Wednesday November 13 2019

08:30 Lois and I roll out of bed and after breakfast we start cleaning up and vacuuming all over the house because Scilla's U3A Old Nordic group is holding its regular fortnightly meeting here this afternoon and we do not want the group members to think  that we live like pigs, which is the unvarnished truth, I have to say.

11:00 We relax with a cup of coffee on the couch. I take a look at my smartphone and browse through the Estonian news media, as usual: I get a bit of a shock, to put it mildly.

Work on the wreck of a medieval wooden ship in central Tallinn has recently provided a surprising archaeological find.

The buried wooden ship which Estonian archaeologists have discovered dates from the late Middle Ages. Since musket shot was found in the wreck, the ship could not have been earlier than the fire-arms era, ie the 15th century, the most likely date for the find.

However, canned food was also found in the ship, and canned food was not in use at the time, begging the question how come a can with a 1972 expiry date could have been found within the structure of a 15^th century ship.

My god what madness!!!

How could this happen? The answer seems to be as follows. Such archaeologica finds are handled with meticulous care nowadays, archaeological sites especially in Soviet times did not get the same careful treatment in the past.

That’s why scientists believe that the ship must have been moved and reburied - perhaps because the wreck was causing an obstacle to shipping or possibly to construction work in the area where it was originally located. And some careless archaeologist must have dropped the can into the body of the ship  while it was being reburied.

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

I am reminded that Woody Allen once wrote a thoughtful article about one of the Dead Sea Scrolls, whose authenticity he cast doubt on, simply because the text contained the word "Oldsmobile" several times (source: newrepublic, com).

Flashback to 1974: Woody Allen sensationally casts first doubts

on the authenticity of one of the iconic so-called "Dead Sea Scrolls"

Let's hope that the medieval Estonian wooden ship will not suffer the same fate as Allen's fake "scrolls" !!

11:30 I carry on browsing, this time through the social media. Last Monday, Lois and I met with my sister Gill at an Italian restaurant in Oxford - Gill had travelled by bus from Cambridge to meet with us - a 4 hour trip - yikes! Lois and I don't see her very often, and after our lunch I posted a photo of us on Facebook.

As I predicted, the photo has created a bit of a sensation among our cousins . We have about 25 of them - they live all over the country, not to mention Australia and the US, and they represent a massive age range - the oldest ones are now in their 80’s.

Gill is at the other end of the scale, to put it mildly - she weighs in as a very young and lively 61-year-old. She has no contact at all with our relatives, except for with Lois and me - she has the nickname in the family of "the forgotten cousin". So that's why those of my Facebook friends who are also related to me were very interested in seeing Gill's picture - most only remember her as a little girl. My god, what madness !!!!

flashback to last Tuesday: I post a photo on Facebook

of me with my 61-year-old little sister, Gill.

The photo has caused a bit of a sensation among family members,

to put it mildly !!!!

12:00 Lois and I have lunch and afterwards I go to bed and take a short afternoon nap. I get up at 3 pm and prepare for Scilla's U3A Old Norse group meeting.

Lois has now become a full member of the group, which is nice. She is very adept at asking Scilla interesting and fun questions about medieval Icelandic society, which is very refreshing. And this also prevents Scilla from making too much progress with the text - which means we don't have to read as much during the intervals between the group's regular fortnightly meetings.

I've become so lazy ha ha ha!

14:30 Scilla and group members arrive and we study Njal's saga for an hour and a half. Njal's saga was written in Iceland in the 14th century, although the saga itself and the events in it are much much older.

Lois asks Scilla a lot of fun questions, as usual, and we all have a lot of fun together - and fortunately we only reach the end of chapter 64, which is nice. So we will start from the beginning of Chapter 65 at our next group meeting, which is scheduled for Wednesday, November 27.

It's nice, too, because Lois and I have already flipped through chapters 65-67, and also half of chapter 68, so we're sitting pretty, to put it mildly.

In any case I notice that group members are starting to look a little tired at 4 pm and I suspect they don't want to read right now about Valgard the Spiteful - the clown who kicks off the 68th chapter when he comes out his house - what madness is he planning now? But I’m going to let that one slide - it will have to wait for another day, thank goodness.

Valgard the Spiteful

Oh dear, what a crazy world they lived in, back then in medieval Iceland !!!!

16:00 Group members leave, and Lois and I relax with a cup of tea and a slice of home-grown and home-made gooseberry jam - yum yum!

18:00 We have dinner and afterwards we have to leave. Lois wants to attend her sect's special Bible class, taking place tonight in Tewkesbury library. Her back has been hurting her for the past few days and she has asked me to drive her over there. Her friends Alf and Mari-Ann, who are also members of the sect, will drive her home again after the meeting.

Tonight it is a special Bible class, with the topic "God's plans for planet earth" - area residents have also been invited to participate, tempted by the hundreds of pamphlets the sect's members have deliverd to the town’s letterboxes.

The pamphlet itself is quite attractive in my opinion - the image on the front page channels George Michael's famous iconic "Faith" album cover, which is a refreshing change. But the George Michael lookalike has a Bible in his hand:

The front page of the sect's latest pamphlet

The booklet channels George Michael's iconic "Faith" album cover,

which is a refreshing change, to put it mildly.

19:00 I now have to drive Lois over to Tewkesbury. I feel tired and sleepy. I drink a cup of coffee just before we leave - I am a dyed-in-the-wool morning person, and I do not want to fall asleep behind the wheel.

It is pitch dark on the winding country road we are used to taking, through the village of Tredington. In addition, it is raining heavily and I have a hard time coping with the glare of the headlights on the cars coming in the opposite direction - my goodness, I'm getting old, no doubt about that !!!

20:30 I have some alone time and watch some television, the latest episode of "The Sky At Night" documentary series, all about developments in the astronomy world and the like. The programme's host is the charming Chris Lintott.

Tonight's episode is all about the Rosetta space probe, which was built and launched by the European Space Agency in 2014 to conduct detailed investigations of the comet 67P / Tyurumov-Gerasimenko. The project is now officially closed, but scientists believe it will take many, many years to fully analyse the project's results.

Chris, the programme's charming host, talks a bit with Swiss astrophysicist Kathrin Altwegg. The researchers have apparently found amino acids (such as glycine) on the comet, part of the building blocks of life that we have in our DNA and cells, so these building blocks must have been present before the solar system started.

We have known for years that space is full of organic molecules, but confirming their presence on a comet points to exactly how these molecules could have kick-started life on Earth, especially considering that the researchers found a version of the element xenon on the comet.

The strange thing is that the earth has two distinctive types of xenon: xenon in the Earth's mantle, which lies between the crust and outer core, and a different version of xenon in the earth's atmosphere – my god, what madness !!! ! The two xenons do not have the same "fingerprint", so they must have originated from two separate places.

The xenon in the Earth's mantle matches perfectly with the xenon we find in meteorites, but until this project, the source of the xenon in the Earth's atmosphere had been a complete mystery. Scientists have been searching for the origin of this type of xenon for 40 years, and have now at last eventually found it on this comet.

We know how much xenon is in the atmosphere, and now we know how much xenon there is in a typical comet. So now scientists have calculated how many comets must have hit the Earth so we would have the current amount of this xenon that we see in the atmosphere.

The answer is 100,000 comets – my god, what a crazy solar system we live in !!!!

One hundred thousand seems unlikely, but it actually isn't. The moon's surface has tens of thousands of craters - they are all roughly the same age (3.8 billion years or so), caused by the so-called "Great Bombardment". Thousands of small objects hit the moon, and of course the earth, too, and that was the period when we could well have been hit by 100,000 comets.

These 100,000 comets will also have brought billions of tons of organic molecules to Earth, the building blocks of life.

And it was approx. 100 million years after this "Great Bombardment" that we first had life on earth - just single cells, but nonetheless life: so it may be that the two events are not a coincidence.

Isn't astrophysics totally fascinating? Who would want to study anything else? !!!!!

22:00 Lois returns from Tewkesbury. Tonight’s preacher and his presentation were fantastic, she says, but the results of members' campaign to attract the local population were a bit disappointing, to put it mildly. There were only 3 "visitors" and they had all been in contact with the sect previously. This is very disappointing for members who spent a great deal of time over the past couple of months distributing the shiny new leaflets.

I have discussed the problem with Lois in the past. We live in the Internet age, and people no longer like going out on winter nights to hear sermons in the middle of towns and cities. In addition, nowadays, we get so many leaflets and advertising flyers in our letter boxes. I'm pretty sure most people just throw them in the trash. I know I do  ha ha!

22:00 I go to bed but Lois needs to relax a bit and wind down after tonight's stimulating presentation. She stays sitting in the living room watching a movie I have chosen for her. She hops into bed with me at 11pm, but she is restless. We chat for a bit and I read about 20 pages of my bedtime book before we both drift off to sleep - zzzzzzzzzzzz !!!!

Danish translation: onsdag den 13. november 2019

08:30 Lois og jeg vælter ud af sengen og efter morgenmad går  vi i gang med at rydde op og støvsuge overalt i huset, fordi Scillas U3A oldnordiske gruppe holder sit regelmæssige fjortendagsmøde i eftermiddag hos os, og vi vil ikke have, at gruppemedlemmerne synes, vi lever ligesom svin, hvilket er sandheden, det må jeg nok sige.

11:00 Vi slapper af med en kop kaffe i sofaen. Jeg kigger lidt på min smartphone og blader igennem de estiske nyhedsmedier, som sædvanligt: jeg får lidt af et chok, for at sige mildt.

Arbejdet med den nye Reidi-tee i det centrale Tallinn gav for nylig endnu en overraskende arkæologisk fund.

Arbejdere fandt et begravet treskib, som arkæologer senere opdagede, daterede fra slutningen af middelalderen, eller deromkring. Eftersom musketskud blev fundet in situ, kunne skibet ikke have været tidligere end skydevåbenets æra, dvs i det 15. århundrede.

Dåsemad blev også imidlertid fundet i skibet, og dåsemad var ikke i brug på det tidspunkt, hvilket fører til spørgsmålet om, hvorfor en dåse med en udløbsdato fra 1972 blev fundet inden for skibets struktur.

Hvordan kunne dette ske? Svaret synes at være som følger. Mens skibet bliver behandlet med den største omhu nu om dage, oplevede arkæologiske steder ikke den samme onhu i fortiden, især i sovjettiden. Derfor tror forskere, at skibbruddet dengang må være blevet flyttet og genbegravet. Måske fordi vraget havde forårsaget en hindring for skibsfart eller muligvis byggeriarbejde i det område, hvor det oprindeligt lå.

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

Jeg mindes om, at Woody Allen engang skrev en betænksom artikel om én af dødshavsrullerne, hvis autenticitet han kastede tvivl på, på grund af, at teksten indeholdt ordet ”Oldsmobile” (kilde: newrepublic,com).  

Tilbageblik til 1974: Woody Allen kaster tvivl for første gang

på én af de ikoniske såkaldte ”Dødshavsruller”

Lad os håbe på, at den middelalderlige estiske træskib ikke kommer til at lide den samme skæbne, som Allens forlorne ”ruller” !!

11:30 Jeg fortsætter med at blade igennem de sociale medier. I mandags mødtes Lois og jeg med min søster Gill på en italiensk restaurant i Oxford – Gill havde rejst med bussen fra Cambridge for at mødes med os – en 4 times rejse -  yikes! Lois og jeg ser hende ikke særlig ofte og jeg lagde et foto af os begge på Facebook.

Som jeg forudså,  har fotoet skabt lidt af en sensation blandt vores fætre og kusiner. Vi har omkring 25 af dem – de bor over hele landet, for ikke at nævne også Australien og USA, og de danner en massiv alderrække – de ældste er nu i 80’erne. Gill er på den anden ende af skalaen, for at sige mildt – hun vejer ind som en meget ung og livlig 61-årig. Hun har slet ikke nogen kontakt med vores slægtninge, bortset fra med Lois og mig – hun har øgenavnet i familien ”den glemte kusine”. Så derfor var mine Facebook-venner, der også er beslægtede til mig meget interesserede for at se Gills billede – de fleste huske hende som en lille pige. Du godeste, sikke et vanvid!!!!

tilbageblik til sidste tirsdag: jeg lagde et foto op på Facebook

af mig sammen med min 61-årige lillesøster, Gill.

Fotoet har forårsaget lidt af en sensation blandt familiemedlemmer,

for at sige mildt!!!!

12:00 Lois og jeg spiser frokost og bagefter går jeg i seng for at tage en kort eftermiddagslur. Jeg står op kl 15 og forbereder mig på Scillas U3A oldnordiske gruppemøde.

Lois er nu blevet et fuldt medlem af gruppen, hvilket er rart. Hun er meget dygtig til at stille Scilla interessante og morsomme spørgsmål om det middelalderlige islandske samfund, hvilket er meget forfriskende. Og dette forhindrer Scilla også i at gøre for meget fremskridt med teksten – hvilket betyder dermed, at vi ikke er nødt til at læse så meget i mellemrummene mellem gruppens regelmæssige fjortendags-møder. Jeg er blevet så doven ha ha ha!

14:30 Scilla og gruppemedlemmer ankommer og vi studere Njals saga i en time og en halv. Njals saga blev skrevet i Island i det 14. århundrede, selvom selve sagaen og begivenhederne derinde er meget meget ældre.

Lois stiller Scilla en masse morsomme spørgsmål, som sædvanligt, og vi hygger os meget alle sammen – og heldigvis når vi kun til enden på kapitel 64, hvilket er rart. Så derfor vil vi starte fra begyndelsen på kapitel 65 på vores næste fjortendags-gruppemøde, der er bestemt til onsdag den 27. november.

Det er også rart, fordi Lois og jeg allerede har bladet igennem kapiter 65-67, og også halvdelen af kapitel 68, så vi ligger lunt i svinget, for at sige mildt.

Også jeg mærker, at gruppemedlemmer begynder kl 16 at ser lidt trætte ud, og jeg mistænker, at de ikke har lyst, til at læse lige nu om Valgard den ondskabsfulde – den klovn, der kickstarter det 68. kapitel, da han kommer ud af sit hus – hvad vanvid planlægger han nu? Men det kan vi lige nu springe over - det må blive en anden dag, gudskelov.

Valgard den ondskabsfulde

Sikke en skør verden de levede i dengang i det midalderlige Island!!!!

16:00 Gruppemedlemmer skal af sted, og Lois og jeg slapper af med en kop te og et stykke brød med hjemmedyrket og hjemmelavet stikkelbærsmarmelade – yum yum!

18:00 Vi spiser aftensmad og bagefter skal vi af sted. Lois ønsker at deltage i sin sekts specielle bibelklasse, der finder sted i aften i byen Tewkesburys bibliotek. Hun har haft ondt i ryggen de seneste få dage, og hun har bedt mig om, at køre hende derovre. Hendes venner Alf og Mari-Ann, som også er medlemmer af sekten, vil køre hende hjem igen efter endt mødet.

I aften er det en speciel bibelklasse, med emnet ”Guds planer om planeten jorden”  - områdets indbyggere også er blevet inviteret at deltage, fristet af mange hundredvis af pjecer, som sektens medlemmer har leveret til byens brevkasser.

Selve pjecen er ganske attraktiv efter min mening – billedet på forsiden kanaliserer George Michaels berømte ikoniske ”Faith”-albums omslag, hvilket er en forfriskende forandring. Men George Michael-lookaliken har en bibel i hånden:

Forsiden af sektens seneste pjece

Pjecen kanaliserer George Michaels ikoniske ”Faith”-albums omslag,

hvilket er en forfriskende forandring, for at sige mildt.

19:00 Jeg kører Lois over til Tewkesbury. Jeg føler mig træt og søvnig.  Jeg drikker en kop kaffe lige før vi tager afsted – jeg er et vaskeægte morgenmenneske, og jeg har ikke lyst til at falde i søvn bag rettet.

Det er bælgravende mørkt på den bugtede landlige rute, vi har for vane at tage, gennem landsbyen Tredington. Derudover regner det kraftigt, og jeg har svært med at halme op med forlygterne på bilerne, der kommer i den modsatte retning – du godeste, jeg bliver gammel, ingen tvivl om det!!!

20:30 Jeg har lidt alenetid og ser lidt fjernsyn, det seneste afsnit i ”The Sky At Night”-dokumentumserie, der handler om udvikinger af astronomiverden og den slags. Programmets vært er den charmerende Chris Lintott.

Aftenens afsnit handler om Rosetta-rumsonden, der i 2014 var bygget og opsendt af Den Europæiske Rumorganisation for at foretage detaljerede undersøgelser af kometen 67P/Tjurjumov-Gerasimenko. Projektet er nu officielt lukket, men forskere tror, det vil tage mange mange år til fuldstændigt analysere projektets resultater.

Chris, programmets charmerende vært, taler lidt med den schweiziske astrofysker Kathrin Altwegg. Forskerne har fundet aminosyre (såsom glycine) på kometen, en del af livets byggeblokker, som vi har i vores dna og celler, så var disse byggeblokker til stede, før solsystemet startede. 

Vi har vidst i årevis, at rummet er fuldt af organiske molekyler, men dét, at bekræfte deres tilstedeværelse på en komet, peger på præcis hvordan disse molekyler kunne have kickstartet livet på jorden, i sær i betragtning af, at forskerne har fundet elementet xenon på kometen.

Det mærkelige er, at jorden har to distinktive typer af xenon: xenon i jordens kappe, der ligger mellem skorpen og kernen (crust and outer core), og vi har en anden xenon i jordens atmosfære – du godeste, sikke et vanvid!!!! De to har ikke det samme ”fingeraftryk”, så de må have stammet fra to adskilte steder.

Xenonen i jordens kappe matcher perfekte med den xenon, vi finder i meteoriter, men indtil dette projekt havde kilden på xenonen i jordens atmosfære været et fuldstændigt mysterie. Forskere har været på søgn efter denne type xenon i 40 år, og til sidst har de fundet den på denne komet.

Vi ved hvor meget xenon der er i atmosfæret, og nu ved vi hvor meget xenon der er i en typisk komet. Så nu har forskere beregnet hvor mange gange kometer må have ramt jorden, så vi kan have beløbet af denne xenon,  som vi ser i atmosfæren.

Svaret er 100.000 gange – du godeste, sikke et skørt solsystem vi lever i !!!!

Det virker usandsynligt, men det er det faktisk ikke. Månenes overflade har tegne på tusindvis af kratere – de er alle omtrentlig jævnaldrende (3,8 milliarder år eller deromkring), foranlediget af den såkaldte ”store bombardement”. Tusindvis af små objekter ramte månen, og selvfølgelig jorden også, og det var dengang, vi kunne være blevet ramt af 100.000 kometer.

Disse 100.000 kometer vil også have medbragt milliarder af tons af organiske molekyler til jorden, livets byggeblokker.

Og ca. 100 millioner år efter denne ”store bombardement” havde vi livet på jorden, bare enkeltceller, men ikke desto mindre livet: så derfor kan det være, at de to begivenheder ikke er uforbundede.

Er astrofysik ikke totalt fascinerende? Hvem ville ønske at studere noget andet?!!!!!

22:00 Lois kommer tilbage fra Tewkesbury. Aftenens prædiker og hans fremlæggelse var fantastisk, siger hun, men resultaterne af medlemmers kampagne for at tiltrække den lokale befolkning var lidt skuffende, for at sige mildt. Der var kun 3 ”besøgere”, og de havde alle allerede været i kontakt med sekten. Dette er meget skuffende for medlemmerne, der brugte en masse tid i løbet af den seneste uge i at distribuere sektens spritnye pjecer.

Jeg har før i tiden diskuteret problemet lidt med Lois. Vi bor i internetalderen, og folk kan ikke længere lide at gå ud om vinteraftener for at høre prædikener midt i byen. Derudover nu til dags, vi får så mange pjecer og reklamesedler ind at brevsprækken. Jeg er helt sikker på, at de fleste mennesker umiddelbart smider dem i papirkurvet. Jeg ved godt, at jeg gør det ha ha!

22:00 Jeg går i seng men Lois trænger til at slappe lidt af og geare ned efter aftenens stimulerende prædiken. Hun bliver siddende i stuen og ser en film, jeg har valgt til hende. Hun hopper op i sengen til mig kl 23, men hun er rastløs. Vi snakker lidt og jeg læser omkring 20 sider af min sengetidbog, før vi begge to glider over i søvnen – zzzzzzzzzzzz!!!!