Archipelago

There's already a bit of a buzz around this episode — if only because the Amarkaners in question are the island’s hard-working honeybees.

In episode three, we visit Bybi — a bee-powered project based in Amager’s historic Sundholm district — to meet its British founder, Oliver Maxwell.

We learn about Bybi's unusual origin story and location, discover why Oliver prefers to see honey as an "invitation" not a product, and hear about the honey that has some of Copenhagen's best chefs "falling over backwards".

“As soon as you start working with bees, you realise that honey is absolutely magical," Oliver says. "You put these creatures out around the city and over a few days, weeks and months, they accumulate this absolute treasure."

The sound design is by two artists — Squares and Triangles and Scenery.

Visit www.archipelagoaudio.com for more information.

Please return your seatbacks and tray tables to their fully upright position because we'll shortly be landing at one of Amager’s best-known restaurants — Flyvergrillen. You'll find it at Copenhagen airport, but don’t go looking for it before your next flight. Because Flyvergrillen isn’t so much at the airport as right alongside it. Indeed, the only thing separating it from the runway is a barbed-wire fence and about 100 metres of tarmac — giving diners a prime view of planes taking off or landing. Fasten your seatbelts, then, as we visit the 50-year-old  grill bar to meet Denmark's most dedicated planespotters — as well as an ageing cat who's "worse than Putin". The episode was written, produced, and hosted by James Clasper. The music is by Scenery and Squares and Triangles.

Visit www.archipelagoaudio.com for more information.

"Amager is a great place. Amager is number one.”

So says Kurt Helmann Jensen ("Kurt like Kurt Russell"). And he should know.

For one thing, he's a self-proclaimed "Amarkaner" — a dyed-in-the-wool resident of Amager, the much-maligned, teardrop-shaped island in southern Copenhagen.

He's also the chairman of the association that runs Dyrenes Mindegrave, a cemetery on the island where bereaved pet owners — including Kurt — have come to lay their furry friends to rest for the past 75 years.

All of which makes him ideal for the first episode of the new season of Archipelago.

You see, the podcast gets its name because there are more than 400 islands in Denmark.

So, starting with season three, it's going to explore some of them in more detail.

And where better to begin than the island of Amager?

After all, it's home to the city’s airport, its longest beach, its biggest nature reserve, and about 200,000 people — including Archipelago's producer and host, James Clasper.

Amager's also a deeply fascinating but oft-misunderstood place, with a story on every corner.

So season three of Archipelago — This Amarkaner Life — will tell some of those stories.

Starting with Kurt — and his four ferrets.

Visit www.archipelagoaudio.com for more information.

Say hello to a brand-new food podcast.

It’s called The Recipe — and it's all about the new generation of restaurants and the people behind them.

If you heard the Mad World episode of Archipelago, in which we took a look at the Copenhagen restaurant scene, you’ll have a pretty good idea of what The Recipe will be like.

We’ll be exploring what it takes to run a successful restaurant — and taking a closer look at some of the ingredients.

Along the way, we’ll be meeting the food world’s most forward-thinking individuals — and finding out how they think, how they work, and how they’re shaping the future of the industry.

Brought to you by Superb, The Recipe is a show for anyone who’s ever had a great plate of food put in front of them and wondered how it got there.

Episode 1 drops on Sunday 31 October — but the only thing that’s scary about it is how inspirational it is.

Follow us now wherever you get your podcasts.

Danish "song kindergartens" hit the right notes, while a 19th-century prison provides an unsettling location for an overnight stay.

In this episode, we visit Trekroner Børnehus, a kindergarten outside Roskilde, to hear about Sangglad — a scheme to "increase and improve" singing in Danish pre-schools.

Then we head to Horsens Prison Museum, in Jutland, to discover how a notorious jail has been transformed into a popular tourist attraction.

Further reading:

Sangglad

Horsens Prison Museum

The sound design is by Squares and Triangles and Scenery.

Visit www.archipelagoaudio.com for more information.

Two Danish institutions have discovered eye-catching ways to go green.

From Greta Thunberg’s school strike to the Fridays for the Future movement, there’s no shortage of children taking a stand against climate change.

But while their activism takes place outside the school gates, some say that what kids are taught while they’re at school is just as important — if not more so.

In this episode, we visit the Green Free School, in Amager, and talk to co-founder Phie Ambo about how the school is preparing pupils for an uncertain future and teaching them to build a sustainable society.

Then we head to Bellahøj Kirke, in Copenhagen's northern suburbs, to see how Denmark's burgeoning "green church" movement is helping to spread the climate gospel.

Further reading:

The Green Free School

Bellahøj Kirke

The sound design is by two local artists: Squares and Triangles and Scenery.

Visit www.archipelagoaudio.com for more information.

In the bleak midwinter, the sun scarcely seems to rise in Denmark at all.

Is it any wonder, then, that the Danes are so obsessed with good lighting? That Denmark has produced many of the world’s most iconic lights? That Danes have the world’s highest consumption of candles? Or that light is fundamental to the country’s best known cultural phenomenon, hygge?

In (hopefully) the most illuminating episode of Archipelago yet, we discuss the light fantastic with three Danish design devotees: artist Morten Ravn, who turns scrap metal into sculptural lamps; interior designer Hannah Trickett, whose rare health condition means she avoids what she describes as “visual chaos”; and author Malene Lytken, whose new book, Danish Lights: 1920–Now, tells the stories of 100 lamps and the Danish designers who created them.

Further reading:

Strandberg Publishing / Danish Lights: 1920–Now

Lumière Bricoleur

Hannah Trickett

The sound design is by two local artists: Squares and Triangles and Scenery.

Visit www.archipelagoaudio.com for more information.

“Those who wish to relive their lives, never lived them in the first place.”

The words of Karen Blixen — the acclaimed Danish writer whose life story is the basis of a brand-new ballet created exclusively for the Royal Danish Theatre in Copenhagen.

Blixen sketches the writer's life story from her childhood years in Denmark through her unhappy marriage to her half-cousin Bror Blixen, her years running a coffee plantation in Kenya—where she embarked on a doomed love affair with Denys Finch Hatton—and the final years of her life, back home in Denmark, when she found global fame at last.

To discover how to tell the life story of one of Denmark’s best-known writers through that most expressionistic yet wordless form of storytelling — ballet — we speak to three of the people behind Blixen: dancer and choreographer Gregory Dean; principal dancer Kizzy Matiakis, who plays Blixen; and costume and set designer Jon Morrell.

Visit www.archipelagoaudio.com for more information.

Meik Wiking is one of the world’s leading happiness experts.

The founder of the Happiness Research Institute, he’s also the author of two New York Times bestsellers — The Little Book of Hygge and The Little Book of Lykke — which have been translated into more than 35 languages and sold over a million copies worldwide.

Little wonder, then, that he's been dubbed “probably the world’s happiest man”.

But when Meik turned 40, he realised that, statistically speaking, as a Danish man, he’d lived half his life.

Which got him thinking: how many of the 14,610 days he’d lived could he remember?

So he decided to start researching memories, culminating in his latest book — The Art of Making Memories, a lighthearted but thought-provoking series of tips about how to create and remember happy memories.

We discuss the book with Meik and discover why Andy Warhol changed his perfume every three months, why we should take more photos of our cereal boxes, and how to memorise the order of a deck of card in just minutes.

Further reading:

Happiness Research Institute
https://www.happinessresearchinstitute.com/

The Art of Making Memories, Penguin Random House
https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/311273/the-art-of-making-memories/9780241376058.html

The music used in Archipelago is produced by two Copenhagen-based artists:

Squares and Triangles
https://squaresandtriangles.bandcamp.com/

Scenery
https://scenerymusic.bandcamp.com/

Visit www.archipelagoaudio.com for more information.

We kick off season two of Archipelago with a very special guest indeed.

Naja Marie Aidt has been described as “one of the most intelligent writers of the contemporary literary world” and as “one of the compassionate voices in fiction”.

Born in Greenland and raised in Copenhagen, she’s the author of ten poetry collections and three short-story collections — including Baboon, which won the Nordic countries’ most prestigious literary award, the Nordic Council's Literature Prize, as well as the Danish Critics Prize for Literature.

Domestic plaudits have led to international acclaim, too.

Baboon was published in English-speaking markets in 2014, and Naja’s debut novel, Rock Paper Scissors, in 2015.

But both books are likely to be eclipsed by Naja’s latest book in translation.

It’s a work of non-fiction called When Death Takes Something From You Give It Back — a cryptic and, as it turns out, deeply personal title that only hints at the tragedy the book describes.  

Believe me when I say it’s one of the most remarkable books you’ll ever read.

I was thrilled when Naja found time in her busy schedule at the Aarhus Literature Festival this summer to discuss it with me. 

Further reading:

“When Death Takes Something From You Give It Back” official page, Quercus

Naja Marie Aidt's back catalogue

The music used in Archipelago is produced by two local artists:

Squares and Triangles

https://squaresandtriangles.bandcamp.com/

Scenery

https://scenerymusic.bandcamp.com/

Visit www.archipelagoaudio.com for more information.