Someone asked me today how I made friends in the past and I didn’t know the answer.

Don’t friends just arrive? Like most of the best things in your life, don’t they just turn up when you’re least expecting them?

It’s a funny thing, being close in a platonic way to another human being. The membrane between platonic love and sexual love is very thin.

The people we love just happen to be the people we like the most and are also sexually attracted to.

I have had two great platonic friends and, unfortunately, we all live in different countries now.

I miss them.

…are playing at Loppen on Thursday and if I can a/scrape some money together, and b/find someone to go with, then I’ll be there.

Hear some of their songs here.

Book tickets here.

Here’s an underground music tip you can impress your cool friends with.

Lovely sounding New York one-man band.

I opened my first Danish bank account last week. But only just.

I went into Jyske Bank, one of the bigger Danish concerns, with all the appropriate paperwork and politely asked to give them my salary every month in exchange for a debit card.

A reasonable request, you might think.

But apparently not.

After considering my entreaty, the chap explained that Jyske was ‘not that kind of bank’ and suggested that I go elsewhere.

‘So you don’t have any accounts you can offer me?’ I asked.

‘No, it’s not that,’ he went on, ‘it’s just that we are more of an advisory bank.’

‘I see, so you don’t want foreigners joining your bank?’ I retorted.

‘No, no, we just are more of an advisory service,’ he repeated.

‘So, it’s because I’m not depositing any money then?’

‘No, it’s just we’re not that sort of bank.’

I felt pretty bewildered at this point, but anger was beginning to boil beneath the surface, like a fart.

I said that it was strange that they apparently had plenty of account options for my (Danish) student girlfriend but none for me.

‘Oh, your girlfriend has an account here?’

Out came all the paperwork, welcome to Jyske Bank.

I should have told them where to stick their fucking account.

Riding the 5A bus home from Copenhagen central station today made me a little sad.

Buses are like that.

For whatever reason, you pick someone out of the crowd and they fill your thoughts for the next few minutes.

Today a guy got on and I saw straight away that he was a drunk.

He had the tell-tale glassy eyes, like smudged coins sinking in a glass of egg-white. His head bobbed slightly and he blinked just a bit too often.

His checked, padded shirt was frayed and dirt particles had made themselves at home under his nails.

He stood, silently swaying until his stop, and then got off.

The 5A continued along Norrebrogade. I don’t know where the drunk went.

Yesterday was very nearly the worst day ever but ended up being one of the best.

I wasn’t privy to all the negotiations being carried out on our behalf but the board in charge of our street eventually agreed to take a vote on our case.

Thankfully they voted in our favour so we’re staying put.

Hooray!

Oh, and I was offered a full-time position yesterday, to boot.

All in all not a bad day.

The fucking cunts who run the apartment building I live in have given us one week to vacate the premises on the grounds that we are living here illegally.

Except of course we’re not.

When we moved in we signed a form giving us (and the guy who owns the apartment) permission to sublet.

Ten months later and they claim they never received the form.

Cunting fucking wankers.

It’s the sort of inflexible behaviour I’ve come to expect from certain sections of the Danish populace.

And because of their own incompetence, someone else will pay.

It would be fair to say that my attempts to learn the lingo here have not been overly successful.

Almost a year on and I still can’t really hold much of a conversation in Danish.

In some ways, though, it’s less of a hindrance and more a blessing in disguise.

The last time I was back in the UK, walking into the arrivals hall at Stansted was like a trip into auditory hell.

The sound of so many Estuary-tongued oiks in the same room, fresh from their booze-fuelled jollies in Marbella or Mykonos, was enough to send me into a pit of despair.

I’m a horrible snob. The worst kind of elitist arsehole. But I don’t care.

When I hear Danes out and about I have absolutely no idea if the person is an uneducated oaf droning on about football (as is usually the case in England) or a posho from Hellerup decrying the influx of immigrants.

They could be staring straight at me and bombarding me with the worst insults imaginable but I wouldn’t have the foggiest idea what they’re saying.

And that’s how I like it.

In my mind, almost everyone here is well-mannered, educated and cultured.

It’s a completely fantastical scenario I have made up to make myself feel better about the grubby reality of the world.

But at least it means I’m spared the sheer imbecility of the majority of little Englanders.

Before yesterday’s Champions League match between FC Copenhagen and Man Utd, Danish TV had been running an advert featuring a load of loudmouth Man U fans scoffing at the Danish champions’ chances and prophesying a drubbing of epic proportions.

I just saw the same advert again and thought someone had cocked up as the match had already been played but then suddenly it switched to a white screen emblazoned with the words ‘De blev klogere, gjorde de . . . FCK 1-0 Man U’.

Roughly translated it means: ‘They know different, now.’

Nothing like rubbing salt in the wounds!

A large part of my job is sounding like I know what I’m talking about.

Usually it’s not so difficult. Lying through one’s teeth comes pretty easily to journalists, after all.

But today was a bit different.

I took my girlfriend out for a meal at Les Trois Cochons last night to celebrate our two-year anniversary.

We shared a bottle of red and enjoyed some lovely food.

I decided against a nightcap as I had an important meeting with a prospective client this morning and wanted to be absolutely certain that I had a clear head.

So you can imagine my consternation when I woke up to discover a team of rodents was drilling boreholes into my brain.

Or so it seemed.

No worries, I thought, I’ll have a banana and some yoghurt, I probably just need to eat something.

Needless to say, we had no bananas and no yoghurt.

And unless you count dried fig puree, nothing else which passed for breakfast either.

I stood under the shower for 20 minutes silently cursing myself for ordering the cheapest bottle of red and then got dressed.

Outside, things took a turn for the worse.

Snow was teeming down and the temperature was below zero. I abandoned my bike in favour of the bus only to find everyone else in Copenhagen had had exactly the same idea.

I eventually arrived and, once my colleague was in, we hopped in a cab and headed over to the meeting.

I had been hoping that the ride would help soothe my head but I was wrong.

I actually developed motion sickness for the first time in my life and so by the time we sat down for the meeting, I was close to collapse.

But that was nothing to what followed.

Gradually, I sensed my body deteriorate.

My colleague was doing a sterling job covering for me as I fought to control my urge to run out of the room and puke up my wretched guts.

Maintaining some semblance of professionalism (and ensuring I didn’t jeopardise a very lucrative contract for my company) was becoming increasingly difficult.

I felt my fevered mind beginning to wander.

The CEO of the company was explaining how their software works and all I could think about was how his secretary, whose presence in the room seemed about as futile as mine, looked like Pauline from The League of Gentlemen.

I fiddled with my pen uncomfortably.

And then my stomach began to rumble. Audibly.

The first time I ignored it and hoped that no-one noticed.

But then it happened again and everyone stopped dead so I was forced into making a feeble wisecrack about the perils of foregoing breakfast.

I needed to leave the room badly.

The next half hour was a blur. I started fidgeting. I crossed and uncrossed my legs. I realised I hadn’t spoken in minutes.

I started calculating obscure, meaningless equations in my head.

‘How many objects are there in this room divided by the number of people?’

Anything to take my mind off my physical discomfort.

Things eventually began to wind up and, after the obligatory handshakes, it was over.

I went and sat on the loo until the cab came to take us back to the office and congratulated myself on a job well done.

Later, I overheard my colleague actually praising my performance to my boss.

Sometimes life is nothing but a sham.