Welcome back to RVK Newscast! In this episode, editor-in-chief Valur Grettisson is in his hometown of Hafnarfjörður to bring you the latest Icelandic news. Read on for more info and links!
A host of the world’s best chess players, including the reigning World Chess Champion Magnus Carlsen, are in Iceland this week for the World Fischer Random Chess Tournament. The event has been organised to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the famous Cold War duel between grandmasters Bobby Fischer and Boris Spassky.
There have been positive updates in the recent bullying case that has shocked the Icelandic public. A number of children have apologised to the victim, who has also received a lot of sympathy and support from the public. Adults have been asked to show restraint when commenting on the matter. Read more here:
Iceland Airwaves returns to Reykjavík next week! Haven’t got tickets yet? Grab them here:
We’ve put together a special Airwaves Goodie Bag to help you survive the festival! It’s full of delicious Icelandic snacks, a rain poncho (of course) and our Best Of Reykjavík guide so you can explore the city in style. Best of all, it can be delivered straight to your hotel!
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WHO WE ARE
The Reykjavík Grapevine is a free, alternative magazine in English published in Reykjavík every month. We cover everything Iceland-related, with a special focus on news, human interest stories, music, culture, food, travel and events.
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Hi Polly…. We love you out here on the planet.
WFH and turns out I really needed my fresh air walk today!
Florida is NOT a great place. Unless you like hurricanes and racists.
Josie will give you a long English grammar lesson after this. ( '-ism, seriously? 🤣 )
Have fun at Airwaves everyone – Reykjavík is even crazier than normal and it is fantastic festival even for oldies like me. And you WILL need that poncho, it is almost certainly going to rain – but that's just part of the fun!
British politics. Valur hits the nail squarely on the head!!
Did you say chess is a sport? 🤣
I stopped/lived for 2mths at the house where it was played in Blondous
I’ll have to watch this more than once! Valur sent me off on a half hour reading jaunt of the life of Bobby Fischer. 😂 So I can’t remember the details of the last half of this video already.
Hi Valur, Once again I thank you and your colleagues for keeping my husband and I 'sane' during Covid. Our interest in your beautiful country has grown exponentially due to your informative and enriching information and stories. We also already have 'Border collie bias' Ha ha ha!!!, so we were hooked at the first glance with Polly. Just love what you do with such Icelandic panache. 😎
Chocolae and Licorice need to be in the bag and Opal!
I love dulse. I use it in cooking for the salt and the flavor. It always adds a nice twist.
Hello from Palm City, Florida
Valur, we need merch with Polly on it! T-shirts, bags, let's go!
If you go to Florida from a foreign country there's a good chance Gov. DeSantis will put you on a plane to Martha's Vineyard (which is much nicer than Florida).
Hi from 30A Florida 🌴
Dramatic is a good word for the Fischer/Spassky tournament. I'm a 75 year old American and remember it well. Chess wasn't a game that attracted a lot of attention in America, but it seemed to be becoming more popular in the very late 60's and early 70's. It hadn't been unknown of course, there were some private and public chess clubs, and some newspapers in major cities printed chess puzzles, and many schools had chess clubs. But when that match happened, everyone knew about it. As you said, some of the interest was created by people relating the match to the cold war. If you weren't around at the time it's hard to imagine how crazy it was. PBS (the American network of educational TV channels) did live coverage during the 7 weeks of the tournament, all the newspapers ran stories daily and printed the moves made on each day, and it's the only time in my life I ever saw chess games reported move by move on the morning, noon, evening, and late news shows by all the major TV networks. They called it "the game of the century", and it certainly was. I had never seen anything like it before and have never seen anything like it since.
Thanks again Valur and Art for the interesting news update!
Hi Polly and Valur.
congratulations to Britain! BAHAHAHAHA
Autumn colours in landscape are easy on the eye. Attractive background for great newscast. Many thanks.
I have no idea how having anal beads up his ass could be classed as cheating. I don't know much about anal beads but I'm pretty certain they can't tell the best move to make in chess.
If the match is filmed in private and then broadcast, it would be impossible for information to be sent to a player, even through his bum!
We don't play chess in the USA anymore, we have video games, ill challenge anyone to a game on SWTOR…
Greetings Valur, Poly, and everyone at Reykjavík Grapevine. I just returned from a week in Iceland, staying at a wonderful AirBnB on Mávahlið, spending wonderful time with friends in Kopavogur and Mosfellsbær and meeting new forever friends at Loftstofan Baptistakirkja in Kopavogur. Valur… as busy as I was with all of my friends (including meeting a beautiful family man, the popular Jón Jónsson!), I was hoping to stop by and buy you a beer or lunch. Maybe next time? Praying for you all. Bestu óskir! André.
Looks like a great area for a walk, and wondering what this area is called, thank you.