The Year of Living Danishly (6 page)

We Shop. With a capital ‘S'. In spite of Allan with two ‘l's from the bank. Lego Man is already happier once his new purchases are installed, and over the next few days our house starts to look more like a home. I try to think positively, too, but my own Pollyanna project suffers some setbacks.

I make my first Danish faux pas by putting paper into the wrong recycling bin. This leads to my inaugural interaction with our new neighbours, when two bearded gents call round at eight o'clock on Monday morning. I'm not yet dressed and haven't even had a chance to turn on the coffee machine, meaning I'm in no state to receive visitors. But Mr & Mr Beard aren't going anywhere. They ring the doorbell insistently until, living in a glass house where there's nowhere to hide, I have no choice but to answer. Huddled in anoraks and blinking behind surprisingly non-Scandi milk-bottle glasses, they start to speak in Danish before I explain that I haven't yet learned their fine tongue. Eventually they relent. Mr Beard I tells me in halting English that ‘the neighbours' (collective) have noticed that the recycling bin has been more full than usual and so have been through the rubbish to discover the culprit. Mr Beard II holds aloft a tea-stained utilities bill addressed to Lego Man as evidence. Once I get over the weirdness of the fact that my new neighbours have been going through our bin (or
their
bin, as it turns out), I politely ask where it is they'd like me to deposit my waste paper. They point to an identical bin to the one I had been using, only a few feet further to the left.

Chastened, I promise to do better next time and get a free lesson in waste separation. The Danes, it turns out, are admirably obsessive about recycling. Almost 90 per cent of packaging is recycled and paper, cans, bottles, food and organic waste all have separate recycling homes. Sorting out what goes where is an art form I have yet to master, but I do work out that the Tardis-type booth at the local supermarket is for bottles. We pop one in on the off-chance one afternoon and marvel at the ad hoc laser show that commences. The bottle is scanned for its reuse value before the magical machine spits out a voucher, paying us the equivalent of 12p or 20 cents towards our next shop. I am disproportionately excited by this.

It's not just Prius drivers, hemp-fans and hipsters who are passionate about the environment in Denmark. Being eco-friendly here is seen as a basic duty and something you do to be a part of Danish society. Inspired by the fervour of my neighbours, I go on a fact-finding mission and discover that Denmark was the first country in the world to establish an official environment ministry, back in 1971. Today, the Danish clean power industry is one of the most competitive in the world and the country gets 30 per cent of its electricity from wind. In 2013, Denmark won the World Wildlife Fund's most prestigious award, Gift to the Earth, for inspiring leadership with the world's most ambitious renewable energy and climate targets. It has also been voted the most climate-friendly country by the United Nations' Climate Change Performance Index for the past two years. The Danish government aims to reduce CO2 emissions by 40 per cent by 2020 and the environment ministry has a collective goal for a ‘Denmark without waste' by 2050 – when they hope that everything will be reused or recycled. At a time when most countries are reneging on their environmental promises, Danes are setting themselves tougher and tougher targets, and they're on course to meet them.

Impressed, I resolve to perform my civic recycling duties rigorously and with pride in future, and am keen to inform Messrs Beard & Beard of this when they call round a week later to check I've been putting my cans in the correct bin. They nod in acknowledgement of my environmental epiphany then shuffle off again as fast as they can.

Other than this, no one speaks to us. If I was expecting the happiest country on earth to be welcoming, I was mistaken. I miss London. I miss noise. Instead of working to the sound of 747 engines whirring their way along the Heathrow flight path, or ear-piercing sirens speeding past to pick up London's criminal not-so-elite, I now hear birdsong, tractors or, worse, nothing. The place is so still and silent that the soundtrack to my day is often the ringing of long-forgotten tinnitus, acquired during an adolescence spent at bad gigs. Our dog finally arrives from the UK but gets so spooked by the deer, hares and foxes currently inhabiting our garden that he immediately retreats to the laundry room. Here, he whimpers and can only be comforted by a full load on spin cycle. Then, once we've finally got him settled, we're kept awake three nights running by
owls
.

I miss my friends, and find that moaning about owls to them over FaceTime isn't nearly so much fun as moaning to them about owls over wine. I was prepared for the fact that we'd be starting over. We'd convinced ourselves that this would be ‘liberating', forcing us to try new things and meet new people and broadening our horizons. But this doesn't seem quite so appealing when we find ourselves sitting at home, alone,
again
, wondering how to kick-start our Danish social life.

‘If Denmark has a population the size of South London,' I tell Lego Man, ‘and we reduce our catchment area to, say, a twenty-kilometre radius of where we live and narrow it down to people within a two-decade age bracket, the number of people we may
actually like
gets even smaller. In other words, if the friendship pond is already tiny, we're not going to like all the pond life we meet.'

‘Right,' says Lego Man, looking unsure. I wait for him to counter this and tell me that everything's going to be all right. But he doesn't. Instead he says: ‘You should also bear in mind that they might not like
us
. They might have enough friends already, like we did back home.'
Great. Now I feel much better…

‘It'll be OK,' Lego Man says eventually, shuffling closer towards me on the sofa and putting his arm around me. ‘We just need to get to know the place better. You should get out and about more, meet people.' He's probably right. Working from home and socialising via Skype and FaceTime isn't good for a girl. But then neither is Sticksville-on-Sea's public transport system. Having suffered frostbite and fury at the mercy of infrequent buses and trains since Lego Man started commuting to work with our sole mode of transport, a leased Lego-mobile, I decide that the time has come to buy my own car out here.

Coming from the UK, I have it relatively easy in terms of hitting the Danish roads. Most internationals from outside of the EU are forced to take a test before they can drive here. Regulations came into force in 2013 allowing new arrivals from countries deemed to ‘have a level of road safety comparable to Denmark' to simply swap their licences, but there are conditions attached. Applicants have to have taken their test after the age of eighteen (ruling out most Americans who take their tests at sixteen) and need to have had a clean driving record for the past five years.

In common with everything else in Denmark, motoring isn't cheap. New cars have a sales tax of 180 per cent, making them cost about three times the amount that they would back home. This means that a simple hatchback that might fetch £10,000 in the UK (or $17,000 in USD) retails at the equivalent of £30,000 in Denmark ($50,000) – and the inflated costs trickle down to used car prices.

‘Is this why most people drive matchboxes?' I ask Lego Man, when these alarming new discoveries have sunk in.

‘I suspect so. Are you going to be OK out there? Car shopping, I mean?'

‘Sure,' I tell him, sounding not at all sure but feeling as though this is probably something a grown woman in the 21st century should be able to handle.

Feeling courageous, I venture to the nearest car dealership. Having discovered that a return flight to London is cheaper than a twenty-minute cab ride anywhere in Jutland, I'm resigned to taking the bus again. Two hours later and relatively unscathed, I arrive in the showroom and am rewarded with the aroma of pleather, car air fresheners and cheap aftershave.

My price threshold rules out every car in the place bar two. The first is a scratched-up tin box on wheels that looks and smells like a family of feral cats have been living in it, relieving themselves regularly. The second, a cheery, tomato-red number, reminds me of a mobility scooter. I'm not instantly enamoured, but after a pootle around the block I find that a) the thing goes and b) my lofty driving position means that I can look down on other motorists. A novelty for a 5′3″ Brit in a land of Vikings.

‘I'll take it,' I tell the dealer, who hands me a nine-page document – in Danish. I ask if I can take this away with me to interpret it or at least have some quality time with it in the vicinity of a Danish-to-English dictionary. But instead, he offers to translate for me. I'm not convinced that this is normal, but having been assured by my guidebook that there are fair trading rules for second-hand car dealers in Denmark and that salesmen don't get paid commission, I figure I'm unlikely to get ripped off. The guy has little to lose by being straight with me.
In for a penny, in for a krone
, I think.

So I thank him and he runs me through the deal. But it includes several more zeros than expected.

‘What's
this
for?' I point at an alarming row of virtual hugs on page four.

‘Oh, that's for the winter tyres.'

It's not just cushions that get a seasonal update in Denmark, it turns out. Winter tyres, though not mandatory, are advised. Shelling out a further 5,000 DKK (roughly £580 or $850 USD) for wheels that won't send me headlong into a ditch on unfamiliar roads in sub-zero temperatures seems like money well spent. I point at another line of digits and ask what it relates to.

‘This is for fitting your summer tyres and storing your winter tyres in the tyre hotel from spring.'
The tyres get their own hotel in Denmark? My God, living standards really are through the roof.

‘And do I really need this?' I ask.

‘We recommend that tyres are stored somewhere secure and fitted by someone who knows what they're doing,' is his reply.

‘Right…' I wonder whether I might be able to make a saving by using a) Lego Man and b) the shed. I decide to risk it.

Sales Man points out another number: ‘Then this is for the number plate—'

‘—The number plate's not included?'

‘No!' he sounds faintly amused. ‘Otherwise everyone would know how old your car was!'

‘Are you serious?'

His smile drops, leaving me in no doubt that he is entirely serious. ‘Every driver gets new plates with numbers and letters generated at random.'

Equality, it turns out, is so important in Denmark that the authorities don't even want anyone judged by the age of their car. This seems commendable, but I'm pretty sure that anyone with half a brain will guess that my mobility tomato isn't the latest in high-end automotive design. And I rather resent having to pay to pretend otherwise.

‘Then there's also registration tax, green tax, countervailing tax…' I can almost feel Allan with two ‘l's' disapproving glare and imagine him shaking his head with disappointment as I sign swiftly and leave.

Over the next few days, I discover that the mobility tomato rattles if it goes above 70km per hour, makes a high-pitched bleeping noise unless I have Danish public radio tuned in and has windscreen wipers that merely move the dirt from side to side, smearing it across my field of view. But it's mine. All mine. The adventures start here.

Things I've learned this month:

1. Denmark is really,
   really
   cold in January
   
2. Money may not buy you happiness, but it can buy you cars, candlesticks and exceedingly good cakes
   
3. Owls are LOUD
   
4. Being an immigrant is not for sissies
   

2. February

Forgetting the 9–5

One of the advantages to going freelance, everyone told me, was that I could work in my pyjamas and wear slippers on the commute from bed to the laptop. After a decade of four-inch heels and dry-clean-only dresses, this seemed a bizarre and alien concept – a strange new world that I was interested to hear about but had no real intention of visiting. A bit like Las Vegas. And yet, just four weeks into my new life, I find myself merrily tapping away at the keyboard in a printed silk two-piece with an elasticated waistband at 2.30 in the afternoon. I tell myself it's not so bad because a) it's Friday; b) it's pretty much dark outside All THE TIME here in winter, so nightwear seems appropriate; and c) I'm doing phone interviews with people in the US and it's
morning
there. But basically I am a disgrace. I vow that when the clock strikes 4.30pm I'll shower, dress and maybe even brush my hair.
Like a proper grown-up
. Half past four has become the cut-off point for any kind of slovenliness that I wouldn't want anyone else to see. This is because Lego Man has taken to arriving home around about this frankly ludicrous hour.

He'd caught me off guard to begin with. A couple of weeks before as I was tapping away at my laptop in my pyjamas, a rush of icy air surged through the front door as it swung open and there, barely distinguishable against the soul-destroying darkness, stood a figure.

‘Hello?' I asked, alert lest an intruder was entering the house or the Mr Beards were back.

‘It's me,' Lego Man replied.

‘What are you doing here?'
Was he sick? Had he lost his job? Had Lego HQ been evacuated under missile attack?
(My motto: Why think rationally when you can add a little drama?) ‘And shut that door! It's bloody freezing!'

‘Thanks for the warm welcome,' was Lego Man's response, before dropping his man-bag and explaining that the office was virtually empty by 4pm. ‘Most people with kids had cleared their desks to go and pick them up from school or daycare by 3pm.'

‘
Three
?'

‘Uhuh.'

‘Everyone just leaves work really early? No one competes to be the last at their desk? Or gets takeout to pull an all-nighter?'

He shrugs: ‘Not that I've seen.'

This was mind-blowing. In London, if we were both home by 7pm in time for
The Archers
, it was a cause for celebration. More often than not, we only saw each other at weekends or encountered the other as a warm body in bed in the small hours, having worked late or been out with friends.

But here, 4pm is the new 7pm. 4pm is
rush hour
, in Denmark. I haven't usually begun the meat of my afternoon's work by 4pm, having at least another few hours left in me. And yet he was back at home, wanting to put on loud music, chat and clatter things.

I've just about got my head around this new state of affairs and Lego Man's early arrivals when I hear a car crunch onto the drive at
2.30pm
. The sound of the door handle turning gives me such a shock that I knock over a glass of water while speaking to a time management expert in New York. I have to pretend to her that the resultant cursing is coughing and that the madly barking dog is interference on the transatlantic Skype line.

‘Well, thank you
so
much for your time,' I say as I scribble some final notes in poor shorthand. ‘I won't keep you any longer!' I add slightly manically in order to be heard over the din of the dog, whimpering with excitement at the return of his master, and Lego Man, bringing his characteristic drafts and
noise
into the house. He is affectionately mauled by the dog, buying me a few moments to consider my decidedly dressed-down look.
Perhaps I could pull off the early-afternoon-PJ-lounging-outfit as an homage to Hugh Hefner…?

‘You're home early!' I couldn't sound guiltier if he'd caught me in flagrante with Sarah Lund's series three love interest. (Google him. A treat.)

‘Yes. Turns out everyone leaves even earlier on a Friday.' He sticks his head around the door and takes in my dishevelled state. ‘You're not dressed! Are you OK? Do you feel ill?'

I think about faking something non-life-threatening and fleeting, then buckle under the pressure. ‘No,' I reply, sheepishly. ‘It's, er, for a feature.' This is a lie.

Lego Man looks around at the chaos of plates, mugs and evidence of bakery-based snacking all around me. ‘What's the feature? “How slob is the new black”?'

‘I'll have you know these pyjamas are Stella McCartney,' I say, weakly, before trying to change the subject. ‘So how was your …
morning
?'

‘Good, thank you. I've been learning about Danish “work–life balance”.'

‘Haven't you just – you're home at
lunch time
!'

Lego Man ignores this. ‘Apparently on a Friday, you don't need to be in until half eight and then there's—' here he makes a strange guttural sound, ‘
Mooooaaaarrrnnnsssmullllll
.'

‘I'm sorry, what?'

‘It's written “
morgenmad
” and means “morning food”,' he explains. He's already mastered some key food-based vocabulary and we haven't even started Danish lessons yet. I'm a little envious. ‘Everyone in the office takes it in turns to bake and bring in rolls and pastries. One of the guys was up at 4am to bake today's buns.'

‘Good grief! And there are such good bakeries here…' I can't help thinking that there's very little I could add to the world of Danish baked goods by getting up two hours earlier.

‘Yeah. So
mooaarrnnssmull
went on for an hour, then we had a meeting where we agreed that we needed another meeting before we could make a decision, then I had another meeting where there were more buns and coffee, then we all went for lunch at 11.30, then, well, when we'd finished eating, it was someone's birthday so we had cake. After that, most people started clearing their desks for the weekend.'

‘Busy day…' I mutter sarcastically.

‘Yep, I'm stuffed,' he says, straight-faced, flopping on to the sofa and flicking through an interiors magazine.

As far as I can make out, a good chunk of the Danish working day seems to be taken up with refreshments. Lego apparently banned vending machines and
all sugar
on the premises some years ago, but now provide workers with free baskets of rye bread, fruit and carrots instead.

‘So the world's largest toymaker is fuelled by nothing but betacarotene, whole grains and a childlike zest for life?'

‘Nail your five-a-day and you can achieve anything,' shrugs Lego Man.

Lunch is a communal affair, taken at around 11–11.30am each day when everyone deserts their desks to eat together in the staff canteen. This is a bright, white space with Lego-brick-primary-colour furnishings and plenty of pork, herring and all the components for
smørrebrød
(the traditional open rye-bread sandwiches), but not a pudding in sight.

‘Well, you can't have everything,' I tell him.

He explains that because sugar's so scarce,
morgenmad
and any other occasion involving the arrival of sweet goods is A Big Deal. He witnessed his first Danish birthday celebration this week when a colleague's desk was covered in flags and the extended team gathered around to sing something rousing.

‘I wasn't quite sure what the song was about, but there were a lot of actions. It's hard to join in when you don't know what's going on, but by the last verse, I'd guessed it had something to do with trombones…' He does a quick mime to illustrate his point and I tell him that I've just read that the Danes are ranked as the most shameless nation in the world.

‘They're meant to be practically immune from embarrassment.'

‘That makes sense,' he nods. ‘There's been a lot of singing, actually.'

‘Really?' This is like catnip to me. ‘You never said! Tell all! You know I love an awkward team-building sing-song…'

‘All right, all right, I'll tell you about it,' Lego Man says, somewhat reluctantly. ‘But promise you won't write about it somewhere or use it as a funny anecdote?'

‘Of course I won't!' I lie.

‘Well, there's actually an office band…' (at this, I clap my hands with glee) ‘… they play at every available opportunity and—' (he looks at me disapprovingly) ‘—
no one sniggers
.' I can already tell that I will never, ever, get an invitation to see the office band in action. ‘And they also like making up songs about the team to the tune of popular hits…'

‘No!' He's spoiling me now. ‘Like what?'

‘Well, this week, someone made up a song about our department to the tune of ABBA's “Mama Mia”. My favourite part went something along the lines of, “We've been working so hard, to meet our KPIs” – oh, that stands for “Key Performance Indicators”,' he adds, ‘just in case you didn't know…'

‘Of course I know,' I fib. ‘Don't stop!'

‘Sorry, well, after this comes the “de de de” bit…'

I join in, helpfully, to hurry things along: ‘De de de de de de de, de de de de de de…' before Lego Man comes back in with the next line:

‘And we all can agree, we're still a fun bunch of guys…'

‘De de de de de de de, de de de de de de…'

‘And then … and then … I can't remember the rest.'

‘
Try
!'

Lego Man scrunches up his face and tries to remember before shaking his head and unclenching. ‘I can't, sorry.'

‘Oh well, the first two lines were amazing…'

‘Thanks,' he says, as though taking credit for the composition himself. ‘There's also a lot of drumming,' he adds, walking out of the room.

‘What?' He can't just drop this percussive bombshell and saunter off.

‘In meetings and workshops,' he calls out from the kitchen, ‘there's often drumming. On buckets. Or boxes. Or bongos. Whatever you can hit a beat on really.' He says this as though it is the most normal thing in the world. Like fetching new staples from the stationery cupboard.

‘And …
everyone
joins in?' I'm on my feet now, following him around for further details.

‘Oh yeah. Everyone joins in with everything. We're all equal, remember? Although you can tell who the most important people are – they tend to go for the biggest bongos.'

‘Wow!' I'm unbelievably disappointed not to be witnessing the delights of office drumming first hand. ‘And are some people just really musical? Do they end up competing to be the best drummers?'

He knows what I'm thinking. He knows that I would instantly become competitive about how my drumming measured up to other people's and start showing off.

‘No,' he says very firmly. ‘It doesn't matter how good a drummer, singer, or trombone-mimer you are, bragging about
anything
is bad form. They have a mantra in the business – “Lego over ego” – and people follow it.' He tells me that he and his fellow non-Danes have been guided towards the writings of a 1930s Danish-Norwegian author, Aksel Sandemose, for a better understanding of how best to ‘integrate' into the workplace in Denmark. Sandemose outlines ten rules for living Danishly (otherwise known as ‘Jante's Law') in his novel,
A Fugitive Crosses His Tracks
. These, as far as Google Translate and I can make out, are:

1. You're not to think you are anything special
   
2. You're not to think you are as good as we are
   
3. You're not to think you are smarter than us
   
4. You're not to convince yourself that you are better than us
   
5. You're not to think you know more than us
   
6. You're not to think you are more important than us
   
7. You're not to think you are good at anything
   
8. You're not to laugh at us
   
9. You're not to think anyone cares about you
   
10. You're not to think you can teach us anything
    

‘Crikey, you're not to do much round here, are you?'

‘Oh, and there's another, unspoken one.'

‘Yes?'

‘“
Don't put up with presenteeism
”. If anyone plays the martyr card, staying late or working too much, they're more likely to get a leaflet about efficiency or time management dropped on their desk than any sympathy.'

‘Blimey!' This makes a change from London life. Back home, answering an email at midnight or staying at your desk until 8pm was considered a badge of honour. But in Danish work culture, this implies that you're incapable of doing your work in the time available. Desks are all fitted with hydraulics so that staff can work standing up if they prefer, something that's been proven to be better for your health (according to research published in the
Journal of Social Psychological and Personality Science
) as well as facilitating swifter, more dynamic informal meetings or ‘stand ups' as they're called. Instead of asking a colleague if you can ‘have a sit down' to chat, you have a ‘stand up' instead. ‘And we're done in half the time,' says Lego Man.

He also tells me that no one uses titles and no one wears a tie – in fact you're more likely to see executives mooching about in hoodies, Facebook-style, than in suits. Somehow, I manage to persuade Lego Man to let me visit him at work for lunch (after promising to adhere to several conditions, namely not to mention the ABBA sing-song or ask for any drumming demonstrations). There's a laid-back Silicon-Valley-meets-Google-HQ vibe from the moment I step inside the glass-fronted head office in Billund's sleepy residential centre. I get comfy on the circular sofas, moulded to look like the relief of the iconic Lego brick, and contemplate whether or not it would be bad form to have a play with the giant pool of white bricks in the reception area. Lego Man meets me and escorts me through the office and we pass meeting rooms, all named after toys. This is something I find reassuring after a few weeks of hearing my husband on the phone talking about a 9.30am in
Tinsoldaten
– ‘Tin Soldier' – followed by a session in
Bamse
– ‘Teddy Bear'. Each room has a vast glass bowl of Lego in the middle of the table to encourage employees and guests to build as they talk. ‘I can barely hear a word in some meetings for the noise of people raking through bowls for the right brick,' Lego Man tells me.