A tale to sour the lingenberries on your meatballs (yes, Scandinavian story coming up). From the Guardian News Blog:

The Telegraph reports that academics in Denmark found the furniture chain [Ikea] was naming its cheaper products after Danish towns.

“The researchers claim to have discovered a pattern where more expensive items, such as beds and chairs, have been named after Swedish, Finnish and Norwegian towns whereas doormats, draught excluders and runners are named after Danish places,” says the paper.

Klaus Kjöller, of the University of Copenhagen, apparently “analysed” (rather than browsed) the Ikea catalogue. He said it “symbolically portrays Denmark as the doormat of Sweden, a country with a larger economy and population.”

And then, in the Comment is Free section:

The only problem is that there never was any research … A Danish journalist from Nyhedsavisen, a free Danish tabloid paper, called Kjöller a few weeks ago asking if he had noticed the use of Danish town names in the Ikea catalogue.

Kjöller had not, but he happily played along and for fun lampooned the Swedes. He was very surprised to see the story blown up on the cover of the newspaper the following day, but even more surprised by what happened next.

“Over the last week I have had calls from all sorts of media companies who wanted to interview me about Ikea’s symbolic imperialism,” he says. “Belgian and German papers have called, as has BBC World, and they were all disappointed that I had to deny the reports. Still the story has now featured in numerous papers around the world, it makes you wonder why no one has bothered to check out the facts of the story before printing it.”

But if you follow the link above, Kjöller seems to have played along rather well…

Det er ikke et tilfælde, mener lektor og kommunikationsekspert Klaus Kjøller fra Københavns Universitet.

»Det er alt for regelmæssigt til at være et tilfælde, for IKEA er jo et dybt professionelt foretagende. Det kan kun være drilleri mod Danmark,« siger han.

Og de danske navne er ubetinget mindre værd end de svenske og norske, mener leder af journalistuddannelsen på Syddansk Universitet Troels Mylenberg.

»Det er ligesom, hvis man får opkaldt en vej efter sig. Så vil man også hellere have Strandvejen end vejen ved siden af lossepladsen. Navngivning er noget af det mest identitetsskabende, og en dørmåtte er ubetinget noget man tørrer sine sko af i. Det siger noget om IKEA’s humor,« siger han.

Klaus Kjøller er enig.

»Dørmåtter, små tæpper og gulvunderlag er tredje klasse, hvis det ikke er sjette eller syvende klasse i boligindretning. Kan man overhovedet komme længere ned end at være et gulvunderlag?« spørger Kjøller.

Om der i virkeligheden er et decideret had til Danmark fra den store møbelkoncern, tvivler Klaus Kjøller dog på.

»Man kunne sige, at det viser, at IKEA i virkeligheden er en slags svensk imperialistisk foretagende over for danskere. De træder os under fode, her nøjagtig 350 år efter vi mistede Skåne Halland og Blekinge. Det er dog nok at lægge for meget i det. Men måske sidder der en klike i navngivningsafdelingen, som fører terrorvirksomhed mod Danmark,« siger Klaus Kjøller.

I wonder what terrorvirksomhed means?

Quick summary: a Danish newspaper spots something funny. A reporter makes a couple of calls to obliging authority figures to pump it up. They go a little over the top, regret it and the joke palls in re-telling.