In a small cafe in a town called Nolsoy, on an archipelago in the middle of the North Atlantic, surrounded by barflies and the blue fug of cigarette smoke, I am trying to be unobtrusive. This is not going so well. There are precisely two occupied tables in the establishment, the barflies’ and mine. At mine, English is spoken, pallid beer is sipped, and all eye contact is avoided. At theirs, they speak a derivative of Old Norse, drink a rigorous liquor and shoot glances my way, accompanied by throaty chuckles. I, in fact, look not only like an American and a tourist, but also like an idiot, having walked up onto the quayside at Nolsoy, through its most famous landmark — the bone archway formed by the massive jaws of a sperm whale — and into its one bar wearing a flotation suit. A giant, puffy, one-piece flotation suit. Ten minutes ago, thudding across freezing harbor waters in a Zodiac, a flotation suit had seemed like a good idea. Now it makes me look like a Power Ranger. The chuckles are starting to crescendo. As I exit the place, from behind me I hear, “Zay hallo to George Bush.”

This ram had grazed in the wild for six months. All the water it consumed came from sea breezes and wet grass, so there’s little fat between its dermis and its tissue. To skin the animal without breaking its hide, a very large man in a blue rubber apron and rubber boots, a cigarette dangling from his mouth, repeatedly drives his hand up into the carcass, both with great force and great care. The village elders look on, goading him with clucks. A father holds up his toddler son to afford him a better view. Between strokes, the man plunges his hands into a bucket of cold water and swigs from a schnapps bottle, then sets upon the ram again, his entire body torquing like a Greco-Roman wrestler’s. Finally, the hide separates and — success! — the carcass is laid on a dressing table, severed hooves in the air, its hypodermis an unbroken white balloon. The chest cavity is opened, the organs carefully removed, the stomach pumped with water and lanced. The waft of cut grass instantly fills the room.

It is more the Sambandspeople who try to deny or play down our ties (read bondage) to Denmark

jogvanth wrote:
Well, whenever the Faroes have been named as part of DK, then 'Mullah Hoydal' (and cohorts) have been up in arms at once. But then again, this is just a travel-report and not an official document.

jogvanth wrote:
Do you seriously believe in the 'bondage' thing?

Comparing Hoydal to Islamists might be off the mark since most Islamists are right wing

@thomsen
Nations are self-defined.