With my arms clamped tightly to the side of my clammy swimming costume, I face the naked woman who’s gesticulating wildly and firing a torrent of Danish at me. When I haltingly ask her whether she speaks English, she barely pauses for breath before ordering me – in perfect English – to take off my costume and make my way to the communal shower, for reasons of hygiene.

In Denmark it is mandatory to sluice down naked before entering a swimming pool, and they take the rules very seriously. Judging from the streams of women relaxing in the nude, they are so body confident that they jump at any opportunity to take their clothes off anyway.

The women in Nordic-noir dramas are usually attractive, overtly sexual and self-confident, and Saga Norén, the Swedish detective in the Danish police procedural The Bridge will whip off her T-shirt in front of her hard-bitten colleagues without a second thought.