Iceland: I think the attitude about it comes from two things. Firstly, in the Watsonian (I've waited ages to use that terminology!) sense, it is that all islands were places of banishment from normal society, prisons even if the term wasn't used. Secondly, in the Doylian sense, to 30s Britain Iceland was a cold, barren, and uninteresting place. There wasn't such a thing as "nature tourism" and it had no interesting buildings or Roman ruins. So why on earth would anyone want to go there?

Clive Feather