Sunday January 19 2020

No whatsapp calls this morning from Sarah, our daughter in Perth, Australia. She has the habit of calling us every Sunday at 9-10 am, but this weekend the family is moving from a rental house in Ocean Reef, on the coast, to a new rental house in Lower Chittering. We assume they are too busy to call, or too tired, or both.

The town's name, Lower Chittering, evokes images of a quiet and peaceful English village, but in fact Lower Chittering lies far out in the countryside north of Perth in an area known for its vineyards and the like. My god, what madness !!!!

Poor them !!! But very exciting too, especially for our 6-year-old twin grandchildren, Lily and Jessie - we have no doubts about that! They will be starting in their new school next month - the school year starts in February in Australia, immediately after the school's summer break: it is summer in Perth, while it is winter here in England – good grief, what a crazy planet we live on !!!! !!

Sarah, Francis and the twins on the beach on December 27:

it is summer in Australia – good grief, what a crazy planet we live on !!!!

10:00 Lois and I have to drive to Tewkesbury. She wants to attend her sect’s two worship services, taking place today in the town’s library. She has back problems at the moment and she has asked me to drive her over there. I drop her off in front of the library.

Tewkesbury Library

This morning, Lois is bringing two large bags of food with her, and they weigh a ton - yikes! - cans mostly, that she has collected to donate to the town’s food bank, for the benefit of the town’s homeless and very poor.

The local sect's leadership has asked Lois to organize this new project and there was an announcement last Sunday asking the sect's members to bring food in with them today. Lois also emailed members 2 days ago to remind them of the project and ask them to contribute food from their own larders or from local supermarkets and the like.

But Lois tells me later in the day that none of the approx. 30 sect members actually remembered to bring food in with them today. Which is a bit pathetic, to put it mildly, I think. Poor Lois. It is not that the members are stingy - they are just completely disorganized, cannot concentrate on the most important things, and are without any particular sense of priorities in my opinion. Poor Lois !!!! But hail to thee, Lois, you kept us out of war, no doubt about that!

And God bless you too, if God is there and reads my blog haha!

11:00 I get home again. I have some alone time and start to do some work on my long-running downsizing mini project, which has been on hold for a few months. I climb up the loft ladder and collect various old toys that our two daughters played with in the 1980’s, now in too poor a condition to donate to crèches and the like; also stacks of old holiday brochures and maps of foreign countries and parts of the UK we long ago spent holidays in – my god, what madness to have kept all those !!!!

However, it is always a bit nostalgic to browse through old toys and other souvenirs and documents. And I come across some photos of my father in his heyday in the 1960’s as a headmaster of one of the country's largest schools, in Bristol when he was at the height of his powers. Happy times!

my father at the microphone in front of about 2000 of his students

13:00  I have lunch and don't have time for my usual afternoon nap – I have to be off to Tewkesbury to pick up Lois after the 2nd service. We come home and relax with a cup of tea and a piece of bread with the orange marmalade she made a few days ago. Mmmmmmmm !!!!

15:00 I sit down with the computer in the dining room and read 2 more pages of Anna Grue's Danish crime novel, "The Further You Fall", which is our U3A Danish group's current project.

Anna Grue's crime novel, which is our U3A Danish group

current project.

Anna Grue, author of the novel

The novel's hero is Dan Sommerdahl, an advertising man and amateur detective who is trying to help local police solve two murders: Lilliana, an Estonian cleaning woman who worked in Dan's advertising agency, and Sally, Lilliana's Nigerian roomie.

The three main characters in the novel:

advertising man and amateur detective Dan Sommerdahl (right)

with his best friend, Police Detective Flemming Torp (left),

and Dan's wife, Marianne, who both men are in love with - yikes!

Dan's personality interests me because I suspect that Dan is actually Anna Grue, the author, in personality, and that Dan's thoughts, opinions, prejudices, etc. are actually Anna's thoughts, opinions, prejudices. They both own a crazy dog for starters ​​(see above photo of Anna and her dog).

Dan has a number of strong opinions, about both big and trivial things: he doesn't like open-plan office environments  in workplaces, for example, and he doesn't like modern toothbrushes, etc. And the list goes on haha! I myself rather agree with Dan (and with Anna perhaps?) in many of his prejudices, although I am a cat person rather than a dog person, I have to say.

Dan is also a morning person: I read today that he woke up after a traumatic nightmare and checked the time .... ”Zero four eleven beep. Why is it always at three or four o'clock that one wakes up and cannot fall asleep again? ... Maybe I should get up? Dan felt light-headed and knew it could take hours to fall asleep again. He simply couldn't bear to wait. He put on his robe and some thermal socks and headed down the stairs to the kitchen. Then he made a big cup of cocoa, pouring in a double cognac, got his laptop out and lay down on the sofa…”.

He then switched on the computer and started looking at naked pictures of the two murdered girls: Lilliana and Sally.

My goodness! That could have been me talking. I myself tend to wake up about 4am, tiptoe down the stairs to the kitchen, although I make green tea instead of Dan's cocoa with double cognac in haha! And even though I sit down with my laptop, I don't look at pictures of naked women. And Dan himself was only looking at the nude photos, strictly speaking, for the purposes of his investigation into the death of the two women haha ​.

18:00 We have dinner and spend the rest of the evening watching some television, "The Women's Football Show", an interesting weekly series that Lois and I first saw last Sunday.

We have got interested in women's soccer since Josie (13) and Rosalind (11), two of our 3 grandchildren in Haslemere, Surrey, started going on school outings to matches. They are especially fanatical about two of the top women's soccer teams, Arsenal and Chelsea, and have personally met many of the two teams' players, mostly British, but Arsenal also has some charming Dutch football stars and Chelsea has Norwegian and Swedish players, which is nice .

Alison, our daughter, told us a few days ago that Rosalind was going to see the Arsenal-Chelsea match today, so Lois and I look carefully at the broadcast highlights in case they show a glimpse of the crowd, but we don't see Rosalind, which might not be too surprising.

Fortunately, a little later, Alison puts together a collage of pictures of Rosalind at today's game on "Insta", and it is clear that Rosalind managed to meet with many of the two teams’ players again, which is nice.

Rosalind at today's Arsenal-Chelsea women's soccer match

21:00 We continue to watch some television, the 5th episode of an interesting drama documentary series about the model Christine Keeler and the so-called Profumo scandal that hit the headlines early in the 1960’s when Lois and I were young teenagers. Keeler had an affair with the then Secretary of War in Harold Macmillan's conservative government, John "Jack" Profumo.

Stephen Ward, the top person’s osteopath who was friends with a number of important personalities in government and others in high social positions, had a habit of inviting his buddies to parties where they met models like Christine Keeler, and other beautiful women ready to go to bed with them in exchange for expensive gifts and a luxury lifestyle and the like.

But as soon as Profumo was forced to resign as Minister of War and the scandal hit the headlines, Stephen Ward suddenly found himself isolated and shunned by his former rich and powerful friends. And his rich patients began cancelling their appointments with him. Not "The Establishments" finest hour, to put it mildly.

The authorities and police pushed Christine to provide evidence that Stephen was living off "immoral earnings", a ridiculous charge: he just believed that sex was not a sin, it seems. But most of the society of the time were deeply shocked by Stephen's sex parties, etc, and the police and authorities wanted to find some victim and punish him / her, and Ward was the ideal target.

This episode is a rather sad, I have to say, with superb acting by James Norton as Ward - we see Ward's trial and his gradual mental decline as he became aware that all his old friends were giving him the cold shoulder. He was a gentle man, and he finally decided to commit suicide with an overdose of tablets while the jury was still out – most of all he wanted to "destroy himself" rather than let the authorities destroy him.

A bit of a shame because, as Ward's lawyer said to him, even if the jury convicted him (as they in fact later did when he was already dying), Ward would almost certainly have won an appeal because the judge had misdirected the jury in his review of the arguments.

The best moments in the episode are Mandy Rice-Davies's  famous reply at the trial: when she said she had gone to bed with Lord Astor many times. The prosecutor commented that Astor had denied this. She simply replied, "Well he would, wouldn’t he!".

The retort got a lot of people in the courtroom laughing, including Ward himself, the jury and spectators, though not the judge!

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

Danish translation: søndag den 19. januar 2020

Ingen whatsapp-opkald i formiddag fra Sarah, vores datter i Perth, Australien. Hun har for vane at ringer til os hver søndag kl 9-10, men denne weekend flytter familien fra et lejehus i Ocean Reef, på kysten, til et nyt lejehus i Lower Chittering. Vi antager, de har for travlt eller for trætte, eller begge to.

Byens navn, Lower Chittering, fremkalder billeder af en stille og rolig engelske landsby, men faktisk ligger Lower Chittering langt ude på landet nord for Perth i et område kendt for dens vinmarker og lignende. Du godeste, sikke et vanvid!!!!

Stakkels dem!!! Men meget spændende også, især for vores 6-årige tvillingebørnebørn, Lily og Jessie – det har vi ikke nogen tvivl om! De vil starte i deres ny skole næste måned – skoleåret starter i februar måned i Australien, umiddelbart efter skolernes sommerpause:  det er sommer i Perth, mens det er vinter i England – du godeste, sikke en skør planet vi lever på!!!!!!

Sarah, Francis og tvillingerne på stranden den 27. december:

det er sommer i Australien – du godeste, sikke en skør planet vi lever på!!!!

10:00 Lois og jeg skal til Tewkesbury. Hun ønsker at deltage i sin sekts to gudstjenester, der finder sted i dag i byens bibiotek. Hun har rygproblemer i øjeblikket og hun har bedt mig om at køre hende derover. Jeg sætter hende af foran biblioteket.

byen Tewkesburys bibliotek

Lois medbringer i formiddag to store poser fødevarer med, og de vejer en ton – yikes! - dåser for det meste, som hun har samlet for at donere til byens madbank, til fordel for byens hjemløse og meget fattige.

Den lokale sekts ledenskab har bedt Lois om at organisere dette nye projekt og der var en meddelelse sidste søndag, bedende sektens medlemmer om at medbringe fødevarer i dag. Lois sendte også emails til medlemmer for 2 dage siden, for at minde dem om projektet og bede dem om at bidrage med fødevarer fra deres egne spisekamre eller fra lokale supermarkeder og den slags.

Men Lois fortæller mig senere på dagen, at ingen af de ca. 30 sektmedlemmer faktisk huskede at medbringe fødevarer med i dag. Det der er lidt væmmeligt for at sige mildt, synes jeg. Stakkels Lois. Det er ikke det tilfælde, at medlemmerne er nærige– de er bare helt uorganiserede, de kan ikke koncentrere sig ikke om de vigtigste ting, og de er uden nogen særlig sans for prioriteter under min mening. Stakkels Lois!!!! Men hyl dig, Lois, du holdt os ud af krig, ingen tvivl om det!

Og Gud velsigne dig også, hvis Gud er dér, og plejer at læse min blog haha!

11:00 Jeg kommer hjem igen. Jeg har lidt alenetid og går i gang med at gøre lidt arbejde på min langvarige downsize-miniprojekt, som har været i venteposition i et par måneder. Jeg klatrer op ad loftstigen og samle forskellige gamle legetøj, som vores to døtre legede med i 1980’erne, nu i for dårlig tilstand til at donere til vuggestuer og lignende;  også stakkelvis af gamle feriebrochurer og kort over fremmede lande og dele af Storbritannien, vi for længe siden holdt ferier i – du godeste, sikke et vanvid!!!!

Det er imidlertid altid lidt nostalgisk at rode igennem gamle legetøj og andre souvenirs og dokumenter. Jeg støder på nogle fotoer af min far i sin storhedstid i 1960’erne som skoleinspektør af én af landets største skole i Bristol, da han var på højde af sine magter. Lykkelige tider!

13:00 Jeg spiser frokost og ikke har tid til min sædvanlige eftermiddagslur – jeg skal til Tewkesbury for at hente Lois efter den 2. gudstjeneste. Vi kommer hjem og slapper af med en kop te og et stykke brød med den appelsinmarmelade, hun lavede for et par dage siden. Mmmmmmmm!!!!

15:00 Jeg sætter mig med computeren i spisestuen og læser endnu 2 sider af Anna Grues danske krimiroman, ”Dybt at falde”, som er vores U3A danske gruppes nuværende projekt.

Anna Grues krimiroman, der er vores U3A danske gruppes

nuværende projekt.

Anna Grue, romanens forfatter

Romanens helt er Dan Sommerdahl, en reklamemand og amatørdetektiv, der prøver at hjælpe det lokale politi med at løse to mord: Lilliana, en estisk rengøringskvinde, der arbejdede i Dans reklamebureau, og Sally, Lillianas nigerianske roomie.

De tre hovedfigurer i krimiromanen:

reklamemanden og amatørdetektiven Dan Sommerdahl (til højre)

sammen med sin bedste ven, politidetektiven Flemming Torp (til venstre),

og Dans kone, Marianne, som begge mænd er forelskede i – yikes!

Dans  personlighed interesser mig, fordi jeg mistænker, at Dan faktisk er Anna Grue, forfatteren, og Dans tanker, meninger, fordomme osv faktisk er Annas tanker, meninger, fordomme. De holder begge to en vanvittig hund (se overstående billedet af Anna og hendes hund), for at begynde med.

Dan har en række stærke meninger, om både store og triviale ting: han kan ikke lide åbne kontorslandskabe i arbejdspladser, for eksempel, og han kan ikke lide moderne tandbørster osv. Og listen går videre haha! Jeg selv er enig med Dan (og med Anna måske?) i mange af hans fordomme, selvom jeg er kattemenneske snarere, end hundemenneske, det må jeg nok sige.

Dan er også morgenmenneske: jeg læser idag, at han vågnede op efter et traumatisk mareridt og tjekkede tiden.... ”Nul fire elleve dut. Hvorfor er det altid ved trefire-tiden, man vågner og ikke kan falde i søvn igen? ...    Måske skulle man stå op? Dan følte sig lysvågen og vidste, at det kunne tage timer at falde i søvn igen. Det orkede han simpelthen ikke at ligge og vente på. Han tog sin morgenkåbe og nogle termosokker på og listede ned ad trappen til køkkenet. Så lavede han en stor kop kakao, hældte en dobbelt cognac i, fandt sin bærbare computer frem og lagde sig ind i sofaen.  

Han satte sig så med computeren og begyndte at kigge på nøgne billeder af de to myrdede piger: Lilliana og Sally.

Du godeste!  Dén kunne have været mig, der talte. Jeg selv har tendens til at vågne ved 4-tiden, liste ned ad trappen til køkkenet, selvom jeg laver grøn te istedet for Dans kakao med dobbelt cognac i haha! Og selvom jeg sætter mig med min bærebare, kigger jeg ikke på billeder af nøgne kvinder haha! Og Dan selv kiggede på de nøgne billeder strengt taget bare som en del af sin undersøgelse af de to kvinders død haha (for 3. gang).

18:00 Vi spiser aftensmad og bruger resten af aftenen på at se lidt fjernsyn, ”The Women’s Football Show”, et interessant ugentligt serie, som Lois og jeg først så sidste søndag.

Vi har interesseret os for kvindefodbold, siden Josie (13) og Rosalind (11), to af vores 3 børnebørn i Haslemere, Surrey, begyndte at tage på skoleudflugt til kampe. De er især fanatiske om to af de ypperste kvindefodbodhold, Arsenal og Chelsea, og har mødt personligt mange af de to holds spillere, for det meste britiske, men Arsenal har også nogle charmerende hollandske fodboldstjerner og Chelsea har norske og svenske spillere, hvilket er rart.

Alison, vores datter, fortalte os for et par dage siden, at Rosalind ville se Arsenal-Chelsea kamp en idag, så Lois og jeg ser forsigtigt på programmets filmsekvenser for det tilfælde, de viser glimt af tilskuerne, men vi ser ikke Rosalind, hvilket måske ikke er for overraskende.

Heldigvis lægger Alison lidt senere et collage af billeder af Rosalind på dagens kamp op på ”Insta”, og det er helt klart, at det lykkedes Rosalind igen at mødes med mange af de to holds spillere igen, hvilket er rart.

Rosalind på dagens Arsenal-Chelsea kvindefodboldkamp

21:00 Vi fortsætter med at se lidt fjernsyn, det 5. afsnit i en interesssant dokumentarfilm, der handler om modelen Christine Keeler og den såkaldte Profumo-skandale, der ramte overskrifterne først i 1960’erne, da Lois og jeg var unge teenagere. Keeler havde en affære med den daværende krigsminister i Harold Macmillans konservative regering, John ”Jack” Profumo.

Stephen Ward, den fornemme osteopat, der var venner med en række vigtige personligheder i regeringen og andre i høj sociale positioner, havde for vane at invitere dem til fester, hvor de mødte modeller såsom Christine Keeler, og andre smukke kvinder klar til at gå i seng med dem i bytte for dyre gaver og et luksuslivsstil og den slags.

Men så snart Profumo blev tvunget til at sige op som krigsminister, og skandalen ramte overskrifterne, befandt Stephen Ward sig pludselig isoleret og skyet af sine tidligere rige og magtfulde venner. Og hans rige patienter begyndte at aflyse deres aftaler hos ham. Ikke ”establishments” fineste time, for at sige mildt.

Myndighederne og politiet presserede Christine til at komme med beviser på, at Stephen levede af ”umoralske indtægt”, en latterlig sigtelse: han troede bare på, at sex ikke var en synd, lader det til. Men størstedelen af det daværende samfund  blev chokeret af Stephens sexfester osv, og politiet og myndighederne havde lyst til at finde et eller andet offer og straffe ham/hende, og Ward var den ideelle skydeskive.

Dette afsnit er lidt trist – vi ser Wards retssag og hans gradviste psykiske tilbagegang, da han blev klar over, at hans gamle venner viste ham en kold skulder. Han var en blød mand og han besluttede at begå selvmord ved hjælp af en overdosis af tabletter, mens juryen var stadig ude - han havde først og fremmest lyst til at ”ødelægge sig selv”, snarere, end at lade myndighederne ødelægge ham.

Lidt af en skam, fordi, som Wards advokat fortalte ham, selvom juryen dømte ham skyldigt,ville Ward næsten sikkert have vundet en appel, fordi dommeren havde givet juryen forkerte guidelinjer i sin oversigt af argumenterne.

De bedste øjeblikker i afsnittet er Mandy Rice-Davies’ berømte svar under retssagen: da hun sagde, at hun mange gang var gået i seng med Lord Astor. Anklageren kommenterede, at Astor havde nægtet dette. Hun svarede simpelthen, ”Well he would wouldn’t he!”.

Replikken fike mange i retssalen til at grine, herunder selve Ward, juryen og tilskuere.

22:00 Vi går i seng – zzzzzzzzzz!!!!!!