eSea

MAERSK TRAININGS v e n d b o r g ’ s emagazineAugust - September2012

crane lifts off

ice men cometh

floating in away alone dropping out

Olympians visit

operationSantos

Waiting for a wedding . . . or?

editorialSea

The official opening of the full MOSAIC is just round the corner, October in fact, but as you will see from this, the 10th eSea, it is already up and running. It may be a little way down the road before every button works but the furniture lorry’s been and gone and it has already marked its arrival by conducting its first courses.

In fact first courses are a feature of this issue with the centres in Brazil and Newcastle also making debuts with courses for a new terminal in Santos and height training for the wind turbine industry. Added to that Svendborg broke new ice with a navigation course which reflects the new routes opening up due to global warming and the need to seek energy resources in ever more inaccessible areas.

eSea is a platform for more than is going on at Maersk Training. We hope it will act as a springboard for ideas and issues which will add to a better understanding of the industry – contribute to continued improvement. Here we ask you to help as we discuss the topic of social isolation.

Svendborg, September 2012

conference calls

PoopDeckAre we becoming globally homogenized?

Rigging

up

reality

‘So real that once in the chair I totally forgot that I wasn’t on a rig’ – Kurt Jensen

‘I was as nervous and focused as I would had been out there in the real world, it was fantastic’ – Andy Larsen

It was in breaking for lunch that instructor Andy Monie realised that the new crane simulators were working. ‘One of the guys said “wait I’ve got to park

the hook” and I saw immediately that they were thinking in the real world, not in that of simulation,’ he observed.

The pilot Rig Crane Operators’ Course did exactly what it was intended to do, by forming the basis for a training programme for the 116 Maersk Oil employees who operate cranes in the Danish sector. Currently the Danish sector is the only one without legislation and a proper training regime. It was the first full course to be held in MOSAIC II and the immediate reaction was to tweak the content, upping the amount of simulator time in favour of theory.

The course will also be extended to a full three days in order to accommodate the extra simulator time. The aim is to develop the process into an official industry-wide recognised standard with refresher courses every three years.

GlassSlipperSyndrome

Anyone who has ever put up a set of shelves

requiring more than the drilling of holes for a couple of plastic wall plugs, would have been in Do-It-Yourself awe. The operation to place the car-sized mechanism for the rig control room’s floating platform into place, passed as simply as Cinderella slipping on her glass shoe.

Twelve huge bolts had earlier been placed into the concrete floor. Like an Apollo moon landing, the craft was eased through the exposed wall and precisely into place. Twelve holes, twelve bolts, one communal sigh of relief. Just one millimetre out and there would have been no fairytale ending.

WellDone

MT Svendborg sails through the new IWCF audit

There’s been a IWCF certificate on the wall of Maersk Training

Svendborg’s reception for the past two years - now it deserves a spotlight on it.

The reason? In the past IWCF accreditation had been based purely on a simple application and had been open to abuse – a number of training establishments ticking boxes they really shouldn’t have.

So the IWCF has for the past few months being going through its list of accredited organisations and for the first time fully auditing them with on-site visits to determine the precise quality of education and facilities. Maersk Training passed with immediate outright accreditation. The auditor pointed out the strength of the support functions and the comprehensive knowledge of all the staff.

Dateline 12.09.12: Instructor Martin Adamsen (centre) talks with lead driller Martin Bulow as (from left) BP representative Kjetil Vadset, People Skill’s Ewa Poulsen and Chief Instructor Kim Yding Noe take analytical roles on the first Team Based Well Control course to be held in the new MOSAIC complex.

H o u s t o n w e ’ v e g o t n o p r o b l e m s !

The

Ice Men

Cometh

Through the window it was blue skies with the odd cloud and

threatening to become a pleasant Danish summer’s day at 21C – inside Captain’s Tom and Ted were battling with ice in two separate vessels; one trying to get into St Petersburg, one out. They were approaching each other in a lead, a channel, through the ice which was too narrow for both ships to pass.

To make matters worse it was sunset, minus 25 Celsuis and the chill factor was causing the channel to revert to ice in just 30 minutes.

The participants were from WesternGeco, the leading geophysical services company, being trained in Svendborg for their encounter with the ice packs of the Kara Sea.

Two factors have made Ice Navigation courses an important part of the maritime knowledge base. Firstly companies like WesternGeco are being asked

to ‘open the door’ to the natural resources which lie in previously difficult to access parts of the world. Secondly global warming has opened up the possibility of opening up shorter northerly trade routes through such famed channels as the North West Passage.

The crew will eventually take their seismic vessel into the icy waters north of Russia but for the time being they were facing Baltic conditions being masterminded by instructor Vaughan Lewis for whom this was an equally dramatic climatic change. You may recall from the last issue of eSea that his recent classrooms had been on the bridges of some of the world’s most luxurious motor yachts berthed in the blue Mediterranean.

The Ice Navigation course was conducted on the ECDIS suite at Maersk Training Svendborg but will also be available in Newcastle. It lasts three days - regardless of the weather.

Captain Tom’s bridge

-25°C +21°C

Captain Ted’s bridge

Who Is It For? Three days - Maximum eight

participants

Watch-keeping officers who have approved training in compliance

- STCW Reg II/2 or III/2 and with a working knowledge of the Company Safety Management Systems and the ISM code. It

is desirable, but not essential, if participants have attended ship

handling training courses.

Chinesecrackersabout safety

The managers at Maersk Container Industries are

starring at the figures in mild disbelief. Never have they had so little time lost in production through accidents. In their Dongguan plant their August to August accident figures dropped by 60% - the dramatic reduction just happens to come at the same time as a major safety culture programme nears the end of its first stage.

‘It’s observation, not science’ says Casper Jacobsen, Sustainability Coordinator at MCI, ‘but something’s clearly happened for the good, historically the figures have never been this low.’

What Casper and his colleagues are loathe to do is to put down the improvement to sheer coincidence. It is not just the reduction from an annual 15 accidents to six that’s delighting them, but the general atmosphere at the Dongguan plant where a genuine safety culture has emerged.

‘We have people all the time contributing to our safety gallery posting pictures of potential risks and analysing near misses,’ says Casper. ‘If they see something lying on the ground, they’ll take a picture of it first before moving it.’

Currently 80 established employees a week go through the programme and the whole workforce of 2,500 will have taken part by November. In addition about 150 new employees a month start their MCI careers with the course which is conducted by trainers trained by Maersk Training Svendborg.

The initial programme was carried out by Maersk Training lead safety instructor Per Mazur, who has since been back to China to see the programme roll out at the Qingdao plant where MCI make reefer containers.

Before the Safety Culture Seminar MCI already had an accident record well below the figures for industry in Denmark in general but certainly nothing so impressive as they are now generating. The problem now is how to build on this and sustain them.

‘The safety gallery is a major tool. The employees themselves contribute to it and therefore feel ownership and through that it creates a culture which we have seen grow on the factory floor,’ says Casper. To that end Per Mazur has been back visiting Qingdao in an observer’s role, contributing to a success story that will only be sustained by the most basic of Maersk values, constant care. No, not a wedding, staff from MCI’s Qingdao plant get to grips with a

safety workshop

Safety Campaign Already Paying Dividends

The dramatic drop in accidents per million work hours

It’s not something that a recruitment officer

would push to the top of a presentation – it’s not something for which there is an obvious solution, but it is something real, something requiring ‘out of the boat’ thinking.

Loneliness is not confined to the old, it can affect anyone regardless of rank, culture or creed and ironically the better conditions on a modern vessel are ripe for nurturing it. It is a form of isolation that runs from cadet to captain.

Here we do not offer a solution. We have created a platform, an imaginary Cabin 221B, and into it we’d like to put opinions, problems and observations. Hopefully out of this might come a germ or the gem of an idea to confront and resolve the silent menace that is social isolation.

Seeking the key to Cabin 221B we talked with two experts who have spent time observing various traits of today’s seaborne life. Their views are contained over the next three pages.

We’d love you to visit and contribute to our blog, maybe together we can find a

solution

Cabin 221Bplease help open the door

SocialIsolation- the silent

shipwrecker

It’s unobtrusive and silent, yet career and life crippling,

and more a factor in today’s maritime industry than sufferers will admit to, or perhaps for management to openly acknowledge. The professionals label it ‘social isolation’, the rest of us call it loneliness.

It might be thought that today’s techno world would combat and eradicate the isolation. After all through GPS we always know where we are, through Skype and Bambuser we transmit and receive images and sound and finally the days of ‘no signal’ on cell phones seem long gone. Yet there is a backlash – today’s seafarers have to cope with a whole new world of social isolation – one which isn’t broken by shore leave. In fact 20 per cent of seafarers list ‘being home’ as the most socially excluding of experiences.

‘Life satisfaction is hampered by the way they work today compared with years ago – this is the challenge which companies should look into,’ says Søren Diederichsen, chief psychologist for SEAHEALTH, the Danish Maritime Occupational Health Service.

Today’s seafarers work in a world far removed from the alcohol driven, girl-in-every-port life, as portrayed in the Danish classic

movie SS Martha. Working on bigger vessels, with smaller crewsand in a multi-cultural world there is an environment which creates isolation during the working hours and downtime. Crews of only 14 split into two 12 hour shifts working on vessels over 300 metres long, considerably cuts down the opportunity to communicate.

Add to this the psychological make-up of seafarers. Vessels need introverted characters to perform some of the more complex or routine tasks, but also takes extraverts to drive and lead. With smaller multi-cultural crews the degree of swing between these two extremes is exaggerated, leading to greater social isolation.

Søren and Anders Klitmøller, a Ph.D student at Aarhus University, spent time recently on separate fact-finding voyages trying to see how life today is onboard.

‘There’s an unwritten rule,’ Anders explains, ‘when the cabin door is closed, only a justifiable request from a senior officer, can cause it to be knocked.’ This leads to creating exclusion zones where problems are simply put into a vacuum.

/continued overAnders takes a break from the MSSM conference - alone

North Sea Agreement

/contd

According to Søren, ‘we have seen the biggest problems in the senior end – it is cold and lonely on top. Nobody to share problems with. We very often hear from senior officers about their job and private problems and what is evident is that the hardest part is finding a listening ear when at sea.’

The problem doesn’t sort itself out during home leave. Enter what Søren calls the Supermarket Syndrome, when the seafarer returns home and goes down to do the weekly shop.

‘The space, the noise, the choice, it is often too much for them and they totally blank out. We did a survey at SEAHEALTH and 20% of respondents said that they felt most socially isolated at home. The family has been operating without you, so it tends to spin around the partner’s side of the family. You can’t get into a team sport

with your old mates because their soccer team requires a weekly commitment which you can’t make - you lose contact and suddenly you are Home Alone in a mental sense,’ says Søren.

One common observation was that many seniors turn to GOD – ‘the Good Old Days’. Anders, an anthropologist working on cultural leadership at Aarhus University’s Dept of Business Administration with the mission to see why cultures clash at sea and how to overcome them, recently spent three voyages on oil carriers. He saw something in those too young and inexperienced to yet have any good old days.

‘Cadets for instance are not used to the way of living, no family around and they find it difficult to become part of the in group on the ship because there’s such a strict hierarchy – all this adds to the loneliness. As a cadet you are in limbo, you have to prove yourself all the time and until you do you don’t really feel part of the crew. On the voyages I was on, this was too much for one guy who gave up and resigned.’

‘The investment in him is lost and I think there is a lack of sensitivity from some of the senior members of the crew towards how hard it is to go to sea the first time – I think it is about training, reminding the seniors how they felt themselves when they started. I think it an issue that some of today’s seniors started as decksmen and that would never happen today because they are too expensive,’ says Anders.

Solitary Man at Work, Not Play- Fujairah Japan 2007 - photo by Henrik Birk Larsen- courtesy of Danish Government Seamen’s Service

UnsocialIsolation- Home Alone

So how do you recognised social isolation? Eating is a way out which leads to weight issues, inactivity between shifts makes it harder to respond when on shifts, a tendency to seek common nationalities leads to breaking up the vessel into ‘clans’.

Some companies tend to recruit from a restricted number of countries and this can lead to problems. Søren thinks the more globally recruited Maersk crews helps ease this situation. The

sheer diversity of nationalities nullifies any tribalism.

Different nationalities approach socialising from differing angles.‘Filipinos for instance, very much group together, basically making a little cluster on the deck and this would cause frustration for the captain “why are they doing that, not doing their job?” but it is their way of overcoming loneliness, getting a social life,’ says Anders.

Both Anders and Søren agreed

that the internet was a double-edged sword. On one hand easy contact, on the other easy exclusion, reminding you of all the things you can’t be part of. It also acts as a way of isolating you on your laptop in your cabin from the rest of the crew.

ISPS rules add to the situation – in the GOD, alcohol was a part of social lubricant which lead to the breaking down of barriers and created, for all its downsides, a platform for openness. Now there

is no way the industry can, or wants to, return to seafaring as in the movie SS Martha – but Søren believes we have to pick up the challenge and find a solution to the silent problem before it makes a big noise.

It is a challenge we at Maersk Training would like to take up. We want to start a conversation with seafarers out there, getting their views and perhaps out of a global forum will emerge a contribution towards making a difference.

/contd

GoodbyeOldDays

→GOD - Good Old Days, a young man thought to be AB Poul Sveistrup, later to become a well-known journalist, soaks up the atmosphere on shore leave in Casablanca in 1962, just like a scene lifted from the movie ‘SS Martha’

- photo by Bendt Zimmerman- courtesy of the Danish Government Seamen’s Service

It was way back in 1958 that filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock,

the master of suspense, put Vertigo onto the big screens – now Maersk Training Newcastle has put a movie on the small screen which proves that they are modern day masters of suspense.

The stars are not James Stewart and Kim Novak, rather it’s those who attend their new height training facility. The common thread between the courses and Hitchcock’s classic is the disabling effect on many people of height. Acrophobia is an accepted condition and most certainly not one on the medical charts of those working or wanting to work in the wind turbine industry.

The ability to operate at considerable heights requires a special kind of person, but they still have barriers to break through in order to feel assured when working on turbines and other tall structures.

An emergency exit from a wind turbine is a unique, and hopefully unnecessary, exercise. However if it were required, having already practiced it, the chances of a smooth operation are greatly increased. A sheer 18 metre drop through a hatchway at the North Shields location prepares the way for such an escape route.

Exiting from heights is only a small fraction of what goes on at the centre since technical and behaviour-based safety training are also vital parts of

the programme. These can form part of, or the complete, one-stop learning experience.

The short video of the facilities was commissioned because the wind turbine industry in the United Kingdom is in a period of considerable growth, so the decision makers are possibly busy some distance from the North East. Simply by clicking a button they can view what helped RenewableUK to approve the course portfolio, as well as it becoming the first GWO - Global Wind Organisation - approved centre in the United Kingdom.

Maersk Training Newcastle also became the first organisation in the UK to be approved by Det Norske Veritas (DNV) to be able to conduct all five modules of the GWO Basic Safety Training Standard.

GWO WORK AT HEIGHT AND RESCUE 2 DAY COURSE Theoretical and practical training in working and rescuing from heights using basic protective equipment (PPE and PFPE).

RENEWABLE UK WORK AT HEIGHT AND RESCUE 2 DAY COURSE Providing sufficient knowledge and skills to work competently and safely on wind turbines. The Safe System of Work syllabus covers PPE equipment selection and inspection, use of tools, risk assessment, emergency procedures and method statements. Industry standard equipment is used to demonstrate and evacuate and rescue at height.

Masters of Suspense

C e l e b r a t i n g b e i n g t h e f i r s t U K

t r a i n i n g f a c i l i t y t o b e a p p r o v e d b y

D N V f o r a l l f i v e m o d u l e s w e ’ r e

o f f e r i n g2 5 % o f f

the first four places booked

Denmark in proportion to Brazil

It’s the sheer size of the country that is mind blowing – a little under two

hundred times bigger than Denmark, Brazil is huge. It’s the first and a continuous readjustment necessary when you consider everything to do with this luscious South American country. The distance between MT Brasil’s administrative office and downtown is about 25 kms yet still well within Rio de Janeiro, itself not the biggest city in the country. The distance between managing director Hans Bloch-Kjaer’s chair and the courses currently being conducted in Santos is the same as that from Svendborg to Berlin.

Brazil is huge. Yes Brazil with a Z. We should clear this up from the outset to help avoid confusion. Maersk Training Brasil uses the S form of the local language to conform with Maersk Oil Brasil who opted in 2001 to use the Portuguese spelling on legal documents. So the correct form is that Maersk Training Brasil has been operating in Brazil since 2012. The rule is: with an S for the company with a Z for all other references.

Now that that is out of the way we asked Hans to give us his first impressions of life in Maersk Training’s latest geographical adventure. Brazil according to Hans is raw, exciting and has ‘edge’.

‘Brazil is the place to be, the potential here is enormous,’ says Hans pointing out the greatly increased presence of Maersk Oil and Maersk Supply Service in the energy fields off the country’s coastline. It’s predicted that the deepwater fields off Rio and Santos will make Brazil the world’s third largest oil producer by 2020 – knocking the US into fourth place. One estimate is that the recent Campos Santos Basin find is capable of producing alone what all the current fields do together.

‘We’ve arrived in the right place at the right time,’ says Hans, ‘Maersk Oil are amongst the big players here and have increased their commitment. This year

alone they drilled four new wells and participated in eight others.’

Maersk Supply Service has mirrored this increased activity and their 1.6million DDK four-year contract for the Brazilian national firm Petrobas, underlines where the future lies in this huge area.

‘We too can benefit. For instance it has long been the case that officers must have 40 hours of Theoretical Anchor Handling – but until we arrived there was nowhere locally they could receive it, so it was an acceptable omission when crewing. Now we are here, more and more companies are likely to demand that crews match the mandatory requirements,’ said Hans.

It is also right place, right time for Maersk Training’s Crane Department. The Brazilian port authority, BTP, in opening a new terminal at Santos, the port for the largest city São Paulo, there was an urgent need for new crane operators. Brazil became the latest destination for globe training Johan van Berkel who with the assistance of Alex Albuquerque, MT Brasil’s sales manager, broke through the language and bureaucracy barrier.

Rio took over BTP’s operator recruitment and using conventional interview and the AssessSim program screened 400 people before finally reducing the number to 140. Johan used the Train-the-Trainer program to take ten established operators and turn them into instructors – unlike operations elsewhere whereby the new trainers are employed by the terminal, these instructors became Maersk Training Brasil employees. They are now training the candidates around the clock for the new terminal which opens in October.

The language barrier is probably more of an opportunity. Portuguese quite naturally is the dominant language and even in international terms you don’t freely converse in anything else, so when it comes down to new recruits the

level of English is low, if it exists at all. So from day one the course portfolio is bi-lingual.

Hans is learning Portuguese and getting on quite well, ‘I’ve progressed beyond menus,’ but there are other aspects of life which take a little extra adjustment. The amanhã syndrome - what the Spanish wait 24 hours for before they call it maňana - exists and you have to appreciate it, reset your body clock and expectations level in order to survive it.

There is also a simple, rather than obstructive, bureaucracy which goes all the way down from process of seeking official governmental and legal paperwork to a PostIt. Hans tells the story of waiting for a telephone engineer to install an internet line at the office. After a long wait his phone rang. It was the engineer; he was outside Block 3 in the industrial complex that is the temporary home to MT Brasil, about 80 metres from Hans.

‘We’re in Block 1,’ said Hans.

‘OK,’ said the engineer, ‘my job-sheet says Block 3, I will have to go back to the office and set up a new appointment for Block 1. Sometime next week OK?’

To anyone, anywhere waiting for IT, doesn’t this seem a little familiar?

FlyingdowntoRio

we drop in on

Maersk Training’s

latest centre

To visit our website go to www.maersktraining.com

For some it is the biggest week of the year, for others

an unparalleled networking opportunity, for some a sales pitch and for a few a chance to get out of the office – what do you gain from attending a conference?

Simultaneously the maritime and oil & gas industries have been picking up their notebooks whilst putting on their party frocks, so to speak. In Nyborg the MSSM held its annual bash whilst in Stavanger the biannual ONS drew all the big players in the energy business under one roof.

The MSSM stretched from a Wednesday night opening lecture on disasters and worst case scenarios to a closing Friday afternoon view on cultural awareness. Organised by the maritime secretariat, SEAHEALTH and conducted in Danish throughout, the formula was a mixture of lectures and workshops, with the opportunity to see the products of interested parties such as safety equipment manufacturers, seaborne technology, video production and training facilities. Maersk Training Svendborg and Esbjerg were there.

Jens Christian Bjeldorf attending on behalf of LangelandsFærgen, was

possibly a typical delegate – ‘I’m my company’s safety officer and I’m here to see what way I can help install a safety culture. The workshop session on safety culture has been very helpful.’

The range of workshops was wide, from risk awareness, to diet onboard, from the new arena of growth, offshore wind to ballast water, from what’s new in environmentally friendly fuel to reducing administrative burdens. These were carried out in parallel two hour sessions.

/continued over

The ConferencePair

In Nyborg

MSSM conference session in full swing

The view of the team who manned the Maersk Training stand at ONS 2012 in Stavanger was that it was very much a platform for meeting all the major players in the oil and gas industry.

‘I think the difference is that MSSM is primarily a conference where you walk around in the coffee breaks viewing stands, whilst ONS is the Offshore show for Europe where you see all the oil majors and contractors – we met a lot of top people over the four days,’ says Maersk Training sales

executive Sten Frydensbjerg.

The event is organised every year with Aberdeen and Stavanger alternating as hosts - called ONS in Norway it is OE, Offshore Europe in Scotland. Regardless of title it is an increasingly important part of Maersk Training’s public face, especially with centres established in both host cities as well as Esbjerg and Svendborg.

One face missing from ONS this year was Niels Lynge Nielsen who’d been a familiar part of the Stavanger scene for the past five years –

Lynge was busy back in Svendborg helping with the final stages of the MOSIAC set-up. Lynge rejoined the Maersk Training oil and gas team of instructors in July.

Photo: fotograf kallenThe razzmatazz of ONS’s opening ceremony

and . . .in Stavanger

eSea 1 Instructors’ back to sea programme - Sea Time Reduction announced - Vetting for Supply - New Deepwater Horizons open up

eSea 2New Towmasters’ course gets full simulation treatment - Deepwater course piloted - Wind industry - Drill instructor gets back to the well head

eSea 3MOSAIC II announced - Offshore wind, the new challenges - West African pilots use simulator to deal with the ‘big boys’ - CraneSIM in Vietnam - Piracy through the ages

eSea 4MT launches new website - Chinese in big safety push - Rig crane put in a box - Safety and People Skills build platform emergency course - how to communicate across cultures

eSea 5Maersk Training pennant raised in Dubai - Platform crews pilot Emergency Response course - How to be best in Vetting class - Danger of computer over reliance

eSea 6MOSAIC II, the ground is broken - Rig participants up to elbows in some very special mud - Semi-sub crew learns anchor handling - West African pilots start payback -

eSea 7Chinese Container crews look to safety - Rig crane simulator tested - Esbjerg’s new facilities - MOSAIC II update - DP sea-time reduction - Coffee Break with Bent Nielsen

eSea 8Titanic Edition looking back at 100 years of increased safety and improved training - the lifeboat revolution - man overboard - spreading knowledge - tomorrow’s seafarers

eLibrary

eSea 9$15million Phone call - Wrappers off MOSAIC II - 5 Year drilling package - Tomorrow’s leaders today - Family comes too - Learning in luxury - Danish Olympians teambuild

To go back in time and access articles from previous issues, simply use the QR code. You can also access back issues through our website:www.maersktraining.com

CONTACTSNames and emails of those able and eager to help with specific enquiries arising out of this issue

Sales enquiries - Svendborg, Middle East: Mikael Kofod - mfk010@maersktraining.com

Sales enquiries - Stavanger: Nicolas Kristensen - ngk002@maersktraining.com

Sales enquiries - Newcastle: Alison Isbister - ais020@maersktraining.com

Sales enquiries - Brazil: Alex Albuquerque - aal056@maersktraining.com

Editorial enquiries: Richard Lightbody - rli039@maersktraining.com

www.maersktraining.com

We believe there is no such thing as an unreasonable question – the most innocently simple of enquiries could be the start of something significant.

‘Daddy why can’t I see the photograph now?’ said three year old Jennifer to her father on a family holiday in 1944. Edwin Land shrugged his shoulders and went off for a walk. He returned after a little while with the central concept for the Polaroid camera in his head.

At Maersk Training we don’t make snap judgements. Please feel free to ask us anything about your training needs.

‘So what’s Denmark like?’

It’s the sort of question which falls somewhere between genuine inquiry and trying to fill an awkward gap in an initial conversation. It’s also the sort of question which is getting easier and easier to answer – even in somewhere as detached as my hometown, Bangor, Northern Ireland.

The truth is that Denmark is becoming more and more like everywhere else or indeed maybe that everywhere else is becoming more like Denmark. Differences are dwindling. This summer for instance, the weather in Hillerød and Holywood were pretty well twined, but sharing climatic misery is not where we are becoming one. It is in the High Street that individually is hardest to define and increasingly harder to find. The cloning of towns is what the French label la Londonisation.

Maersk plays its part in the process of the neutralization of global distinctiveness – a

while back on our website we came across an American family who worldwide play the game of ‘spot the Maersk container’, in Northern Ireland they are about to become more Danish at every turn, playing ‘spot the Danske Bank.’ Every High Street will soon have one, looking no different in Bangor as it would in Ballerup.

The dark blue and grey signs for the Northern Bank are systematically being removed and replaced by the dark blue and grey signs of the Danske Bank. My mother will soon have a credit card resembling mine here in Svendborg, she can use it in IKEA, Joe & The Juice, Red and Green, Matinique, she can use it to buy Lurpak, Tuborg, Lego and Ecco shoes.

However what is coming round the corner will surprise even the Danes – something totally individual and only accessible in Northern Ireland. Lying on the same latitude as the Danske Bank here in Svendborg, automatic cash machines will churn out Danske Bank notes – not to be confused with Danish Bank notes. Currency in Northern Ireland and Scotland is not exclusively issued by the Bank of England. Although the coinage comes with

the Queen’s head on one side, the banks themselves are allowed to print the paper stuff. This means that in the conceivable future there will be such a thing as Danske Bank legal tender.

Now the question arises what design will the £5, £10, £20 and £50 notes have? By tradition the Northern Irish notes do not have the monarch on them, depicting instead some local notable person or achievement. With the Danish connection the options broaden. Can we expect something which ties the two cultures together? A golf club crossed with a tennis racquet for instance marking the sporting romance of Rory McIlroy and Caroline Wozniacki, the Belfast-built Titanic superimposed on the Odense-built Emma Maersk, or maybe a Danish pastry plated beside some potato bread.

So things are destined to merge even further, we drive the same cars, watch the same tvs, drink the same beer, but as we are being sucked up by global brands are we losing our national identities? I somehow think not. Here are three things the Danes do differently to elsewhere, all

with a motoring theme.

• They are world leaders in reversing a trailer. Whatever foreigners might think of Danes driving forward, with a trailer attached and going backwards, they are pure Formula 1.

• Also on the subject of driving they are the only people, virtually to a man, to pull into a left only lane, wait for the lights to change and then begin to indicate – not to inform, but simply to state ‘I knew all along where I was going!’

• Finally it is the only country in the world where the driving test is relatively unnecessary – should you commit even the smallest of driving misdemeanours, you get the Svendborg stare; a combination of abhorrence and disbelief so deep the look goes right through you like a StarWars blaster ray gun. You don’t do it again.

You can imagine that the look will be equally steel-like when, as I look forward to, I present a Danske Bank £20 note to my local teller and say ‘please credit my account.’ I kinda suspect the reply to be . . . ‘So what’s Northern Ireland like?’

PoopdeckHow the Belfast Telegraph thinks the Danske Bank notes might look with actor Lian Neeson as the honoured image

rli039@maersktraining.com