Danskcolin: Tuesday 3 September 2019

08:00 Lois and I roll out of bed because Ian, our friendly local window cleaner is coming this morning at 9 am and we don't want him to see us in bed or in the shower cubicle. After breakfast, I get going with applying for Australian visas for our visit next year to Sarah, our 42-year-old youngest daughter. Sarah moved to Perth almost 4 years ago, along with Francis and their (now) 6-year-old twins, Lily and Jessie.

The last two times we visited Sarah it was a travel agency that arranged everything: airline tickets, travel insurance and visas. This time I have already bought airline tickets and travel insurance online - and it turns out to be very simple this morning also to apply for the visas: I get a positive response about 2 hours later - hurrah!

10:30 The bushes in our backyard recently went crazy while we were on holiday in Poole and Haslemere. This morning, I head out into the back yard and start pruning two of the worst: the holly bush and the one we call berberis, though we're not quite sure if this is the right name.

They are both very vicious bushes with incredibly prickly leaves and branches - I hope if I treat them mercilessly this will send a clear message to our other bushes and they will not be so ready to go crazy the next time we are away from home.

our holly bush and the "berberis" shrub, after I have mercilessly

punished them both with my powerful G-tech hedge trimmer

11:45 I return to the house and start browsing through a few more chapters of "Njal's saga", written in the 13th century in Iceland, although the saga and events in it are much older. Scilla's U3A Old Nordic group is holding its regular meeting here tomorrow at 2:30 pm and this saga is the group's current project.

Gunnar, one of the saga’s heroes, has just escaped being punished for killing a bunch of his neighbours – he smooths it all over by writing compensation checks to the victims’ relatives - the exact amount in each case being dependent on how useful the victims were considered to be as members of society. If the victim was a waste of space, as many of them were, his relatives got next to nothing, needless to say ha ha ha!

But now Gunnar is in even bigger trouble, it seems. He is known for often bragging about his black horse, which he says can smash every other horse in Iceland in a fight. But now a bunch of nasty men from eastern Iceland, including an unpleasant man named Starkad, have challenged Gunnar to let his horse fight with their horse, which they say is stronger than Gunnar's horse.

My god, what madness! A cock fight - maybe, a dog fight - maybe, but a horse fight ??? I do not think so. But we'll see. Let's hope the fight is cancelled due to snow, fog, or something similar.

a horse fight - what madness !!!

12:30 We have lunch and afterwards I go to bed and take a gigantic afternoon nap. I wake up at 2:30 pm and take a look at my smartphone. My brother-in-law, Steve, has sent me details of an interesting Daily Mail article about the genetic roots of the Scots.

It turns out that Scotland's genetic map reveals that most Scots still live in the same early medieval kingdoms created by their ancestors ten centuries ago.

The findings are that, (1) Scots in certain regions are still showing their Pictish origins today after all those centuries; (2) most Scots still live in the same part of the country as their early medieval ancestors, and (3) Orkney and Shetland have the highest levels of Norwegian genetic roots outside Scandinavia.

My god, how fascinating!

It is, in particular, surprising how many Scots live in the same region as their early medieval ancestors. Lead researcher Jim Wilson believes this is largely due to the fact that the majority of people tended to always marry locally and thus retaining their genetic identity.

I discuss this with Lois - she says that in the Middle Ages people who moved from one parish to another were not very popular. If a stranger moved into your village, he was by definition unemployed and it was mandatory for the parish to provide for him, which was expensive. That’s why there was a tendency for people to try to persuade the newcomer that there was a far more pleasant village, a little further down the road, and give him complete directions, etc.

Good grief, what a sick world we live in !!!!!

18:30 We have dinner and spend the rest of the evening watching some television, an interesting documentary about Yayoi Kusama, the Japanese modern artist, now an old crow in her 90's.

Lois and I have been very interested in Kusama's works since we visited her exhibition at the Danish Art Museum “Philadelphia” in December 2015, together with our daughter Alison and her family, who were living in Copenhagen at that time.

Kusama's trademarks have always been polka dots, giant nets, and also (as I now fully realise) penis-shaped objects of various types.

Tonight we hear a lot about Kusama's childhood, and her dysfunctional parents - her mother dominated the family, so her father retaliated by embarking on several affairs around the town: and Yayoi’s mother used to send the young Yayoi to spy on her father's activities. It may be, it is believed, that Yayoi saw some traumatic sights during her career as her mother's young spy - and that is why she has developed her obsession with penis-shaped objects.

Early in the 1950’s as a young woman she moved to New York, but was not accepted by the local art world - she was Japanese, and also a woman: two big reasons why she wasn't taken seriously. But this lack of acceptance did not prevent other male artists from shamelessly copying her ideas, it seems, including Oldenburg, Warhol and Samoras.

Yayoi Kusama as a young woman in New York

her famous penis chair and penis sofa, that everybody

wanted to try sitting on apparently

She was much into the concept of infinity, using mirrors that repeated imagery in an endless sequence, which is a very impressive component of her exhibitions, as we found. Also, there is the notion of the observer losing himself in this ocean, or this universe, of infinity, which is nice.

When we saw her exhibition in Denmark in 2015, I must admit that I did not myself recognise her penis-shaped installations as penis-based - I thought they were vegetables, fruits, or something similar, although Lois tells me tonight that she grasped the concept immediately. She has much greater insights than me when it comes to art. Sometimes I feel like the original village idiot, to put it mildly.

Flashback to December 2015: Lois and I visit a Kusama exhibition

in Denmark, together with our daughter Alison and her family

one of Kusama's giant collections of penis-shaped objects,

which I misunderstood to be piles of fruits and/or vegetables

- my god, what madness !!!!

We especially liked Kusama's representations of infinity,

using mirrors, etc. Here we see endless copies of me, in the act of

taking endless photos of Lois

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

Danish translation: tirsdag den 3. september 2019

08:00 Lois og jeg vælter ud af sengen, fordi Ian, vores venlige lokale vinduespudser kommer i formiddag kl 9 og vi vil ikke have ham til at se os i sengen eller i brusekabinen. Efter morgenmad går jeg i gang med at søge om australske visa til vores besøg næste år hos Sarah, vores 42-årige yngste datter, der for snart 4 år siden flyttede til Perth, sammen med Francis og deres (nu) 6-årige tvillinger, Lily og Jessie.

De to forrige gange vi besøgte Sarah, var det et rejsebureau der arrangerede alt: flybilletter, rejseforsikring og visa. Denne gang har jeg selv allerede købt flybilletter og rejseforsikring på nettet – og det viser sig at være meget simpelt i formiddag også at ansøge om visaerne: jeg får et positivt svar omkring 2 timer senere – hurra!

10:30 Buskene i vores baghave er for nylig gået amok, mens vi var på ferie i Poole og Haslemere. I formiddag går jeg ud i baghaven og går i gang med at beskære to af de værste: kristtornen og den, vi kalder berberis, selvom vi ikke er helt sikre på, om dette er det rigtige navn.

De er begge to meget ondskabsfulde buske med utroligt prikkende blade og grene – jeg håber, at hvis jeg behandler dem nådesløst, så vil dette sende en klar besked til vores andre buske og de vil ikke være så klar til at gå amok næste gang vi er væk hjemmefra.

vores kristtorn og ”berberis”-buskene, efter jeg har straffet dem begge nådesløst

med min magtfulde Gtech-hækkeklipper

11:45 Jeg kommer tilbage ind i huset og går i gang med at blade igennem endnu et par kapitler af ”Njals saga”, skrevet i det 13. århundrede i Island, selvom selve sagaen og begivenhederne er meget ældre. Scillas U3A oldnordiske gruppe holder sit regelmæssige møde i morgen kl 14:30 hos os og denne saga er gruppens nuværende projekt.

Gunnar, én af sagaens helte, er lige sluppet for at blive straffet for at dræbe en flok af sine naboer, ved at skrive offernes slægtninge flere checks som erstatning – den præcise beløb afhænger af, hvor nyttige offerne blev betragt at være, som samfundsmedlemmer. Hvis offret var et spild af plads, fik hans slægtninge næsten ingenting, unødvendigt at sige ha ha!

Men nu er Gunnar i endnu større ballade, lader det til. Han er ofte kendt for at prale om hans sorte hest, som ifølge ham, kan smadre alle andre heste i Island i et slagsmål. Men nu har en flok ubehagelige mænd, fra det østlige Island, herunder en mand, der hedder Starkad, udfordret Gunnar at lade sin hest slås med deres hest, som de siger er stærkere, end Gunnars hest.

Du godeste, sikke et vanvid! En hanekamp – måske, en hundekamp – måske, men en hestekamp??? Det tror jeg ikke. Men vi får se. Lad os håbe på, at kampen bliver aflyst på grund af snevejr, tåge, eller noget lignende.

en hestekamp – sikke et vanvid!!!

12:30 Vi spiser frokost og bagefter går jeg i seng for at tage en gigantisk eftermiddagslur. Jeg vågner op kl 14:30 og kigger lidt på min smartphone. Min svigerbror, Steve, har sendt mig detaljer om et interessant Daily Mail-artikel om skoternes genetiske rødder.

Det viser sig, Skotlands genetiske kort afslører, at landets indfødte lever i de samme tidlige middelalderlige riger', der blev skabt af deres forfædre for ti århundreder siden. Også, (1) skotter i visse regioner viser stadig deres Piktland-oprindelser i dag efter århundreder; (2) de fleste skotter bor stadig i den samme del af landet som deres tidlige middelalderlige forfædre , og (3) Orkney og Shetland har de højeste niveauer af norske genetiske rødder uden for Skandinavien (23% i Shetland, men næsten ingenting andetsteds).

Du godeste, hvor fascinerende!

Det er i særdeleshed overraskende, hvor mange skotter bor i den samme region som deres tidlige middelalderlige forfædre. Leadforskeren Jim Wilson tror, at dette stort set skyldes dét, at størstedelen af mennesker giftede sig lokalt og bevarede deres genetiske identitet.

Jeg diskuterer dette med Lois – hun siger, at i middelalderen, mennesker der flyttede fra det ene sogn til det andet ikke var særlig populære. Hvis en fremmed flytter ind i din landsby, var han nødvendigvis arbejdsløs, og det var obligatorisk at sognet sørgede for ham, hvilket var dyrt. Så derfor var der en tendens at folk prøvede at overtale den tilflytter, at der var en langt mere behagelig landsby, lidt videre ned ad vejen, og give ham retninger osv.

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

18:30 Vi spiser aftensmad og bruger resten af aftenen på at se lidt fjernsyn, en interessant dokumentarfilm, der handler om Yayoi Kusama, den japanske moderne kunstner, nu i 90’erne.

Lois og jeg har været meget interesseret i Kusamas værker, siden vi besøgte hendes udstilling i det danske kunstmuseum Philadelphia, i december 2015, sammen med vores datter Alison og hendes familie, der dengang boede i København.

Kusamas mærker har altid været storprikket mønstrer, gigantiske net, og også (som jeg nu indser) penis-formede objekter af forskellige typer.

I aften hører vi meget om Kusamas barndom, og hendes disfunktionelle forældre – hendes mor dominerede i familien, så hendes far indledte adskillige affærer: hendes mor sendte den unge Yayoi ud for at udspionere sin fars aktiviteter. Det kan være, tror man, at Yayoi så nogle traumatiske syn i løbet af hendes karriere som sin mors unge spion – og derfor har hun udviklet sin obsession for penis-formede objekter. Du godeste, sikke et vanvid!!!

Først i 1950’erne flyttede hun til New York som ung kvinde, men blev ikke accepteret af den lokale kunstverden – hun var japansk, også kvinde: to store grunde, at hun ikke blev taget seriøst. Men denne mangel på accept forhindrede ikke i, at andre mandlige kunstnere skamløst kopierede hendes idéer, lader det til, inklusive Oldenburg, Warhol og Samoras.

Yayoi Kusama som ung kvinde

qchairsofa: hendes berømte penis-stol og penis-sofa

Hun var meget til begrebet om uendelighed, ved hjælp af spejle, der gentog imager i en uendelighed, hvilket er en meget imponerende komponent i hendes udstillinger. Også det begreb om, at man mister sig i denne ocean, eller dette univers, af uendelighed, hvilket er rart.

Da vi i 2015 så hendes udstilling i Danmark, må jeg indrømme, at jeg selv ikke genkendte hendes penis-formede installationer som penis-baseret – jeg troede, at de var grøntsager, frugter, eller noget lignende, selvom Lois fortæller mig, hun fattede konceptet umiddelbart. Hun har meget større indsigter, end mig, når det kommer til kunst. Nogle gange føler jeg mig som den oprindelige landsbytosser, for at sige mildt – det må jeg nok sige.