Helen Dyrbye (née Pearce) grew up on the east coast of England and learnt to sail on the Norfolk Broads. A career as PR assistant for the Scout Association was interrupted by marriage to a Dane and relocation to Denmark.

After two years of glottal stopping and starting, she began running courses for business professionals. A published author of children¿s fiction, she also works as a language consultant and makes dreadful packed lunches. She and her husband dream of finding a tax loophole big enough to buy a boat and teach their two sons to sail.

Steven Harris was working for a multinational in Brussels when he was moved to Copenhagen for 12 months¿ ¿rotational¿ training. He went on rotating in Denmark for ten years.

He knew he had mastered Danish when people stopped telling him how well he spoke it.

He now lives in England with his Danish wife and three children, and works from home as an intellectual odd-job man - translating Danish into English and doing market consultancy kinds of things in the legal and publishing worlds.

Thomas Golzen was born and brought up in London. He went to Denmark to work as a professional musician for three months in 1987, and never left.

After much travelling and a bewildering array of emergency jobs he settled in Copenhagen, where he still lives with his Danish partner and their two children. A graduate from the National Danish Film School, he is a freelance screenwriter. He also enjoys earning an extra bob or two by twanging his guitar, and helping to run emergency shelters for the Danish Red Cross.

'Danes try to see the other person's point of view, even though the divorce statistics may suggest that consensus is not always easy to achieve.
While it is a liberal society, the high degree of social conformity means that all right-thinking people end up with more or less the same opinions. Differences of opinion are more a matter of degree than of principle.'
Xenophobia is an irrational fear of foreigners, probably justified, always understandable.
Xenophobe's Guides - an irreverent look at the beliefs and foibles of nations, almost guaranteed to cure Xenophobia. (4 1/4 x 7, 64 pages)

Everything in moderation
Denmark is a land of modesty and moderation. This is largely a consequence of the Danes' sense of social responsibility. The touchstone of any activity or point of view is whether it is samfundsrelevant, that is, socially useful.

That's not funny
Danish humour suffers from the handicap of the Danes' literal-mindedness ('Can you play the violin?' 'I don't know, I've never tried.'), and for their need to conform. In a country where all right-thinking people think the right things, no-one is sufficiently different to laugh at.

Combined forces
Danes co-operate. Lego comes from the Danish words leg godt which means 'play well', and this is just what the Danes are good at. They get along well with other people. In any brochure translated for the world market, the word 'co-operation' will appear at least three times per page along with a generous sprinkling of 'joint ventures'.

Frankly speaking
They say what they think about sex, politics, religion, everything. Small talk can assume monstrous proportions. They will tell you frankly how much their mortgage is, how much they earn per hour and whether or not they shave their armpits.