Live and learn

Learning Swedish has just reinforced for me how challenging a language Danish actually is to learn. (Yes, it does seem easier!)

And this poem just highlights how confusing and nonsensical it can sometimes appear (in Danish only, I'm afraid).

The big news story of the week?

The broadsheet newspapers in Denmark are falling over themselves this week to late the new exposé on the Danish Royal Family by former royal correspondent Trine Villemann.

According to her new book, the marriage of Crown Prince Frederik and Crown Princess Mary in under strain from the pressures of their royal duties, raising a family and the Crown Prince's visits to his ex-girlfriends.

One Australian website has a great take on the story, expecting Australian expats to storm the palace and stage a rescue, while the contribution by Swedish newspaper Kvällsposten offers a rather unflattering picture of the Queen to illustrate one of the stories in Villemann's book - that Mary broke down in tears at a public event at which Frederik ran into an old flame.

This seems to be a story that will run and run...

Liveable cities - a different take

Now a Reader's Digest survey has nominated Stockholm as the world's greenest, most liveable city - a much better result than in Monocle's similar survey earlier this year. In the Reader's Digest list, Oslo came in second, while Copenhagen only managed a no.10 position.