The Almost Nearly Perfect People: Behind the Myth of the Scandinavian Utopia

by Michael Booth

Santa listened attentively to my brilliant, original questions (“What would you like for Christmas?” “What do you do for the other 364 days of the year?” and so on), and gave excellent answers with a hint of a Finnish accent (to the first: “That the children of the world have good health and education”; to the second: “It’s a year-round job!”), ho-ho-hoing in an only slightly forced manner at the conclusion of each answer. Just before we left, we had a chance to make our own wishes. My son asked for world peace. I asked for a Maserati. It could not have gone better. But then I returned to my hotel room, casually pressed play, and instead of the Christmas-y Frost-Nixon I had expected, my state-of-the-art Marantz digital recorder merely presented me with an insolent “Error” message. After jabbing at its buttons frantically for ten minutes in the manner of a laboratory chimp attempting to activate his food supply, I realized wearily that there was only one solution. Usually, I would do what any good journalist would have done: try to remember as much as possible from the interview, and make the rest up; but as I had been recording for radio, this clearly was not going to wash. We would have to do a retake. Back to Santa’s log cabin we went.