Mandag den 25. september 2017

10:00 Sarah, vores datter i Australien, der har to 4-årige tvillinger, siger at børnetøj derover er megt dyrt, så derfor kører Lois og jeg i formiddagen over til det store Sainsburys-supermarked for at købe et udvalg af børnetøj vi kan afsende til hende. Mens Lois kigger rundt omkring i børnetøjafdelingen, hvor de har et udsalg og alt er til ¾ pris, går jeg i gang med at købe nogle ting i de almindelige midtergange.

Jeg køber for første gang biologiske æg – Lois læste i fredagens ”The Week”, at de såkaldte ”biologiske” hønse har meget mere frihed til at vandre rundt i det fri, end de såkaldte ”fritgående” hønse. Hvis jeg var en hønsefugl, ville jeg hellere blive i laden, hvor det er varmt, selvom nærværelsen af de andre hønse må være lidt irriterende – det må jeg nok sige.

Vi er trætte. Lois føler sig stadig lidt skidt tilpas efter sin nylige øjenoperation. Jeg er forkølet – jeg har ondt i halsen. Jeg lider lidt også af konjunktivitis – pokkers!

Vi smutter ind i supermarkedets café, drikker en kop kaffe og spiser et stykke kage. Vi kører hjem.

Børnetøjet, Lois køber, koster over 100£ - du godeste! Hun er så varmhjertet.  Jeg håber bare, at Francis, vores svigersøn, ikke smider alle de kjoler, toppe osv væk på grund af, de ”ikke er seje nok” – yikes!

Den børnetøjet, Lois køber til Sarah, vores datter i Australien,

koster vel over 100£ - du godeste, hun er så varmhjertet!

13:00 Lois har indvilliget i at lave mad i dag, på grund af min forkølelse. Efter frokosten går jeg i seng for at tage mig en gigantisk eftermiddagslur.

15:30 Jeg står op. Jeg kigger lidt på nettet, og jeg finder Morten Ingemanns seneste tegneseriestribe. Du godeste! Jeg får lidt af et chok.

Danske Ingemann er min yndlingstegner  – ingen tvivl om det! Han interesserer sig meget for grimme, overvægtige, midaldrende eller ældre folk, de slags mennesker, som de fleste tegnere sjældent giver opmærksomhed til.

Danske Morten Ingemann, min yndlingstegner.

Han forstå virkelig dilemmaerne af de midaldrende

Det er desværre en kendsgerning i livet, at hvad der kurerer en smed slår en skrædder ihjel, og Ingemann har altid fingeren på pulsen, når det kommer til at forstå menneskehedens  dilemmaer.

I dag ser vi en spåkone, der taler med en kunde, en tykmavet, midaldrende mand i en dragt, der fører sig som en professionel af en eller anden art. Spåkonen tror, at hun har gode nyheder til ham. Hun fortæller ham, at  han er en heldig mand og at ingen sygdom vil krydse hans vej de næste år. Faktisk betyder hendes forudsigelse professionel katastrofe for manden – mange læsere vil allerede have gættet at manden faktisk er en lokal læge. Som selve Ingemann  har vi naturligvis desperat ondt af manden, men livet er hårdt nogle gange – det kan vi ikke nægte.

17:00 Jeg hopper op på min kondicykel og tilbagelægger endnu 6 miles (10km), med spændingkontrol skruet op til nummer 2 igen, så det føles som om, jeg cykler op ad en skrå hældning.

At cykle er meget kedeligt, så jeg tænder på min smartphone og lytter til gamle sange på YouTube, mens jeg cykler. Hver gang jeg cykler, stiller jeg året ét eller to år tilbage, og i dag lytter jeg til 1934s bedste hitsange.

Desværre har jeg ikke hørt flere af disse sange før. Sangene fra 1934 og 1935 lyder ganske intetsigende og meget mere gammeldags, end selve 1936s sange, af en eller anden grund. Jeg får det indtryk af, at 1936 var starten på den moderne æra, når det kommer til mere pulserende musik. Og jeg begynder at blive klar over den forskel Glenn Miller senere gjorde, når det kommer til at gøre populær musik mere spændende for unge mennesker.

Jeg graver mine forældres fotoalbummer frem og kigger på 1934s fotos. Min mor var 14 år og det var i dette år eller deromkring,  hendes forældre flyttede fra byen Bridgend i Syd-Wales, hvor der var en masse arbejdsløshed,  til Oxford i det sydlige England, hvor der var meget flere arbejdepladser.  Jeg er helt sikker på, at min mor dengang stadig talte med en stærk walesisk accent. Jeg ved, at hun snart fik et job som ekspeditrice i et lokalt stormagasin, Webber’s, på Højgade.

Tilbageblik til 1934: min mor på 14 år (til højre), sammen med Ruth, sin storsøster.

Sandsynligvis det første billede af min mor, der blev taget efter hendes forældre

flyttede fra Syd-Wales til byen Oxford.

Den hele venstre side af dette billede (ovenfor) er blevet revet af af en eller anden grund. Jeg er ikke helt sikker på det, men denne del af billedet viste måske min mors første kæreste, Alan, der senere droppede hende. Det ville have været helt typisk af min mor at skære ham ud ad billedet på denne måde – uha!

Min far i 1934 var dengang 20 år gammel, og studerende på Nottingham University. Jeg har et foto af hans kollegiums hockeyhold – han var holdets kaptajn.

Min far var hockeyholdets kaptajn – i dette billede er han nr 2 fra venstre

i den førreste række. Han havde dengang knaldrødt hår.

Et par år senere spillede han for grevskabet Wiltshires hockeyhold.

Min fars bedste ven, John,  er nr 1 fra højre i den førreste række. Det er lidt underligt, men begge mænd blev senere i livet rektorer på højskoler, og John var min egne rektor mellem 1960 og 1964, da jeg var elev på Bristol Grammar School.

18:00 Lois og jeg spiser aftensmad og smækker benene op foran fjernsynet. Der er en masse interessante programmer på BBC2-kanalen i aften, og vi mindes om udtrykket ”televisual feast”, fra en af vores yndlingscitationer fra den gamle sitcom Fawlty Towers. Citationen stammer  fra en dialog mellem hotellets ejer, Basil Fawlty (John Cleese), og en irriterende kunde, hr Hutchinson (Bernard Cribbins), der vil gerne booke BBC2-kanalen på hotellets lounge-tv, så han kan se en dokumentarfilm om de sortfod indianer i 1860’erne.

BBC2-kanalen tilbyder en rigtig “televisual feast” i aften (efter vores mening), men alle har deres smag, og hvad der kurerer en smed slår en skrædder ihjel, som danskerne siger.

aftenens ”televisual feast” fra BBC2-kanalen

19:30 Men vi beslutter at se først en interessant dokumentarfilm i BBC4, der handler om min yndlingsdigter, Philip Larkin, og hans interesse for fotografi.

Det er mærkeligt, men billedet af Larkin i Radio Times-tidsskriften, (se ovenfor), med sin (dengang) supermoderne  tyske kamera, giver indtryk af en meget mere dynamisk mand, end flere billeder af ham, hvor han ser meget mere akademisk ud, og meget mere reserveret og fjern ud (og lidt uhyggelig også, synes jeg). Jeg er helt sikker på, at dette image, han fremstillede af sig selv og sin kamera, var bevidst dynamik – han var meget til selfies, før de blev moderigtige, selvom han var nødt til at bruge en gammeldags selvudløser. Han ville uden tvivl have elsket de moderne selfie-stikker.

Philip Larkin, min yndlingsdigter

Det er fascinerende at se et nyligt interview med Larkins meget gamle (i 90’erne) sekretær, Betty Mackereth, i programmet. Når det kom til Larkins mest kendte elskerinder, Monica Jones og Maeve Brennan, ser vi en masse af Larkins fotoer i programmet. Maeve ser ofte lykkelig ud, men Monica smiler sjældent,  fen eller anden grund.

Monica Jones: i Larkins fotoer har hun tendens til at se usmilende og seriøs ud

Maeve Brennan: i Larkins fotoer smiler hun generelt til ham

For øvrigt er juryen er stadig ude, om hvilken af de to kvinder var hans livs kærlighed.  Det var selve Larkin ikke helt sikker på, formoder jeg ha ha ha!

20:00 Vi sætter os til rette i sofaen for  at mæske os i BBC2-kanalens ”televisual feast”, men den viser sig at være lidt skuffende efter min mening , især dokumentarfilmen, der handler om ”hemmeligheder af den menneskelige krop”. Af en eller anden grund kan jeg ikke blive meget interesseret i biologi, og beskrivelser om hormoner, væsker osv, der flyder her og der, rundt omkring i kroppen. Hvad er der galt med mig?????

22:00 Vi går i seng. Vi har besluttet at optage den morsomme "W1A"-sitkom: den må blive en anden dag – zzzzzzz!!!!

English translation

10:00 Sarah, our daughter in Australia, who has two 4-year-old twins, says that children's clothes over there are very expensive, so Lois and I drive to the big Sainsbury's supermarket in the morning to buy a range of children's clothes we can send to her. While Lois looks around in the children's clothing department, where they have a sale and everything is at ¾ price, I get going with buying a few things in the regular aisles.

For the first time I buy organic eggs - Lois read in Friday's "The Week" that the so-called "organic" hens have much more freedom to walk around in the open air than the so-called "free-range" hens. If I was a chicken, I would rather stay in the barn where it is warm, although the presence of the other hens must be a bit annoying - I will say that.

We are tired. Lois still feels a bit under par after her recent eye surgery. I have a cold - I have a sore throat. I am also suffering from pink eye - damn!

We pop into the supermarket cafe, have a cup of coffee and a piece of cake. We drive home.

The children's clothing Lois buys costs well over £100 - good grief! She is so warmhearted. I just hope that Francis, our son-in-law, does not throw all the dresses and tops etc away because they are "not cool enough" - yikes!

the children’s clothes Lois buys for Sarah, our daughter in Australia,

cost well over £100 – good grief, she is so warm-hearted!

13:00 Lois has agreed to cook today, because of my cold. After lunch I go to bed and take a gigantic afternoon nap.

15:30 I get up. I take a little look online, and I find Morten Ingemann's latest cartoon strip. My goodness, I get a bit of a shock. Ingemann the Dane is my favorite cartoonist - no doubt about that! He is keenly interested in ugly, overweight, middle aged or older people, the kind of people rarely given attention by most cartoonists.

Unfortunately, it is a fact of life that one man's meat is another man's poison (what cures a smith kills a tailor, as the Danes say), and Ingemann always has his finger on the pulse when it comes to understanding humanity's dilemmas.

Morten Ingemann, the Dane, is my favourite cartoonist.

He really understands the dilemmas of the middle-aged

Today we see a fortune-teller talking to a customer, a paunchy, middle aged man in a suit with the bearing of a professional man of some kind. The fortune-teller thinks she has good news for him. She tells him he is a lucky man and that no illness will cross his path for the next few years. In fact, her prediction means professional disaster for the man - many readers will already have guessed that the man is actually a local doctor. Of course, like Ingemann himself we feel desperately sorry for the man, but life is hard sometimes - that's something we cannot deny.

17:00 I hop up on my exercise bike and clock up another 6 miles (10km), with tension control screwed up to number 2 again, so it feels like I'm cycling up a gentle slope.

Cycling is very boring, so I turn on my smartphone and listen to old songs on YouTube while I cycle. Every time I cycle, I set the year one or two years back, and today I listen to 1934's best hit songs.

Unfortunately, several of these songs I have not heard before. The songs from 1934 and 1935 sound quite bland and much more old-fashioned than the songs from 1936, for some reason. I get the impression that 1936 was the start of the modern era when it comes to more vibrant music. And I'm getting to realise the difference that Glenn Miller made later when it came to making popular music more exciting for young people.

1934's chart

I dig out my parents' photo albums and look at 1934's photos. My mother was 14 years old and it was this year or thereabouts that her parents moved from the town of Bridgend in South Wales, where there was a lot of unemployment, to Oxford in southern England, where there were a lot more workplaces. I am absolutely sure that my mother was still speaking with a strong Welsh accent at that time. I know she soon got a job as a shop assistant at a local department store, Webber's, on the High Street.

Flashback to 1934: My mother aged 14 (right), along with Ruth, her big sister.

Probably the first picture of my mother taken after her parents

moved from South Wales to the city of Oxford.

The whole left side of this picture (above) has been torn out for some reason. I'm not quite sure, but this part of the picture might show my mother's first boyfriend, Alan, who later dumped her. It would have been quite typical of my mother to cut him out of the picture in this way - oh dear!

My father in 1934 was 20 years old, and a student at Nottingham University. I have a photo of his college's hockey team - he was the team's captain.

My father was the captain of the hockey team - in this picture he is No. 2 from the left

in the front row. At that time he had bright red hair.

A couple of years later he was playing for the Wiltshire county hockey team.

My father's best friend, John, is No. 1 from the right in the front row. It's a little weird, but both men became headmasters at high schools later in life and John was my own headmaster between 1960 and 1964 when I was a student at Bristol Grammar School.

18:00 Lois and I have dinner and stick our feet up in front of the television. There are a lot of interesting programs on the BBC2 channel this evening and we remember the expression "televisual feast" from one of our favourite quotations from the old sitcom Fawlty Towers. The quotation comes from a dialogue between the hotel owner, Basil Fawlty (John Cleese) and an annoying customer, Mr. Hutchinson (Bernard Cribbins), who wants to book the BBC2 channel on the hotel's lounge TV so he can watch a documentary about the blackfoot Indians in the 1860s.

The BBC2 channel offers a real "televisual feast" tonight (in our opinion), but each to their own taste and what cures a smith kills a tailor as the Danes say.

tonight's "televisual feast" from the BBC2 channel

19:30 But we decide to see first an interesting documentary on BBC4, about my favourite poet, Philip Larkin, and his interest in photography.

It is strange, but the picture of Larkin in the Radio Times magazine, (see above), with his (then) super modern German camera, gives the impression of a much more dynamic man than several pictures of him where he looks much more academic and much more reserved and distant (and a little creepy too, I think). I am absolutely sure that this image that he produced of himself and his camera was deliberately dynamic - he was very into selfies before they became fashionable, although he had to use an old-fashioned timer device. He would undoubtedly have loved the modern selfie sticks.

Philip Larkin, my favourite poet

It's fascinating to see a recent interview with Larkin's very old (in her 90's) secretary, Betty Mackereth, in the programme. When it came to Larkin's most famous mistresses, Monica Jones and Maeve Brennan, we see a lot of Larkin's photos in the programme. Maeve often looks happy, but Monica seldom smiles for some reason.

Monica Jones: In Larkin's photos, she tends to look unsmiling and serious

Maeve Brennan: In Larkin's photos she is generally smiling at him

By the way, the jury is still out on which of the two women was the love of his life. Something Larkin himself was not quite sure about, I imagine ha ha ha!

20:00 We settle down on the sofa to gorge on the BBC2 channel's televisual feast, but it turns out to be a bit disappointing in my opinion, especially the documentary about "secrets of the human body." For some reason, I cannot get very interested in biology, and descriptions of hormones, fluids etc flowing here and there all around the body. What is wrong with me?????

22:00 We go to bed. We have decided to record the amusing  "W1A" sitcom: that will have to wait for another day - zzzzzzz !!!!