Keep your Geese - give us the Money

You don't normally hear much about Iceland. But today it was mentioned twice on the radio, and for totally different reasons. On the news there was an item about Icelandic banks, and later the BBC had a report about wild geese migrating from Iceland to Ireland for the winter.

There is the odd foreigner who mixes Iceland up with Ireland, but not often. Even though the spelling is identical bar one letter, most people know the difference.

For most Irish Iceland is a big lump of volcanic rocks, covered in snow and ice, somewhere up there in the North Atlantic, half-way to Santa's North Pole and close to oddly named Greenland. That's about it. We don't know much more about Iceland, and we don't really care.

By pure chance I happen to know that Icelanders have no surnames and descend directly from the Vikings. But as there are only about 300,000 of them, you would think there is no danger for Ireland. It's more than a thousand years that they came down raiding our monasteries the last time.

But danger these days comes from different threats, and often from unexpected areas. No longer is it the number of people one country can send to invade another that matters. These days it's all about money, the damned stuff that creeps into every element of life now.

I had no idea that there is a bank in Iceland that offers accounts on the internet to everyone willing to deposit his money with them. Now, call me old-fashioned, but I would never do that.
I've never had much time for the banks, even before they began stealing the country's future. But at least there are branch offices I can walk into, with people I can talk to if I am not happy.

An internet bank has none of this. All you have is a website and a code word, and you never have the slightest idea where your money is or what it is doing.
That sort of thing might appeal to some geeks and high-tech computer wizards, but it's definitely not for me. Could never trust a machine completely.

And going by today's news I am quite right with my suspicion. This Icelandic internet bank has just crashed quietly. Yes, websites - in contrast to buildings - make no noise when they collapse. And it appears that anyone who's put his money in there is now left in the lurch.
The government of Iceland has nationalised the banks, to prevent their country from going bankrupt, and foreigners and their deposits don't matter any longer. Well, Vikings were never shy to take other people's goods and money...

One of my students, a real IT geek who even eats in front of his computer, just asked me for 20 Euros to buy some food. He's probably lost all his savings, which he had put into the Icelandic online bank. I gave him fifty and told him to have more common sense in future.

Then I went home, had my tea and listened to the Nature programme on BBC Radio 4. They had a long report about the wild geese from Iceland now migrating to Britain and Ireland for the winter.

Normally I don't mind foreigners coming into our country, and as long as they behave in a decent way, they are quite welcome.
But tonight I have a little message for the Vikings in Iceland: Keep your geese, but give people back the money they deposited in good faith with your bank!