Reykjavík Politics (the Fun Version)

For four years, Reykjavík's mayor was a comedian who ran a joke campaign lampooning the political establishment in the wake of Iceland's catastrophic financial crash, but then accidentally got himself elected for real. By most accounts I've heard, he did a good job as mayor. Here's his awesome campaign video:

Some of my favorites among his joke campaign promises (I believe another one of his campaign promises was to break all of his promises) are "free towels in all Reykjavík swimming pools," "a drug-free parliament by 2020," "tollbooths on the border with Seltjarnarnes" [a tiny peninsula that's basically part of Reykjavík] and "economize – we only need one Santa!" [Icelandic tradition has thirteen "Yule Lads," which are a bit like Santa Claus, and they like to play up this weird Icelandic fact – "we have thirteen Santas!" – to foreigners.]

And of course, because this is tiny Reykjavík, when my friend Arndís was showing me this video, she pointed during one of the scenes of several people singing together and went, "Oh, that's our neighbor!"

Of course it is!

(Edited to add: Because this is Reykjavík, and it's awesome and ridiculously small, I just realized I have four Facebook friends in common with Jón Gnarr, the former mayor.)