17:30 Jeg hopper op på min kondicykel og tilbagelægger endnu 6 miles
(10km). Jeg tænder for min smartphone og ser på 1987s 100 bedste sange, mens
jeg cykler. Jeg tror, jeg genkender ca. 30% af sangene – selvfølgelig de sange
er blevet valgt af én, jeg ikke kender og jeg ved heller ikke, hvor han/hun
kommer fra.
1987 var endnu et travlt år hos os. For eksempel, i foråret var jeg på
forretningsrejse til USA, og jeg besøgte min søster, Kathy, og hendes mand,
Steve. Jeg så en baseballkamp for første (og sidste) gang i mit liv – i
Baltimore, hvilket var en meget mindeværdig oplevelse. I juli var der en enorm familiesammenkomst i
Loughborough, som alle efterkommere af mine bedsteforældre blev inviteret til.
min
svoger, Steve, sammen med min søster Kathy
i
foråret 1987 i Washington DC
Jeg
så (ved hjælp af solbriller) en baseballkamp for første gang i mit liv
(og
sidste gang!), en meget mindværdig oplevelse
Vores
yngste datter, Sarah, fejrede sin 10. fødselsdag i juni –
Hvor
er det en dejlig alder!
tilbageblik
til juli 1987: en stor familiesammenkomst,
som
alle efterkommere af mine bedsteforældre blev inviteret til – du godeste!
Bare
mine bedsteforældre kunne have levet endnu og set dem alle!!!
4
fremhævede ældre deltagere:
(fra
venstre til højre) Lois, min far, mig, min mor
2
fremhævede yngre deltagere:
Alison
(11 år) og Sarah (10 år)
tilbageblik
til december 1987 –
mit
lille hold holder sin julefrokost. Jeg sidder længst væk fra kameraet
sammen
med Yvonne, min stedfortræder
18:00 Vi spiser aftensmad og derefter taler vi lidt på Skype med Alison,
vores datter, der bor i København, sammen med Ed, sin mand, og deres 3 børn,
Josie, Rosalind og Isaac.
Det er meget sjovt at snakke med hende om familiens skiferie i Norge, der
sluttede i går, da de kørte tilbage til København. De tre børns skole starter
igen i morgen, efter den årlige vinterferie. De har brugt dagen på at rydde op
i huset, og forberede sig på den kommende uge. De har opdaget, er der er en
mus, der nu og da kommer ind i kælderen, så derfor har de måttet forberede og
lægge musfælder på gulvet osv – du godeste, hvor irriterende!!!
Det er lidt af en skam, at familien ikke tog deres kat, Minx, med, da de
flyttede til Danmark i 2012. De troede dengang, at de ikke ville være tilladt
til at eje en kat i huset, de skulle leje i København, men faktisk var dette lidt
af en misforståelse – uha! De efterlod Minx hos os i stedet for – du godeste!
Familiens nye (filipinske igen) au pair ankommer senere på ugen.
20:00 Vi bruger resten af aftenen på at lytte til radio og ser lidt
fjernsyn. Vi hører et interessant radioprogram, ”Åbnet bog”, der handler om bøger,
der lige er kommet ud, og beslægtede emner. Programmets vært er den charmerende
Alex Clark.
alexclark
Vi hører en interessant samtale med den danske forfatter, Dorthe Nors, hvis
bog, ”Spejl, Skulder, Blink” er lige kommet ud på engelsk. Romanens hovedfigur,
Sonja, er en 40-noget-årig kvinde, der voksede op ude på landet i Jylland, men
som nu bor i København. Hun er lidt af en enspænder, der savner stilheden og
ensomheden af landsbyen og gården, hvor hun var barn. Hun lærer for tiden at
køre bil, hvilket er lidt af en metafor for at få større kontrol af sit liv –
du godeste, endnu en anden som mig, der ikke er i kontrol!!!
Dorthe
Nors
Dorthe kender mange jyder, der måtte forlade Jylland for at uddanne sig til
professionelle jobs, og som savner fødesteder, der ikke længere eksisterer –
uha! Også kender hun mange kunstnere og forfattere, der længes efter ensomhed
og stilhed, så de kan føle sig virkelig fri – du godeste, det kan jeg relatere
til!
Dorthe læste svensk på universitet og hun prøver at blande de danske og de
svenske traditioner. Hun siger, at svenskerne er modigere, og har mod til at
kigge på livets mørkere eller tommere side, ligesom Ingmar Bergman i sin
mørkere film. De er ikke bange for eksistencialismen – uha!
Danskerne er tværtimod mere legende og ironiske, siger hun. Og de holder
meget af ”hygge” selvfølgelig! Hun siger, at det danske sprog er mere
minimalistisk, end det svenske – hun kalder dansk en ”lego-sprog”. Du godeste!
Vi hører en anden interessant samtale, denne gang med en islandske
forfatter, ”Sjón”, der handler om en speciel islandsk version af Bram
Stokers”Drakula”, der først kom ud i 1897 og aldrig have været out of print.
Sjón
Sjón fortæller os om den 1901-islandske version af Stokers roman, ”Makt
myrkranna”, der betyder Mørkets magder. Valdemar Asmundsson var ægtemanden af en
berømte islandsk feminist, og han skrev sin egen version af romanen,
tilsyneladende med Stokers samtykke, fordi Stoker skrev bogens forord – du
godeste! I sit forord skriver Stoker, at historien var 100% sandfærdig (hvilket
han ikke fortæller sine engelsktalende læsere!!!). Måske mener han, at islændingene
er mere godtroende end englænderne
Makt
Myrkranna
Asmundsson udgav sin version oprindeligt i det islandske tidsskrift, han
var redaktør for, nemlig Fjallkona (Bjergkone). Han forandrer historien og gør
den frækkere og mere erotisk – i stedet for Stokers tre kvindelige vampyrer, for
eksempel, skaber Asmundsson bare én kvindelig vampyr, en sexet blondine, der
prøver at lokke helten Harker med i seng. Asmundsson skaber også en stamme af
abemænd, der har for vane at ofre unge kvinder. Sikke et vanvid!
Asmundsson indeholder også mange kommentarer på sociale spørgsmål i bogen,
og diskuterer for eksempel politikken, anarkismen, nihilismen, også den
såkaldte fri kærlighed. Sikke en mærkelig blanding!!!
“Makt Miranna” er lige blevet oversat til engelsk, og er lige kommet ud. DU
godeste, sikke en skør verden vi lever i !!!!
21:00 Jeg sætter mig foran computeren og udarbejder en kort ungarsk
ordforrådtest, 50 engelske ord, som jeg vil have min ven, ”Magyar” Mike, til at
oversætter til engelsk, når vi i morgen mødes for at lære ungarsk sammen.
22:00 Vi går i seng – zzzzz!!!!
04:00 Jeg står tidligt op og laver én af mine rutinemæssige danske
ordforrådtest.
07:45 Jeg skynder mig ind i køkkenet og laver to kopper te. Jeg tager dem
med op i soveværelset og kryber tilbage i sengen til Lois. Vi drikker teen og
går i bad. Vi står op og spiser morgenmad.
10:00 Min ven, ”Magyar” Mike kommer, og vi lærer ungarsk i en time. Vi
koncentrerer os om at læse den 6. lektion i vores ”nye” lærebog, faktisk en
gammeldags lærebog, der blev skrevet i 1960’erne, med andre ord under den
kommunistiske æra. Bogens forklaring af grammatiske interessepunkter er
udmærket, men de ungarske samtaler udspiller sig i en verden, der en helt
anderledes, end nutidens. Lektion 6 sætter fokus på indkøb og vi ser en mand og
en kvinde gå ind i et stormagasin.
Som man ville forvente, er systemet i det ungarske stormagasinet meget
bureaukratisk og gammeldags. Ekspeditricen giver én en skriftlig regning, som
man må tage med til kassen osv. Manden og kvinden har begge to en underlig
indkøbsliste: brune sko, 2 par sokker, 1 par strømper, 3m fint stoff, en
skjorte, 6 lommetørklæder, 1 grå frakke, 1 par shorts, 1 par varme handsker,
stilebøger, 1 hård blyant, 1 blødt viskelæder, legetøj (1 miniature tog, 1
gyngehest), 2 kilo sure æbler, 1 kilo druer og nogle "fine" pærer, 1
salat, kød, mælk, smør, honning, 0,5 kilo kalvekød, 1 kilo svinkød, og 30
dekagram bøf. Og manden og kvinden har kun 1 indkøbspose for at tage varerne
med hjem i – du godeste, verden var meget simplere dengang – ingen tvivl om
det!!!!
Mens Mike og jeg læser vores lærebog, skal Lois til af sted. Hun kører over
til sin veninde, Maggies hus. Maggie har solgt sit hus og forbereder sig på at
flytte ind til et plejehjem i Birmingham-distriktet. Hun har noget
køkkenudstyr, hun ønsker vise Lois, for det tilfælde af, at Lois gerne vil tage
dem med hjem.
11:00 Mike skal af sted. Han møder sin ven, Dave, midt i byen for at spise
frokost på museets café.
12:00 Lois kommer tilbage igen. Hun har taget en masse varer med, som vi skal
bruge, eller tage med til en velgørende organisations butik eller et
genbrugscenter – uha, ingen fred for de ugudelige!
13:30 Vi spiser frokost og bagefter går jeg i seng og tager mig en
gigantisk eftermiddagslur.
15:00 Jeg står op. Jeg blader de næste 8-9 sider af vores danske
kriminovelle, et uddrag fra ”Forbandet” af Gittemie Eriksen, fordi vores danske
gruppes næste møde finder sted hos os på torsdag.
Gittemie
Efter 17 sider er ligtallet i novellen stadig 3 – det er ikke steget eller faldet siden
den 2. side – det er på tide, vi får endnu mindst ét dødsfald, Gittemie. Lad os
ikke vente!!!
16:00 Lois og jeg slapper af med en kop te i sofaen.
English translation
17:30 I jump up on my exercise bike and clock up another 6 miles (10km). I
turn on my smartphone and watch 1987's 100 best songs while cycling. I
think I recognize some 30% of the songs - of course the songs have been chosen
by someone I do not know and I don't know where he / she comes from, either!
1987 was another busy year for
us. For example, in the spring I was on a business trip to the United States,
and I visited my sister, Kathy, and her husband, Steve. I saw a baseball game
for the first (and last) time in my life - in Baltimore, which was a very memorable
experience. In July there was a huge family gathering in Loughborough, which all
descendants of my grandparents were invited to.
my brother-in-law, Steve, along with my
sister Kathy
in the spring of 1987 in Washington DC
I saw (using sunglasses) a baseball game,
for the first time in my life
(and last time!), a very memorable
experience
Our youngest daughter, Sarah, celebrated her
10th birthday in June -
What a lovely age to be!
Flashback to July 1987 - a large family
gathering,
which all descendants of my grandparents were
invited to - my god!
If only my grandparents had still been alive
and been able to see them all !!!
4 featured older participants:
(from left to right) Lois, my father, me, my
mother
2 featured younger participants:
Alison (11 years old) and Sarah (10 years)
Looking back to December 1987 -
my little team holds its Christmas lunch. I
sit farthest from the camera
along with Yvonne, my deputy
18:00 We have dinner and then we
talk a little on Skype with Alison, our daughter who lives in Copenhagen, along
with Ed, her husband and their three children, Josie, Rosalind and Isaac.
It is a lot of fun to talk to her
about the family's skiing holiday in Norway that ended yesterday when they
drove back to Copenhagen. The three children's school starts again tomorrow,
after the annual winter break. They have spent the day clearing up in the
house, and preparing for the coming week. They have discovered there is a mouse
that now and then comes into the basement, so they have had to prepare and put
down mouse-traps on the floor, etc. - my god, how annoying !!!
It's a bit of a shame that the
family did not take their cat, Minx, with them when they moved to Denmark in
2012. They believed then that they would not be allowed to own a cat in the
house they were renting in Copenhagen, but actually this was a bit of a
misunderstanding - oh dear! They left Minx with us instead - my god!
The family's new au pair (a
Filipino again) arrives later in the week.
20:00 We spend the rest of the
evening listening to radio and watching a little television. We hear an interesting
radio program, "Open Book", which is about books that have just come
out, and related topics. The program's host is the charming Alex Clark.
Alex Clark
We hear a conversation with the
Danish author Dorthe Nors, whose book, "Mirror, Shoulder, Signal” has just
come out in English. The novel's main character, Sonja, is a 40-something woman
who grew up in the countryside of Jutland, but who now lives in Copenhagen. She
is a bit of a loner who misses the silence and solitude of the village and the
farm where she was a child. She is learning to drive at the moment, which is a
bit of a metaphor for getting greater control of her life - my god, someone
else like me who is not in control !!!
Dorthe Nors
Dorthe knows many Jutes who had
to leave Jutland to study for professional jobs, and who miss home towns that
no longer exist - oh dear! Also she knows many artists and writers who yearn
for solitude and silence, so they can feel truly free - my god, I can relate to
that!!!
Dorthe studied Swedish at
university and she tries to mix the Danish and Swedish traditions. She says
that Swedes are bolder, and have the courage to look at life's darker and
emptier side, like Ingmar Bergman in his darker film. They are not afraid of
Existentialism - oh dear!
The Danes are by contrast more
playful and ironic, she says. And they are very fond of "hygge" of
course! She says that the Danish language is more minimalist than the Swedish -
Danish, she calls a 'lego-language ". My God!
We hear another interesting
conversation, this time with an Icelandic writer, "Sjón" which is
about a special Icelandic version of Bram Stoker's "Dracula", a book
that first came out in 1897 and has never been out of print.
Sjón
Sjón tells us about the 1901
Icelandic version of Stoker's novel, "Makt myrkranna" meaning the
Powers of Darkness. Valdemar Asmundsson was the husband of a famous Icelandic
feminist, and wrote his own version of the novel, apparently with Stoker's
consent because Stoker wrote the foreword - my god! In his preface Stoker
writes that the story was 100% truthful (which he does not tell his
English-speaking readers !!!). Perhaps he thinks the Icelanders are more
gullible than the English!!
makt Myrkranna
Asmundsson published his version
originally in the Icelandic magazine he was editor of, namely Fjallkona (The
Mountain Wife). He changes the story and make it saucier and more erotic -
instead of Stoker's three female vampires, for example, Asmundsson creates just
one female vampire, a sexy blonde who tries to lure the hero Harker into her bed.
Asmundsson also creates a race of ape-men who have the habit of sacrificing
young women. What madness!
Asmundsson also includes many
comments on social issues in the book, and discusses for example politics,
anarchism, nihilism, also so-called free love. What a strange mix !!!
"Makt Myrkranna" has been
translated into English, and this has just been published. My god, what a crazy
world we live in !!!!
21:00 I sit at the computer and
draw up a short Hungarian vocabulary test, 50 English words that I want my
friend, "Magyar" Mike, to translate into English, when we meet
tomorrow to learn Hungarian together.
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzz !!!!
04:00 I get up early and do one
of my routine Danish vocabulary tests.
07:45 I hurry into the kitchen
and make two cups of tea. I take them up to the bedroom and crawl back into bed
with Lois. We drink the tea and take a shower. We get up and eat breakfast.
10:00 My friend,
"Magyar" Mike comes and we learn Hungarian for an hour. We
concentrate on reading the sixth lesson in our "new" textbook,
actually an old textbook that was written in the 1960s, in other words, during
the communist era. The book's explanations of grammatical points is excellent,
but the Hungarian conversations play out in a world that is quite different
than today's. Lesson 6 focuses on shopping and we see a man and a woman walk
into a department store.
As one would expect, the system
in the Hungarian department store is very bureaucratic and old-fashioned. The
assistant gives you a written bill, which must be taken in to the cash-desk and
so on. The man and woman both have a weird shopping list: brown shoes, 2 pairs
of socks, 1 pair of socks, 3m fine cloth, a shirt, 6 handkerchiefs, 1 gray coat
, 1 pair of shorts, 1 pair of warm gloves, exercise books, 1 hard pencil, 1
eraser, toys (1 miniature train, 1 rocking horse), 2 kg sour apples, 1 kilo of
grapes and some "fine" pears, 1 lettuce, meat, milk, butter, honey, 0.5
kg veal, 1 kg pork and 30 decagrams of beef. And the man and the woman have
only one shopping bag to take the goods home in - my god, the world was much
simpler back then - no doubt about that !!!!
While Mike and I read our
textbook, Lois has to go off. She drives over to her friend Maggie's house.
Maggie has sold her house and is preparing to move into a nursing home in
Birmingham district. She has some kitchen equipment she wants to show Lois, in
case Lois wants to take them home with her.
11:00 Mike has to go. He is
meeting his friend, Dave, in the town center and having lunch in the museum
café.
12:00 Lois comes back again. She
has brought a lot of items home with her, which we have to use, or take to a
charity shop or recycling center - oh dear, no peace for the wicked!
13:30 We eat lunch and afterwards
I go to bed and take a gigantic afternoon nap.
15:00 I get up. I flip through
the next 8-9 pages of our Danish crime fiction short story, an excerpt from
"Cursed" by Gittemie Eriksen, because our Danish group's next meeting
is taking place here on Thursday.
Gittemie Eriksen
After 17 pages the body count in the story is still 3 - it
has not increased or decreased since the second page - it is time we got at
least one more death, Gittemie. Don't make us wait !!!
16:00 Lois and I relax with a cup
of tea on the sofa.
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