Take a walk on the wild side: a guide to sidewalks in Denmark.

Thy mother took into her blameful bed some stern untutor'd churl...whose fruit thou art...

As any disgruntled foreigner lost in Denmark will tell you, there is Certain Type of Person who will like to meet each and every umbrage regarding Dannish Life with stock phrases of dismissive slant.

You might have a hair to split over the standard of choice in  ‘health-care’ in the DK, but the Certain Type of Person will brush it off with something along the lines of “Oh well, I suppose you would rather be in Haiti?” or “Well, at least you don’t have to grapple with insurance!” and my all time personal fave, usually delivered with dancing sadistic eyes:  “I’ve never had a problem with the hospitals here, and I’ve had both legs amputated and my ears transplanted to my buttocks!”

Certain Types of People see it as their life time mission, while residing (or indeed stuck) in Denmark,  to defend Denmark and the Way of the Danshish to the death.  But there are aspects of life here that cannot be defended.

One being:  pedestrian life.

Sidewalks, or pavements as they are called in the London Land (England to non tourists), are like an afterthought in the planning of towns and villages in Denmark.  They don’t really exist, and when paved areas are supposedly made available for pedestrians, it isn’t as straight forward as one might hope.

Most tourists use the cycle paths to amble along,  because they LOOK like sidewalks.   Ah, but look again, you are not supposed to walk along a place designated for bikes.  Glance just to the side of the cycle path  and the most you can hope for is a ten inch wide strip of paving to tiptoe along as cars and bikes race at break neck speed and cause you to go off balance. Take it from me,  ten inches is never as big as it sounds.

In rural areas the greedy farmers have made good use of the laws that allowed them to uproot ancient hedgerows and in so doing allowed yet more profit from the land.  They have that extra space to plant up and reap so they can take their well nourished kids to Lalandia..

So you’ll have farmed land right up to the hilt, then a ditch, then a cycle path and then a busy road.

If you’ve ever been to rural England (or any other place where the countryside is something to be enjoyed) you will remember that people TAKE WALKS,  but you won’t see much of that in rural Denmark. It’s not just that cars don’t expect to see people on the back roads here, it’s also that there is no place to step to the side should you need to stand out of the way of a tractor or speeding car.  The farmers have taken the land right up to the roads.  And the twee little country houses here are often right on the tarmac too.

But then, who expects a sidewalk in a rural area?  Not me.

But I do expect a place to walk in the city.

Next time you are out, notice that pedestrians are asked to pick their way through life in Denmark, and that the cycle fascists are actually supreme over the walker.

Good lord, and then there are those awful women who put their kids in those fashionable Danish ‘casket’ sized perambulators.  What a sight!  Great big tugboats on massive wheels and they expect YOU to get out of their way?

Somewhere in that tugboat is a bloated grub of a baby,  feeding off the microscopic nutrients that can be sucked off a plastic pacifier.  It is hidden under twelve duvets to facilitate ‘airing’ (or ‘mother’s coffee opportunity’) in the afternoon, and will at some point crawl laboriously and with little grunts, in manner of little joey,  out of it’s pouch and into ‘vuggestue’ life.   So mummy can have her coffee at work instead of in a cafe with one eye on a massive casket chaped perambulator.

Thank goodness many of the so called ‘handicapped’ people formed in Denmark are -  after tests and before viability – plucked from the womb.  So we don’t have to worry about things like equal access for the disabled.  I can’t see how any sidewalk in Denmark supports proper access for people in hand operated wheelchairs and people who might stagger or loll.

Which leads me to people in motorised chairs.  You might think they deserve the sympathy vote but they don’t.  They haven’t been born wonky or suffered a terrible accident. No, those lunatics you see hurtling about in their electric chairs (paid for out of OUR taxes no doubt) they are, nine times out of ten, alcoholics.

Alcoholics in Denmark are a huge drain on the ‘free health-care’ system.  Many of them end up unable to walk due to complications that abound once you’ve been drinking oneself into an utter state for a few years, and it is you and I who end up footing the bill, and having to dodge the bleary eyed demons when they are speeding along in those high tech go carts.

These people abuse the cycle paths and abuse the sidewalks and make a mockery of the idea of a walking street.

I refuse to keep a civil tongue in my head and like to loudly remind these lame alcoholics on wheels that the street is designated for “WALKING NOT DRVING!”.  They drive too fast.

If I could have it my way, the alcoholics in Denmark would be left to die cold and lonely in the streets, just as it was in the old days.  Whose idea was it to give them an early pension and all sorts of pleasant drugs for free?  And motorized chairs?

And we are left with a little strip of cobbles? To ruin our nice shoes?

It’s all a joke, a ghastly ghastly joke that isn’t funny.

On a lighter note,  Iceland:  YOU ROCK!  xxxxx

Plus: I am a bit late to this story,  but apparently a Danish photographer had a little bit of a scuffle with rapper 50 cent’s bodyguard and then came out of it bleating:  “We are not used to this kind of thing in Denmark!”

To which I say:  hahahahahhahaha. Oh Danshish, so funny.  Actually,  watching the video of the event HERE,  I can say I am almost sure I know that bodyguard from somewhere and if it is who I think it is he is an uncommonly patient creature and has probably merely been pushed to the edge by the price of a good time Danish Stylee.

And can you hear some jerk calling the police?  Who hangs out waiting for 50 Cent and then gets straight on the police when there is a ruckus?  ONLY in Denmark my friends, only in Denmark,  place of the uncool smartypants.

*cringe*

OMYGOODNESS – and somehow this means we have come full circle:

“Han sagde, at vi skulle skride, hvortil vi kun kunne sige, at man altså gerne må stå på de danske fortove. Men der var ikke meget at diskutere. Han gik decideret til angreb på os, forklarer Uffe Kongsted til ekstrabladet.dk”

Translation:  *affects singsong smarmy Danshish* “..man altså gerne må stå på de danske fortove…”

Over to you GOOGLETRANSLATE:  “He said we should act to which we could only say that words like must stand on the Danish sidewalks. But there was not much to discuss. He went decidedly to attack us,” says Uffe Kongsted to ekstrabladet.dk “

Or in English because Google Translate is crap:

“He said, that we should piss off, to which we could only say that one is ALLOWED to stand on the Danish sidewalks.  But there wasn’t much to discuss, he decided to attack us”,  explained Uffe Kongsdick to Extra Bleurget.”

To be quite frank,  I sort of don’t blame him.

Some deeplinks here:

http://politiken.dk/indland/article923698.ece

http://www.ungnyt.dk/?Id=2711

Danish ‘People’ Party framing ‘Somalians’.

Not a great surprise,  but the story is simple.  Danish Twisted as Fuck ‘People’ Party (Danske Folke Parti) pretending that ‘Somalians’ are sending their leader deaththreats.  I can believe this one.

This story had ‘FRAME’ written all over it. DFP are great at fanning flames.  And you know, if it walks like shit, it talks like shit, it smells like shit:  it is shit.

Even if DFP weren’t behind this as a stunt,  I could still believe they were capable of it.

http://politiken.dk/indland/article906005.ece

Jeeze, you know, sometimes I think That Dog Pia and her puppies are getting to be worse than the Social Democrats!  What’s the world coming to eh?

That Dog.

..and one of her sick little puppies.

Oh don’t worry, in Denmark it is okay to MOCK.  That is what free speech is all about.  Mocking and being nasty, that is what tolerance is all about.  Mocking, and being nasty.  Woops,  but um, maybe I overstepped the line by mocking and being nasty about public Danish figures??? I better sort that out.

Edit:  above captions should read “A Somalian Muslim” (Picture one) and “A Muslim Prophet” (Picture two).

Phew, glad I got that sorted out.

Remember kids,  in Denmark we are careful about who we mock.

Edit:  newsflash:  perhaps the social democrats are not so crap after all,  turns out at least a couple of members have real balls.  See here:

http://politiken.dk/politik/article906321.ece

Basically,  a social democrat saying:  “Enough is enough you horrid little Danish ‘People’ Party loons.”

Things to do in Denmark: Get Out of Bed in the Morning. Really, really early.

This is the song waking me every morning at 5am.  By the time this pure pop hit reaches it’s crescendo,  one is sure the day has started.  Danish mornings are punishing.  They so early and ultimately pointless.  First hour of anywhere here about the coffee anyway.

Days start early in Denmark.  9-5 isn’t the show.  In Denmark it is 8-4.  8-2/3 on Fridays (in Denmark everybody goes home early on Fridays).  ODDLY enough,  the shops don’t open until 10am…how spooky is that?   Maybe that is why we pay twice as much for our goods here than anyother developing country? Because we have to make up for all the hours the shops aren’t selling stuff?

Helping you with your Dannish: LETTERS and GERMANY.

You need to know that the letter ‘W’ doesn’t exist in Dannish, but that they compensate for it by having five extra letters:  ‘¤’  (pronounced:  ‘aoooawoo’),  ‘§’ (pronounced ‘uuuuurrrrrrrrrhhhuu’),  ‘æ’ (pronounced: ‘aaaurgh’),  ‘%’ (pronounced: ‘oow’) and ‘ø’ (which is pronounced the same as you read it).

Don’t worry, you WILL get the hang of it eventually.  You just have to give it some time.  Try to be part of the solution, and not just a problem.

In Denamark, at birth all children are stamped with a number and are tested to see if they are ‘A’ people or ‘B’ people.

If you haven’t been tested yet, it is wise you get tested as soon as possible, otherwise you won’t know what sort of a person you are.

In layman’s terms an ‘A’ person is someone who likes to get up early and stay up really late and a ‘B’ person is someone who likes to go to bed really early and get up really early.   Until 1991 there was a type C, that being someone who liked to empty the contents of cigarettes onto a foil tray and burn it, then use the scorched dried tobacco to make horrid second rate joints out of the cheapest flat press available,  but that all died out when every body grew up and got proper jobs as sagsbehandlers. Or went to college to be pædagogs.

So now it’s just A or B. It’s important you understand the system because otherwise you won’t know what you are.

It is also meget meget important you understand a little of how Denmark was shaped before you go opening your mouth about all that Flagism.  Denish are highly proud of their flag and there is a reason.  The war with Germany in 1898 meant that Denmark lost a huge chunk of it’s land. This had to hurt.

It is a little known fact, but true.  There was a big war and Denmark lost half of Denmark and now it belongs to the Germans. In a vengeful mood, the Danish made a law that prevented Germans from buying summer houses here.  Any more.

It is a little known fact that the Germans had planned to take over Denmark once more,  by buying up all the summer houses (summer houses constitute two thirds of all buildings in coastal Denmark, one third in rural areas and a half a third in urban areas).  But they were thwarted.

But this doesn’t explain why there are so many German newspapers being sold in the Summer House neighborhoods.  There are many.  My suspicion is that Germans are somehow slipping into Denmark and RENTING all the summer houses in lieu of buying them up.  Somehow they always win over Denmark whatever happens,  because this means, they get to stay here, read their newspapers wander round naked and gobble their huge sausages and then leave without having to wipe the grease spots off the bedheads and door mantels.

Personally, I think the best thing to do would be for Denmark to take back the bit of Denmark stolen by the Germans.  What we need is a local war.  This would solve so many problems.  The immigrants would suddenly be wanted if conscription was brought in (link to Danish Newspapers covering how Immigrants breed like rabbits),  and we would all club together.

I say, move all the summer houses to the southern part of Denmark, and then once all the Germans are in, lets turn it into a high security prison camp and hold them hostage until we get what is ours back!

Give us Denmark back!

‘Skadet danskere provokere fanatisme Publishing Kurt Westergaard’s cartoon var en aggressiv handling født i Danmark’s modvilje mod at respektere religiøs overbevisning’

I’m not a BIG fan of google translate,  but you know, many danes find it useful to understanding Engrish, and just this once, I’ve been persuaded.  Usually, when I want to translate anything from Danish to English,  I sit and translate it properly,  which is especially important when decrypting the Danish of Denmark where you’ll find a nipple is a breast wart and someone who doesn’t have completely clean flour in the bag is a total lunatic.

Plenty of times I’ve translated Danish ‘news articles’ into Engrish for the benefit of those who don’t won’t can’t speak Dannish.  Politiken is pathetically barren when it comes to articles in English, and the Copenhagen Post?  Ye Gads, less said the betta.

But it is high time we started translating Engrish into Dannish for the benefit of our Denish readers,  who really do miss out.  And not just on proper food neither.  The Danes at large miss out on so much because there just isn’t the space for it here.    But we need to MAKE space.  Danes need us here.  We are here for a reason, ask Oprah.  It’s all part of some great divine plan.  We are needed, people!!!!  Do what you can to help.

So without further preamble, I lead you into my first sojourn into Google Translate. I gave it a well written article by some bird named Nancy Graham Holm, who got published in the broadsheet ‘The Guardian’.  (Article originally entitled ‘Prejudiced Danes provoke fanaticism’.)

Take it away, Google Translate:

“På New Year’s Day, kom Kurt Westergaard og hans barnebarn tæt på at miste livet, da en økse-wielding fanatiker trængt ind i deres hus. Det var den seneste i en række forsøg på angreb, der kan spores direkte til den strafbare handling forårsaget af Westergaard’s cartoon for danske avis Jyllands-Posten i 2005.

Hans tegneserie afbildet profeten Muhammed i en turban med en stang dynamit stikker ud fra toppen. Muslimer har undladt at se Westergaard’s cartoon som satire. Stedet, de så i det en fornærmende og ydmygende besked: muslimer er terrorister. Ydmygelse er en ødelæggende følelse. Men de fleste mennesker, der er fornærmede vil acceptere en undskyldning. Hvis en undskyldning var blevet kommende fra den daværende statsminister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, at der sandsynligvis ville have været ende på det – men ingen kom, og ydmygelsen blev forværret.

Tre måneder senere flere imamer pakkede deres dokumentmapper og bærbare computere og bestilt flybilletter til Mellemøsten. De transporteres med dem en 43-siders dokument, skabt af en gruppe danske muslimske præster fra flere organisationer. Denne såkaldte Akkari-Laban dossieret var designet til at forelægge deres sag og anmode om støtte til deres harme. Danmark blev en “fjende af islam”, og dette resulterede i landets værste udenrigspolitiske krise siden Anden Verdenskrig.

Hvorfor har redaktionen på Jyllands-Posten vil håne islam på denne måde? Nogle af os troede det var i dårlig smag og også grusom. Forsætlig ydmygelse er en aggressiv handling. Som en journalist nu bor i samme by som Westergaard, tænkte jeg nogle på Jyllands-Posten havde handlet som gnaven unge. Danskere ikke kan se, at de har udviklet et samfund, dybt mistænksomme over for religion. Dette er det virkelige problem mellem Danmark og muslimske ekstremister, der ikke ytringsfrihed. Det frie samfund forskrift er blot et forsøg på at give gerningsmændene den moralske høje jorden, når det i virkeligheden er et skalkeskjul for en dybt rodfæstet fordom, ikke mod muslimer, men mod religionen i sig selv. Muslimer er forelskede i deres tro. Og mange danskere er mistænksomme over for alle, der elsker religion.

På den sidste dag i American Society for Muslim Advancement’s konference i 2006, Flemming Rose, Jyllands-Postens kulturredaktør, der anmodede om Muhammed-tegningerne, aftalt at mødes de delegerede og tog mere end en times spørgetid. Jeg oplevede denne udveksling og beundrede hans ærlighed.

“Er du slet ikke religiøs?” nogen spurgte ham. “Nej fleste danskere er ikke religiøs,” svarede han. “Godt så … kan du ikke mindst at respektere religiøse mennesker?” “Nej, egentlig ikke,” Rose svarede oprigtigt. “Generelt mener jeg, danskerne er lidt mistænksomme over for religiøse mennesker.”

Danskerne er ikke mere racistiske end nogen andre vestlige nation, men mange af dem, især intellektuelle, har alvorlige problemer med religiøse troende. Westergaard har været på besøg i Amerika og holde foredrag om sin rolle i 2005-Muhammed Muhammed-krise. I New York den 30. september sagde han til publikum, at muslimer er nødvendigt at udvikle en sans for humor og en vurdering af satire. De skal forstå, at de ikke er “fri for at blive hånet eller at blive fornærmet”.

Ser det natlige nyheder i februar 2006 var en rystende affære for de fleste danskere. De så deres flag brænde i gaderne i Damaskus, Beirut og Teheran. De cringed som demonstranter skreg voldelige slogans og oprørerne angreb deres ambassader. Politiet affyrede i skarer, der resulterede i mere end 100 dødsfald.

Nu danskerne vil ikke ned, og de få, men skæbnesvangert sindssyg radikale ekstremister vil fortsætte kampen. Den første større reaktion kom i januar 2008, hvor dansk politi anholdt en celle af ekstremister, der var anklaget for at planlægge Westergaard mordet. Der er 87 mænd i Danmark med navnet Kurt Westergaard og alle af dem nu har politiet beskyttelse. Fire måneder senere, selvmordsbombere angreb den danske ambassade i Islamabad, 30 sårede og dræbte seks. Al-Qaeda tog æren for angrebet, hævdede, at det var gengældelse for tegningerne og de 700 danske soldater i Afghanistan. I oktober 2008 blev to mænd dømt i danske domstole for at forberede et terrorangreb.

Denne gang Westergaard’s angriberen blev fanget – men en anden person derude venter på en lejlighed til at slå til igen.”
Now I’ve read it through, I have the distinct impression that maybe the journalist wrote it in Danish first and used google translate to turn it Engrish.

I am a little confused by this article though, because it doesn’t seem to really go anywhere.

*sigh*

Oh by the way, I am looking to commission a series of cartoons depicting an elderly cartoonist running for cover in a safe room leaving his infant grandchild alone with a mad axeman wearing a turban with a bomb poking out the top.  Any offers?

Once I was afraid, I was petrified.

Cool things about Danish Culture – #1: Taking shoes off before entering living quarters.

It seems really gross now, to see people wandering around inside their houses, with their outside shoes on.  Entire families sit down for dinner – with their shoes on.  People flop on sofas,  and even put their shoes on the sofas!  Ug.

Now here is a cool thing about Danish Culture:  you take your shoes off when you are entering someone’s living quarters.  Even the workmen do it.  The guy who came to fix my somethingorother, first thing he did:  took his shoes off.  Very sweet, big ole guy in his worksuit,  and then his little feet in toweling sports socks…it still seems cute.

Tradesmen and workmen in other cultures, especially the Brit culture, they are noteworthy as slobs and fools, who tread dirt and dog shit through your house and will pointblank refuse to take their shoes off if you ask them.

But in Denmark, people take their shoes off, and this is a great help.  The clean lines of the wooden floors are also easy to keep clean, and there is none of that dreadful wall to wall shag carpeting reeking of dogs that is popular in other cultures.

Internationals from cultures who do not observe the removal of shoes soon have to think ahead when going on visits,  and it is advisable that the expat stock up on good socks.  If you are visiting your husbands rural cousins,  make sure that you wear good socks and carry a pair of woolen socks to put on, those draughty Jutland farmhouses can be very harsh on the feet.

Some householders like to go overboard and will have a little hospitality basket with various sizes and shapes of slippers for guests to slip on,  but I’d advise against using them.  You honestly don’t know where they have been, and who wants to share heel flakes with just anyone?

The only drawback to this custom would be that one can get cold feet from time to time, it can be embarrassing if you have missed your pedicure that month and you have a gnarled horn of a toenail sticking out of a thinning sock,  if you are wearing thigh high lace up boots it can be an awful drag to have to unlace and then lace up again, purely to sup coffee and dried out Christmas biscuits with Tante Bente,  and that bare feet rarely go with whatever outfit you have chosen…so you might as well slip into Danish comfort gear (velour tracksuits) straight off and not bother making an effort with your clothing.

So there we have it:   Cool things about Danish Culture – #1,  the practice of taking ones shoes off before entering a home leads to increased cleanliness.

OPEN QUESTION TO ANYONE CALLING THEMSELF A DANE: Has the practice of taking one’s shoes off been around for a long time?  Are there any extra special reasons why Danes do it, apart from the obvious (cleanliness)?

Coming soon:  Cool things about Danish Culture :  Sofa Life,  Amicable Divorce,  Children as Fashion Accessories,  IVF and Kids Get Free Drugs.

Danish Government to give 15,000 kroner to foreign women, if they learn to be Denish.

The Danish Government want to give foreign women 15,000 kroner to learn more about Denish and Denish FreeSpeechDemocracy. They will get the money once they have learnt the following important steps:

• freedom
• demoncracy
• julfrokost
• barbering
• bleach
• suntan
• pork
• sommerhus
• gummistovler
• komfuret
• sild
• skt hans
• skilsmissebarn
• jooolafTEn
• min mor
• farvel!
• hvorfor ikke?
• oi!  For Søren!
• hvad sÅ?
• p#rn
• så så

From a podium, Søren Mads Mikkel Jens Hansen Sørensen of the Danish Government said: “We are not going to get involved in people’s lives and families, but we will offer some cash that the foreign women and their husbands will understand.  So right now, on the table, we’ll offer 100,000 kroner to the foreign husbands who haven’t got a chance in hell of sitting through a full JulAften dinner with our mothers,  if they will get out of Denmark and not come back.  And we will offer 15,000 kroner to the foreign wives, because after all, you can still marry them, some of them are quite good looking, and my mother can eventually teach them to make æbleskiver the good old Danish way.”

Søren Mads Mikkel Jens Hansen Sørensen ( Integration Expert of the Danish Government) went on to say:  “A share of the foreign women want to take part in the Denish Way, but they are being held against their will by foreign hairy husbands who do not look Denish at all.  And they certainly don’t sound Denish when you hear them speaking in the kiosks.  These foreign husbands don’t want æbleskiver, so what good is that?”

He went on: “These foreign husbands have a ‘social control’ over the foreign women and it just isn’t Denish in practice,  they are not eating æbleskiver og heller igger grizzz.  It’s like you know, wearing a girdle.  We don’t want our women in girdles, we want them free and open and in thongs. The evil foreign socially controlling foreign man is telling the easily molded  foreign women what to do, when in actual fact,  we,  The DENISH Nation should be the ones telling them what to do.  It’s quite obvious, some of those women are beautiful, especially when they have all that make up on.  We can easily sort out those mustachios with a bit of bleach and wax.  With training it can be shown that those foreign women can speak Danish and with the lights off, you wouldn’t know they were in actual fact of another ethnic background than Denish.”

The 15,000 kroner deal has been created to reach the 10,000 foreign women who live in Denmark without any contact to a Danish Mother in Law.  Concerns have been raised when it was discovered that these 10,000 foreign women were often married to foreign men or had a foreign way of cooking or not getting their tits out on the beach.  Studies show that at least most of these women are at home taking care of their own children and not training to be ‘pædagog medhjælpers‘ (translation: overweight,  overemployed, overpaid babysitter helpers).

“Moves have been made to take the children out of these foreign women homes so as to pull up the weeds at the root and to make sure that those little urchins learn how to be Denish before it’s too late.  And of course to offer the foreign husbands money to leave Denmark..we honestly don’t have any other ideas, we don’t know how these men fit into our julfrokosts..half of them don’t even drink alcohol to excess.”  Said Pernille Inge Hansen Søren Sørensen (Danish Government).

An innocent bystander refused to comment but promised to have a little think about it when he had finished eating his æbleskiver.

A spokesthing for the Danish government was hasty to point out that the reason why the foreign women are being offered less money to stay and be denish than is being offered to foreign men to sod off and go and not be denish somewhere else is of course because one man equals two women, and that women or women minded need not trouble themselves with the details.

Addendum:  I think, as a foreign woman, if I am stuck between a rock and  a hard place,  I’d much rather be *socially controlled* up the ass by a foreign bloke than by the Denish System. Besides, the food is better, and we have ‘natural rhythm’.

(But either way,  a woman is not truly free in Denmark.)

What I like about Denmark…or close enough.

Last night I had the strangest experience.  I thought of something that I like about Denmark, and that can only be described as being of Denmark or Danish and them promptly, forgot it.

It was the same thing I like about Denmark that had occurred to me a few weeks ago that I meant to blog about but then promptly, forgot it.

I am sat here trying to think, but it isn’t coming to me.  This is infuriating to say the least.

So I grasp at straws and try to make a little list of things about Denmark or belonging to Denmark or that can only be Danish that I like, but I am coming up with the same old same old one ends up scraping the barrel with here:

• free gift wrap service in shops
• errr..
• depending on your area, the buses can be quite cosy and don’t stink of urine
• um…
• what was it again?
• I don’t like windmills, they bore me.
• errrr..
• the police here funnily enough, despite how I condemn the police action in CPH and the way they deal with democratic uprisings (no doubt about what idiots the police were in December),  the police in Denmark are so much more sweeter than some of the wasp like police elsewhere, and besides, they are hot.  The Danish police have always treated me well personally, but that doesn’t mean I won’t call them wankers for how they treat other people.
• errrrrr
• honestly, I can’t think of anything else.

Off on a tangent again….

So then I get to thinking about the things I am experiencing in Denmark that I like, things going on in Denmark that I think are cool, but that are not necessarily Danish, of Denmark or in anyway attributed to Denmark or the Danes:

• my gorgeous vibrant international (non ‘danish’ to put a not so finer point on it) friends and family
• the fact that I can access international radio and tv programs here
• my any language but Danish magazines,  books and newspapers of which i have a person high stack or two.
• the fact that I live in a detached house so no immediate neighbors to bear (so one doesn’t have to listen to screaming babies left outside in baby carriages or men in utility suits ‘doing’ their house and garden after work)
• my local busroute:  I LOVE MY BUS DRIVERS!!  The buses are always at the perfect temperature and own the road…it’s a smooth lovely ride.
• my post lady, she is such a honey.

Okay, now I have thought of some things I like about Denmark that is only Danish…

oh shit..it’s gone again.

I’ll have to get back on this one, because there is definitely something, I just can’t say it was all that memorable.

Snow causing trouble again:

http://politiken.dk/indland/article867837.ece

Later:  I have just remembered what I like about Denmark: the way it is expected that visitors and guests will remove their shoes before entering a home.  This is uh, really neat.

Teaching the Danshish: PARODY.

I have started deleting comments from self professed Danshish or Danskied with tails and forked tongues who hiss and spit and seem to be rather more angry than a blog of this tragi-comic merit deserves.

So in an effort to help, I will now begin a new series entitled:  Teaching the Danshish. I will use simple pictograms or youtube and keep my words to an absolute minimum.

Today, I teaching the Danshish about PARODY.  Using youtube Shakira.

See?  Now do you get it?  Next week: Teaching the Danshish:  ‘Police Violence’ (using youtube and Celine Dion).

Danish journalists ask Obama how he likes the snow.

Earlier today, Danish journalists approached Obama’s aides to ask if it was possible to film a segment showing Obama’s reactions to “seeing snow for the first time in his life”.

The journalists were immediately clubbed to the ground and beaten to an unrecognizable pulp by Obama’s aides, a passing cleaning lady, President Mugabwe and a partridge in a pear tree.

Speaking later through a special device that allows people only slightly above being in a vegetative state to communicate with the world (copyright Lego) one of the journalists gave the following statement:

“We don’t know what went wrong.  One minute we were asking if we could film Obama enjoying his first ever sighting of snow, and the next we were being beaten to an unrecognizable pulp. This just isn’t democratic, and one might wonder,  what has happened to free speech?”

A spokesperson for the Danish Journalism Association gave the following statement (translated from DanishEnglish into English by googletranslate) :   “For the following 24 hours we are going to suspend any more filming of people from the poor lands who are in Denmark for COP15 and enjoying seeing snow for the first time ever.”

A 24 year old student from one of the poor lands making all the trouble, who doesnt want to be named for fear of reprisal, gave the following statement: “I don’t know what all the fuss is about.  I have been filmed twice this week by two seperate Danish news teams seeing snow for the first time in my life.   It is incredible. I have only ever seen snow on TV before, and I imagined it to have the texture of cotton wool.  But it is in fact,  cold and wet!  Thankyou Denmark, thankyou for snow.”

Denmark shoots itself in foot, and airs dirty laundry in public.

I’ve been thinking about how the law in Denmark has affected us. There have been so many laws passed hurriedly of late, and I am no longer amazed at how little this affects the overwhelming majority of people who live here,  Danes might be aware of changes being made on their behalf, but they aren’t making any great moves to stop them.  We are having our rights rapidly legislated out of our reach, and very little is being done to counteract these changes in the law.  There is little visible protest.

The new law ‘lømmelpakken’ that allows the police new powers of arrest has threatened to wipe out any further protests in Denmark.

The law as it was has been working, we were afraid to speak out.  Denmark 1,  Foreigners,  Activists,  Dreamers and Oddballs:  0.

I found out about the demo’s relating to COP15 through word of mouth and chance encounters.   I hadn’t planned to attend any open protests or demonstrations.   I have seen the way protesters are handled here,  it is a worry, and then came the new law, adding insult to injury.

But what is it I was afraid of?

Honestly? At the front of my mind was that I have a health condition that requires me to receive treatment on the spot should I need it, and I’d seen how the police here handle protesters, roughly – would I survive that?

I had a nightmare image of myself firstly getting arrested for just being at a protest, secondly getting pepper sprayed due to reacting to being arrested for just being at a protest and thirdly then dying on a cold cement floor due to not getting the medical treatment when I needed it.

I was also afraid of losing everything through getting into ‘trouble’.  Not just the being arrested sort of trouble, but the being known as a protester sort of trouble.  I was too afraid of the repercussions to actually get out there in all seriousness.  Of course I was joking when I said that Denmark needs a kick up the arse,  please, don’t write that down.

I did,  however, attend a small demo recently,  in another part of Denmark, and noticed straight off, the laughably obvious plain clothes policemen and women milling around the pre gathering space (a busy train station) and eyeballing the colorful teenage anarchists and revolutionary types before they moved onto the start of the little march.  This concerned me,  because I was also being eyeballed. It must have been my big wooly hat.  Oh shucks, is that me fucked then?  Is that me on some kind of list???  I certainly hope not.  After all, I am innocent.

I stood and listened to the initial speeches, did the march,  kept my mouth shut abstaining from any chanting or shouted calls for revolution,  and then slipped away when the march reached its conclusion and so didn’t stay to hear the follow up speeches.

That was about as much as I could ‘risk’.  I was glad to meet the people who did march on. Though a small gathering, there was a great atmosphere within the ranks of the protesters,  but peering out to the shopping crowds who lined the streets to let us pass, I saw a lot of disgust on the faces of the Danish populace.  Grey lined angry faces openly sneering, making remarks.  Old and young,  they sneered.  I haven’t encountered such unanimous hostility before.  That shocked me,  because there was such a contrast between the rainbow loving vibe of the marchers and the grey horror of the spectators.

I am not going to judge anyone for not taking part in a demo, because it does take some sacrifice to do such a thing.  But my concern is that protest is being crushed altogether in Denmark, there is too much resistance to being disobedient.  We need to remember to protest.  To be brave where we haven’t been brave before.

COP 15 will end, and those of us who have set up home here will be left with what we’ve got.  Without the international influence, the legendary 100,000 people strong march on the 12th in Copenhagen would not have happened.

See, protest in Denmark has long been a paltry affair.  The Danes do stand up now,  but only in small numbers and then they sit down quickly.  If they don’t, they get beaten by the system one way or the other.  How can I prove this?  By compromising the trust of the people I know who have been beaten into submission here, by telling stories of threats from above and sanctions being placed and families and jobs at stake?  Nah.  So, I guess you will have to take my word for it if you don’t already know for sure. Stepping outside the system in Denmark takes more than just guts, it takes support,  hard cash and nerves of steel.  Most of us buckle and cow tow.

The fear in protest here was not brought about this month,  Denmark’s been hard on protest for a long while..  I remember on a visit to a friend in Århus in 2006, stumbling across an anti racist march.  It was certainly only a very small group of harassed looking young people.

I was taken aback because I saw the police before I protesters, they were out in force,  so many of them, and their vans parked in a peculiar formation to one side, and a line upon line of politi to the other.  And such a small group of kids!

I approached one of the marchers, a more mature looker,  and asked him very naively why he hadn’t organised them into a bigger group to warrant the police attention?  He did smile, it was a joke after all, but his face was strained.   He walked on with the group. I remember  the fear in his eyes and the way he kept his daunted gaze on the police gathering.

The way the politi had placed themselves and their vehicles,  it was confrontational.   Jokeworthy if it hadn’t of been pantcrappingworthy.  I seem to remember hearing dogs barking from within vans too.  It was over the top.

Fear and tension permeated the air,  and I decided to ask a politi man what was up with the dramatic police presence.  I asked him why the police were there in force,  and responded to his reticence by telling him I assumed it was to protect the children so they could have their wee demo in peace.  I’d heard there was a nazi demo in town the same day,  and the nazis in Denmark do a fair bit of ‘perker-lover’ battering,  alledgedly.  How NICE of the popopoliti to protect the protesters.   I said.

Anyway, the policeman was well tense and he got a bit annoyed with me.  I had essentially joined the protest.  He basically told me to hop it.  Said I was preventing him from doing his job, which was, um, towering above a bedraggled gaggle of teenagers in his stab proof vest.

The rumor was that the nazis that day were treated differently, that they got a police escort, where the anti racists got the police presence.   I have to believe what the anti racists say,  because let’s be frank, they are the sanest.

The Danish police are under fire for what they have done.  Yet they are under orders, from the top.  The Danske Folke Parti (Danish Peoples Party) have been too quiet since COP15,  this I don’t get,  but my suspicion is that they have been sitting back with popcorn.

The Danish press have shown photo series that appear to glorify the police role in the protests.  This is an attempt to make the police people look good, when in fact, they look very very bad.

On a one to one basis,  I’ve never been badly treated by a policeperson, in fact, they always seem to be on my side,  but right now, that doesn’t mean I will resist the urge to protest where possible.  In future I hope to add my support in person to the people who dare.

I’d rather be the person falling from the top of a  police van, after having his brains beat out by a policeman, than the policeman who is standing watching the falling guy with a sneer of satisfaction shown visibly behind his helmet mask.  And yes, the numbers were clear.

What I won’t continue to do, is to sit in fear.

The ‘lømmepakke’  demo arrest law giving the police the powers to detain people with no due cause may have frightened a good many of us off momentarily (many are scared off),  but who can listen to reports of friends being attacked, and not stand up and do or say SOMETHING?

Thankfully, the word is now out, draconian methods of control are at work here,  as revealed in the excellent article by Bibi van der Zee for The Guardian:  ‘Activists reveal tactics used by police to ‘decapitate’ CPH climate protests’.

There are many who are shocked and scared into being quiet and submissive in Denmark,  and yet there is likely to be a number of people who have been radicalized by the recent proceedings and politi-ical brutality.

This could be a wake up call.  Sure we are losing rights, but that doesn’t mean we are finished.

So..um…Take the power back.

*runs for the border*

Global Feedback: “Denmark is losing its reputation for being a good world citizen.”

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8415387.stm

Say what you like about crusties and protesters on ‘your streets’ in ‘your nation’ on ‘your land’,  you have to face the fact, that your modern Danish democratically empowered police action looks freaking bad in all the reasonable press.

I am thrilled to report that the word is now out.  There is something wrong and rotten in Denmark and it is the overwhelming majority of people.  Their one hope is education.  Adopt a Danish child today!  For just 700 dollars a month a Danish child can recieve a proper education, elsewhere, but not here!  Support the new generation!  Get them out of the dastardly hole they are in!

And let me just take this moment to say that this is what Denmark has become, and certainly not what it was.  Of course the seeds were always there, you know, all that pig meat….what it does to the digestion.

It’s such a tiny place,  with so few people here, it makes sense that this sort of thing (see video in link) can’t stand unchallenged.

I am not going to say all police are wankers, or all crusties are crustie,  but I will say:  the majority in Denmark won’t flinch at the sight of the protesters getting whacked.  For every person I hear speaking of the overtly aggressive and unreasonable attitude of the governing and organizational forces at work in Denmark today, there is a Dane somewhere, rubbing his big fat belly, and saying “Quite right!  We don’t want that lot here!” and calling for his mail order bride to get him another beer.

So stick it up your arse Denmark.  Your politics suck and it’s got to the point where Enhedslisten are about the only viable option, and they are never gonna get voted in are they?

I refuse to live in a country like this, and I am not leaving.  Not until there has been a slight improvement anyway.

Big kisses to all the beautifuls who had the gutz to protest at any stage during this whole COP 15 debacle:  you have done a great job,  sparked a lot of newsworthy actions and brought what is happening out in the open.

The main news of the season has been the protests:  RESULT.

http://bambuser.com/channel/DRNyheder

http://politiken.dk/klima/Topmode_i_Kobenhavn/article861441.ece -  Delegates in shock due to getting battered by Danish Police:  “We didn’t expect this in Denmark!”  Haha, because you watch OPRAH?

Edit:  NEW YORK TIMES COVERAGE OF HUMAN RIGHTS INFRINGEMENTS IN DENMARK TODAY – “As the police vans advanced, skirmishes broke out with protesters who formed human chains and chanted their commitment to nonviolence and to helping people in parts of the world that they said would be hardest hit by climate change.”   and  “Another member of the protest group, Richard Bernard, said he expected arrests and possible clashes with police. “Danish police have been violating human rights all week,” he said.”

GUARDIAN COVERAGE: “Denmark is losing its reputation for being a good world citizen,” Naomi Klein.

CNN Very Brilliant Photo series on todays demo.

Copenhagen: the sound of silence

Denmark’s reputation is being destroyed by police action outside the summit and the gagging of NGOs and poor nations inside

Denish Government Statement: Unemployed muslim women will lose their unemployment/welfare support, if they do not stop doing Islam with headscarves.

Islamaphobes (“oooooo scarey beards and headscarves oooooo coming to take out jobs and ruin christmas ooooo”) will love the latest news about how Denmark plans to treat ‘the muslim race’.

Muslim women stand to lose their welfare/unemployment support,  if they don’t take jobs given by employers who require muslim women to remove their headscarves in order to work for them.

A politician from the elected ‘Venstre Social Democrat’ leaders stated in parliament that there are conditions attached to the reception of welfare/unemployment support and one of them is that a claimant is available for work.

And that a person claiming welfare/unemployment support isn’t available for work if they possess ‘qualities’ that prevent the claimant from taking ‘ordinary work’.

And that one of the ‘qualities’ that prevent a muslim woman from getting work is her headscarf,  so it’s time to take out the trash and teach these women a lesson.  If they don’t take off their head gear,  they can bloody well whistle for their money and starve hahahahahahaha.  That’ll teach them.

A clear message from our bosses at the Parliament:  wearing a headscarf is no excuse:  you take it off if you want your cheque.

But hold on a minute?!!  Couldn’t this affect ordinary folk?

What about those ordinary folk who are not doing Islam who have found it is their RESPONSIBILITY to acclimate to the Danish way of life?  Those who have been studying who the Danes are?  Who have been learning Danish and aligning their practices with the Danish standards?  Who believe that the Danes established this country and the Danish system long before their arrival?

What about those ordinary folk, those self confessed non-muslims who ask:   “who am I to demand that the Danes just accept me with open arms?”  It’s a valid point.  Why should the Danes accept you foreigners with open arms?  #1: You talk funny.  It’s an instant barrier.

Anyway,  It is not about conforming, but rather having respect for this country that you chose to enter…or not choose to enter in the case of people who ended up coming here to take refuge when it was any port in a storm.  So come on, respect the country,  and do whatever you are told, and for crying out loud, work on that accent.

And  listen up all you cancer stricken who wear headscarves!  Those who are finding working a difficulty and need to claim government support.  No excuses now!   Get that scarf off your head… Mind you,it’s not just any old headscarf you aint allowed, it is specifically the MUSLIM headscarf.

So now I am starting to wonder.  Can a woman wearing a MUSLIM headscarf be excused from seeking work or excused from being penalised for wearing her headscarf if she has cancer? At what stage is a person recovering from cancer expected to stop wearing muslimesque headgear and get back to work?  Will she then still get her cheque?  Or will she be told that a doctors note will be almost sufficient, but that she has to change her head gear from being ‘arab looking’ to the more modern cancer cap?

See, Denmark is about progress.

And that means that women who need to claim unemployment benefit will be penalised for not removing their headscarf…unless they can prove they have cancer perhaps?  Even then, I reckon that what it boils down to is that a sick woman is preferable in Denmark to a muslim woman.  I don’t know why that is.  They’d rather have them dying than praying on a mat.  And what with cancer recovery rates in DK being what they are..whole thing stinks.

Funny old world.

Protest is futile.

“Jailing of Tadzio bang out of order” Says Lawyer.

But you know, one person can’t make a difference.  Now sit back, open another bag of potato chips and enjoy the rest of your pitiful powerless excuse of a life….

STOP PRESS!STOP PRESS!STOP PRESS!

High level interview with high level popoliceperson now translated to Engrish for benefit of our lesser readers:

A sweetie factory cum communal vegetairan dwelling place was raided and ransacked today and a number of cycles taken away by the Purleaze.

A high level popoliceperson was compelled to give a reason for the action and he stated that the cycles were in fact illegal, in his head anyway.

“THIS BIKE IS NOT A LEGAL MODEL!”  He said.  “We believe,  we believe,  we believe, we do believe that they will use it for something….NOT legal!  In COPENHAGEN!”

Like … uh…what, for example?

“Yeah BUT, this is what you see around Europe, and then we make an assessment…”

What is it the police think is illegal?

“Is it to cycle on,  when you find it on Lærkevej?  NO. Just like when you find somebody who wears a gasmask, and has pliers and masks,  you know, so we know it’s for something wery NOT legal.”

What sort of illegal activities do you honestly think you can use the cycles for?

“Um, well, we don’t know yet.  Ask my mum.  She’s over there, making the sandwiches.”

Mum indeed.

AND your mom.

To which I’d like to add:

Mr High Level Popo?

DID you eat an extra bowl of stupid this morning?

AND:

YOUR MOM ….. is so dumb,  she sat on the TV and watched the SOFA.

In other news today…

http://politiken.dk/klima/Topmode_i_Kobenhavn/article860763.ece

“There is something wrong in Denmark.”

Well hellloooo, what took you so long?

Naomi Klein YOU ROCK. Headline: “The Danish need for control is a real problem.”

‘The Danish need for control is a real problem.’ – tell me about it, LOL!

‘DANISH NEED FOR CONTROL IS STIFLING CLIMATE DEBATE’ -Front page of The Guardian online.

The Climate Guantanamo. This is what ‘Danish Democracy looks like anno 2009′

Danish Democracy.

Journo to arrested peaceful protester: “Why have you been arrested?”

Peaceful Protester:  “They haven’t told us and we haven’t done anything so we don’t know and I don’t think they know either.  But I guess this is what Danish Democracy anno 2009 looks like.”

Journo:  “Why do you think you were chosen out of the crowd?”

Peaceful Protester:  “I have no idea and I don’t think the police officer knew either.”

Journo:  “What have they asked you for so far?”

Peaceful protester:  “They haven’t asked me for nothing but to follow them and to sit down.”

An eyewitness account:

“a group of us from london joined the main climate demonstration which headed off at 2pm and marched near the libertarian socialist block (note not a black block). After heading over the bridge next to christiania the march was fairly arbitarily boxed in by full riot police; it was massively fast and there was no warning. Everyone from masked people to green ngo’s and the danish section of the CWI were boxed in. Its pretty random as a great number of anarchists, with red and black flags were well ahead of the line. As the back line formed a couple of things were tossed, but this was well after the operation had begun – there is no question at all this was in reponse *to* things being thrown, the police vans were ready in the side street at the back and a line had already formed at the front before anything was chucked. The police have stated this was responisve mass arrest to attacks on a ministry and even suggested attempted arson on a car – if this happened it was miles away from the group they boxed in. I cannot vouch it did not happen, but it certainly didn’t happen at the time and place given.

The blocked section has been held for several hours now – lots of people have now returned to support them, but they pushed them several blocks back. In the gap between the supporters and the mass arrest they brought in two lines of attack dogs. They are arresting people in great numbers, everyone is sat on the floor with their hands cable tied, sat in straight rows. They are then loading them onto buses in the side street. I have seen them breaking up placrds and loading them into police vans along with random protest detritis, which could be used as evidence of weapons. “

My take on it, being someone who isn’t there, is just what the pictures and basic facts tell me, what people are telling me online  and that is that the police ‘handled’ the situation in a very inhumane way.

In the process of doing so, they handled it in such a way that the international eye is reporting the police action as questionable..  And Connie Hedegaard is a dick.

I haven’t got much more to say on the matter (Did I mention that Connie Hedegaard is a dick?) except that it was bang out of order to arrest such huge numbers of people (hundreds upon hundreds upon hundreds) and then keep them handcuffed and seated on cold tarmac in MID FUCKING December,  for hours.  People were frozen and pissing themselves.  The police had their dogs out too, it was all really tragic, and it is highly likely this will cause more trouble than calm.

WRONGFUL ARREST now supported by the Danish law.

Roll out the bedlam.

Join the army and be with attractive people. Sure beats your life in Jutland.

Look at these beautiful lithe and svelte young people.  WOAH that guy is HOT. Look at the fun they are having,  they are so cool, they are really living.  Look at the strain those khaki pants are showing when that fair haired girl tumbles into the mire,  she is so FINE.  Would ya look at how those gorgeous fit kids can handle a gun, and handle a skateboard,  drop a bomb, have a refreshing drink and hang out, wear lipstick a la mode and have lovely smooth glossy skin?

Their skin is so clear, their eyes are so bright, their skin is so nice and glossy.

Nice and glossy?  Their skin will be nice and glossy when they are lying in their effing graves.   Shipping them back from Afuckinghanistan?  THE ARMY?    This advert??  Children watching it saying:  Mammy, I want to go there, that looks cool, like in a computer game cool, like a computer game and a film rolled into one.  Their frontal lobes not in their heads and they are lured into the army in all their daftness.

The above video is the latest in advertizing to entice hopeless hapless children to buy into a life as killing machines. Time to mobilize the Danski Childrens’ Army.

And lets face it, jobs are getting thin on the ground for the youth of this happy happy land.

Life is tough right now for the young generation.  The army still offers an EXPERIENCE.  When you join the army you get laid and have sexy mud fights with fair haired girls whose do not have double chins.  This is the reality, don’t doubt it for a second.

I suspect there won’t be any trouble tomorrow,  I suspect that the Arsethorities in Dunmark have got it all sorted,  the worst that will happen is the usual…lots of kids getting hit over the head and gassed.  You know, because ‘In Denmark we don’t hit kids’….whoops,  meaning:  only the kids who won’t do as they are TOLD.

I’ll just stay in my armchair and finish off the embroidery detail of the balaclava my granny knitted me shall I?  I tell ya, it takes pure grit to pace oneself.  I just have to finish breast feeding the twins (some time in 2012) and then I will be donning this here balaclava and protesting about SOMETHING.  I just hope i haven’t missed the boat.

Police raid sleeping quarters of several hundred activists CPH 3am

fucking activists again

In the wee small hours of last night,  a group of police clad bigtime in riot gear,  stomped up to the sleeping quarters of a place in CPH housing several hundred slumbering so called ‘activists’ from around the world.

The shame of it is that according to a spokeswoman for the ‘Climate Justice Action’ group, there was a ‘dialogue system’ in place which should have allowed for the riot police to give the CJA a little tinkle on the telephone to warn the activists “Alloalloallo!  We are on our way, put your knickers on!”

But no.  Riot police forgot all about a deal in the bumrush and couldn’t resist it.  Anyway, they were in search of DANGER.  And,  allegedly,  WEAPONS.

They did find a few teddy bears and the odd soft blanket,  but no real DANGER.  So after about an hour (allegedly) they left with some power tools,  a raw plug that was all bent out of shape, and some drawing pins.  All of which could of course be made into weapons of mass destruction if we don’t keep hassling these criminals who decide to take the law into their own hands.  God DAMN those suffragettes!!  God DAMN THEM TO HELL.

Thank god for our sensitive security services, ridding the world of one power tool at a time, and keeping US all safe in our beds at night, by waking up sleeping climate activists.

Those activists need to be stamped out and forced to eat yesterdays ryebread and fishpaste.

I say:  send em back where they came from!  We don’t want you long haired perka lovers here:  so don’t think we’ll roll out the red carpet FOR YOU!

Oh and hahahaha, did you hear the one about the carefully worded document that suggested that the poor people suck it up?  Yeah, me too.  A friend translated it for me, because she much better to engrish than me am.  But it was clear,  BUSINESS AS USUAL,  and sod the poor,  just their karma innit?

And remember folks…activists could be all around you. Keep an eye open, and remember to report any suspicious activity to your local law enforcers, we just can’t take any chances in this climate of fear and terror.

Think of the children,  folks, think of the children.

Links to informative news (obviously give the DanePress a wide berth):

With up to 30,000 activists gathering in Copenhagen, there are five key days when the Danish authorities will be preparing for trouble

Danish Police raid CPH climate campaigners’ rooms

AN ACTIVIST’S GUIDE TO COPENHAGEN.

The activists’ circus comes to CPH.

GAZA’S CHILDREN.

We knew this: Denmark – a wasteful society despite the hype.

The Los Angeles Times has written a little indictment of Danish society.

“Denmark’s green credentials obscure some unpleasant facts”

My take on this has always been that commonly people calling themselves Danes are bigger consumers than people calling themselves American,  for example.  A quick nose or trip down memory lane around the family homes of the Americans I have known shows that the parents tend to be more thoughtful about what comes into the house than is common among the people who call themselves Danes I know or have known.

Denmark has had some great intentions. One of the reasons we chose to be here was at the time, we were acting in good faith,  Denmark APPEARED to be green.  It was sure coming up with a lot of green intentions.  All that ceiling lowering etc.

However, the myths about Denmark don’t stand up long under even the simplest scrutiny.

The Los Angeles Times article touches apon the fact that the people who call themselves Danes chomp through unfeasibly heavy amounts of animal flesh day in and day out all year.  Denmark is fat not phat, and probably spends a lot on constipation remedies. I don’t know though, because I don’t want to be the one to look it up.

Perhaps a newspaper will do an article on how constipated Denmark is.

The article quotes a big wig expert on the situation, who mentions how “happy and self satisified”  the people calling themselves Danes have been.  We’ve been freaking happy and self satisfied about how happy and self satisfied we are here, on Denmark, the glittering Isle of all that is right and on the ‘right track’.

Hoorah for the Los Angeles Times!  For that.

Denmark embarrassed, shoves evidence under carpet at last minute and affects suitably remorseful expression.

Read the full article in the British newspaper The Guardian, headlined:

Copenhagen summit: Denmark rushes in laws to stop carbon trading scam

Climate change summit host embarrassed as criminals make most of lax laws to pocket VAT on emissions trading

I think it’s obvious that the point of me suggesting you read this article is to witness the brown nosing Denmark is doing,  rather than the criminal swindling now suitably shoved under carpet.

http://www.flickr.com/groups/amessagetocopenhagen/ (The Guardian’s Flickr.

Read also:

Exclusive: World’s leading climate change expert says summit talks so flawed that deal would be a disaster.

Copenhagen climate change talks must fail, says top scientist.

CHRISTMAS IS JUL #4678: making confectionary.

I am afraid you missed the boat.  All of they julfrokosts are over now, everybody has bought their presents,  and the shops are now filling up with Easter beer.   Hahaha, joke. Did you get it???  Or did you eat an extra bowl of stupid this morning?

But anyway, if you’d been organised like everybody else you would have been making confectionary last week.

This is when you get together with a finite number of Danshish.  This isn’t a big gathering, it is small and intimate.  Perhaps a mother in law,  a couple of cousins,  and definitely some kids.

This is what you do:

-lay out a red table cloth

-light a red candle

-put some JUL musak on

-make some hot wine with nuts in it

-get out a bowl and put some small domed biscuits in

-get out a plate and put some flat round biscuits on

-put on a red and green apron

-get your mother in law to put on a red and green apron

-talk about roast duck and pig crackling

-NOTE:  DO NOT MENTION FRIKKADELLA

-persuade present children to switch off their hand held video games with promise of high sugar rush soon.

-refill bowl with small domed biscuits

-make children sit at table and yap brightly about how ‘hoogalit’ everything is

-get out rolls of jumbo industrial sized marzipan

-glance up and smile at your mother in law who is simpering about how ‘hoogalit’ everything is

-get out slabs of chocolate,  melt some of it, chop the rest.

-glance up and smile at your mother in law who is simpering about how ‘hoogalit’ everthing is

-get out various nuts and confectionary stuff

-form ingredients into confectionary, basically any variation of a nut wrapped in marzipan and chocolate and rolled in coconut or someother stuff you feel is necessary to make it really ‘hoogalit.’

-agree with your mother in law that yes,  this is hoogalit.

-ask your children brightly if this isn’t hoogalit?

-drink hot wine with nuts in

-help kids to make their own confectionary,  vow to remember which ones they have made so you don’t have to eat the booger encrusted ones.

It’s a tradition that many Danshish would feel bereft without, and I hope I have described it well enough. I never eat confectionary that an ungloved unqualifed person has been rolling through their mucky mits and I predict that infection and illness will skyrocket in about a week due to the practise of communal confectionary making.

Apart from that,  blogland a bit flat as we all burrow deeper into our JUL SURVIVAL mode, and start to psyche ourselves up for the one day of the year we can’t gloss over the family details.

Mantra for you:  I love my spouse’s family, they are good to me.  I love my spouse’s family, they are good to me.

Yeah, right.  That’s right, keep looking in the magic mirror.

Oh and, have you heard the latest?  I AM an ironic construct.

Headteacher reported to police for restricting Free Speech in Denmark.

news just out - danish women hold pork crackling crunchin record

 

The Danish Headteacher of Seden School in Odense, Carsten Høyer,  who banned one third of his children from speaking freely in his school, has been reported to the police by a Flemming Leer Jakobsen of Vejle.

Last week Carsten Høyer was quoted as saying:  “I think we should speak Danish together when we find outselves in group situations,  due to practical reasons and out of courtesy to others.”

Hmm, yes,  Carsten, interesting point.  How polite is it to ban the speaking  of what you call ‘stranger language’?  When one third of your ‘group’ is speaking that language?

Anyway.  HOORAH (as the DanskeFokkerParty say:  HOOOORAH!) for that uppity Flemming Leer Jakobsen, who pretty much pointed out what is obvious to most sentient beings with a heart and a brain, that there is nothing really in the lofty concept of Danish Free Speech that actually really truthfully states that free speech in Denmark allows for only speaking in Danshish.

What is particularly brilliant is that it cannot have escaped Mr Høyers attention that what he was doing was restricting free speech, but that he did it anyway.  Because almost everyone knows that in Denmark free speech is mocking other cultures, but not including other cultures that mock Denmark.

 

Mock mock mock!  I am going to have a mocking fest!  Come mock with me!

 

I am going to teach my kids feral twin language and get them to whisper it and only to eachother!

Oh the fun shall begin NOW!

Anyway, I never believed any of that bleating the Danshish did about their free speech. Until Mr Jakobsen!  He is a DARLING!  And we love his AUDACITY!

Let’s hope that some serious upheaval results because of this.

I also hope that parents who have kids at one of the many other schools across Denmark who unofficially ban kids from speaking any language but Danish in their free time at school (I know for a fact there are many)..I hope they decide to make a stand too.

And to Danshish who are scared – listen, the only way is up.

And to all the lonely Danewives dotted across Denmark having to face yet another christmas with backwater inlaws who will only speak Danish in their company as a matter of principle (and passive aggressive backlash and revenge because they wished their son had been able to snag a Pernille)…have courage…the law of free speech will rise up and protect you! I suggest you quote that law when they are all with their mouths full of pig crackling!   Free speech indeed!

Ug. Inlaws. I am sorry i reminded you.

 

 

 

 

Free Translation Danish – English.

The TV2 Zulu channel as a Danish stand up comic program.  It is really dire.

Usually I can’t watch it, it’s bad comedy, thinks itself clever and the audience are clapping in that peculiar slow clap that Danes do.  It’s all very disconcerting.

Plus, it’s not my imagination,  I only ever flick past that program and watch a 2 minute segment every time before moving on in disgust,  and each and every time I have left thinking:  “We are not wrong about the Danish culture.”

There are a lot of racist jokes.  They are not even funny racist jokes.  I can sort of understand a crass or non politically correct joke IF it is funny.  But these wetly weak fart of a Danish jokes about muslims?  So so sad and embarrassing.  I guess they are doing them to ‘let off steam’ and well, the audience, taking a look at it, packed to the rafters with 99% ‘whiteys’.  I don’t like to use the word ‘white’ in a derogatory sense,  but it was that or ‘Danish’ and I don’t like to say that being Danish is about being white.

Tonight there was a young ‘comedian’ up on the stage. She looked like an overgrown slightly melted version of Nicole Kidman,   like Nicole Kidman if she’d been pumped up to blistering point and then soaked in a barrel of rice pudding for a day.  Bloated is the word.  Anyway,  my translation is not perfect, but here is the segment of her well honed ‘act’ I had the misfortune to witness:

“People are fascinated with my freckles,  they are always trying to rub them off…..I went to Cairo,  Egypt and I went into a mosque, and there was this ugly disgusting old toothless man who came up to me and started caressing my arm and looking at my freckles and he said…“

(this bit she did in English..)

“ooooh you are so  BEAUTIFUL!!!  What are you eating in Denmark that makes you so BEAUTIFUL???”  so I said “BACON”  “PIG!”  “OINK OINK!!!”  “

 

erm, yeah, babe, like that is funny.   But the audience went WILD,  ha fucking ha.  I am not sure they weren’t laughing because she actually looked like a pig though.

Then she went on to say something like:

“But I am not racist, I think it is important to show the world I am not racist and that I have respect for other cultures, and that is why I have a bumper sticker showing a picture of the Prophet Muhammad on the back of my car!  ….Nah,  I was only joking, of course I don’t have a picture of the Prophet on the back of my car…that would be SUICIDAL.  Actually, it’s just some mud that has splattered up from the road that looks like the Prophet Muhammad.”

Crowd went crazy again. Uh.  Now, this isn’t funny on any level, not even in a ‘o wow she is so irreverent and zany’ sort of way. It just isn’t funny.  It just isn’t even useful for anything.  It’s plain nasty humor, like my comment about her LOOOKING LIKE A FAT PIG.  I mean, sure, if we look at it a certain way, she did look like a real mean ugly pig.  And when her mouth moved it did look like an ugly pig chewing something that she found stuck to the bottom of her shoe, but really!  What kind of a person makes an UNFUNNY cruel joke?

Then it just isn’t funny.  I try to avoid watching Danes get entertained, I have seen it more than a few times and lost my faith in human nature.  I mean, if we can stoop THAT low, any of us, what hope is there?

And that fecking slow clap they do!  And the way they throw beer at concerts!  And film every event through the lens of their mobile.

Anyway, other news I will translate for you today:

‘The use of the contraceptive pill in Denmark amongst girls under the age of sexual consent is violently increasing (numbers from ‘Lægemiddelstyrelsen’ show). In 1999,   3.086 girls under 15 were prescribed the contraceptive pill – last year the number had climbed to 6.570 girls between 11-14 years young.’

Now it is quite obvious what is going on here.  It is all the ‘invandrer’ girls, they come here and they are just taking all our western medicines and infecting our sweet young daughters.  As soon as we get rid of the immigrants this problem will be solved.  OR it is the worldwide habit of stifling natural processes and treating menstruation as an ailment needing to be ‘cured’.  The pill, like the hysterectomy, like anti-depressants…these are all magical god-doctor cures for many ailments.

Here is another one for you:

‘Every third Danish hospital patient gets a bedsore.’

Obviously all those immigrants again,  mouldering away in OUR LAND.  And taking up valuable hospital beds that could be used for DANISH.

Anyone who has had to take care of someone with a bedsore knows pure and simple, these breakdowns of the body are caused by pure neglect.  Standards in Danish hospitals are at an all time low.  I can tell you for an inside fact, that if you or anyone you know has had contact with the Danish hospital system and come out whole and well and not negatively affected or butchered and carved up….this was NOT due to medical expertise or high standards…it was due to LUCK.

If you feel you have had a great experience in a Danish hospital then I promise you, it is because of your low standards or your inattention to detail or because you are basically glad you aren’t dead so just getting up in the morning is a constant recurring miracle.  Or because you don’t know any better.  Or because you were LUCKY.

This may be the time, if any of you Danish hospital damaged people out there need to outpour what you have often told me in private emails or talks (i.e: what horrific experiences you have had in contact with the Danish doctors/nurses/midwives) then you can outpour in the comments, and leave it as anon.

That’s enough translating for one day.  Although I can sort of bear to read Danish,  it is easier on the eye than on the ear.

 

 

Protest in Denmark not necessarily non violent: police heavy handed previously.

Thanks to Carsten Agger for reminding me of ‘LUK LEJREN’ .Above is a wonderful little film. Note that at the point when the ‘Ecilop’ (read it backwards DUMMY!) get really busy, there is a little old lady in the crowd. The standard belief amongst Middle Minded Denmark appears to be that while it is illegal for parents to hit children,  it is perfectly legit for the Ecilop to hit children.

The difference? The Ecilop have more power than the parents.  Or..um somethin like that.

Anyway, I ramble.  This was a great little film and very informative too.

Hurrah for Dannymruk!  Land of the FREE!  And the HAPPY!  And the NON VIOLENT!

 

 

Taking a break from a week of non-protest: Danes, the Danish Way – why so selfish and full of itself?

why are you sending people away? is it because you want to keep Denmark 'clean'?

Let them in I say!

Let them in!

It’s amusing, but Denmark is so fucking rich.  And so obscenely selfish, and pompous.  Whatever we think we know,  Denmark or a representative of the Danish way, with very few exceptions, will come along and tell us a) they know better or b) ahahahhahhahaha!  we actually *patronising titter* know less than we profess to.

Oh ahahahhahahaha Danish people, you know so much right?

You know about the orphans of AIDS right?  You saw them on your little gap year tourist trek to AF’KA.  You donate a portion of your salary to your sponsor child.  You UNDERSTAND the millions of people going to bed hungry tonight?

How about letting them in?

How about taking a cut in your standard of life, living with a little less fat arsed security?  How about giving up the duck or the pig this christmas,  feeding a family of six on what you snack on during the tv breaks?  How about letting them in?

Oh I know, right now you are either a) too busy pontificating from your office stool (social democrats) b) having passionate debates with other like minds and getting your face pierced (enhedslisten) or c) filing your taxes (anything right of venstre) but have you not considered the sheer bulk of your everyday wealth here?

All mouth and no trousers is what I call your lot.  I have seen this before, in town to town, but never a whole country of the disease.

What oh what is really wrong with ya?

Let them in I say.

Now, some Danes like to quote some number that suggests Denmark has actually been quite generous allowing refugees in,  well, thank you very much, that was nice, thanks for the flat and the cheque and the free child care and the Danish lessons.  That job didn’t show up though, I wonder… is it cos I’s black?  Eh?

No, you’ve been very kind, really.

But you know.  I have two pictures in my hand.  One is of a big fat Dane at a Julfrokost (now don’t tell me that 9 months pregnant manbelly is glandular:  it is PORK) and one is of an girl orphaned by AIDS living in South Africa.

One is full of it and one is wanting.

This place is selfish, the people keep it so,  even the armchair pontificators, their talk goes nowhere, they like to criticize the governing body, the people from Jutland, the invandrer, y’all have these awful smug pontifications about what is going wrong here, y’all bring all manner of shite into it.  Europe keeps being mentioned, that it is a general problem.

But not one of you is getting off your ass and saying:  LET THEM COME!

And by ‘saying’ I mean, actually making SOME NOISE.

There is place here for more people,  it would mean the Danes took a huge cut in their pork intake, but really, SHOULD a person spend that long on the toilet anyway?  I heard that the Dane use more laxatives per capita per annum than any other country in Europe.  You all eat too much!  You are way toooo warm.  You have too many clothes and your cars look silly and shiny, but not in an ‘American Dream’ kind of way.  You don’t look ‘simple scandinavian chic’, you look greedy and/or  pretentious.

Y’all take your flights half way across the world,  muliple holidays and pleasure trips a year and you order on the internet for what you can’t get in KVICKLY, and you keep your borders tight.

Denmark is a democracy, somehow the people have agreed in huge numbers to who tells us what to do.

And always the smug Dane voice, who knows better than we do, because they have it all worked out.

Until I see Danes standing up, in huge numbers, I will stick with my assumption that you are all cowardly, selfish,  greedy and lazy.  I keep hearing all these bleeding heart liberals saying: oh, no, but really, we are with you on this, we are actually ashamed to be Danish right now, and there are more like us…

Oh raaaallllly?  So where the fuck are they?

You know damn well all you care about is your pension.