An unexpectedly warm Scandi encounter...
It used to be that when I went on holiday, my wild and delicious anecdotes would concern encounters with the local menfolk. But this time, I have a holiday anecdote that’s far superior.
On Tuesday, freshly arrived in Copenhagen, I cycled about vaguely looking for a place to eat. I wandered into a restaurant in a courtyard and picked a place to sit at random, only to notice that at the very next table, was Sophie Gråbøl, the star of cult favourite Danish thriller series
The Killing, out with two friends.
Here I was, next to the woman who played Sarah Lund, the taciturn, thickly Nordicsweatered police detective that even our Queen adored.
I couldn’t help but say hello and instead of the snooty eye-roll I feared, I got a warm and friendly conversation.
We talked about the virus, how after coffee with mega-fans Charles and Camilla in Copenhagen, she’d been invited to Clarence House but has been too abashed to go, and about how nice Hugh Grant – with whom she is starring in the forthcoming American miniseries The
Undoing – is. It took me a day to recover: the unexpected encounter with Gråbøl was my undoing.