Editor's letter: Straight-talking Danes

WELCOME to our second destination issue for the year.

photographer

WELCOME to our second destination issue for the year.

We chose Copenhagen not because Monocle magazine has named it the world's most liveable city and not because the Sydney Opera House celebrates a significant milestone next month - both are happy coincidences. We chose it because the city is just really cool. It's cool in the sense that it's fashionable and fun; it's also cool in the climate sense (it rarely gets above 20c in summer) and it's cool because its people are. It's a gross generalisation but a quick walk around the city reveals that the locals are tall, well dressed and good looking. They can also be a little cool in their manner, especially when it comes to the telephone.

Can you tell something of the character of a people by their telephone manner? The Italians just say "pronto" when they answer the phone which, although it is taken to mean "hello", literally means "ready". Or put another way: hurry up! I've encountered the odd American who just hangs up when a conversation is finished without saying goodbye, as well as the occasional English person who answers the phone just by announcing the last four digits of their number - because who outside your local area would ever call you?

In the course of producing this issue we set up most of the interviews, stories and photo shoots via email. It's easy and convenient, especially when you're dealing with people overseas, but it also means we hadn't actually spoken to anyone before we landed. When it comes to producing one of these destination issues we are on the ground in the city for only about a week, which means it's a hectic schedule, so I like to check in with our interviewees via telephone soon after we arrive, just to make sure everything is on track.

A typical conversation in Copenhagen would go like this: "Yes. Tomorrow is good. Goodbye." And that's it. The abruptness of the conversation would have me fretting that the interview would be short and not very sweet. In person, however, it was a completely different story. The Danes are charming, friendly and very affable. So once we'd made some Danish friends we asked about the phone thing and it appears to stem from the fact that there is no real word for "please" in Danish. The Danes do away with formal niceties, are straight to the point and say what they mean. It might be a function of being one of the happiest people on the planet. According to a 2013 survey by the OECD, 89 per cent of Danes say they are content with their lives. We hope this edition gives you a glimpse into what makes them tick and why they're such a happy bunch.

This issue would not have been possible without the generous support of Etihad Airways. I'd also like to thank the kind people at Georg Jensen, who welcomed us to Copenhagen and gave us access to an extensive array of jewellery for our photo shoot. I'd also like to thank Ken Thompson, Julian Kingma, Luke Slattery, Sam Yates and Anne Lim for helping make this, in my humble opinion, the best destination issue we've produced. Then again, we say that every time we do one. We hope you enjoy the issue.