09:00 Lois og jeg står op. Jeg sætter mig foran min computer og kigger lidt
på nettet. 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 især for grimme, overvægtige,
midaldrende eller ældre folk, de slags mennesker, som de fleste tegnere
sjældent giver opmærksomhed til.
Danske Morten Ingemann, min yndlingstegner.
Ingemann er en
af mine vigtiste kilder, når det kommer til at forstå det danske samfund.
Danskerne er meget mere interesserede i design, end vi briter – deres huse er
fulde af smagfulde møbler, tapeter, gardiner, ornamenter osv.
I det danske
samfund, er indretningsarkitekter og lignende specialister lidt som guder, men
de er helt travlte – de er meget efterspurgte, men denne popularitet kommer
ofte med stor bekostning, og sådanne specialister viser typisk en bred vifte af
helbredsproblemer.
Snarere end at
kigge på alle sådanne specialister har Ingemann tendens til at fokusere på
problemerne af gardinsælgere og gardinmontøre,
der således kommer til at repræsentere alle indretningsarkitekter, hvilket er
fair nok.
I dagens tegnestribe ser vi
tre midaldrende gardinsælgere, der slapper af i en stue og klager over deres
helbredsproblemer. De minder mig lidt om boksere, gamle før deres tid. Den
første siger, at han er begyndt af mærke alderen – han ser så utrolig dårligt.
For den andens vedkommende er det hørelse, der er tosset. Den tredje siger, han
tog fat i konen og lagde hende på sengen, så de kunne elske.... så sagde konen,
at det kun var en halv time siden sidst – med andre ord, med ham var det hukommelsen, der var problemet.
Det har den tredje ret i,
synes jeg – det er mangel på hukommelse, at ældre mennesker frygter mest. Lois
og jeg tester hinanden meget ofte, med udfordrende trivia spørgsmål for
eksempel om berømtheders navne – eller detaljer fra vores favoritte tv-shows.
11:00 Lois og jeg sætter os
i sofaen med en kop kaffe. Men jeg er rastløs – den tredje gardinsælgers
hukommelse-problem går mig på nerverne. Jeg stiller Lois et trivia-spørgsmålet
om Big Bang Theory: hvilke slags teater laver Penny sin præstation af
teaterstykket ”Anne Frank” på? Men Lois husker ikke, hvilket er lidt bekymrende,
det må jeg nok sige.
Svaret er som følger: hun
laver sin præstation på et rum over en bowlingbane. Penny havde 99 billetter
til showet, og i telefon til en veninde, tilbyder hende en billet, og spørger
hende, om hun kender endnu 98 andre mennesker. Teaterstykkets instruktør ønsker
at bruge lydene fra bowlingbane for at repræsentere den tyske artilleri.
Big Bang Theory:
Pennys præstationer som Anne Frank blev lavet
på et rum over en
bowlingbane: lydene fra bowlingbanen blev udnyttet
for at repræsentere
tysk artilleri
Lois og jeg boede i USA
mellem 1982 og 1985, og vi bemærkede, at hver amerikansk by har mange mange
bowlingbaner, og det er en del af samfundets struktur, også larmen, der hører
sammen med dem. Jeg mindes, at Woody Allens forældre boede i en lejlighed over
en bowlingbane, men det var berømt symptomatisk af tilstanden af hans forældres
ægteskab, at det var bowlingbanen, der klagede over larmen.
Woody Allen i "cirklen"
Steve, min amerikanske
svigerbror sendte mig en email for et par dage siden – han og hans bror havde
planlagt en aften på en bowlingbane, men da de ankom til stedet, fandt de ud
af, at bowlingbanens computere havde fucket op, og hele aftenens aktiviteter var
blevet aflyst. Sikke et vanvidt! Man kan ikke gøre noget nu til dags uden
computere!
12:00 Vi
spiser frokost, og Lois og jeg fortsætter med at teste hinanden med
triviaspørgsmål og andre almindelige hukommelsestester. Lois siger, hun
allerede har planlagt aftensmaden, en af vores livretter, der er baseret på
røget kuller og hakket kogt æg med ris, men hverken jeg eller hun kan huske rettens
navn. Senere mindes vi, at retten faktisk hedder kedgeree – du godeste, vi
mærker alderen i dag, ingen tvivl om det!!
Jeg går i seng
for at tage mig en kort eftermiddagslur. Jeg står op kl 13:15 fordi Lyndas U3A
”Making of English” gruppe holder sin månedlige møde i dag i byens
Everyman-teater. Jeg kører ind i byen og parkerer bilen i
Portlandgade-parkeringspladsen. Jeg betaler med smartphone, så jeg kan føle mig
som en moderne person – hurra! I mellemtiden går Lois hen til det lokale
bibliotek for at hjælpe bibliotekets
personale med at organisere og lede eftermiddagens ugentlige ”Baby Bounce and
Rhyme” session for unge mødre og deres små børn.
14:15 Jeg drikker
en kop kaffe i teatrets café, og går op ad trappen til det 1. etage. Gruppens
møde begynder kl 14:30 og vi snakker om det 700 år gamle middelengelske digt
”Sir Gawain og den grønne ridder”.
Vi er i
feststemning – i dag er gruppens sidste møde før jul. Vi beslutter at stemme på
vores favoritter blandt alle de ord i digtet, der ikke længere er gængs på
moderne engelsk: jeg nominerer ”swang” (svange på oldislandsk), der for 700 år
siden betød underlivet, men andre medlemmer foretrækker for eksempel ”fax”, der
betød håret på hovedet, og nogen nominerede ”thwong” (thwangr på oldislandsk),
en gammel form for det moderne ord ”thong” (et slags afslørende undertøj).
Vinderen er
”freke”, et gammelt angel-saksisk/middelengelsk ord for en mand. Hurrah – en
beslutning. Håndtryk hele vejer rundt og så farvel. Vi ses i nytåret, når vi
skal begynde på gruppens næste projekt, det middelengelske digt ”Perle”, der
blev skrevet sidst i det 14. århundrede. Jeg har ikke den fjerneste anelse om,
hvad ”Perle” handler om, men hvad så? I vores gruppe gøres alt ud fra en devise om, at
det skal være sjovt, så jeg glæder mig meget til det, ingen tvivl om det.
16:00
Gruppemødet slutter og jeg kører hjem.
18:00 Lois og jeg spiser aftensmad og ser lidt fjernsyn. De viser ”De gode
gamle dage”, et tv-program, der prøvede at genskabe stemningen af det gamle
vaudeville-teater. Afsnittet blev først sendt den 6. august 1980, da Lois og
jeg var 34 år gamle.
Vi er meget begejstret over aftenens afsnit, fordi en af showets
hovedattraktioner er en jonglør (James Rheinhardt). Vi glæder os meget for at
se jongløren optræde, fordi programmer i denne serie altid blev sendt live
direkte af BBC-kanalen, så der altid er en stribe lejligheder til at jongløren
fucker op. Og vi bliver ikke skuffet – hurra! Kald det skadefryd, kald det
nostalgi – det er juryen stadig ude om.
Jongløren
fucker op – hurra!
Men
shows blev dengang altid sendt direkte live
21:00 Vi
fortsætter med at se lidt fjernsyn. De viser en interessant dokumentarfilm, der
handler om sexrobotter, en del af Channel 4s nuværende ”robotsæson”.
Vi kigger på arbejde i en
Kalifornien-baseret sexdukkefabrik, hvor forskere og IT-specialister er begyndt
på et ”projekt sexrobot”, der har til formål at udvikle sexrobotter for at give
kunderne ”en mere betydningsfuld oplevelse”, end deres eksisterende udvalg af
sexdukker.
vi ser et
projekt i en Kalifornien-baseret sexdukkefabrik
hvor forskere er i
gang med at udvikle en sexrobot, der hedder Harmony.
Det er lidt af en
skam, at vi konstant bliver distraheret af
nogle af selskabets
sexdukker, der hænger fra loftet i baggrunden –
du godeste, sikke
et vanvid!!!!
Vi ser også en
typisk kunde, James, en 58-årig ingeniør, der allerede har 3 sexdukker, og er
interesseret i at opgradere til en robot som Harmony. Vi ser ham arrangere sine
dukker i sofaen, kigger på fjernsynet med dem, går en tur i skoven med dem osv.
Sikke et vanvid!!!
James rejser
til San Marcos i Kalifornien for at se Real Dolls-selskabets nye ”Harmony”-sexrobot,
der for tiden er under udvikling. Jeg har personligt en stor interesse for
sprog og accenter, og jeg finder det lidt overraskende, at selskabet har valgt
at give Harmony en skotsk accent af en eller anden grund. Sikke en skør verden
vi lever i !!!!
Lois håber på,
at James’ kone vil benytte lejligheden til at smide James’ sexdukker ud under
hans fravær i Kalifornien ha ha ha!
22:00 Vi går i
seng – zzzzzzzz!!!!!
English translation
09:00 Lois and I get up. I sit down in front of my
computer and take a little look online. I find Morten Ingemann's latest comic
strip. My goodness! I get a bit of a shock.
Ingemann the Dane is my favorite cartoonist - there's no
doubt about that. He is especially interested in ugly, overweight, middle aged
or older people, the kind of people rarely given attention to by most
cartoonists.
The Dane, Morten Ingemann, is my
favorite cartoonist.
Ingemann is one of my most important sources when it
comes to understanding Danish society. The Danes are much more interested in
design than we Brits - their houses are full of tasteful furniture, wallpaper,
curtains, ornaments, etc.
In Danish society, interior designers and similar
specialists are a bit like gods, but they are kept very busy - they are highly
sought after, but this popularity often comes at a heavy price, and such
specialists typically exhibit a wide range of health problems.
Rather than looking at all such specialists, Ingemann
tends to focus on the problems of curtain vendors and curtain fitters, who thus
come to represent all interior designers, which is fair enough.
In today's strip, we see three middle-aged curtain
vendors relaxing in a living room and complaining about their health problems.
They remind me a bit of boxers, old before their time. The first says he has
begun to feel his age - his sight is so incredibly bad. For the second one it's
his hearing that's the problem. And the third one says that the other day he grabbed his wife and laid her on the bed so they could make love .... and then his wife
pointed out that it was only half an hour since the last one - in other words,
with him it was his memory that was the problem.
The third one has a point there, I think - it is failure
of memory that older people fear the most. Lois and I very often test each
other with challenging trivia questions for example about celebrities' names -
or details of our favorite TV shows.
11:00 Lois and I sit down on the couch with a cup of
coffee. But I'm restless - the third curtain-vendor's memory problem is bugging
me. I ask Lois a trivia question about the Big Bang Theory: what kind of
theater does Penny perform in her part as "Anne Frank"? But Lois does
not remember, which is a little worrying, I have to say.
The answer is that she performs it in a room above a
bowling alley. Penny had 99 tickets for the show, and on the phone to a friend,
she offers her a ticket and asks her if she knows another 98 people. The
theater director wants to use the sounds coming up from the bowling alley to
represent German artillery.
Big Bang Theory: Penny's performances as
Anne Frank were delivered
in a room above a bowling alley: the sounds coming up from the bowling alley
were utilized to represent the sound of German artillery
Lois and I lived in the United States between 1982 and
1985, and we noticed that every American city has many many bowling alleys, and
it is part of the fabric of society, together with all the noise associated
with them.
I recall that Woody Allen's parents lived in an apartment over a
bowling alley, but it was famously symptomatically of the condition of his
parents' marriage that it was the bowling alley that used to complain about the
noise.
Woody Allen shown in the 'circle'
Steve, my American brother in law sent me an email a
couple of days ago - he and his brother had planned an evening at a bowling
alley but when they arrived at the place they found out that the bowling
alley's computers were down and all the night's activities had been canceled.
What madness! You cannot do anything nowadays without computers!
12:00 We have lunch, and Lois and I continue to test each
other with trivia questions and other common memory tests. Lois says she has
already planned dinner, one of our favorite dishes based on smoked haddock and
minced boiled egg with rice, but neither I nor she can remember the name of the
dish. Later we remember that it is actually called kedgeree - good grief, we
are feeling our age today, no doubt about that !!
I go to bed and take a short afternoon nap. I get up at
1:15pm because Lynda's U3A "Making of English" group is holding its
monthly meeting today in the town's Everyman theater. I drive into town and
park the car in the Portland Street parking lot. I pay with my smartphone, so I
can feel like a modern person - hurrah! Meanwhile, Lois goes along to the local
library to assist library staff in organizing and conducting the afternoon's
weekly Baby Bounce and Rhyme session for young mothers and their young
children.
14:15 I drink a cup of coffee in the theater's cafe, and
go up the stairs to the 1st floor. The group's meeting begins at 2:30pm and we
talk about the 700 year old Middle English poem "Sir Gawain and the Green
Knight".
We are in party mood - today is the group's last meeting
before Christmas. We decide to vote on our favorites among all the words in the
poem that are no longer current in modern English: I nominate "swang"
("svange" in Old Icelandic), which 700 years ago meant the lower
abdomen, but other members prefer, for example, "fax " which meant
hair on the head, and someone else nominated "thwong "
("thwangr" in Old Icelandic), an old form of the modern word
"thong" (a kind of revealing underwear).
The winner is "freke", an old Anglo-Saxon /
Middle-English word for a man. Hurrah - a decision. Handshakes all round and
then goodbye. We'll see each other again in the New Year when we are due to begin the
group's next project, the Middle English poem "Pearl", written in the
late 14th century. I do not have the slightest idea of what "Pearl"
is about, but so what? In our group everything is based on the motto that it
has to be fun, so I'm very excited about it, no doubt about that.
16:00 The group meeting ends and I drive home.
18:00 Lois and I have dinner and watch a bit of
television. "The Good Old Days" is on, a television show that tried
to recreate the mood of the old vaudeville theater. This episode was first
aired on August 6, 1980 when Lois and I were 34 years old.
We are very excited about tonight's episode because one
of the show's main attractions is a juggler (James Rheinhardt). We are looking
forward to seeing the juggler appear because programs in this series were
always broadcast live by the BBC channel, so there are always a number of opportunities for the juggler to screw up. And we are not disappointed - hurrah!
Call it schadenfreude, or call it nostalgia on our part - that's something the jury is still
out on.
The juggler screws up - hurrah!
But shows were
always aired live in those days!
21:00 We continue to watch a bit of television. An
interesting documentary is on, all about sex robots, part of Channel 4's
current "robot season".
We look at work in a California-based sex doll factory
where researchers and IT specialists have started on project "sex
robot" that aims to develop sex robots and give customers a "more
meaningful experience" than their existing range of sex dolls.
We see a project in a California-based
sex doll factory
where researchers are developing a sex robot
called Harmony.
It is a bit of a shame that we are
constantly distracted by
some of the company's sex dolls hanging from
the ceiling in the background -
my
god, what madness !!!!
We also see a typical customer, James, a 58-year-old
engineer who already has 3 sex dolls, and is interested in upgrading to a robot
like Harmony. We see him arranging his dolls on the couch, watching the
television with them, taking them on outings to the woods etc. What madness !!!
James travels to San Marcos, California, to see the Real
Dolls Company's new "Harmony" robot, currently under development. I
personally take a lot of interest in languages and accents, and I find it a
little surprising that the company has chosen to give Harmony a Scottish accent
for some reason. What a crazy world we live in !!!!
Lois hopes that James's wife will use the opportunity of
his absence in California to throw out all of James' sex dolls ha ha ha!
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzzz !!!!!
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