Swedes and Danes are ancient and bitter enemies. So it’s fun for me to hear some of the other side’s jibes.

Danish kids can’t read until they are 8 because they’re not taught to read until 7. This is a carryover from earlier, freer days of educational principles, that has since proven rather wrong-headed. My wife’s job is to teach reading and writing to all those poor sods [only some of whom are dyslexics] who fell through the safety net of the Danish educational system. They were too busy being given free reign to their short attention spans and general restlessness as children to bother learning to read. Pity, really. Makes a two-tiered society, which is exactly what Scandinavian socialism is NOT about.

But the language itself IS difficult to learn. Like English – only moreso – there is often little correspondence between what’s written and how it’s pronounced.

Where you gonna be? Bloody Århus or Wonderful Copenhagen?