Sunday December 29 2019

05:00 I wake up again still with a cold in my nose, but stumble down the stairs and look at my smartphone. I see Francis, our son-in-law in Perth, Australia, has posted a charming photo on Facebook, with our daughter Sarah in the water and our 6-year-old grandchildren Lily and Jessie on the beach. The family is preparing to do some kayaking in the Southern Ocean - they are currently on a short camping holiday along the coast south of Perth.

The weather looks fantastic on the other side of the world, especially in comparison to here – my goodness, what a crazy planet we live on !!!!

earlier today: our daughter Sarah is already in the water (Southern Ocean)

and our 6-year-old twin grandchildren are on the beach:

the family is preparing to do some kayaking.

Good grief - what madness !!!!

I have a slight cold in my nose, and a rather sore throat, but the worst thing is that I feel more and more tired with each hour that passes during the day, and I feel completely worn out as evening approaches - poor me !!!!!!!

It suddenly dawns on me that my symptoms are similar to the ones Lois was suffering from last week or so, when she went to the doctor and the doctor said it was a virus and she just had to wait while her body fought the illness off - damn !!!! !

09:45 Lois wants to attend her sect's worship service, taking place this morning at 10:45 in Tewkesbury library. She has back problems and hip problems at the moment, so she asks me to drive her over to our friend Alf's house - Alf has agreed to drive her and Fran over to Tewkesbury where all 3 will attend the service. I drop her off and drive home again.

I feel pretty rough, but with a lot of effort I managed to do one task on my to-do list:  organise our waste and recycling waste: there is a lot of packaging and cardboard boxes and the like lying around, because of all the Christmas gifts etc, and I have to throw it all out. Fortunately, the council’s refuse trucks don’t come till Friday this week, instead of Wednesday, because Wednesday is a public holiday, thank goodness.

12:30 Lois returns from Tewkesbury. Alf drops her off in front of the house and we have lunch. Afterwards, I go to bed and take a gigantic afternoon nap. I get up at 4 pm and we relax with a cup of tea and a slice of homemade Christmas cake on the couch - yum yum!

Flashback to December 21: Lois starts icing

and decorating her pretty little Christmas cake - yum yum!

16:30 I feel more and more tired, but I manage to read 6 more pages of Anna Grue's novel "The Further You Fall" – 6 pages in a day is a personal best for me. The novel is our U3A Danish group's current project. I also prepare 6 vocabulary lists, one for each page I read, to save our group members from having to look up the unusual words in their dictionaries. I'm so accommodating ha ha ha!

Anna Grue's crime novel, our U3A Danish group’s

current project

Two women, Lilliana and Sally (two roomies), have been killed in separate murders, and the novel's hero, Dan Sommerdahl, an advertising man who works in the bureau where the first woman was garotted, wants to play amateur detective and solve the mystery.

Today, I read that Dan steps out of the apartment block (the one where the two murdered women used to live), but then he suddenly gets "almost knocked over by a large loaf of bread," according to the novel.

That seems a little strange, I have to say – only in Denmark, perhaps! But it is true that ordinary everyday items can sometimes be turned into weapons, no doubt about that. A case in point hit the headlines a couple of months back.

Flashback to September: an 11-year-old girl at a convenience store in Worthing, Sussex,

throws a large loaf of bread at an armed thief, and thwarts the robbery

And back in the 1970’s, the Monty Python series featured self-defence classes where students were taught to defend themselves against attackers armed with fresh-fruit.

Also, in the Benny Hill Show, when milkman Ernie (Benny Hill) fought a duel with local baker Ted (Henry McGee) for the affections of Sue, one of their customers, Ernie ended up being killed by one of Ted's heavy rock cakes, that Ted threw at him.

Ernie (Benny Hill), the local milkman

The local baker, "Two Ton Ted from Teddington" (Henry McGee left),

seen here with Sue, a customer who was the object of both men’s affections

It seems that there is a long tradition of people being hit by bread, cakes, fruit etc, so at first I am not entirely surprised that Dan, the hero of this crime novel, could have been almost knocked over by "a big loaf of bread".

Fortunately, however, I decide to do some research in my shiny new Danish-English dictionary that Lois bought me as a Christmas present, and I discover a slang meaning for the word "loaf of bread," which in Danish can also refer to "a big powerful man", such as the Incredible Hulk or Boris Johnson, say, a meaning which seems much more likely in this context, I have to say.

The Incredible Hulk (left) and Boris Johnson (right)

18:00 Lois and I have dinner and spend the rest of the evening watching some television.

We see first a review of recent episodes in the series "Antiques Roadshow", an interesting series that showcases antiques events generally organised at some stately home or other out in the countryside.

Local residents usually bring along some of their family antiques and heirlooms so that the programme's experts can investigate them, speculate a little about their origins, etc., and assess their worth in the antiques market and suchlike. The programme's host is the charming Fiona Bruce.

In 2016, a local resident in Cornwall brought along a very old bottle, still with the cork inside the top, a bottle which the man had found in his house but had never dared to open. The programme's expert, Andy McConnell, had examined the bottle and assessed that it dated from 1800 or thereabouts.

McConnell had drawn off a small extract – of what was found to be a "very brown" liquid, and he tasted it, which was a little dangerous, to put it mildly, but he did at least survive the experiment! In the end he came to the conclusion that it was either port wine or red wine inside the bottle, or possibly, as he joked at the time, just a bunch of rusty old nails that had been transmogrified into something wet and nasty - yikes !!!!

At this point in tonight’s look-back programme, Fiona Bruce,

the programme's charming host, comes in with a timely health warning to TV viewers - yikes!

In fact, the bottle was initially found buried upside down in the threshold of the man's kitchen door. Since the original programme, Loughborough University researchers have examined the contents of the bottle, X-rayed it, and poured some of it out.

It turns out that the bottle still contained a couple of brass pins dating from the 1840’s, and the liquid contained in the bottle was not wine but urine, plus a little bit of alcohol. There was also one human hair, and a tiny “ostracod” (a kind of tiny cockle). 

The researchers' conclusions were that the bottle was actually a witch’s bottle, buried in the threshold of the kitchen, to protect the residents from witchcraft, curses, mishaps and suchlike.

Good grief, what madness !!!!

21:00 We continue to watch some television, the first episode in an entertaining drama documentary series about the Profumo case from the early 1960’s, and the trial of Christine Keeler, the society prostitute.

An entertaining first episode, although Lois and I have trouble following along with the plot and the dozens of roles (including petty criminals, prostitutes, club owners, businessmen, politicians, embassy staff, celebrities, peers, embassy staff, ministers, etc.), even though as 16-year-old teens, we both lived through the scandal.

We can't begin to imagine how a younger person, who didn't live through it all, could possibly understand the complex development of the scandal as it's portrayed in this drama - yikes!

Nothing much tends to get "explained" in the drama tonight, and names are not always given, so it is often pure guesswork to work out who is who. We see Mandy Rice-Davies (Ellie Bamber) having sex with an overweight middle-aged businessman (Jonny Coyne), but we are not told who he is.

Fortunately, both Lois and I remember that it famously came up during the case against Keeler that the seedy slum landlord, Peter Rachman, favoured the so-called “reverse-cowgirl position” as his favourite sex position. The expression stuck in our heads because we neither of us understood what it meant - how innocent we were ha ha ha!

Lois and I find it very interesting that in the 1960’s Christine Keeler looked much more sophisticated, glamorous and confident in the newspaper pictures than Mandy Rice-Davies did, but in fact it was Mandy who was much the smarter one, and she knew exactly what she was getting into, while Christine, the simple provincial girl from the small town of Wraysbury, was completely naive and her mental state was a bit of a mess, to put it mildly.

Stephen Ward (James Norton) with Christine (Sophie Cookson)

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

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

Danish translation: søndag den 29. december 2019

05:00 Jeg vågner stadig med en forkølelse i næsen, men snubler ned ad trappen og ser på min smartphone. Jeg ser at Francis, vores svigersøn i Perth, Australien, har lagt et charmerende billede op på Facebook, med vores datter Sarah i vandet og vores 6-årige børnebørn Lily og Jessie på stranden. Familien forbereder sig på at dyrke lidt kajakroning i Sydhavet – de er for tiden på en kort campingferie langs kysten syd for byen Perth.

Vejret ser fantastisk ud i den anden side af verden, især i sammenligning til her – du godeste, sikke en skør planet vi lever på!!!!

tidligere på dagen: vores datter Sarah er allerede i vandet (Sydhavet)

og vores 6-årige tvillingebørnebørn er på stranden:

familien forbereder sig på at dyrke lidt kajakroning.

Du godeste – sikke et vanvid!!!!

Jeg har en mild forkølelse i næsen, en lidt øm hals, men det værste er, at jeg føler mig mere og mere træt med hver time, der går i løbet af dagen, og jeg føler mig helt slået ud, når aften nærmer sig – stakkels mig !!!!!!!

Det går pludselig op for mig, at mine symptomer ligner dem, Lois led af sidste uge, da hun gik til læge og lægen sagde, det var en virus, og hun bare måtte vente, mens hendes krop bekæmpede sygdommen – pokkers!!!!!  

09:45 Lois ønsker at deltage i sin sekts gudstjeneste, der finder sted i formiddag kl 10:45 i byen Tewkesburys bibliotek. Hun har rygproblemer og hofteproblemer for tiden, så beder hun mig om at køre hende over til vores ven Alfs hus – Alf har aftalt at køre hende og Fran over til Tewkesbury, hvor alle 3 vil deltage i gudstjenesten. Jeg sætter hende af og kører hjem igen.

Jeg føler mig dårligt tilpas, men med en stor indsats lykkes det mig at gøre én opgave på min gøremålsliste: at ordne vores affald og genbrugsaffald: der er en masse emballage og papkartoner og lignende, på grund af alle de julegaver osv, og jeg skal smide det ud. Heldigvis kommer kommunens skraldebil først på fredag denne uge, i stedet for onsdag, på grund af, at onsdag er en helligdag, gudskelov.

12:30 Lois kommer tilbage fra Tewkesbury. Alf sætter hende af foran huset, og vi spiser frokost. Bagefter går jeg i seng for at tage en gigantisk eftermiddagslur. Jeg står op kl 16 og vi slapper af med en kop te og en skive hjemmelavet  julekage i sofaen – yum yum!

Tilbageblik til den 21. december: Lois går i gang med at glasere

og pynte vores temmelig lille julekage – yum yum!

16:30  Jeg føler mig mere og mere træt, men det lykkes mig at læse endnu 6 sider af Anna Grues krimiroman ”Dybt at falde” – en personlig bedst. Romanen er vores U3A danske gruppes nuværende projekt, og jeg udfærdiger også 6 ordforrådlister, én til hver side jeg læser, for at spare vores gruppemedlemmer for at måtte slå de usædvanlige ord op i deres ordbøger. Jeg er så overbærende ha ha ha!

Anna Grues krimiroman, vores U3A danske gruppes

nuværende projekt

To kvinder, Lilliana og Sally (to roomies), er blevet dræbt i adskilte mord, og romanens helt, Dan Sommerdahl, en reklamemand i bureauet, hvor den første kvinde blev garrotteret, har lyst til at spille amatørdetektiv og løse mysteriet.

I dag læser jeg at Dan træder ud af den etageejendom hvor de to myrdede kvinder boede, og bliver pludselig ”nær væltet omkuld af et stort brød”, ifølge romanen.

Det virker lidt underligt, det må jeg nok sige. Men det er sandt, at almindelige dagligdags genstande nogle gange kan blive til våbne, ingen tvivl om det.

tilbageblik til september: en 11-årig pige i en nærbutik i Worthing, Sussex,

kaster et stort brød på en bevæbnet tyv og forpurrede røveriet

Tilbage i 1970’erne fremviste Monty Python-serien selvforsvarklasser, hvor studerende blev lært at forsvare sig selv mod angribere bevæbnede med frisk frugt.

Og i Benny Hill Show, da mælkemanden Ernie (Benny Hill)  kæmpede en duel med den lokale bager Ted (Henry McGee) over Sue, én af deres kunder, blev Ernie dræbt af én af Teds tunge rockkager.

Ernie (Benny Hill), den lokale mælkemand

Den lokale bager, ”Two Ton Ted fra Teddington” (Henry McGee til venstre)

sammen med Sue, én af de to rivalers kunder

Det ser ud om, at der er en lang tradition af folk, der bliver ramt af brød, kager, frugt osv, så bliver jeg i begyndelsen ikke helt overrasket over, at Dan, krimiromanens helt, kunne være nær væltet omkuld af ”et stort brød”.

Heldigvis imidlertid beslutter jeg at gøre lidt forskning i min spritnye dansk-engelsk ordbog, som Lois købte til mig som julegave, og jeg opdager en slang betydning til ordet ”brød”,  som også kan henvise til ”en stor kraftig mandsperson”, såsom Incredible Hulk, eller Boris Johnson, hvilket virker mere sandsynligt – det må jeg nok sige.

The Incredible Hulk (til venstre) sammen med Boris Johnson (til højre)

18:00 Vi spiser aftensmad og bruger resten af aftenen på at se lidt fjernsyn.

De viser en gennemgang af nylige afsnit i serien ”Antiques Roadshow”, et interessant program, der fremviser eventer, organiserede på ét eller andet palads ude på landet. Lokale indbyggere medbringer nogle af deres familie-antikviteter og arvestykker, så programmets eksperter kan undersøge dem, spekulere lidt om deres oprindelser osv, og vurdere deres værd på antikvitetsmarkedet og den slags. Programmets vært er den charmerende Fiona Bruce.

I 2016 medbragte en lokal indbygger i grevskabet Cornwall en meget gammel flaske, stadig med proppen inde i toppen, som manden aldrig var vovet at åbne. Programmets ekspert undersøgte flasken og vurderede, at den daterede fra 1800 eller deromkring.

Eksperten udvandt et lille ekstrakt – en ”meget brun” væske, og han smagte på den, hvilket var lidt farligt, for at sige mildt, men han overlavede i det mindste! Han kom til den konklusion, at den var enten portvin eller rødvin derinde, der lå inde i flasken, eller muligvis rustne gamle søm, der var blevet reduceret til noget uhumsk – yikes!!!!

På dette tidspunkt kommer Fiona Bruce,

programmets charmerende vært, med en helbredsadvarsel til tv-seerne – yikes!

Flasken blev faktisk oprindeligt fundet begravet på hovedet i tærsklen til mandens køkkendør. Loughborough University forskere undersøgte senere flaskens indhold, røntgenfotograferede det, og hældte  det ud.

Det viser sig, at flasken indeholdte et par messingnåle, der daterede fra 1840’erne, og den væske, som var i flasken var urin, en lille smule alkohol, ét menneskeligt hår, og en lillebitte muslingkrebs (en slags lille hjertemusling). Flasken var faktisk en hekseflaske, begravet i tærsklen for at beskytte beboerne mod hekseri, forbandelser, uheld og den slags.

Du godeste, sikke et vanvid!!!!

21:00 Vi fortsætter med at se lidt fjernsyn. De viser det 1. afsnit i en underholdende dramadokumentarserie, der handler om Profumo-sagen fra først i 1960’erne, og retssagen mod Christine Keeler, den toptunede prostituerede.

Et underholdende 1. afsnit, selvom Lois og jeg har svært ved at følge hen med i plottet og i de snesevis af roller (herunder ubetydelige kriminelle, prostituerede, klubejere, forretningsmænd, politikere, ambassadepersonale, kendisser, adelige, ambassadepersonale, ministre osv), selvom vi som 16-årige teenagere begge to levede igennem skandalen.

Vi kan ikke begynde at forestille os, hvordan en yngre person, der ikke levede igennem det hele, muligvis kunne forstå udviklingen af skandalen, som det spiller sig ud i dette drama  – yikes!

Intet bliver forklaret i dramaet og navne er ikke altid givet, så det ofte er rent gætteværk at finde frem til hvem er hvem. Vi ser Mandy Rice-Davies (Ellie Bamber) have sex med en overvægtig midaldrende forretningsmand (Jonny Coyne), men vi får ikke at vide, hvem han er.

Heldigvis husker både Lois og mig, at det berømt kom frem under retssagen mod Keeler, at den snuskede bolighaj, Peter Rachman, godt kunne lide omvendt-cowgirl-stillingen som sin yndlingsstilling. Udtrykket sad fast inde i vores hoveder, fordi vi begge to ikke forstod, hvad det betød – hvor var vi dog uskyldsrene ha ha!

Lois og jeg finder det meget interessant, at Christine Keeler først i 1960’erne så meget mere sofistikeret og selvsikker ud i avisbillederne, end Mandy Rice-Davies, men faktisk var det Mandy, der var meget smartere og vidste præcis, hvad hun blandede sig ind i, mens Christine, den simpel pige fra den lille by Wraysbury,  var helt naiv og hendes psykologi var lidt af en rod, for at sige mildt.

Stephen Ward (James Norton) med Christine (Sophie Cookson)

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

22:00 Vi går i seng – zzzzzzzz!!!!!