Saturday, January 12 2019

09:00 Lois and I drive over to the local Tesco supermarket in Bishops Cleeve, a small town 3 miles north of Cheltenham, to do the shopping. Afterwards, we swing by the post office and newsagent’s  to buy 2 "Peter Rabbit" children's magazines for our 5-year-old twin grandchildren in Australia, Lily and Jessie.

As always, the magazines have a lot of free gifts on the cover – my god, what madness! But Lily and Jessie look forward very much to receiving them, says our daughter Sarah. We will be sending  the magazines off in a few days to Australia (after we have read them ourselves ha ha).

One of the two "Peter Rabbit" children's magazines we’ll be sending

to our 5 year old twin grandchildren in Perth, Australia

Incidentally, it's interesting that the Peter Rabbit franchise hit the headlines recently, after Sony Pictures published an apology  for patronisingly depicting a gardener's blackberry allergy in the Peter Rabbit movie, and getting into trouble for a comic scene, in which rabbits bombard the villainous gardener with blackberries. The source for the story was the influential US news site, Onion News.

Onion News asked for comments, and one of the site's most experienced commentators, Nicholas Hanson, a gin-taster, reacted sharply - in his opinion, the “shit storm” around Sony Films was in bad taste, considering how much vandalism Peter had been responsible for in Mr McGregor's vegetable garden.

I myself am not sure whether I am 100% in agreement with Hanson but his comments certainly deserve respect, when we think of his long record of insightful commentaries throughout the website's long and distinguished online history – that’s one thing I have no doubts about!

10:30 We come home and relax with a cup of coffee on the sofa. Afterwards I hop up on my fitness bike. I cycle my usual 6 miles and afterwards do some light weight-training.

12:00 We have lunch and afterwards I go to bed and take a gigantic afternoon nap. Meanwhile, Lois swings by the neighbours (Bill and Mary). Bill wants to go out and see the local football team’s match against Tranmere Rovers this afternoon, and he called Lois last night and asked her to come and sit with Mary in his absence this afternoon - Mary sadly suffers from dementia and Bill can't leave her alone in the house.

We feel sorry for Bill – all day he has to deal with the situation by chatting to Mary, calming her fears and anxiety constantly, and generally  making sure that she does not come to any harm. Poor Bill !!!!

15:00 I wake up but I stay in bed. I take  a little look at my smartphone and I see an interesting web article written by Barry McGuinness on the Quora website. The article is about a little known but fascinating episode in British history known as the Anglo-Saxon emigration to Byzantium.

After the invasion of William the Conqueror in 1066, the Anglo-Saxons waged a campaign of resistance against William and the Normans, but without success. That’s why about 5,000 Englishmen decided on an exodus by sea: sailing from England across the Mediterranean, and eventually reaching Constantinople.

Constantinople was then the largest, richest and most beautiful city in all of Europe. It had been the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire since the fall of the West. And it had had long-standing trade relations with southern Britain.

The Anglo-Saxon emigration from Britain in about 1075 was substantial - it consisted of 250 to 350 ships and up to 5,000 people, including "three earls and eight barons". They were led by a certain "Siward, Earl of Gloucester."

 in about 1075, about 5000 Anglo-Saxons

sailed to Byzantium, many of them eventually settling on the Crimea peninsula

They sailed into the Mediterranean, reclaimed Ceuta (a city on the north coast of Africa) and the islands of Mallorca (Mallorca) and Menorca (Menorca) from the Muslims, before sailing on to Sicily. After hearing that Constantinople itself was under siege, they sailed on further east and helped liberate the city.

The ruler of Constantinople, Alexius I Comnenus (Kirjalax), offered to hire the English as his bodyguards as part of the so-called "Varangian Guard", an elite unit of the Byzantine army whose members served as personal guardians for the Byzantine emperors. The unit originally consisted of Swedes and other Scandinavians, but under Emperor Alexios Komnenos the Varangian Guard was by the end of the 11th century mostly recruited from the Anglo-Saxons .

Other members of the Anglo-Saxon colony, including Siward, sailed on even further, to the Crimean Peninsula, where they founded a number of towns. They called the country "(New) England" and the area's largest towns were called "London", "York" and the names of other major towns and cities in England. And a few centuries later, medieval maritime maps of the area still showed such place names as 'Londina' (London) and 'Susaco' (Sussex).

medieval maritime map of Crimea showing

place names such as "London" (London) and "Susaco" (Sussex)

My god - what madness !!!!

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

Isn’t history completely fascinating? Who would want to study anything else?

15:30 I get up and relax with a cup of tea.

16:00 I pop next door to help Lois look after Mary. Talking to someone suffering from dementia is a strange experience. Mary's conversation does not make sense for the most part, she tends to talk in circles, and she is very confused about the details of her life.

I concentrate on not worrying her, above all, and I respond to her remarks with bland reactions and friendly platitudes. I prioritise trying to look calm, and I try to take up a relaxed posture in one of the armchairs in the living room. I turn on my smartphone because she repeatedly asks if the football game is over yet, and the phone enables me to follow the progress of the match. 

She is obviously very relieved when Bill calls at the door at 5 pm. I know that Bill, an enthusiastic supporter of Cheltenham Town football team, has high hopes for a good performance for his team today - the boys have certainly achieved a lot of solid wins recently, no doubt about it!

I'm not really sure how I would react if Lois ever contracted dementia (and I'm sure Lois would also have trouble coping with it if I was the one suffering. Scary!). And it must be very sad for Bill - he will never get the old Mary back now, but Mary still has a lot of needs and can't do without Bill taking care of her.

18:00 We have dinner and spend the rest of the evening watching a bit of television, an interesting documentary about Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII's second queen. The programme's host is the charming historian, Suzannah Lipscomb.

Suzannah Lispcomb is an intelligent person, unlike many documentary presenters - I have to say! She is an Oxford-educated academic. Lois and I like her gorgeous hair, but we do not have the faintest idea why she thinks it looks good to wear some kind of little nose stud – good grief, what madness !!!

Suzannah Lipscomb: Lois and I admire her gorgeous hair

But why does she think it looks good to wear a nose stud?

Good grief, what madness !!!!

But apologies - that was a bit of a digression.

Henry was worried that his first queen, Catherine of Aragon, had failed to give him a male heir. He was convinced that marriage was cursed because Catharine had previously been married to Henry's deceased elder brother, Arthur.

It says in the Old Testament that a man should not marry his brother's wife, although Lois says that the rule actually only applied if the brother was still alive, which makes sense to me, I have to say.

Henry had a number of mistresses at the court anyway, but it was just sex, it seems. But eventually he fell passionately in love, and it was crucial for England's history that the woman he fell in love with was a Protestant, Anne Boleyn, who came from a staunchly Protestant family. Lois says that God made Henry fall in love with Anne, so that England could be saved from the Pope's "legendary long arm".

The Pope refused to allow Henry to divorce Catherine in order to marry Anne. But the truth of Henry's passionate feelings for Anne is evident from his love letters to her, which were confiscated by the Pope - the confiscation was in order that the letters could be used in the church's excommunication process against Henry, after he went ahead and divorced Catherine anyway. 

If the letters had not been confiscated by the Vatican, they would probably have disappeared without trace, historians believe.

Henry and Anne: really in love with each other

It often seems quite random what gets preserved and what gets thrown away, when it comes to historical documents.

Being one of the Vatican's archivists was probably a bit of a boring job, and I don't know if the archivists  got some sort of guilty pleasure out of reading Henry's letters to Anne, for example, when he writes that he is looking forward to “kissing your little ‘duckies' again” – “duckies” was Elizabethan slang for breasts. But that’s something I'm not completely sure about - the jury is still out on that one.

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

Danish translation

09:00 Lois og jeg kører over til det lokale  Tesco-supermarked i Bishops Cleeve, en lille by 3 miles nord for Cheltenham, for at købe ind. Bagefter smutter vi ind i postkontoret- bladhandlerforretningen for at købe 2 ”Peter Rabbit” børnemagasiner til vores 5-årige børnebørn i Australien, Lily og Jessie. Som altid har magasinerne en masse gratis-gaver på omslaget – du godeste, sikke et vanvid! Men Lily og Jessie glæder sig meget til at modtage dem, siger Sarah. Vi vil afsender magasinerne om et par dage til Australien (efter vi har selv læst dem færdigt ha ha).

En af de to ”Peter Rabbit” børnemagasiner, vi vil sende

til vores 5-årige børnebørn i Perth, Australien

For øvrigt ramte Peter Rabbit-franchisen overskrifterne for nylig, efter Sony Pictures udgav en undskyldning for uhensigtsmæssigt at skildre en gartneres brombærsallergi i børnefilm Peter Rabbit, efter at være kommet i modvind for en komisk scene, hvor kaniner bombareder den skurkede karakter med brombær. Kilde var den indflydelsesrige amerikanske nyhedswebsted, Onion News.

Webstedet bad om kommentarer, og en af webstedets mest erfarne kommentatorer, Nicholas Hanson, en ginsmager, reagerede skarpt – efter hans mening var han ikke overrasket over shitstormen i betragtning af, hvor meget hærværk Peter var ansvarlig for i McGregors køkkenhave.  Jeg selv er ikke helt sikker på, om jeg er 100% enig med Hanson men hans kommentarer fortjener respekt uden tvivl, når vi kigger på hans lange år af indsigtsfulde kommentarer på løbet af webstedets lange og hæderlige historie på nettet – det har jeg ikke nogen tvivl om.

10:30 Vi kommer hjem og slapper af med en kop kaffe i sofaen. Bagefter hopper jeg op på min kondicykel. Jeg cykler mine sædvanlige 6 miles og bagefter laver lidt let vægttræning.

12:00 Vi spiser frokost og bagefter går jeg i seng for at tage en gigantisk eftermidagslur. I mellemtiden smutter Lois ind hos naboerne (Bill og Mary). Bill har lyst til at se det lokale fodboldholds kamp mod Tranmere Rovers i eftermiddag, og han ringede til Lois i går aftes og bad hende om at komme og sidde med Mary i sit fravær i eftermiddag – Mary lider desværre af demens, og Bill kan ikke forlade hende alene i huset.

Vi har ondt af Bill – han skal hele dagen takle problemerne ved at snakke med Mary, at berolige hendes frygter og angst konstant, og med andre ord at sikre, at hun ikke kommer noget til. Stakkels Bill !!!!

15:00 Jeg vågner op men jeg bliver liggende inde i sengen. Jeg kigger lidt på min smartphone og jeg ser en interessant webartikel, skrevet af Barry McGuinness på Quora-webstedet. Artiklen handler om en lidt kendt, men fascinerende episode i britisk historie kendt som den angelsaksiske emigration til Byzantium.

Efter William Erobrerens invasion i 1066,  udførte angelsakserne en modstandskampagne mod William og normannerne, men uden succes. Derfor besluttede Ca 5000 englændere sig på en udvandring til søs: de sejlede fra England og over Middelhavet, og tog i sidste ende til Konstantinopel.

Konstantinopel var dengang den største, rigeste og smukkeste by i hele Europa. Det havde været hovedstaden i det østlige romerske imperium siden Vestens fald. Og det havde langvarige handelsforbindelser med det sydlige England.

Den angelsaksiske udvandring fra Storbritannien i ca 1075 bestod af 250 til 350 skibe og op til 5.000 mennesker, herunder "tre jarler og otte baroner". De blev ledet af en vis "Siward earl of Gloucester”. De sejlede ind i Middelhavet, genvandt  Ceuta (en by på Afrikas nordkyst) og øerne Mallorca (Mallorca) og Menorca (Menorca) fra muslimerne, før de sejlede videre til Sicilien. Men efter at have hørt, at selve Konstantinopel blev belejret, sejlede de videre og hjalp med at befri byen.

i ca 1075, ca 5000 angelsaksere

sejlede til Byzantium og videre til halvøen Krim

Konstantinopelens hersker, Alexius I Comnenus (Kirjalax) tilbød at ansætte englænderne som hans livvagter som en del af den såkaldte ”Varangian Guard”, en elit enhed af den byzantinske hær, hvis medlemmer fungerede som personlige livvagter til de byzantinske kejserer. Enheden bestod oprindeligt af svensker og andre skandinaver, men under kejser Alexios Komnenos i slutningen af det 11. århundrede blev Varangian Guard for det meste rekrutteret fra angelsakserne.

Andre medlemmer af den angelsaksiske koloni, herunder Siward, sejlede videre til halvøen Krim, hvor de grundlagde en række by. De kaldte landet "England", og områdets største byer blev kaldt "London", "York" og navnene af andre store byer i England. Og et par århundreder senere viste mddelalderlige maritime kort over området stednavne som 'Londina' (London) og 'Susaco' (Sussex).

middelalderlige maritime kort over Krim viser

stednavne som ”Londina” (London) og ”Susaco” (Sussex)

Du godeste – sikke et vanvid!!!!

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

Er historie ikke helt fascinerende? Hvem ville have lyst til at studere noget andet?

15:30 Jeg står op og slapper af med en kop te.

16:00 Jeg smutter ind i nabohuset for at hjælpe Lois med at passe på Mary. Det er en underlig oplevelse at snakker med en, der lider af demens. Marys samtale giver ikke mening for det meste, hun har tendens til at tale i cirkler, og hun er meget forvirret over detaljerne af sit liv.

Jeg koncentrerer mig om ikke at uberolige hende, og jeg svarer på hendes bemærkninger med intetsigende reaktioner. Jeg lægger vægt på at se rolig ud, og jeg indtager en afslappet kropsholdning i en af stuens lænestole. Jeg tænder min smartphone fordi hun spørger gentagende gange, om fodboldkampen er slut endnu, og jeg kan følge efter kampens fremskridt. Hun er åbenbart meget lettet, da Bill ringer på døren ved 17-tiden. Jeg ved, at Bill, der er en entusiastisk tilhænger af Cheltenham Town fodbold-hold, har hele dagen håbet på et godt resultat for sit hold i dag – gutterne har helt sikkert opnået en masse solide sejre for nylig, ingen tvivl om det!

Jeg er ikke helt sikker på, om hvordan jeg ville reagerer, hvis Lois nogensinde pådrager sig demens (og jeg er helt sikker på, at Lois også ville have svært ved at klare sig, hvis det var jeg, der led af demens. Skræmmende! Og det må være meget trist for Bill – han vil aldrig vinde den gamle Mary tilbage nu. Men Mary har stadig en masse behov, og kan ikke klare sig uden at Bill passer på hende.

18:00 Vi spiser aftensmad og bruger resten af aftenen på at se lidt fjernsyn, en interessant dokumentarfilm, der handler om Anne Boleyn, Henrik 8.s 2. dronning. Programmets vært er den charmerende historiker, Suzannah Lipscomb.

Suzannah Lispcomb er et intelligent menneske, ulig mange dokumentarfilms værter – det må jeg nok sige! Lois og jeg kan godt lide hendes pragtfulde hår, men vi har ikke den fjerneste anelse om, hvorfor hun synes, det ser godt ud at gå med en slags lille næsestik – du godeste, sikke et vanvid!!!

Suzannah Lipscomb: Lois og jeg beundrer hendes praftfuldt hår

men hvorfor synes hun, at det ser godt ud af gå med en næsestik?

Du godeste, sikke et vanvid!!!!

Men undskyld – det var lidt af en sidespring.

Henrik var bekymret over, at det ikke lykkedes hans 1. dronning, Katharina af Aragonien, at give ham en mandlige arving. Han blev overbevist, at ægteskabet var forbandet på grund af, at Katharina før i tiden havde giftet sig med Henriks bror, Artur.

Det står i gamle testamentet, at en mand må ikke gifte sig med sin brors kone, selvom Lois siger, at reglen faktisk bare gjaldt hvis broren stadig levede endnu, hvilket giver mening for mit vedkommende – det må jeg nok sige!

Henrik havde alligevel en række elskerinder ved hoffet, men det var bare sex, lader det til. Men til sidst forelskede han sig passioneret, og det var afgørende for Englands historie, at kvinden, han forelskede sig i var en protestant, Anne Boleyn, der kom fra en dybt protestantisk familie. Lois siger, at Gud gjorde Henrik til at forelske sig i Anne, så England ville blive reddet fra pavens ”legendariske lange arm”.

Paven nægtede at tillade Henrik at skille sig fra Katherina for at gifte sig med Anne. Men sandheden af Henriks passionerede følelser for Anne er indlysende fra hans kærlighedsbreve, der blev konfiskeret af paven, så brevene kunne blive brugt i kirkens ekskommunikationsproces mod Henrik, efter han skilte sig fra Katharina. Hvis brevene ikke var blevet konfiskeret ville de sandsynligvis  være forsvundet, mener historikere.

Henrik og Anne, sandt forelskede i hinanden

Det synes ofte at være helt tilfældigt, hvad bliver opbevaret og hvad bliver smidt væk, når det kommer til historiske dokumenter.

Det var sandsynligvis lidt af et kedeligt arbejde at være en af Vatikanens arkivister, og jeg ved ikke, hvis arkivisterne fik en skyldig glæde af at læse Henriks breve til Anne, for eksempel da han skriver, at han ”glæder sig meget at kysse dine ’duckies’ igen” – duckies (ærlinger) var elizabethansk slang for bryster. Men det er jeg ikke helt sikker på – juryen er stadig ude om det.

22:00 Vi går i seng – zzzzzzzzz!!!!