Danskcolin: Tuesday October 23 2018

10:00 After breakfast, Lois and I head over to the local Sainsbury's supermarket to do the food shopping - our daughter Alison, together with Ed and their 3 children, will be coming to us tomorrow on a 3 day visit. Afterwards we continue on to CookShop in Leckhampton and buy some quality ready meals. We come home and relax with a cup of coffee on the couch.

I sit down with the computer and take a little look online. I see Morten Ingemann's latest cartoon strip and it gives me a bit of shock, I have to admit. The Dane Ingemann is my favourite cartoonist, that's for sure! 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, my favourite cartoonist

Ingemann has his finger on the pulse, as always - he is very well aware that when you compliment others too hastily, it can lead to trouble.

A blonde is pushing a pram through the local forest when she bumps into a ugly middle-aged woman. The woman admires the child's good looks and tells the blonde how much the baby looks like the blonde's husband.

A touching scene, but with an unsettling twist - the child is actually not the blonde's but her best friend's. And an unpleasant chain of events starts to pan out, now that the blonde suspects her husband of having committed adultery with her best friend.

My goodness! What a crazy world we live in !!!

11:30 We get going with getting the house ready for Alison's visit. We are now just a couple of old crows, and this kind of work, which we had no trouble with in the past, has now turned into a major operation, so we take one task at a time and manage to finish the job gradually. Poor us !!!!!

I drag a lot of things up the ladder to the attic, including our 3 electric fans that have been sitting in the bedrooms since the summer, plus the 3 suitcases we took with us to Australia in March-April when we visited our other daughter, Sarah, and her family in Perth. The suitcases have also been sitting in one bedroom or another for almost 6 months.

Good god, we have got so lazy nowadays, no doubt about that. At least visits like Alison's upcoming one force us to get the house into some sort of order now and again.

13:00 We have lunch and afterwards I go to bed and take a huge afternoon nap. I get up at 4pm and we relax with a cup of tea on the couch.

I take a little look online. Alison has posted a charming photo of her 3 children today while taking a walk with them in the valley of the Devils Punchbowl, one of the area's beauty spots. The local schools have their autumn holidays this week.

(left to right) Josie (12), Rosalind (10) and Isaac (8)

Good grief, young people have so much energy, compared to old crows like Lois and me!

By the way, Lois and I are currently considering taking out a subscription to the famous "Old People" magazine, which some years ago hit the headlines with their first edition - it featured an oversized format with words printed in giant fonts that are big enough for even the oldest of the old to see without difficulty (source: Onion News).

With very large colour images and special "I-Can-Read-It-All-By-Myself" stories that do not contain any big words - the magazine's entertaining, old-timer-friendly content was expected to give all old-timers a fun and non-threatening experience.

Editor Hal Gurnstein told reporters at the time, "This magazine will keep old people busy with hours of silent reading fun."

The first issue of Old People contained a photo project on Franklin D. Roosevelt, as well as articles about the post office, the late Bob Hope, and how pills can be dissolved in apple sauce to make them easier to swallow.

Another regular part of the magazine titled "Your great-grandchildren" contains full-colour photographs of different babies each week. "Of course, the babies will be chosen randomly and will not actually be related to the magazine's readers in any way, but the readers will not know that," explained Gurnstein.

Flashback to December 1996: the late Bernice Huggins and the late Harry Fordson

enjoy browsing through the first edition of "Old People" magazine.

17:30 We have dinner, a little earlier than usual, and afterwards Lois has to go out. She wants to attend her sect's regular weekly Bible seminar. This semester's program is focusing on references (prophecies, etc.) in the Old Testament about Jesus Christ. She drives over to Mari-Ann and Alf's house, and they will drive her over to Brockworth, where all three will attend the seminar.

19:00 I have a little alone time and spend the evening watching television. An interesting documentary film is on (2nd part of 5) all about the question "Why are we here?". The host of the program is the charming Brian Cox.

An interesting and entertaining treatment of the subject: Brian travels to Asia (India, Japan) to answer the question in the program's title.

And it's a bit of a rare treat that I get the chance to see a close-up of the inside of a camel's mouth (or a bird's eye view as long as the bird is flying low over the camel's head).

Brian takes a sample of a camel's body cells from its mouth (as well as a sample of his own

body cells) to confirm that all mammals have cells of the same type

Brian's presentation covers in short the following points. Our lives are governed by a system of rules that apply to the whole universe, so far as we know. For example rivers on earth bend with a predictable relationship between the width of the river and the river's curve, and the same holds for example for rivers of methane on Titan, one of Saturn's moons, etc, etc.

But having rules does not mean that everything that happens is predictable - coincidence plays a major role. It was just chance that 66 million years ago a big meteorite got to hit the earth, and the world's dinosaurs died out as a result. Humanity could not have been developed if the meteorite had taken a slightly different direction - scientists are absolutely sure about that.

For billions of years, there were only single cell organisms - bacteria and archaeans - on earth, and life was very calm and peaceful as the result: much like life in Cheltenham.

Then one day, a bacterium penetrated an archaean (perhaps out of boredom, I think to myself, but that's something I'm not completely sure about!) and the bacterium was not digested for some reason. The bacterium provided the new double superorganism with energy, while the archaean provided it with protection of some kind.

And it was just that was needed to make it possible for the creation of more complex organisms, including eventually us humans. In this process, natural selection played a big role, and natural selection is of course one thing that is not random. But the mitochondria in our body cells today are the result of that little collision that happened so many billions of years ago.

It is well known that life could not have been created if certain natural laws and mathematical constants (the force of gravity, the speed of light, etc.) were slightly different than what they are. If the force of gravity were not exactly right, there would have been no stars and no planets. And if the speed of light had been slightly different, there would have been no carbon or oxygen.

So, are we humans just lucky? Scientists now suspect that there are actually an infinite number of universes that are being created all the time, with their own physical constants, and the majority of these universes are not suitable for the development of life. Big Bang events are happening constantly - every time that any area of space consisting solely of energy stops expanding for a moment, then all that energy gets converted into new matter, and hey presto we have another universe.

Good grief, what crazy universes we live in !!!

We are lucky in that we are alive before the idiots blow up the world, and after the scientists have begun to understand things that happened billions of years go - it's the "bestest" period ever, that's for sure!!!

22:00 Lois comes back from the Bible seminar and I go to bed. But poor Lois needs to relax and wind down after the evening's stimulating Bible-based discussion meeting, so she stays up and watches a bit of television.

The latest episode of the Celebs Go Dating reality show is on, although neither Lois nor I have the faintest idea of who these so-called "celebrities" are - yikes, now we really are just a couple of old crows, that's for sure!

typical opening scenes from "Celebs Go Dating".

23:00 I do not wake up when Lois jumps up in bed with me. Zzzzzzzzzzzzz !!!!

Danish translation

10:00 Efter morgenmad kører Lois og jeg over til det lokale Sainsburys-supermarked for at gå madindkøb – vores datter Alison, sammen med Ed og deres 3 børn, kommer i morgen på et 3 dages besøg hos os. Bagefter kører vi videre til CookShop i Leckhampton og køber nogle kvalitetsfærdigretter. Vi kommer hjem og slapper af med en kop kaffe i sofaen.

Jeg sætter mig med computeren og kigger lidt på nettet. Jeg ser Morten Ingemanns seneste tegnestribe, og det giver mig lidt af et chok, det må jeg indrømme. 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 har fingeren på pulsen, som altid – han er helt klar over, at når man komplimenterer andre for hurtigt, kan det hele føre til ballade.

En blondine er i gang med at skubbe en barnevogn gennem den lokale skov, da hun støder på en grim midaldrende kvinde. Kvinden beundrer barnets skønhed og fortæller blondinen hvor meget det ligner blondinens ægtemand.

En rørende scene, men med et uberoligende twist – barnet er faktisk ikke blondinens men hende venindes. Og en ubehagelig kæde af begivenheder starter at udvikle sig, nu hvor blondinen mistænker sin ægtemand for utroskab.

Du godeste! Sikke en skør verden vi lever i !!!

11:30 Vi går i gang med at forberede huset på Alisons besøg. Vi er nu bare 2 gamle krager, og denne slags arbejde, som vi i de gamle dage ikke havde svært ved, er nu blevet til større operationer, så vi tager en opgave ad gangen og klare det hele gradvist. Stakkels os !!!!!

Jeg slæber en masse ting op ad stigen til loftet, inklusive vores 3 elektriske ventilatorer, som har siddet i soveværelser siden sommeren, plus de 3 kufferter vi tog med til Australien i marts-april, da vi besøgte vores anden datter, Sarah, og hendes familie i Perth. Kufferterne også har siddet i et eller andet soveværelse i snart 6 måneder. Du godeste, vi er blevet så dovne nu til dags, ingen tvivl om det. For det mindste tvinger besøg som det kommende os for det mindste til at få huset i orden indimellem.

13:00 Vi spiser frokost og bagefter går jeg i seng og tager en gigantisk eftermiddagslur. Jeg står op kl 16 og vi slapper af med en kop te i sofaen.

Jeg kigger lidt på nettet. Alison har lagt et charmerende foto af sine 3 børn i dag, som de tager en tur i Devils Punchbowl- dalen, en af områdets smukkeste attraktioner. De lokale skoler har efterårsferie i denne uge.

vores børnebørn (venstre til højre) Josie (12), Rosalind (10) og Isaac (8)

Du godeste, unge mennesker har så meget energi, i sammenligning med gamle krager som Lois og mig!

Tilfældigvis overvejer Lois og mig for tiden at tegne et abonnement på det berømte Old People-magasin, der for nogle år siden ramte overskrifterne med sin første udgave, som havde et overdimensioneret format med ord trykt i gigantisk skrifttype, der er stort nok til, at selv de ældste af de gamle kan se dem uden besvær (kilde: Onion News).

Med meget store farvebilleder samt særlige "I-Can-Read-It-All-By-Myself" -historier - der ikke indeholder store ord - bladets underholdende, ældgamle-venlige indhold blev ummiddelbart forventet at give de ældre en sjov og ikke-truende oplevelse.

Redaktøren Hal Gurnstein fortalte journalister dengang, "Dette magasin vil holde gamle mennesker optaget i timevis af lydløs læsning-sjov."

Det første nummer af Old People indeholdt et fotoprojekt på Franklin D. Roosevelt, samt artikler om posthuset, den afdøde Bob Hope, og hvordan piller kan opløses i æblesauce for at gøre dem nemmere at sluge.

En anden regelmæssig del af magasinet med titlen "Deres bedstebørnebørn" indeholder fuldfarvefotografier af forskellige babyer hver uge. "Selvfølgelig vil babyerne vælges tilfældigt og ikke rent faktisk være beslægtede til magasinets læseren på nogen måde, men det vil læseren ikke vide," forklarede Gurnstein.

Tilbageblik til december 1996: de afdøde Bernice Huggins og Harry Fordson

hygger sig med at blade igennem ”Old People”-magasinets første udgave.

17:30 Vi spiser aftensmad, lidt tidligere, end normalt, og bagefter skal Lois ud. Hun ønsker at deltage i sin sekts regelmæssige ugentlige bibelseminar. Denne semesters program sætter fokus på referencer (profetier osv) i gamle testamentet, som angår Jesus Kristus. Hun kører over til Mari-Ann og Alfs hus, og de vil køre hende over til Brockworth, og deltage alle tre i seminaret.

19:00 Jeg har lidt alenetid og bruger aftenen på at se lidt fjernsyn. De viser en interessant dokumentarfilm (2 del af 5) der handler om spørgsmålet ”Hvorfor er vi her?”. Programmets vært er den charmerende Brian Cox.

En interessant og underholdende behandling af emnet: Brian rejser til Asien (Indien, Japan) for at besvare spørgsmålet i programmets titel.

Og det er lidt sjældent at jeg får chancen til at se et close-up af en kamels mund (eller en fugleperspektiv så længe fuglen flyver lavt over kamelens hoved).

Brian tager en prøve af en kamels kropsceller (udover en prøve af sin egne

kropsceller) for at bekræfte, at alle pattedyr har celler af samme type

Brians fremlæggelse dæker kort sagt de følgende punkter.

Vores liv er reguleret af et system af regler, der gælder hele universet, så vidt vi ved. Floder på jorden vender med et forudsigelige forhold mellem flodens bredde og flodens kurver, og det samme holder stik med for eksempel floder af metan på Titan, en af Saturns måner osv osv.

Men at have regler betyder ikke at alt, der sker, er forudsigeligt – tilfældighed spiller en stor rolle. Det var en tilfældighed, der for 66 millioner år siden fik en stor meteorit til at ramme jorden, og verdens dinosaurer døde ud som resultatet. Menneskeheden kunne ikke være blevet udviklet, hvis meteoritten havde taget en lidt anderledes retning - det er forskere helt sikre på.

I milliarder af år var der kun encelle organismer – bakterier og arkebakterier - på jorden og livet var stille og roligt som resultatet. En dag tilfældvis trængte en bakterie ind i en arkebakterie (måske på grund af kedsomhed, tænker jeg, men det er jeg ikke helt sikker på), og ikke blev fordøjet af en eller anden grund. Bakterien forsynede det nye fordobelt superorganisme med energi, mens arkebakteriet forsynede den med beskyttelse af en eller anden art.

Og det var alt det der, der gjorde det muligt for skabelsen af mere kompleks organismer, inklusive os mennesker. I denne processen spillede den naturlige selektion en stor rolle, og den naturlige selektion er selvfølgelig en ting, der ikke tilfældig. Og mitokondriet i vores kropsceller i dag er resultatet af den der kollision, der skete for så mange milliarder af år siden.

Det er velkendt, at livet ikke kunne være blevet skabt, hvis visse naturlige lover og matematiske konstanter (styrken af tyngdekraften, lysets hastighed osv) var lidt anderledes, end de er. Hvis styrken af tyngdekraften ikke var præcis rigtig, ville der have været ingen stjerner og ingen planeter. Og hvis lysets hastighed havde været lidt anderledes, ville der have været ingen kulstof eller ilt.

Så, er vi mennesker bare heldige? Forskere mistænker nu, at der faktisk er en uendeligt antal af universer, der bliver skabt hele tiden, med deres egne fysiske konstanter, og hovedparten af disse universer ikke er egnede til udviklingen af livet. Big Bang-eventer er i gang med at ske hele tiden – hver gang et område af rummet, der i begyndelsen bare består af energi, holder området op med at udvide sig og energiet bliver konverteret til nyt stof, og hey presto endnu et univers.

Du godeste, sikke nogle skøre universer vi bor i !!!

Vi er heldige i, at vi er i live, inden idioterne eksploderer verden, men efter forskerne er begyndt at forstå ting, der skete for milliærder af år siden. Det er den bedste period nogensinde - ingen tvivl om det!!!!

22:00 Lois kommer tilbage fra bibelseminaret og jeg går i seng. Men stakkels Lois trænger til at slappe af og geare lidt ned efter aftenens stimulerende bibel-baserede diskussionsmøde, så hun bliver oppe og ser lidt fjernsyn.

De viser det seneste afsnit af reality-showet ”Celebs Go Dating”, selvom hverken Lois eller jeg har den fjerneste idé om, hvem disse såkaldte ”berømtheder” er – yikes, nu er vi bare 2 gamle krager, ingen tvivl om det!