Iceland (Lonely Planet, 7th Edition) - Fran Parnell [18]
There’s also an official list of names that Icelanders are permitted to call their children. Any additions to this list have to be approved by the Icelandic Naming Committee before you can apply them to your child – so there are no Moon Units, Lourdeses or Apples running round here! Interestingly, there’s a lingering superstition around naming newborns: the baby’s name isn’t usually revealed until the christening, which can take place several months after the child is born.
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Immigration laws were strict until the rules changed on 1 May 2006, encouraging foreign workers to come to Iceland. The incomers were mostly blue-collar workers in construction, fisheries and maintenance, with Polish people forming the largest group, followed by Danes. The number of immigrants peaked at around 9000 in 2007. As you might guess, Icelandic unemployment rates soared following the 2008 crash; jobs are now scarce, and the number of foreign workers entering the country fell to around 3000 in 2009.
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Until recently, foreign immigrants had to give themselves Icelandic names before they could become citizens: the naming committee has now relaxed this rather stringent requirement!
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SPORT
Football (soccer) is a national passion for both spectators and players. Although Iceland doesn’t win a lot of international games, several Icelandic players have made it on to top European and English premier-league teams. The biggest national venue is the 14,000-seat Laugardalsvöllur stadium in Reykjavík, and matches are keenly followed.
The next most popular team sport is handball, a game played by two teams of seven. Internationally, Iceland has had some success with the game, finishing eighth in the 2007 world championships. You can see handball matches at sports halls around the country – Reykjavík, Hafnarfjörður and Akureyri are good places.
Iceland’s most traditional sport is glíma (Icelandic wrestling), a unique national sport with a history dating back to Viking settlement in the 9th century. Icelanders still practise the sport, but it’s not common on a competitive level and you’re most likely to see it as a demonstration at a traditional festival.
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MEDIA
Newspapers & Magazines
Iceland’s main daily newspapers are published only in Icelandic. The biggest-selling, Morgunblaðið, is moderately right wing, but Icelanders generally take journalists little more seriously than they do their politicians.
For snippets of Icelandic news, the Iceland Review website (www.icelandreview.com) has a free daily news digest (which you can have delivered to your email inbox), and its glossy quarterly magazine has some entertaining, light articles about Icelandic people, culture, history and nature.
An excellent read for Icelandic news, views, reviews and what’s hot in Reykjavík is the new Grapevine magazine, a fortnightly newsprint magazine distributed free in summer. The editors are not afraid to write at length about big issues in Iceland, but it’s done with humour and a deft writing style. It’s available at the tourist office, hotels and bars in Reykjavík.
TV & Radio
Until 1988 Iceland had only one state-run TV station – which went off air on Thursdays so that citizens could do something healthier instead. (It’s said that most children born before 1988 were conceived on a Thursday…) Today there are three stations and they broadcast on a Thursday. So, now you have a choice.
TV and radio are more for entertainment than enlightenment, although the Ríkisútvarpið (RÚV; Icelandic National Broadcasting Service) evening news is the country’s second-most-watched program. If you’re near a TV on Saturday night, check out Iceland’s favourite show – the unfathomable current-affairs satire Spaugstofan, which has been running for 20 years and is watched by over half the country. Much of the programming, particularly in the evenings, comes from the USA and the UK – in English, with Icelandic subtitles.
An award-winning Icelandic TV show