Ánægður með málsháttinn

Talsmaður skákmeistarans Bobbys Fischers kveður hann „sæmilega ánægðan“ með páskaeggið sem hann át á páskadagsmorgun í vistarverum sínum á Hóteli Loftleiðum. Samkvæmt frásögn Sæmundar Pálssonar, vinar skákmeistarans, var eggið frá Mónu, af stærð 5, og flutti Geir Jón Þórisson yfirlögregluþjónn eggið til skákmeistarans frá framleiðanda, milliliðalaust að því er Sæmundur best veit. Fischer var að sögn sáttur við hvernig staðið var að flutningi eggsins, þrátt fyrir lítils háttar bráðnun sem olli því að unginn hallaði óeðlilega til vinstri hliðar. Talið er að eggið hafi staðið í sól í farþegasæti bifreiðar Geirs Jóns. Skákmeistarinn lýsti að auki ánægju sinni með málsháttinn, og sagði hann lýsa velvild og vinarþeli íslensku þjóðarinnar. Ekki fékkst þó upplýst hvað þar stóð, og fullyrða forsvarsmenn Mónu að málshátturinn hafi ekki verið valinn sérstaklega fyrir Fischer.
Um eftirmiðdaginn varð skákmeistaranum ómótt. Kveisan er talin hafa stafað af súkkulaðiáti morgunsins, sem hefur reynst maga Fischers erfitt eftir langvarandi súkkulaðisvelti í haldi japanskra yfirvalda, en hún leið hjá við stutta göngu í Öskjuhlíð í fylgd Sæmundar Pálssonar og konu hans Ásgerðar Ásgeirsdóttur.
Í öðrum fréttum er að stór jarðskjálfti, 8,2 stig á Richterkvarða, reið yfir Súmötru í dag og mun líklega valda risaflóðbylgjum, þó ekki af viðlíka stærð og gerðist annan dag jóla. Marburg-veira geisar í Angóla og hefur lagt 122 að velli, og Angelina Jolie var kosin kynþokkafyllsta kona heims í atkvæðagreiðslu á vegum tímaritsins FHM. Ekki hefur enn borist opinber yfirlýsing úr herbúðum Fischers um þessa atburði.
Von er á metuppskeru í íslenskri gúrkurækt í sumar.
Edit: here’s an English translation (see comments for why).
A spokesman for chessmaster Bobby Fischer says he is “relatively pleased” with the easter egg he ate on the morning of Easter Day in his quarters at Hotel Loftleiðir. According to Sæmundur Pálsson, friend of the chessmaster, the egg was from Móna, of size 5, and was transported to Fischer by Geir Jón Þórisson, chief of police, without intermediaries to the best of Sæmundur’s knowledge. Fischer was reportedly satisfied with the manner in which the egg was transported, despite a minor melting which caused the top-mounted yellow baby chick to lean abnormally to the left. The egg is believed to have stood in direct sunshine in the passenger seat of Geir Jón’s vehicle. The chessmaster additionally noted that he was pleased with the saying1, saying it illustrated the goodwill and friendship of the Icelandic nation. The saying was not divulged, and Móna representatives maintain that it was not chosen specifically for Fischer.
In the afternoon the chessmaster had a spell of nausea. The illness is believed to have resulted from the morning’s chocolate consumption, which presumably posed difficulties for Fischer’s stomach after a long-lasting chocolate paucity while detained by Japanese authorities, but it subsided during a short walk in Öskjuhlíð with Sæmundur Pálsson and his wife Ásgerður Ásgeirsdóttir.
In other news, a large earthquake measuring 8.2 points on the Richter scale struck Sumatra today and will probably cause tsunamis, albeit not of the magnitude seen on the second day of Christmas. The Marburg virus is on the loose in Angola and has killed 122, and Angelina Jolie was voted the world’s sexiest woman in a poll run by the magazine FHM. An official statement on these events has not yet been received from the Fischer camp.
Icelandic cucumber growers are expecting a record crop this summer.
1 An Icelandic easter egg is a hollow chocolate shell containing assorted candy and a little note with a random saying, much like you would find in a fortune cookie]
April 28th, 2005 at 10:56 am
In one of your very first posts to this blog you wrote that you will write in Icelandic about things that are of no interest to non-Icelanders.
I am not an Icelandic speaker and cannot understand most of your post above, so I may very well be off topic here, but Bobby Fischer and Iceland is most definitely a matter of interest for the whole world and not just for Iceland. Most of what’s been going on has been watched quite closely by even the Estonian media, which generally has a tendency not to care about things that have no direct relation to the country. So, just so you know, whatever an Icelander has to say about this matter may be of interest to others as well ;)
April 28th, 2005 at 12:25 pm
Good point!
The reason I wrote this entry in Icelandic is that I am engaging in wordplay and parodying the kind of news coverage that this issue was getting in the Icelandic media at the time. For example, the sentence fragment “milliliðalaust að því er Sæmundur best veit” is taken verbatim from the front page of a large newspaper; it said that the Reykjavík police chief had relayed some little message from Fischer to the media “without intermediaries, to the best of Sæmundur’s knowledge.” In my story, the same police chief was bringing Fischer an easter egg from the manufacturer, “without intermediaries, to the best of Sæmundur’s knowledge.”
The picture of cucumbers is a reference to the Icelandic term “gúrkutíð” (cucumber time), a time in the year when interesting news is scarce and the media spend inordinate amounts of time/space on uninteresting details.
For the benefit of Henrik and any other non-Icelandic speakers who may chance upon this blog entry, I have added a full translation above.
April 28th, 2005 at 1:09 pm
Thank you for the translation. It is a good story:)
And BTW in Estonian we have a similar cucumber expression with the exact same meaning, except we call it “hapurkurgihooaeg” – the dill pickle season, implying that the cucumbers are not even fresh any more.
May 30th, 2005 at 10:19 pm
sorry for the ridiculously late comment, but I just installed RSS reader – which is bringing my blog reading back in time.
I think you left out a very important point, usually Sæmundur was referred to as Bobby’s close personal friend (einkavinur) in the Icelandic media; which is quite funny, since Sæmundur was only his chauffeur about 20 years ago.