Taking a leaf from the Danes' playbook

IT'S the biggest thing to hit the headlines of 2016 since harissa replaced sriracha. The catch-all Danish lifestyle term "hygge" (pronounced hoo-gah) meaning "cosiness", a term that conjures up all things rustic, warm and made-in-Scandinavia, has captured the imagination of the world - leaving everyone outside of the Arctic Circle in the cold. The rest of us, well, apparently don't have "hygge" in our culture.

So pervasive is hygge in Denmark, it is believed to be the reason the country has topped the list of the United Nations' World Happiness Report for two consecutive years (Singapore is the happiest nation in Asia at No. 22; while the top five list includes Switzerland (No. 2); Ic…