Photo

As mentioned in an earlier post Iceland has black beaches. The sand in and gravel in this picture has been mostly dug up from the ocean floor in an attempt to keep the passage clear to large ships going into and out of the main shipping port.








- The Thor all rights reserved

Alright. According to the CIA fact book, and they can hardly be wrong! These are the guys who brought us great media events such as Gulf War II the sequel [staring George Bush, Tony Blair and Sadam Hussein with a special appearance of the Iraqi information minister ] and the bay of pigs to name a few.

So anyway according to the fact book literacy in Iceland is 99% This is in most respects a positive thing, good for the economy and for the cultural education of the public. That is the theory anyway...

Where as writing is all good and proper, I still think that too much emphasis has been placed on literacy and too little emphasis placed on art and taste. To support my case I will show you a few examples...




Exhibit 1

Ok so exhibit one above... three letters on a wall. B l a. The only thing that extinguishes this graffiti from most other bad graffiti is the fact that whoever made it had gold spray. This gold spray was possibly something this person stole from their mother's Christmas decorating kit. I'm sorry but with gold you are going to have to be a little bit more creative. Try writing a sentence. Perhaps: I'm sorry mom! I'm bored, talent less, and need attention.

Exhibit two is not a lot better. Shroom, again just letters written on a wall. I have seen more creative doodles on toilet paper. Obviously we are dealing with someone who wants to be known as mushroom or shroom for short. Whether that refers to the persons appearance or level of hygiene I leave for you to decide.

Finally exhibit three. I believe that we have found the 1% missing in the CIA's figure. This spells chas, cras, gras or chrs I am really not sure. The only good thing is that this is located under a bridge and has probably only ever been seen by a handful of people (Ok until now, my bad) including the "artist" done in white black and orange it is the winner of this weeks challenge for at least being a bit colourful. The white and black are probably standard spray cans gotten from any gas station, whereas the orange is most likely meant to be used for marking up roads during roadwork, a serious misuse of perfectly good materials.

So I say more money for arts, what’s the point in literacy if words are peoples only means of communication?



Exhibit 2


Exhibit 3

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Former US President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev met in a house called Höfði in Iceland in 1986. This event was important although the outcome might not have been the most positive imaginable. This is a picture of the house they met in in 1986 the days that the eyes of the world were on Reykjavik.

After the summit, Mr Gorbachev said that he had told President Reagan, "We are missing an historic chance. Never had our positions been so close together."

Before flying back to Washington, President Reagan said:

"We moved towards agreement on drastically reduced numbers of intermediate-range missiles in both Europe and Asia and sharply reducing our strategic arsenals for both."
....


Reykjavik Deal

The deal under discussion included plans to:
limit continental weapons to 1,600 delivery vehicles and 6,000 warheads on each side
reduce intermediate-range nuclear forces to 100 warheads, restricting Soviet missile bases to Asia and US missile bases to the US
eliminate all nuclear missiles within 10 years
progress towards a test ban
From the BBC

BBC information about the summit

- The Thor all rights reserved

Unlike the inviting sand of the Mediterranean, the beautiful beaches of the far east or in fact California which are all a light creamy colour Icelandic beaches are predominantly black.



The black sand is all volcanic. Instead of seashells being crushed into sand it is lava from one of Iceland’s numerous volcanic eruptions. This blackness creates a powerful feel to be beach. The really cool thing is the golf courses that use the black sand in bunkers. There aren't too many around but I'll try to find one and post pictures of this.





- The Thor all rights reserved

*comments below*

One of my oldest dreams has been to fly, simply take off and float across the planes, watch the mountains above and go where I pleased. Birds just make it look so easy.




-The Thor all rights reserved