Why do we love Scandanavian culture?

Hurrah, it’s Saturday! Or should I say, Hurra hurra, det er lørdag!

Which these days in Britain means that we will be snuggling up among the Marimekko cushions on the Ikea sofa, with a smorgasbord of gravlax, before cracking open a bottle of aquavit and settling down in front of the Bang & Olufsen to watch the latest Scandi-thriller served up, in a great double helping, on BBC Four.

Tonight sees the first episode of The Bridge, a suspenseful drama that begins, hauntingly, with the discovery of a slain body, carefully placed on O/resund Bridge, which links Sweden and Denmark.

Cue impenetrable-but-gripping goings-on as two cops – oddbod Swedish ice maiden Saga and burly Great Dane Martin – set their weird personal differences aside in order to find the murderer.

To those of us still mourning the end of Borgen, the thrilling Danish political drama, The Bridge represents a televisual aurora borealis, illuminating our otherwise bland, Americanised schedules.

For it is a curious fact that despite our Special Relationship with the United States, our proximity to France, our common language with Australia, we have – wholly unexpectedly – become a nation in thrall to all things Scandinavian. Indeed, furniture giant IKEA has just been crowned Britain’s Favourite Retailer, knocking John Lewis off its perch.

“It’s really quite amazing how much the British love us,” confesses Thomas Winther, director of The Scandinavia Show, which takes place in October at Earls Court in London and will include a guest appearance by Sofie Gråbo/l (aka Sarah Lund), a guarantee of queues snaking out the door.

“We have a reputation for being chilled out and sophisticated and yes, a bit boring – but boring has become fashionable.”

Boring wasn’t always the most obvious epithet; the first Viking invasion began in 793 with the notoriously bloodthirsty raid on Lindisfarne, a centre of learning famous across the known world. The Holy Island abbey was destroyed and the fiery-haired marauders’ reputation as rapacious barbarians secured.

This gentle 21st-century cultural incursion, however, has been embraced with open arms; our sitting rooms are resplendent with stylish Louis Poulsen lighting, our bookshelves crammed with Stieg Larsson and Henning Mankell. Mamma Mia! is still slaying them in the West End, Jo Nesbø’s Headhunters is playing in cinemas the length of the land.

We’ve had Lego (from Denmark) for years, but of late it has been joined in the nursery by Stokke Tripp Trapp high chairs and dinky Hummel high-top trainers.

Britain’s first Moomin Shop, devoted to Tove Jansson’s lovable hippo-like eco-trolls, was opened in Covent Garden last Christmas. And let’s not forget that the elevation of Copenhagen eatery Noma to Best Restaurant in the World for the past two years running has catapulted its cookbook on to Amazon UK’s bestseller lists.

But just how – and why – did we fall in love with the far north? After all, cast your mind back to 2002, when Sven-Göran Eriksson took up the post of England manager and the ensuing chorus of tabloid dismay was deafening as a Trondheim landslide.

Sweden was a land of which we knew nothing – apart from Abba and flat-pack furniture – and cared even less. How times have changed.

A decade later, we are a nation riveted by Saturday night subtitles, slavishly addicted to Nordic box sets and willingly pay up to £330 a pop for a Gu∂´run & Gu∂´run Faroese chunky knit sweater as worn by dogged Killing detective Sarah Lund (and modelled by feisty maverick journalist Jüdith Wøds, left).

“Since The Killing and Borgen were shown we’ve been inundated with people in their thirties and forties wanting the sort of functional, high-quality furniture they’ve seen,” says Simon Harrison, the Dane who runs Danish Homestore, a 18,000sq ft corner of Nottingham that is forever Scandinavia.

“Danish people are highly educated people and our interiors reflect that. Also, because our winters are so dark and we have to stay indoors, our living areas need to be light and airy to avoid us getting cabin fever.”

A (usually) good-natured rivalry exists between different nations. Thus the Danes crack jokes at the expense of the Swedes, who are subject to a state-owned alcohol monopoly. A government-owned chain of off-licences called Systembolaget is the only retailer allowed to sell drinks that contain more than 3.5 per cent alcohol; it is forbidden from offering cheap deals or selling in bulk and is governed by strict opening hours, which means the shutters go down at 6pm on weekdays and 3pm on Saturdays, and stay shut until Monday morning. As a result, thirsty Swedes drive over the border to buy booze, where they are perceived as lightweights who can’t cope with strong Danish lager and fall over after two beers.

The Swedes in turn poke fun at the hard-drinking Finns for going so stir crazy in the winter that they resort to stabbing each other and sleeping with each other’s wives.

“We all take this sort of humour in good part,” says Harrison. “We’re laid-back people who don’t get too overexcited about things and certainly in Denmark, there’s a strong ethos of equality and that no one individual is better or has a higher status than the collective people.”

This high degree of egalitarianism is a distinct Scandinavian trait. A sense of fair play abounds and Britons who do trade with these countries commonly discover that consensus and compromise are ingrained into business practices.

Against this backdrop, the current trial of Norwegian Anders Breivik, the right-wing extremist who killed 77 people in Europe’s worst peacetime attack, has sent seismic shock waves through society.

The 33 year-old set off a bomb in Oslo, killing eight and then shot dead 69 people, mostly teenagers, at a Labor Party youth camp on Utøya island, outside the city.

Norway has always prided itself on its liberalism and the emergence of an enemy within has led to a great deal of soul-searching about whether state or private intervention could have deflected Breivik from his terror spree.

While state dominance and regulation can be regarded as heavy-handed, as far as living standards go Scandinavia is the envy of the world. High levels of taxation – mostly pegged at 50 per cent, rising to 60 per cent – fund a lavish welfare state, a situation which no political party would realistically dream of opposing. The cost of childcare is strictly capped and the nuclear family is seen as crucially important. You won’t find parents in Sweden or Norway agonising over how to find quality time with their offspring.

Their work-life balance is in such harmonious accord that a comparative study by Unicef last year revealed that children in Sweden were significantly happier and much less materialistic than those in this country.

As a glossy new book Swedish Dad, attests, Scandi fathers are achingly right-on; changing nappies on a weekday, pushing babies around in their Brio buggies, whittling in an Arne Jacobsen chair, mushroom-picking with their kids in the forest.

Given that couples share 16 months’ parental leave at 80 per cent of their salary, there’s a no-fuss approach to becoming what the Swedish affectionately call a “lattepappa”, on the grounds that being the lantern-jawed descendant of Vikings is no bar to sitting around chatting over coffee and cake.

Last month, a UN survey affirmed that Denmark, Finland and Norway were the most contented places on the planet, with Britain languishing at number 18, below Costa Rica and Israel.

No wonder, then, that we all want to be Scandinavian. They may not be the jolliest of people, being better known for stolid efficiency (the Volvo) than passion (Sven and Ulrika Jonsson’s frisky trysts aside), but there’s no getting away from the fact that from their ushanka fur hats to their hand-knit Selbu socks, right now they’re so cool they’re hot.The Danish queen of fashion, Malene Birger, has been dressing the likes of Kylie Minogue, Cheryl Cole, Claudia Schiffer and Kate Hudson for years. Danish shoemaker Ecco includes Morgan Freeman and Bruce Willis among its customers, and Ben Affleck’s six-year-old daughter, Violet, was recently snapped in a pair of Ecco adventure shoes.

Sweden has brought us the cheap and cheerful joys of H&M and the minimalist cult brand Acne – and, according to fashion bible In Style, the Swedish brand House of Dagmar, a label run by three glamorous sisters, is the label to wear in 2012.

But beneath the impeccable, quietly expensive taste and the stolid social-democratic dullness there is a darker, intriguing side to the lands of the midnight sun as attested by the rich – and yes, downright disturbing – imaginations of its crime-obsessed authors.

There’s occasionally a barley-sugar twist of eccentricity too: the Scandinavian aesthetic of sleek lines and simplicity counterpointed by acid colours, Ilse Jacobsen’s neon rubber boots and raincoats being an eye-watering case in point.

Less beige than the Americans, and dare we say it, less beautiful than we once thought, the huge raft of craggy character actors on our screens has given the lie to the daunting myth of flawless Nordic pulchritude. They have the healthy lifestyle we aspire to, the family values we admire. They all roll in the snow. They all eat oily fish.

And maybe that’s the allure of the Scandinavians: there’s an attractive self-confidence to them, a strong sense of identity, a deep connection with nature.

And they do make exceedingly good television.