I ♥ Iceland

Reason #367 for living here, despite the crap winter daylight hours:
You can get gravlax sauce in a squeezy bottle.

Body Attack

Heart attack, more like it. I took a new class at the gym last night; it was exactly like being back in PE at school, except nobody was pointing and laughing at my funny legs. At least I don’t think they were. God, I hated PE in school. I was that cliché of a girl who always got picked second-to-last for teams (last was Alwen Morris, who, being mentally and physically retarded, didn’t count).

I have very little, if any, physical co-ordination. I learnt that when I took the afro-dance classes last year (and confirmed it later during a traumatic ski trip in Austria). Y’know, I always thought I was a fantastic dancer – until, that is, I was plonked into a brightly lit gymnasium surrounded by mirrors and lithe Icelandic girls shaking their booty in grass-skirts. I looked distinctly ... clumsy. It’s a far cry from owning the floor at the GPO, tanked full of Jägermeister, imitating capoeira with my brother on a Friday night. (I actually remember us once being thrown off the dance floor by a bouncer who said sternly “ye can’t do capoeira in here, right.” We were over the fucking moon that he’d recognised what it was we were attempting. Although, thinking about it now, maybe by "can't" he meant we weren't able, not that we weren't allowed).

Tonight I’m going back to Body Combat. That was much more fun than Body Attack – more like being in a game of Tekken. I mean, I don’t think you could actually “combat” anybody with it, but it looks fucking cool. That is, when I’m not jumping the wrong way and crashing into the mirrored wall. Úff! What’s that sweaty red thing hurtling through the air towards me?! Bollocks. It’s me.

Another Friday Night in 101

Reykjavík is so small that sometimes it feels just like living in a tiny village in Welsh Snowdonia, except you have all the benefits of a capital city; cinemas, bars, restaurants, litter, homeless people etc.

Last night the city felt particularly tiny. Perhaps that's because I didn't venture outside the perimeters of Kaffibarinn, or perhaps it's because every conversation I had, I'd had a million times before; every person I saw, I'd seen a million times before; every drink I drank, I'd drunk a million times before. Panicking that I had bored of djamming prematurely, I switched from beers to Sex on the Beaches (classy, I know) and decided that maybe I was just temporarily bored of the beautiful, strong, special Icelanders. I spotted some English people in the corner and went to introduce myself. Nope. They were fucking boring too. There's only so many times I can discuss the odds on seeing a) the northern lights b) a volcanic eruption or c) Damon All-Bran pulling a pint behind the bar of "his" pub. I toyed briefly with the idea of telling them about catching sight of Björky's muff the week before, but decided they weren't worth the excitement.

Well, at least with the fucking foreigners I'd had a bit of an audience. Rejoining my friends, I realised they were way too drunk to be of any proper use. Bjarni was barely comprehensible after his mammoth after-work wine "tasting" session, the rest of the group were getting down to some mildly dirty dancing that I was either too drunk or not drunk enough for, and it says a lot when the most conversation you get all night is with the bar staff. I "impressed" Jean Alexander with my exceptional French grammar for a while, "je suis un croissant verte"—he's the barkeep, he gets paid to nod politely—and then decided enough was enough, I wasn't getting nearly enough attention from anybody and it was time to go home early, before 3am. I tried half-heartedly to tempt my boy to come with me (why, I don't know, we were both way too drunk for either one of us to be any good in bed) but he wasn't biting. The bar was full of honeys and he had his strut on, albeit a little staggered.

It wasn't until I got out into the open air—bored of 101, bored of Reykjavík, bored of the weekend that hadn't even begun yet—that my mother's voice entered my head (in that spooky way like they do in the movies, although she isn't dead) scolding me for complaining of boredom, "You're only bored because you're boring. Go and draw a picture."

Fuck! Is that it? Am I actually just bored of myself?

London Film Academy

Now that I have my place at the LFA confirmed this summer, I should really start penning some film ideas and saving some money, instead of spending my time in bars downtown or, worse, in fantasy land collecting awards at Cannes.

I leave on May 25th for a month in London. I'm going to concentrate on screenwriting.

God, I can't wait. I'm going to stay with Cathy, my nearest and dearest friend, with her luxury boyfriend, in their luxury apartment, in my own luxury en-suite bedroom. Cathy and I have never lived together before, but I'm sure it will be very ... luxurious. Must try not to spend too much time sipping white wine on the balcony in the hazy evening sunshine and instead get my head down and write those award-winning screenplays that I keep daydreaming about.

We are going to be fabulous!

Björk: Celebrity Muff

Yes, I mean the international pop star that I've been waiting three years—three years—to befriend.

She was showering next to me at the pool yesterday; I tried to stay casual, basically trying not to stare at her muff too much. Celebrity muff; oh my god.

Luckily for Björky there was a black woman taking a shower too, so everyone else was staring at her instead.