Orkuveita Reykjavíkur. He would play a key role in the financial restructuring of that company.
It proved particularly difficult to get women to join the Best Party. I emailed a lot of my women friends and encouraged them to join us, but most remained dubious. Those who did finally decide to join mostly stayed discreetly in the background rather than muscling in on the front line. I would love to have seen a greater proportion of women among us. Politics has always been an almost exclusively male world, and it often strikes women as daunting and alien. Trying to persuade a woman to join the Best Party was a bit like trying to get a woman to run riot with the boys in the football stadium. Difficult and well-nigh impossible, but I wish it had been different during the election.
The last days before the election went by in a totaltrance. I slept no more than two or three hours per night. We held endless meetings. The rest of the time I went on the Internet, and when I dozed off at my computer I immediately woke up with a start because I’d just dreamed that I urgently needed to update my Facebook status. In the meantime I was alternately in the grip of abysmal resignation and naked panic.
Gradually, the highest-ranking members of the Reykjavík city council had come knocking on our door wanting to talk to me and my party friends. All were educated and experienced politicians who had been on the council for years and years, some of them for over two decades. I had no idea what kind of people they were and what they did exactly. They said they wanted to address a few urban policy questions with us, something about budgetary and financial measures, schools and kindergartens. In fact, they wanted to sound me out, to get a feel of what could be expected if I actually ended up sitting in the mayor’s chair. I promised that, if this happened, I would treat them with trust and respect. I would show full appreciation for their know-how and their professional experience and would expect the same from them in return.
At that moment it dawned on me what a damn complex business I had gotten myself into and how shockingly little I understood about the job. I’d concocted the whole thing out of pure fun. I wanted to pull a few stunts and meet a few cool people. But what I had set in motion here was definitely several sizes toobig for me. I was getting in over my head. I barricaded myself behind my hand-knitted anarcho-surrealism. I turned up at TV interviews totally unprepared and in garish outfits and spouted garbage. What would I do to protect children and teenagers? What would be the main points of my cultural policy? Would it amount to merging kindergartens and primary schools or closing them? Would the daycare fees be raised? All questions that, to be honest, I’d never thought about.
And then came the inevitable: I was systematically grilled on a major live television interview. The moderator organized a veritable cross-examination and took me apart good and proper, while I felt my coolness gradually diminishing to zero. I sat there, facing my opponent, completely naked and defenseless. I blushed, stammered, and sweated, and then I heard an inner voice whispering to me: “Jón, what are you doing here? What the hell have you let yourself in for? What have you set in motion? Get yourself out of it, pronto. Otherwise it’s going to be a mega-disaster for you, your family, and your whole life. Or are you going to spend the next four years hanging around on stupid talk shows while people slag you off for being such a miserable failure?”
After the interview I was completely floored. I felt like I’d been violated. There was a roaring in my ears, everything was spinning in front of my eyes, and my thoughts and feelings were running wild. Finally I took my wife into my confidence and told her I was on theverge of throwing in the towel. She said that whatever I decided, I could always count on her. “Just do what’s right for
It proved particularly difficult to get women to join the Best Party. I emailed a lot of my women friends and encouraged them to join us, but most remained dubious. Those who did finally decide to join mostly stayed discreetly in the background rather than muscling in on the front line. I would love to have seen a greater proportion of women among us. Politics has always been an almost exclusively male world, and it often strikes women as daunting and alien. Trying to persuade a woman to join the Best Party was a bit like trying to get a woman to run riot with the boys in the football stadium. Difficult and well-nigh impossible, but I wish it had been different during the election.
The last days before the election went by in a totaltrance. I slept no more than two or three hours per night. We held endless meetings. The rest of the time I went on the Internet, and when I dozed off at my computer I immediately woke up with a start because I’d just dreamed that I urgently needed to update my Facebook status. In the meantime I was alternately in the grip of abysmal resignation and naked panic.
Gradually, the highest-ranking members of the Reykjavík city council had come knocking on our door wanting to talk to me and my party friends. All were educated and experienced politicians who had been on the council for years and years, some of them for over two decades. I had no idea what kind of people they were and what they did exactly. They said they wanted to address a few urban policy questions with us, something about budgetary and financial measures, schools and kindergartens. In fact, they wanted to sound me out, to get a feel of what could be expected if I actually ended up sitting in the mayor’s chair. I promised that, if this happened, I would treat them with trust and respect. I would show full appreciation for their know-how and their professional experience and would expect the same from them in return.
At that moment it dawned on me what a damn complex business I had gotten myself into and how shockingly little I understood about the job. I’d concocted the whole thing out of pure fun. I wanted to pull a few stunts and meet a few cool people. But what I had set in motion here was definitely several sizes toobig for me. I was getting in over my head. I barricaded myself behind my hand-knitted anarcho-surrealism. I turned up at TV interviews totally unprepared and in garish outfits and spouted garbage. What would I do to protect children and teenagers? What would be the main points of my cultural policy? Would it amount to merging kindergartens and primary schools or closing them? Would the daycare fees be raised? All questions that, to be honest, I’d never thought about.
And then came the inevitable: I was systematically grilled on a major live television interview. The moderator organized a veritable cross-examination and took me apart good and proper, while I felt my coolness gradually diminishing to zero. I sat there, facing my opponent, completely naked and defenseless. I blushed, stammered, and sweated, and then I heard an inner voice whispering to me: “Jón, what are you doing here? What the hell have you let yourself in for? What have you set in motion? Get yourself out of it, pronto. Otherwise it’s going to be a mega-disaster for you, your family, and your whole life. Or are you going to spend the next four years hanging around on stupid talk shows while people slag you off for being such a miserable failure?”
After the interview I was completely floored. I felt like I’d been violated. There was a roaring in my ears, everything was spinning in front of my eyes, and my thoughts and feelings were running wild. Finally I took my wife into my confidence and told her I was on theverge of throwing in the towel. She said that whatever I decided, I could always count on her. “Just do what’s right for
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