If Jack is to be believed, we never feed him. But cats are masters of manipulation and tyrants of the try-on and are not to be believed at all. I have a soft spot for our have-a-go trip hazard, however, and bought some whale meat back from Iceland, forgetting that the biggest fish on the planet is actually a mammal. Anyway, he eats mammals too and boy is he going to get a surprise at teatime.
Whales, for all the hoo-ha they attract, are perfectly edible. I’m sorry for them that this is the case and nothing excuses overzealous exploitation of the animals by factory methods but I’d like to think a few killed for reasons of sustenance, off the shores of isolated communities, do not require such an apology. Either that or we should all become vegan, which may not be such a weird idea in time to come.
For now, whale meat, particularly that which has been salted and buried – in other words, preserved in the Scandinavian grave style – is like biltong, or beef jerky and is quite delicious. I’m not so sure about rotten shark, which reminds me of natto - fermented soya beans which have the consistency of lumpy snot and a smell that rightfully turns the stomach.
These rotten foods are characteristic of isolated communities where times were sometimes very hard and eating was a matter of bravely scraping the bottom of the barrel. I don’t know how they made the transformation into delicacies unless delicacy is a euphemism for rotten muck we can feed to the tourists, which is quite possible. A few oddballs in the Kanto (Tokyo) region of Japan like natto but most consider it disgusting, which is plainly is. So I gave the shark a miss and don’t feel I lost out.
Iceland is another place though, with the emphasis on other. It struck me that although there is nothing particularly bike friendly about it, it is friendly, in a slightly shell-shocked way, and the spirit of adventure is pure. It made me think about my time in Japan, where all this bike business began, and to consider taking the Black Bullet over for a tour.
Right from the start, when we got on the plane, there was something different going on: no busy body at the door checking passes for the umpteenth time and no condescending and vaguely humiliating safety demo, just a quick flick on the seatback screens – in Icelandic. Complimentary soft drinks were offered and no one tried to sell us any junk on a tax free basis.
I was impressed with this. It was as if it was suddenly okay to be a child of nature again, to see money making as a base necessity not the inevitable right and duty of all in Christendom. It might be over-egging the pudding but this is how it felt. There was a lack of things going on, other than the important processes of travel itself, a certain space, and an unusual amount of legroom.
"I want to come back," I said under my breath, while still on the bus into Reykjavic.
