Monday 3 June 2019

09:30 Lois and I take the bus into town and look around a couple of clothing stores: John Lewis, H&M and M&S. Lois wants to choose a few summer dresses as birthday presents - she turns 73 on Wednesday. She buys a yellow floral dress in H&M and a leopard print dress in M&S.

Dressbarn is now closed, but like local woman Susan Bell, Lois also refuses to shop in Chico's  "with all the sluts" (report, Onion News), and I for one respect her decision.

Local mother Susan Bell told reporters on Tuesday that Dressbarn's sudden closure had left her without any modest-yet-chic clothing options. And she guessed that she would just have to go shopping with “all those sluts” over there at Chico's from now on.

"I hope I don't get the clap by rubbing shoulders with all those Chico's tramps when I’m trying to buy a flowy maxi dress or thigh-length cardigan," Bell said, looking horrified as she browsed the Chico's website for flattering blouses that wouldn't "leave my tits popping out all over the whole place."

"Tank tops, leopard print ponchos, high-waisted palazzo pants; what am I, some red-mouthed whore? That floozy  Kathleen Meyer and her wino friends all shop at Chico’s, and they always dress like whores at Rotary Club meetings. I can't let anyone see me shopping there or they'll think I'm one of those tarts."

At press time, Bell had returned from "Talbots" empty-handed – announcing to reporters that she wasn’t about to spend £100 just to dress like grandma.

My goodness, what a crazy world we live in !!!! But many women have trouble finding the right dress, I know that for sure. Lois is lucky today and comes out of the experience with 2 dresses she is satisfied with, but other such excursions have ended in tears - I still remember!

I have the feeling that last year I saw Susan Bell in the local pharmacy - she was wearing the same striped blouse as in the Onion News photo, and she was buying strong headache pills.

10:15 While we are looking around in John Lewis, I get a whatsapp text from Sarah, our daughter in Perth, Australia. I still do a double take when such things happen. But that’s because I’m just an old crow, trying to come to terms with modern technology!

We agree to speak around 12 noon when we get home (7 pm Perth time) with her and her 5-and-three-quarter-year-old twin daughters, Lily and Jessie.

We take the bus home and relax with a cup of coffee in the living room. Lois tries the dresses on again.

Lois buys two summer dresses as a birthday gift

12:00 We talk a little with Sarah on whatsapp. It's a public holiday today over there  – for Western Australia Day. The girls are very excited, as always - they have been to the shops with Mummy and bought various colourful or luminous writing materials: notebook, pencils, pens and the like, which they are keen to show Granny and Poppa, bless them.

flashback to April 2018: me (left) at a beach cafe in the Margaret River region,

Western Australia, along with Francis, Sarah, and the twins

An entertaining whatsapp call.  All is going well with the twins and their reading skills, says Sarah - especially with Lily, who takes the opportunity to read aloud one of her short children’s books to us. Jessie marvels at her sister’s reading skills, and is not jealous at all, which is nice. It’s actually Lily who is the competitive one, we’ve noticed.

Lily reads aloud from one of her children's books

However Jessie may have a larger vocabulary than Lily, and she has a very cute way of talking. If she thinks that something is particularly surprising or amazing, she begins to raise her voice noticeably and speak with greater emphasis: it is very charming. And she comes up with some slightly unusual expressions that she must have copied from her parents. She tells us that her mummy today was looking for a black sweater or cardigan in the shops, but that "she struggled to find one" and she repeated this expression several times. How cute she is !!!!

13:00 We have lunch and afterwards I go to bed and take a gigantic afternoon nap. I get up at 3:30 pm and start shredding more ancient bank statements and other financial documents. Meanwhile, Lois is in the back yard doing some gardening.

16:00 Lois comes in again from the garden and we relax with a cup of tea and a piece of bread with homemade greengage jam - yum yum!

16:15 My sister Gill in Cambridge calls me, as agreed, so we can have one of our regular chats. Things are going well with her, and reasonably well with her seriously disabled husband, Peter. Peter has had a few nasty turns over the past few months and has to take some kind of heart test on Friday, but Gill doesn't think anything will show up, because the hospital took a long time to arrange the test - she doesn't think they're really worried about Peter’s heart.

The couple's disabled daughter Lucy has finally qualified as a lawyer, and she starts a job on a full lawyer's salary in September - with the firm she's trained at, which is nice. The firm is based in the nearby town of Ipswich.

My younger sister Gill and her daughter Lucy: a recent picture

18:00 Lois and I have dinner and watch a bit of television, the first episode of the new season of "Love Island" a television reality dating show. Five young women and five young men in their 20’s spend several weeks on some tropical island, with the aim of pairing up and finally becoming the couple that TV viewers choose at the end of the season as their favourite couple - and the prize is £50,000.

The programme's approach is to present the five young women first, so that we get to know them.

After that, they present the men, one by one, and each man has the opportunity to choose one or other of the unpaired women as their initial partner. However the women are not forced to remain partners with the man, and may reject him later if a more attractive man shows up.

In other words, this initial phase is quite brutal, Lois and I think, with lots of opportunities for hurt feelings, to put it mildly.

I haven't seen this series before and Lois has just seen the one episode, in a previous season.

We were both interested to see a bit of this season because we heard an entertaining radio programme a couple of weeks ago, where the host referred several times to “Love Island” to illustrate her ideas on the modern internet-based dating scene.

Shahidha Bari, the programme's charming host

According to Bari, a person’s race still makes a difference on dating sites unfortunately:  non-white men and non-white women on dating sites are 10 times more likely to message a white person than vice versa.

And researchers talk about a "race hierarchy" - which reflects the one that generally exists in society when it comes to jobs, houses, etc., and other social interactions where we call this kind of prejudice "discrimination" -  something that’s illegal. But this kind of thing is of course not illegal in dating site profiles and the like, so you are perfectly at liberty to say, for instance, “whites only” or “whites preferred” etc.

And on tonight's "Love Island", Lois and I tonight both notice that the black participants have more difficulty getting into a couple than the white ones do.

Lucie, for example, a white Cornwall “surfer” (is that a job?) pairs up initially with Michael, a black firefighter from Liverpool, but she quickly throws him over when a white, floppy-haired Harry Styles lookalike shows up. And we see other examples tonight where some of the non-whites are rejected or passed over - although not in any explicit way of course.

Lucie (no. 3 from the left), a so-called "surfer" from Cornwall, starts 

by "coupling up" with a black firefighter from Liverpool, but ends up 

replacing him with a white Harry Styles lookalike - good grief!

Maybe this pattern is not typical of the show, but we'll see - they will be airing the show every night starting from now - yikes! But it may be that we have already seen enough thank you very much!

22:00 I go to bed, but Lois stays up to see the end of the show (at 10:30 pm). ZZZZZZZZZZ !!!!!

Danish translation

09:30 Vi tager bussen ind i byen og kigger rundt I et par tøjbutikker: John Lewis, H&M og M&S. Lois vil vælge et par sommerkjoler som fødselsdagsgaver – hun fylder 73 på onsdag. Hun køber en gule blomstret kjole i H&M og en leopard print kjole i M&S.

Dressbarn er nu lukket, men ligesm den lokale kvinde Susan Bell, nægter Lois også at shoppe i Chico’s ”med alle de der tøser” (rapport, Onion News), og jeg respekterer hendes beslutning.

Lokal mor Susan Bell fortalte journalister i tirsdag, at Dressbarns pludselige lukning havde forladt hendes i mangel på stilfulde, men alligevel chikke tøjmuligheder. Og hun spekulerede på, at hun bare må shoppe sammen med alle de der tøjter derovre på Chico's nu.

"Jeg håber, at jeg ikke får gonorré ved at gnubbe mig op ad med alle disse Chico's tøser, mens jeg forsøger at købe en flydende maxi-kjole eller lårlange cardigan", sagde Bell og så forfærdet ud, da hun bladede Chico's hjemmeside for smigrende bluser, der ville ikke "lade mine patter poppe ud over hele stedet."

"Tank tops, leopard-print ponchoer, høj-taljerede palazzo bukser; hvad er jeg, nogle rødmundede hore? Den tøjte Kathleen Meyer og hendes wino alle shopper alle hos Chico, og de altid klæder sig som horer på Rotary Club møderne. Jeg kan ikke lade nogen se mig shoppe der, eller de vil tro, jeg er en af disse tøser. "

På pressetiden var Bell vendt tilbage fra ”Talbots” tomhændet – og hun fortalte ventende reportere, at hun ikke komme til at bruge 100 £ til at klæde sig som bedstemor gør.

Du godeste, sikke en skør verden vi lever i !!!! Men mange kvinder har svært ved at finde præcis den rigtige kjole, det ved jeg med sikkerhed. Lois er heldig i dag og kommer ud af oplevelsen med 2 kjoler, hun er tilfredsstillet med, men andre sådanne udflugter har endt med tårer – jeg kan stadig huske godt!

Jeg har på fornemmelse, at jeg forleden så den der Susan Bell i det locale apotek – hun var iført samme stribede bluse som i Onion News-fotoet, og hun var i gang med at købe stærke hovedpinepiller.

10:15 Mens vi er i gang med at kigge rundt i John Lewis får jeg en whatsapp-sms fra Sarah, vores datter i Perth, Australien. Vi aftaler at tale kl 12 (kl 19 Perth tid) med hende og hendes 5,5-årige tvillingedøtre, Lily og Jessie.

Vi tager bussen hjem og slapper af med en kop kaffe i stuen. Lois prøver kjoler igen.

Lois køber to sommerkjoler som fødselsdagsgaver

12:00 Vi taler lidt med Sarah på whatsapp. Det er en helligdag i dag –Western Australia dag. Pigerne er meget begejstrede, som altid – de har været i butikkerne, og købt forskellige kulørte skrivematerialer: notesbog, blyanter, penner og lignende.

flashback to April 2018: me (left) at a beach cafe in the Margaret River region,

Western Australia, along with Francis, Sarah, and the twins

Et underholdende whatsapp-opkald. Det går fremad med tvillingernes læsefærdigheder, siger Sarah  – i sær med Lily, der benytter sig af lejligheden til at læse en af hendes korte bøger højt for os. Jessica beundrer hende meget, og er slet ikke jaloux, hvilket er rart.

Lilly læser højt fra en af hendes barnebøger

Men Jessica har måske en større ordforråd end Lily, og har en meget sød måde at tale på. Hvis hun mener at noget er specielt overraskende eller fantastisk, begynder hun at tale højere og taler med større eftertryk: det er meget charmerende. Og hun kommer med lidt usædvanlige udtryk, som hun må have lånt fra sine forældre. Hun fortæller os, at Sarah i dag ledte efter en sort sweater eller cardigan i butikkerne, men at ”she struggled to find one” (hun havde svært ved at finde én), og hun gentog dette udtryk flere gange. Hvor er hun dog sød!!!!

13:00 Vi spiser frokost og bagefter går jeg i seng for at tage en gigantisk eftermiddagslur. Jeg står op kl 15:30 og går i gang med at makulere endnu flere ældgamle kontoudtog og andre finansielle dokumenter. I mellemtiden laver Lois lidt havearbejde.

16:00 Lois kommer ind igen fra haven og vi slapper af med en kop te og et stykke brød med hjemmelavet reineclaude  marmelade – yum yum!

16:15 Min søster Gill i Cambridge ringer til mig, som aftalt, så vi kan tage et af vores regelmæssige snakke. Det går godt med hende, og ganske godt med hendes alvorligt handicappede mand, Peter. Peter har haft et par ildebefindende de seneste få måneder, og skal få nogen slags hjerteprøve på fredag, men Gill synes ikke, noget betydeligt vil dukke op, fordi hospitalet tog lang tid til at arrangere prøven - hun mener ikke, de er bekymrede over Peters hjerte.

Parrets handicappede datter Lucy har endelig kvalificeret som advokat, og hun starter et job med en fuld advokatsløn i september – hos det firma, hun har uddannet hos, hvilket er rart. Firmaet har til huse i byen Ipswich.

Min lillesøster Gill og hendes datter Lucy: et nyligt billede

18:00 Vi spiser aftensmad og ser lidt fjernsyn, det første afsnit af den nye sæson af ”Love Island” et tv-reality dating-show. Fem unge kvinder og fem unge mænd i 20’erne tilbringer flere uger på en eller anden tropisk ø, med det formål at danne par og blive endelig det par, som tv-seerne ved slutningen af sæsonen vælger som deres yndlingspar – og prisen er 50.000£.

Programmets tilgang er at præsentere først de fem unge kvinder. Bagefter præsenterer de mændene, en efter en, og hver mand har muligheden for at vælge en eller anden af de 5 kvinder som sin startende partner. Ikke desto mindre er kvinderne ikke tvunget til at forblive partnere med manden, og kan afvise ham, hvis en mere attraktiv mand dukker op senere i episoden.

Så er denne indledende fase ganske brutalt, synes Lois og jeg, med masser af muligheder for skadede følelser for at sige mildt.

Jeg har selv ikke set denne serie før og Lois har set kun 1 episode. Vi har interesseret os for at se denne sæson, fordi vi hørte et underholdende radioprogram for et par uger siden, hvor værten henviste flere gange til Love Island for at illustrere sine idéer om den moderne internet-baserede dating-scene.

Shahidha Bari, programmets charmerende vært

Ifølge Bari, ens race gør stadig en forskel på datingwebsteder desværre:  sorte mænd og sorte kvinder på datingwebsteder er 10 gange mere tilbøjelige til at sms en hvid person, end omvendt. Og forskere taler om en ”race-hierarki” – som genspejler den, der generelt eksisterer i samfundet, når det kommer til jobs, huse osv, og andre sociale interaktioner, hvor vi kalder denne slags fordomme ”diskrimination” – noget ulovligt. Men denne slags er selvfølgelig ikke ulovligt i datingwebstedsprofiler og lignende.

Lois og jeg bemærker i aften begge to, at de sorte deltagere har sværere ved at danne par, end de hvide. Lucie, for eksempel, en hvid ”surfer” fra Cornwall danner par i begyndelsen med Michael, en sort brandmand fra Liverpool, men hun gør det hurtigt forbi med ham, da en hvid floppy-håret Harry Styles-lookalike dukker op, og vi ser andre eksempler i aften, hvor en eller anden af de sorte bliver slået tilbage eller overset – selvom ikke på nogen eksplicit måde.

Lucie (nr 3 fra venstre), en såkaldt ”surfer” fra Cornwall, starter med at danne par

med en sort brandmand fra Liverpool, med ender ud i, at hun

udskifter ham med en Harry Styles-lookalike – du godeste!

Måske er dette mønster ikke typisk af showet, men vi får se – de viser showet hver aften startende fra nu – yikes! Men det kan være, at vi allerede har set nok thank you very much!

22:00 Jeg går i seng, men Lois forbliver oppe for at se enden på showet (kl 22:30). Zzzzzzzzzz!!!!!