Danskcolin: Wednesday, November 28, 2018

04:30 Lois and I wake up, much earlier than usual, but we stay lying in bed. I read about 10 pages of my bedside book, and get up. I sit down with the computer and take a little look online.

I have had an email from Patti, a member of the local U3A association (University of the 3rd Age) who would like to join Lois's and my U3A Danish group. She could speak a bit of Danish some time in the past (not well, she says). I tell her that the group is currently taking a 2-month break, but we are going to resume our meetings in January. I am very happy to hear from her because there is a general lack of people in Britain who can speak a little Danish, to put it mildly!

The lack of Danish speakers is not surprising, because even French and German classes in high school are, due to lack of funding, now limited to teaching only the most basic sentences, including "May I please use the bathroom?" And "No, I do not want to go to the beach with Marie and Jean."

The cuts in foreign language curricula followed the decision to save money on English classes by cutting out the past tense - a grammatical construction that has traditionally been used to relate all actions and states that were carried out at an earlier date - from standard English and language arts programmes ( source: Onion News).

This tense, the past tense, which has been a part of school curricula for more than 200 years, was considered by school administrators to be just too expensive to continue with at elementary and secondary school level.

"This was by no means an easy decision, but teaching our students how to conjugate verbs in such a way as allows them to describe events that have already taken place, is a luxury that we can no longer afford." said college president Sam Pennock. "Unfortunately, with our current budget, the past tense has now become a thing of the past."

In the most dramatic exhibition of the new trend, the Ministry of Education decided to remove "-ed" endings from all the country's English classrooms thereby saving schools an estimated £2.3 million annually. Officials say they plan to slowly phase out the past tense by first removing the pluperfect. Once students have adapted to this change, the past perfect will be eliminated. Hundreds of school districts across the country are expected to follow suit.

"This is the end of an era," said Alicia Reynolds, a school director. "For some, reading and writing about things that are not actually taking place at the moment, has been almost as much a part of school as history and social studies."

What madness! It is no wonder that we Brits are the laughing-stock of the whole world! Unfortunately, it's a frequent experience for English tourists to land in France and see the French covering their mouths so we cannot see them sniggering when we ask to use the bathroom.

It is just sad, to be quite honest.

What a crazy world we live in !!!!

08:45 I jump back into bed with Lois and we drink our morning tea. We get up and after breakfast we drive into the village. In the post office we send off a package to Isaac, our grandson in Haslemere, and Lois swings by the local pharmacy to pick up her cholesterol pills. Finally, we pop into the local convenience store, "Bakery Stores", to buy bread, fruit and vegetables. We come home and relax with a cup of coffee on the couch.

13:00 We have lunch and afterwards we talk on the phone with Alison, our daughter in Haslemere. Her family moved back to England 4 months ago, after 6 years in Denmark.

Ed, Alison's husband, has still not got a new job in England - it was eight months ago that Ed was let go by his company in Copenhagen. He is in discussions with different companies in England, but unfortunately, the process of choosing new employees has become much more long-winded and complicated than before, especially at Ed's level – that’s for sure.

14:00 I go to bed and have a gigantic afternoon nap. I wake up but stay lying in bed. I look at my smartphone and the Danish news media for a bit. I read an amazing article about an East Jutland farmer, Thomas Bent Andersen, who got a surprise when a huge 27-tonne rock was recently dug out of a field on his farm just outside Aarhus, according to TV2 East Jutland.

"In the fields we mainly have cereals - wheat, winter barley, and malt barley", he tells the local tv station, talking about what he usually gets out of the land. "That’s why I got so much of a surprise the other day, when a huge rock came up.”

Thomas Bent Andersen is a fourth generation farmer on this bit of land, and although the family have been aware for some time that there was a rock in the ground, no one could have expected it to be such a size.

“It's huge. I've never seen such a big stone before”, says Thomas Bent Andersen, who had been finding the stone tiresome over a long period of time. For years he was able to detect his plough scratching against the stone whenever he ploughed.

That’s why it was a no-brainer to have it removed from the ground while he was in any case working on a pond that he was digging out. However, it proved to be harder than he initially assumed, to put it mildly.

The man being paid to dig it out said initially that he could do it before lunchtime, but he was soon put wise. It took quite a while to dig it up - 6-7 hours in fact. The man had never seen such a large stone, says Andersen.

In addition to being a surprise to the local East Jutland farmers, the stone actually tells a story about the past, more specifically about the last ice age, explained Aarhus University geologist Anne Sofie Søndergaard to TV2 East Jutland.

“It was carried from Norway by the ice during the last ice age”, said the geologist, who estimates that the stone has been around on Thomas Bent Andersen's land for about 20,000 years.

Good grief, what a crazy world we live in !!! I nip out to our backyard to check up on our local stones, but in fact they are all relatively small, and even the biggest one only weighs half a pound or so. Damn!

16:00 I get up, and Lois and I relax with a cup of tea on the couch.

17:30 We have dinner and spend the rest of the evening listening to the radio and watching a little television. An interesting documentary is on, "Digging for Britain" (1st part of 4), an annual series that gives an overview of what the country's archaeologists have uncovered over the past year. This episode is about excavations in Scotland and Northern England. The host of the program is the charming Alice Roberts.

An interesting overview of a number of the most prominent archaeological excavations of the year. For me, the most interesting feature is about a site on Rousay, one of the Orkney islands, where storms 8 years ago uncovered a massive 4,000-year-old neolithic burial chamber on the beach.

archaeologists working on a 4000-year-old neolithic burial chamber

on a beach on Rousay, one of the Orkney islands in northern Scotland

Archaeologists have been working on the burial chamber for 8 consecutive years, but in the summer of 2018 they had a bit of a surprise when they discovered that there was also a 2000 year old iron-age roundhouse built into the side of the Neolithic burial chamber.

Good grief, what a madness !!! It is not known if the round house was built just there because there was already a rich supply of dressed stone to hand, or because the homeowners were particularly religious and wanted to live near their ancestors – that’s something the jury is still out on.

2000 years after the neolithic burial chamber was constructed, an iron-age roundhouse was

built into the tomb – my god, what madness !!!!

A second surprise this year was the discovery of a 1000-year smithy, where a blacksmith and a coppersmith had worked - coppersmiths were very rare during this period. Archaeologists excavated, among other things, a 1000-year-old anvil with the impression of the smith's fingers and knees on it:

The smithy dates from the Viking Age when many Vikings had settled in the area, and the Orkney Islands were an important staging post on Viking routes between Scandinavia, Iceland, Ireland, England and the Atlantic Ocean. Graves of the first generation of viking immigrants to Orkney has also been found near the neolithic burial chamber.

the impression of the 1000-year-old coppersmith's

fingers and knees on the side of the anvil

Isn’t archaeology totally fascinating? Who would want to study anything else?

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

Danish translation

04:30 Lois og jeg vågner op, langt tidligere, end normalt, men vi bliver liggende i sengen. Jeg læser ca. 10 sider af min sengetidbog, og står op. Jeg sætter mig med computeren og kigger idt på nettet.

Jeg har fået en email fra Patti, et medlem af den lokale U3A-foreningen (Universitet for den 3. alder), der gerne vil slutte sig til min og Lois’ U3A danske gruppe. Hun har kunnet lidt dansk før i tiden (ikke godt, siger hun). Jeg fortæller hende, at gruppen for tiden tager en 2-måneders pause, men vi skal genoptage vores møder til januar. Jeg er meget glad for, at hører fra hende, fordi der er en generel mangel på folk i Storbritannien, der kan tale lidt dansk, for at sige mildt!

Manglen på danske højttalere er ikke overraskende, da selv franske og tyske klasser på gymnasiet på grund af manglende finansiering er begrænset til at undervise kun de mest grundlæggende sætninger, herunder "Må jeg venligst låne badeværelset?" Og "Nej, Jeg ønsker ikke at gå til stranden med Marie og Jean. "

Nedskæringerne i fremmedsprogs læseplaner fulgte beslutningen om at spare penge på engelske klasser ved at skære den tidligere tid - en grammatisk konstruktion, der traditionelt plejede at relatere alle handlinger og stater, der er udvist på et tidligere tidspunkt - fra deres standard engelsk og sprogkunst programmer (kilde: Onion News).

En del af skolens læseplaner i mere end 200 år, blev datid betragtet af skoleadministratorer at være for dyr til at fortsætte med den i grundskolen.

"Dette var på ingen måde en nem beslutning, men det at lære vores elever, hvordan de kan konjugere verber på en måde, der gør det muligt for dem at beskrive begivenheder, som allerede har fundet sted, er en luksus, som vi ikke længere har råd til," sagde højskolepræsident Sam Pennock. "Med vores nuværende budget må da tid desværre være en ting af fortiden."

I den mest dramatiske udstilling af den nye tendens, besluttede undervisningsministeriet mandag at fjerne "-ed" -endinger fra alle landets engelske klasseværelser og sparer kæmper for skoler på ca. 2,3 mio. Kr. Hvert år. Embedsmænd siger, at de planlægger langsomt at udfase datid ved først at fjerne pluskvamperfektum; når eleverne har tilpasset sig forandringen, bliver perfektum, elimineret. Hundredvis af skoledistrikter over hele landet forventes at følge med.

"Dette er slutningen på en æra," sagde Alicia Reynolds, en skoledirektør. "For nogle at læse og skrive om ting, der ikke er ved at finde sted, var næsten lige så meget en del af skolen som historieklasse og samfundsstudier."

Sikke et vanvid! Det er ikke undre, at vi englændere er til grin for hele verden! Det er desværre en hyppig oplevelse for engelske turister at lande i Frankrig og se franskmændene dække deres mund så vi ikke kan se dem slå en latter op. Det er trist ærligt talt.

08:45 Jeg hopper tilbage op i sengen til Lois, og vi drikker vores morgenté. Vi står op og efter morgenmad kører vi ind i landsbyen. I postkontoret afsender vi en pakke til Isaac, vores barnebarn i Haslemere, og Lois smutter ind i det lokale apoteket for at hente sine kolesterolpiller. Til sidst træder vi ind i den lokale nærbutik ”Bakery Stores” for at købe brød, frugter og grøntsager. Vi kommer hjem og slapper af med en kop kaffe i sofaen.

13:00 Vi spiser frokost og bagefter taler vi lidt på telefon med Alison, vores datter i Haslemere. Hendes familie flyttede for 4 måneder siden tilbage til England efter 6 års ophold i Danmark. Ed, Alisons mand, har stadig ikke fået et nyt job i England – det var for 8 måneder siden, at Ed blev fritstillet af sit selskab i København. Han er i diskussioner med forskellige selskaber i England, men desværre er processen af at vælge ny ansatte blevet meget mere langvarig og kompliceret, end før, specielt på Eds niveau - det har jeg ikke nogen tvivl om.

14:00 Jeg går i seng og tager en gigantisk eftermiddagslur. Jeg vågner op men jeg bliver liggende i sengen. Jeg kigger lidt på min smartphone og de danske nyhedsmedier. Jeg læser en forbløffende artikel om en østjysk landmand, Thomas Bent Andersen, der fik sig noget af en overraskelse, da en enorm sten med en vægt på 27 tons for nyligt blev gravet fri fra marken på hans landejendom lidt uden for Aarhus, skriver ifølge TV2 Østjylland.

- På markerne har vi primært korn - både hvede, vinterbyg og maltbyg, fortæller han til lokalstationen om, hvad der plejer at komme op af jorden. Derfor blev han lettere overrasket, da der kom en kæmpe sten op.

Thomas Bent Andersen er fjerde generation på gården, og selvom familien længe har været klar over, at der lå en sten i jorden ude på marken, så havde ingen regnet med, at den ville være af sådan en størrelse.

- Den er jo kæmpe stor. Jeg har aldrig set så stor en sten før, siger Thomas Bent Andersen, som havde fundet stenen træls gennem en længere periode. Han kunne nemlig mærke sin plov skrabe mod stenen, når han pløjede.

Derfor var det oplagt at få den fjernet fra marken, mens der alligevel skulle graves ud til en sø, som han er ved at anlægge. Det skulle dog vise sig at være sværere end først antaget.

- Manden, der skulle grave den ud, sagde, at det kunne han da lige klare inden aftensmadstid, men han blev klogere. Det tog lang tid at grave den op - faktisk 6-7 timer. Han har heller aldrig set så stor en sten, fortæller Andersen.

Udover at forbløffe østjyske landmænd, fortæller stenen faktisk også en historie om fortiden, navnligt den seneste istid, forklarer geolog ved Aarhus Universitet Anne Sofie Søndergaard til TV2 Østjylland.

- Den er transporteret fra Norge af isen under sidste istid, lyder det fra geologen, som anslår, at stenen har ligget omkring på Thomas Bent Andersens mark i omtrent 20.000 år.

Du godeste, sikke en skør verden vi lever i !!! Jeg går lige et smut i baghaven for at tjekker op på vores lokale sten, men faktisk er de alle forholdsvis små, og den største vejer kun et halvt pund eller deromkring. Pokkers!

16:00 Jeg står op og Lois og jeg slapper af med en kop te i sofaen.

17:30 Vi spiser aftensmad og bruger resten af aftenen på at lytte til radio og ser lidt fjernsyn. De viser en interessant dokumentarfilm ”Digging for Britain” (1. del af 4), en årlig serie, der giver en oversigt af hvad landets arkæologer har afdækket i løbet af det seneste år. Dette afsnit handler om udgravninger i Skotland og i det nordlige England. Programmets vært er den charmerende Alice Roberts.

Et interessant oversigt af en række af årets mest fremherskende arkæologiske udgravninger. For mit vedkommende er det mest interessante indslag handler om et sted på Rousay, en af Orkneyøerne, hvor stormer for 8 år siden afslørede et massivt rundt 4.000-årigt neolitisk gravkammer på stranden.

arkæologer arbejdende på en 4000-årigt neolitisk gravkammer

på en strand på Rousay, en af Orkneyøerne i det nordlige Skotland

Arkæologer har arbejdet på gravkammeret i 8 år i træk, men om sommeren 2018 havde de lidt af en overraskelse, da de opdagede, at der også var en 2000-årig jernalderlig rundhus, bygget ind i siden af det neolitiske gravkammer. Du godeste, sikke et vanvid!!! Man ved ikke, om rundhuset blev bygget netop der, fordi der allerede var en rigelig forsyning af forarbejdet sten ved hånden, eller fordi de husejere var særligt religiøse og havde lyst til at bo i nærheden af deres forfædre – det er juryen stadig ude om.

da 2000 år efter det neolitiske gravkammer blev bygget blev en jernalderlig rundhus

indbygget i den del af gravkammeret – du godeste, sikke et vanvid !!!!

En 2. overraskelse i år var opdagelsen af en 1000-årig smedie, hvor en smed og også en kobbersmed arbejdede – kobbersmede var meget sjældne i denne periode. Arkæologer udgravede blandt andet en 1000-årig ambolt med aftrykket af smedens fingre og knæ kan ses: smeden daterer fra vikingetiden, da mange vikinger havde bosat sig i området, og da Orkneyøerne var en vigtig transitlejr på ruterne mellem Skandinavien, Island, Irland, England og Atlanterhavet. Grave af den første generation af vikinge indvandrer er også blevet fundet i nærheden af det neolitiske gravkammer.