Is it just ME?

Or is ‘hygge’ a load of hype?

Crumpets, roaring fires and The Vicar Of Dibley — cosy is what Brits do best

THIS winter, a slew of lifestyle gurus and stocking-filler books are urging us to practise ‘hygge’, the Danish art of cosiness and contentment, and snuggle up like modern-day Vikings.

Just last week, ‘hygge’ made it into the Collins Dictionary, proving that its cultural domination is complete.

But I simply can’t get on board with this smug Scandi obsession. The truth is, homegrown British cosiness knocks hygge into a cocked hat.

So, no, I don’t want to nest amid stripped Nordic floorboards and reindeer skin throws when I can have a velvety carpet and tartan wool rugs, thank you.

I’ll pass on a Danish pastry in favour of a buttered crumpet and a roaring fire.

After all, cosy is what we Brits do best. We’re the country of smoky evening fogs and dark steaming pubs, rain-lashed windows and shepherd’s pie in the oven, Sunday night costume dramas and The Vicar Of Dibley.

What other country would, in survey after survey, vote not a glossy penthouse flat, or a flashy great mansion, but a snug little bungalow their favourite type of home? Where else could a sedate televised baking competition be the most-watched show of the year?

We even dish up murder as cosily as possible, with our queen of crime Agatha Christie setting her fiendish plots in sleepy villages, to be cracked by unlikely whitehaired sleuth Miss Marple.

As for the hygge hoopla about relishing the small things in life, what a joke!

It took an American, the writer Bill Bryson, to observe: ‘The British really are the only people in the world who become genuinely enlivened when presented with a hot beverage and a small, plain biscuit.’

And there’s no need to warn us off tricky topics, hygge-style, when a whiff of confrontation has most of us curling our toes in embarrassment, and the nation’s favourite conversation starter is the weather.

All this Danish fingerwagging is making me feel quite un-hyggelig.

I’m off to switch on the electric blanket — and make myself a nice cup of tea.