Last Week in Denmark

Danish Property Shake-Up, Profit Tax Surprises & The Knitting Protest: LWID S5E6

• Season 5 • Episode 6

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Denmark’s housing crackdown and a culture war over yarn: Denmark’s housing squeeze is pushing politicians towards bigger fines and new taxes and it could hit ordinary homeowners, not just big investors.  Dom and Katie discuss a proposal to increase fines for violating Denmark’s residence rules from 10,000 to 100,000 DKK, plus fresh arguments for a capital gains tax on housing profits. Also finally in the Danish news this week - knitted dresses on nude statues is it activism, art, or “vandalism”? 

Topics:

(02:00) Danish Housing Rules

(12:15) Danish Capital Gains Tax

(23:36) Danish Knitting Movement

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DOM:

Welcome to the Last Week in Denmark podcast. Each week, we're here to talk through Danish news stories and developments and how they impact internationals living here. If you're an international living in Denmark or thinking of moving here, you'll want to check out many of these episodes. We've got 4 full seasons ready for you to explore and new episodes every week during season 5. I'm Dom, and I'm here with Katie. This week's topics are: 

Number 1: fines for breaking residence rules in Denmark will potentially increase. Number 2, uh, the debate over housing profits grows. And number 3, debate over knitted clothes on nude statues and whether that is vandalism. Before we get going, though, we'd like to ask one thing. If what we're talking about resonates with you, please leave a comment for us on Spotify or YouTube. We're here to help internationals in Denmark stay informed and feel connected. Thanks for helping us reach more people like you. 

Hello Katie, how are you doing?

KATIE:

I'm good. It's Saturday. There's a sliver of sunshine. February's nearly over, so I can stop having my panic-induced existential dread all the time. How are you doing?

DOM:

That's good. Um, well, I'm down with the flu, so I'm just hoping that the microphone doesn't pick up on my labored breathing.

KATIE:

No, you don't sound— I think Just you have like a very positive way of speaking, which is obviously good for the podcast. So it's kind of, you sound like you're in a good mood even though I know you're dying.

DOM:

Yeah. I mean, I've had a lot of Panodil already today, so maybe that's also a part of it.

KATIE:

The magic.

DOM:

Um, just floating on that. But besides that, I'm good. Uh, there's no sun in Copenhagen whatsoever. Um, so good for you. Yes. Ahoj. Yes.

KATIE:

Cuz Copenhagen's terrible. Yes. Agreed.

DOM:

Mm. Yeah, sure. So I think, uh, we can just jump into the first topic, and I think as we discuss, we can talk about the first two together because they're both about the fascinating topic of real estate ownership.

KATIE:

Yeah, you know, I don't own property, right? And obviously, the last time we spoke, we were talking to our good friend, um, Carly Spring, who— she owns a property. Do you own any property? You don't have to give me any details, just as a wonder.

DOM:

I do, I do actually, I do. And I think my opinion on certain things might surprise you.

KATIE:

Oh, okay, the suspense. All right, let's get in, let's get into the topics.

DOM:

So the first topic we have is that the Social Affairs and Housing Minister, uh, Sophie Hastorp-Enssen, uh, from the Social Democrats, uh, she wants to increase fines for people who don't comply with their residence requirements. So fines for not meeting residence rules could rise from 10,000 to 100,000. Were you aware of these rules before you researched this episode?

KATIE:

No, I didn't know there was— like, I assumed if you owned a house, you could do what you want, or a house or an apartment, whatever kind of property, you do what you want with it. Particularly, like, it's so common in Denmark to have a sommerhus, so a lot of people have a property that they don't live in. And there are rules about sommerhus that you can only live in them for certain amounts of time, and then, like water gets shut off. It's a— it sounds terrible. I don't really understand why this is a good thing, but I don't know, Danish people seem fine with it. So I'm surprised that there are rules on other properties in the first place, that if you don't live in them enough, you could get a fine of 10,000, and that now they're like, oh, we're gonna make this fine much bigger. Kinda like, I don't— yeah, where did this come from? And now I will say, coming from Ireland, we have a very broken housing industry, and most people my age basically have to live with their parents. To save up enough money to then buy a house in their 30s. So like, I have a friend who— she bought her house with her husband when she was, I think, 33. And up until then, both of them had lived at home because it was the only way they could save up enough money for a mortgage. And then even the house they bought— so they bought pre-COVID, so it was 2019— they bought it in 2019 and got the house in 2020. Um, but since then, I think the value has gone up at least €15,000. But it's the same house, and it's like 3 bedrooms, pretty standard. Um, so it's, it's quite insane. There's also, I think, last year in Ireland there was a problem where housing had gotten so expensive that the— not only could you know, young people or any normal people not afford to get a mortgage, but the houses were becoming so expensive that banks couldn't give mortgages big enough for people to buy them. So what you would do is you would have a house that was like €1.5 million. And then people would have the relevant deposit. So in Ireland, you have to have 30% of the, the full cost of the house upfront for the bank, but the bank couldn't approve a loan that big to get houses. So there was just no way to get a house for about 6 months in Ireland. It was crazy. So coming from a country that hasn't done anything about housing and making sure it's available for people, young people have the option to buy housing somewhat near a main city where all the work is gonna be. It appeals to me in some ways, but then when something like this comes in where there are already fines about how you deal with your property, I get a bit like, ooh, is this fair? If people have, like, say, like you have property, you seem like a normal person. I don't think you are— I hope I am— landlord buying up half of Copenhagen to stop people buying for their own properties. So I'm like, ooh, I, I don't, I'm, uh, it's like I'm getting challenged about what I think about kind of restricting how people use their property, I think.

KATIE:

Yeah, I think so. I think also what's important to, I guess, mention is that there are two, you could say, types of property in Denmark. So the one where you live and you have your CPR registered, that's called your, I think your primary residence. And you basically have to prove that you live there most of the time. And that's in a way quite easy to buy because as long as you can prove that this will be your primary residence and you are settled in Denmark, most people can buy one even if they don't— if even if they haven't lived here for 5 years. And then the secondary residence, so like summer homes and everything like that, that's even harder to buy. Most of the time, you have to be here for 5 years. Um, and I guess, yeah, the reason they did it like that is just so foreign investors don't come in and buy everything, and then there's no place left to live for people. 

DOM:

I would say, I think that makes sense in my opinion. The only thing is, I don't think this solves the actual problem of the lack of supply because I personally could not find any data showing that there are all these empty flats lying around either Copenhagen or Aarhus. So I think the problem is that we just don't have enough apartments, rather than having so many that are lying around with nobody living there.

KATIE:

I did notice that as well. There weren't a lot of stats or information. Kind of backing up this approach. It was just like, we're gonna increase the fines. It wasn't, we found this percentage of empty homes in Copenhagen. And I say Copenhagen, cause that's surely where this is the biggest problem. I think in Jylland, it's fairly straightforward to find property. I think it's obviously very expensive in, you know, say in the middle of Aarhus, but there are lots of areas around Aarhus that have plenty of houses that you can buy. So I think this is more a Copenhagen problem, as it is generally capital cities that have these shortages. But it is like, I know in Ireland we, we just, I, we don't know how to build anything. So we have a lot of apartments that, if people don't live in them, they basically start to kind of fall apart. There's a lot of dampness in the air in Ireland, so there's a lot of mold. If you don't have people airing out the apartments, taking care of them, then they basically become unlivable kind of within a year. Oh. So I like, I remember I lived in an apartment, it was, it wasn't in the cent Dublin city center. Here, but it was about a 30-minute walk. And then in a place called Harold's Cross, and I remember it was like a block of apartments, but there was a full street beside us that was completely empty, with derelict houses. Like they didn't have roofs. So it was, it was like, oh wow, a whole row. So you're talking about 8 properties that somebody somewhere owned, but they didn't— either they couldn't afford it, or they didn't want to fix up the houses. And then that was 8 houses that no one else could buy a property, no one else could, could build anything there, and no one wanted to live in the scary, derelict houses, presumably, as well. Nor could they probably rent them out. So I know in Dublin City this is a big problem, but, uh, I couldn't find anything about it being a big problem in Copenhagen or Denmark as a whole.

FIONN:

Did you know that the Last Week in Denmark newsletter is available in 8 languages? Hey there! This is Fionn from The Last Week in Denmark podcast, and every week you guys are tuning in to hear me and my fellow co-hosts talk about the top news of the week in English. But let's be real, we're all internationals, so not only are you speaking English every day, but you're probably also speaking a bit of Danish, and you've probably also got your own native language as well, like the multilingual master you are. So why not treat yourself to the luxury of being able to read Danish news each week in your own native language? So head on over to lastweekdk.substack.com. That's lastweekdk.substack.com and sign up for our newsletter delivered to you every single Sunday.

DOM:

No, exactly. I think maybe this move is more about showing that the politicians are doing something about it. The way I see it. With my limited knowledge of the topic, it looks more like a symbolic move rather than solving an actual housing crisis. Mm-hmm. And, now that you mention Ireland, I think it's quite interesting because I think in Poland we actually have a very opposite problem to this in the sense that we just build and build and build. Um, where I used to live on the outskirts of Warsaw, basically any place that has any sort of piece of land, they just build on there, and there's not that many, um, regulations as to what you can build and what it can look like. And it basically ends up being just this mix of very different-looking homes and blocks just mixed, and it, it just looks weird. Um, which is good because then people have places to live, but it's bad in the sense that then the city just looks ugly. And I think maybe Denmark has a bit of a, an opposite problem, where they try to be in control of what is built. The aesthetics of it is one issue of it, but then we just don't have enough housing.

KATIE:

Hmm. Yeah, it does. And I think there's, there's a lot of things kind of— it was suggested within the article, cuz you can get a fine up to 100,000 DKK, which isn't nothing. Do I think it's going to deter a very wealthy landowner? Like, if we're talking about the super-rich person or company that comes in and buys up 35 apartments. And is then selling them or renting them out at an, like, a crazy rate, you know, okay, that person I want to stop being able to do that. But I don't think 100,000 DKK on something that I'm not really sure how they measure or enforce is really going to stop that happening. I do wonder, is this just going to affect the everyday people who just might have two properties because, say for example, a grandparent has died and now there's this extra house and they need to do it up, or they need to figure out what to do with the asset itself, but now they have this extra pressure of, oh, I might get fined for this while I'm trying to figure out what's going on.

DOM:

Exactly. And also maybe just to go back to speaking about the actual law itself. So basically, you do get fined if you have, um, this residence and it's not used for at least 180 days per year. Um, and I, I don't think, I just don't think it happens often because if you have a flat in Copenhagen, for example, of course you're going to rent it out if you don't live there. Like, why would you not do that? Because renting counts into the 180 days per year rule. So I just don't think that many people are leaving their flats empty.

KATIE:

Yeah. Where is— where are these people? Where are these homes that are being left empty for 180 days?

DOM:

Exactly.

KATIE:

But I also wonder, like, say if I— I don't know how you prove someone isn't living somewhere for 180 days as well. If, if you get me, like, how can I prove— Yeah. How many days was I in my own apartment versus not in my apartment, unless it's completely abandoned?

DOM:

Exactly. I mean, that's one of the criticisms of it, that it's very hard to know and very hard to prove. And yeah, and on top of that, it won't solve the actual problem of not enough housing being built. So I do think this is more of a symbolic move than anything.

KATIE:

Yeah. Or they brought in that law about Airbnb, so they're like, ah, why not everybody? Yay.

DOM:

Yeah. Well, I think maybe this is a good moment to move on to the second topic when it comes to real estate, which is that Lasse Rasmussen has suggested introducing a capital gains tax on housing in Denmark. And that means that homeowners would pay tax off the profit they make when they sell their house instead of the annual tax that currently homeowners pay. Currently, I think selling a flat is quite a loophole in Denmark when it comes to getting rich. I think it's one of those things where you can actually get rich in the Danish system, because especially nowadays, if you bought a flat, I don't know, a year ago, I mean, prices have gone insanely up over the last year. So if you bought a 3-room flat in Copenhagen last year and you sell it now, you've basically made a million crowns. Just without doing anything.

KATIE:

That'd be nice. Okay.

DOM:

That is quite nice. That is quite nice. But what, what do you think? Do you think that's fair, or do you think that people should pay a tax off of the profits that they make?

KATIE:

I think it's not unlike the previous topic in the sense of who we are doing this to, and what is the problem it's actually solving? Because, okay, you get more money from these taxes. So, for example, I am a lavish, wealthy human. I went to Copenhagen last year. I've bought my apartment. Now I've sold it. I've made a million crowns. So I'm gonna lose 15% of that to tax now, and that's gonna be put towards social housing and rural areas. But that seems really vague. Um, and I kind of like— they're copying what Sweden is doing. I also think, Oh, I don't know, because obviously housing is a big problem, but I think we really need to address what are the costs of living in Copenhagen— and I'm sure other places, but let's talk Copenhagen because it's particularly crazy— like, what is actually causing that to go up? And then also the cost of living is going up at the same time, so it's just becoming impossible to live there. So I don't see how taking this tax is going to fix that problem. And then it's just, I suppose it is nice in the sense of, again, if we're talking about the wealthy landowner who comes in and buys 35 apartments, then I'm like, yes, okay, take their money. We need to give it back to society. But when it's an everyday person like you, is that really fair? Does that make sense? Because it's also— Copenhagen has gotten more expensive. So while, okay, yes, you've— return, you get on your apartment has risen significantly. It's also been very expensive to live there. And I suppose just to use a different example, say where my parents live, they live just outside the county of Dublin, and it's kind of this commuter town. And just because of where it is, it's kind of 40 minutes drive from Dublin, but there's also a train, there's also a bus. So they added all these kinds of extra things to make it easier to get into Dublin city. And then it has the things you need. So it has like schools and a supermarket, and it's very close to a big shopping center. So when they bought their house, when I was 7, ooh, it was a while ago. We won't talk exact figures, but a while ago they bought at a very normal price. I think it was 300K. Um, in euros. So that was just a normal price for a normal house back then, but that's nearly tripled in value now because Dublin has gotten so expensive. It's not their fault; it tripled in value. It's not their fault Dublin has gotten so expensive. It's also their cost of living has increased exponentially since they bought the house when I was 7. So it does feel a little like, should people be punished? That their house increased in value when you're just a normal property owner. Something that annoys me about things that are brought in like this. So these kinds of policies where they're like, this is explicitly to take down, you know, wealthy landowners who are buying up lots of properties or companies that are buying up lots of properties. But if we know they're the problem, why don't we tax them and not everybody else?

DOM:

Mm-hmm.

KATIE:

Because I think a lot of people say like where I live in Åarhus and Åarhus Øy, speaking about ugly buildings and terrible infrastructure, um, a lot of the people in this area bought apartments here when Åarhus was still a construction site as basically their retirement plan. So they got an apartment, they moved them to somewhere smaller, and they knew it was gonna increase exponentially in value, but now they're gonna have to pay crazy taxes just because of these wealthy landowners. It feels like a little bit— that it's really only going to affect people who are trying to take care of their futures, and the wealthy landowners and the big companies will just find another way to get their money without paying the taxes. That is how I am kind of, maybe very pessimistically, looking at this. It doesn't feel like it solves any of the real problems that are causing pricing increases. It doesn't help younger people be able to afford property, and that doesn't help with day-to-day expenses. And I feel like it's gonna wind up being a middle— upper-class tax as opposed to something that's going to stop companies and wealthy landowners from taking up all the properties in different cities. But what do you think?

DOM:

Well, I think this is actually where I might surprise you because I actually would not be against that. Oh yes, tax me!

KATIE:

I love taxes. Yay, that's why I moved here.

DOM:

Yes, exactly. And I'm not saying this because I want to have a Danish passport at some point. However, if the Ministry of I don't even know what ministry it is. The Ministry of Passports is listening to this. No, I just think, well, first of all, you would be taxed on the profit you make. So if you make a million krones, you would still be left with, uh, quick math, um, 850,000. Oh my God, that was good.

KATIE:

Good job.

DOME:

If it's, if it's 15%. I also think that buying a home, like it shouldn't be a way to earn money. Like, you should not profit off of owning a home. I don't think housing is something you should profit off of. And I think it's quite interesting what, um, the Red Greens suggested on top of that because they actually agreed with that idea and they suggested to, yeah, introduce this tax of 15%. They actually wanted to do it on any million earned, but then they said that in return, what the state could do is that they would also support homeowners if they sell at a loss. And that way owning a home would be less of a, I don't know, speculation thing, but more of a, "oh, I'm just buying a home because I want to own a home and I wanna live in this place". So I think, I think there is a point in this. I also have a lot of friends, and I know a lot of people who would like to buy a flat right now, but because they haven't sort of bought into this system, I don't know. A year ago, when the prices were still attainable, they can't do so. Right now. So I believe that anything that may aim to stop the property prices just soaring up and up and up is a good idea, just because obviously everyone deserves to have a home. It's true. 

KATIE

I suppose, I think probably, and I don't know, I dunno if this is an Irish thing or if it was everywhere because we're obsessed with owning land because of the English stealing all our land. But anyway, I feel like when I was younger and even still into my twenties, The kind of going narrative was get on the property ladder. That's how you make money. That's how you secure your future.

DOM:

Oh yeah. 100%. Yeah. Poland's the same. Like, don't buy stocks. That's dangerous. Buy land.

KATIE:

Yeah.

DOM:

And then— That's the thing.

KATIE:

And then we see it, we see it live, right? People are making crazy money on properties, like from one year to the next. But then something like this comes in and then it's like, oh, okay. Agree with you that you shouldn't be able to make this much of a profit off of a house. But at the same time, wasn't that kind of the guiding principle of why you should get on the property ladder so that you can, like, you buy the house or the property in an up-and-coming area, and then it increases in value, and then you sell it, and then you go somewhere better? Wasn't that kind of the— yeah, the dream we were sold?

DOM:

That was— I think that is actually also part of the problem why they're suggesting this now, because I think if you own a flat in Copenhagen or Aarhus, you make so much more money off of it in comparison if you were to buy it in, I don't know, Valla or something.

KATIE:

Yeah, that's true. That's— my partner has a friend who, her, she has a friend who they, her family runs like an undertaker that's in the center of Åarhus, and they have an apartment there that they bought, I think like in the 1960s, and they've just kept it in the family the whole time.

DOM:

So, oh wow.

KATIE:

And you're just like, oh my God, they probably bought it for like 400 kroner. And now it's probably worth millions.

DOM:

You're like, oh my God.

KATIE:

They just Mobilepayed the 400. Very modern back then. But yeah, I do, I do. Like, I guess it's— what is nice is there's a conversation about how, like, they're identifying this problem is not going away. It's getting much worse. How are we trying to fix it? I would just like to know their grander plan. 'Cause when you put together these different things, like you have to stay in your house for 180 days or you're gonna be fined, you are going to be taxed if you then sell that property. And then even the Airbnb limitations that are coming in that we talked about last time, are you taking away people's control of their own property? How much of that is okay? And then is it actually gonna solve the problem? Because if I owned a property right now and I knew there were gonna be very high taxes, if I tried to sell it, I'd just keep it and hope that they'll like forget about the taxes at some point. No, we're in— yeah, we are in Denmark, so I don't know that they would ever forget about taxes. 

DOM:

No, I'm sorry, probably not. But I think the problem, maybe not a problem, but I think a certain issue with the way the tax is currently being calculated is that you pay basically on a monthly basis, you pay tax on the value of your flat. I think there are two types of taxes, but they're based on the value of your flat, but that value is recalculated every two or three years. So basically, people who bought their flats a while back, even though their flat is worth much more now, they still pay it based off of the calculation that was done 2 or 3 years ago. So I think maybe that is also what they're trying to replace with something that's maybe potentially a bit more fair.

KATIE:

That does make sense. Okay, I like fair. I agree then. We're on the same page for now.

DOM:

For now. And listen, I'm, I'm a homeowner. I'm shooting myself in the foot saying this, but I'm doing this for the people.

KATIE:

Uh, I'm going to send you my taxes since you love taxes so much. I don't want to pay mine anymore.

DOM:

I'll pay them for you.

KATIE:

Aw, don't say that.

DOM:

Yeah. Okay. Well, I'm, I'm glad we agree, or, or for now at least, but I think, I think it's also interesting to see how this evolves because from what I understand, none of these ideas were sort of formally introduced yet. I think they were just ideas that politicians had. So I'm very curious what's going to happen now.

KATIE:

Yeah. I wonder, will there be a lot of backlash, or will they see a lot of people kind of very unhappy, or a lot of companies very unhappy with this coming in? It'd be interesting to see what happens. It's a good start. Good start, Denmark.

DOM:

Exactly. Yeah. Let, let's have a discussion on it and see what happens.

KATIE:

Yeah.

DOM:

Um, well, yeah, I guess we can move on from real estate as riveting as that is to discuss. Um, another topic we can discuss today is, um, a lady called Louise Mørup. She started a movement to knit dresses for female statues in public spaces all over Denmark. There's apparently a total of 1,538 statues found in the Danish landscape. That's a number given by the Museum of Art and Public Spaces, and only apparently 43 of those are women of historical significance. And then there are 120 statues of naked or partially naked women, and then the men are mostly clothed. So this lady has started a movement to knit dresses for those naked female statues to start a conversation about how do we view women in, in their bodies. And, and then now there's a whole discussion about whether— is that vandalism or isn't— or is it a movement? What do you think?

KATIE:

I think it's definitely not vandalism. Because, like you can take the clothes off. I think that's very dramatic to be like, oh my God, she's vandalizing everything. Oh, terrible. It's like, no, you can just take them off.

DOM:

What a vandal.

KATIE:

She's making fabulous clothes. Can I hire her? Could she vandalize my closet? Um, so I think it's definitely not vandalism. I think it's cool in a way. Like, I love yarn bombing. There are a lot of people who do this in my hometown, and it's so adorable cuz you'll just walk, there's like a little village and you'll just walk down, and there's basically this group of people who knit together, and they plan these yarn com things, and they started during COVID, which was just the perfect time. So there are things that they'll knit like a sweater for a tree, or they'll always have a theme. So like, they'll do, sometimes they're kind of creepy. So they do a St. Patrick's Day theme where they made these kinds of bollards on the side of the road that looked like St. Patrick. It was very strange, but then another time they did Minions. So like there's, they, it's really, really fun. And I think having that pop of color in what can usually be kind of just a gray, mundane scene gets people's attention. So I think it's a really, really effective way to get people talking about something. I think, and I have noticed that, I know it's not what this woman is doing, but I think it could get confused because she's clothing naked women so that it could be accidentally taken as, cause that's when I first heard it or heard it or read it because I have eyes. I thought, is this saying something about women's bodies and being on display, like in the nude throughout the city? Yeah. Like, is that what this was about? So I think it, it's— We have to be careful with how we can interpret these kinds of activism or this kind of art, because I know as well in Copenhagen, there's this really cool thing down by the lakes where it's like a very tall bench and where it came from was someone made it to show when climate change comes, this is what the benches will have to look like because the waters are gonna rise. But when I saw it, I was like, what a stupid bench. And I tried to get on it, and I nearly fell off. So we need to like— 

DOM: Same. 

KATIE: 

Yeah. You need to kind of like define what it is you're trying to say, so we know we're having the right discussion. I do think it is important, and it's really cool. And I think we need to talk about why so many of the statues of women don't have names or why we don't have any information. Aarhus has so many strange statues. My favorite one is of a lady holding a chicken, and I like to just like sit with her and hold the chicken sometimes. Um, but there's also some that are probably a little inappropriate outside one of the hotels, the ones— what, there's one by city hall, like a pig. With all its piglets sucking on it. So I'm like, I don't, I don't love the imagery that that's bringing up. So I feel there needs to be a general discussion about statues and why they're there. Does anybody know why anybody put them there or what they mean?

DOM:

Yeah, what did the pig do to get a statue?

KATIE:

Yeah, right by City Hall. It's very strange. Sorry, City Hall is already kind of ugly and awful, but the pig statue is very, like, ooh, unnerving. You know when you look at it and you're like, oh, statue, and then you're like, oh, What is that a statue of? I feel like it evokes a lot of those kinds of moments. So I think, I think what this artist is doing is kind of— she's bringing a really important topic in the sense that historically women weren't considered important. That's why we have statues without names. So let's have a conversation about that. And should we find out who they are and give them names, or try to understand who they were, why they're in this particular space,and  who decided to make this statue? And do we keep the statues even though they don't match what we think today? 

So it is that, and I think this came up somewhere in America where they were like, these, these are statues of slave drivers and we're, we're hailing them like heroes. So in that case, I'm like, yeah, we should take that down. No one wants a statue of Hitler, you know, like there would be no discussion then. So why would we do it now? But then what do we do with these nameless women? Do we try to find out who they are? Like, surely someone somewhere decided I'm gonna make a statue. We need to know who these women are. And then there is the question of why are they naked? Was that so important to who they were? And I think we need to be quite open about that because you don't want to needlessly sexualize a woman who doesn't have a name, can't consent to this kind of, um, display of her. But then you also don't wanna be like shameful that this woman is naked for whatever reason, because we're in Denmark and people love to be naked. So that's perfectly likely that someone was just wandering around naked, and someone made a statue. So I think there's kind of a few things to talk about in there. What do you think?

DOM:

Yeah, I agree. I mean, first of all, it definitely isn't vandalism. There is a politician from Liberal Alliance, and they were like, ah, this is vandalism, this is so bad. But I mean, let's, uh, let's calm down. Nothing's— nothing bad is happening. Um, the woman who is also responsible for that movement, she said herself that the statues are beautiful and lovely, and they should stay where they are. Um, but she also said they're a relic from a time where women were mostly portrayed as muses or mythical figures, and she just wanted to start a conversation about that. And exactly like you said, like, why is it like that? And maybe can we also have some new statues nowadays? I think from my side, maybe I'm a little bit too pragmatic about it, but when I, I saw there were like so many pictures from all over the country of different statues wearing stuff, And I was just like, it's a bit of a pity because there are people, like actual people who could use this and wouldn't it— it'd be so nice to have a countrywide project where we knit clothing for homeless people, for example. Um, and that was my first thought, but I also, I also know that it's not so black and white because it's also a statement and it's art. I do believe it's more art than vandalism. So I think there are two sides to it, maybe.

KATIE:

Yeah, I think it's a really valid point, and like, it's obviously got our attention and got us talking, but it is— women are historically counted as muses and people who inspired great men, whatever, but that was their role in society. So it is kind of, in a way, an accurate representation of how women were placed in society. So do we ignore that, that's what it was, or do we find a way to identify who they were and the contribution they made? And that's why they're a statue. Yeah, like, I think that's also kind of the debate. But I— do you know what, I didn't even think about the fact that these are clothes, and it's so cold, and there are so many homeless people who would be so much better off with this sweater than this naked woman statue.

DOM:

Yeah, I'm, I'm actually curious to see where this goes and whether something will come out of it, maybe new statues, or yeah, like you said, labeling these statues where— with who they were. I hope the movement actually brings us to something, to some change. Yeah. But also personally, I— maybe I just don't look at statues enough, but I don't think I've encountered any naked statues where I go around Copenhagen.

KATIE:

There's definitely some around Åarhus. Does the Little Mermaid count as naked?

DOM:

Um, well, because she's helpless, I guess.

KATIE:

She has a tail, so she is naked for a mermaid, but like, I guess it's not

DOM:

But not for a fish.

KATIE:

That's a fair point.

DOM:

Hmm.

KATIE:

Yeah. Okay. Big thoughts, big thoughts on the podcast today.

DOM:

I think, I think that's a whole other topic, like a whole other debate.

KATIE:

We'll do an hour-long special on The Little Mermaid. Should she have pants on or not?

DOM:

Exactly.

KATIE:

Exactly.

DOM:

Would a fish wear bikini bottoms or not?

KATIE:

Interesting. How would they get them on because of the, the tail?

DOM:

There's no— No, I think it would be more like a tube, like a cone. But yes, tune in to our special where we discuss fish. Well, okay. I think, I think that was most there was to say about this topic. We've also been asked by some of our Last Week in Denmark colleagues to give a special shout-out to a column from our colleague Pratik. It's called "From Blast Beats to Ballads in the Name of Love: Migration, Memory, and the Making of Jazz in Denmark." It's available on the Last Week in Denmark website. And it's about the Winter Jazz in Copenhagen, and where are the parallels between Black jazz culture and this whole jazz festival in Copenhagen? Super well written, so go and check that out. Is there any other thoughts you have, Katie?

KATIE:

No, I just always have a great time talking with you, Dom. I am sad it took us so long— likewise— to get a first episode in, and I'm sorry you're sick, but it's been a good time for me.

DOM:

It's been a good time for me too. I've been breathing through my mouth. I can't really breathe through my nose. I'm just looking forward to— I discovered when I moved to Denmark, I discovered Panadeal Hot, um, and it's just changed my life during flu. I know there's like a strict daily limit you can take.

KATIE:

It's a recommendation.

DOM:

It's fine.

KATIE:

You can ignore it. Don't worry.

DOM:

I dance around that limit.

KATIE:

Yeah, we have, um, it's basically the same. It's called Lemsip at home, and it comes in this hot lemon flavor, and just to me, it's like wellness. Yeah, so good. I call it LIKE my secret potion, even though it's literally just crushed Panadeal.

DOM:

Yeah. It's so good. I mean, to be honest, I don't think it does anything, but that doesn't matter.

KATIE:

Well, look, we'll let you go back to bed, Dom.

DOM:

Thank you.

KATIE:

Thank you.

DOM:

It was, yeah, it was great talking to you as always.

KATIE:

Yes, great talking to you, and thanks everybody for listening.

DOM:

Thank you for listening.

Head Shot

LWID

Host
Head Shot

Dominika Handzlik

Guest
Head Shot

Katie Burns

Guest