The Life-Sized City Blog

Saw this photo in a Danish newspaper, Politiken, this morning. The Danish air force sent F-16 jets to Sicily today and this photo shows one of the planes being prepared for duty. I love that there are two classic Danish short john bicycles parked next to them. The bicycle used when maintaining expensive fighter jets. Six F-16s fly off this morning to take part in the global push to battle a dictator who is slaughtering civilians... No... not Yemen, silly! They only have sand and dead civilians! We mean Libya, of course. They have oil and dead civilians. So off we go to war.

Spotted this outside a supermarket. What a cool little short john for kids. Front racks are all the rage in Denmark - everybody is slapping them on their bicycles. Perfect on a kids bike.

Photo courtesy of and © Copenhagen City Museum / Københavns Bymuseum . This is not a photo of my dad. I wish it were. I wish I could have found a photo of him while perusing the photo archives of the Copenhagen City Museum but those odds are quite astronomical. While it's not him, it almost could be. During the Second World War my grandmother - my dad's mum - died and one of his aunts took care of him. He moved from Northern Jutland to Roskilde, near Copenhagen at the age of 15. He got a job, like many Danish boys, as a bike messenger boy in the town. Not long after, he got a job in Copenhagen, working for a green grocers on Gothersgade. Again, he was a bike messenger, riding out to the so-calle 'Vegetable Square' - where shops stocked up on wholesale greens and fruits in the morning - on a Short John like in the photo or a large three-wheeler. He also delivered goods to customers during the day and he lived with the family who owned the shop. So this photo, for me, is ...