Danskcolin: Friday 1 June 2018

08:00 Lois and I go in the shower early because Ian, the local window cleaner is coming at 9am – yikes!

09:00 Ian rings the doorbell and starts work on our windows. He finishes at 10, and Lois and I take the bus into town. We get off in front of the M & S store - Lois has a birthday on Tuesday and she is running out of summer underwear. We buy piles of panties and bras and the swing by the store's cafe to relax with a cup of coffee and a piece of cake.

We take the bus home. The Marchants bus company has begun to compete with Stagecoach on the Prestbury route, so for the first time we give it a shot. The Marchants route is more direct and much faster, almost door to door: the bus actually puts us down in front of our neighbor's house, two doors away.

12:30 We have lunch and afterwards I go to bed and take a huge afternoon nap. I get up at 4pm.

16:00 We listen to the radio for a bit, an interesting program, "The Last Word". Lois and I have the habit of hearing this program every week because we want to find out if anyone in the last 1-2 weeks has died or not (I have noticed that most weeks exactly 5 deaths occur). The host of the program is the charming Matthew Bannister.

Anne Coates, the famous British film publisher, has died unfortunately. She was responsible for the famous scene in "Lawrence of Arabia", where Lawrence, a civil servant (Peter O'Toole), is in his office in England chatting with a colleague, Claude Rains. He tells Rains about his desire to go to the desert.

Lawrence lights Rains' cigarette (it was at that time permitted for British civil servants to smoke in the office) - he holds the match until the flame is almost touching his fingers. When he finally blows out the match, the scene immediately shifts to a slow focus on the sun rising over the horizon into an orange sky. Genius! And the scene allegedly inspired Steven Spielberg to become a film director.

As a young civil servant, I often saw colleagues lighting cigarettes and pipes, but they were never immediately transported to the desert , as far as I remember. The age of miracles is long past sadly!

I also admired Anne's technique at parties. She never "circulated" - she used to sit at the food and drinks table and remained in her place for the rest of the evening. If you wanted to talk to her, you had to stand in front of her and struggle to eat standing up with a plate in your hand. Genius (again)!

17:00 I take a little look online. I find Morten Ingemann's latest comic strip. My Goodness! I get a bit of a shock.

The Dane, Morten Ingemann, is my favorite cartoonist - no doubt about that! He takes a particular interest in ugly, overweight, middle aged or older people, the kind of people rarely give attention by most cartoonists.

The Dane, Morten Ingemann, my favorite cartoonist

Today's heartwarming character strip reminds us that it is very easy to create misunderstandings, no matter how simple the situation is.

Two old friends are talking on a bar. The first man says he had been mad at his wife the other day because she showed her guests a bunch of pictures of him as a baby, stark naked. A debate starts between the two men because the other man thinks it isn't really such a bad thing to show a naked baby.

It is only later, during their conversation, that it becomes clear that it was the man's wife who was stark naked, not the baby in the pictures. Danish, like English, is a language that can often be a bit ambiguous, no doubt about that!

No harm done! The second man finally fully understands the situation, and the two friends agree that the husband's wife was in the wrong and she should at least have put a bathrobe on.

18:30 We have dinner and spend the rest of the evening watching television. An interesting documentary film (3rd part of 3) is on, all about Pompeii. We saw the first 2 episodes on Wednesday and Thursday night. The program's hosts are the charming Bettany Hughes, Raksha Dave and John Sergeant.

An interesting, moving film - the programme makers got permission to get some plaster casts "admitted" to the hospital so they could undergo a CT scan. And a few former theories get disproved.

Two people who were found in a bed together and were thought to have perhaps been a couple, for example, undergo their first CT scan ever. The scan reveals that the man had a lot of injuries on his body and was probably too sick to move. The woman was considerably older than him, and might have been his mother, who perhaps decided to stay in the town, despite the danger, in order to take care of him. Quite touching.

Many of the dead who were found in the city were found clinging with both their hands to religious objects (statuettes of goddesses or the like) when they died, which is also quite touching.

21:30 While Lois and I sit and watch the documentary, I take a little look at my smartphone. Coincidentally, Steve, my American brother in law, has sent me an interesting web article, in which Clive Oppenheimer, a volunteer at Cambridge University, claims that the massive eruption of the Icelandic volcano Eldgjá about 935 BC. could have persuaded the Icelanders to convert to Christianity.

Like other academics, I'm a little skeptical about this theory. The Islanders' relatives in Scandinavia and Great Britain had already converted (without the prompting of volcanoes) to Christianity, a religion which was at the time regarded as "the modern one": all other peoples in Europe were Christians so the old Nordic pantheon had begun to seem a bit "old fashioned, "I think.

I recall that Steve (my brother in law) and Kathy, my late sister, were staying with us for a couple of weeks when the volcano under the Eyjafjallajokull glacier began erupting for three months in 2010, when dust from the outbreak paralysed air traffic throughout northern Europe . In the end, however, Steve and Kathy in fact managed to get a flight home to the United States, even though I think their departure was a little delayed, as far as I remember.

Flashback to May 2010: Lois and I visit the Malvern Flower Show

with my brother in law, Steve, and my sister Kathy (standing at the Pimms counter)

Me sitting on a bench next to the Kennet River / Canal

near Reading. Kathy and Steve are just coming out of the parking lot

Happy days!!!

22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzz !!!!

Danish translation

08:00 Lois og jeg går tidligt i bad, fordi Ian, den lokale vinduespudser kommer kl 9 – yikes!

09:00 Ian ringer på og går i gang med at pudse husets vinduer. Han er færdig kl 10, og Lois og jeg tager bussen ind til byen. Vi står af foran M&S storbutikken – Lois har fødseldsag på tirsdag, og hun er ved at køre tør for sommerundertøj. Vi køber bunkevis af trusser og BH’er, og smutter inde i butikkens café for at slappe af med en kop kaffe og et stykke kage.

Vi tager bussen hjem. Marchants-busselskabet er begyndt at konkurrere med Stagecoach om Prestbury-ruten, så vi for første gang giver det et skud. Marchants-ruten er mere direkte og meget hurtigere, næsten dør til dør: bussen sætter os faktisk af foran vores naboers hus, to døre væk.

12:30 Vi spiser frokost og bagefter går jeg i seng og tager mig en gigantisk eftermiddagslur. Jeg står op kl 16.

16:00 Vi lytter lidt til radio, et interessant program, ”Det sidste ord”. Lois og jeg har for vane at høre dette program hver uge, fordi vi ønsker at finde ud af, om nogen i de seneste 1-2 uger døde eller ej (jeg har bemærket, at der i de fleste uger sker nøjagtig 5 dødsfald). Programmets vært er den charmerende Matthew Bannister.

Anne Coates, den berømte britiske filmudgiver, døde desværre. Hun var ansvarlig for den berømte scene i ”Lawrence af Arabien”, hvor Lawrence, en embedsmand (Peter O’Toole), sidder i sit kontor i England og snakker med en arbejdskollega, Claude Rains. Han fortæller Rains om sin lyst til at tage til ørkenen.

Lawrence tænder Rains’ cigaret (det var tilladt dengang for britiske embedsmænd at ryge i kontoret) – han holder tændstikket, indtil flammen næsten rører hans fingre. Når han endelig slukker flammen, skifter scenen straks til en langsom fokus på solen, der stiger over horisonten ind i en orange himmel. Geni! Og scenen inspirerede angiveligt Steven Spielberg til at blive filminstruktør.

Som ung embedsmand, så jeg ofte arbejdskollegaer tænde cigaretter og piber, men de blev aldrig transporteret straks til ørkenen, så vidt jeg husker. Tiden af mirakler er længe forbi desværre.

Jeg beundrer også Annes teknik til fester. Hun ”cirkulerede” aldrig – hun plejede at sætte sig ved mad- og drikkebordet og forblev inde i sin plads i resten af aftenen. Hvis man ville tale med hende, måtte man stå foran hende og prøv med besvær at spise stående med en tallerken i hånden. Geni (igen) !

17:00 Jeg 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

Dagens hjertevarmende tegnestribe minder os om, at det er meget nemt at skabe misforståelser, uanset hvor simpel situationen er. To gamle venner snakker på en bar. Den ene siger, at han forleden blev tøsset på sin kone, fordi hun viste deres gæster en stribe billeder af ham som baby, splitte nøgen. En debat starter mellem de to mænd, fordi den anden mand synes, det ikke var så slemt at vise en nøgen baby.

Det er kun senere, i løbet af deres samtale, at det bliver klart, at det var mandens kone, der var splitte nøgen, ikke babyen i billederne. Dansk, ligesom engelsk, er et sprog, der ofte er tvetydeligt, ingen tvivl om det!

Der skete så ingen skade! Til sidst forstår den 2. mand situationen, og de 2 venner bliver enige om, at mandens kone havde uret, og skulle mindst have taget en badekåbe på.

18:30 Vi spiser aftensmad og bruger resten af aftenen på at se lidt fjernsyn. De viser en interessant dokumentarfilm (3. del af 3), der handler om Pompeii. Vi så de første 2 afsnit i onsdag og torsdag aftes. Programmets værter er de charmerende Bettany Hughes, Raksha Dave og John Sergeant.

En interessant, rørende film – programmagerne fik lov til at få nogle af gipsafstøbninger ”indlagt” på hospitalet, så de kunne gennemgå en CT-scanning. Nogle tidligere teorier bliver modbevist.

To mennesker, der blev fundet i en seng og som man troede måske kunne have været for eksempel et ægtepar, gennemgår deres første CT-scanning nogensinde. Scanningen afslører, at manden havde en masse sår på kroppen, og sandsynligvis var for syg til at bevæge sig. Kvinden var betydeligt ældre, end ham, og måske kunne have været hans mor, der besluttede at blive i byen, på trods af faren, for at passe på ham. Helt rørende.

Mange af de døde, som blev fundet i byen, holdt fast om religiøse objekter (statuetter af gudinder eller lignende) med begge deres hænder, da de døde, hvilket også er ganske rørende.

21:30 Mens Lois og jeg sidder og ser dokumentarfilmen, kigger jeg lidt på min smartphone. Tilfældigvis har Steve, min amerikanske svigerbror, sendte mig en interessant web-artikel, hvor Clive Oppenheimer, en vulkanolog på Cambridge University, påstår at det massive udbrud af den islandske vulkan Eldgjá ca. 935 f. Kr. kunne have overtalt islændingerne til at konvertere til kristendommen.

Ligesom andre akademikere er jeg lidt skeptisk overfor denne teori. Islændingenes slægtninge i Skandinavien og Storbritannien havde allerede konverteret (uden hjælp af vulkaner) til kristendommen, en religion, der dengang blev betragtet som ”den moderne”: alle andre folk i Europa var kristne, så den gamle nordiske panteon var begyndt at virke lidt ”gammeldags”, synes jeg.

Jeg mindes om, at Steve (min svigerbror), og Kathy, min afdøde søster, boede hos os i et par uger, da vulkanen under Eyjafjallajökull-gletseren var i udbrud i tre måneder i 2010, hvor støv fra udbruddet lammede flytrafikken i hele Nordeuropa. Men til sidst lykkedes Steve og Kathy faktisk at få et fly hjem til USA, selvom jeg tror, deres afgang blev lidt forsinket, så vidt jeg husker.