Danskcolin: Tirsdag den 31. oktober 2017

Det var for nøjagtig 5 år siden, den 31. oktober 2012, at vores kære, dengang 37-årige datter Alison flyttede fra England til Danmark, sammen med Ed, sin mand, og deres 3 små børn, Josie (dengang 6 år), Rosalind (4) og Isaac (2), på grund af Eds kommende ”2-3 års” udstationering i København. I øjeblikket vil Eds selskab næste påske erklære udstationeringen for gjort.

Vigtige år i sær i børnenes liv, en oplevelse de aldrig vil glemmer. Josie er nu 11 år gammel, og på randen af teenagedommen – yikes!

Mange ting er ændret siden de flyttede til Danmark. Lois og jeg er ældes, ingen tvivl om det. Jeg havde i 2012 stadig 3 søskende, og to af de tre er desværre nu døde – yikes (igen) !!!!!

Vi fik 2 ekstra børnebørn i juli 2013, da vores anden datter, Sarah, fødte tvillingerne, som vi passede på to dage om ugen, og som vi lærte så meget meget godt at kende, før familien for 2 år siden flyttede til Australien – hulk, hulk!!!!

10:00 Min ven, ”Magyar” Mike kommer, og vi studerer ungarsk i en time. Vi snakker lidt om Mikes nabo, Peter, der i ca 9 måneder forsvandt uden spor, og så pludselig dukkede op for et par dage siden for at hente 9 mdrs breve, som Mike havde samlet i en stor pose i Peters forveranda. Men han hverken kontaktede Mike under sin lynbesøg, eller takkede ham for at samle hans post. Og Mike har hørt ikke noget siden da. Du godeste – sådan en utaknemmelighed!

Mike og mig griner meget af vores nye franske-ungarske lærebog, og vi venter hver uge med tilbageholdt åndedræt på, at se om fru Kiss har fåt en ny elsker igen, og vi bliver ikke skuffet.

tilbageblik til den 24. oktober –

sidste uges nyhed om fru Kiss og hendes kærlighedsliv

Fru Kiss – endnu en uge, endnu en ny elsker –

du godeste, sikke et vanvid!!!!

Vi har tendens til at fantasere lidt om Fru Kiss, og vi formoder, hun må være ganske nydelig. Hun har ikke svært ved at få sig nye mænd – det har vi ikke nogen tvivl om !!!! Hendes hår er som regel lidt uordentligt – hun ser ud som om hun er blevet trukket baglæns gennem en busk, som vi siger i England, og i hendes tilfælde er dette måske den sande forklaring.

Fru Kiss siger ”jeg elsker dig” til endnu en elsker

i denne uges lektion. Du godeste, sikke en kvinde!!!!

Hr Kiss er ikke dukket op i historien endnu. Mike og jeg er derfor lidt usikre på, om han er klar over, hans kones rige og varierede kærlighedsliv, eller ej. Det er juryen stadig ude om.

11:00 Mike skal af sted.

I mellemtiden går Lois hen ind til landsbyen for at afsende to ”Peter Rabbit” børnemagasiner til Lily og Jessie, vores 4-årige børnebørn i Australien. På vej smutter hun ind i nærbutikken for at købe ca. 10 chokoladebarer, for det tilfælde, vi får nogle ”ballade eller slik” besøgende, selvom faktum er, at vi ikke har fået sådanne besøg i næsten 10 år.

I aften er det Halloween, men i mange år har ingen børn ringet på vores dørklokke. Vi tror, at det er fordi Lois og jeg strengt taget ikke bor i et villakvarter. Vi bor på én af de større veje, der fører ind i byen. Efter vores mening foretrækker nutidens børn at besøge så hurtigt som muligt en masse huse, der ligger i nærheden af deres egne huse på gader og veje, hvor der ikke er en del trafik.

Selvfølgelig er det rart at have et lille lager af chokoladebarrer for det tilfælde af, at vi bliver desperate og har brug for lidt følelsesmæssig støtte, ærligt talt, og derfor foreslog jeg til Lois at købe dem. Faktum er, at Lois og jeg begge to har mistet kontrol over vores vægt igen, og vi begge har taget ca. 7 pund på, hvilket vi opdagede i morges, da vi vejede os i badeværelset for første gang i flere måneder.

Jeg er blevet overbevist, at at veje sig hver dag er en af nøglerne til at spise sundt og tabe vægt. Hvis man ikke vejer sig konstant, bliver man frist at mene, at man kan slippe af sted med at spise noget usundt eller at tilbringe en stillesiddende dag foran computeren uden langvarige effekter. Yikes, livet er hårdt nogle gange!!!

13:00 Frokost og bagefter går jeg i seng for at tage en gigantisk eftermiddagslur, mens Lois går i gang med at lave borsjtj for første gang med vores hjemmedyrkede rødbeder og kæmpegulerødder.

Lois fremviser en af vores kæmpegulerødder

16:00 Vi slapper af med en kop te i sofaen. Lois ringer til sin veninde, den der overtalte sin søn, som bor sammen med hende, mod hans vilje til at sove på gaden i går aftes, så han kunne blive kvalificeret til at modtage en kommuneejet bolig.

Hun fortalte Lois forleden, at hun var godt træt af, at hendes søn bor i hendes hus, uden at prøve at få et job på grund af mildt psykiske problemer og mangel på selvtillid. Dette er hendes version af ”hård kærlighed”, siger hun.

Lois ringer til hende for at spørge, hvordan det i går aftes gik med hendes søn. Vi har været lidt bekymrede for, at nætterne for tiden er ganske kolde. Tilsyneladende har Lois’s veninde måttet at udskyde sin søns projekt ”sove på gaden” i et par dage, fordi hendes søn er pludselig blevet meget forkølet. Sønnen 1, moren 0 – resultat! Bolden er i nettet!

17:00 Jeg kigger lidt på nettet og jeg ser nogle charmerende billeder af vores 3 børnebørn i København, i deres Halloween-kostumer, med græskar på stentrinene foran huset.

Ed, vores svigersøn, og vores børnebørn i Gentofte, København

i deres Halloween-kostumer: (børnene fra venstre til højre) Rosalind, Isaac og Josie.

en af familiens to for nylig adopterede killinger

smager på en portion græskar på køkkenbordet

Græskarene på stentrinene foran huset.

18:00 Vi spiser aftensmad og ser lidt fjernsyn. De viser en interessant dokumentarfilm, der handler om rollen spillet af algoritmer i det moderne liv. Vi har glædet os til at se den på trods af, at vi er godt trætte af at se ordet ”hemmelig” i programtitlerne – du godeste, sikke et vanvid!!!! Programmets vært er den charmerende Oxford matematiker, Marcus du Sautoy.

AlgorithmListing

Siden 1930'erne har matematikere verden over beskæftiget sig med problemet, der kaldes "Den rejsende sælger", som jeg også har læst om i en artikel i Jyllands-Posten.

Kort fortalt går problemstillingen ud på, at en sælger skal besøge så mange kunder som muligt på en rejse, men optimeret over hvilke kunder, der giver mest udbytte.

En gruppe forskere ved British Ecological Society’s Functional Ecology har studeret humlebiers rejse fra blomst til blomst, og det viser sig, at humlebier automatisk følger en rute, der ellers kræves en computer for at udregne.

Forskerne plantede i et rektangulært pentagrammønster fem blomster med forskelligt nektarindhold, og det viste sig, at bierne efter et par gennemflyvninger optimerede rejsen således, at ruten afhang af hvor stort udbytte og hvor lang rejse, der var mellem de forskellige blomster.

Når blomsterne indeholdt den samme mængde nektar, lærte bierne at flyve den korteste rute, men hvis forskerne forhøjede mængden af nektar i en af blomsterne, så tvang de bierne til at vælge den korteste rute eller besøge blomsten med mest nektar først.

Det viste sig, at bierne kun besøgte højnektarblomsten, hvis belønningen var større end den distance, som bien måtte flyve for at komme frem. Hvis belønningen ikke var stor nok, så valgte bien den korteste distance - ganske som den rejsende sælger.

Computere løser problemet ved at sammenligne længden af mulige ruter og derved vælge den korteste, men bier løser problemet uden computerbistand med en hjerne på størrelse med et græsfrø.

Du godeste, sikke en skør verden vi lever i !!!!

Men da Lois og jeg ser programmets rekonstruktion af det oprindelige eksperiment har vi bare meget ondt af den stakkels bi, der skal bære en mini-antenne med, mens han passer sit ”arbejde”.

den stakkels bi skal bære en irriterende mini-antenna

på ryggen, mens han klarer sit arbejde – stakkels bi !!!!

Vi er så blødsødne ha ha ha!

22:00 Vi går i seng – zzzzz!!!!

English translation

It was exactly 5 years ago, 31 October 2012, that our beloved, (then) 37-year-old daughter Alison moved from England to Denmark, together with Ed, her husband, and their 3 little children, Josie (then 6 years), Rosalind (4) and Isaac (2), because of Ed's "2-3 year" posting in Copenhagen. At the moment it seems likely that Ed's company are probably going to declare the posting over next Easter.

Important years in particular in the children's lives, an experience they will never forget. Josie is now 11 years old and on the verge of teenagedom - yikes!

Many things have changed since they moved to Denmark. Lois and I have aged, no doubt about that. I still had 3 siblings in 2012, and two of the three are sadly now dead - yikes (again) !!!!!

We got 2 extra grandchildren in July 2013 when our other daughter, Sarah, gave birth to the twins, whom we looked after for two days a week, and whom we got to know so very very well before the family moved to Australia 2 years ago - sob, sob !!!!

10:00 My friend, "Magyar" Mike comes and we study Hungarian for an hour. We talk a little about Mike's neighbor, Peter, who disappeared without a trace for about 9 months and suddenly appeared a couple of days ago to pick up 9-months’ worth of letters that Mike had collected in a big bag in Peter's front porch. But he neither contacted Mike during his lightning visit, nor thanked him for collecting his post. And Mike has heard nothing since. Good grief - such ingratitude!

Mike and I laugh a lot over our new French-Hungarian textbook and every week we wait with bated breath to see if Mrs Kiss has a new lover again and we are not disappointed.

Flashback to October 24th -

last week's news about Mrs Kiss and her love life

Mrs. Kiss - Another week, another lover -

my god, what madness !!!!

We tend to fantasize a little about Mrs. Kiss, and we suppose she must be fairly attractive. She has no trouble getting new men - we have no doubts on that score !!!! Her hair is usually a bit of a mess - she looks like she has been dragged through a hedge backwards, as we say in England, and in her case this may be the true explanation.

Mrs. Kiss says "I love you" to another lover

in this week's lesson. My god, what a woman !!!!

Mr. Kiss has not appeared in the story yet. Mike and I are therefore a bit unsure about whether he is aware of his wife's rich and varied love life, or not. The jury is still out on that one.

11:00 Mike has to leave.

Meanwhile, Lois goes to the village to post off two "Peter Rabbit" children's magazines to Lily and Jessie, our 4-year-old grandchildren in Australia. On the way she pops into the convenience store to buy approx. 10 chocolate bars, in case we get some "trick or treat" visitors, even though the fact is that we have not received any such visits for almost 10 years.

Tonight is Halloween, but for many years no children have rung our doorbell. We think it's because Lois and I strictly speaking do not live on a residential estate. We live on one of the major roads leading into town. We think that today's children prefer to make a lot of quick visits to a lot of houses near their own homes, on streets and roads where there isn’t much traffic.

Of course, it's nice to have a little stash of chocolate bars in case we become desperate and need some emotional support, to be honest, and that's why I suggested to Lois that she buy them. The fact is that Lois and I have both lost control of our weight again and we have both put on about 7 pounds, as we discovered this morning when we weighed ourselves in the bathroom for the first time for several months.

I have become convinced that weighing oneself every day is one of the keys to eating healthily and losing weight. If you do not weigh yourself constantly, you will be tempted to think you can get away with eating something unhealthy or spending a sedentary day in front of the computer without long-term effects. Yikes, life is hard sometimes !!!

13:00 Lunch and afterwards I go to bed to take a gigantic afternoon nap while Lois is making borscht for the first time with our homemade beetroot and giant carrots.

Lois showcases one of our giant carrots

16:00 We relax with a cup of tea on the sofa. Lois calls her friend, the one who persuaded her son, who lives with her, against his will to sleep on the street last night, so he could become qualified to receive council accommodation.

She told Lois the other day that she was tired of her son living in her house and not trying to get a job, due to mild psychological problems and lack of self-esteem. This is her version of "tough love," she says.

Lois calls her today to ask how it went with her son last night. We were a bit worried about the fact that the nights are currently fairly cold. Apparently, Lois's friend had to postpone her son’s “project sleep-on-the-street” for a few days because her son has suddenly come down with a bad cold. Son 1, mother 0. Result! Back of the net!

17:00 I take a little look online and I see some charming pictures of our 3 grandchildren in Copenhagen, in their Halloween costumes, with pumpkins on the stone steps in front of the house.

Ed, our son-in-law, and our grandchildren in Gentofte, Copenhagen

in their Halloween costumes: (the children from left to right) Rosalind, Isaac and Josie.

one of the family's two recently adopted kittens

samples a serving of pumpkins on the kitchen table

Pumpkins on the stone steps in front of the house.

18:00 We have dinner and watch a bit of television. An interesting documentary is on, all about the role played by algorithms in modern life. We have been looking forward to seeing it, despite the fact that we are heartily sick of seeing the word "secret" in program titles - my god, what madness !!!!

Since the 1930s, mathematicians around the world have been working on the problem called "The Travelling Salesman Problem", which I have also read about in an article in the Jyllands Post.

Briefly the problem arises from the fact that a salesman has to visit as many customers as possible, on a journey to be optimized around which customers make him the most profit.

A group of researchers at the British Ecological Society's Functional Ecology Dept have studied honey bees' travel from flower to flower, and it appears that they automatically follow a route that would require a computer to calculate.

The researchers planted, in a rectangular pentagram pattern, five flowers with different nectar contents, and it turned out that after a few flights, the bees optimized the journey so that the route was dependent on the yield and on the length of travel between the different flowers.

When the flowers contained the same amount of nectar, the bees learned to fly the shortest route, but if researchers increased the amount of nectar in one of the flowers, they forced the bees to choose either to take the shortest route or to visit the flower with the most nectar first.

It turned out that the bees only visited the high nectar flower if the reward was greater than the distance the bee had to fly to arrive. If the reward was not big enough, the bees chose the shortest distance - just like the travelling salesman.

Computers solve the problem by comparing the length of possible routes and thereby selecting the shortest, but bees solve the problem without computer assistance with a brain the size of a grass seed.

My god, what a crazy world we live in !!!!

But when Lois and I see the program's reconstruction of the original experiment, we just feel very sorry for the poor bee who has to carry a mini-antenna while going about his "work".