Danskcolin: Saturday, January 5 2019

09:00 Lois and I drive over to Bishops Cleeve, a small town 3 miles north of Cheltenham, to do our food shopping at the local Tesco supermarket. Afterwards, we call in at the nearby hardware store to buy a new chopping board (to use just with meat), and finally we swing by Lowry's café to relax with a cup of coffee and recharge our batteries - we are getting old, that’s for sure. We come home.

12:30 We have lunch and afterwards I go to bed and take a gigantic afternoon nap. Meanwhile, Lois gets started on taking the Christmas tree decorations and Christmas lights off the tree and putting them in our large box. She then takes down the tree and wraps it up with a couple of big black sacks.

Later in the day, we recall with nostalgia the very sad and touching photos on onion.com of a broken Christmas tree ornament, that had been sentenced to a lonely existence on the side of the tree facing the wall. This sad story certainly touched our hearts, that’s for sure. The story has never really left us and it informs pretty much everything we do in life.

perhaps the year's most heart-breaking news story –

a broken Christmas tree ornament sentenced to a lonely existence

on the side of the tree facing the wall!

My god, what sadness !!!

Where is this broken Christmas tree ornament now, we wonder. We are hoping that somebody will have taken pity on it by now. At Christmas time it is good sometimes, when you’re having fun, to say a prayer for the world’s broken Christmas tree ornaments, although it’s hard of course.

Sorry - that was a digression. Back now to reality!

15:00 I tumble out of bed and jump up on my fitness bike. I cycle my usual 6 miles (10km) and then do a little light weight training for 5-10 minutes.

16:00 I go downstairs and vacuum a little where the Christmas tree stood, to remove the many pine needles that have fallen on the carpet.

I notice that the pine needles still show their surprising ability to reproduce - as soon as I vacuum the ones I can see and put the vacuum cleaner away in the cleaning cupboard, other pine needles pop up on the floor. What madness!

Clearly yet another example of spontaneous generation, a worrying phenomenon that the scientific community must pay attention to urgently before it’s too late.

typical pine needles on a typical carpet,

busy reproducing themselves while my back is turned

In the past, most scientists believed that spontaneous generation was a fact of life - that is, that living organisms could be spontaneously generated without being born from similar organisms, and sometimes even generating themselves from non-living material.

For example, it was hypothesised that certain species such as fleas could arise from lifeless things like dust, or that maggots might generate themselves from dead meat. Another theory was the so-called equivocal generation, where species such as tapeworms could originate from unrelated living organisms now classified as their “hosts”.

what today's governments and scientists don't want you to know about -

typical maggots, being born from a piece of meat

The theory of spontaneous generation was coherently synthesised by Aristotle, and was taken as scientific fact for two millennia. Unfortunately, all these convincing theories were allegedly “disproved” by Louis Pasteur's and John Tyndall's work in the mid-19th century, which was a bit of a shame.

But my experiences today with these pine needles suggest that it is time to reopen the investigation. Maybe Pasteur was wrong after all. It's time to start thinking a little outside the box.

Awake, O world of science !!!

16:30 Finally we relax with a cup of tea and a biscuit in the living room. I will leave till tomorrow the taking down of our Christmas cards, which I hung up before Christmas on long pieces of string on the walls.

18:00 We have dinner and spend the rest of the evening listening to the radio and watching a bit of television. First, we hear an interesting radio programme in the series "Great Lives". This evening's episode is all about the legendary medieval hero Robin Hood. The programme’s presenter is the charming Matthew Paris.

Each week, a celebrity nominates another celebrity, whom he considers to be a great man, and the man's biographer (or some other expert witness) comments and adds information. Today, we hear Clive Stafford-Smith, a human rights campaigner, nominating Robin Hood as "Great Man of the Week". The expert witness is Prof Stephen Wright.

An interesting programme. Both Stafford-Smith and Prof. Wright agree that the few details we have about Robin Hood's life are not important - the important thing is the question of why ordinary people wanted to have such a hero that they could idolise: someone who takes from the rich and gives to the poor.

The earliest myths about Robin portray him as a serious rebel. He and his men concentrate on freeing prisoners who have been sentenced to death and rescuing them from the hangman’s noose. In one story, they actually succeed in killing the sheriff. It was only in more modern times that Robin became a nice man and a campaigner for human rights, it seems. What madness !!!

The program's conclusion is that if there had not been such a hero as Robin Hood, it would have been necessary to invent him.

Spain has its own Robin Hood figure, for example, Serralonga (1594-1634), who also robbed from the rich and gave to the poor, according to Matthew Paris.

Serralonga (Spain's Robin Hood) seen here in the forest

with some of his merry men

When Lois and I were kids, "Robin Hood" was one of the most popular children's TV shows on British television, and we both used to watch it every week without fail.

But we did not know that many of the series' writers were left-leaning American writers who had moved to England from the United States because of Joe McCarthy's campaigns in the US media. My god, what a crazy world we live in !!!!

"Robin Hood" - in the 1950's, this series was one of the most

popular children's programmes, and Lois and I used to watch it every week

Friar Tuck, Robin and Maid Marian planning

a daring attack on the sheriff's castle

21:00 We turn off the radio and watch a bit of television. An interesting documentary is on, all about the Cutty Sark, a famous sailing ship built in the 19th century.

This ship, which was the world's fastest ship for many decades, was involved first in transporting tea from China and later wool from Australia. It also played a major role in carrying British immigrants and "exporting" the British culture and way of life to Australia, in the later decades of the 19th century.

In 1922, the old ship was eventually purchased by a retired ship captain, and found a home for many years in Falmouth harbour, Cornwall.

And in 1923, the ship was incidentally involved in attempts to break the ban on alcohol during the prohibition era in the United States. The wine merchants Berry Bros. & Rudd in London were trying to come up with a new whisky that they could sell unofficially to American customers, but they didn't yet have a name or a label. At a business meeting at the company's headquarters in 1923, James McBey, a local artist, took the back of an envelope and drew a rough picture of the Cutty Sark, which was later included on the new whisky's label.

The company began delivering the new whisky to groups of rum-runners who then smuggled the whisky from the British Bahamas Islands to the Florida Keys. The name of the American ship's captain who was in charge of the smuggling operation was Bill McCoy - hard to believe, but McCoy was, in other aspects, a totally honest man, also a total abstainer, and he made sure that bottles with the Cutty Sark label always contained genuine Cutty Sark whisky. And this then became the origin of the expression "The Real McCoy", apparently.

The Cutty Sark herself was not used in the smuggling operation by the way, probably wisely. It was perhaps felt that a more ordinary vessel would be less like to attract the attention of the US Customs authorities in Florida - a good call in my view.

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

London wine merchants, Berry Bros and Rudd Ltd, who produced

their new Cutty Sark whisky in 1923

the earliest version of the bottle label, with James McBey's original sketch of the ship

The rum-runner Bill McCoy who smuggled the bottles of whisky

from the Bahamas to the Florida Keys: and who became

the origin of the expression 'The Real McCoy'

The Cutty Sark is now in a London harbour. Lois and I visited it in December 2004, but unfortunately there was a big fire in 2007, so when I tried to visit it again in August 2008 with my Hungarian penfriend, Tünde, it was impossible to look over it because the restoration work was still in progress.

The Cutty Sark when Lois and I visited the ship in December 2004

December 2004: us on the ship's deck

August 2008: soon after the tragic fire

and it was impossible to visit the ship.

August 2008: My Hungarian penfriend, Tünde,

takes a photo of the restoration project.

Happy times !!!!!

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

Danish translation

09:00 Lois og jeg kører over til Bishops Cleeve, en lille landsby 3 miles nord for Cheltenham, for at købe ind på det lokale Tesco-supermarked. Bagefter kigger vi ind i det nærliggende isenkræmmerforretning for at købe et nyt hakkebræt (til at bruge bare med kød), og til sidst smutter vi ind i Lowrys-caféen for at slappe af med en kop kaffe og genoplade vores batterier – vi bliver gamle – det ved vi med sikkerhed. Vi kommer hjem.

12:30 Vi spiser frokost og bagefter går jeg i seng for at tage en gigantisk eftermiddagslur. I mellemtiden går Lois i gang med at fjerne juletræornamenterne og julelysene fra træet og putte dem i vores store kasse. Hun demonterer træet og pakke det ind ved hjælp af et par store sorte sække.

Senere på dagen mindes vi på en nostalgisk måde om de meget meget trist og rørende fotos på onion.com af en brudt juletræornament, der var blevet dømt til en ensom eksistens på den side af træet, som står over for væggen. Dette triste historie rørte vores hjerter, ingen tvivl om det.

måske årets mest triste nyhedshistorie – en brudt juletræornament

der er blevet dømt til en ensom eksistens på den side af træt,

som står over for væggen! Sikke et vanvid !!!

Hvor er dette brudte juletræornament nu, undrer vi os. Vi håber på, at en eller anden forbarmede sig over det. Ved juletiden er det godt nogle gange, når vi er i gang med at hygge os, at sige en bøn for ”verdens brudte juletræornamenter”.

Men undskyld – det var et sidespring. Tilbage til virkeligheden.

15:00 Jeg vælter ud af sengen og hopper op på min kondicykel. Jeg cykler mine sædvanlige 6 miles (10km) og bagefter dyrker lidt let vægttræning i 5-10 minutter.

16:00 Jeg går ned at trappen og støvsuger lidt hvor juletræet stod for at fjerne de mange fyrrenåle, der er faldt på tæppegulvet.

Jeg bemærker, at fyrrenålene stadig viser deres overraskende evne til at formere sig – så snart jeg støvsuger dem, jeg kan se, og lægger støvsugeren væk i rengøringsskabet, dukker andre op på gulvet. Sikke et vanvid!

Tydeligt endnu et eksempel på spontan generation, som den videnskabelige fællesskab må hendlede sin opmærksomhed på snart, før det bliver for sent.

typiske fyrrenåler på et typisk gulvetæppe,

i færd med at formere sig, mens min ryg er vendt

Før i tiden troede de fleste forskere, at spontan generation var et kendsgerning i livet – dvs den almindelige dannelse af levende organismer uden afstamning fra lignende organismer. Teorien om spontan generation fastslog, at levende væsener kunne opstå fra ikke-levende materiale, og at sådanne processer var almindelige og regelmæssige.

For eksempel blev det hypotetiseret, at visse former som lopper kunne opstå fra livløse ting som støv, eller at maddiker kunne opstå fra dødt kød. En anden teori var den såkaldte ekvivokke generation, hvor arter som båndmaskere stammer fra ikke-relaterede levende organismer, der nu klassificeres som deres værter.

typiske maddiker, i gang med at blive født

fra et stykke kød - et fænomen, som regeringer ikke ønsker at afsløre for os

af en eller anden grund

Teorien af spontan generation blev sammenhængende syntetiseret af Aristoteles, som udarbejdede og udvidede tidligere naturfilosofers arbejde og de forskellige antikke forklaringer for organismers udseende og blev taget som videnskabeligt faktum i to årtusinder.

Desværre blev alle disse overbevisende teorier tilsyneladende modbevist af Louis Pasteurs og John Tyndalls arbejde i midten af det 19. århundrede, hvilket var lidt af en skam.

Men mine oplevelser i dag med disse fyrrenåler foreslår, at det er på tide at genåbne undersøgelsen. Måske var Pasteur forkert trods alt. Det er på tide at starte at tænke lidt udenfor boksen.

Vågn op, videnskabsverden!!!

16:30 Til sidst slapper vi af med en kop te og en kiks i stuen. Jeg vil overlade til i morgen fjernelsen af vores julekort, som jeg før jul hang på lange stykker snor langs væggene.

18:00 Vi spiser aftensmad og bruger resten af aftenen på at lytte til radio og se lidt fjernsyn. Først hører vi et interessant radioprogram i serien ”Great Lives”. Aftenens afsnit handler om den legendariske middalderlige helt Robin Hood. Programmets vært er den charmerende Matthew Paris.

Hver uge nominerer en berømthed en anden berømthed, som han betragter som en stor mand, og mandens biograf (eller en eller anden ekspertvidner) kommenterer og tilfører yderliggere oplysninger. I dag hører vi Clive Stafford-Smith, en kampagner for menneskerettigheder, nominere Robin Hood ”ugens stor mand”. Ekspertvidneren er Prof Stephen Wright.

Et interessant program. Både Stafford-Smith og Prof. Wright er enige om, at de få detaljer, vi har om Robin Hoods, liv ikke er vigtige – det vigtige er spørgsmålet om, hvorfor almindelige folk havde lyst til at have sådan en helt, de kunne idolisere: en der tager fra de rige og give til de fattige.

De tidligste myter om Robin skildrer ham som en seriøs rebel. Han og hans svende koncentrerer sig om at befrie fanger, der var blevet dømt til døden og redde dem fra bødlens løkke. I den ene historie lykkes det dem at dræbe sheriffen. Det var kun i moderne tider, at Robin blev til en pæn mand og en kampagner for menneskerettigheder lader det til. Sikke et vanvid!!!

Programmets konklusionen er, at hvis der ikke havde været sådan en helt som Robin Hood, ville det have været nødvendigt at opdigte ham.

Spanien har sin egen Robin Hood-figur, for eksempel, Serralonga (1594-1634), de også røvede de rige og gav til de fattige, ifølge Matthew Paris.

Serralonga (Spaniens Robin Hood) set her med nogle af

sine muntre svende

Da Lois og jeg var børn, var ”Robin Hood” en af de mest populaere børnetv-serier på britisk fjernsyn, og vi havde begge to for vane at se den hvert uge.

Men vi vidste ikke, at mange af seriens forfattere var vestreorienterede amerikanske forfattere, der var flyttet til England fra USA på grund af Joe McCarthys kampagner i de amerikanske medier. Sikke en skør verden vi lever i !!!!

”Robin Hood” – i 1950’erne var denne serie en af de mest

populære børnetv-programmer, og Lois og jeg så det hver uge

Friar Tuck, Robin og Maid Marian planlægger

et dristigt angreb mod sheriffens slot

21:00 Vi slukker for radioen og ser lidt fjernsyn. De viser en interessant dokumentarfilm, der handler om Cutty Sark, et berømte sejlskib, der blev bygget i det 19. århundrede.

Dette skib, der var i mange årtier verdens hurtigste skib, blev involveret i at transportere for det første te fra Kina, og senere uld fra Australien. Det spillede også en stor rolle ved at transportere britiske indvandrere og ”eksportere” den britiske kultur og levemåde til Australien i de seneste årtier af det 19. århundrede.

I 1922, blev det gamle skib købt af en pensioneret skibskaptajn, og blev baseret i Falmouth, Cornwall.

Og i 1923 blev skibet involveret i forsøg på at bryde forbudstiden i USA. Vinhandlerne Berry Bros and Rudd i London prøvede at fremstille en ny whisky, de kunne sælge uofficielt til amerikanske kunder, men de ikke havde et navn eller et etiket endnu. På et forretningsmøde i selskabets hovedkontor tegnede James McBey, en lokal kunstner, et groft billede af Cutty Sark, der senere blev inkluderet på den nye whiskys etiket.

Selskabet begyndte at levere den ny whisky til grupper af rumsmuglere, der smuglede flasker af whiskyen fra de britiske Bahamas-øer over til Florida Keys. Den amerikanske skipkaptajn, der var ansvarlig for operationen hed Bill McCoy – svært at tro, men McCoy var i andre aspekter en total ærlig mand, også en total afholdsmand, og han sørgede for, at flasker med Cutty Sark-etiketten altid indholdte ægte Cutty Sark whisky. Og dette af oprindelsen af udtrykket ”The Real McCoy”, lader det til.

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

Londons vinhandlere, Berry Bros and Rudd Ltd, der fremstillede

den nye Cutty Sark whisky, startende fra 1923

flaskens etiket, med James McBeys oprindelige tegnelse

Rumsmugleren Billl McCoy, der smuglede de flasker af whisky

fra Bahamas-øer til Florida Keys: oprindelsen af udtrykket The Real McCoy

Skibet ligger nu i Londons havn. Lois og jeg besøgte det i december 2004, men desværre var der en stor brand i 2007, så da jeg prøvede at besøge det igen i august 2008 sammen med min ungarske veninde, Tünde, var det umuligt at se på det, fordi restaureringsarbejdet stadigvæk ikke endnu var færdigt.