Thursday January 30 2020

11:30 Alison, our daughter in Haslemere, Surrey, calls us. It's her husband Ed's last week in his current temporary job as a legal expert at a London-based company that runs hundreds of gas stations in Africa - what a crazy world we live in !!!! He has held a number of temporary jobs since the family moved back to England in 2018 after almost 6 years in Copenhagen, which had been a big Danish adventure for Ali, Ed, and their 3 children, and which also kick-started Lois's and my interest in the Danish language. For the past year and a half, meanwhile, Ed has been on the hunt for his dream job, so far without success.

(from left to right) Ed, Josie (13), Isaac (9), Ali and Rosalind (11) – a recent picture

Ed is looking forward to enjoying a few weeks off before starting another job - there are a couple of opportunities, Alison says, including two jobs at Dutch companies, though Ed expects to work from home mostly if he gets one or the other of those. We'll see.

The family also plans to have a week's skiing holiday in Norway in a few weeks' time (ie staying outside the EU haha) and it is possible that Lois and I will help out by spending a few days in their house and cat-sitting, but the jury is still out on that one.

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Apart from Ali's phone call, the day is dominated by our U3A Danish group's first meeting since our Christmas break: i.e. and us having to spend the morning clearing up and vacuuming everywhere in the house, moving the chairs from the dining room to the living room, walking around to the local convenience store and buying a few packets of biscuits, and that kind of thing – good grief, what madness!

The Burgage Stores, our local convenience store

flashback to 2014: the Burgage Stores in happier days - 

the days when Lois and I were still looking

after our other grandchildren, Jessie (here) and Lily (out of sight behind),

Sarah and Francis's twins, now 6 and a half, and living in Australia sob sob!!!!

Needless to say, the afternoon is dominated by the meeting itself, but as I expected, there is more chit-chat in English than any studying of Danish: we group members have not seen each other since early in December, so there is a lot to talk about, Christmas and New Year, and in particular Joy's holiday in Southeast Asia over the past 3 weeks: we hear about places Lois and I still associate with those awful nightmare news bulletins of the 1960’s and 1970’s: Da Nang, Hue, etc. - yikes! All looking completely different now, needless to say!

Joy's vacation in Southeast Asia, with Riviera Holidays, a travel company that pays for

frequent full-page advertisements in "Radio Times" – all us old crows’ favourite magazine:

Lois and I see these ads every week when we’re planning

(and drawing circles round) our various TV and radio choices haha!

Hanoi’s streets are crawling with motorcycles, it seems, and few cars. And the motorcycles ride everywhere on the streets, and on the pavement, swinging right and left to avoid each other and avoid the pedestrians - yikes, scary! Joy says the only way to cross the streets is to walk very slowly, so motorcyclists have time to slow down or zoom round you. My god, what madness!

The group meeting starts at 2:30 pm and ends at 4 pm, but I let the members talk as much as they like, which turns out to be until 3:15 pm or so. But we're all a bit rusty when it comes to the Danish language (except for Jeanette, the group's only real Dane haha), and we only actually read 3 pages of Anna Grue's Danish crime novel, "The Deeper You Fall", our current project, before it's time to end the meeting - the members have to leave, and Lois and I collapse on the couch and relax with a cup of tea and a pastry: yum yum!

20:00 We spend the evening watching some television, an interesting documentary about a group of young women trying to bring pubic hair back into fashion. Lois and I are just a pair of old crows, but we've gotten into the habit of watching these kinds of shows once in a while, so as not to be excessively behind the times, and also give ourselves something to talk about and grumble about when we meet up with other old crows haha.

Lois and I imagined that pubic hair (shaved or unshaven) was a completely personal choice, but that is not the case, it seems, and there is a lot of pressure on young women to keep up with the latest trends. Many of the young women we see in the programme are actually trend-setting "influencers" who live off of posting fashion bulletins and selfies of themselves in next to nothing, on twitter and the like, and persuading beauty products companies to advertise on their twitter pages – my god, what a way to earn your money! And what a crazy world we live in !!!!

And when these women pose for their selfies, they have to choose one or the other, needless to say: shaved or unshaven.

Also young men nowadays expect their girlfriends to be shaved without exception: even before they start dating, they have already seen a lot of porn on the web, where the women are all naked and completely shaved, so they imagine that " shaved” is normal and they are sometimes taken aback if the new girlfriend hasn’t done this service for them. And they believe that pubic hair is unhygienic and “dirty”.

So it has become a bit of a treadmill for young women, having to shave every week, and the like, and many of them are starting to get fed up with the whole thing – and that’s why this group of young women has embarked on the campaign we see in tonight's programme,  to "bring back the bush".

Unfortunately, there are few arguments in the programme about the health aspects, for example. Pubic hair has presumably been designed by evolution precisely for hygienic reasons: it must protect the genitals from bacteria and the like.

We hear tonight an interesting comment about Charles Darwin, who apparently said that nature had in fact made a mistake by giving pubic hair to both women and men, and saying that only men needed it. But the host of the programme does not provide any further details about Darwin's theory, which is a bit disappointing. Damn! 

And there’s no interview with Charles included either – a missed opportunity there, but perhaps he just wasn’t available for comment. He is a busy man, though not as busy as he was once, I’ve heard haha!

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

Danish translation: torsdag den 20. januar 2020

11:30 Alison, vores datter i Haslemere, Surrey, ringer til os. Det er hendes mand Eds sidste uge i sit nuværende midlertidige job som juridisk ekspert hos et selskab, baseret midt i London, der driver hundredvis af tankstationer i Afrika – sikke en skør verden vi lever i !!!! Han har haft en række midlertidige jobs, siden familien i 2018 flyttede tilbage til England efter næsten 6 års ophold i København, en eventyr for Ali, Ed, og deres 3 børn, som også kickstartede Lois’ og min interesse for det danske sprog. I det seneste halvandet år har han været på  jagt efter sit drømmejob.

(fra venstre til højre) Ed, Josie (13), Isaac (9), Ali og Rosalind (11)

Ed glæder sig til at nyde et par ugers ledigang, før han starter et andet job – der er et par muligheder, siger Alison, herunder to jobs hos hollandske selskaber, selvom Ed forventer at arbejde hjemmefra for det meste, hvis han får ét eller andet. Vi får se.

Familien planlægger at holde en uges skiferie i Norge om nogle ugers tid (dvs blivende udenfor EU haha), og det er muligt at Lois og jeg vil hjælpe til med at bo nogle dage i deres hus og katsitte, men det er juryen stadig ude om.

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Bortset fra Alis telefonopkald, er dagen domineret af vores U3A danske gruppes første møde siden vores julepause: dét, at bruge formiddagen på at rydde op og støvsuge overalt i huset, rykke stolene fra spisestuen til dagligstuen, gå rundt til nærbutikken og købe et par pakker kiks, og den slags – du godeste, sikke et vanvid!

Burgage Stores (til venstre), vores lokale nærbutik

tilbageblik til 2014 og Burgage Stores i lykkeligere tider:

da Lois og jeg stadig passede på vores andre børnebørn,

Jessie (afbildet here) og Lily, Sarah og Francis'

tvillingerne, nu i Australien hulk  hulk !!!

Unødvendigt at sige er eftermiddagen domineret af selve mødet, men som jeg forventede, er der mere snik-snak, end dansk: vi har ikke set hinanden siden først i december, så er der en masse at snakke om, jul og nytår, og i sær Joys ferie i sydøstasien de seneste 3 uger: vi hører om steder, Lois og jeg stadig associerer med de der forfærdelige mareridtsnyhedsbulletiner fra 1960’erne og 1970’erne: Da Nang, Hue osv – yikes! Alle helt anderledes nu, unødvendigt at sige!

Joys ferie i sydøstasien, hos Riviera Holidays, et rejseselskab, der betaler for

hyppige fuldside-reklamer i ”Radio Times” – gamle kragers yndlingstidsskrift:

Lois og jeg ser disse reklamer hver uge, når vi planlægger

(og tegner cirkler om) vores forskellige tv- og radiovalg haha!

Hanois gaderne er propfyldt af motorcykler, lader det til, og få biler. Og motorcyklerne kører overalt på gaderne, og på fortovet, svingende til højre og til venstre for at undgår hinanden og fodgængere – yikes, skræmmende! Joy siger, den eneste måde at krydse gaderne på, er at gå meget langsomt, så motorcyklister har tid til at bremse eller køre udenom dig. Du godeste, sikke et vanvid!

Gruppemødet starter kl 14:30 og slutter kl 16, men jeg lader medlemmerne snakke så meget de har lyst til, hvilket viser sig at være indtil kl 15:15 eller deromkring. Du godeste, sikke et vanvid!!! Men vi er alle lidt rustne, når det kommer til det danske sprog (bortset fra Jeanette, gruppens egen ægte dansker haha), og vi læser faktisk kun 3 sider af Anna Grues danske krimiroman, "Dybt at falde”, vores nuværende projekt, før det er tid at slutte mødet – medlemmerne skal af sted, og Lois og jeg kollapser i sofaen og slapper af med en kop te og et wienerbrød: yum yum!

20:00 Vi bruger aftenen på at se lidt fjernsyn, et interessant dokumentarfilm, der handler om en gruppe unge kvinder, som prøver at bringe kønsbehåring ”tilbage til møde”. Lois og jeg er bare 2 gamle krager, men vi er kommet i vane med at se disse slags programmer engang imellem, for ikke at være overordentlig bagud for vores tid haha, og vi har også noget at snakke om og brokke os om, når vi mødes med andre gamle krager haha.  

Lois og jeg forstilte os, at kønsbehåring (barberet eller ubarberet) var et helt personligt valg, men det er ikke tilfældet, lader det til, og der er en masse pres på unge kvinder til at holde sig i trit med den seneste trends. Mange af de unge kvinder, vi ser i programmet, er faktisk ”influencers”, der lever af at lægge modebulletiner og letpåklædte selfies op på twitter og den slags, og overtale skønhedsprodukter-selskaber til at lægge reklamer op på deres twittersider – du godeste, sikke en måde at tjene sit brød på! Og sikke en skør verden vi lever i !!!!

Og når disse kvinder poserer for deres selfies, bliver de nødt til at vælge en af delene, unødvendigt at sige: barberet eller ubarberet.

Også unge mænd forventer nu til dags, at deres kærester uden nogen undtagelse er barberet: endda før de starte at date, har de allerde set en masse porno på nettet, hvor kvinderne alle er splitternøgne og helt barberede, så de forestiller sig, at ”barberet” er det normale, og de bliver nogle gange overrumplet, hvis den nye kæreste ikke har gjort denne tjeneste for dem – du godeste, sikke et vanvid!!!! Og de mener, at kønsbehåring er ”ikke sundt” og beskidt.

Så er det blevet til lidt af en trædemølle for unge kvinder, dét, at måtte barbere sig hver uge, og den slags, og mange af dem begynder at blive ked af det hele, og derfor har en gruppe begyndt på den kampagne, vi ser i aftenens program, for at ”bringe dusken tilbage ”.

Desværre er der få argumenter i programmet, om eksempelvis helbredsaspekterne. Kønsbehåring er formodenligt designet af evoutionen for hygienske grunde: den beskytter kønsdelene fra bakterier og lignende.

Vi hører i aften en interessant bemærkning om Charles Darwin, der tilsyneladende sagde, at naturen faktisk tog fejl ved at give kønsbehåring til både kvinder og mænd, og at kun mænd havde brug for den. Men programmets vært giver ikke nogle detaljer om Darwins teori, hvilket er lidt skuffende. Pokkers!

22:00 Vi går i seng – zzzzzzzz!!!!