As did the need for a national ID number in order to open a bank account, the mind-blowing complexity of mortgage provisions and the omnipotence of the local government office. He spent most of the early days incandescent against the intrusions of the state and the passivity of a race that puts up with them. By the time I got there, things had calmed down. He also had a daughter and bought a very old car to replace his other very old car - but then, he could really do no other than buy a very old car, because almost all Danes drive old cars in order to avoid paying the 180 per cent duty levied on new car sales. The place abounds in decade-old Nissans and Peugeots.
Cars are symptomatic of the whole Danish approach to society and material well-being.
In Britain, a fancy new car is the single most obviously galling, most mobile way for anyone to boast of their financial status. Danes simply do not have this problem. Couple this specific approach to modern automotive social life with the larger picture of a heavily redistributive fiscal system, in which up to 60 per cent of GDP may at any one time be taken up in the form of government transfers, and you can see how the Danish ambition of a society of equals can become a reality. The problem for any outsider is that Danish socialism is not a choice that has been rationally arrived at, but a deeply instinctive set of preferences put into practice. This is the Jante law, and looked at critically it is a gloomy formalisation of the Danes' loathing of anyone who tries to get ahead, who puts on airs and graces, who, if you like, has ambitions for himself.