This is the celebrated journal of Mr. Simon Collison A.K.A Colly

Immeasurable happiness

22nd October 2004

I’m back in Iceland! I’m so happy. It doesn’t matter that icelandair have lost all of my possessions, because I’m here, and I don’t care. I’m sitting in the official Airwaves Festival bar (Hressingarsklin) - it’s all super wi-fi’d, laid back, comfy, warm. Bands are being interviewed all around me. The chap from Fourtet just walked by. It’s table-service-a-go-go, and I’ve never seen so many Apple products in one place. The guy with the 17” Powerbook looks particularly smug.

I must immediately share this conversation that the Snorkeller had with a seven year old girl who ran up to him giggling in Icelandic this morning:

Snorkeller: Do you speak English?

Young dottir: No, but my Daddy does.

And her response was in the most incredible, plum-perfect English we’ve ever heard! Icelanders are way too intelligent.

I think it’s my seventh time here, but it’s still full of surprises. As usual, the weather is wonderful - crisp, clear skies and stunning sunlight. Jules Verne’s glacier is visible 100kms across the bay, the air is clear and unpolluted, and I’ve just had a wonderful sleep in a wonderful house in a wonderful town…

Hafnarfjordur is a great little place - a harbour town five kilometres from Reykjavik, home to 20,000 people, and absolutely picture-postcard-perfect. We are staying in a fantastic house up at Klukkuberg - with views across the town and bay to the North, and the desolate nothingness of Heidmork to the South. The house is spotless, minimal, beautiful, and would cost £400,000 in Nottingham. Here, our friends paid around £100,000. So, Iceland may be expensive, but a high standard of living is available to all.

So, congrats to the Icelanders as usual. They really know how to throw a party. We’re all being looked after, our every whim catered for. This is most definitely the life. It’s bloody cold though…