Some flickers of normality have begun emerging here in Denmark with the ability to sit indoors(!) at a restaurant, albeit with a “corona passport” (i.e. a negative test result from the last 72 hours).
We’ve had our first meal out of the year which felt incredibly exciting, though it’s still a faff to go through the motions of planning when we might want to go out, plan then make a trip to a test centre, and then factor that all into the day. Whilst not quite the spontaneity of years gone by, we’ll take it for now!
Otherwise, I’ve been working predominantly on What The Denmark (see below). It’s interesting, despite starting my business Cofruition last January, this podcast is much closer to being a “start up” and so it’s been various fire fighting/ rushing around doing different things in its first month. All very exciting though.
Yesterday was a public holiday in Denmark (the Great Prayer Day) which seems to be signified by the day before everyone eating white bread rolls for dinner.
🤔 Thinking/ Doing
Things I’ve been thinking about last month
What The Denmark podcast launch
When I first moved to Denmark in October 2019 I began noticing things that seemed a bit peculiar. By this point I’d begun thinking about making podcasts professionally and so it seemed natural to try to understand Danish culture through creating a show (I did a similar thing with business in East Africa).
Anyway, in the following months the idea formalised and I began figuring out how to do it: hiring a team and developing the concept.
Early in April (2021), the podcast finally launched!
It’s been going well so far. There’s been a bit of press, and everyone who seems to listen to the show finds it surprisingly well made/ interesting, and soon I hope to be getting sponsorship for episodes so that it becomes sustainable.
In this early stage of the show, the main thing is to get as many listens/ reviews as possible so that the Apple Podcasts/ Spotify algorithms see that it’s a popular show and continue to promote it.
As such, if you are able to do any/ all of the following I would really appreciate it!
- Subscribe/ Follow on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or other podcast platform
- Listen to a few episodes (you can even have them on a low volume in the background)
- Write a review on Apple Podcasts
- Tell a friend about the show (e.g. the duvets episode?)
If you are able to spare the time – then thanks in advance!
🎧 Listening
A selection of podcasts etc. I’ve enjoyed recently. You can see the full list here
- Grace Dent | Classical Fix: a great way to discover classical music for people don’t feel they “get”/ understand it
- Ingrid Newkirk | Unconditional Love Stories: an interview with the President of PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals). She comes across as far less extreme than the organisation is sometimes portrayed and has some pretty straightforward ideas/ perspectives about how humans and animals should interact
- Looking for mushrooms, finding happiness | BBC Earth: lovely transportation into nature. A lady overcomes depression by learning how to forage for mushrooms
Not a podcast, but I’ve been enjoying this remix of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons Spring composition (you can see that the Classical Fix rubbed off on me…)
📖 Reading
I finally finished the Alexander Hamilton biography this month. I highly recommend, though at ~800 pages, it’s bit of an investment(!). It was fascinating to learn about the forging of America and how so many of today’s political divisions were present right back at the very beginning.
Otherwise, I read Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney (nice enough novel) and Profit First (a quick skim business book which was so so).
There were also these articles recommended by friends/ that came up in conversation
- Is it time the all-white period drama became extinct? | BBC: some interesting pushback to the idea that only white people can play characters in Jane Austen film adaptations because “that’s the way it was back then”
- Why does it cost so much to be an African MP? | The Economist: some nuance to the corruption argument
- McDonald’s Risky Commitment to a Cage Free Eggs Supply Chain | Forbes: when it comes to e.g. reversing climate change, whilst the aggregation of individual action has some effect (mainly to signal “the will of the people”), the real change happens when large organisations make a bold change that ripples through an industry. McDonalds is responsible for something like 20% of the eggs in America, and so for them to say they would start using free range eggs completely transformed the industry. A similar argument is made in this Sam Harris podcast episode about how the ability to make meatless meat the norm could be done by a handful of industry leaders vs thousands of people choosing to eat meatfree burgers.
📼 Watching
- My Octopus Teacher: heart warming Oscar winning documentary. Makes you (me) want to get more nature in my life
- Sound of Metal: interesting/ well produced film about a man’s struggle at coming to terms with going deaf
- Lykkeland/ State of Happiness: drama series about the discovery of oil in Norway