Right, so remember how I said I wasn’t going to write another word about old Quentin Tarantino unless he went and scandalized really bad? Well call me prescient if you will if you shall if you must, but he’s gone and done it. So I am now forced to tell you about it.

A couple of days after leaving our fair country, old Quint showed up on the Conan O’Brien show and proceeded to slag off Icelandic women, Icelandic booze and [sorta] Icelandic public officials. Prized quote, currently making the rounds in cyberspace and on airwaves worldwide:

“I almost can’t imagine New Year’s anywhere else after that because Icelanders, they go and they drink like crazy any old way, but, on New Year’s they lose their minds – in particular the women lose their minds and like drink like crazy. We were in this club full of all these drunken girls and this one girl is like, ‘Oh man, I’m so embarrassed about Icelandic women – they always go out and they always drink way too much and make complete fools out of themselves. The moment after she said that a drunken girl walks by and does a face plant, ‘Bam!’ right in front of us. I’m in a room full of supermodels who were drunk out of their mind standing on a table, (going) ‘Let’s get the party started.’ I’m like, ‘Where have I been all my life.’ In America, the idea is to get the girls drunk enough to go home with you, in Iceland it’s to get the girls home with you before they get so drunk that they’re passing out in your bathroom or vomiting all over you.”

Um, yeah. Right. Okay.

Now what I’d very much like to know is, – is he conspiring with Oprah Winfrey on the ‘all-Icelandic-women-are-promiscuous-airheads’ campaign?

SO WHAT DO REAL, INTELLIGENT PEOPLE HAVE TO SAY?

Ísleifur B. Þórhallsson, organizer of the Iceland Film Festival, who escorted old Quint around:

“I haven’t known him long, but this seems to me to be slightly out of character. He was much more positive when he spoke to us… This interview presents a totally distorted view of his time here because the largest part of the visit was not spent partying… We did a lot of going out into the countryside, met interesting people, and he talked about that… [speaking about Eli Roth, Quentin’s friend who initially brought old Quint here:] He is very upset and disappointed about this and he thinks it’s very unfair.”

Katrín Anna Guðmundsdóttir, spokeswoman for the Icelandic Feminist Association:

“This does not come as a surprise. This is how Iceland has been marketed. There are trips being sold in both the US and the UK for which men are the target group and Icelandic women are the bait,” adding that she’s heard that many Icelandic women have stopped staying where they’re from for fear of being harassed when abroad.”* [In other words, old Quentin has bought into the same stupid brainless image that Oprah insisted on propagating.]

Arnar somebodyorother, quasi-celebrity who primarily gives advice on fashion a la Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, on Icelandic News Channel NFS:

“He looked like he was still drunk from New Years Eve.”

Alda Kalda, Weather Goddess Extraordinaire who never goes Bam! or passes out in anybody’s bathroom:

“Tarantino is an asshole. He was treated very hospitably and he’s gone and shat in his friends’ shoes. He should hang his head in shame. And let no-one give him Stuff ever again. Boo.Boo.”

The Icelandic Nation:
“Djöfull er gæjinn ómerkilegur maður!”

AND THE WEATHER AND THE WEATHER?
Cares not a whiff for old Quentin Tarantino and his hapless declarations. It’s been stormy, though. Friday was twelfth night, which here in Iceland means that you’re supposed to take down your Christmas decorations and then head out to bonfires like those on New Years Eve, only smaller. And many of these have elves and weird apparitions from Icelandic folk tales who show up. But alas! It was so stormy that they were all cancelled. So all we got were a few irreverent souls who ignored the big flashy DO NOT GO OUTSIDE AND LIGHT FIREWORKS BECAUSE THERE IS A STORM ON sign and went out and lit all their leftover fireworks into the raging sky. Shrug. Today was better, periods of fairly substantial snowfall, and temps at the moment are at the freezing mark; sunrise today [Sunday] is at 11.11 and sunset at 15.57.

PS Anyone who wants to see old Quentin making a dork of himself first-hand can go here.

*Both these quotes taken from yesterday’s Fréttablaðið.