Go back a few months and the first thing you would have named about Copenhagen,
Denmark, would have been Hans Christian Andersen. Truth be told, if you’re as pathetically uninformed as I am,
that fine old story-telling geezer would have probably been the only thing you would have named about
Copenhagen. (Maybe Carlsberg?)
And now... The Controversial Mohammed Cartoon! What a great reason for international notoriety.
And I know I’m kind of going off the point here (or, to be accurate, not actually getting started on the point) but
did anyone else get the divinely quintessential irony in that whole story? Some Danish blokes publish a satirical
piece, humorously implying that the Islamic religion is a violent one, and the Moslem reaction?
“Everyone responsible for this blasphemy should be BEHEADED!”
It seems to me that, while plenty of so-called comedians are fully prepared to slag off the Anglican Church, or Fundamentalist Christianity, or Scientology, there are very few people out there willing to attack the equally closed-minded inconsistencies of Islam.
And you can bet good fucking money I’m not going to be the one to start. Let’s talk about Copenhagen.
Lager here is the equivalent of £4.50 in kroner. FOUR POUNDS FIFTY!?! With my amateurish, faltering
attempts at Danish, am I somehow ordering a pint of wine?!
Sadly not. Booze is expensive in Denmark. And, for the record, you don’t really need those faltering attempts at the language either. The only phrase the guide book should print is “Taler du Engelsk?” and I guarantee the answer will always be: “Yes, I do speak English. How can I help you?” What is actually quite embarrassing about the Danes is that, even the average McDonald’s worker in Copenhagen speaks English better than... well, than the average McDonald’s worker in Britain.
After a cancelled flight, followed by a heavily delayed flight, neither of which I intend to waste time talking about (because then I really would be turning into my father), it was falling towards midnight by the time I finally reached the district I was staying in, which was called Istedgade. Consequently, I only had time to clang back a couple of pints before I was cosily installed in my hotel room, and flipping on the telly.
And there was the first of many confirmations of the relaxed Scandinavian attitude to sex. Hardcore porn on terrestrial television for all to see! Sweetly attractive, eager young ladies being pounded into submission by cocks the size of zeppelins. ‘That’s disgusting,’ I thought, as I sat down for three or four hours of uninterrupted viewing, ‘but I guess it is pretty late at night.’
What was perhaps more of a surprise, however, was taking a look at exactly the same channel at nine o’clock the next morning, and finding the ladies and gentlemen still going at it hammer and tongs. Ideal over your cornflakes. And is it just me, or do the penises actually seem even larger in the morning? I’ll have to ask my psychiatrist about that one.
I headed for a street called the Strøget (which is allegedly pronounced ‘stroll’ and teaches us a useful
lesson in Danish – their consonants have very little correlation between what they sound like and what
you’d think they’d sound like) which every guide book tells me is the longest pedestrianised shopping
street in Europe. In order to really blend in with the locals, I decided to buy a t-shirt with the Danish flag
on it. The one I picked up was also emblazoned with the legend ‘DANMARK’.
Typical. You pay all that money and they can’t even spell the name of their own country correctly.
(I spent quite a while debating whether to include that last joke. I’m still not convinced I made the right decision.)
After some extremely pleasant window-shopping on the Strøget, which in many ways is like a vastly more
chilled out Oxford Street, I happened upon one of the reasons why it’s rather different from Oxford Street – it’s
cheerfully loaded with bars and cafes. I stopped for a beer at that favourite of all Travel Drinking establishments,
the Irish-themed pub. This one conjures up memories of The Emerald Isle by calling itself The Dubliner, and
merrily furnishing you with a Tuborg. That’s Danish lager, by the way, not some weird form of growth.
Now, I don’t know whether it was the Tuborg, or a pornography-induced ardour, or whether there’s something in
the water over there, but without exception the Danes seem to be hilariously attractive (I drank a lot of water
while over there, just on the off-chance). If you’re ever in Copenhagen, beware of spending too long people-watching at the outdoor tables, if you don’t want to find yourself sobbing with lust twenty minutes later. I, however, have no objection at all to sobbing with lust. Actually, it’s kind of a hobby.
Not far north of the Strøget are the attractive palace grounds of Amalienborg, which go by the not-so-attractive name of ‘Slotpads’. After a bout of sight-seeing there, I decided to head back to the Istedgade, which I now realise the guide book describes as the “historic sex district”. Now there’s a phrase you’re not going to hear very often.
Once it had been pointed out to me, though, I don’t know why I hadn’t spotted the sex shops and prostitutes the night before (maybe they were both closed for business?) I figured that some investigative journalism was required – purely for professional research, you understand – but I wasn’t going to walk into a foreign sex shop without a little Dutch Courage, so I resolved to hit the first bar I passed, and the patron saint of comedic irony was obviously smiling on me. The first bar I passed was called Spunk.
One Spunk drink later...
I can now report that sex shops don’t seem to be the most culturally varied establishments you’ll ever come
across. With the exception of one item! And, as always, I cannot emphasise strongly enough that I am not
making this up. Someone, somewhere, obviously thought that the ideal sex aid would be a vibrating model
hand, shaped into a grip. Seriously, how much of a lazy wanker do you have to be?
And so to the Carlsberg brewery. A drink that Danes, apparently, do hate to see leave. In which case, why don’t they just not sell it?
Well, as it turned out, today they were, in fact, not selling it. The minimal research I’d done before undertaking my trip to the brewery had failed to tell me that it was always closed on Mondays. Bugger! Oh well, only one thing for it. If I can’t spend the day with Denmark’s second most famous export, I’ll go and have a word with the first.
Ladies and gentlemen, Mr Hans Christian Andersen! (Ha! I knew he lived here!) In the town hall square, the Danes have erected a
ten-foot bronze statue of the man himself. Because he’s the archetypal story-teller, the sculptor has
placed him in a sitting pose; a nice idea, but it does mean that several hundred tourists per day feel
compelled to clamber onto his lap for a souvenir photograph. I’d love to say that I personally rose above
such silliness, but naturally I was sat astride his knee faster than a lap-dancer who’s short of cash.
And suddenly I have visions of myself in a frighteningly surreal Werther’s Original commercial. Time to go
