Fugato

“Here you go sweetie” says the waitress at Glo’s, a Seattle breakfast diner.

She looked about 19.

I take that to mean I don’t look about 30.

It’s April. I’m travelling in North Cyprus with Tuğberk, who knows every square inch of his island. In a remote clearing at Akdeniz we find clay pottery shards. Tuğberk inspects them for a while, and then:

Tuğberk: “2000 years old.”

Gulli: “How can you tell?”

Tuğberk: “From the sign.”

[Points to a sign saying the site is 2000 years old.]

Gulli: “Oh.”

My department has had a thing for sea-swimming recently. Snæbjörn made a bet with Viggó on the latter’s diet success. Viggó achieved the stated goal, so Snæbjörn had to swim from Nauthólsvík to Kópavogur, about 600 metres (2000 ft).

(Note that this is Iceland; even in August the sea is not exactly balmy.)

It bears noting that Snæbjörn is the least cold-tolerant man on Earth. He complaints about the cold gust of air when someone sighs in the office.

He has been in the sea several times recently to toughen up for the long swim, and workmates have hopped in with him. Last week I went along, and that day he unexpectedly completed the whole swim … and doubled it: he swam back as well. Took him about 45-50 minutes.

This video shows him stumbling out of the sea afterwards, with slurred speech and wobbly legs. He was visibly incapacitated at first — had us worried — but a couple of hours later he was at the nightclub Sirkús supporting Pablo in the Tom Selleck moustache competition. Now, several days later, he does not seem significantly impaired in any way.

And this video shows me hopping in for a (much shorter) swim

I’ve noticed that I responded “say what?” three times in 45 seconds. Maybe I should worry about that a little.

Anyway, everybody dive in! It’s good for ya. Just look at Snæbjörn!