Northern exposure | 3 March 2016

Some things I have learned about Iceland after watching six episodes of Trapped (BBC4, Saturdays).

1. They seem to feel much the same way towards the Danes as the Irish or the Scots do towards the English.

2. Some typical Icelandic first names: Andri, Ásgeir, Dagný, Hjörtur, Hrafn, Þórhildur. But even if you did Anglo-Saxon at university and know what a ‘thorn’ looks like, they’re still pronounced nothing like they’re spelt.

3. They drink more coffee than booze, even at night. Only tourists, millionaires and politicians can afford alcohol.

4. If it weren’t for the excitement provided by the swimming-pool, the kids in remote Icelandic towns would die of boredom.

5. Everyone in Reykjavik is poncy, effete, synthetic. You can tell by the way the men dress — a confection of greys and blacks and charcoals, with prissy gay ties and scarves and mincing, shiny anoraks with puffy sections, like you get from Uniqlo but presumably way more expensive.

6. Even in Iceland they place far too much store by the economic miracle that is, supposedly, China.

7. The word for police is Lögreglan. (‘Law order’. So, actually, that Anglo-Saxon wasn’t a complete waste of effort, after all.)

8. It is quite possible to go through six hours of an Icelandic crime drama without hearing a single track by Björk. They do listen to other stuff, you know.

9. Policing methods seem to consist largely of bumbling about moodily with a perpetually pained, wistful, almost Christ-like air of noble suffering, and just sort of hoping that if enough people die and enough weird external events (avalanches, etc.) happen, the solution will turn up eventually.

10. It looks quite amazingly bleak and depressing and everyone appears to be on a massive downer, but still you really, really want to go there.