{"id":1129,"date":"2007-12-19T13:21:00","date_gmt":"2007-12-19T13:21:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ink.verticalplus.co.uk\/archive\/?p=1129"},"modified":"2020-12-09T11:58:11","modified_gmt":"2020-12-09T11:58:11","slug":"the-togviraklippur-by-gwilym-williams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/the-togviraklippur-by-gwilym-williams\/","title":{"rendered":"The Togviraklippur by Gwilym Williams"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Togviraklippur<\/span>

 <\/span>
Do you remember those glorious Icelandic winters<\/span>
when our oilskinned menfolk went out in ships<\/span>
patrolling the seas in search of tresspassing trawlers<\/span>
and Royal Navy patrol vessels<\/span>
dashing up from Fleetwood and Hull \u2013<\/span>
out to steal the last of our codfish fingers?<\/span>
 <\/span>
And do you remember how our womenfolk<\/span>
normal everyday housewives like Hekla and Birgit <\/span>
crept under cover of night to their crochet clubs<\/span>
ordinary fisherman's wives<\/span>
whose drawers were fit to bursting point <\/span>
with tangled shanks and hanks<\/span>
of knotted wool,<\/span>
 <\/span>
And how they were all dressed in their crocheted<\/span>
puffin jumpsuits \u2013 so as not to attract attention \u2013<\/span>
yes, something more than<\/span>
an act of iconoclastic desperation. And they<\/span>
had on their thick woolly socks<\/span>
to boot.<\/span>
 <\/span>
Do you remember all that?<\/span>
 <\/span>
Well, this winter, we're in for a special TV treat \u2013<\/span>
a veritable Brunhilda, an icon<\/span>
from that heroic fishfinger war \u2013<\/span>
the legendary Hrafnkell herself<\/span>
the mighty one<\/span>
who with her trawlerman husband<\/span>
designed the first togviraklippur<\/span>
based on the shape of a crocheting needle<\/span>
and who famously pressed her frozen lips<\/span>
firmly onto the front<\/span>
of the outdoor television camera<\/span>
on the quayside at Reykjavik<\/span>
for the live broadcast on Reykjavik TV News<\/span>
when she smooched the entire Icelandic nation<\/span>
whilst displaying the secret weapon <\/span>
the togviraklippur<\/span>
thus gaining Icelandic immortality<\/span>
will present the 2007 Crocheting Awards<\/span>
tonight<\/span>
live on your public TV<\/span>
immediately following the news<\/span>
and messages from our sponsors.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Gwilym Williams is a regular contributor to both the IS&T and its comments pages. His new blog can be found at http:\/\/poet-in-residence.blogspot.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Gwilym adds “The togviraklippur is the large hooklike gadget the Icelanders invented to sabotage trawler nets and send the nets and the complete catch to the bottom during the Cod Wars. You may recall that the Royal Navy was sent up to Iceland to deter the togviraklippur-ers. Rather than calming things down this move got those stiff Icelandic backs up even more.” <\/p>\n

Yes dear readers, we might go to war today over oil and terrorism but back in the 1960s the British faced a far greater threat – to their supply of fish 'n' chips.<\/span>
<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Togviraklippur Do you remember those glorious Icelandic winterswhen our oilskinned menfolk went out in shipspatrolling the seas in search of tresspassing trawlersand Royal Navy patrol vesselsdashing up from Fleetwood and Hull \u2013out to steal the last of our codfish fingers? And do you remember how our womenfolknormal everyday housewives like Hekla and Birgit crept under cover of night to their crochet clubsordinary fisherman's wiveswhose drawers were fit to bursting […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1129","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1129","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1129"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1129\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23660,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1129\/revisions\/23660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}