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Arindam’s experience of Christmas in Copenhagen was quite interesting. Hence I couldn’t resist providing some news of Christmas 900 km south of Denmark. Here people don’t talk about the weather - even if it was a freezing minus 7 centigrade - who says there is global warming?
Football does not rank high on the discussion topics neither. No, this year everybody talks about the “Fortisgate”! In the streets, in the bars, at home: everywhere. It is true that the country lost its government, once more... Fortis is (was) a large local bank that collapsed during the October crisis.
During the crash, the government strangely intervened and simply decided to sell the bank to the French and the Dutch for a fraction of its price. But they did that by themselves and in their rush they forgot to tell the shareholders of the bank – the majority of the Belgian population - that they were going to sell it and at what price! The population questioned the decision, arguing they should have been advised, and put the case before the Court, asking to block the sale.
Then in a very bad move the Prime Minister tried to influence the Judge to close the case and accept the sale of the bank, for the sake of the “public interest”. Of course the Justice didn’t like such intervention at all and communicated the whole affair to the press. And the Government had to resign... Happy Christmas Olivier Frere
Inatech Bangalore celebrated Christmas in its truest spirits by having our own Santa Claus (played by Naveen Bhargav) distributing gifts to all the employees.
We also had a Christmas tree wonderfully decorated.
Having made innumerable trips to Copenhagen over the last three years, it is high time for me to know this place quite well. And being in Copenhagen just before Christmas and the fact that you know the place and its people quite well really makes an excellent opportunity to comment on it.
Since most of the inhabited part of the world falls in the northern hemisphere, one tends to associate Christmas with winter. Something that amazes me is the Danish obsession with the weather. To find people who have probably seen more than 50 similar winters in their lifetime keep discussing about the rain and the snow is intriguing. I feel that a large part of this is due to the fact the FCK, the largest football team in Denmark, has never made it past the initial group stages of the Champions league. If it had, probably people would have something to discuss.
Karin and a few others in AP Moller Maersk clearly remember Paul, Shyam when they visited them for the first time during winter. The clothing they had on them would have been good enough to go on a Ski to Greenland.
The effects of the economic slowdown are showing in the Christmas celebrations. Kongens Nytorv, one of the most decorated places in Copenhagen during Christmas has much fewer lights this year. One not so reliable source puts the savings due to the reduced lights at about 22 Mn Danish Kroners. The ability of taxi drivers across the world to exaggerate things is well known, but this I think has stretched it a bit too far.
Companies in Copenhagen, like most across the western world have a tradition of presenting Christmas gifts to its employees. Most employees in AP Moller Maersk have been given a pretty large red box containing cookies and candies. I have been closely working with two different persons at Maersk Oil Trading. One happens to be a Bachelor and the other has three kids. We wondered how the same gift could have the same value for these two distinctly different individuals with certainly very different needs. It is high time the HR departments customized their gifts. Having spent most of the time discussion ways to optimize bunker procurement for vessels, one wonders whether we could build a model to optimize the collective value derived by the employees from such gifts.
Karin and her group of soccer friends have found a way out of this. Every Christmas they contribute all the Christmas present and play a game where the winner is the one who is the most unlucky. The winner gets to take home the worst of the Christmas Gifts.
Tivoli, one of Copenhagen's largest tourist attractions is all lit up. Some photographs are attached. Karin tells me that Tivoli has a lot of special attractions around Christmas. Someone who is accustomed to temperatures of 35-40 degrees on the Celsius scale has not been able to find enough courage to go in with temperatures around the same number but in the Fahrenheit scale.
Arindam, Copenhagen
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