Yes, friends, is YOUR job, frankly speaking, a bit boring at times? And do you welcome any distraction, be it everybody trying to swat a wasp, or a pigeon getting in through a window, say? There are plenty of distractions to be found, if you just take a bit of trouble to look, you know.
Just saying!!!
Did you see this story in this morning's Onion News, I wonder?
(left) me and my medium-to-long-suffering wife Lois, and (centre and right)
Danish writer Anna Grue and her murder mystery "Judaskysset" (The Judas Kiss)
If you're a Copenhagen detective, your job is more likely to be boringly frank, than frankly boring, to put it mildly!!!
Yes, and if you're a detective on the trail of a murderer, distractions during work-time can do real damage, as the novel shows! And the Copenhagen detectives working on this horrific murder case at police HQ are currently being driven out of their minds by Detective Inspector Frank "No pun intended!!) Janssen, who's insisting on playing all the murder victim's, like, billions of DVDs over on the police DVD-player, just looking for clues, Frank claims!
Yes, "I'm just looking for clues in the guy's DVD library!", Frank says... and no doubt it's just a coincidence that most of the victim's DVDs turn out to be Danish porn movies. What madness! And Frank's co-worker Pia Waage, is being driven out of her mind by the noise of the porno soundtracks, which she calls "incredibly distracting" (Danish: rimelight distraherende), and she has to ask Frank to "turn the volume down a bit, Frank, can't you?".
Copenhagen detective Frank Janssen playing the murder victim's
DVDs through at Police HQ - most of them porno films. And the soundtrack
is annoying Frank's co-workers like crazy. What madness!
"But why on earth are you two 'noggins' reading a Danish murder mystery together today, Colin?", I hear you cry! [Not me - I'm still propping up the counter at my local Greggs, waiting for my morning coffee and "donuts"! - Ed]
Well, seeing how you're just "gagging" to know (!), Lois and I, "for our sins" (!), for a few years now, have been joint-leaders of the local old codgers' U3A Intermediate Danish group. And the group's fortnightly online meeting is coming up on Thursday, and it's our job to prepare "vocab sheets" for our members, to save them having to do the work of looking up all the hard words in their dictionaries - what madness, isn't it!!!
Lois and me, struggling to set up an online meeting of our U3A
"Old Codgers" Intermediate Danish group on our laptop
09:30 It's not as if Lois and I haven't got anything to do, anyway, even now, when we've been retired for 18 years!
And today, it's going to be another busy day starting early for us, here in rural, semi-leafy Liphook, Hampshire, because we've got another whatsapp video call booked again today with our daughter Sarah, who since September has been living in Perth, Western Australia, with husband Francis and their 11-year-old twins Lily and Jessica.
us, this morning, enjoying a whatsapp video call with our daughter Sarah,
and our 11-year-old twin granddaughters Lily and Jessica in Perth, Australia
Sarah, a chartered accountant, has an incredibly busy time, busier even that Lois and me, would you believe!
Since the family moved to Australia last September, she's been doing two jobs: not only her new job in Perth, but also still doing her existing UK job in Evesham, Worcestershire. And during our whatsapp calls on Sundays, whenever Lois and I are talking to the twins and Sarah's out of shot, we sometimes hear her typing away on some office project or other, to meet some mad deadline or other (!)
What a crazy world we live in, don't we!
Our little "Two Jobs" Sarah, (left) celebrating, in 2015, the 80th 'birthday' of the
accountancy firm she works for in Evesham UK, and (right) Lois and me picking Sarah up
from her Perth office during our visit to Australia back in 2016
One advantage of Sarah doing two jobs, is that she'll be able to visit us in the UK, and call it a "business trip", while writing her expenses off for tax purposes. Lois and I don't quite understand how she does it, but, well, Sarah is an accountant, so she ought to know all about these clever 'dodges' - no need to press her on it. "No names, no pack-drill, enough said!", nudge nudge wink wink !!!
So Sarah will be visiting the UK in July this year, hopefully, and bringing Francis and the twins with her, which will be nice. In July the twins will turn 12, so hopefully Lois and I can help them celebrate the birthday, and this will also include another of our grandchildren, our other daughter Alison's grandson Isaac, who'll be celebrating his 15th birthday on the same day.
Fun fact: of our total of 5 grandchildren, three of them were born on that date in July. We haven't celebrated their joint birthday with them for a few years now, but we've still got the photos from 10 years ago - no surprise there!
flashback to July 26th 2015, Evesham, Worcestershire : THREE birthday cakes on the table -
one each for Lily and Jessica, turning two, and one for Isaac (bottom right picture) turning five
- what a day that was !!!!!
[Is that all you two "noggins" have done today, Colin - 5 pages of a Danish crime novel and a whatsapp video call to Australia? - Ed]
Well, seeing as how you're asking, our answer is "No! Absolutely not!!!". We've also done the puzzles in this week's Radio Times, and got 10 out of 10 correct in the prestigious new "Chaser" questions section, so we're not "noggins" by any stretch of the imagination, so let's have a bit less of that, if you don't mind!
Just saying (again) !!!!
See how many of these "doozies" YOU know!
And luckily, Lois and I have still got our old Radio Times for last week - we tend to hoard them, and we've got about 5 months-worth of back numbers actually (!). They're in the garage, so not as much of a fire hazard as you might imagine, which is a comfort.
This is fortunate also, because one of Lois's oldest friends from her Oxford days, Jen, emails us today to say there's another picture of somebody else from her family in Radio Times again, would you believe!
flashback to 2022: one of Lois's oldest friends, Jen,
'photobombs' this Radio Times picture of her at school
(ringed in green) with ex-classmate and now Anglo-Australian
film-star Miriam Margolyes (Harry Potter's Professor Sprout)
flash-forward to April 2025, and this Radio Times spread
about UK marathon super-star Paula Radcliffe's incredibly "marathon"
performances in the London Marathon (no pun intended!!!), with Jen's nephew
Julian pictured breathing down Paula's neck, and maybe
looking to "pip her at the post" - what madness !!!!!
Don't get me wrong - Lois and I are both delighted to see Jen and now her nephew Julian "gracing" the pages of one of the UK's oldest magazines.
At the same time, we want to make a small little plea - don't fill up too much of the Radio Times, please, Jen's family! Leave room for the quizzes in the back pages, or otherwise "us old codgers" will be stuck for something to do on the sofa with our cups of tea in the afternoons!
Just saying!!!!
Will this do?
[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzz !!!!!
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