Fugato

Fugato.net wishes its tireless, deluged readers a happy new year with thanks for everything, online and off, in the years gone by.

Vífill Atlason (16) made the news last weekend for prank-calling a supposedly top-secret number at the White House, pretending to be the Icelandic president, and booking a phone appointment with President Bush.

Ha ha, but the US news outlets missed the good part: the followup. Two TV stations ran interviews with Vífill. He showed up for one, and had a very-different-looking friend do the other, pretending to be him.

The duped station made it funnier still by threatening to sue both Vífill and the other TV station (which seems also to have been pranked, in that Vífill had promised to appear only on that station that day. Technically, of course, he kept his promise.) The reporter tendered his resignation, which his boss did not accept.

The same station has a show called Tekinn (“Taken” or “Duped”), running pranks on people with hidden cameras.

Vífill may in all seriousness be denied entrance to the US in the future for this (and possibly shackled and denied food and drink for 14 hours), the Dept. of Homeland Security being the celebrated Orwellian juggernaut of common sense and discretion that it is.

But he’ll have no trouble getting into Icelandic showbiz. (Except perhaps on Stöð 2.)