Monday, January 28 2019

08:00 We get up early because Ian, our local window cleaner, is arriving at 9 am and we don't want him to see us in bed or in the bath, which would be a little embarrassing to put it mildly.

10:00 I start writing another 3 paragraphs of an email in Hungarian to Tünde, my pen pal in Budapest, when Lois calls me - she has noticed that our freezer’s red warning light is flashing. For some reason, the freezer has been switched off - damn it! We do not know how long it has been off - maybe for 24 hours. Yikes!

We try to rescue as many food items as possible - Lois boils and cooks a lot of meat and a lot of home-grown fruit. My goodness, what a disaster !!!!

We call the repair shop - they can’t send a repairman till Friday - damn !!!

Meanwhile, we must cook, roast or eat as many defrosted foods as possible. We have no choice but to drop our New Year's diet for a few days. Every cloud has a silver lining  ha ha!

For old crows like Lois and me, a freezer is an essential appliance, no doubt about that. I tell Lois about a news story I read on the influential American site, Onion News, the other day.

In an effort to provide comfort and nourishment to her spouse in her absence, local octogenarian Helen Griggs told journalists that she has begun to freeze homemade meals for her husband to enjoy after she passes away.

"I have already made four pans of lasagne and a large pile of beef stew for Arthur," said Griggs, 87, who is determined to supply her partner of 60 years with a large selection of soups and stews he can grab from the freezer, warm up and eat at his leisure after she has gone to her final resting place.

"I just want to make sure he eats well. He loves my butternut squash soup, so I made 10 quarts. I froze every meal as a single serving, which he can heat up in the microwave without too much fuss."

Griggs estimated that she had prepared enough frozen meals to last until her husband joined her, but she first wanted to make one extra meatloaf just to be on the safe side.

What a heartwarming story – and it’s comforting to know that Arthur will not have any trouble finding tv dinners next time he goes in for an evening's box-set binge session, that’s something I know for sure !!!

I imagine I will go before Lois, so no worries there. Women have two sets of X chromosomes, while men have one set of X and one set of Y:  X chromosomes are important for protecting life, and women have a backup set, whereas men do not.

The chromosome pattern of the two sexes is the same in all species, except for birds, where the situation is reversed: and male birds, with their double set of X chromosomes, live longer than the females, which is our first clue!

What a crazy world we live in !!!!

12:00 Lunch - and we eat a record amount of fish fingers, which is nice. Good times a-coming ha ha! Afterwards I go to bed and take a gigantic afternoon nap. I get up at 3 pm, and Lois slips out and swings by the neighbours (Bill and Mary) to chat a little with Mary, who suffers from dementia. Lois is so warm-hearted - if only I could be more like her.

16:00 I listen to the radio for a while, an interesting programme that asks the question: is humanity still evolving? The host of the programme is the charming Prof. Brian Cox.

A somewhat confusing discussion with a lot of digressions, but nevertheless there is a lot of interesting information here, which is nice.

The programme participants are not quite sure whether humanity is continuing to evolve in a genetic way – “only time will tell”, apparently (ask them again in about 10,000 years ha ha!).

Humanity does a lot of things that are not just designed for greater survival or fertility. But we have also begun to intervene in our environment in ways whereby we can increase survival opportunities through medical research.

Technological inventions can damage our ability to remember things (computers, smartphones, etc.), which at first glance is not helpful. But we can, for example, correct eyesight problems using glasses. Both weaknesses could otherwise potentially damage our ability to survive.

There is a common misconception that evolution always leads to improvements, and necessarily means progress, which is not correct - there is a random element in everything in the universe due to the influence of the unexpected.

Are we continuing to evolve genetically? It is mentioned that it was only 8,000 years ago that we developed the ability to digest milk, especially in Northern Europe. Scientists believe that the change occurred in Germany soon after people began to domesticate cows and similar animals. At first we could only digest related products such as cheese, yogurt, etc., but finally this led us on to the ability to digest milk as well.

Prevalence of "Lactose-persistence" : finally, Britain and Ireland 

are leading the world in an important skill - hurrah! 

Our next challenge - to solve the Brexit issue !!!

Generally, genetic development is very slow. Genomes from people who lived 50,000 or even 200,000 years ago are not very different from those of people today. You could cut their hair, dress them up in a nice suit, and plonk them down in the middle of this show's studio audience, and they wouldn’t  stand out from everybody else.

The main difference that has emerged over the past 200,000 years has been cultural change - the evolution of art, etc. (about 50,000 years ago), and at the same time the ability to imagine abstract concepts, which does not seem to have an obvious genetic component.

Intelligent animals that seem to initiate cultural developments are also mentioned. Female dolphins have taught each other to put sponges on their noses when they go looking for food on the seabed because the sponges protect them, and prevent them from being injured by sharp bits of rock, etc.

Male dolphins have not bothered to imitate the females in this respect. I discuss the issue with Lois, and we come to the conclusion that the male dolphins possible consider the use of sponges to be a little wimpy.

My goodness, what a crazy world we live in !!!!

A female dolphin who has put a sponge on her nose to go hunting

- good grief, what madness !!!

18:00 We have dinner, and then Mari-Ann swings by to take away some of our half-defrosted food. Alf's disabled brother Billy is staying with them this week, and Mari-Ann is happy to be able to grab some extra food items - Billy has a big appetite, it seems.

20:00 We spend the rest of the evening watching a bit of television, but unfortunately our attention is constantly disturbed by a number of emails and text messages on two separate chat rooms run by Lois’s sect.

Lois' sect holds its regular Bible seminar every Tuesday night in Brockworth library, but the weather girl has said it is going to snow heavily in the town tomorrow night. If the seminar is cancelled, it is unfortunately Lois's responsibility to send out emails or call the seminar’s participants to inform them of the cancellation.

The preacher who is to make the preliminary remarks and lead the discussion tomorrow, is "Colin the Younger" and he wants to wait until 5:30 pm tomorrow to make the decision to cancel or not to cancel. But Lois points out that it would be very difficult for her to try to contact all the participants at the last minute - she has got to have dinner, and get herself ready, so she can leave the house at 6:15 pm.

I just hope that Colin the Younger is persuaded by Lois's arguments and agrees to make the decision earlier in the day so she has enough time to contact everyone. What madness !!!!

Colin the Younger in happier times – leading a discussion

in the current series of of the sect’s bible seminars, on the theme

"Prophecies about Jesus in the book of Isaiah"

20:30 We see a little television, but at the same time we keep an eye on my smartphone, to keep up with the debate about possible cancellation of tomorrow's bible seminar.

Monday night is TV quiz evening at our house. "Only Connect" and "University Challenge are on.

Lois and I are always happy about questions we can answer, but which all the fresh young brains strike out on, because we believe it proves that we are not yet suffering from dementia, but perhaps we are deluding ourselves - the jury is still out on that one.

In "Only Connect", both Lois and I find that we can answer questions that the "brains" do not have the faintest idea about. And later, in the University Challenge, we have the same success, which is nice.

Sometimes Lois and I find out about topics and sequences we would rather not know about, for example, the so-called "Bristol Stool Scale", which apparently describes the firmness of stools in descending order - yuck, scary! Something for Sheldon Cooper in the Big Bang Theory sitcom maybe.

Lois and I are just a pair of old crows, but sometimes this is a plus. None of the programme's 4 "brains" could guess the 4th thing in the following sequence:

what is the 4th item in this sequence?

Bob (Marley), Carol, & Ted & ......(???)

Fortunately, Lois and I are old enough to remember the movie "Bob, Carol, & Ted & Alice", which we saw in 1970 at a cinema in Oxford soon after we first hooked up - and we thought we were being very daring. But the film would be considered very tame by today's standards, no doubt about that ha ha!

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

Danish translation

08:00 Vi står tidligt op, fordi Ian, vores lokale vinduespudser, kommer kl 9 og vi vil ikke have at han ser os i sengen eller i badet, hvilket ville være lidt pinligt for at sige mildt.

10:00 Jeg går i gang med at skrive endnu 3 afsnit af en email på ungarsk til Tünde, min penveninde i Budapest, da Lois kalder til mig – hun har bemærket, at fryserens røde advarselslampe blinker. Af en eller anden grund er fryseren blevet slukket – pokkers!  Vi ved ikke, hvor længe den er blevet slukket – måske i 24 timer. Yikes!

Vi prøver at redde så mange fødevarer som muligt – Lois koger og steger en masse kød og en masse hjemmedyrket frugt. Du godeste, sikke en katastrof!!!!

Vi ringer til reparationsværkstedet – de kan først sende en reparatør på fredag – pokkers!!!

I mellemtiden må vi koge, stege eller spise så mange optøede fødevarer som muligt. Vi har ikke andet valg end at droppe vores nytårsslankekur i nogle dage. Oven over skyerne er himlen altid blå ha ha!

For gamle krager som Lois og mig er en fryser en essentiel apparat, ingen tvivl om det. Jeg fortæller Lois om en nyhedshistorie, jeg forleden læste på den indflydelsesrige amerikanske websted, Onion News.

I en indsats for at give trøst og nærende mad til sin ægtefælle i sit fravær, fortalte den lokale octogenær Helen Griggs journalister, at hun er begyndt at fryse hjemmelavede måltider for hendes mand til at nyde efter hun er afgået ved døden.

"Jeg har allerede lavet fire pander lasagne og en stor bunke oksekødspot til Arthur", siger Griggs, 87, der er fast besluttet på at forsyne partneren, hun har boet sammen med i 60 år, med et stort udvalg af supper og gryderetter, han kan tage op af fryseren, varme op og spise når det er ham belejligt, efter hun er blevet bragt til sit sidste hvilested.

"Jeg vil bare sørge for at han spiser godt. Han elsker min butternut squash suppe, så jeg lavede 10 quarts. Jeg frøs hvert måltid som en enkelt servering, som han kan varme op i mikrovnen uden for meget besvær. "

Griggs anslog, at hun havde forberedt nok frosne måltider til at vare, indtil hendes mand sluttede til hende, men ønskede først at lave en ekstra meatloaf bare for at sikkerheds skyld.

Sikke en hjertevarmende historie – det er trøstende at vide, at hr Griggs ikke vil være i bekneb for tv-måltider, næste gang han dyrker en box-set binge-session, det ved jeg med sikkerhed!!!

Jeg formoder, at jeg vil afgå ved døden længe før Lois, så er der der ikke noget problem. Kvinder har to sæt X kromosomer, mens de mandlige har et sæt X og et sæt Y: X-kromosomers er vigtige for at beskytte livet, og kvinder har et backup sæt, mens mænd ikke gør.

De to køns kromosommønster er det samme i alle arter, bortset fra fuglene, hvor situationen er omvendt: og mandlige fugle, med deres dobbelt sæt X-kromosomer, lever længere, end de kvindelige, hvilket virker betydeligt.

12:00 Frokost – og vi spiser et rekordstort beløb af fiskepinder, hvilket er rart. Gode tider i vente ha ha! Bagefter går jeg i seng for at tage en gigantisk eftermiddagslur. Jeg står op kl 15, og Lois smutter ind hos naboerne (Bill og Mary) for at snakke lidt med Mary, der lider af demens. Lois er så varmhjertet – hvis bare jeg kunne ligne hende mere.

16:00 Jeg lytter lidt til radio, et interessant program, der stiller spørgsmålet: er menneskehed stadig i gang med at udvikle sig? Programmets vært er den charmerende Prof. Brian Cox.

En lidt forvirrende discussion med en masse sidespringer, men ikke desto mindre er der en masse interessant information, hvilket er rart.

Programmets deltagere er ikke helt sikre på, om menneskeheden fortsætter med at udvikle sig på en genetisk måde – det vil kun tiden vise (spørg dem igen om ca. 10.000 år ha ha!). Vi gør en masse ting, der ikke bare er designet for at overleve eller blive mere frugtbar. Vi er begyndt at gribe ind i miljøet på en måde, vi kan øge overlevelsesmuligheder på, ved hjælp af medicinsk forskning.

Teknologiske opfindelser kan beskadige vores evner til at huske tingene (computere, smartphones osv), hvilket på første øjekast ikke er behjælpeligt. Og vi kan for eksempel rette problemer i øjet ved hjælp af briller. Begge svagheder kunne ellers beskadige potentielt vores evne til at overleve.

Der er en almindelig misforståelse, at evolutionen altid fører til forbedringer, og nødvendigvis betyder fremskridt, hvilket ikke er korrekt – der er et tilfældigt element i alting i universet på grund af indflydelsen af det uforventede.

Fortsætter vi at udvikle os? Det blev nævnt, at vi kun 8.000 år siden udviklede evnen til at fordøje mælk, specielt i Nord-Europa. Forskere tror, at forandringen opstod i Tyskland, efter mennesker begyndte at domesticere køer og lignende dyr. I begyndelsen var det bare tilfældet, at vi kunne fordøje beslægtede produkter som ost, yoghurt osv, men endeligt førte denne praksis til, at vi også kunne  fordøje mælk.

”Lactose-persistente” andele: omsider leder Storbrittanien og Irland verdenen

i en vigtig færdighed – hurra! Vores næste udfordring – at fikse vores økonomi!!!

Genetisk udvikling er i det hele taget meget langsom. Genomer fra mennesker der levede for 50.000 eller 200.000 år siden, er ikke særlig anderledes end nutidens folk. Du kunne klippe deres hår, klæde dem på i et pænt jakkesæt og sætte dem ned midt i dette shows studiepublikum, uden at de ville skille sig ud fra resten. Den vigtigste forskel, der er opstod i de seneste 200.000 år har været kulturelle forandringer – udviklingen af kunst osv (for ca 50.000 år siden),  og samtidigt evnen til at forestille sig abstrakte koncepter, hvilket ikke virke at have en åbenbar genetisk komponent.

Intelligente dyr, der virker at indvielse kulturelle udviklinger,  bliver også nævnt. Hun-delfiner har lært at sætte svampe på næsene for at lede efter mad på havbunden, fordi svampene beskytter dem og forhindre dem i at blive såret af hårde klipper osv.

Han-delfiner har ikke gidet at imitere hunnerne. Jeg diskuterer dette spørgsmål med Lois, og vi kommer til den konklusion, at han-delfiner betragter brugen af svampe som lidt tøsedrengagtigt.

Du godeste, sikke en skør verden vi lever i !!!!

En hun-delfin, der har sat en svamp på næsen for at gå på jagt

– du godeste, sikke et vanvid!!!

18:00 Vi spiser aftensmad, og derefter smutter Mari-Ann ind hos os for at tage nogle af vores halvt-optøde fødevarer væk. Alfs handicappede bror Billy opholder sig denne uge hos dem, og Mari-Ann er glad for at snuppe ekstra mad – Billy har en stor appetit, lader det til. Du godeste, sikke et vanvid!!!!

20:00 Vi bruger resten af aftenen på at se lidt fjernsyn, men desværre bliver vores opmærksomhed konstant forstyrret af en række emails og sms-er på to adskilte chatrooms.

Lois’ sekt holder sit regelmæssige bibelseminar hver tirsdag aften i byen Brockworths bibliotek, men vejrpigen har sagt, at det kommer til at sne kraftigt i byen i morgen aften. Hvis seminaret bliver aflyst, er det desværre Lois’ ansvar at afsende emails eller ringe til seminarets deltagere, for at informere dem om aflysningen.

Prædikanten, der skal gøre de indledende bemærkninger og lede diskussionen i morgen, er ”Colin, den yngre”, og han vil gerne vente til 17:30 i morgen for at tage beslutningen, om at aflyse eller ikke at aflyse. Men Lois påpeger, at det ville være meget vanskeligt for hende at prøve at kontakte alle deltagerne i sidste øjeblik – hun skal alligevel også spise aftensmad, forberede sig selv, og forlade huset kl 18:15.

Jeg håber bare, at Colin den Yngre bliver overtalt af Lois' argumenter, og aftaler at tage beslutningen tidliger på dagen, så hun har tid nok til at kontakte alle. Sikke et vanvid!!!!

Colin den Yngre i lykkeligere tider – i færd med at lede diskussionen

i sektens nuværende serie af bibelseminarer, der handler om

”Profetier om Jesus i Esaja’s bog i det kristne gamle testamente”

20:30 Vi ser lidt fjernsyn, men samtidigt skeler vi til min smartphone, for at følge med i sektens debat om morgendagens bibelseminar.

Mandag aften er tv-quiz-aften hos os. De viser ”Only Connect” og ”University Challenge.

Lois og jeg er altid glad for de spørgsmål, som vi kan besvare, men som alle de friske unge hjerner har problemer med, fordi vi tror det beviser, at vi ikke endnu lider af demens, men måske vildleder vi os – det er juryen stadig ude om!

I ”Only Connect” finder både Lois og jeg at vi kan besvare spørgsmål, som ”hjernerne” ikke har den fjerneste anelse om. Og senere, i University Challenge, den samme succés, hvilket er rart.

Nogle gange finder Lois og jeg ud af om emner og sekvenser, vi hellere ikke vil vide om, for eksempel, den såkaldte ”Bristol Stool Scale”, der tilsyneladende beskriver fastheden af afføring i faldende rækkefølge – yuck, uhyggeligt! Noget for Sheldon Cooper i sitcommen Big Bang Theory måske.

Lois og jeg er bare et par gamle krager, men nogle gange er dette en plus. Ingen af programmets 4 ”hjerner” kunne gætte den 4. ting i de følgende sekvens:

Heldigvis er Lois og jeg gamle nok til at kunne huske filmen ”Bob, Carol, & Ted & Alice”, som vi så i 1970 i biografen i Oxford, snart efter vi først kom sammen – og vi tænkte, at vi var meget dristige. Men filmen ville blive betragtet som meget tam i sammenligning til nutidens standarder, ingen tvivl om det ha ha!

22:00 Vi går i seng – zzzzzzzzz!!!!!!!