Copenhagen

(Written 10/12/2002)

I worked there for a while.

Sipping the free champagne and nibbling on a skewer of salmon and prawns at 35,000 feet, I remembered that this isn't the worst of jobs. If only there were more of them! Danish public transport is superb, so the journey from the airport to the hotel was easy and cheap.

My hotel was in the north-eastern quarter of Copenhagen, a short stroll from Nyhavn, a section of canal where the fishing boats tie up for the night. The street is lined with pubs, restaurants and nightclubs, taking advantage of the romantic night-time scenery of boats at rest, their job of catching, killing and gutting done for the day. Hans Christian Anderson lived in three of the houses on Nyhavn at seperate times, proving that shouts of "Fairy stories? I'll bloody give you fairy stories, write something that will pay the rent!" don't carry very far.

As our various breweries produce "Winter Warmers", the Danish lager brewers produce "Jule Ogg" - a darker brew, lager of the colour of mild and bitter, carrying a significant hit of alcohol. Maybe we should draw a curtain over the rest of the week, the ordinary beer costs £4 a pint, Jule Ogg costs a minimum of £5 a pint, looking in my wallet makes me feel faint....

Oh, and at the top of Nyhavn, there's a roundabout called Kongens Nytors, a big garden area that is circled by an even bigger tarmacked pedestrian area. I'm told that it's traditional for graduating students to run naked around the tarmacked circuit. (Babba Mac, now seeking any job in Copenhagen at graduation time.) In December, the track is flooded, a generator is plugged in and ice results... Skates can be hired for around £1.... Every city should have one.

Organisation problems meant that my training courses were delayed. And then postponed for a day. Then another day slipped past... finally, I called my employers and told them that the courses could not be scheduled in the remaining time. "OK," they said, "We'll go for next week. Do you want to fly back on Friday, or stay there for the weekend? Actually, it's cheaper if we pay you to stay there." No problem, a free weekend in Copenhagen was an unexpected perk.

(Lest you think that I spent most of my time doing nothing, I should point out that I was helping the other team members who were trying to get the damn computers to work. Twelve and thirteen hour days were the norm, trying to configure Danish and Finnish BIOS settings. The EC technical translation website at http://europa.eu.int/eurodicautom/login.jsp was particularly useful.)

The rest of the team flew home on Friday night. My hotel for the weekend was a short stroll from the Tivoli Gardens, which open in December to host a Christmas market. They are closed for the rest of the winter, so the first weekend in December is one of the busiest. Swedes and Germans add to the Danes that come to enjoy the Christmas lights strung in the trees, the displays, the old wooden fairground rides and the stalls that sell almost everything needed for a traditional European Christmas. Wandering around with a mug of Glogg (mulled wine with rum or aqavit, slivered almonds and raisins) was just magical. The spirit of Christmas was abroad, all it needed was snow, and I was saddened to think that the 25th December in Britain seems to be just an opportunity to sell more.

On Saturday morning, I walked north towards the harbour. I like to walk in a city; you learn more and get a feel for the pace of life there. On the way, I took a detour into Christiania, a unique experiment in communal living. Thirty years ago, a group of squatters took over a disused army barracks and declared independence from Denmark. (When Denmark joined the EU, they declared independence from that, too.) At first tolerated, now accepted by the local council, the people of Christiania live an independent life, earning a living from selling art, souvenirs, feeding the tourists who come to gawp, building and selling bicycles (best in Copenhagen) and selling cannabis in all its forms. Dope is illegal throughout Denmark, but Christiania isn't part of Denmark... Anything harder than dope is not tolerated. Indeed, many junkies go to the commune in order to get off their addiction, knowing that they will be able to live in a hard drug free environment.

It's a lifestyle that will appeal to many, no taxes, plenty of dope, friendly people - but many couldn't cope with taking total responsibility for their lives, no management, no sick pay, organising your own refuse disposal, etc. I was enormously cheered by the existence of Christiania, though. It's a testament to the tolerance of the Danes and the determination of the people of Christiania to make it work. They've made it work for over thirty years, and long may they continue to do so.

On, then, to the place I had set out for, the Museum of the Resistance. Denmark tried to be a neutral country when WW2 broke out, but Hitler indicated that he quite fancied a lengthy tour of Norway, and Denmark was the easiest route there. The Danes pointed out that they never said he couldn't use their roads, had they? Very welcome to, just keep going, huh?

The Germans didn't, some of them stayed - "To protect you from the British." Very kind of them. It suited the Third Reich to allow Denmark to remain an autonomous country, albeit supplying the German troops with everything they needed, like Danish butter. However, by 1943, the Danish resistance was becoming a severe annoyance and martial rule was imposed. At this point, things became decidedly awful. However, the Danes managed to smuggle 31,000 Jews out of the country to Sweden, a remarkable achievement.

The museum displays are in roughly chronological order, and are in turn interesting, worrying and finally intensely moving. At the start, I was fascinated to see a real Enigma coding machine. I'd seen plenty of pictures before, but never a real one. For the advanced student of the history of coding, it's a four-rotor job.

Amongst the exhibits of arms, underground newspapers, models and Nazi ephemera is a real SS uniform, clothing a wire dummy. Now, I'm not what you'd call a psychic person, but I have to say the uniform gave off a very strong feeling of evil. Real, absolute evil. I know a fair amount about WW2, and I know that in addition to fighting fascism our fathers and grandfathers were fighting the subversion of the Christian religion. I have to say that nothing I've read compared to standing a foot away from that uniform. It's difficult to explain, but it was almost a physical blow as my attention turned to it. I'm convinced that it was owned and worn by a very bad person, following the orders of a truly evil organisation.

Just before the final exhibit are objects from the end of the war, and one of these is the actual typed message announcing that the German forces were standing down, that was handed to the newsreader working at the Danish section of the BBC whilst he was reading the news. Despite the wording being in Danish, the scribbled note at the top can be fairly easily translated - "Read this NOW!" Fascinating.

And so to the final exhibit, and the most moving. In front of a specially commissioned stained glass window of abstract design, a few letters are displayed. They are the last letters written to families by Resistance members who had been caught and sentenced to death. An English translation is provided next to each. Impossible, these days, to imagine the courage that they had, or their feelings when composing these letters. Then, off to one side, the wooden posts that all condemned people were tied to before facing the firing squad. It's greatly moving.

A fine museum, small, but it uses the space well.

Due to further organisational cock-ups, I had to move hotels on Saturday afternoon, so I had to walk back and get myself and my luggage over to the other side of town. Walking back, I noticed a chap with his dog a hundred yards or so away. The dog, a huge black Labrador, clearly recognised a friend and hurtled toward me, ignoring the Danish equivalent of "Come here, Satan!" being bellowed by his owner. Dogs don't have to be on a lead in Denmark, apparently. Still, the Labrador made much of me, and at least I knew how to introduce myself by this time... phonetically, it's "God Morn" (good morning) or "Hi" (hello, but the "i" part rises, unlike the English "Hi"), "Mit narm et Mark" (oh, come on, you can guess.)

Dogs are a great icebreaker, and thank goodness all Danes speak English, lots of them very well. The owner of the Labrador and I had a fair old chat, I told him about the Border Collie I'm occasionally allowed to look after, he suggested that this was a most intelligent dog - all the stuff that dog owners love to talk about, and which bore non-doggy people senseless.

Having moved out of a room on the 26th floor of the SAS hotel - damn, I've got an SAS frequent flyer and sleeper card, the extra points would have been useful - and relocated to another hotel, I spent the rest of the afternoon walking through the complex of streets called "Stroget". Alan Partridge would hate them, they're pedestrianised, although delivery vans, police cars and people on bicycles can use them. Speaking of bikes, I could have used one - there are thousands of "city bikes", just grab one, insert a 20 kroner coin (under £2) to release the lock, ride where you will and when you get there, lock it to something and you get your coin back.

Christmas was breaking out all over, the illuminated street decorations were up, and the Illum department store even had a snow machine on the roof. Every minute or so, there was a swooshing sound from above, and a flurry of real snow would fall. Nice.

All the bars had signs in the window advertising Glogg, made to their own particular recipe, some with rum, some with aquavit, some with just wine, all claiming to be the best. On the advice of the Danes I was working with, I went into a supermarket and bought a bottle of "Glogg extract", together with a couple of packets of "Gloggmix" - raisins and slivered almonds. Add these to a bottle of heated red wine, I'm reliably informed, and Christmas Eve will bring back memories of Denmark. I look forward to it.

Sunday.... cripes, is that the time? An indifferent Chinese buffet (all you can eat for £6, all I would like to eat again £2) and Danish 30-channel TV had kept me up late. A swift stroll took me to the Museum of Police History. I have one or two pals in the local police, and the museum is only open on the first Sunday of the month in the winter, so it seemed a pity to miss it. As I tried to pay to go in, one of the two retired Danish cops asked "English?" Hmmm, cosmopolitan disguise penetrated then, they must have been detectives. "We have a leaflet in English... here it is. But you know that everything inside is in Danish?" OK, I daresay I can work a few things out for myself, it will still be worth the £2 entrance fee.

After looking at some stuff that I didn't understand, and some stuff that I did - a police motorcycle can be understood in all languages, that's why it's painted and ornamented that way - one of the retired cops found me and said "My English is not good... but I can answer any questions..."

OK, what's the secret of life? Maybe not, but the opportunity of being shown around by someone who can translate the Danish (eventually or occasionally) was helpful. He knew his stuff, very good on the historical displays, but once we got to the exhibits he'd used, the chap was positively animated. "Ah, now here is the riot clothing I was using during student riots in 1968! Oh, and here is display of police guns - this is the gun I was given when I joined in 1960, and here is the Heckler and Koch pistol I had when I left... and down here is submachine gun still used today! I never fired it, though (lengthy Danish word, meaning, I think 'Buggrit'.)"

If only he hadn't had eye-watering halitosis... but I can't complain, it was a kind offer to show me around. As we started toward one room, he asked if I'd had breakfast that day "because maybe we shouldn't go in here." I reassured him that I had a strong stomach, and so we went into the room containing a display of murder evidence, including weapons. The display itself is not particularly disturbing, but each exhibit has a number on or by it, and beneath the cabinet are numbered drawers. Each drawer contains the scene of crime photos and other papers from the various cases, and these could be quite worrying for some people.

One example, that my cop pal was involved with, so he knew all the details - a foot was recovered from Copenhagen harbour, not the sort of thing that happens every day. A few days later, a leg was found on the other side of the city... then other body parts started turning up all over town. It seemed like they were from the same person, so the police got a pathologist to prove it. Then the pathologist stitched the hacked-apart person back together and photographed the body, I believe for identification purposes, but the Danish/English interface kind of failed at that point. The artefact on display was the deathmask that had been taken from the face, but in the drawer were photos of a true Frankenstein, rather bizarrely sat in a chair, together with photos of the various parts of the body before reconstruction. Personally, I was fascinated, but others might find it horrifying.

A clever way of displaying the items, though - it's your choice to open the drawer, if you don't want to see the gore, you don't have to.

I'm glad I saw the museum, and lucky that I was in town on the one day of the month it's open. Lots of the Danes that I was working with didn't know it existed, but I suppose people rarely read tourist guides about their own city.

It was lunchtime when I left, so I grabbed a hot dog from one of those kiosks that seem to be everywhere in Europe. It was really tasty, unlike the flavourless mechanically recovered animal sludge that seems to be all that is available in Britain. Then off to the station, to take advantage of the cheap public transport and see Roskilde, the ancient capital of Denmark, some 40 km away.

A quick digress about the transport - all the stations are arranged in zones radiating out from Copenhagen Central. You buy a ticket for the zone you want, and you than have an hour (longer for journeys outside Copenhagen) to get to where you want to go. You can stop off on the way, do whatever you have to do, but the ticket is valid for a certain period. It's valid on trains and buses, so when you get to the nearest station, you can hop on a bus going to your destination, just show the ticket to the driver, no further charge. It's a great system, it works and amazingly, it's all run by a private company.

The cheapest way to get to Roskilde was to buy a 24 hour "anywhere" ticket. This is valid everywhere, and cost just under £8, for which I purchased to right to travel wherever I wanted by train or bus, until lunchtime the following day, and I reckon that's cheap.

The main attraction in Roskilde for me was the Domskirke, or cathedral. All the kings and queens of Denmark are buried there. "But I couldn't find the grave of Hamlet", I joked to one of the people I was working with, later. "Oh, no, he's in Jutland", came the reply. There really was a Hamlet. Whoops.

I enjoy looking round churches, and the Domskirke is the Westminster Abbey of Denmark. Huge tombs dominate the place, great halls running off the nave holding the last resting places of entire dynasties, a set of five massive monuments radiate back from the main alter - just the place for a gloomy Sunday afternoon that threatened rain.

There's a Viking museum in Roskilde, and it has five real Viking boats that were recovered from the harbour. I understand it's interesting, although you probably have to start out with an interest in Viking boats. For me, one old boat is much like another. (Good job I wasn't on lookout duty in Saxon England, then - "It's a Viking! No, hang on, it's the very last of the Romans leaving.") Anyway, I'd walked enough, the rain had arrived, I wasn't sure the Viking museum was open and it seemed a bit expensive as well, so I caught the train back to Copenhagen and vegged out in the hotel. And that was the weekend.

Back at work, organisation still proof that studied incompetance can triumph over sheer bloody hard work any day, but I managed to complete the training I'd been hired to provide. I really didn't want to... I wanted to stay...

Still, the team and I managed a few nights out, even with the cost of beer. The pubs of Nyhavn were the usual starting point, but all roads eventually led to a particular Irish pub. Most of the bars featured live music, mainly of the Irish folk kind, of which the Danes don't seem to get enough. Still, my Fairport Convention t-shirts and sweatshirts ("Don't you have any other kind of leisurewear?" one team member asked. No.) were frequently recognised, and attempts were made to play FC-friendly music. Mainly Dylan, some McTell, never FC.

By Wednesday, I was sad to be leaving. It's a great country to visit, lovely people with a sense of humour similar to ours, and everyone speaks English. They have to, most TV is in English with Danish subtitles. The Danes I worked with were not all lovers of the life there, and this is where working in a country is sometimes better than taking a holiday there. You get to know what the place is really like.

Denmark is a socialist country, has been for ages. Consequently, taxes are high. The top band is 60%. There is a great determination to be as "green" as possible, so things that deplete resources, or pollute, get taxed. Hotels have to pass on a special tax to their guests, as they use more resources than a house does - more water, more electricity, more laundry, detergents, and so on. Purchase tax on cars is an incredible 180%.

Social benefits, though, are better than we enjoy. Maternity leave is longer, you can live on unemployment benefit, healthcare is free and effective. If I break my leg in Britain, it would be fixed for free. If I get cancer... well, it depends on my postcode. Not, it seemed, over there. Most of the other benefits were broadly better than in the UK. Legislation is in place to protect the rights of groups facing discrimination - sexism, racism, ageism and any number of other -isms are illegal, gay people can marry... I could go on. Perhaps the most visible effect is the legislation that assists disabled people. All public transport, all taxis, all places of entertainment, all public buildings, all museums and art galleries, MUST be accessible to disabled people. No exceptions. (Shops and restaurants didn't seem to be included, though.)

Copenhagen enjoys real weather. In the summer, it's hot. In the winter it's cold, and it snows. I'd like to live there. Socialism suits me, it's nice to know that if it all goes pear shaped there is a system that will make sure I don't starve, freeze, or get sick through neglect, and when I get old and daft (cease those cries of "Whaddya mean, when?") I'll be cared for, and I don't mind paying for that. Anyway, I reckon I could make a few bob around the pubs of Nyhavn, playing the FC songs that no one seems to know, a few singalong numbers, one or two of my own... and that would pay the extra tax.

But, as this very long fan letter to Copenhagen proves, I flew back. The champagne was very nice, thanks, but I had to limit myself to just the two glasses as I had to drive home.

May I apologise in advance? Every year, as Christmas approaches, I know I'll bore at world-class level when I say "I wish I was in Copenhagen." Maybe I will be, though.