Danskcolin: Wednesday, July 11, 2018

08:00 Lois and I go in the shower and get up. After breakfast, Lois goes for a short walk on the local football field before it gets too hot. Afterwards we drive over to the local Sainsbury's supermarket to do the shopping. We come home and relax with a cup of coffee on the terrace.

12:00 We have lunch and afterwards I go to bed and take a huge afternoon nap. I get up at 3.30 pm and we start browsing through the first 14 pages of a Danish crime novella, "Let Down" by Gittemie Eriksen, because our U3A Danish group is holding its next meeting here tomorrow at 2:30pm, and this novella is the group's current project.

There are no sex scenes in the first 14 pages, thank god, but I know there is a graphical description that will come later: my plan is to skip over it in the group situation. Of course, there is no problem reading sex scenes quietly in private, but to say the least, it's all a bit awkward amid a group of retirees, like me and Lois, having to read the scenes out loud and (what's worse) translate them into English - my god, what a nightmare !!!

Olaf is the old man in the novella who discovers a dead body in an old freezer in a dilapidated outhouse, somewhere on his land. Creepy !!!

Pia, the novel's heroine, is a forensics officer working with the police, and Lars is Pia's boyfriend: Lars is also working for the police, but it is not clear yet exactly what he does. Pia says that sex with Lars is "okay", but she finds her relationship a bit constricting and would rather play the field a bit. Good grief, what madness !!!!

There is a scene where Lars and Pia are driving to a christening when Lars gets a phone call, and they are asked to turn up at a crime scene: that is, the farm where Olaf discovered the dead body.

Lars is behind the wheel when he gets the call, and Pia is sitting next to him. Suddenly she realizes that she is not appropriately dressed to take part in the investigation. She unclicks her seatbelt, squeezes between the seats and changes clothes on the backseat - throwing off her dress and fishing some more casual clothes out of her bag, to the amusement of passing drivers - but she gives them all the finger! What a woman !!!! And what madness !!!!

Pia Holm, the crime novella's heroine - what a woman !!!!

18:00 We have dinner. Afterwards we go into the backyard to water the flower beds and vegetable garden. Then we swing by Stephen and Francis' house, our neighbors, who are currently on holiday in the Czech Republic, to water their flower beds and vegetable garden. They have many more vegetables than us because Lois and I were in Australia in March and April and we missed the chance of planting more seeds.

Their back yard is long and they have a long, heavy garden hose that they use to water the vegetables at the bottom of the garden. It's Lois who does the watering and I stand 8 feet away from her keeping the garden hose up in the air so she does not need to pull the entire garden hose every time she moves to another flower bed or vegetable patch. Sensible, eh!

20:00 We spend the rest of the evening watching television, an interesting documentary film (4th part of 6) all about Africa's major civilizations. This 4th episode is about the continent's medieval cities. The host of the program is the charming black American, Henry Louis Gates Jr.

It seems that Gates has in his approach a bit of a personal agenda, a subtext that Africa has been unfairly ignored by the world's historians for many years. As a black American, Gates takes pride in celebrating the continent's achievements - as a schoolboy he was constantly told that Africa had no civilization before the arrival of the Europeans.

It is certainly true that when it comes to mathematics and science, the Islamic world in the Middle Ages was much more advanced than the European world, where the Catholic Church tended to disapprove of such subjects and claimed that the Bible contained everything that was necessary to know about the world.

The thriving Islamic world, however, which had trade relations with port cities in Asia, China, etc. also had many such contacts with African cities and port towns on the northern and eastern shores of the continent, including areas that are further inland: Timbuktu for example. And these Arab merchants brought their religion and writing system along with them, and the Africans in the north and east embraced the religion eagerly and also borrowed the Arabic writing system.

In the rest of the continent, however, a writing system was never developed.

Lois and I have a little discussion about how the great medieval African societies in southern and western Africa could function without a writing system - especially the communities of western Africa where the rulers kept strict control over their citizens and even established primitive types of roadblocks inside their cities so they could check up on where people were going and why. Good grief, what madness !!!

It must have been a dictatorship, no doubt about that, but without a writing system not a very efficient one, we suspect !!!

We hear a little about the arrival of the Portuguese in 1505 to eastern Africa. They destroyed some African port cities using their ships' heavy cannon, etc., but their main purpose was to take over the trade of the region, including the Asian trade links, the trade in valuable metals, spices and the like.

It is interesting that the first Portuguese invaders also brought a letter from the Portuguese king to a mythically immortal supernatural Ethiopian king, the so-called Prester John. Ethiopia's Christian kings were supposedly the descendants of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, also of one of the three Magi (how did that work?) And the Ark of the Covenant was also to be found in Ethiopia (allegedly!).

Prester John, the mythical king,

who was supposed to be ruling somewhere in Ethiopia (allegedly!!!!)

The Portugians wanted to find PresterJohn and win him for their ally so that they could expel the Muslims from the Holy Land.

Good grief, what a crazy world we live in !!!!

But unfortunately they did not manage to find this mythical king - no surprise there !!!!

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

Danish translation

08:00 Lois og jeg går I bad og står op. Efter morgenmad går Lois en kort tur på den lokale fodboldbane, inden det bliver for varmt. Bagefter kører vi over til det lokale Sainsburys-supermarked for at købe ind. Vi kommer hjem og slapper af med en kop kaffe på terrassen.

12:00 Vi spiser frokost og bagefter går jeg i seng og tager en gigantisk eftermiddagslur. Jeg står op kl 15:30 og vi går i gang med at blade igennem de første 14 sider af en dansk kriminovelle, ”Svigtet” af Gittemie Ericksen, fordi vores U3A danske gruppe holder sit næste møde i morgen kl 14:30 hos os, og denne novelle er gruppens nuværende projekt.

Der er ingen sexscener i de første 14 sider, gudskelov, men jeg ved godt, at der er en grafisk beskrivelse, der kommer senere: min plan for tiden er at springe over den i gruppesituationen. Der er selvfølgelig ikke noget problem med at læse sexscener stille og roligt i enrum, men for at sige mildt bliver det hele lidt pinligt blandt en gruppe af pensionister, ligesom mig og Lois, at læse scenerne højt og (hvad er værre) oversætte dem til engelsk - du godeste, sikke et mareridt!!!

Olaf er novellens gamle bondemand, der opdager liget i en gammel fryser i et faldefærdigt udhus, der ligger et eller andet sted på sin jord. Uhyggeligt!!!

Pia, novellens heltinde, er retsmediciner, der arbejder sammen med politiet, og Lars er Pias kæreste: Lars også arbejder for politiet, men det er ikke klart endnu, præcis hvad han gør. Pia siger at sex med Lars er ”okay”, men hun finder deres forhold lidt snærende og vil hellere have flere jern i ilden. Du godeste, sikke et vanvid!!!!

Der er en scene, hvor Lars og Pia er i gang med at køre til en barnedåb, da Lars får et opkald, hvor de begge to bliver bedt om at dukke op på findestedet: dvs, den gård, hvor liget blev opdaget.

Lars er bag rettet, og Pia sidder ved siden af ham. Pludselig indser hun, at hun ikke er passende klædt til at deltage i undersøgelsen. Hun klikker selen af og klemmer sig mellem sæderne og skifter tøj på bagsædet – smidende sin kjole og finde mere afslappet tøj frem ud af sin taske, til nydelsen af forbipasserende bilister – hun giver dem alle fingeren! Sikke en kvinde!!!! Og sikke et vanvid!!!!

Pia Holm, kriminovellens heltinde – sikke en kvinde!!!!

18:00 Vi spiser aftensmad. Bagefter går vi ud ind i baghaven for at vande blomsterbedene og grøntsagshaven. Så smutter vi ind hos Stephen og Francis, vores naboer, der for tiden er på ferie i Tjekkiet, for at vande deres blomsterbede og grøntsaghave. De har mange flere grøntsager, end os, fordi Lois og jeg i marts og april var i Australien og vi gik glip af chancen for at plante flere frø.

Deres baghave er lange og de har en lang, tyng haveslange, som de bruger for at vande grøntsagerne i bunden af haven. Det er Lois, der gør vandningen, og jeg står 8 fods væk fra hende og holder haveslangen op i luften, så hun ikke har brug for at trække hele haveslangen hver gang hun flytte til en anden blomsterbed eller jordstykke. Fornuftigt, ikke!

20:00 Vi bruger resten af aftenen på at se lidt fjernsyn. De viser en interessant dokumentarfilm (4. del af 6) der handler om Afrikas store civilisationer. Dette 4. afsnit handler om kontinentets middelalderlige byer. Programmets vært er den charmerende sorte amerikaner, Henry Louis Gates Jr.

Det føles som om Gates har i sin tilgang lidt af en undertone af, at Afrika er for mange år blevet uretfærdigt ignoreret af verdens historikere. Som en sort amerikaner sætter Gates en ære i at fejre kontinentets bedrifter – som skoledreng blev han konstant fortalt, at Afrika ikke havde nogen civilisation, før ankomsten af europærerne.

Det er helt bestemt sandt, at, når det kommer til matematikken og videnskaben var den islamiske verden i middelalderen meget mere avanceret, end den europæiske verden, hvor den katolske kirke havde tendens til at misbillige sådanne emner og påstod, at bibelen indeholdt alt, der var nødvendigt at vide om verden.

Denne blomstrende islamiske verden, der havde handelsforbindelser med havnebyer i Asien, Kina osv havde også mange sådanne kontakter med afrikanske byer og havnebyer på kontinentets nordlige og østlige kyster, også med områder, der ligger længere inde i landet: Timbuktu for eksempel. Og disse arabiske købmændene tog deres religion og skrivesystem med, og afrikanerne i nord og øst sluttede sig ivrigt til religionen og lånede også det arabiske skrivesystem.

I resten af kontinentet imidlertid var et skrivesystem aldrig udviklet.

Lois og jeg diskuterer lidt om, hvordan de store middelalderlige afrikanske samfunder i det sydlige og vestlige Afrika kunne fungere uden et skrivesystem – især samfunderne i det vestlige Afrika, hvor herskerne holdt en streng kontrol over deres borgere og endda opbyggede primitive typer af vejspærringer inde i deres byer, så de kunne tjekke op på, hvor folk gik og hvorfor. Du godeste, sikke et vanvid!!!

Det må have været en diktatur uden tvivl, men uden skrivsystem ikke en meget effektiv, mistænkter vi !!!

Vi hører lidt om ankomsten af portugiserne i 1505 til det østlige Afrika. De ødelagde nogle afrikanske havnebyer ved hjælp af deres skibes kanoner osv, men deres hovedformål var at overtage regionens handel, også den asiatiske verdens handelsforbindelser, i værdifulde metaller, krydderier og lignende.

Det er interessant, at de første portugisiske angribere tog et brev med fra den portugiske konge til en mytisk udødelig overnaturlig etiopiske konge, den såkaldte præstekonge Johannes. Etiopiske konger var angiveligt efterkommerne af Solomon og dronningen af Saba, også af en af de tre hellige konger (hvordan virkede det der????) og Pagtens Ark også fandtes der i Etiopien (angiveligt!).