Mevrouw Kleine Zeemeermin, I just read in the newspaper that the Danish blackmetalsinger Amalie Bruun aka Myrkur is coming to our Grand Hotel on 20 January where she will perform her song Siren, isn't that nice? She will also have an acoustic folkset with a female choir in TivoliVredenburg (in Utrecht) on the same day. Do you think her show will be like this one?

Mevrouw Kleine Zeemeermin, today I took an early flight to Denmark. That's where I spoke with singer Myrkur. She directed me to two interesting historical sites that I visited:
Danish radiohistory

Radio Mercur

Can you just imagine that Avisen wrote: "Den nygifte Otto Brandenburg var så populær, at da alle klappede og trampede i gulvet, kunne han ikke høres fra højtalerne"?

Funny: Myrkur, Mercur. Before I left Myrkur she asked Kati Ran to assist her and then they performed Himlen blev sort (the sky became black) on some sort of lyre and/or nyckelharpa.

Now that we're talking on the Fair(y)phone, mevrouw Kleine Zeemeermin, at the frontdesk I have left another Fairyphone to support running your tasks at the Grand Hotel, since this new guest has arrived, which you spotted so well: PecosRiverM. I'm very proud he checked in (410 years, 10^9 points, 5 million results, five 50-year-diamonds), did he wish for anything special? Could you interestingly ask him if the M in his name stands for Mexico? And please thank Punchy@BC for still being our guest in Dutch: "hartelijk dank", if you would. I'm sure he will understand you as he communicates in German, too. Don't forget to roll your R, else it will sound like 'hatelijk' (which means 'like hate' and we don't want that of course).

As for your health, mevrouw Kleine Zeemeermin, would this shop or this (same) shop be something for you?

Yes, I should know that, I'm sorry, I grew up with all kinds of popmusic.
Maybe tomorrow, maybe tonight, After having Tea, we could try a short children's song, if you could wear Not Just A Flower In Your Hair, so we can perform together before our Grand Hotel guests, on the special Christmas evening?
Ben je boos, pluk een roos
En zet 'm op je hoed
't Is een oud verhaal
Maar het doet 't nog steeds goed
Draag een bloem in je haar
En wees lief voor elkaar
Zing maar lalalalala
Lalalalalala
Lalalalalalalalalalalalalala!
(Are you angry, pick a rose
And put it on your hat
It's an old story
But it still works well
Wear a flower in your hair
And be fond of each other
Just sing lalalalala
Lalalalalala
Lalalalalalalalalalalalalala!)

Miles? Seamiles or airmiles? Are you swimming across the Danish seas or flying across the Danish skies

- Danish work ethic
- An Italian, a Frenchman and a Dane are sitting in an Italian bar. "The legs of our bar stools look so short," says the Italian, "not because they really are short, but because Italian women have such long legs." The Frenchman adds: "I can easily comprise the waistlines of my mistress with my hands, not because I have such big hands, but because French women have such slender waistlines." Then the Dane replies, "When I go to work in the morning, I give the lady a nice slap on the ***. When I return home, I still see the print of my hand. It's not because Danish women have such fat butts, but because we work so short."

That's what I read in my newspaper today, mevrouw Kleine Zeemeermin. I'm just reading it, mind you? A few more quotes:

- There is a country where the bikepaths are just as decent, the gardens are equally raked, the drizzles equally rattling, the men equally unbalanced, the women equally robust and the communication equally outspoken. Sociability (gezelligheid) is called hygge. If we leave out the smørrebrød, the little mermaid, the pipe smokers, the helmets on the bicycle and the ø, the æ and the å, there is no country in the world that looks like the Netherlands like Denmark.

- Are the Danes happier? Why? Maybe there is a somewhat stronger sense of community, more small-scale, more space too: five million people instead of seventeen on the same piece of land, it makes a difference. A Dutchman living in Copenhagen says it like this: 'If you are not in the traffic jam to the beach in good weather, you will be much less annoyed by your fellow man.' Danish happiness also has to do with the Danish welfare state. It has traditionally been more generously proportioned than the Dutch and has been less stripped down over the past fifteen years. 'The feeling that not everything depends on winning or losing, that there is a good safety net when you fall, it turns out to be important for happiness in almost every study. It is striking that European welfare states are so under attack: they always come out best from happiness research.'

- Income differences are small in happy countries, working weeks are short. There should be a good balance between work and leisure. 'Trust is the cement of a society. Example: in a few years time, more than 30 percent of Danes started drinking organic milk. In Italy that would never have been possible, they would have thought: 'there is something behind it, they are trying to cheat us'. Denmark is also a leader when it comes to environmentally friendly energy. In the past, the outside-world knew us from bacon and porn, nowadays from wind energy and organic agriculture.'

- Striking for outsiders is the uniformity of Danish interiors, enhanced by the ubiquity of objects from the same twentieth-century Danish designers. People living at 55 degrees north latitude between the North Sea and the Baltic Sea all own chairs by Børge Mogensen and lamps by Arne Jacobsen - it is a law that can almost measure itself with that of gravity.

- Denmark is non-fiction! It lies in the middle of the world and … its beauty is: it has a lot to offer the world.

*edited to appropriate forum language - ErikaT

The "M" is for my Last Name. It's a Old Family Cattle Brand.

Does that give you more 'normal hours', PecosRiverM?