The World's Most Boring Blog

Today and yesterday, I was out for the AIDS foundation collecting money; I was standing in something called Bruun’s Bazaar”, asking everyone who passed (well… mostly), if they wanted to donate to the struggle against AIDS, and to as many as I could, I gave out condoms.
When you’re standing around for that long, you try to amuse yourself. The bin used to collect money, is in Danish called “bøsse”, which happens to be the same as the word for a homosexual… Hilarity ensues… Well not really, it would be poor taste. But “support the fight against AIDS(give me money), and I will support yours (hand out a condom)”, I don’t think that’s bad taste, in worst case, it’s just stupid.
Time doesn’t go slow, I did 3 hours both days, it doesn’t go fast anyway, and by the time I was done, I was damn tired, walking around bugging people for money, it’s a very unforgiving job. Yes some people stop, chitchat etc., but only one in 10 or one in 15 stop and donate, some even shout abuse (I’ve heard “gay bastard” more than once, despite being heterosexual). But there are groups for all people, and these people can be grouped into the following:

1. Complete ignore, as if I don’t exist
2. Look and ignore
3. Look and laugh
4. Look and and then look in a completely different direction, this isn’t your teachers attention you’re avoiding
5. Pick up your cellphone until you’re past me and put it down
6. Lie to make yourself feel better by saying “not RIGHT now” or “not today”
7. Shout abuse
8. Claim you’ve already given someone else
9. Excuse that you haven’t got any small change (we accept all types and size of money)
10. Excuse that you’ve only got your credit card (just leave it with me)

So why do I it? I don’t get paid, I get shouted at (very rarely though), I get ignored and I haven’t got AIDS. I also don’t feel greatly with Western people who have it, yes I apologise for people who were raped, nurses who had an accident with a used needle, doctors performing operations etc.
It’s a disease you get, when you do what you’re supposed to do, when you have unprotected sex, when you think a morning after pill, is a good type of prevention. I understand that’s it’s important to develop medicine for it. If that’s achieved, the high mortality rate in Africa might be stopped, and we can work on stabilising that part of the world, and in the end… Economic prosperity, I mean that continent is so far down and out, what can one do but look on in despair?

I did it purely for my own gain, it makes me feel better, I like having done something for other people, and that’s not the way it’s meant to be, it’s supposed to be a selfless act, but I’m afraid it isn’t.

Instead, listen to this song:

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I love Denmark, it’s my country, but I hate Danes. Our royal family, what a royal pain. I mentioned Billed-Bladet before, the royal magazine of the week, they leech off everything remotely related to the royal family, if someone spent a weekend with one of the princes, they will come back 2 years later for a follow-up interview, it’s a thick magazine, filled with devotion to chain smoking, stuffed up people, who for the most part, don’t even know how to formulate their thoughts, and end up sounding like monkeys on speed, incapable of speaking coherently. I understand the value, they only cost 72.000.000 DKK every year, not a lot, when it is considered how much they bring in, through tourism. But they make the worst role models (they all smoke a lot), they speak French in private (the Queen’s husband is French, and his Danish is terrible), our two main princes (the crown prince and his brother), pretty much care for themselves and none else, the crown prince and his wife Mary, is turning into something along the lines of Charles and Diana, not that extreme but… My real problem is how much people care for them, here in Denmark we have two big free channels (DR1 and TV2), when the crown prince got married, both stations did a 6 hour coverage, and I expect more of that in the future; Prince Joachim (Frederik’s brother) just impregnated his wife (when I wrote this), and the media won’t let it rest. Of course I just choose not to care, but how much people care, always scares me. I now have a job as IT support at my school, and this secretary I came to help, had a picture for the royal family, right next to pictures of her children.

Does this look like the ideal family to you? Well it might, but it sure doesn’t to me. The queen tries hard, but her paintings are terrible, her dresses are horrible, her hats are a common joke, her handicraft (no matter what or which material) is horrible as well, she just doesn’t realise it, as none would speak against the queen, who would want to offend royalty?

But that’s the problem, they are just regular people, fucked up by a system that still reveres them; the royal family used to have privileges, but since the 5th of June 1849, all of that has disappeared (or slowly waned away); and they just can’t handle it, a lot of celebrities struggle with it, but that didn’t start until they got famous, and they can hide away; a member of the royal family is in the spotlight from birth, and there is no hiding.

These people aren’t descendants from god, chosen by god or anything like that, they aren’t better people, they are all the same fallible creatures as the rest of us, and I for one wouldn’t want that; I would like my normal life, so I’m not envious, but that doesn’t mean that they should waste their birthright, the Queens father and grandfather were immensely popular.
Her grandfather would ride unprotected through the streets of Copenhagen his entire life, even during the German occupation, and became a symbol of the Danish resistance to the occupation. He was also the last king to contain and air of superiority that belonged to the family.
Her father, the sailor king, chose the navy instead of the army, and achieved great popularity as a king of the people, amongst other things, due to his naval career and lifestyle (he rose to the rank of rear admiral), he was tattooed, something that brought it more into mainstream.
Although not a result of his rule, Denmark saw the biggest boom in the economy ever during his reign (in the 60’s), Denmark became a welfare state, something was done about equality of the sexes; summed up, during his time as king, Denmark opened up to change and became the country it is today, a modern welfare nation.

So what can be expected of our heir apparant?
I don’t know, he tries to appear normal, attending rock concerts and travelling to the Olympics, and he certainly speaks like a commoner (not very nice). On the other hand, his campaign to be accepted into the IOC, is nothing short of embarrassing. This incredibly corrupt and elitist place of gathering, shouldn’t be anything of interest to a “contemporary” king; he would never ride through the streets, but what tagging along with his wife? She always seems to know what she is doing, going to Africa to raise awareness for landmines, being the protector of a many organisations etc., and he doesn’t do much, apart from the Olympics he is rarely in the common media, so what?

Biographies have been written of course, and I greatly expect him to step forward once he is king, but when will that be? He is 40 years old, and his 68 year old mother is showing no sign of slowing down, unless she is killed by lung cancer (she smokes like a 19th century factory), she could last for a while, as her mother died at the age of 90. If she snuffs it in 10 or 20 years, he will be accordingly 50 or 60, not only a high age to take the throne, but he will be old(ish); will he really be able to leave his mark?

Only time will tell, and now this rant is long enough…

Is there anything more Danish, than those 4 expressions? They are tongue twisters, designed to make foreigners turn into question marks, trying to comprehend, why any language would develop such sounds.

But that’s not what I’m here for, I have a rant. I have a rant about Danes, being Danish and the values connected to that. I am so sick and tired, of Danish people thinking they are better than other people, of how the Danish social system is superior, how our politics are free and that we are the freest people in the world.

Danish people are rude and remote, a Danish person will only hold the door for me in 1 out of 25 times, today I nearly had a door slammed in my face twice; Danes accept racism if it’s put up as a joke, or told by a proxy; Danes won’t talk about their emotions (not easily anyway), they complain about their low self esteem, and then refuse to talk about it; not drinking is considered very rude (alcohol that is), a problem I often encounter; Danes are very difficult to approach, you try picking up a conversation with a random person, even within the same environment (like my school), they will try to turn off, hardly reply; it’s very important to be introduced into a circle, which makes the first few weeks in a new city (I moved to Århus to study), rather difficult, since most people don’t know anyone, so the barriers shields and walls are down for a short time, and then back up.

I love Denmark, it’s my country, but I hate Danes.
Denmark is supposedly the happiest place in the world, well there’s a reason… Danes love to bitch, whine and complain, we are happy, because we live in a nation with unprecedented whining, bitching and complaining. It’s such a snug little country, the famous social net, getting paid to study, stable politics, solid economy, instead of unemployment we have a shortage of workers, so the unemployment rate is as low as it can be within a western society, the only problem is that welfare and unemployment money, is the highest in the world, meaning a certain part of the population, has almost nothing to gain by getting a job. So what do we complain about? EVERYTHING! We will complain about the smallest insignificant things; the escalating crime (it isn’t escalating, attention is simply being brought to it), the differences in the political parties (there aren’t any, at least not in the major parties), how people want more for free from the government, but pay less in tax (mathematically impossible), our involvement in Afghanistan (NATO and UN sanctioned mission); our third vote for the Euro, I know they are politicians, and I do support it, but the people have spoken… Twice! They are always trying to seize the right moment for the vote, but the right way to do it isn’t to keep trying until you get it, but accept the voice of the people, it isn’t a democracy, it’s a dictatorship for spoiled brats, if they don’t get what they want, the stamp the ground, and kick up dust until they get it!

I love Denmark, it’s my country, but I hate Danes.
What’s the biggest attraction is “Vild med Dans” (a Danish version of Strictly Come Dancing), and I feel very sorry for the sad people, who have nothing better to do, with their vapid pointless lifes, than watch that show; I’m pretty sure those people also have a subscription to Ekstra Bladet (junk newspaper (aka. tabloid newspaper)), Se & Hør, Billed-Bladet and eat about as healthily as Howard Taft. Most people watch TV, and I even do occasionally (the news, takfor i aften (a Danish 30 minute comedy show) and sometimes the simpsons), but there’s a line to be drawn somewhere, it isn’t just “Vild med Dans”; it’s the amount of crap being broadcast, like “Unge Mødre” (young mothers, a show about teenagers having children), X-Factor and the amount of reality shows that’s being forced upon us, and should a Dane turn to a real scripted show, they get 2900 Happiness, a TV show with the worst acting in history, and most TV is the same; but at least we are free from the curse of makeover shows, in previous times, it was impossible to turn on the TV, without encountering a makeover show.

So what alternative do I suggest? I don’t know, it must be up to people to control their own lifes, which is why they can watch 2 hours and 40 minutes of TV per day… I know, I’m a student, and I don’t even have time to watch that much, but I would never want to; if it wasn’t for the amount of study books I have to read, I would read in my spare time, instead I have begun learning to play guitar; once I get my camera back, I will go around Århus and look for good pictures, and I have started doing fitness twice a week, and plan to run twice a week as well.
So what am I judging Danes for?

Am I better than them? Certainly not, I have many flaws, some big and some small, other people have other flaws. That however, does not excuse them from my point of view, I just acknowledge that I’m not better or worse, we are all people, we are all the same, and we have the same inherent flaws. So what do I want Danes to do? Get off their fat arse (we are getting fatter and fatter) and do something, move about, entertain themselves, do something as a family or with friends. The youth is known for their apathy worldwide, but in Denmark, very few people actually give a damn. It’s despair mostly, we feel like Denmark has been lost, and there isn’t much we can do about it; and we blame everyone we can; the immigrants and refugees get by far the most flak, and looking at statistics it isn’t “unfair” to do so, the problem is that the vast majority are thoroughly nice people, it’s a minority that makes it a problem for everyone, however their criminal minority is bigger in percentage, than the one from the genetically Danish population; but if I came from a war-torn country, or any country culturally vastly different, I’d not only get scared, I would try and fight it, stick with my own kind, same as would happen, if a lot of Danish people got stuck in Afghanistan, or as the British did throughout the world, during their age of global conquest. Crime may never be excused, but that’s exactly the problem, the criminal immigrants and refugees make up a miniority, the same thing could be said about the Danes, the crimerate among us is a minority, but a lot of hatred fuels political parties like Dansk Folkeparti, the third biggest party in Denmark, is a racist party.

I love Denmark, it’s my country, but I hate Danes.
Why do we Danes feel that our society is superior? We are always bragging about our “social net”, yes it’s very nice; but we forget about each other. We feel that through our taxes, we take care of each other, and beyond that, we don’t need to think about each other; and it’s true to a certain degree, taxes are absurd in Denmark, and everyone is well taken care off, there is no need to worry about a health insurance, unemployment or getting old. But as I mentioned before, Danes are rude and distant; the quote “light up, forget you’re Scandinavian” comes to mind. We need to start caring again, we need to look to other people, and we need to begin Christmas in early November (although that’s a global problem).
As I said about politics, it’s all about bickering over nothing, and looking at each other with hostility, snappy retorts and thinking that we always have precedence; we need to start agreeing.
We have this feeling that we are superior, but we keep failing the statistics, Finland uses 70% of the funds (per student) we do on education, but they are far ahead of us; our health system is very costly, but in other countries they spend far less, for a longer life, and higher physical quality of life (Japan especially, but even in Spain they live longer); in fact we come in 32nd, wordwide, with countries such as Bosnia and Herzegovina, Jordan, South Korea (which has a minimal government health system), Israel, Malta etc.
If we want to to feel superior, we should be superior, and not nr. 14 on the Human Development Index, as well as nr. 14 on the Worldwide Press Freedom index.

I love Denmark, it’s my country, but I hate Danes.
I’m glad to have been born and raised in Denmark, it just doesn’t hold enough for me. I want to go above and beyond, but that doesn’t mean, that Danes shouldn’t be able to behave nicely. Every time I come home to Denmark (either from travelling, or from when I was living in Spain), I’m always appalled by the behaviour of my fellow Danes, but at no time was it worse, than when I worked in Fakta. Yes it’s a minimum wage job, but it’s also a minimum appreciation job, although people didn’t shout quite as much at me, as they did when I worked in a 7-Eleven.
Since working those jobs, I always say “thank you” and “have a nice day” when I’m done, even in a supermarket (leaves most people staring), because I know what it means to people, when people said it to me, I felt a lot better.

Please…