The Faroe Islands? Wow.

I've had some interesting visitors in the last few days. Brunei came to Eff You, as did Slovenia. I think both were second-time visitors, as a I have first-time-visitor posts for both but don't remember seeing them before this. Anyway, nice to have you guys come by again. Enjoy your stay.

But we also have a true first-time visitor: The Faroe Islands. The only reason I know where the Faroe Islands are is too geekishly embarrassing to relate here. A man has to have some pride, after all.

In any event, you should know that, like Greenland, the Faroe Islands and an autonomous country under the auspices of the Kingdom of Denmark. They are located about halfway between Iceland and Norway, with a population of about 50,000.

From 1035 until 1814, the Faroes belonged to Norway. For reasons that escape me, in 1814 the Treaty of Kiel gave control over the islands to Denmark, along with Greenland and Iceland. The Faroes have been self-governing since 1948 -- much like Greenland, I think, although I will defer to my Danish readers on this -- but are still part of the Kingdom of Iceland Denmark. [Corrected: Ed.] I still don't understand how Iceland slipped away from Denmark.

Anyway, there are 18 major islands in the Faroes and a buttload of littler islands. The climate is classified as subpolar oceanic, which means cold as fuck, although the Gulf Stream creates a warming influence that leads to milder winters and cool summers. The islands are windy, cloudy and cool, with more than 200 rain or snow days per year. The sun never fucking shines.

The economy relies primarily upon fishing. That is not always a good thing, apparently. Still, it is a pretty place:

With lots of sheep:

And rugged coastlines:

Having said all that, welcome to Eff You, Faroe Islands. Come back soon, and bring your friends.

Iceland? Oh, hell yeah!

Seems to be my first-time visitor from Iceland, so it is time to give those folks the treatment.

I have a brother-in-law who has visited Iceland a lot and calls it the world's largest trailer park, but he is a disreputable individual and so we will go with some info from Wikipedia, which probably is only slightly more reliable than my brother-in-law (who is scum):

The Republic of Iceland . . . is a Nordic island country in the North Atlantic Ocean. It has a population of 332,529 and an area of 103,000 km2 (40,000 sq mi), making it the most sparsely populated country in Europe.[7] The capital and largest city is Reykjavík. Reykjavík and the surrounding areas in the southwest of the country are home to over two-thirds of the population. Iceland is volcanically and geologically active. The interior consists of a plateau characterised by sand and lava fields, mountains and glaciers, while many glacial rivers flow to the sea through the lowlands. Iceland is warmed by the Gulf Stream and has a temperate climate, despite a high latitude just outside the Arctic Circle. Its high latitude and marine influence still keeps summers chilly, with most of the archipelago having a tundra climate.

Monks might have been the first to settle Iceland, and Vikings or some other Scandinavians apparently followed.  The first settlers apparently arrived before 800 AD,

The period of these early settlements coincided with the Medieval Warm Period, when temperatures were similar to those of the early 20th century.[23] At this time, about 25% of Iceland was covered with forest, compared to 1% in the present day.[24] 

Those motherfucking SUV's were heating up the climate even then.

Anyway, the island was Danish for a long time, then became independent in 1944, which seems like a weird time to go rogue, what with World War II going on and all, but what the fuck do I know. I invite my European correspondent to chime in on this.

Because Iceland is a patronymic society, which last names based on the gender of the individual combined with the name of the father of that individual -- for instance, a man named August could father a son and a daughter, and the son's last name would be Augustson, while the daughter's last name would be Augustdottir -- it is impossible to tell whether a child is a product of a marriage or not.

Hence, the society really never has had any stigma attached to illegitimate birth, meaning they fuck like bunnies, hence the "world's largest trailer park" appellation. Hope I'm not offending any Icelanders, but hey, y'all are the ones fucking like bunnies.

Anyway, welcome to Eff You nation, and come back soon. Bring your friends!

Still no San Marino? Hmmm

Hell, Mauritius has been coming by like sailors at a whorehouse on payday, but still no San Marino. Maybe I should try to taunt Monaco, Lichtenstein, Vatican City, Montenegro or Kosovo into coming by. After all, they haven't been here, either. Come on, Monaco, what's your hang up?

I can't complain, but . . .

Traffic has been good lately, so I can't say I'm unhappy about that. But there are holes in the Eff You map. I don't really have a mechanism to easily determine which countries have not yet come by and thus deserve a little prompting (cough, cough, Bermuda, cough, cough) but there are, in fact, countries that have not yet visited Eff You. I don't know why. On the other hand, we have a long and proud tradition of nagging countries that have not yet represented to Eff You Nation in hopes of getting somebody from that country to come on down.

Well, I've decided Andorra needs to drop by. You guys know who you are. Get it in gear, folks.