Watching all that peak TV yet still have a few hours left over each week? Then why not sign up for Coursera’s course on Scandinavian film and television? Run by the University of Copenhagen, it starts today and runs for five weeks, taking in everything from the Scandinavian welfare state through Ingmar Bergman and Lars von Trier to Nordic Noir.
I’m not sure it’ll help you get a job or anything, but you can even pay to get a certificate for completing it at the end. But watch a few videos, read a bit of background material and complete a few quizzes each week on your computer, phone or tablet, and you’ll at least know a lot more (probably) than you did before you started. And that won’t cost you a penny.
I’m Rob Buckley, a journalist who writes for UK media magazines that most people have never heard of although you might have heard me on the podcast Lockdown Land or Radio 5 Live’s Saturday Edition or Afternoon Edition. I’ve edited Dreamwatch, Sprocket and Cambridge Film Festival Daily; been technical editor for TV producers magazine Televisual; reviewed films for the short-lived newspaper Cambridge Insider; written features for the even shorter-lived newspaper Soho Independent; and was regularly sarcastic about television on the blink-and-you-missed-it “web site for urban hedonists” The Tribe. Since going freelance, I've contributed to the likes of Broadcast, Total Content + Media, Action TV, Off The Telly, Action Network, TV Scoop and The Custard TV.
