Denmark.
Denmark oh Denmark oh! I used to know this lady from Denmark. She was blonde, and had a funny accent.
Naturally, I thought all people from Denmark were blonde, and had funny accents.
I will never forget how she used to repeat Denmark's motto softly in my ear : ''Guds hjaelp, Folkets aerlighed, Danmarks styrke," she would whisper.
"God's Help, the People's Love, Denmark's Strength," I would scream.
How we wept with laughter.
"What is Denmark's anthem?" she would yell at me.
"Der er et yndigt land," I would respond at the top of my voice.
"There is a Lovely Country."
Oh, but how we fell about giggling. The year we spent together is long past, and the melody of the royal anthem Kong Christian stod ved hojen mast, or King Christian Stood by the Lofty Mast is now lost to me.
Even after the fighting had started, and passion suffocated as the very Earth around us froze in the Nordic winter, we would still spend the evening drinking vodka, crying and singing the royal anthem.
Memories - 'tis all but memories.
But how those memories came flooding back when a preview of Forbrydelsen (The Killing) flickered into view on my television.
Forbrydelsen begins on the constantly brilliant SoHo channel on Thursday next week.
SoHo has more excellent programmes per head of population than any other channel in the history of mankind.
But back to Denmark.
Forbrydelsen is set in Copenhagen. The police drama has become the most successful foreign language series of all time, and has been remade by Americans as (no surprise) The Killing.
It stars Sofie Grabol (with a funny little circle above the 'a', and a diagonal line through the 'o' - some queer Danish spelling thing) as deputy superintendent Sarah Lund of the Copenhagen police.
She has dark hair, which destroyed some preconceptions I had. The show starts out dark.
So dark, you can hardly see anything. There is a terrified girl in dark woods, running through trees and water. There is torch light, shadow, more darkness, fear, and barely perceived shapes glimpsed in the night.
There are lots of people called Larsen. There is a mayoral battle, a school, a video store card and a missing girl.
Lund is headed to Sweden with her boyfriend, and there are obscure Danish jokes about decomposed herrings and light beer. But she is drawn deeper into the case - will she really leave before it is solved?
The best way to work out if a foreign show is any good is to see how long it takes before you forget there are subtitles. Subtitles and funny accents.
With Forbrydelsen, it takes about one minute.
- Charles Loughrey.
