The Copenhagen Report

I am not typically a reader of the Danish (tabloid-style) newspaper BT. But yesterday, I felt obligated to purchase a copy for the first (and probably only) time.

You see, my girlfriend's parents happen to be BT subscribers, which proved lucky for me, as it was they who discovered what I otherwise I would never have known - which was that in yesterday's BT issue I had been quoted extensively, though rather cryptically, in an article in BT's travel section.

Yes, it seems the good folks at BT (or at least one of their journalists, Kåre Welinder) was trolling around CNN's website and came across the interview I recently contributed about life in Copenhagen. Kåre was kind enough to write a very positive article based on a few of quotes and comments from that interview, translated into Danish - attributing them to 'den canadiske journalist Tim' ('the Canadian journalist Tim'). Nice.

A shame Kåre didn't bother to actually give my full name, or directly mention The Copenhagen Report, or drop me a line to mention he was writing the article (I promise I don't bite...even tabloid journalists) but no matter - Kåre was kind enough to suggest that the whole interview could be found on CNN's Travel webpage. I'm not entirely sure why he didn't instead quote from Connie Nielsen's slightly more high-profile and interesting interview from the same CNN page, on the same 'life in Copenhagen' theme - not that I'm complaining!

I also must admit that yesterday, for the first time in my life, I felt like a bit of a media whore, since only a few hours earlier I had finished ghost-writing an interview-article for an upcoming issue of World Finance magazine (an article about banking, that had nothing to do with life in Copenhagen...). From BT to World Finance, all in a day - talk about covering the media spectrum...

And one last personally amusing side-note. Each Monday, during one of the twice weekly 3 1/2 hour sessions of Danish lessons I subject myself to, each class member has to bring in an article from a Danish newspaper or magazine to talk about...I already know what article I'll be bringing to class this coming week...


A little surprise from BT...you've been quoted...

So out doing a bit of bar-hopping/bar-crawling or whatever you want to call it on Saturday, I ended up grabbing a magazine that caught my attention as I was ordering a beer at Jolene on Sorgenfrigade in Nørrebro (an intentionally kitsch funny kind of place - DJ and an acceptable selection of beer - which I was kind of thankful closed at midnight not because I'm getting old and wanted to go home (I didn't) but because it was a decent evening and an alright vibe but the night was kinda going nowhere and when Jolene's closed it obviously forced us to go someplace else and we otherwise may not have since it was kinda shitty weather outside and we were kinda comfortable sitting there on Jolene's couch).

Anyway, this morning when I woke up I found this magazine stuffed into my jacket pocket waiting for me so I got to flipping through it to be pleasantly surprised. There's not so many Copenhagen mags out there that are written in English, especially ones actually worth reading (actually, there are basically none that I know of...) which is kind of a shame not only for me (well, I can manage to read Danish with effort and patience and a dictionary) but because I think Copenhagen has a lot to offer but it's kinda hard to show all this stuff to the world even though a lot of it should be and it does get written about but there's often no English translation available. So that's why I grabbed this one. An edgy city mag that digs into the counterculture of Copenhagen is always welcome, especially written in English.

Bitchslap is it's name. It's chalk-full of pleasingly scruffy writing, pixel-perfect images complemented by top-notch design and production making it a juicy little piece of work and one quite aptly named. Amateur journalism often is the most invigorating to read when done right.

In the case of issue 7, which happens to be the issue that I got ahold of (they're all available at www.bitchslapmag.com), I'd go as far as saying one article about Simon Strange, the vice-cultural major of Copenhagen (who happens to be 26 and seems to get the essence of what punchy politics can do for a city) deserves an award in itself for worthwhile journalism. And besides offering a fascinating little profile of Simon, the article in itself is a nice little bitchslap to complainers who don't bother to actually get off the couch.

So call me a (new) fan and check it out yourself if you want to see a picture of Copenhagen that is bang on but that you'll never hear about in the tourist 'literature'...