Denmark

Denmark (Danish: Danmark) is a Scandinavian country in Europe. The southernmost and smallest of the Nordic countries, it is south-west of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. The Kingdom of Denmark is a sovereign state that comprises Denmark proper and two autonomous constituent countries in the North Atlantic Ocean: the Faroe Islands and Greenland. Denmark has a total area of 42,924 square kilometres (16,573 sq mi), and a population of 5.7 million. The country consists of a peninsula, Jutland, and an archipelago of 443 named islands, of which around 70 are inhabited, with Zealand, the largest and featuring the capital and largest city Copenhagen. The islands are characterised by flat, arable land and sandy coasts, low elevation and a temperate climate.

Links To Peel
In the early days of Radio 1, Peel used to travel to northern Europe, especially Denmark and Sweden, where he would do gigs for the mainly hippie audiences. Peel recalled doing a gig in Denmark on his 10 October 2001 show and describing it as one of the most bizarre events he had been to:

"'I once did a gig in Groningen - not Gronigen, in ... somewhere in Denmark, begins with G, what's it called. Anyway, I did a gig there and it was the most bizarre event of my life, well, one of the most bizarre events in my life. Because quite clearly no one had the slightest idea who this horrible man was who was playing them these awful records. It was a very sexually charged night, and when you went for a pee you had to step over couples who were having it off on the floor of the men's toilets. People kept coming up to me saying could I play records by 'Yif Big'. And it took me some time to work out who Yif Big was - but it was Jeff Beck, obviously.'"

In 1987, Peel did a road trip with his family travelling through Scandinavia and recalled on his Peel 059 (BFBS) show, how expensive and nearly everything shut during Easter:

"'As I said at the beginning of the programme, just come back from a couple of weeks or about 10 days driving around in Scandinavia. People warned me before I went there that it was very expensive, and indeed this turned out to be the case. What they hadn't warned me about too was that everything is shut, and when I say 'everything', absolutely everything was shut: nothing was open whatsoever, even like the Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen, which are world famous, Easter Bank Holiday, you think they'd be teeming with people: shut. Everything shut: quite extraordinary. Except actually there was a record shop I found that was open, but the prices in there: it was like £9 for one of those Peel Session EPs, so I didn't buy any records.'"

Peel came back from his 10 days visit to Denmark and Sweden on his 29 October 1993 (BFBS) show, where he was presenting a BBC Radio One documentary called John Peel In Scandinavia.

Sessions

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Festive Fifty

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