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AlbaGuBrath 
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Iceland: Let's get Reykjaviked!
It's said to be the trendiest place in Europe, a good-time capital where a heady mix of snow, hot springs and fast women is washed down with unlimited alcohol. So what would 24 hours in Iceland do to a strong man's sanity? John Walsh tried it
12 April 2002
It's 2.30am and the floor in the Sirkus bar is horribly sticky. This is because the four brawny Icelanders on my left are keen Bruce Springsteen fans and punched the air with their beer glasses at the opening bars of "Born in the USA" from the tiny disco-decks in the corner. It is ill-advised to punch the air with a glass half-full of lager, but these guys are weepingly rat-arsed, beyond logic. Gouts of amber nectar slosh over the face of Che Guevara on a poster captioned "Guerrillas in the Mist".
This bar's supposed to take 75 people, not 148. It's quickly getting impossible to move. New arrivals, instead of buying a drink, dash from one table to the next, imparting urgent but seemingly random bits of news to their many friends, as if updating them about the progress of a terrorist plot. When they stand up, they cannon into the young beer-swillers at the bar and both parties sway briefly together like religious zealots. They tend to hang onto my shoulder to steady themselves.
Watching them is Rosi, a gay (male) hat designer, older than the drunken twentysomethings in here, and alarmingly caustic. "Look at that fat slut over there," he mutters disgustedly. "She know she's only got 10 minutes to find someone to shag her before the place shuts." He pours us a slug of sambuca, without adding the usual flaming coffee-bean effect. In this place, it would be an incitement to arson. "Skol!" he says and we knock them back. Beneath his beret, his dark eyes are sleepy but seductive. "Another, my dear?" he murmurs. I'm forcibly reminded of Nikolas Grace playing Anthony Blanche in the TV adaptation of Brideshead Revisited, knocking back champagne cocktails and saying, "Down the little rrred lane they go..."
Beside me, Sigga the proprietress puffs her Marlboro Light and yells at her son. He has been filching bottles from behind the bar to take to a post-piss-up party that will go on till dawn. His mother berates him, until the sound of broken glass distracts her. She is handsome, welcoming, funny and a little weary of all this excitable youth. At 48, she has seen life. In her thirties she travelled around America, opened a trendy diner in Boston, learned how to control the troublemakers. When she got back to Iceland 12 years ago, there was a buzz in the air, she said. That's when she opened the Sirkus. A home-grown band called the Sugarcubes was making waves abroad. Its singer, a black-haired, eldritch midget called Björk used to DJ in the Sirkus's bonsai disco, and the bar's reputation grew. "Now we have live music every Friday and Saturday nights," says Sigga. "Come tomorrow night. We've got this fantastic band. Rockers from hell. And they're half-lesbian."
"Do you mean," I asked slurrily, "half of them are totally lesbian, or all of them are partially lesbian?"
She ignores me. Something has caught her eye. "I don't allow hard drugs in my bar," she says firmly, straightening her leather waistcoat. "I don't allow heroin or cocaine. If they wanna spliff, they can go outside, but that's it." A tough bunny, Sigga, part Marianne Faithfull's younger sister, part warden from Prisoner: Cell Block H.
A young woman appears beside me at the bar – black hair, red mouth, tiny features. I glance at her, look back at the bar, then back at her in a slow-mo double-take.
"Can I just say one thing?" I say thickly. "If you and Penelope Cruz both entered a Penelope Cruz lookalike competition, I'm afraid Ms Cruz would come second."
"You're very kind," she says, unsmiling. "Is this what passes for charm in England?" I switch the conversation to the drunkards who are now clashing their giant stomachs together, to accompany Bruce's delicate "I'm on Fire". One has pulled his sweater over his head, as if he's scored a goal.
"You should have seen this place before," she says. "When the bars used to shut at 1am, everyone used to take to the streets with plastic bottles of vodka and Coke and stay up all night in the Laekjartorg [the main square], 7,000 or 8,000 of them. The police couldn't control them. Now the bars close at different times and it's better."
Between Sigga and me, a face intrudes, ordering a Budweiser. It is the drummer of a local band called Leaves, who have been supporting the Strokes on tour in London. On my right, a fox-faced young beanpole explains that he's invented a keyboard whose notes play tiny video clips.
Is there anyone in here who isn't either an artist or a drunk? Go to Reykjavik, they said. Check it out. It's mad there. It's the trendiest city in Europe. Why? "When Björk first appeared, we wondered where she'd come from, and we thought, Iceland, how cool is that? And then Damon Albarn from Blur buys a bar called the Kaffibarinn, just off the main drag. Then Sir Terence Conran buys a restaurant called the Rex. It'll be Marco Pierre White any minute now. And then you hear about rowdy British drinkers, tired of flying their stag-party chums to Dublin and cruising the Temple Bar pubs, who want to go somewhere exotic but not jetlag-inducing, small, youthful and undiscovered, and have found Reykjavik."
Now Smirnoff vodka is offering "Reykjavik clubbing weekends" as competition prizes. Rumour has it the young Reykkies drink like drowning puppies and cruise the Laugavegur strip all night, the bars stay open until 3am and the clubs until 7am, the girls are all beautiful and will invite you to have sex with them, right there on the street corner, if you're new in town...
That's what I heard, anyway, so I spent 24 hours in Reykjavik to find out. Icelandair whizzes you over in 150 minutes. Taxis are ruinously pricey (L70 from airport to mid-town), so you take the FlyBus coach and marvel at the classic Icelandic scenery on either side – flat, brown bogland and sand-haunted grassland stretching towards the icing-white mountains streaked with turf, like grimy tears on a child's face.
Approaching town, you note the simplicity of the buildings and the nursery-school palette of colours on the roofs: pale olive green, baby blue and pillar-box red. The outer shells of the bigger houses are made of corrugated iron sheets. After the spectacular Sky Ray lolly of the Hallgrimskirkja church on the outskirts of town, the architecture gets smaller and simpler. Are we really in a capital city? "It reminds me of Brighton," I say to a Cornish lady in a fur hat beside me, "near the seafront." "Oh, no," she says firmly, "It's exactly like pulling into Truro."
The Hotel Borg is as blunt and four-square as its name suggests. It's Reykjavik's first-ever hotel, built in the 1930s, and Art Deco rules in its stylish rooms. A smell of eggs pervades the lift and corridors – baffling, until you run the taps and an omelettey pong hits your nostrils. It's the sulphur deposits in the hot springs, which are pumped to your bathroom by geothermal energy. In the bar, my friend Siggi and I plan our evening.
He is adamant there will be nothing to see. It's a Thursday, for Thor's sake; nobody goes on the razzle on a Thursday. It just isn't done. Friday and Saturday are when young Reykjavikians act up for the out-of-towners. I get the feeling I've arrived at a dress rehearsal. Will there really be no show tonight?
We have a couple of drinks anyway. They are incredibly expensive. Two half-litres of the local brew, Egil's Ales (named after the Viking hero, pronounced "Eyil", so it amusingly becomes "Ale's Ales" and two tiny shots of the local schnapps come to L20. Bloody hell. It's only 6.05pm. If we last until midnight, I'll be ruined. The local stuff is brennivin, or "burnt wine". Distilled from potatoes, it tastes of aniseed and cumin. You probably wouldn't order it back home in the Pig and Whistle, not even if it had a L20 note Sellotaped to the side. It's the traditional accompaniment to the Icelandic dish hakarl, which is, to put it bluntly, rotting Greenland shark.
Siggi and I go for a traditional Icelandic pizza quattro stagioni instead. It's what most Reykkies eat on a Thursday evening.
Four hours later, we're still looking for excitement. Darkness has just fallen and first nighthawks are on the prowl. Unfortunately, they are children. In the back room of Gaukur a Stöng, a trashy nightclub with a mirror ball and we've-just-been-raided-by-the Taliban decor, four oikish youths of 15 are prowling the stage with microphones, shouting to some minimalist drum'n'bass riff and extending their long, simian arms at the audience, in a gesture pinched from Eminem, Ali G and the Queen Mother... Icelandic rappers? Now I've seen everything. One is a **** ensian Fat Boy in a nasty vest, one is festooned with rapper chains, one – but I can't stand looking at the little twits. The audience, on the other hand, is a picture. While the boys are mostly squat and spotty, with shaving-brush haircuts, hoodies and shell suits, the girls are astounding. A quick head-count reveals that 85 per cent are extraordinarily pretty, poised and elegant, and look 10 years older than their oafish male counterparts. They observe a strict dress code: slim-fit black trousers and low-cut cotton tops. Britney cleavages and razor-edge cheekbones are also mandatory. The girls kiss each other fondly on the cheeks and stand around, clearly wondering why there's nothing better to do.
"Excuse me," I say to one streamlined dreamboat. "What are they singing about?"
"Da booze," she shouts back.
"You mean Icelandic beer? I didn't think it was too bad. Or are they complaining about the prices?"
"No, you don't understand. Da booze."
The penny dropped. "Oh, taboos," I say. "What about them?"
"They are saying that there aren't any, any more."
We consider this in glum silence, as if we both quite miss the old taboos.
It could be worse. You could be in Dubliners, one of Reykjavik's two "authentic" Irish pubs, where a local chap bashes an acoustic guitar and sings that auld Oirish come-all-ye, "Sunny Afternoon" by the Kinks. A sign celebrates the wonder of the well-known Irish football club, "Celtic FC". The musician greets the regulars in fluent Icelandic between songs, and switches to the classically Hibernian "Hey Jude" and the traditional Scandinavian "Norwegian Wood". Ladies in zip-fronted fleeces decorously clap along. When he swings into the theme from The Muppet Show, we decide to slip away.
Leaving the boondocks, we cross the busy Laekjargarta highway: everything west of here is in the 101 postal district, an address made famous by a book, 101 Reykjavik by Hallgrimur Helgason, and the film made from it in 2000, scripted and directed by Baltasar Kormakur. Only nine years after the US slacker phenomenon, the Icelandic version concerns a thirtyish dole-queue visionary, Hlynur Bjorn, who falls into a listless affair with his mother's new live-in Spanish girlfriend. It put Iceland on the global-cultural map, especially the trendy grid of streets around Laugavegur (and Helgason's book is published by Faber in June, at the slacker price of L6.99).
The commercial centre of this Toytown capital is a narrow thoroughfare of lights, shops, bars and a procession of slow, honking traffic. It's made less appealing tonight by an acre of churned-up roadworks. After my Kurt Geiger loafers start to disintegrate in the claggy mud, I feel less disposed to believe the area's reputation as the Notting Hill of the Arctic Circle; but there are still the bars to check out.
We try Dillons, a fashionably decrepit boîte whose decor seems based on the more obscure backstreets of New Orleans's Old Quarter. You'd think you were inside a 100-year-old merchant ship. Its wood panelling seems to have been here for a century, unlike the fruit machines that sit on tables, ignored, like glowing Norse gods, the stools before them unattended. A red light over the bar promises louche goings-on, but the clientele seems too laid-back to make the effort. They're predominantly young, sulky and bored, the men with grungey beards, patterned jumpers and woolly hats, the girls with bare midriffs and panda eye-liner. Inevitably, Blur's "End of a Century" is playing on the jukebox (have they heard of any other band?) We floor another pint of Viking and depart.
Damon's place, Kaffibarinn, is a small, dark, candlelit hang-out region with a central brick pillar, and a back room full of blank little tables for those crucial me-and-my-screenplay discussions. Huge, bearded Reykkies come and go, looming behind you suddenly like the prow of a Viking longship appearing out of the mist. Tiny, doll-like women, with long, witchy Björk hairstyles and no bottoms peep this way and that in search of their friends: after 11pm, there are at least six bars where the cool crowd might have gathered. The barman has a fat black chin-beard, like a Hitler moustache that's dropped a few inches. My gin and tonic costs L8. But despite the Blur connection (and the fact that his former co-owner was Mr Kormakur, who actually filmed some of 101 Reykjavik in here), there's no action here – until we're thrown out for taking photographs.
In the street, however, we meet the babes, and the night takes off. Betta is a plump, wide-eyed Sally Bowles, a former cabaret comedienne with a show on Reykjavik radio. She carries a precious glassful of Scotch through the streets. I explain that I'm a journalist from London, looking for signs of trendy Reykjavik. She turns out to be a huge fan of the author Helen Fielding ("I once rang her for an interview and I was so nervous, I said, 'Helen? I'm from Iceland and I love you' – I can't believe I could be so stupid" and we're getting on just fine until her friend Helga is assaulted on the pavement by a pretty teenage girl.
The girl moves in on Helga with a "Heyyy!" and plonks a wet kiss on her lips. Soon they are kissing with serious tongue-in-the-lung rapture, as their friends stand around tapping their feet. "I haven't seen her in three years," Helga sighs. "The night I broke up with my boyfriend, I was so upset, I tried it on with her. She was one of my students. We were making love in his spare room. He came to see what the noise was, looked at us and said 'Oh-kayyy' and went back to his room and jerked off while listening to us making love. Can you believe that?"
Actually, I could believe almost anything of Helga. Her former girlfriend returns with a camcorder and films us talking in the street. "Look," I say weakly. "Is there a bar we could go, for a chat?"
"Oh sure," says Helga. "Everyone will be at the Sirkus. But tell me – is it true you know Bridget Jones?"
The streets are beginning to fill up. Betta slips an arm through mine and we share her Famous Grouse. The jeunesse dorée of Reykjavik, conscious of their reputation for cray-zee-wild behaviour, are making a real effort on this Thursday night, even though most of them will have to work tomorrow. A sense of endless possibility, of anything-goes, drunken omnisexuality settles over the knot of people trying to cram into the Sirkus bar.
So what's it like in Iceland's late-night trendy capital? All the locals tell me it gets, you know, really mad on Friday and Saturday nights – that tonight is pathetically mild and suburban by comparison. I'm glad to be getting the diluted, Thor's-day version. Nobody seems to care about the L5 minimum drinks bill any longer.
And by 2.45am, crammed against the bar with Sigga the landlady and Rosi the predatory hat-man, being crashed into by hopeful film-makers and almost-there rock'n'rollers and would-be Björks and between-masterpieces writers, the whole Icelandic crew of sloshed, aspirational artists and boisterously aggressive Vikings, who keep falling over you while trying to invite you to their transmedial launch party on Saturday – well, it's hard to deny there's something special going on in this curious city.
"We are the new world here," says Sigga. "So much energy. So much passion, So much spirit. I'm glad I came back from America to be part of it. And now, you'll stick around for a little shot of brennivin when these noisy people have gone?" I make my excuses and leave. I have to be up in the morning to stand up to my armpits in the Blue Lagoon, a boiling geothermal hot springs, breathing the eggy breath of sulphur, somewhere on the south-western tip of the island. The nearest landmass south of there is mainland Scotland. I've rarely felt further away from home.
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MacMirza fae Sarajevo TA
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Total Posts: 752 | Joined Sep. 2001 | Posted on: 11:29 pm on April 13, 2002 | IP
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TA Ealing
GET A LIFE!!! |
I cannae wait!
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Let's get Magoo'd!
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Total Posts: 986 | Joined Sep. 2001 | Posted on: 11:33 pm on April 13, 2002 | IP
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Ruary
GET A LIFE!!! |
Wow we couldnt have landed luckier if we tried sounds absolutely perfect for the TA.
Thankfully I have booked the Fri-Sun charter so dont have to wait around on the boring Thursday for the action to start. What a pity I also booked accomodation as by the sounds of it I wont need it.
Wonder what they will make of the world famous TA when we arrive, and also how many Scots-Icelandic babies are likely to be around to maintain the craziness in about 18 years.
What a draw 
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TAMB Sunshine Appeal show the true face of the Tartan Army
The future is bright the future is Scottish
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Total Posts: 1366 | Joined Sep. 2001 | Posted on: 11:45 pm on April 13, 2002 | IP
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Davie the CAT
GET A LIFE!!! |
I'm no gawin'........
And stop rubbin' it in.........
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Towering in gallant fame........... I'm having problems with Outlook
Scotland my mountain hame...... Click to E-Mail me
Click here to see Davie the CAT's Photo's of France.....
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Total Posts: 670 | Joined Dec. 2001 | Posted on: 11:48 pm on April 13, 2002 | IP
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TA Ealing
GET A LIFE!!! |
Ruary - you on the Heb Bar charter(s)?
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Let's get Magoo'd!
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Total Posts: 986 | Joined Sep. 2001 | Posted on: 11:52 pm on April 13, 2002 | IP
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Ruary
GET A LIFE!!! |
Davie I fully understand after reading the above there is no way on this earth that you would enjoy a trip to the wee quiet town of Reykjavik.
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TAMB Sunshine Appeal show the true face of the Tartan Army
The future is bright the future is Scottish
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Total Posts: 1366 | Joined Sep. 2001 | Posted on: 11:52 pm on April 13, 2002 | IP
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Ruary
GET A LIFE!!! |
TAE I am to the faroes but didnt know John was also running one to Iceland so I am going there on the Iceland Holidays charter from Glasgow about midday on the Friday.....after reading the above I am thinking of cancelling as it sounds a little too sedate for me.
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TAMB Sunshine Appeal show the true face of the Tartan Army
The future is bright the future is Scottish
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Total Posts: 1366 | Joined Sep. 2001 | Posted on: 11:54 pm on April 13, 2002 | IP
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TA Ealing
GET A LIFE!!! |
Ok - I am on both of John's charters staying in the YH in both places! Party on!
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Let's get Magoo'd!
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Total Posts: 986 | Joined Sep. 2001 | Posted on: 11:57 pm on April 13, 2002 | IP
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WillfaeSwindon
GET A LIFE!!! |
fu€k it... i think ill spend a month there!!!!
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Will
willfaeswindon@swindontartanarmy.com
http://www.swindontartanarmy.com
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Total Posts: 1835 | Joined Sep. 2001 | Posted on: 12:14 am on April 14, 2002 | IP
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AlbaGuBrath
Administrator |
Well, I should be there from Wednesday with Loony Alba. And we'll change totally what it says about 'boring' Thursday nights.
Cannae wait!
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MacMirza fae Sarajevo TA
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Total Posts: 752 | Joined Sep. 2001 | Posted on: 10:25 am on April 14, 2002 | IP
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Ruary
GET A LIFE!!! |
Thought I'd bring this back to the top as it is vital reading for all TA going to Iceland if you havent yet booked you will after reading the above of that I'm sure
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TAMB Sunshine Appeal show the true face of the Tartan Army
The future is bright the future is Scottish
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Total Posts: 1366 | Joined Sep. 2001 | Posted on: 10:48 am on April 15, 2002 | IP
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wonderkid69
GET A LIFE!!! |
Happy days are here again......
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Once you're in you're in for life....
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Total Posts: 351 | Joined Sep. 2001 | Posted on: 11:11 am on April 15, 2002 | IP
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Dink
Fresh ideas |
I am looking forward to this more and more.
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I do not look like Harry Potter!
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Total Posts: 30 | Joined April 2002 | Posted on: 11:25 am on April 15, 2002 | IP
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Dink
Fresh ideas |
Oops a bit of a double post.
(Edited by Dink at 11:27 am on April 15, 2002)
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I do not look like Harry Potter!
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Total Posts: 30 | Joined April 2002 | Posted on: 11:26 am on April 15, 2002 | IP
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AlbaGuBrath
Administrator |
Aye, a very good article. If only half of this happens to me - great!
And if I remember it afterwards!
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MacMirza fae Sarajevo TA
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Total Posts: 752 | Joined Sep. 2001 | Posted on: 8:49 pm on April 15, 2002 | IP
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erchie69
Talks too much |
 am no going either ! ya buggers , soonds good though ! can sum one bring me back a photie ?
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when the clock strikes 4,5 & 6 wur aff the pints and wur on the nips
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Total Posts: 122 | Joined Feb. 2002 | Posted on: 8:56 pm on April 15, 2002 | IP
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AlbaGuBrath
Administrator |
Nae problems Erchie, there will be a plenty of photos, a plenty, a plenty...
How come you're not going? And Craig, Callum?
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MacMirza fae Sarajevo TA
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Total Posts: 752 | Joined Sep. 2001 | Posted on: 9:04 pm on April 15, 2002 | IP
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Davie the CAT
GET A LIFE!!! |
I telt yae's tae stop rubbin' it in.......
I cannae make it and i'm gettin' well pissed-off.........
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Towering in gallant fame........... I'm having problems with Outlook
Scotland my mountain hame...... Click to E-Mail me
Click here to see Davie the CAT's Photo's of France.....
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Total Posts: 670 | Joined Dec. 2001 | Posted on: 9:06 pm on April 15, 2002 | IP
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AlbaGuBrath
Administrator |
Come on Davie, it will be me this time sending photos of cheerleaders!
And of course, Andy sending photos with Bjork!
Seriously, sorry you can not make it though. Lithuania then?
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MacMirza fae Sarajevo TA
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Total Posts: 752 | Joined Sep. 2001 | Posted on: 9:14 pm on April 15, 2002 | IP
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erchie69
Talks too much |
aye mate craig and calum are both going , thats what makes it worse ! long story why am no going mate ! does nae make it any better though !
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when the clock strikes 4,5 & 6 wur aff the pints and wur on the nips
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Total Posts: 122 | Joined Feb. 2002 | Posted on: 9:15 pm on April 15, 2002 | IP
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Let's get Reykjaviked!
