09:15 Sarah, our daughter in Perth, Australia, calls us
on whatsapp. Lois has just emerged from the bathroom and has no clothes on, but
luckily it's just an audio call, thank goodness.
Sarah and her family are in the car, on their way home from
an excursion to Chittering, where she and Francis bought an inflatable Santa
they intend to hang from their balcony - yikes! Neighbours will not be very
happy, that’s for sure! The children,
Lily and Jessie, the couple's 6-year-old twin daughters, are of course very
excited about their new Santa Claus, to put it mildly – my goodness!
The twins say how much they like the 2020 snapfish
calendar Lois and I sent them a few weeks ago, which showcases photos of Lois
and me, of Sarah and her family, and of Alison, Sarah's sister, and her family
- the twins’ cousins in England.
flashback to yesterday: Lily and Jessie, our
6-year-old twin grandchildren
in Perth, Australia, with the 2020 snapfish
calendar Lois and I recently sent them
- how cute they are though !!!!!
Jessie has said she has put crosses on the calendar to
mark the dates of Lois's and my visit to them next year, including the date of
the Disney show for which Sarah has booked us tickets - we will be sitting in
the 2nd row of seats in the theatre, which will be nice.
Lois and I find we again have to say sorry to Francis
because we only included one photo of him in the calendar, and not a closeup,
to put it mildly. The problem is that Francis is the family photographer and he
himself can only rarely be seen in the photos they send us.
flashback to September - Francis and one of
the twins in a kayak
09:45 The call ends and straight afterwards we have to
leave. Lois wants to attend her sect's two worship services, taking place today
in Tewkesbury library. She has back problems at the moment and she has asked me to drive her over there.
I drop her off in the car park closest to the library and drive home again.
Unfortunately, there are a lot of traffic jams today
because of the town’s Christmas market - the main street through town (High
Street) is closed to traffic - damn! What a nuisance !!!!
my goodness, what a nuisance !!!!
11:15 I come home and relax with a cup of coffee on the
couch. I have some alone time, but that time gets reduced from 4.5 hours to 2.5 hours if I have to drive Lois to Tewkesbury and pick her up after the two services
- but I am more than happy to be able to help her join in her sect's activities. I
know how important they are to her.
11:45 I sit down at the dining table and read the next
chapter of Njal's saga, written in the 14th century, although the saga and
events in it are much much older. Scilla's U3A Old Norse group is holding its
regular fortnightly meeting here on Wednesday, and this saga is the group's
current project.
Njal's saga, Scilla's U3A Old Nordic group’s
current project
The big feud is continuing to ravage all of Iceland. It started as a
simple quarrel between two women, Hallgerda and Bergthora, originally about the
seating plan for a wedding reception.
Hallgerd and Bergthora's feud
originally stemmed
from an unexpected brawl over the seating
plan for a wedding reception
and over the years destroyed most of Iceland's
population
(pictured here is a modern cartoonist's take on
the incident)
I read on in the saga. The feud has now escalated, to put
it mildly, and now the entire population is trying to kill one another.
It’s a truism, though, that we often forget the
psychological consequences of a life where you have to get up every day and get
ready to kill one or another of your neighbours - there is an emotional cost to
pay, no doubt about that. And a physical cost too, I have to say. It must be
pretty tiring, I would imagine.
Today in Chapter 69, I read that two friends, both with
the same name (Thorgeir), which is a bit of a coincidence, are on their way to
kill Gunnar, one of the main characters in the saga. However the friends
suddenly feels so exhausted and sleepy, that they simply lie down in a forest,
hang their shields on the branches, tether their horses, and fall asleep on the
spot. My god, the poor guys !!!!
What a crazy world we live in !!!!! And I'm a little
surprised that "the two Thorgeirs" were not woken up by other fights
still going on in the woods at the same time, but I’m going to let that one
slide: I know that I myself sometimes get so exhausted sometimes that I sleep
my way through entire hour-long TV documentaries, so who am I to criticise !!!
12:30 I have lunch, but afterwards I decide not to take
my usual afternoon nap: the timing is difficult because I have to leave at 1:30
pm or so, to pick up Lois in Tewkesbury. I drive to Tewkesbury and bring her
back. We somehow avoid the horrible traffic jams, and I jump into bed immediately
after we get home.
18:00 We have dinner and spend the rest of the evening
watching some television, the third episode in an interesting series about
aspects of novels in English: this episode concentrates on how novels have
reflected class differences and conflicts in the English-speaking world.
Unfortunately, I drift off to sleep during the programme
and miss about a third of it - damn! Lois tries to shake me and wake me up
several times without success. She says I each time just opened my eyes for a
few seconds, snuffled inarticulately, and immediately went back to sleep - damn
(again) !!!
DH Lawrence's novel, "Lady Chatterley's Lover,"
written in 1928, but banned for over 30 years in the United Kingdom, was about
an affair between Lady Chatterley and a working-class man, her gamekeeper.
Penguin Books decided to publish it in 1959, but they were prosecuted because
of the book's alleged obscenity. The jury however decided that the book was not
obscene and it was published legally for the first time in 1960.
Lawrence wrote in 1928 about
adultery between members
of different social classes
However, the lawsuit itself showed many signs of the
"old class system" that Lawrence already mistakenly thought extinct even
in the 1920’s. The prosecutor asked the jury members (who of course included
women, although perhaps he hadn’t noticed!) whether they wanted "their
wives or their servants" to read the book. How many jurors in 1959
employed servants, we have to ask ha ha ha!
Lois comments that it was a common male myth in polite
society at that time that women should be protected from reading about sex and
hearing about sex at all costs, as if they didn't know what it was about - at
least the married wives would already have had sex a few times with their
husbands, one would suppose!
The judge brought a copy of the book with him every day when
he stepped into the courtroom. He carried it in a homemade bag that his wife had
given him to hide the book from the press photographers. And interestingly it was the judge's
wife, who had marked up the margins of the book itself, to point up the book's
most "obscene" paragraphs for her husband.
And the paragraphs that the judge's wife drew attention
to even included the passages that critics believe were Lawrence's thinly veiled references to
anal sex – including one particular page on which the book always falls open,
it seems.
After the trial, the book went on sale and people queued up
to buy it - it sold out within hours, it appears. A TV journalist interviewed
some of those standing in line at a bookstore in London, and asked them why
they were interested, but their various responses were a little elusive, to put
it mildly.
What hypocrisy !!!! My god - what a crazy world we live
in !!!!
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzzz !!!!!
Danish
translaton: søndag den 24. november 2019
09:15 Sarah,
vores datter i Perth, Australien, ringer til os på whatsapp. Lois er lige
dukket frem fra badeværelset og har ikke noget tøj på, men heldigvis er det
bare en audio-opkald, gudskelov.
Sarah og
hendes familie er i bilen, på vej hjem fra et udflugt til Chittering, hvor hun
og Francis købte en oppustelig julemand,
de har til hensigt at hænge fra deres altan – yikes! Det vil naboerne ikke være
meget glade for, det ved jeg med sikkerhed! Børnene, Lily og Jessie, parrets 6-årige
tvillingedøtre er meget begejstrede over julemanden, for at sige mildt – du
godeste!
Tvillingerne
siger, hvor meget de kan lide den snapfish-kalender, Lois og jeg afsendte dem
for et par uger siden, som fremviser fotoer af Lois og mig, af Sarah og hendes
familie, og af Alison, Sarahs søster, og hendes familie - tvillingernes fætre
og kusiner.
tilbageblik
til i går: Lily og Jessie, vores 6-årige tvillingebørnebørn
i Perth, Australien, med den snapfish-kalender
Lois og jeg for nylig sendte dem
-
hvor er de dog søde!!!!!
Jessie har
sagt, hun har sat kryds i kalenderen, for at markere datoerne af Lois’ og mit
besøg hos dem næste år, også datoen af Disney-showet, som Sarah har booket os
billetter til – vi vil sidde i den 2. sædderække i teatret, hvilket vil være
rart.
Lois og jeg
finder, vi igen skal sige sorry til Francis, fordi vi kun inkluderede ét foto
af ham i kalenderen, og ikke et closeup, for at sige mildt. Problemet er, at
Francis er familiens fotograf, og han selv kun sjældent kan ses i de fotoer, de
sender os.
tilbageblik
til September - Francis og én af tvillingerne i en kajak
09:45 Opkaldet
slutter og bagefter skal vi tage af sted. Lois ønsker at deltage i sin sekts to
gudstjenester, der finder sted i dag i byen Tewkesburys bibiotek. Hun har
rygproblemer for tiden, og hun har bedt mig om at køre hende derover. Jeg
sætter hende af i den parkeringsplads, der er tættest på biblioteket, og kører
hjem igen.
Desværre er
der en masse trafikpropper i dag på grund af byens julemarked – den hovedsagelige
gade gennem byen (Højgade) er lukket for trafik - pokkers! Sikke nogle
gener!!!!
et
typisk julemarked i Tewkesburys Højgade –
du
godeste, sikke nogle gener!!!!
11:15 Jeg
kommer hjem og slapper af med en kop kaffe i sofaen. Jeg har lidt alenetid, men
den bliver reduceret fra 4,5 timer til 2,5 timer, hver gang jeg skal køre Lois
til Tewkesbury og afhente hende efter de to gudstjenester – men jeg er meget
glad for at kunne hjælpe hende med at deltage i sin sekts aktiviteter. Jeg ved
godt hvor vigtigt de er for hende.
11:45 Jeg
sætter mig ved spisebordet og læser det næste kapitel af Njals saga, skrevet i
det 14. århundrede, selvom sagaen og begivenhederne derinde er meget meget
ældre. Scillas U3A oldnordiske gruppe holder dens regelmæssige fjortendagsmøde på onsdag hos os, og denne saga er gruppens
nuværende projekt.
Njals
saga, Scillas U3A oldnordiske gruppes
nuværende
projekt
Den store fejde fortsætter
med at hærge hele Island over. Det startede som et simpelt skænderi mellem to
kvinder, Hallgerda og Bergthora, først over bordplanen til en bryllupsreception.
wedding
: Hallgerd og Bergthoras fejde stammede oprindeligt
fra
en uforventet slagsmål, der brød ud over bordplanen til en bryllupsreception
(troet
at være en skitse lavet af en af bryllupsgæsterne)
det
slagsmål mellem Hallgerd og Bergthora, der startede fejden,
der
gennem årene ødelagte størstedelen af Islands befolkningen
(afbildet
her en moderne tegners take på hændelsen)
Fejden har eskaleret, for
at sige mildt, og nu er hele befolkningen i gang med at prøve at dræbe
hinanden.
Men vi glemmer ofte den
psykiske konsekvenser af et liv, hvor man må står op hver dag og forbereder sig
på at dræbe én eller anden af sine naboer – der er en følelsesmæssig
omkostning, der skal betales, ingen tvivl om det. Og en fysisk omkostning også
– det må jeg nok sige. Det må være temmelig trættende, ville jeg forestille
mig.
I dag i
kapitel 69 læser jeg, at to venner, begge to med samme navn (Thorgeir), hvilket
er lidt af en tilfældighed, på deres vej til at dræbe Gunnar, én af sagaens
hovedfigurer, pludselig føler sig så helt udmattede og forsovede, at de
simpelthen lægger sig i en skov, hænger deres skjolde op på grenene, binde
deres heste, og falder i en tung søvn på stedet. Du godeste, de stakkels
fyre!!!!
Sikke en skør
verden vi lever i !!!!! Jeg er lidt overrasket over, at ”de to Thorgeir’er”
ikke blev vækket af andre slagsmål stadig i gang samtidigt i skoven, men det springer jeg over: jeg ved godt, at
jeg selv bliver nogle gange så udmattet, at jeg sover min vej gennem hele
timelange tv-dokumentarer, ingen tvivl om det!!!
12:30 Jeg
spiser frokost, men bagefter beslutter jeg ikke at tage min sædvanlige
eftermiddagslur: timingen er vanskelig, fordi jeg må tage af sted kl 13:30
eller deromkring, for at afhente Lois i Tewkesbury. Jeg kører til Tewkesbury
for at afhente hende. Vi undviger på en eller anden måde de frygtellige
trafikpropper og jeg hopper straks op i sengen efter vi er kommet hjem igen.
18:00 Vi
spiser aftensmad og bruger resten af aftenen på at se lidt fjernsyn, det tredje
afsnit i en interessant serie, der handler om aspekter af romaner på engelsk:
dette afsnit koncentrerer sig om, hvordan romaner har genspejlet klasse-forskelle
og konflikter i den engelsktalende verden.
Desværre
glider jeg over i søvnen under programmet og går glip af 30 % af det – pokkers!
Lois forsøger at ryste mig og vække mig flere gange uden succés. Hun siger, jeg
hver gang bare åbnede øjene i et par sekunder og vendte straks tilbage i søvn –
pokkers (igen) !!!
DH Lawrences roman,
”Lady Chatterleys elsker”, skrevet i 1928, men forbudt i Storbrittanien, handlede
om en affære mellem Lady Chatterley og en mand fra arbejderklassen, sin
skovløber. Penguin Books besluttede at udgive den i 1959, men de blev
retsforfulgt på grund af bogens
angivelige obskønitet. Juryen besluttede imidlertid, at bogen ikke var
obskøn, og den blev udgivet lovligt for første gang i 1960.
Lawrence skrev i 1928 om utroskab mellem
medlemmer
af
forskellige sociale klasser
Selve
retssagen viste imidlertid mange tegne på det ”gamle klassesystem”, som
Lawrence allerede syntes i 1920’erne var uddød. Statsadvokaten spurgte juryens
medlemmer (der selvfølgelig inkluderede kvinder!), om de ville have, at ”deres
koner eller deres tjenestefolk” fik lov til at læse bogen. Hvor mange
jurymedlemmer i 1959 ansatte tjenestefolk, må vi spørger ha ha ha!
Lois
kommenterer, at det dengang var et hyppig mandlig myte i det høflige samfund,
at kvinder på enhver pris skulle blive beskyttet fra at læse om sex og høre om
sex, lige som om, de ikke vidste, hvad det drejede om – i det mindste de gifte
koner allerede ville have haft sex med deres mænd, ville man formode!
Dommeren
medbragte et eksemplar på bogen hver dag, når han trådte ind i retssalen. Han
bar den i en hjemmelavet taske, som hans kone havde givet ham, for at skjule bogen
for pressens fotografer. Og det var dommerens kone, der selv havde skrevet
markeringer i bogens marginer, for at pege på bogens mest ”obskønne” afsnit.
Og de afsnit,
dommerens kone henledte opmærksomheden på, inkluderede afsnit, som kritikere tror,
var Lawrences tilslørede henvisninger til analsex – den side, hvor bogen altid
falder åben på, ser det ud til.
Efter retssagen
gik bogen gik i salg, og folk stod i kø for at købe den – den blev udsolgt
indenfor timer, lader det til. En tv-journalist interviewede nogle af dem, der
stod i køen på en boghandel i London, men deres forskellige svar var lidt
undvigende, for at sige mildt.
Sikke noget
hykleri !!!!Du godeste – sikke en skør verden vi lever
i !!!!
22:00 Vi går i seng –
zzzzzzzz!!!!!
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