eru honum ekki vandađar kveđjurnar.
 
Greinna má lesa hér
 
From
December 14, 2008

Iceland: frozen assets

Six months ago, Iceland was one of the world’s richest nations. Now it’s bankrupt. AA Gill visits the first victim of the economic ice age

sunday_magazine_447497a.jpgIn the summer of 1783, there was a volcanic eruption in the southeast of Iceland that vomited lava into the Skafta river, which boiled and ran with fire like a mythological Nordic curse. The volcanic gases were toxic and poisoned animals in their byres. Seething clouds of opaque ash plumed into the sky, blotting the sun. Everything that photosynthesised withered and died. There was a famine that killed a fifth of the population — a fifth of the people who had survived the smallpox epidemic that had previously seen off a quarter of all Icelanders.

So the penury of the Icelandic banking system, the collapse of its currency, the parlous implosion of its economy that relegated it from being, per capita, the second or third richest nation in the world to being the shivering Big Issue-seller of Europe, bobbing in the queue somewhere behind Albania and Moldova, is not actually the worst thing that ever happened to this island. That would have to be the two occasions when the plague wiped out more than half of everybody. Iceland didn’t have any rats, but they got Europe’s worst case of bubonic deaths without them. That’s unheard of. That’s virtually impossible — but that’s how Iceland’s luck is. It’s said you make your own luck; it’s never said that your luck also makes you.

Iceland and Icelanders have been forged on the anvil of hard knocks. The unfair thing about this latest paper calamity is that it happened just when they thought things were going so well. There were restaurants that sold food for people who weren’t hungry, there were international bars for international folk, there were boutique hotels with ambient music, and candles for smell, not illumination. Iceland was chic and cool, not just in a cold way. “This summer,” a pretty girl with a red nose and a pink scarf told me, “everybody was here on a small patch of green in front of the parliament” (which itself is smaller than Elton John’s guesthouse). “We came to cheer and drink, because Iceland had won a silver medal at the Olympics for handball,” she said. “It was huge. We’d never won a medal before.” Who came first? “Who cares? We came second. Everything was going so well.”

Reykjavik is littered with the detritus and shells of things that were once going so well and now aren’t going at all. Like the big four-wheel-drives, bought on a promise and the never-never. The biggest is a Babel-ish building site, palisaded by protective cranes, which was hoping to be a music hall, the Sydney Opera House of the far, far north. There is still a visitors’ centre, with a girl on the phone looking for a new job. There’s a toy model of what it is now unlikely to look like. You can peer through a telescope at nobody working. I watched one ancient traffic warden give a ticket to a solitary pick-up, abandoned on a patch of rutted wasteland that was going to be a smart amenity area. This was all financed by Landsbanki, one of the raiding banks that spent like mullered fishermen and borrowed like agoraphobic Vikings, who leveraged the economy into the stratosphere without a Keynesian parachute, along with every other bank in the monetarist world.

The difference here was that in every other city centre, they can run home to Daddy Government and have their gambling debts paid off. The Icelandic government is a dozen shepherds and a couple of grocers in Specsavers and M&S suits. One of the reasons they say the financial risk was so precipitous was that the entrepreneurial pool is so small. The bankers and the regulators, the ministers and the judges are all the same people — they’ve known each other all their lives, their wives and their children are friends, and nobody wanted to be the one who said no. And why should they?

It was all going so well.

Down by the container port, where the derricks droop idly, is a car pound the size of half a dozen football fields, circled by defunct iron boxes. It’s full of hundreds, perhaps thousands of cars. Behind them, across the grey fjord, black pumice crags are scarred with snow. The cars are going nowhere, dumped here at the end of the world: a great, windswept, conceptual monument to the hubris of Mammon, laughed at by black-backed gulls. These testaments to excess are now the most tasteless things to be seen in. They call the puttering Range Rovers “Game-Overs”.

Further down the shore is a speculation of modern flats, expensive, insubstantial urban penthouses that may well remain empty for ever. A young man passing by, dressed in the winter uniform of Icelandic youth — skinny jeans, T-shirt with ironic postmodern slogan, Converses and a bit of a useless scarf, hunched shoulders and a general air of thermometer-denial and hungover insouciance — stops and laughs. “Who did we ever think was going to live here? Now we look back and it seems mad. Anyone could have told them. I could have told them.”

Outside Reykjavik, there are suburban developments for new commuter suburbs. They put in roads and street lights but the houses have yet to be built, or stand blankly unfinished. Outside, a little girl plays in the gloaming with her sheepdog. It’s a strangely surreal image: the silent cul-de-sac, like a model of the middle-American ’burbs, with just this child, a character snatched from an Edward Hopper painting.

Further along a road called End of the World we find a self-employed electrician. His company is called “Why Not Me”. When he has finished here, he is going abroad to find work — “Poland, probably” — and he smiles a crooked Icelandic smile. It’s a joke. There used to be lots of Poles here doing the dirty bits of the economic soft times. Now they have all gone home because the Icelandic krona has become shrapnel in the explosion of free markets.

Kaupthing, Landsbanki and Glitnir sound like elf characters from The Lord of the Rings, and there is an element of fairy-tale comeuppance to these three backwater banks. Only when you’re shown their headquarters do you realise how bizarre and unworldly their success was. They look like small city shops, branches of Bradford & Bingley. One of them was run from the floor above a fast-food restaurant. As with every great disaster the world over, the moment after it happened, the scales fell from every eye and all could see that it was inevitable. Where were the white-collar jobs for the commute back from the brave new garden suburbs to come from? Where was the black-tie audience for the opera? How could Iceland have the sharpest cashiers in the world? How could this nation sustain just two main industries: cod-fishing and international high finance? And, most importantly, most damningly, how did they ever think they could buck the Icelandic luck? Now everyone looks back at the road they’ve just travelled and wonders why none of them mentioned it was made of marzipan and Rolexes.

The act that tipped the last Icelandic bank off the edge of the cliff was delivered by Gordon Brown, who froze Icelandic assets in the UK using our new, gleaming anti-terrorist legislation. The Icelanders mind that — they’re hurt by that. You see, they always imagined they were one of us, not one of them. But Gordon needed to do something cheap to look competent, so he beat up a smaller kid. Not just a bit of a slap, but a vicious kicking. Showing off to impress the girls. He would never have started it if the banks had been German or French, or even from Liechtenstein.

The Icelanders mind about the terrorist thing. They don’t even have an army. They barely have a jail: it’s more of a drop-in centre. The police drive you home if you’re too drunk. This is the most liberal, reasonable, hard-working, decent, moral, amusing and well-educated people on the Continent; a nation who are temperamentally the furthest away from terrorism. Remember that about Brown — the man who said he wanted to prevent the export of terrorism. Remember it when he puts on his Save the World, Mr International Harmony hat. He put an ally into intensive care for the sake of a headline and three points in a weekend poll. Perhaps he didn’t notice. Perhaps he was looking through his glass eye.

Let’s just be clear about what Iceland really is. Most people think it’s the size of the Isle of Wight with the population of, say, Holland. It’s bigger than Hungary, bigger than South Korea, which has a population of 50m. There are just over 300,000 people in Iceland. So that’s a country the size of Portugal with the population of Bradford. Those are Mr Brown’s terrorists.

Iceland imagined that Europe and America would help it out. After all, it has always helped us out. Keflavik was a vital Nato base between the east coast of America and the west coast of Europe in the cold war. We were all in this together. Except, as they were to learn, we were only in it together if we were fat enough to buy ourselves the solution. The Russians bailed Iceland out: Reykjavik could be a very useful place to launder money and cock a snook. And the Faroe Islands, bless them, population 48,000, lent Ł34m. Everyone in Iceland signed a thank-you card. And finally the IMF came up with a rescue package.

Oh, but Gordon Brown — or you and me, as he is known abroad — leant on that so that fat, stupid English councils could get their greedy noses in the trough before Icelandic children got a banana. That’s not hyperbole — because they have so little foreign currency, imports are graded into three categories: essential, necessary and luxury. Exotic fruit is a luxury, but then in Iceland a tree is an oddity. If you want fruit, eat fish liver or a puffin.

Sitting in the happy, healthy organic cafes of downtown Reykjavik where the hippie kids blog (there are more bloggers here than anywhere else) and girls with blond babies laugh at each other, you wouldn’t know this was an economically dead country walking. In the 101, a New York-brittle boutique hotel built and patronised by the bankers and speculators, you couldn’t tell that nobody here has a pension or savings. The groups of svelte and confident girls flick their hair, neck cocktails and make blatant passes at the men with face hair like mangy seals who are downing beer and shots. Icelanders react to bad news the way they always have. It’s the same way they react to good news: they get hammered. Properly Valhallaed. The bars and clubs are full, the booze is expensive, and they toast each other with a grim irony. There are still redundancy payments around — they’re cash-happy. The crunch will come in the New Year when the brass handshakes run out.

People may be hurt by Brown and the British, and embarrassed by the gluttony and ineptitude of their own businessmen, and they are angry with their government. They want an election and someone to be Icelandic enough to grasp the blame and responsibility. But about themselves and the future they are remarkably, Nordically sanguine. A very direct woman in a bar said: “All that money, all the things and the stuff, it’s very un-Icelandic. The wanting, the conspicuous consumption, the avarice and ambition, the pathetic jealousy, that isn’t us. A great weight has been lifted now the money and the desires are gone. We can get back to being who we are.”

Who the Icelandics are is one of the great enigmas of northern Europe. They speak an ancient, pure Scandinavian. They are horrifically hard-drinking, maudlin and prone to flights of dark nihilism and lengthy bitterness. They are taciturn fishermen and farmers; stoical, practical and moral. They have published more books and produced more chess grandmasters per head than anywhere else. They read more and write more, they sing and play instruments. Everyone here can change a tyre, strip an engine, ride a horse, sail a boat, dress a sheep and cure a salmon. They have grown through a hard Calvinism to a moral atheism while maintaining an open mind about elves.

Roads are moved to avoid the homes of the hidden people: elves have to be asked permission before new buildings are built, and country folk see them regularly, not always when drunk. The fairy folk who share this empty island with the humans are Adam’s other children: the unwanted, cloaked by God in invisibility.

There is also a deep handmade seam of nostalgia that links all Icelanders. Families are going back to the old ways — to buying the autumn-culled sheep. Traditionally you get an odd number, and the whole family comes to make slatur, a sort of fatty haggis sausage that is boiled and tastes like warm, meaty fat. The warming cabinets of convenience stores offer vacuum-packed, ready-cooked, laterally sliced halves of sheep’s heads, which I’m told are selling like boil-in-the-bag halves of sheep’s heads. The women are going back to knitting rough, tarry wool into the mentally geometric jerseys that feel like wearing St Francis’s wife-beater. A big second-hand shop has become a smart and fashionable place to shop, though not for anything that is fashionable or smart. The contents are commendably and pathetically meagre and practical. The boxes of second-hand records hum the contradictions of Iceland’s long winter. There are lots of romantic choral works, home-grown folk songs from men in third-degree knitting, and heavy metal and prog rock. On the second-hand-magazine rack are piles of practical outdoor-activity manuals and a copy of Hello! commemorating the death of Princess Diana.

The designer interior-decorating emporiums that sprung up in the last five years now stand empty and sulky, like party-dressed girls with panda eyes waiting at morning-after bus stops. There’s a large new mall on the outskirts of Reykjavik, neon-bright and desolate. The girl who takes me there says, “A mall — nothing could be less Icelandic than a mall. All this will go,” and waves a mittened fist at the prefab warehouses, the new homes and the loneliness of the long-distance car park with its flapping flagpoles, “and we can stop pretending to be little Americans, or Danes, or British.”

There is something invigorating about Iceland at this moment — like being with people waking from a dream. It’s exciting and instructive. It’s a patronising cliché to say that people have wealth beyond mere riches. Nobody is better off for being poor. But this tight-knit, undemonstrative community at the edge of the world has been woven together from sterner stuff than I think we could muster. “We’ll be all right — we’re not going to starve,” a shopkeeper told me. “We have fish and rye and mutton and barley. We can grow the odd tomato in a polytunnel. We have skills — useful skills, practical skills. And, you know, they’re under-heating the pavement outside my shop so it won’t freeze in the winter. All our energy is thermal and free. So maybe I can’t have a new mobile phone, but when I get drunk and fall over, the pavement will keep me warm.”

From the 12th century a miraculous thing happened here: one of those eruptions of creation that defy the laws of culture and make civilisations briefly pyrotechnic. A series of books were written to illuminate the dark: sagas, secular stories of life, of mystery and mythology, of lords and farmers, politics and revenge, love affairs and voyages. Stories that were the first to be written as narratives with parabolas of plot and evolving characters. Nobody anywhere else had ever done that before. It is the birth of literature. They are as inexplicably, breathlessly awe-inspiring as the conception of the Renaissance a hundred years later. It was the Icelandic sagas that inspired Tolkien to write The Lord of the Rings, because he wanted Britain to retrospectively have a creation myth. Nobody knows what inspired Iceland or what precipitated this volcano of clear, collected genius. It was just Iceland: out there, sparse and treeless.

In the howling gale where the water boils and the volcanoes rumble, and the earthquakes make the ground liquid, and black shores crash and smoke, it is a landscape that fills you with either dread or stories. And it’s shared with the hidden people and the heroic solitude, a brooding presence to measure your height against.

Iceland has grasped this weakness, this greed, this business with money, and turned its back to take an unsentimental look at itself.

They will be all right. This is the nation that made the first democratic parliament — the Althing — that fought the Royal Navy to make the first sustainable fishery in the northern hemisphere, produced three Miss Worlds and one Nobel literature laureate — then came second at handball. You are measured by how squarely you stand against bad luck. Not how you squander good luck.

 

---

Komment um greinina:

Your best ever Adrian. It's a pity it is about such tragedy. But as they say..."We'll be Ok" I'm sure they will.

Geoff, birmingham, uk

 

Another superb article from one of my favourite writers.

miko, Singapore,

 

A superb article, written on two levels. It starts off rough, almost on purpose, and ends as one of the best written articles I've read in recent years. I've never been to Iceland, but surely I want to go now, if only to meet some of the folks who have survived more than most nations ever could.

Stephen Churchill, Brockton, USA

 

I have never read a more elegantly written article in my life.

Michael Fernandes, Chapel Hill, USA

 

A gifted scribe indeed, writing about a place in need of gifts. Yet which also evidences the consequences of seeking easy wealth.
Prov 11:28) "He that trusteth in his riches shall fall: but the righteous shall flourish as a branch."

daniel hamilton, Chelsea, United States

 

Exceptionally good. And true to life of all the Icelanders I have met in several countries.

Austin Scott, Chicago,

 

I've been to Iceland many times over the years, organizing tourist trips centering on the Medieval sagas. But best of all I have made friends there, and the integrity and the courage of Icelanders will take them through this. A. A. Gill did a fantastic job on capturing the spirit of Iceland.

Bob Wilhelm, Hagerstown, USA

 

This is definitely one of the best articles I have ever read on this website.

Kunal Chakraborty, Cambridge, UK

 

This article is staggeringly well written. Iceland is a fascinating place, made all the more intriguing by A.A. Gill's evocative writing. The Icelandic attitude is apt: while nobody enjoys being poor, adversity can be a reinvigorating test of character - e.g. late 70s Britain, early 90s Australia.

Luke Critchley, Toowoomba, Australia

 Sjá hér:

 http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/economics/article5329762.ece


mbl.is Brown sparkađi í Íslendinga
Tilkynna um óviđeigandi tengingu viđ frétt

Nú er ţađ svart: Loftslag heimsins hlýnar, segja Rússar og vitna til gagna frá heimsskautasvćđunum... Breytingar í Golfstraumnum?

Er ekki ástćđa til ađ hafa áhyggjur af ţessari frétt 12. des?


"World Climate Growing Warmer, Say Russians, Citing Arctic Data"

Two Professors Independently Find Change in Temperature - They See a Gulf Stream Relation, but Look for Deeper Causes"

 

 Loftslag heimsins hlýnar, segja Rússar og vitna til gagna frá heimsskautasvćđunum. Ţeir tengja ţađ breytingum í Golfstraumnum, og jafnvel breytingum í útgeislun sólar.

 

Svona hjóđar fyrirsögn áhugaverđar greinar 12. desember í New York Times.

 

Ţađ er vissulega ástćđa til ađ hafa miklar áhyggjur af ţessu ţví eitthvađ   u n d a r l e g t   er á seyđi !

 

Hvađ er svona undarlegt viđ ţetta? Er ţetta ekki dauđans alvara?

 

Greinin er ekki úr New York Times 12. desember 2008, heldur 70 árum áđur, eđa  12. desember 1938.

Svo segja menn ađ sagan endurtaki sig ekki Wink.    

Ţađ merkilega er ađ nákvćmlega ţessi sama frétt hefđi getađ veriđ í blađiu í gćr!

 

Hvernig verđa fréttirnar eftir 70 ár?

 


 

 

 

nyt-12-12-1938-2.jpg


 Sem sagt, ţetta var áriđ 1938. Ekki áriđ 2008.

 

 

Smile
 

Tungliđ tungliđ taktu mig ... Nú er lag ţvi tungliđ er nćst jörđu föstudaginn 12 des!

 

 

 

Á morgun er nokkuđ merkilegur dagur, ţví föstudaginn 12. desember verđur tungliđ okkar óvenju stórt og óvenju nálćgt jörđu. Líklega hefur fullt tungl ekki veriđ nćr jörđu síđan 8. mars 1993 og verđur ekki aftur fyrr en 14. nóvember 2016.  Föstudagurinn 12 des. er ţví dálítiđ merkilegur ...

Á myndinni má sjá muninn á stćrđ tunglsins ţegar ţađ er nćst jörđu og fjćrst. Munurinn er töluverđur, en hefur einhver tekiđ eftir ţessum stćrđarmun? Hefur einhver tekiđ eftir ţví hve tungliđ er óvenju stórt ţessa dagana?

 

Hvers vegna er tungliđ svona mis langt frá jörđu? 

moon_orbit_20030722142611.gifŢađ er vegna ţess ađ braut tunglsins umhverfis jörđu er ekki hringferill heldur sporöskjulaga ferill eđa ellipsa. Reyndar alls ekki eins ýkt og á myndinni hér til hliđar. Munurinn á jarđfirđ og jarđnánd er um 10%.

Ţegar tungliđ er lengst frá jörđu er ţađ í svokallađri jarđfirđ eđa apogee, en jarđnánd eđa perigee ţegar ţađ er nćst jörđu, eins og sést á myndinni.

moongames_lavedern080717_9416_747812.jpg

 

Hafiđ ţiđ tekiđ eftir ţví ađ ţegar tungliđ er mjög lágt á himni virđist ţađ vera miklu stćrra en ţegar ţađ er hátt á himinhvolfinu.  Hvađ veldur? Er ţađ ljósbrot eđa er tungliđ kannski nćr jörđu? Svariđ kemur á óvart, ţví ástćđan er bara undarleg skynvilla. Viđ getum prófađ ađ mćla tungliđ međ tommustokk, bćđi ţegar ţađ er viđ sjóndeildarhringinn og hátt á himninum og ţá kemur hiđ sanna í ljós. Viđ látum platast. Góđ útskýring á ţessari skynvillu er hér á Vísindavefnum.

 

 


Kveđskapur um tungliđ ...

 

Jón Ólafsson ritsjóri, skáld,  og alţingismađur orti ţetta um son sinn Ólaf sem síđar varđ tannlćknir í Bandaríkjunum:

Tungliđ má ekki taka hann Óla
til sín upp í himnarann,
ţá fer hún mamma ađ gráta og góla
og gerir hann pabba sturlađan.
 

 

Jón langafi bloggarans orti meira um tungliđ. Flestir hafa sungiđ um mánann á Gamlársdag og á Ţrettándanum:

Máninn hátt á himni skín,

hrímfölur og grár.

Líf og tími líđur

og liđiđ er nú ár.

 

Bregđum blysum á loft,

bleika lýsum grund.

Glottir tungl og hrín viđ hrönn

og hratt flýr stund.

 

Kyndla vora hefjum hátt,

horfiđ kveđjum ár.

Dátt viđ dansinn stígum

dunar ísinn grár.

 

Bregđum blysum á loft,

bleika lýsum grund.

Glottir tungl og hrín viđ hrönn

og hratt flýr stund.

 

Nú er veđur nćsta frítt,

nóttin er svo blíđ.

Blaktir blys í vindi

blaktir líf í tíđ.

 

Bregđum blysum á loft,

bleika lýsum grund.

Glottir tungl og hrín viđ hrönn

og hratt flýr stund.


 

 

Ţess má geta ađ Jón var upphafsmađur   Íslendingadagsins í Manitoba sem haldinn hefur veriđ árlega síđan 1874 er Jón var 24 ára ritstjóri Lögbergs.

 

 

Theodora Thoroddsen orti ţessa skemmtilegu og   l ö n g u   ţulu, en fyrirsögn bloggsins er auđvitađ fengin ţar ađ láni. Ţulan er svo löng ađ hún ber mann auđveldlega hálfa leiđ í heimana nýja:

"Tungliđ, tungliđ taktu mig
og berđu mig upp til skýja".
Hugurinn ber mig hálfa leiđ
í heimana nýja.
Mun ţar vera margt ađ sjá,
mörgu hefurđu sagt mér frá,
ţegar ţú leiđst um loftin blá
og leist til mín um rifinn skjá.
Komdu, litla lipurtá!
Langi ţig ađ heyra,
hvađ mig dreymdi, hvađ ég sá
og kannski sitthvađ fleira.
Ljáđu mér eyra.
Litla flóniđ, ljáđu mér snöggvast eyra:
Ţar er siglt á silfurbát
međ seglum ţöndum,
rauđgull í rá og böndum,
rennir hann beint ađ ströndum,
rennir hann beint ađ björtum sólarströndum.
"Ţar situr hún móđir mín"
í möttlinum grćna,
hún er ađ spinna híalín
í hempu fyrir börnin sín.
"Og seinna, ţegar sólin skín",
sendir hún ţeim gullin fín,
mánasilfur og messuvín,
mörgu er úr ađ velja.
Hún á svo margt, sem enginn kann ađ telja.
"Ţar sitja systur".
Sá sem verđur fyrstur
ađ kyssa ţeirra klćđafald,
og kveđa um ţeirra undravald,
honum gefa ţćr gullinn streng
á gígjuna sína.
"Ljúktu upp, Lína!"
Nú skal ég kveđa ljúflingsljóđ
um lokkana ţína,
kveđa og syngja ljóđin löng
um lokkana mjúku ţína.
"Ţar sitja brćđur"
og brugga vél,
gakktu ekki í skóginn, ţegar skyggir.
Ţar situr hún María mey,
man ég, hvađ hún söng:
Ég er ađ vinna í voriđ
vetrar kvöldin löng.
Ef ađ ţornar ullin vel
og ekki gerir stórfelld él
sendi ég ţér um sumarmálin sóley í varpa.
Fögur er hún harpa.
Um messur fćrđu fleira,
fjólu og músareyra,
hlíđunum gef ég grćnan kjól,
svo göngum viđ upp á Tindastól,
ţá nćturvökul sumarsól
"sveigir fyrir norđurpól",
en dvergar og tröll sér búa ból
í bergsins innstu leynum
og ljósálfar sér leika á hól
ađ lýsigulli og steinum.
Viđ skulum reyna ađ rćna frá ţeim einum.
Börnunum gef ég gnótt af óskasteinum.
"Ţá spretta laukar,
ţá gala gaukar".
Ţá syngja svanir í tjörnum,
segđu ţađ börnum,


 

Krćkjur:

Hvađ er tungliđ langt frá jörđu?

Fróđleikur um Tungliđ á Stjörnufrćđivefnum

December 12, 2008: Closest Full Moon in 23 Years

The Moon at Perigee and Apogee

Lunar Perigee and Apogee Calculator 

NASA: Biggest Full Moon of the Year

Wikipedia: Mikill fróđleikur um Tungliđ.

 

 Svona leit tungliđ út yfir Esjunni í ljósaskiptunum ađ kvöldi 13. desember 2008:

 

Tungl yfir Esju 13. des 2008

 


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