GOODS AND SERVICES (4)

One of the themes of this blog has been the disparity in the prices of goods and services in a rich country like Denmark; goods are ridiculously cheap, whereas services are ridiculously expensive. I was reminded of that again today.

On Thursday our long-suffering cooker packed up, causing the electrics in the house to shut down. My wife leaped into action, and within hours had found and purchased (for kr.500, roughly £50) a second-hand cooker that looks almost new. It came from someone's summer house, where the kitchen is being renovated. By yesterday evening, the old cooker had been dismantled and taken to the dump (joining the vast number of other white goods already sitting there in two containers), and the new one was sitting in our house.

However, now came the problem. Dismantling a cooker while the electricity is down is one thing, hooking one up properly is a different matter entirely, and not one I felt willing or able to do. But getting a qualified electrician to do it would have cost more than the cooker itself. They charge kr.500 an hour + 25% VAT, even out here in the sticks; and the general rule is that an hour started is an hour charged, even if he were only here for the five minutes it would take to connect it.

Fortunately, we remembered our old neighbour, who renovated his house from top to bottom and is now in the process of doing something similar in a new house. A quick phone call last night, and he turned up this morning with an electric meter, a bag of tools, and the requisite knowledge. Ten minutes later, we had a fully functioning cooker, and I was able to make my morning coffee.

The service will probably cost me some squash from the kitchen garden, or similar. Better that than calling an electrician.

Walter Blotscher