Anyway, I give you … The Interview, complete with that erstwhile profile pic.

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Dear readers. Now that this little project has graduated from being read only by a handful of people I know to being read by People All Over, I thought that a few random facts about YT might be in order. So to that end, we now give you an exclusive interview with YT, solely granted to the Iceland Weather Report.

(Ahem).

The Iceland Weather Report: Some of our readers are confounded by your various monikers. You sign your posts ‘Alda’, on your profile your name reads ‘Alda Kalda’ and yet seem to refer to yourself interchangeably as ‘YT’ and ‘I’. Can you explain?

Truly, Yours: Certainly. Alda’s the name. ‘Kalda’s’ the alias, YT is obviously an acronym for Yours Truly. And ‘I’ – well, as Dido so succinctly puts it, ‘I am what I am.’

TIWR: Now, another perplexing aspect is the fact that you are obviously Icelandic but sometimes you refer to ‘them’ the Icelanders, as if you were not one of them. And you write in English. What’s the deal?

TY: I identify with the positive aspects of the Icelandic national character only. And as for the writing in English bit, well I’m kind of schizophrenic. I was born an Icelander yet socialized as a North American. A Canadian, to be precise. I’ve lived in Iceland, Cyprus, Canada, the UK and Germany, and Iceland again. In that order.

TIWR: Oh my (laughs nervously). That’s a lot of countries. Were you an army brat?

TY: No. Iceland doesn’t have an army.

TIWR: I see. (Embarrassed pause). Now, we know you spend an inordinate amount of time writing Weather Reports. Do you also have a real job?

TY: No. My last real job was at the British Embassy in Reykjavík, where I was the Press and Public Affairs Officer. I now have an unreal job, working as a freelancer – writing, translating, interpreting, copy editing… all in English. (Pause) I’ve had enough dysfunctional workplace experiences to last me a lifetime. (Pause) Being dysfunctional on my own is so much easier.

TIWR: Would you like share with Weather Report readers your best and worst job experiences?

TY: Love to. My worst job was slinging beer at the grotty old El Mocambo tavern in Toronto. The Elmo’s claim to fame was that the Rolling Stones played there once when they were in Toronto for a concert, because they wanted to go back and play in a seedy bar like the ones in which they started out. That was definitely the most dysfunctional workplace experience I’ve ever had. And this from someone who used to work at McDonald’s, where they forbade us to say words like ‘garbage’ and ‘rag’.

My best job experience, on the other hand, was working as an interpreter for the Council of Europe’s Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman Treatment and spending a week inside Iceland’s prisons. It was amazing – enlightening, heart-wrenching and terrifying.

TIWR: What constitutes your immediate family?

TY: EPI, my boyfriend husband of the past nine thirteen years, and my daughter AAH, who is 13 17. EPI also has three girls, aged 23 26, 19 23 and 15 19, but they don’t live with us. We’re your average Icelandic family. Various parts that make up a whole.

TIWR: What’s your favourite activity?

TY: Opening a bottle of wine and having a kitchen party with EPI in which he cooks.

TIWR: What’s your greatest fear?

TY: Apart from the usual things, like something happening to my child (which is more of a terror, really) or my loved ones, it’s that I will become hopelessly dull.

TIWR: Is there hope for humanity?

TY: Yes.

TIWR: What will save it?

TY: The twelve steps.

TIWR: Would you like to tell your readers what you currently see outside your window?

TY: There’s a storm on, the rather spindly trees outside ducking and swaying in the wind, and rain is pounding on my windowpane. I’ll give the snow about another hour or so before it’s all gone. Weatherman says it will stay like this all day, which is Bad News because I’m desperately in need of a run. Temps are currently at the freezing mark and sunrise was at 11.17; sunset is at 15.48.

TIWR: One last question: Are you really schizophrenic?

TY: Um, no. I just like interviewing myself.

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This post was published on 14 June 2006 on my erstwhile blog The Iceland Weather Report, that I wrote steadily from 2004-2010. Feel free to name the things that are now outdated and post them in the comments! Isn’t it incredible how much has changed in 20 years? I mean, this predates Facebook and Instagram, at least their popular use. Also, back in those days I liked to refer to myself in the third person 😂 as YT (Yours Truly). In case you’re a tad confused.

You wouldn’t believe the farce that played itself out chez YT yesterday.

It all started last weekend when the telephone lines started acting funky. There was this ghoulish buzzing on them, as though some ancient poltergeist was striving to communicate with YT and her kin, sometimes accompanied by a dialtone and sometimes not. Similarly the Internet connection was not working as it should – at times excruciatingly slow, at other times non-existent.

Turns out there was work being done down at the corner on some decades-old wiring. I noticed they had been digging in the dirt for some weeks down there and that a few days ago someone had pitched a white tent over the hole. According to Iceland Telecom they were replacing the antiquated connector box with a new one. Then on Monday came an announcement: our phone lines would be inactive from 9.30 yesterday morning onward, throughout the day.

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So, no getting online for our YT yesterday. Which was rather unfortunate, as am in the midst of copyediting a magazine that is approaching a deadline and am constantly sending documents back and forth. Nothing to be done, though, except to keep checking the phone to see if we were up and running. Finally, at around 3pm, it was back on. However, there was no DSL.

At that point I had to go out, and returned just after 6. The first thing I asked AAH on arriving home was whether the DSL line was back on. It wasn’t. So I did the logical thing: sauntered off down to the corner to have a word with the Iceland Telecom guys.

They were just packing up and getting into their van. Two of them.

YT: Hi. So… what’s the status? I have no DSL service.
Iceland Telecom Guy: Oh? Erm… what’s your phone number?
YT:
ITG: Erm… have you tried restarting your wireless router?
YT: No, I haven’t.
ITG: Try restarting the router. That often helps.
YT: Really? Will that fix it?
ITG: Oh, sure. It often does. And try restarting your computer, too.

So YT blithely returns home and restarts the router. Nothing. Restarts the computer. Nothing. Gets on the blower and calls tech help at Og Vodafone.*

Tech help: Og Vodafone tech help, how can I help?
YT:

So Og Vodafone tech help – which incidentally is always supremely helpful – tries everything to get the damn router to connect to the DSL line. Computer settings, restarting, restarting their central services, measuring the strength of my telephone line, etc. etc. Yet curiously, no matter how often I restarted the router, it didn’t seem to be calling in to the central port, they said. In the end, after a futile search for the problem, the Og Vodafone techie guy gave up and delivered to YT the sorry news that the router must be defective.

Just then, who should arrive home but AAH . Hearing what her mother was up to, she was suddenly reminded of a most intriguing and oh-so significant piece of information.

AAH: We have somebody else’s phone number.
YT: ?
AAH: Yeah, I called today and she was like, “Where are you calling from” and I was like “Home” and she was like, “But that’s not your phone number.”
YT:

So long story short, Laurel and Hardy down there in the tent had clearly just had a bunch of wires hanging out from the old box and, not knowing where they belonged, decided just to stick them anywhere, hoping nobody would notice.

You can believe that our YT was pretty livid at that point. Which meant it was time to call Iceland Telecom.

Iceland Telecom Tech Help: Iceland Telecom tech help.
YT:
ITTH: Laughs!!!
YT: I’d like this to be fixed right now.
ITTH: Sorry, that’s not going to be possible. All the technicians have gone home.

Surprisingly enough, no amount of ranting could convince those $#*&%* at Iceland Telecom to call out emergency services to fix the problem. Well they could – they very graciously informed me – but YT would then have to foot the bill. In the end it was Og Vodafone who came to the rescue and said they would not charge me for any calls during the time that this seriously major cock-up was in effect, and that they moreover would forward all calls to my home number to my cell phone.

But the best was yet to come. In the midst of cooking dinner, the phone rang.

I was the one to pick up. “Hello?”

There was a pause on the other end. Then the caller hung up.

A minute later, it rang again. Again it was YT who picked up.

YT: Hello?
Caller: Who is this?
YT: Are you calling for Anna**?
C: Yes.
YT:
C: Well, I’m Anna.
YT: Oh. Hi. I’m the person who has your phone number now. Presumably you have mine?
C: I have somebody’s number who hasn’t paid their bill, because the number is closed. When I try to make a call, I get a recorded message saying I have to pay the bill to have the phone opened again. Is your number closed?
YT: No, my number is not closed!
C: Well, then somebody else has your number.

Yes, dear readers, such was the farce that played itself out chez YT last night. I was left high and dry without an Internet connection and as I write this, at 10.40 the next morning, it is still the case. About an hour ago I went down to the corner and yelled at some jerk in the pup tent who yelled back, pointing his finger threateningly and shouting, ‘Don’t you yell at me!’ Who knows if I shall ever be able to get online again in my own home but if I do you can bet I shall be posting this and urging everyone who may be reading this and who is a subscriber with Iceland Telecom to switch over to Og Vodafone right now because Iceland Telecom is shite. Oh and congratulations to all who have managed to get to the end of this rant which I do believe is the longest blog post I have ever written. Oh yes, the weather is rainy and blustery and Laurel, Hardy and co. were looking snug as bugs in their pup tent with a heater and everything. Just like camping. I’m only surprised they weren’t also playing cards and drinking beer. And cooking marshmallows.

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* It’s like this: a few years ago, Iceland Telecom was a state-owned company and had a monopoly on all telephone services in the country. When new regulations were passed, new telephone companies sprung up, one of which is Og Vodafone. However, Iceland Telecom still own and are responsible for the basic infrastructure. Unfortunately, as this little anecdote illustrates.

** I had been told the name of the person whose phone number I had. Anna is a pseudonym, though.

NB: Posted at a wireless hotspot in downtown Reykjavík at 15.01 pm. Argh!!

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