Iceland: Volcanos, whales, lots of snow, Bjork and the occasional groundbreaking Cold War summit - but what else has Iceland done for us? Quite a bit, actually, reports Tim Judah.
Small island on the periphery of Europe. Sounds familiar? Well, it's Iceland of course, Europe's second-largest island - and 20 per cent bigger than Ireland. But, unless it is something to do with pop star Bjork, Iceland doesn't usually hit the news. Now though, with a spectacular volcanic eruption taking place, Iceland has been blasted back into the headlines.
For the last few days, the Grimsvotn volcano has been sending ash 12,000 metres into the air. Transatlantic flights have had to be diverted, cancelled or delayed. Far from any human habitation, the volcano - which lies under the Vatnajökull ice cap in southern Iceland, the island's largest glacier - threatens no one, unless it continues to erupt for much longer.
But, Grimsovotn and Bjork aside, you might be forgiven for thinking that Iceland was a rather dull kind of place where not much happened. Nothing could be further from the truth. Icelandic businessmen have recently been pouring millions into investments abroad and, this week, the country has been rocked by as much news and scandal as anywhere else in Europe.
In the spirit of their Viking forebears, perhaps Icelanders don't like to do things by halves. So, until last Monday, Icelandic teachers had been on strike for a whopping six weeks. Although they have been back at work since then, they have only been there as part of a one-week arbitration deal that sees them voting on whether to accept it or not. Last night, the teachers rejected the arbitration by 93 per cent and the strike is expected to resume this morning. However, the local authorities have announced they will ask for a postponement of the strike.
Also last week, Iceland has been shaken by the scandal of what their men were up to in Afghanistan when they were attacked by a Taliban suicide bomber. Iceland has no army but, still a NATO member, it is keen to punch above its weight. So, Iceland has developed a niche skill in peacekeeping.
After running Kosovo's Pristina airport, 17 Icelanders have been running Kabul airport this year. Now it emerges, however, that on October 23rd, when they were attacked, Col Halli Sigurdsson was not exactly manning operations in the control tower. He had, in fact, been haggling for more than an hour over a rug in Kabul's Chicken Street. An American woman translator died in the blast, along with an Afghan girl.
Last week, the three lightly injured Icelanders swaggered home, two of them sporting the legends: "Chicken Street: Shit Happens" on their T-shirts and, on the back, alongside a large skull, "Survivor: Afghanistan".
One Icelandic journalist bemoaned in private: "When people get killed, when it is serious, we have so little experience, we have no idea how to react." On Wednesday, however, Iceland's Foreign Minister, Mr David Oddsson did react, recalling Col Sigurdsson from Kabul, but not before a row had developed. This included questions such as how come Col Sigurdsson had become a colonel, since the country had no army - and, in the same vein, what were the Icelanders doing in Kabul in full combat gear sporting machine guns and grenades? The opposition to Iceland's centre-right coalition has seized on the issue, accusing the government of creating an army by stealth and with no debate in parliament.
According to Gudmundur Arni Stefansson, a deputy for the opposition Social Democratic Alliance: "Iceland has no army, so why are we trying to contribute to a military effort? We have earlier contributed to peacekeeping efforts in the Balkans with doctors, nurses, journalists and lawyers. I have to say that we should stick to what we know how to do, and soldiers we are not."
Soldiers or not, what is clear is that Iceland's modern buccaneers are its businessmen. They have burst out of Iceland's own miniature market of a mere 290,570 Icelanders.
While a significant proportion of Icelandic foreign investment is being made in Scandinavia (in banking and insurance), a huge amount of money is also flowing to Britain.
In the last two weeks, Icelandair has bought a more than 10 per cent share in easyJet. Icelandic group Baugur already owns the famous London toy shop Hamleys and a fashion group which includes the high-street chains Oasis and Karen Millen, which also have outlets in Ireland.
Another group, Bakkavor, has made major inroads selling chilled produce to Tesco and Marks and Spencer. It has also bought 20 per cent of the food company Geest, and is poised to buy more. Last month, SIF, an Icelandic fish produce firm, bought French food company Labeyrie.
The development of these entrepreneurial businesses reflects a major change in Icelandic society: the decline of the fishing industry. Today, it employs barely 10,000 people and, next year, it is expected that it will no longer be the largest foreign exchange earner in the country.
Services are set to outstrip fishing, which was once the bedrock of Icelandic prosperity. Today, the well-educated Icelanders would rather work in software than a dangerous trawler or smelly fish factory.
A small group of super-wealthy Icelanders has been created.
While their compatriots are proud that some of their own are making it big, there is also a sense of nostalgia among many for a past in which no one was rich and everyone more or less equal.
"I was brought up in the most egalitarian society I can imagine," says Mr Arni Bergmann, a writer and self-professed "old leftist". He also notes that one firm in particular owns a dangerously large slice of the country's media.
Mr Bergmann may be right, but, being among the richest people on the planet and with an excellent, intact and generous social security network, few Icelanders are going to do much more than moan about it.
Icelanders can now travel abroad, shop abroad and party abroad like never before. And, give or take a little ash, that is exactly what they are doing.