Danskcolin: Monday, August 20 2018

08:00 Lois and I get up and after breakfast I start clearing up and vacuuming the whole house because our U3A Danish group's next meeting will be taking place here this afternoon at 2:30pm.

Lois goes for a short walk around the local football field - on her way she tries to pick as many blackberries as possible - it's a bit of a competition between her and the civil parish's hedge-cutters: can they cut the branches off before she can harvest the the hedges' blackberries? There is never any violence in the struggle because Lois and the hedge-cutters work separate hours, thank goodness: and their hours never coincide, which is nice.

12:30 Lunch and afterwards I go to bed and take a short afternoon nap. I get up at 1:45pm and prepare for the afternoon's meeting.

14:30 The group members arrive and we study Danish for an hour and a half. We start with the Danish vocabulary test I have prepared. The correct answers spell out the sentence, "When the cat is out, the mice dance on the table", which seems to be an old Danish proverb.

The members hold a short debate about which one is the best, this Danish proverb or the English equivalent, "When the cat's away the mice will play". The consensus is that the Danish version is more vivid and entertaining, but on the other hand it does not rhyme - so the jury is still out on that one.

Scilla says she is still suffering a bit from fatigue several months after being hospitalized because of an undiagnosed problem. It is strange how much Scilla's condition resembles my younger sister Gill's problem - she was also hospitalized in May while she was on vacation in Blackpool, and she is now receiving regular vitamin B12 injections.

Gill is currently waiting for the results of a recent MRI scan. Scilla is to take a blood test in the near future. Lois and I feel tired most of the time, but we suppose it's just our age - yikes!

But Lois and I are lucky in that we have never been hospitalised for it - we manage to more or less soldier on. On Saturday we have our 46th wedding anniversary and we are thinking about celebrating the day at the Buckland Manor hotel / restaurant, which we have got in the habit of doing each year. And in 4 years time we will have our 50th wedding anniversary if we can get to it - yikes (again) !!!!! Ladbrokes, the bookmakers, have begun to accept bets on it if you are interested.

Three years ago at Buckland Manor

Group members read another 8 pages of the Danish crime novella, "Let Down", which is the group's current project. A somewhat creepy experience today because the forensics people are investigating the remains of a body that for about 1 year has been lying in an switched-off freezer in a spooky outhouse, far out in the country on the property of an elderly farmer.

"The corpse" has by now turned into a sticky, smelly mass, in which there float and swim the deceased person's many bones, which the author has chosen to include a complete list of, for some reason.

At our group meetings we have the practice of taking turns to read a few paragraphs out and then translate them into English. It is fortunate that it is Jeanette's turn to read the paragraphs where the list of bones appears - Jeanette is our only genuine Danish member - and some of the names of the bones are very long, for example "mellemhåndsknogler" (= metacarpal bones in the hand ?), of which the human body apparently has 5.

The whole thing is quite instructive - we are all surprised when we read that the human skull actually has 22 bones, which sounds too many, and we wonder if the police have actually found more than 1 body in the freezer, but this seems unlikely. If the perpetrator had killed several victims, he would have had to find additional freezers, we think.

16:00 The meeting ends and the members leave. Lois and I relax with a cup of tea on the couch. We feel exhausted, as always after a "Danish" day.

18:00 We have dinner: the remaining lamb etc - a re-run of yesterday yum yum! We spend the rest of the evening watching television.

An interesting documentary is on, all about dwarfism, in society as well as in our culture: novels, paintings, films, etc.

An interesting program. Lois and I have always loved watching dwarves in movies and television shows - we find that they tend to show an instinctive sense of comedy. But are we guilty of exploiting the misfortunes of others for our own entertainment? Time to re-examine our motives, no doubt about that.

Comedy is a good way to overcome prejudice, but are we guilty of expecting all dwarves to show comic talents just because we admire the dwarves we see in comedies? The message of the evening's program is that dwarves are just human beings, with the same range of qualities and talents as all the rest of us.

Our top four dwarf performances over the centuries, in chronological order.

The dwarf show in Ingemar Bergman's "The Silence" (1963). The movie's heroine,

Anna, goes to the theater to see a dwarf show, but her attention

is disturbed by the annoying activities of a canoodling couple sharing her box

Tiswas, the children's program 1974-1982, with David Rappaport as the mini-Fonz-clone,

"Shades", seen here in his trademark sunglasses.

"Time Bandits" (1983) a bunch of dwarves, including the wonderful David Rappaport,

seen here at the front, with John Cleese as Robin Hood at the back.

Warwick Davis's sitcom "Life's too short": Warwick is seen here with

Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant

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

Danish translation

08:00 Lois og jeg står op og efter morgenmad går jeg i gang med at rydde op og støvsuge hele huset, fordi vores U3A danske gruppes næste møde finder sted i eftermiddag kl 14:30 hos os. Lois går en kort tur rundt omkring den lokale fodboldbane – på vej prøver hun at plukke så mange brombær som muligt – det er lidt af en konkurrence mellem hende og kommunens gartnere: kan de skære grenene af før hun kan høste hækkenes brombær? Der er aldrig noget vold i konkurrencen, fordi Lois og gartnere arbejder adskilte timer, gudskelov: deres arbejdstimer falder aldrig sammen, hvilket er rart.

12:30 Frokost og bagefter går jeg i seng og tager en kort eftermiddagslur. Jeg står op kl 13:45 og forbereder mig på eftermiddagens møde.

14:30 Gruppemedlemmerne ringer på, og vi studerer dansk i en time og en halv. Vi starter med den danske ordforrådtest jeg har udarbejdet. De rigtige svar staver sætningen, ”Når katten er ude, danser musene på bordet”, hvilket synes at være et gammelt dansk ordsprog.

Medlemmerne holder en kort debat, om hvilke er det bedste, dette danske ordsprog eller den engelske ekvivalens, ”When the cat’s away the mice will play”. Den samstemmende mening er, at den danske version er mere malende og underholdende, men på den anden side rimer det ikke – så juryen er stadig ude om det.

Scilla siger, hun stadig lider lidt af træthed flere måneder efter hun blev indlagt på hospitalet på grund af en hidtil udiagnosticeret problem. Det er mærkeligt, hvor meget Scillas tilstand ligner min lillesøster Gills problem – hun blev også indlagt på hospitalet i maj måned, mens hun var på ferie i Blackpool, og hun får nu regelmæssige vitamin B12 indsprøjtninger.

Gill venter for tiden på resultaterne af en nylig MRI scan. Scilla skal tage en blodprøve i den nærmeste fremtid. Lois og jeg føler os trætte det meste af tiden, men vi formoder, det bare er vores alder – yikes!

Men Lois og jeg er heldige i, at vi er aldrig blevet indlagt på hospitalet – det lykkes os mere eller mindre at holde den gående. På lørdag har vi vores 46. bryllupsdag, og vi overvejer at fejre dagen på Buckland Manor hotel/restaurant, hvilket vi er kommet i vane med at gøre hvert år. Og om 4 års tid vil vi har vores 50. bryllupsdag, hvis vi kan nå derhen – yikes (igen) !!!!! Ladbrokes, bookmakerne, er begyndt at modtage indsatser, hvis du er interesseret.

Tilbageblik til 2015 på Buckland Manor

Gruppemedlemmer når at læse endnu 8 sider af den danske kriminovelle, ”Svigtet”, der er gruppens nuværende projekt. En lidt uhyggelig oplevelse, fordi retsmedicinerne er i gang med at undersøge resterne af et lig, der i ca 1 år har ligget i en slukket fryser i et faldefærdigt udhus, langt ude på landet på en ældre bondemands gård.

”Liget” er nu blevet til en klistret, stinkende masse og derinde flyder og svæmmer afdødes mange knogler, som forfatteren har valgt at inkludere en komplet liste over, af en eller anden grund. På vores gruppemøder har vi for vane at skifte os til at læse et par afsnit op og oversætte dem til engelsk. Det er heldigt, at det er Jeanettes tur at læse afsnittene, hvor listen af knoglerne står – Jeanette er vores eneste ægte danske medlem – og nogen af knoglernes navne er meget lange, eksempelvis ”mellemhåndsknogler”, hvoraf den menneskelige krop tilsyneladende har 5.

Det hele er ganske belærende – vi er alle overraskede, når vi læser at det menneskelige kranie faktisk har 22 knogler, hvilket lyder om for mange, og vi spekulerer lidt på, om politiet faktisk har fundet mere end 1 lig i fryseren, men dette synes usandsynligt. Hvis gerningsmanden havde dræbt to ofre, skulle han have måttet finde en 2. fryser, synes vi.

16:00 Mødet slutter, og medlemmerne skal af sted. Lois og jeg slapper af med en kop te i sofaen. Vi føler os udmattede, som altid efter en ”danske” dag.

18:00 Vi spiser aftensmad: det resterende lam osv – en gentagelse af gårsdagens yum yum! Vi bruger resten af aftenen på at se lidt fjernsyn.

De viser en interessant dokumentarfilm, der handler om dværgvækst både i samfundet og i vores kultur: romaner, malerier, film osv.

Et interessant program. Lois og jeg har altid elsket at se dværge i film og tv-programmer – vi finder, at de har tendens til at udvise en instinktiv sans for komedie. Men er vi skyldige for at udnytte andres uheldigheder for vores egen underholdning? Tid til at genundersøge vores motiver, ingen tvivl om det.

Komedie er en god måde at overvinde fordomme på, men er vi skyldige for at forvente alle dværge at vise komiske talenter bare på grund af, at vi beundrer de dværgene, vi ser i komedier? Budskabet af aftenens program er, at dværgene bare er mennesker, med samme viften af kvaliteter og talenter, som alle de andre af os.

Vores top fire dværg-præstationer gennem århundrederne, i kronologisk rækkefølge.