Occasional thoughts of an Englishman living in Denmark
My blog has moved!
You should be automatically redirected in 5 seconds. If not, visit
redirectLink" href='http://martynglanville.com/'> http://martynglanville.com
and update your bookmarks.
That hasn't stopped me getting all excited by the Michael Caine drawing image I stumbled across while searching for The Ipcress File. I found myself intrigued by it. You can see it in the background of this page. So I decided to brand myself and have updated my digital identity with it - screensaver, desktop, iGoogle, Chrome theme, iPhone wallpaper, Twitter, and so on. I drew the line at LinkedIn.
Am sure I'll be bored of it in a week and will then waste more time putting everything back the way it was.
THE LAST few days have been full of junk.
For instance, I was prowling around a loppemarked (or flea market in English) recently looking for I wasn't sure what and I was pleased to find a couple of dodgy action movies - Crank: High Voltage and Once Upon a Time in Mexico. These were purchased immediately, and I know you would do the same.
Prior to that, however, I had a real find in discovering a Mexico 86 World Cup inflatable football still in its original packaging:
There were two of them, in fact. I should have bought at least one.
The first time I tried, the international sales desk was closed. I duly came back later in the day and asked for the price of a 4-berth cabin from Copenhagen to Frankfurt and back in August. The conversation went something like this...:
Sales clerk: "I can't tell you. I can't, unless you want to buy the tickets. That's the only way I can tell you how much it will be."
Me: "But I spoke to a colleague of yours a few months ago and he told me a price of 4000 Danish crowns."
SC (signing, and picking up a clipboard, which she scans): "It would be around 1200 crowns each."
Me: "Is that for a cabin?"
SC: "That's just for the basics. No add-ons!" she snapped.
Me: "So you can't tell me the cost of a cabin?"
SC: "Not unless you buy the tickets."
Me (shrugging): "Ok, I'll buy the tickets."
SC: "You can't."
Me: "I can't?"
SC: "I am too busy right now," she answered looking over my shoulder at the queue behind me.
Me: "But I waited for 15 minutes in the queue."
SC: "I have to serve these people first."
Me: "So even if you could tell me the price of the tickets, you wouldn't sell them to me?"
""We sincerely regret the circumstances on the 6th of July, when you went to inquire about a ticket fare for Frankfurt.
It is not usual practice that our passengers should feel forced to buy a ticket just to be informed about the fare, and we are very sorry about the treatment you experienced when visiting our ticket office.
We thank you for your e-mail to us and promise we will make sure this will not happen again.
I took some photos of The Village while it was playing on a small TV on a boat going from Ibiza to Denia, in Spain. I remember thinking their blurred look was quite engaging.
YOU can't buy an iPhone from a 3 shop in Denmark if you aren't Danish.
Let me explain. Just the other day I went into my local 3 shop to join the iPhone bandwagon. As usual I had done weeks of research because I was buying some that cost more than a Pepsi and needed to be sure what I was doing.
Matey behind the counter remembers me from a previous investigative visit and smiles knowingly - "Ah ha! I have you!" he thinks.
And he does. He gets my phone and we begin the tedious paperwork process. But before pen hits paper, he asks, "Do you have any Danish picture ID like a passport or driving licence?"
No, and no. I'm English, see, so I have British passport and an EU driving licence.
"I can't sell you the phone," he says. "Our system needs that information for the subscription."
"Do you lose a lot of business?" I asked. He nodded sheepishly.
Anyway, I left the shop, went home and bought it from 3's website (for less, I might add) with the only inconvenice being a two-day delivery wait.
THE LOCAL COUNCIL here in Copenhagen has started a nifty scheme for bike owners concerned about theft.
Free of charge, they're issuing microchips you place inside your bike. In the event your bike is stolen, you report it and the chip's ID is tagged as stolen.
Kindly traffic wardens walking the streets carry a gizmo that beeps when in range of a bike containing a chip tagged as stolen.
So while it's not quite a tracking device, it's a sort of alert device, giving you some hope of getting your bike back.
DROPPED the car off for its first ever service this morning and was walking back to the train station when I caught the aroma of cheap cigarettes. Not burning fags, no, but the slightly sickly smell you get when a fresh pack is opened - that unpleasant prelude to the always nice niff of a just lit one, which only last for a few seconds before it starts to cause gagging.
It was then I saw I was right next to the Danish HQ of British American Tobacco, and I thought, Christ, what must it be like working in there? (I might have once found out, sort of, when I applied to their London office years ago for a web editor job before coming to Denmark, but that's not even another story so I'll stop this digression forthwith.)
I carried on my way to the station when the following, mildy arresting image caught my eye. 'Bilvask' is the Danish for 'carwash':
Quite why, then, the chappie was scrubbing away baffled me. Of course, I twigged it in a second. Kindly Danish petrol station owners give you a bucket and brush to get in to the tight spots on the wheels.
I myself have used a bilvask on two occasions. The first time, I noticed the previous user standing outside. I bought my ticket (impossibly digitised, the way techno-obsessed Denmark is - if they could find some way of frying an egg over a LAN network, they would) and asked if I stayed in the car or got out while it was being washed. The attendant shrugged and said either was ok. I drove my car in, shut the door and went to the control console where I had to scan this and pin-code that to start the wash. An Australian cyclyed by and explained he'd heard my conversation with the attendant and advised me to stay out of the car. "It's starts up real quick, mate" he didn't say (well, did, just not with the sterotypical embellishments). Sure enough, the water started spraying and a metal shutter door rolled down, sealing me off.
As a kid, I remember sitting in the car wash and loving it. So when I went the other week, I bought the boy with me, started the machine, ducked under the rolling shutter and slammed the door just as first suds hit the windscreen. We had a great time. I am 39 and he's 3. A great father-son experience.
MILLIONS, I know, have been waiting for my latest post.
Sorry about the delay. Been busy launching the new site but have finally got the damn thing out. Yes, I know there are some mistakes and we're working to fix them.
Much has been through my head since my last scribbling. I've been wondering which of many subjects to waffle about - how the wife's iPhone broke when she dropped it onto grass; football, inevtiably; new Google Labs stuff. But what have I settled on to mark my entrance into 2009?
I've been in Denmark for nearly three years now and it occurred to me the other day that I have not seen a single discarded johnny on the streets. They seemed to be everywhere back in Croydon, withered and dying, tossed (boom-tisch!) in kerbs, phone boxes or in parks.
Such a disgraceful way to dispose of one of life's semi-necessities. Just another form of litter.
Danes, it would seem, don't just chuck their used rubbers into or onto the nearest convenience. I can only guess they bin them somewhere more discreet.
But then, they are a clean people. Swimming pool changing rooms display large posters instructing where exactly you need to wash yourself both before and after you've stroked a few lengths (boom-tisch-tisch!). Do it or die. I've never been anywhere where so many men honk of not aftershave but sickly body sprays. You go to a work meeting and choke when some fella walks in smelling worse than a 13-year-old boy who thinks Lynx is the key to success with the ladies.
The message is clear: "We are clean."
I myself, am not. Not to their level. I shower daily (though sometimes not at weekends, to be honest - mostly if we're having company), I brush my teeth and get a haircut every 10 or 12 weeks. True, I follow the warning posters in the swimming baths, mostly out of the fear of being lynched by sudds-up naked men should I ignore their fearsome commands. And they provide good scrubbing equipment - even for kids: special shower attachments, plastic tubs in a variety of sizes, hot water - they've got the lot.
So why do people in England through spent condoms away in the street? I think it's an English humour thing. I think the tossers (boom-tisch-tisch-tisch!) snigger inside at the thought of someone finding their mess and being repulsed by it. And a part of me finds that funny and repulsive in equal measure.
Danes often say to me, "We have the same sense of humour as you English," (usually followed by, "I love Blackadder"). Maybe I'll put that claim to the test.
I'm sure I've still got some Mates that could help me.
Image by Agent Smith via FlickrONE OF the things I like about living in Denmark is how it operates, for the most part, like clockwork. A grand overstatement, of course, but there is a certain fixed routine about the place that gives one a sense of comfort - if you are obsessed about organisation and preparation like I am.
Christmas approaches and yet it was only a few days ago that my home city of Copenhagen suddenly went festive. A few days ago - the first of December. Now I can't move for lit trees, burning candles in windows and the sudden arrival of traditional and tasty little ginger biscuit snacks that can be found all over the workplace. If I remember England correctly, Christmas seemed to start at the end of August as shelves started filling with tins of Quality Street and Peter Kay 'best of' DVD compilations shimmered in their plastic wrapping at every checkout.
It's not just Christmas that works to a strict schedule. The ice cream parlours at the seaside seem to open on the 1st of May and close at the end of September. Nevermind if there's an indian summer where you could make a few quid more as people get out to enjoy surprise weather. No, summer has ended. Obey.
Danes holiday in the same fashion. The first half of the year in Denmark is peppered with public holidays, long weekends and so on (I read once they have more public holidays than any country in Europe, but I am not sure if that's true). Everyone goes somewhere at the same time, and you are expected to do the same. "Where will you be for the holiday?" I am frequently asked.
And there's the rub. As said at the start, I am an organisation obsessive, a person who loves timetables and keeps their watch five minutes fast to stay just ahead of the game.
But I am not very good at it. Where will I be for the holiday? I simply never get my shit together in time. We are always at home because we never remember to check when the holidays are. We never remember to conform.
So my routine is shaped by the routine of others. Others do things, while I am reminded that I forgot to do things.
It seems appropriate for Johnny Foreigners like me.
A TOE-RAG found his way into my car the other weekend and helped himself to my iPod Nano. (Well, it was the wife's but that's another story.)
Lucky for me, he didn't look in the boot where my laptop waited, vulnerable and alone. There's not much crime in Copenhagen, but I was dumb enough to hide something away in the glove compartment so serves me right.
Anyway, with no iPod, I was forced to return to my old Creative Zen to listen to podcasts on the drive to work. First, I was incredibly annoyed at how difficult it was to use after getting used to the iPod. Then, when I got to work and hooked it up with iTunes, it sort of / seemed to work - some pods played as normal, others (Stephen Fry's podgram) didn't. Add to this four days out of the office and I just fell out of synchronisation.
Even buying a new Nano didn't help initially. Of course, combining it with iTunes was a step in the right direction. But I had a week or so's worth of pods to catch up on and only limited driving time to hear them in.
It reminded me of serial television and why I generally avoid it - I can't stand missing an episode because I feel like I'm missing something - jokes, references, story - in all subsquent episodes.
It was the same with the podcasts. Hopelessly out of synch, I knew it wouldn't get better. iTunes would just keep getting new material and I would feel compelled to listen to it all or face spiralling confusion and fear that I was somehow missing something.
Then I copped on to myself and just deleted all the stuff I knew I'd never get round to. Still rankles a little. Completism (my term, I think), is a dangerous condition.
I know I will only be happy again when the number of podcasts in iTunes synches exactly with the number on my device. Only then will calm, balance, yin and yang or whatever it is, be restored.
Available for Bond villains and other would-be world rulers at a very competitive price. Has own operating theatre, mini-sub, and escape hatch (really!).
Image via WikipediaHE'S AN urban hero, Spider-Man. Does well in built-up environments where there are plenty of street lights, tall buildings and other paraphernalia which help him when it comes to locomotion. Thwipping web strands from lamp-post to lamp-post makes for easy transport.
Driving through the light fog this morning, I eyed the lamp-posts running the length of the central reservation on my beloved E55 motorway and I got an image of Spider-Man swinging from one to another. It occurred to me that Peter Parker's be-webbed alter ego wouldn't have much joy out in the countryside.
Put him in a field. There may be a tree or two. He could climb them. But I could climb them too. If luck was on his side, there might be a farmhouse and a barn. Perhaps he could spin a web between the two and halt a fleeing yokel who's nicked a tractor. I can run faster than a tractor. Probably. I suppose he could jump around a bit better than me, and use his enhanced strength to gain something of an advantage, but I can't really see outside of an urban environment how he'd be that much better than you or me.
Flat countries like Denmark, the Netherlands, and Belgium (that's flat, isn't it?) don't figure that much in superhero comic book literature (do they? I'm no expert so you'll just have to trust me). That said, in Spider-Man's 40-year plus history, I feel pretty sure he's not confined himself solely to Manhattan.
If anyone can furnish me with the issues where he comes to the Danish countryside, I'd be in your debt.
Image via WikipediaI KNOW that.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_trKkcuUFGWLecM_uKLprWX9wDrBE-Da54anlJfPlwqDbEpuzy_VcUjuD84CFpetJOyuO0csouWg6SvmjEOHlikyawHpqqqS_UkrybW6WsysxmiIM7gP1pUElL7aBAcyI1obXiEKJ_mdqwaqr27GfCY=s0-d)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_vz4koEpWQQ6-uDw27lzklPoj90y7jkyGh9ZCEKySlnWzcDDFoRQluzJVYDRS7_liffx1hSI00Q6cfbk80iNnF8XCKoZGm1VxkO-uQ-MdTb2Kpe_7QL-9SzAOXQz9z9JJd2BqaGvp2a5XBjStagAzau=s0-d)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_tgsjGOrSvgxQjOOaSqwimmkfgQJoIee7jtnZ1jwgjLViv0cR7vAWkkVXmMxM6JvUKz99Lx45UZ4qlTtb5sH-zNpb7qRKJ4pbfxju4Q4jXcIkVHjmO63ufcE9wHGHdFDSGj7iPWVAsJBVi24srdhTYi=s0-d)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_vtlGp2SPC44n0sAfxD7wmuK4IDc2kOKgDIZxXujyf6NhSAFQINC3g584I-4KoJreh4uhRgLMRGmj_CEhJHkOg0aouWuARJQ2vTPCFJYnhxbA84XCof_1EF5OZ30nb-SsDKauJs4uAyjFLOn5CjkuQ=s0-d)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_u9nA8ult89PFIxhyzBLJjiFNSQ7eL_blCjYAk57yGBhLl_uusSlQQL8s0taiFmjakLW_jq0MjuWHauSACRjDaj9y65U8vvTcqorzvrX9YKZqjktW-XSkH2jHMQRCfBYlbN63m14h3H96M_EGqfs7J6=s0-d)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_v3GBfbmDqfS1tlmAp8xloU5P7yhN99ksP-JN1bv85Z-75oqpT781DhBjsRP3tWn3C6TCd-tueoKBW3RF2RAZXcxKAr-ov94IfRmO1xW3slzqsG7wpHRHuqtDBDZ2IVucXoOrHalxhVl3yf2uT0NSiC=s0-d)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_vVYBth4GYk2UWgZqQxWLH0zXLAnI3cjKGtxthyWnElV5kttSpOa42CaGkKsb4s39jeBLgvL1zUBFYPbA5Gz6oKtrsCZKFyt_3DiIWkZvLE3gxeIwZqB2uRbN3EH0wbcP6zelrpTkkeAKzpSIEXDuk=s0-d)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_vB8wKkMylP8GC7IVKo0dRFpuCzt3xQgoeAebzFBFWQ53dniag7tPekFHzseT5y4k9NE-Ym-RLRquyxupsS5RcZtbwAFX27o8t9mnV6w475O9X_0yZG1rB4B41nRWcnx9gjsL8eiancllJ1mFd3nMmx=s0-d)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_tgFx7Pw3g8KO7H37tCH3RhkU75MzxqV8VE96gGBjc0bgdLBoKS34j0v8gDoO0KBmOiIx01vDfng3d68Xb-mh1EPnQP5H1u2vpOSF-ufow7wbHTm8TPdYUYVNqS90ZGxxBfewOYkHgew9p1Qx-fejbM=s0-d)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_tnoEO0uwvkRBvekgVdzao-yE3_zkuV85YkCqAnVTGSFMzz8yGspJmZQJkkQjbXmaPxhE_Een2L3fKiJ2pfCa55KNa-C6FNeKxeRm8wGuiwj9vIT7IOZdZpwR0P0OQWOcF6lVi0be6cNaYzHhzGqOwe=s0-d)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_ujlCqxxOt6P3xRTlaAHDBxpWvxxOCd_wDeOs8yDWoJBbqKK3KJ_DGy2pxYlCyiOAUEmDOV-lPRWOZYcqlctqHw98avCzYtaplx__Zq76cztGgGZdhotFjW2Cd8pWkOMWndwkqtonM0_IkZwF-Q4kTz=s0-d)