At first I imagined that I was treading in the footsteps of William Morris who had written about Iceland; then I checked my facts (always a useful thing to do) and found that though Morris had visited Iceland at least twice and translated several of the sagas he had not written any books that could be called news from Iceland. He did write a poem about the country and published his travel journals, though. That’s just as well because I am not exactly a follower of William Morris: a great deal to be said for his designs but his literary output is heavy going and his political ideas are mushy to put it mildly.

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I know this is (slightly) off topic, but at least it is news from another Nordic country, and it ha to do with the amount of EU legislation.

With Sweden holding the EU presidency we here in the Stockholm area are inundated with EU propaganda. Posters all over the place - not as bad as the EMU campaign, but almost. Given the quality of the propaganda I would not be surprised if the result was the same as in 2003 (ie not very good for eu-luvvies).

This one is certainly the best so far:

DID YOU KNOW? 60 percent of the decisions taken by the Solna local council are affected by the EU.




That will certainly make us all like the EU even more, don't you think?

These people do not understand propaganda. Thank goodness.

My understanding is that the two mainstays of the Icelandic economy were banking and fishing. Well, the banking part has gone, and given that membership of the EU and the EFP would destroy the Icelandic fishing industry, joining the EU would represent an act of national suicide unparalleled in history. I somehow doubt that the banking crisis can have driven the Icelandic people quite so mad that they will see the EU as the answer to their problems. I hope not anyway, for their sakes.