Danskcolin: Thurs June 12th 2025 "So some local so-called 'Prof' has written a book! Big deal, we say !!!"

Did you see this morning's Onion News? Everybody today seems to be talking about their front page "lead" this morning, have you noticed?

Everybody round here seems to be talking about Chapman, and how he's making East Hampshire the cultural centre of the Western World, just because he's talking about publishing another book on his precious "specialisation", that nobody really cares about all that much, anyway!

Am I, plus my medium-to-hard-pressed wife Lois the only ones, in this half of the county at least, who are able to put this so-called "achievement" by some "poncey" local "know-all" into its true perspective?

my medium-to-hard-pressed wife Lois and me, pictured

yesterday on our walk over local beauty spot, Ludshott Common

"Big deal!", is our immediate reaction to this so-called "big story", and we make no apology for our somewhat "flip" response! [Why not? - Ed]

For reasons that are quite beyond Lois and me, not many people in this rural, semi-leafy part of Hampshire seem to have noticed that Chapman's chief claim to fame seems to be his ability to write "in English", and "with very good grammar".

Let me put my cards on the table at this point. Lois and I are leaders of the local U3A "Old Codgers' Online Intermediate Danish" group, "for our sins" (!), and Professor Chapman should try writing his so-called "book" in Intermediate Danish, if he wants a real challenge (!).

Lois and me, attempting to steer another rowdy online meeting

of our Old Codger's Intermediate Danish group

We started the group originally, not just to improve the average level of Intermediate Danish in this half of the county, up from woefully basic to woefully medium, but also to enrich the lives of local "old codgers" in a more general context. Despite appearances, Lois and I like to assure the local "doubting Thomases (!), that we've got a medium -to-finely tuned social conscience to add to our linguistic "smarts", let me tell you!

Our project this year is to enrich the lives of East Hampshire's locally menopausal women, and, rather than give dry, tedious lectures on the theme, we're using best-selling Danish author Anna Grue's recent novel, "Judaskysset" (The Judas Kiss) to ram our points home in a more light-hearted way.

The book is all about a young 30-ish Danish go-getter, "JH", who is a "marriage scammer", making a living out of seducing older, menopausal women, persuading them to make him a co-signatory on a joint bank account, before drawing out all the money and then disappearing to another town to find another ageing victim with a bit of "dosh" to spare (!).

It's a simple enough game-plan for any cheeky young "whippersnapper", isn't it, to put it mildly!

But "The Judas Kiss" isn't just another crime novel. It's also packed with hints for the old women sleeping with their own particular "toy boy" - for instance, tips on how to make good use of "hot flushes" [Intermediate Danish: "hedeture"], to keep warm, whenever your own individual "toyboy-scammer" turns over in bed and thoughtlessly takes most of the duvet with him, young "scallywag" that he is (!).

scene from the Danish TV version of the book: menopausal college visual

arts teacher Ursula is here using her hot flushes to keep warm, when "JH", her

her toyboy-scammer turns over and takes most of the duvet with him

And our ageing female group-members are getting a lot of life-lessons out of Anna Grue's modern Danish classic, that's for sure. The only possible downside is that a lot of the passages in the book are a bit "fruity", which can be embarrassing, to put it mildly!

But there's also a heart-warming end to this part of the story, in which young scammer "JH" says he wants to move in with Fiona, and she has the delight (?) of telling her teenage children that they're going to have "a step-dad their own age" [Danish: stedfar... på deres egen alder] - always a bit of a "hot potato", that conversation, isn't it, so the book has even more useful advice here too, for our female group-members, which is nice!

21:00 Exhausted as always, after spending the afternoon trying to keep order in our rowdy Intermediate Danish meeting, Lois and I collapse on the couch to watch this week's programme in the BBC series, "Who Do You Think You Are", where we follow a well-known celebrity's search for the ancestors in their particular family tree.

This week's "victim" is comedian Diane Morgan, one of our favourites, who, in her persona as pretentious TV-documentary presenter Philomena Cunk, fronted that silly spoof documentary series "Cunk on...." all those years ago - do you remember?

In this classic programme from her flagship series, her first, most challenging, and, arguably, most ambitious episode, "Cunk on Life", she set out her stall in no uncertain terms, telling us from Day One exactly what to expect from the series - remember?

In tonight's programme all about her ancestry, Diane discovers that her 4-times great grandmother Isabella grew up in a quiet Scottish village near Dumfries.

As a young woman, Diane's ancestor Isabella had 5 children by 4 different men over a period of some 8 to 10 years, which was some going in a quiet Scottish village in the mid 1800's (!).

And not only that, but Isabella took all 4 men to the local Sheriff's County Court, after each birth, successfully suing them all for alimony, so she must have been quite "ballsy" - a bit like presenter Diane Morgan herself is, come to think about it!