Embrace Hygge.
A few years ago you couldn't move for people going on about feng shui, moving their toilets out of their living rooms to bring good luck [That always works, you know: Ed] and paying consultants to tell them solemnly that because their yin and yang were out of balance with the cosmic auras, it would be necessary for quite a lot of money to change hands.
When I started work in London some considerable time ago, no man would sport any facial jewellery, not even the smallest ear stud. Today it is unexceptional to find plastic rings stuck into ear lobes, or staples above the eyebrows.
Fashions come and go. Feng shui may be on the way down; bolts through the lips on the way up. When you have had long experience of such evanescent trends, it is easier to ignore the pressure of social media and public hysteria over the next one.
One of the more recent fashions was a Danish pastime known as hygge. Hygge was presented as some sort of spiritual revolution in how to live, embraced instantly by magazine columnists overjoyed to have new content to fill their pages and by all who wished to be seen at the forefront of novelty. We were told that adherents outnumbered ordinary Danes by two to one, that 5 million people round the world were signing up each day and that anyone not totally familiar with the theory and practice of hygge would, within a few months, find themselves a social outcast, divorced, jobless and fit only for admission to a secure hospital of the type with bars on the windows. [I don't recall all of these details, is there any truth to them? Ed].
Before we can go any further let us settle on how to say this peculiar (to English-speakers) word. According to CountryLiving.com it is "hoo-gaa". That's a bit of a googly right from the start. I always thought it was "higgy" (and I bet you did too). Hoo-gaa is what rows of sinister orientals in kung-fu films chant as a sort of war cry, when about to go (one at a time) into a ludicrously speeded-up unarmed combat sequence against the lone hero, who stands impassively as he despatches them with a quick chop here and a kick to the nadgers there. You probably recall Mel Gibson as Robert the Bruce Lee in some of them.
Now we know how to say it (and do try to do so without chuckling), what is it? Thanks to sites like CountryLiving, I learn that is a philosophy that transforms and brings happiness. It
encompasses a feeling of cozy contentment and well-being through enjoying the simple things in life. If you've ever enjoyed reading a book indoors on a rainy Sunday or a cup of hot cocoa on a snow day, you've experienced hygge without even knowing it.Yes, I have done these things. I have read books indoors and out, on trains and in waiting rooms and at the back of rehearsal rooms. I have read them in the rain (rain outside, me inside, you understand) or when the sunlight is blistering bright, on Tuesdays and on Fridays too. Yes, I have had a cup of hot cocoa on a snowy day, not to mention a biscuit and slice of very acceptable cake. I've had cocoa on days when it wasn't snowing at all. One or two might have been on Sundays, I'm not sure if that counts or disqualifies me.
It's not all just about lazing about. Oh, perhaps it is though. Here's a bit more from CountryLiving on how to create those cosy vibes that are the essence of hygge.
In Denmark that might mean pastries, meatballs, and copious amounts of coffee, but in America you might want to pour yourself a warm drink, dig up your grandma's chicken pot pie recipe, or spend a weekend afternoon baking your favorite chocolate cakeI suppose we could translate the last bit into British
... in Britain you might want to pour yourself a hot cup of tea, watch another repeat of Midsomer Murders on telly and spend the weekend eating any old cake that happens to be in the house whilst screaming at the cat to stop bringing dead birds into the kitchen.
Is that it? Is that what all the hype is about? Essentially it seems to mean telling non-Danes to do stuff they would do anyway, and the happiness it brings is to the rash of authors of "little books of" and the like whose lives are certainly transformed when large sums of money move in their direction (see Feng Shui, op.cit.).
Did you notice the smug claim in the quote above: 'you've experienced hygge without even knowing it'? By exactly the same token I hereby declare that I am the founder of scromblekag, an ancient form of wisdom emanating from the eastern part of Ruislip. If you have ever cursed the delays on the trains and compensated for it, internally, by wishing a murrain upon those who have chosen to divert your normal service elsewhere, then you too have experienced scromblekag without even knowing it. Now is the time for you to buy my "Extremely small but reassuringly expensive book of scromblekag", sign up for the correspondence course (You will experience top quality scromblekag when you see the terms and conditions) and start spreading the word (even sillier words are available at a very reasonable price).
Obviously I am going to go on doing what I did before. I refuse to have my everyday lifestyle appropriated by a fashion or to have to consult anyone before deciding that being comfortable is better than being uncomfortable. When the craze has died down, like all such trends before it, those of us who like wearing old jumpers, sitting around the sofa and carefully pondering the next choice of biscuit will still be here and you know what? - We don't give a toss what this lifestyle is called. Scromblekag to the lot of them!
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