Kaupthing Bank’s gleaming Icelandic headquarters was built in happier times. Nestling in a bed of thick snow on the outskirts of Reykjavik, the sleek exterior, with its mirrored glass and sharp angles, resembles more the bridge of an elegant ocean-going liner than a recently defunct Icelandic bank.
Comparisons between ocean-going liners and Icelandic banks inevitably lead to clichés about the doomed ship Titanic, but there is another nautical metaphor that appears to irk Icelandic bankers more – that of the sea-bound Viking raider.
