New Bike

I’ve been here seven weeks. Approximately six weeks and five days ago, I told myself I must buy a bike. Fitness, time reduction and financial scruples were all factors in my determination to purchase a magical two-wheeled transporter. Well, yesterday, I finally bought one. I’m quick to act.

This is the stallion here. Just look at it. Set me back a wee bit, but no doubt it’s worth it. I could have got a decrepit old horsebox for £30 if I’d wanted, but decided to invest big. The reason: I want to enjoy cycling and actually get out of the city with it. I can’t quite do this on a 1970s knackered city bike with a flimsy wicker basket strapped to the front.

Today I took the new beast out for a spin. Initial results are quite positive. As you can see from the picture it’s quite a hunch-mobile, but I’m used to it. The wheels (brand new thank you Josefine) are pretty solid though. Cobbled roads and high pavements are a real pain in the arse. And may I add to take that literally; my lower pelvis is so sore I feel like those piles have returned.

So the positives: it’s fast, reasonably light and will do the job on long excursions. And now we can get to those lovely negatives:

- The seat: Harder than a 30-minute boiled egg, it’s so high I feel like a de-livered Prometheus chained to his rock, unable to hop off. In fact, I’m pretty sure the point nearly poked my own liver at one point during disembarking.

- The brakes: Needs quite a squeeze to penetrate any sort of life out of them, but generally OK. The confusing thing is their positioning: vertical rather than horizontal. I keep flapping wildly at thin air in vain attempts to slow down for fast-moving pensioners.

- The handlebars: They look pretty damn cool, and are amazing for straights. However, a bit narrow: in fact, any vigorous uphill climb that requires arm assistance usually results in slalom-style wobbling.

- The gears: Oh my word they’re situated on the diagonal crossbeam. Who the hell put them there? When I try to change gear it looks like I’m scratching my testicles. I still haven’t figured out how to use them properly (the gears, not my testicles) – they remind me of Top Gear’s infamous ‘flappy panelled gearboxs’ (again, the gears).

Now, of course it seems like I’m whining a bit… and maybe I am. But to be honest I’m chuffed to bits with the little beauty. In fact, I was so delighted with my purchase, that I decided a tad of supermarket shopping would be adequate reward.

120DKK later, and a full backpack, I was cycling back to my flat from the supermarket with a loaf of bread in a shopping bag, dangling off my right handlebar. I took to quick left turn onto some cobbles near Christianshavn tube station, which of course altered my centre of gravity somewhat. The bag swung into my front wheel, and as you can see wrapped itself lovingly round my tyre and breaks.

Because my front breaks were now rendered inactive, I couldn’t stop immediately. After ten yards little light brown fluff started flying from a hole newly carved in the bag. My loaf of bread was being sprayed all over the road.

When I finally stopped and checked out the damage I just had to take some photos. Luckily no one was around to confirm my utter embarrassment, which otherwise would be non-existent seeing as I definitely wasn’t wearing a helmet, sun glasses and reflective bicycle clips at the time.




Well with the loaf now pretty much ruined, I had no qualms with shoving it into my already crammed bag. The damage, as you can see, doesn’t look too bad. But I know that when it comes to me settling down to a lovely breakfast of marmite on toast in four days time, the taste of grit and oil may very well upset my morning.

False Tourism

Imagine peering west up the Champs-Elysees from the Louvre, and instead of resting your eyes on the magnificent Arc de Triomphe, your view settles on that crappy motorway junction behind it. Or, rounding the corner of Rome’s Forum to greet the Colloseum, only to satiate your viewing pleasure with the world’s largest roundabout. I dare say you’d be pretty peeved, maybe even a little miffed, if these landmarks in European tourism were suddenly taken away from you.

Well, this has happened in Copenhagen. The Little Mermaid, although certainly not as famous as the Eiffel Tower, Athens’ Acropolis or the Big Dipper at Blackpool, is Denmark’s jewel in the crown for tourists. Well… apart from the royal crown jewels obviously. Millions of tourists every year come to Copenhagen, and on each neatly organised to-do list are the bullet points:

- Royal Palace
- Christiania
- Little Mermaid

Now, you can’t exactly shift a palace that has stood for centuries in the middle of the city, nor can you remove an entire area of the capital. However, what it seems you CAN do is bonk off a small statue to the highest bidder.

That’s right, Copenhagen’s beloved mermaid is currently living it up in Shanghai; holidaying for eight months as the centrepiece for the Danish contribution of a world exhibition or something like that… the slapper.

How dare she piss off and leave us here in rainy Denmark all alone. It smacks of utter cheek that someone can pawn off the statue. What makes things worse however, is that the Danes have hardly realised she’s gone.

This is the current scene at the site of the Mermaid’s rock. As you can see, the scene is picturesque, a view overlooking the opposite harbour, while Copenhagen’s famous castile lurks just out of shot. What a beautiful vie- wait… hang on a minute, what’s that youtube video on that enormous projector screen doing there, blocking out the view? What, is that a live feed to the Mermaid 5,000 miles away? Quick Beryl get the camera, you’ve got to take this!

And yet, even though the Mermaid isn’t there, just on the left you can see people selling Little Mermaid figurines. About £5.50 each if you’re interested: postcards £1.50. Figurines, to commemorate that wonderful afternoon when you stared at a screen watching other people staring at the very same thing you travelled all this bloody way to stare at.

Why not just Google Image it?

The sheer cheek to sell these things overlooking the naked crime scene is remarkable, what’s more amazing is that – of course – people buy them in their droves.

I’m thinking of setting up a tourist’s trinket stall myself actually: small-scale figurines of the Yorkshire Dales’ most fascinating dry stone wall designs.

Speed Dating – Danish Style

Last week I was sat in an editorial meeting for the University of Copenhagen’s newspaper. We were discussing ideas about the theme of our next issue, ‘finding love in Denmark’. Targeted primarily to international students as an English speaking paper, I suggested – jokingly – that speed dating would be a great way of finding Danish love. Our editor wrote the idea on the white board.

Shit…

So, four days later I found myself booking a slot in the 18-26 category of Copenhagen’s main speed dating company. The premise: write an article about how to meet the Danes. What better way is there to get to know the Copenhagen youth of today than talking to random girls for 6 whole minutes each?

I haven’t written the article yet. To be honest I’m stumped on my ‘angle’ towards it. However, I am of course loyal to my blog, and so have documented the action of the evening below… enjoy.

5:30
Get home from uni and quickly put the water on boil. Cook a filling but relatively boring meal of rice, eggs, veg and sausages (less washing up for all concerned) and scoff it in front of the laptop, trying to figure out where the ‘venue’ is for the adventure to follow.

6:00
Quick shower to get rid of that old book smell I must have picked up in the English library earlier in the day. Rummage through cupboard looking for something to wear.

6:15
Shirt: the only one not crumpled in a heap will have to do. It was once ironed – long ago – but has now taken up the ‘flat because I’ve been squashed into a bag with 20kg of other clothes for a flight to Denmark’ kind of look.

6:30
Find a bottle of aftershave in my left running shoe. So THAT’S where I put it for protection during the flight.

6:45
Walk out the door, get down the stairs and onto the street outside.

6:46
Forget my map and wallet, turn round, enter my building, go up the stairs, into my room, pick up my map, wallet and… oh yes my phone, and walk out again.

7:00
Enter the bar of doom.

It’s quite a scary thing walking into a bar, knowing you’re about to be judged by a load of strangers. Of course they’re in the same boat, but you forget about that once you’re in. The ‘dating’ would be held upstairs, away from the main restaurant where NORMAL people were happily chomping away at their meals. A woman looked at me and noticed my little name badge on the breast pocket of my shirt: I turned away quickly.

The actual speed dating was not bad at all to be perfectly honest. I was petrified at the start, but soon you get into a rhythm. I think, being from England, I may have had an advantage over the other guys – not that I was playing survival of the fittest in my mind or anything. It’s simply that I have at least some different things to talk about.

The worst thing was the first introduction, where I felt compelled to apologise every time for not being able to speak Danish. I know three sentences, maybe four, and that’s it:

1) “Jeg hedder Joe”
To be honest this is practically a redundant statement, as my nametag proves beyond explanation what I’m called.

2) “Jeg kommer fra England”
Great, this is probably assumed by the bewildered lady in front of me by the fact that my first sentence lacked all the sophistication and pronunciation of a real Dane.

3) “Jeg kan ikke tale dansk”
You don’t say…

So, with these killer sentences primed neatly in my arsenal, I set forth into the world of speed dating.

And what an odd wilderness it is. The women get to stay put on their own table, while the blokes are whistled round the room, chasing the next lady like a randy Restoration fop.

We all had cards, so that after each date we could write down the other half’s name, a description for oneself to keep, and tick either ‘ja’ or n’ej’ in the box provided. I appreciate this may all seem boring and obvious, especially to you experienced daters, but I must say holding a really interesting and nice chat with someone for six minutes, only to tick the ‘nej’ box after you’ve moved on, basically gives you that sense of power not yielded in other forms of social interaction. One can be very two-faced, and get away with it.

I would like to have said that in the end I felt a bit of a Richard Gere, swimming through the ladies with a beat in my step and a glint in my eye. But no, maybe more like Bottom, as Titania seduces him to all the confidence in the word, while the audience look on in pitying bemusement.

New Phone

Ah with new places and new friends comes a new mobile phone. This is my utterly stunning ‘Nokia e5d7something’ that I bought two days ago. As you can see it’s a pretty hunky piece of machinery. Sixteen and a half of its twenty buttons work to perfection, the colour screen offers a rainbow of… colour, and the sheer weight of it means you know when it’s in your pocket.

Because my current phone is an ignorant sod that doesn’t accept Danish sim cards, I was obliged to get this stunner in order to control my luxurious credit spending on cool ringtones, saucy pictures and late night chat lines.

I bought it from a run-down second hand shop. It looked quite good behind the definitely-not-secure security cabinet. The guy gave me the phone (well I say gave, he winched it up from the case with a heavy-duty crane and gently lowered it into my hands, to which I buckled under the weight but kept my footing) and rattled off a general spec. Colour screen, Bluetooth and a voice recorder that has a one-minute memory capacity. I knew I was looking at the dog’s bollocks.

What clinched the deal for me was that it had a camera. There’s something reassuring about having a camera in your pocket, just in case a fat woman gets scared by a pigeon and you’re on hand to shoot the after effects.

However, as you can see from this photo, there is no camera. What I thought was a lensed portal to the endless frivolity of the photographic world was actually a small hole, so you can thread a piece of string through the top of the phone.

I’ve just about recovered from the sheer disgruntlement of the situation. Below is the fact file for this majestic model, just in case you’re tempted yourselves:




The Nokia Brick

Colour: Faded silver, for that rustic look.

Weight: Heavy, the cheap man’s bludgeoning tool of the 21st century.

Size: Let’s face it girls, with this in my pocket, I’m pleased to see everyone.

Buttons: Chunky and certainly 3-dimensional, could poke an eye out.

Battery: Long life, but of course heats up to magma levels when on charge.

Infra Red: Probably, but will never be tried out.

Bluetooth: Lack of memory and camera means it is redundant.

Charger: Typical Nokia, will break in three months.