Hygge, hygge, hooray– more marketing tosh
HAVE you heard about hygge?
It’s the latest thing from Denmark and everyone thinks it’s just absolutely lovely, dahling.
The media can’t get enough of it. The media? Yes, you know, those awfully well-educated, well-connected folk who have their fingers on the world’s pulse and told us there was absolutely no way Britain would vote to leave the EU or Trump would get elected.
Anyway, they think it’s great so we should all start doing it.
What is it? Well, it’s pronounced “hooga”. And what it means is, well, cosy.
Oh, they dress it up with herring and wine and stripped-back furniture, but in essence it means having a nice time with friends round at someone’s house with a fire on and candles and something nice to eat and drink.
Like a Dickens & Hollywood Christmas every day. Imagine. They say it sums up the Danish soul and I think they’re right – it’s basically childish like a game of Lego.
And it’s not even Danish. People here and all over the world have been doing it for centuries
Have you noticed Farage and Trump getting all hygge?
without making such a big production of it.
Yet, as usual, whenever we discover that somebody else has a word for something in their own language – which we naturally don’t understand and therefore find mysterious and exotic – we assume it must make the thing more special than the way we do it.
So a fiesta is more fun than a party, a siesta is better for you than a nap, going en vacance is sexier than going on holiday and suffering a trauma will get you much more time off work than being a bit upset.
The annoying thing is that by talking about this I have become part of a conspiracy.
Because it’s surely no coincidence that hygge was discovered at exactly the right moment to allow people to write books and create marketing campaigns in time for Christmas.
And talking of conspiracies, have you noticed Nigel Farage and Trump have been getting all hygge?
The thought of them sharing a sticky pastry in their onesies should make Sandi Toksvig hang her head in shame.