Cultural Exchanges When you're driving through lava fields, getting up close and personal with a glacier (scary stuff), taking an amphibious craft ride round icebergs and walking UNDER and IN a rainbow (the Skogafoss waterfall was one heck of a spiritual moment), the civilized world of critics, opinion-formers and other movers and shakers (including bloggers) seems a long way away. Healthily at a distance in fact.

So it's fairly astonishing how when I first sat down in this internet cafe next to the Centre Point Tower (one pound all day), the first thing I did was check out The Times (Mario Vassallo's racism survey) , the Independent (Daphne's article on the absurdity of Maltese racism and our version of the tomatina) and a couple of blogs. My need to know what's going on in Little Rock, MLT (however vaguely) is quite weird but basically based on a long-standing love/hate relationship with the place. Since things are ALWAYS going on there (or rather, people are always SAYING something or other) the typing of "Times of Malta" in google has been invested with entertainment value akin to watching Big Brother (who has called whom a liar/complete idiot/low-life/snobby bitch/government lackey and - more recently - unwelcome scum of the earth who will pollute our pristine gene-pool and streets). Maybe that's why the idea of having an actual Maltese version of Big Brother always struck me as being quite odd. We've got one already (402,000 participants) with the blogging community providing its own critical input, often in the guise of the cynical, voice-over.

But back to Iceland and two things which came to mind as we strolled down Laugavegur through the centre of Reykjavik. A medium-sized building surrounded by lawn caught our attention (simply because it was surrounded by lawn) - and we guessed it was probably someone's picturesque house or, at a pinch, the post office. Our Icelandic friend revealed a few days later that it was "where the Cabinet met". At that point another reason for why our own politicians appear larger than life dawned on me. They're used to hanging out at Castilja and Verdala while Mr. Oddson and co. have got used to the little house on the lawn. Malta: population 402,000. Iceland: population 300,000.

Which led me to another crazy thought. It would be a fantastic social experiment (and surely a first) to organise a nice little cultural exchange between Iceland and Malta. The entire population not just a few teachers from Reykjavik and Birkirkara. The possibilities are endless. Would Gonzi, Sant and Harry, having to contend with a small population (again) but a massive landmass of lava, glaciers and volcanoes, slightly slip into the background? Would the Icelanders find it painfully difficult to run a small, hot Mediterranean country? And, more interestingly, how would the populations adapt to their new habitats? Would the Times of Malta in Iceland still carry biblical sermons in the guise of letters to the editor and how would Morgenbladid in Malta react to world events? The experiment would certainly have the advantage of pointing out where the problems really lie besides being very very funny.  ¶ 7:02 AM