Two people who were on their way to see an erupting volcano have frozen to death. In the coroners report the cause of death was listed as "irony". In similar news another volcano crazed sightseer had a narrow escape when his snowmobile caught fire after being hit with lava. Amusing fatalities notwithstanding the recent volcanic eruption in Iceland has been a godsend for that nations tourist industry. A brand new volcano is rearing its head above the snow and is proving fascinating for a certain kind of tourist. As a result the Icelandic economy is receiving a welcome influx of cash.
For those of you who were laughing too hard to notice the Global Financial Crisis hit Iceland rather badly. In recent times Iceland's economy has been pretty much reduced to raiding vending machines looking for spare change. Once upon a time Iceland's economy relied on cod. It was right there on their currency "In Cod We Trust" (sorry). People caught cod, smoked cod, built boats to help others catch cod, there were even unsubstantiated rumours that some of them were eating cod. Then in about 2003 someone (who must have been smoking cod) decided that it would be a great idea for Iceland to become an offshore financial centre. They had the principal requirement, they were offshore. Unfortunately the Icelanders proved no better at managing sophisticated financial instruments than the clowns at Citi and AIG and the country's economy sank so deep it was looking up at the cod. The Icelandic Finance Ministry now attempts to raise money by sitting outside office buildings holding a sign written on cardboard.
Iceland was colonised in approximately the ninth century AD by immigrants who had decided that the northern coast of Norway just wasn't cold, bleak and remote enough for them. They turned up over a period of thirty or forty years bringing their Celtic slaves with them which seems a bit harsh. A few centuries later incessant feuding and warfare between the settlers (for god's sake guys its just Iceland) led them to the rather clever idea of making running the place someone elses problem and they subordinated themselves to the Norwegian crown. A century or so later they wound up being run by Denmark. What with the Faeroes, Greenland and Iceland Denmark seemed to make a habit of collecting largely worthless colonies. History ended in Iceland for a while and woke up again in 1814 to notice Napoleonic Europe and jump (a little late) onto the independence bandwagon. The Danes gave them self government or something close to it and Iceland closed again until the Second World War. The Danes proclaimed themselves neutral in this war and the Icelanders followed suit. Germany then took over Denmark and Iceland responded by proclaiming themselves even more neutral. Then the British invaded them (Iceland which had never been convenient for anything was now a handy staging post for convoys heading to the USSR). The Americans took over from the British in 1941 and left in 2006. Iceland joined NATO, fished for cod and paid little attention to the world until it got into a minor bingle with Britain in the 1970s over cod fishing. This brings us up to very nearly the present day.
The present day consists of economic gloom. However it would appear that geological instability is coming to Iceland's rescue. There used to be a time when the appearance of an erupting volcano in ones backyard would force the inhabitants to leave. Now they just clean up the house and let out the spare room. It would appear that there are no end of people who will travel a long way and risk freezing or burning in order to see a natural disaster unfold before them. There are however some grim warnings. Right next to the new volcano is a rather large old volcano and some are worried that the current instability might spread. I didn't know vulcanism was contagious but there you go. If this happens then the result could apparently be an eruption on the scale of Krakatoa. The bad news is tickets have been sold out for months.
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