Tuesday Video Blogging

I happened upon this bit of fluff accidentally and I will never be the same again. “Skaup” is apparently the shortened name for an Icelandic TV show that runs late at night on one special night of the year. (Yeah. TV. With all that snow and ice and cold nights and Gudrun Thorsdottir. Go figure.

The actual show name is Áramótaskaup! And it’s apparently a big hit. More popular than the codfish report, according to Alda Kalda, who blogs The Icelandic Weather Report. (Sounds like a pretty easy gig, by the way.)

If Alda’s report is right the show plays once a year, on New Year’s Eve, right after the ceremonial dinner and the ceremonial bonfire and fireworks. Before the ceremonial Gudrun Thorsdottir.

First, there’s a big and festive dinner, often involving party hats, balloons and crackers, and almost certainly booze. After dinner, party-hat-clad people head out to one of the huge bonfires scattered about the city where they meander about (some very drunkenly) and say hello to a bunch of their friends/acquaintances/neighbours. Now, these bonfires are not the hot-dog cookin’, marshmallow roasting, campfire kind. These are BIG bonfires, strictly controlled and all that, and in case you didn’t catch it the whole symbolism thing is the old year going up in flames. Oh, and people may or may not set off the odd firecracker or two while there.

So when people have had enough of this outdoor fireside mingling, getting one side of themselves scorched while the other side freezes, they head back home for the (almost) highlight of the evening which is… the Áramótaskaup! A one-hour television programme where the country’s best comedians do a send-up of all the main events/people of the year. In a country as small as this one (pop. 290,000 for those who’ve just joined us) everybody knows everybody’s business and everybody can laugh at the same jokes. Now, while it is on, the streets are absolutely deserted because this is compulsory viewing, being the subject of water cooler/coffee room discussions well into January. Whether the Skaup was any good this year, whether it was better than last year, everyone’s favourite little skit… that type of thing. And I have to say it does give you a warm, fuzzy feeling, sharing that hour with everybody in the country. Except the poor foreigners, of course, who sit and scratch their heads and wonder where all them fun-loving Icelanders went.

I have no idea what they're singing. I don't really care.