Tuesday February 4 2020

05:00 I get up early and take a look at the local news sites. I get a bit of a shock, to put it mildly: "Friends" star David Schwimmer says he is to take the lead in a new Sky sitcom, “Intelligence”,  that plays out in Cheltenham.

According to the news site, Schwimmer plays a pompous, maverick NSA agent Jerry Bernstein, who comes to Cheltenham to set up new links with GCHQ but immediately tries to run the show. He buddies up with the unhappy English computer geek Joseph Harries (played by Nick Mohammed, the show's creator), who looks up to Bernstein.

The Friends star says his character Jerry is an unconscious racist, sexist and homophobe, an ignorant, pompous alpha male who is very patriotic to the United States and believes that GCHQ is light years behind the Americans. "He's not incredibly intelligent, but he has a lot of charisma and a lot of confidence, which we as you know can be seductive," he explains.

My god, what a crazy idea for a sitcom!!! But maybe we will spot Schwimmer from time to time around town or maybe in the local Sainsbury’s supermarket . We'll have to see. Unfortunately, Lois and I won't be able to see the sitcom itself because we're too stingy to pay for Sky TV. Damn! If we see Schwimmer we’ll have to just ask him about what’s been happening in the show, which is a bit of a second best, but never mind, better than nothing!!!!!

09:00 Lois and I tumble out of the shower cubicle and hurry down the stairs to the breakfast table. We know that my friend, "Magyar" Mike is coming at 10 am to take part in our weekly "Hungarian hour". He shows up on time but looks very shaky, as always, and his voice is very weak, but he looks a little more confident after a cup of coffee. He has aged a lot over the past 2-3 years, and has become a bit of a nervous driver, to put it mildly.

I know he doesn't like the weekly 18-mile drive from Nailsworth to Cheltenham, and I have offered to meet him many times in Nailsworth, but he is unwilling to give up the drive, which for him is an important symbol of his independence.

flashback to 2014: "Magyar" Mike in happier times: from left to right

"Magyar" Mike, Lois, and "Magyar" Mary (Mike's wife)

11:00 Our "Hungarian hour" ends, and Mike leaves.

I sit down with the computer and do a bit more research on the "orthoepists" - Lynda's U3A Middle English group is holding its regular monthly meeting on Friday in the bar of the town’s Everman Theatre, and the "orthoepists " are this month's topic.

The "orthoepists " were the people who, starting from the 16th century, tried to systematise and simplify spelling methods in the English language.

Their campaign was doomed to failure in my opinion - people didn't like being told exactly how to spell words. Also, the wide range of accents found in the UK must have been a bit of a problem, to put it mildly. But gradually, through an wholly-natural and organic process, helped by the development of printing and the popularity of certain dictionaries, spelling methods gradually became a little less and less insane, though they remain fairly insane, needless to say.

"Orthoepists" and their mad ideas.

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

The orthoepists were not mostly known for their sense of humour - I have no doubts on that score. But despite all that, I think about trying to find out if any of them ever made jokes, but I have very little success, I must admit.

John Hart (? - 1574) is the most amusing of those I have seen so far. He thought it was unreasonable to feel we have to spell foreign loan-words ​​in their original (foreign) form. He said it was like asking foreign tourists to dress up in their national costume every time they visited London, and he has a point there, I think.

Hart's book

And Hart was quite a sympathetic man, that’s for sure. He was aware that many of his readers were old crows, so when he gave instructions, for example, on how to pronounce the letter "e", he asked them all to gently push the inner part of the tongue against their upper big teeth, but said also that “if you’re missing those teeth, then you can just push the tongue against the gums instead”.

What a nice man haha!

11:45 I hurry into the kitchen and make two servings of lunch: poached eggs on toast, one of my signature dishes haha. Lois is going out at 12:30 - she has to meet up with her friend Fran so they can take their weekly exercise class at the swimming pool and its attached gym.

13:00 I have some alone time and I have to try to get the most out of it. The municipal garbage truck will be swinging by early tomorrow and our wheelie-bin is only 80% full - damn!

I quickly stumble up the loft ladder like a madman. I collect a lot of old broken or worn lampshades, and even more broken or worn old toys, board games and the like, dating from our 2 daughters' childhood in the 1980’s and I stuff them into various size bags. These old historical remains have been stored in the attic for years, for reasons not entirely clear, to put it mildly. This work is part of the downsizing mini project I am responsible for.

The attic is becoming more and more empty with each passing week.

The only well-documented section of the attic, right next to the hatch:

a recent photo: note the large empty spaces!!!!

The waste bin is now 105% full - hurrah !!!! Result!! Back of the net ha ha ha! And the council’s garbage truck will save me having to take another drive over to their Wingmoor Farm garbage dump and recycling centre, which is nice haha.

Stoke Orchard: the council’s  Wingmoor Farm waste disposal and recycling centre

14:00 I go to bed and take a gigantic afternoon nap. I get up at 4 pm and Lois and I relax with a cup of tea on the couch.

Gill my sister in Cambridge calls me. Her daughter Maria and Mary’s fiancé Tom’s wedding day in the town of Newmarket is getting closer. Gill says she plans to join a "low-key" hen party at Maria and Tom's house this weekend - how exciting! She and Peter, a severely disabled Catholic priest, also plan to spend a long weekend in Manchester at the end of February so they can see a little more of their eldest daughter Zoe and Zoe's partner Chris. Gill and Peter also plan to spend 5 days in Paris in May – my goodness, busy busy busy!

flashback to May 2015: Gill and Peter's 30th wedding anniversary:

(from left to right) Tom and Maria (who will be married in a few months), Chris and Zoe, Lucy,

Gill, Gill's best friend Jill, Jill's husband, and Peter (in the wheelchair)

17:30 We have dinner a little earlier than usual: one of the ready-made dishes we recently bought in CookShop – yum yum!

Afterwards we have to go out. Lois wants to attend her sect's weekly Bible seminar, taking place tonight in Brockworth library. I drive her over to her friends Alf and Mari-Ann's house, and drop her off. They will drive her to Brockworth, where all 3 will attend the seminar.

a typical recent seminar - Mari-Ann (left), Alf (no. 2 from right) and Lois (right)

19:00 I get home again. I have some alone time again and I spend the evening listening to the radio and watching some television. I hear an interesting programme in the series "One to One", consisting of an interview with the author Tim Parks.

This programme gives me a bit of a shock, to put it mildly. Lois and I have read some of Tim Park's books. He is an Englishman, but lives and works in Italy, and when our elder daughter Alison was a student in Pisa in the 1990’s, we read Tim's funny books on Italian life and Italian habits, etc, in preparation for our visit to Italy to see Alison.

Tim, for example, told us that Italians will not come out of the house if there is the smallest cloud in the sky. They just waiting for the sun to appear in a clear blue sky if they want to go on a family outing and the like - a policy that doesn't get you very far in England, needless to say!

Tim Parks in Italy

Unfortunately, Tim recently started suffering from pelvic pains and the reasons were purely psychological, it turned out. He simply could not stop "thinking" (nothing more than that) all day every day every single second, that is thinking in particular about what he could write about in his next book, and the like.

He had religion-obsessed parents: his father was a priest and it took him a lot of time to get free of his parents' lifestyle, he admits - they used to spend all day reading the Bible and studying it, etc, and talking about good and evil (mostly evil). Good grief, what madness! But I can relate to many of the things Tim talks about in this programme, I have to say.

Incidentally, Tim has been able to relieve his pain a little with meditation and Buddhism and the like.

But I have to make sure I don't get any pains in my pelvis - yikes! 

Hands off my pelvis, world!!!!

Poor Tim !!!!

22:00 Lois comes back from Brockworth and we go to bed - zzzzzzzz !!!!!!

Danish translation: tirsdag den 4. februar 2020

05:00 Jeg står tidligt op og kigger lidt på de lokale nyhedswebsteder og jeg får lidt af et chok, for at sige mildt: ”Friends”-stjerne David Schwimmer siger, han skal tage hovedrollen i en ny Sky sitcom, der spiller sig ud i Cheltenham.

Ifølge nyhedswebsteddet spiller Schwimmer en pompøs, ukonventionel NSA-agent Jerry Bernstein, der kommer til Cheltenham for at oprette nye forbindelser, men vil overtage styret og bliver faste makkere med den ulykkelige computergeek Joseph Harries, spillet af Nick Mohammed, showets skabere, der ser op til ham.

Friends-stjernen siger, at hans karakter Jerry er en ubevidst racist, sexist og homofob, ignorant, pompøs alfahand, der er meget patriotisk for USA og mener, at GCHQ er lysår bagud for amerikanerne. ”Han er ikke utroligt intelligent, men han har en masse karisma og en masse selvtillid, som vi som bekendt kan være forførende,” forklarer han.

Du godeste, hvad en skør idé til en sitcom!!! Men måske vil vi få øje på Schwimmer fra tid til anden rundt omkring i byen eller måske i det lokale Sainsburys-supermarked.. Vi får se. Desværre vil Lois og jeg ikke kunne se selve sitcommen, fordi vi er for nærige til at betale for Sky TV. Pokkers!

09:00 Lois og jeg vælter ud af brusekabinen og skynder os ned ad trappen til morgenmadbordet. Vi ve, at min ven, ”Magyar” Mike skal komme kl 10 for at deltage i vores ugentlige ”ungarske time”. Han dukker op til tiden men ser meget vakkelvorn ud, som altid, og hans stemme er lidt svag, men han ser lidt mere selvsikker efter en kop kaffe. Han har meget ældes de seneste 2-3 år, og er blevet til lidt af en nervøs fører, for at sige mildt.

Jeg ved, han ikke kan lide den ugentlige 18-miles kørsel fra Nailsworth til Cheltenham, og jeg har mange gange tilbudt at mødes med ham i Nailsworth, men han er uvillig til at opgive kørslen, som er for hans vedkommende et vigtig symbol af hans uafhængighed.

Tilbageblik til 2014: ”Magyar” Mike i lykkeligere tider: fra venstre til højre

”Magyar” Mike, Lois, og ”Magyar” Mary, Mikes kone

11:00 Vores ”ungarske time” slutter, og Mike skal af sted. Jeg sætter mig med computeren og gør lidt forksning om ”orthoepisterne” – Lyndas U3A middelengelske gruppe holder sit regelmæssige månedlige møde på fredag på baren af byens Everman-teater, og ”orthoepisterne” er denne måneds emne.

”Orthoepisterne” var de mennesker, der startende fra 1500-tallet prøvede at systematisere og forenkle stavemetoder i det engelske sprog.

Deres kampagne var dømt til fiasko efter min mening – folk kunne ikke lide at blive fortalt præcis hvordan de skulle stave ord. Også må den store vifte af accenter, der findes i Storbritannien have været lidt af et problem, for at sige mildt. Men gradvist, gennem en helt naturlig proces,  og samtidig med udviklingen af trykkerier og popularitæten af visse ordboger blev stavemetoder lidt mindre og mindre sindsyge, selvom de forbliver ganske sindsyge, unødvendigt at sige.

 ”Orthoepister” og deres vanvittige idéer.

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

Orthoepisterne var ikkefor det meste  kendt for deres humoristiske sans – det har jeg ikke nogen tvivl om. Men på trods af alt det der, beslutter jeg at det vil være det værd at finde, om nogle af dem nogensinde rev vittigheder af sig, men jeg har meget lille succés, det må jeg indrømme.

John Hart (? – 1574) er den mest morsom af dem, jeg hidtil har set på. Han synes, at det er urimeligt at stave ord, vi har lånt af fremmedsprog, i  deres oprindelige (udenlandske) form. Han siger, det er ligesom, at bede udenlandske turister om alti at klæde sig ud i deres nationale kostume, hver gang de besøger London.

Harts bog

Og Hart er en meget sympatisk mand, det har jeg ikke nogen tviv om. Han er klar over, at mange af hans læsere er gamle krager, så når han giver anvisninger om, for eksempel, hvordan man skal udtale bogstavet ”e”, beder han dem alle om, at skubbe blødt den indre del af tungen mod de øverste store tænder, eller, hvis de mangler tænder, at skubbe tungen mod tandkødet i stedet for.

Sikke en sød mand haha!

11:45 Jeg skynder mig ind i køkkenet og laver to portioner frokost: pochede æg på toast, én af mine signaturretter haha. Lois skal ud kl 12:30 – hun skal mødes med sin veninde Fran, for at tage deres ugentlige motionsklasse på svømmehallen og dens knyttede motionscenter.

13:00 Jeg har lidt alenetid og jeg må prøve at få mest muligt af den. Kommunens skraldebil kommer i morgen tidligt og vores hjulede affaldsbeholder kun er 80% fuld – pokkers!

Jeg klatrer hurtigt op ad loftstigen som en gal. Jeg samler en masse gamle brudte eller slidte lampeskærme, også endnu flere brudte eller slidte gamle legetøj, brætspille og den slags, daterende fra vores 2 døtres barndom i 1980’erne og propper dem i nogle store og små sække. Disse gamle historiske rester er blevet gemt op i loftet i årevis, af grunde, der ikke er helt klar, for at sige mildt. Dette arbejde er en del af den downsize mini-projekt, jeg er ansvarlig for.

Loftet bliver mere og mere tom med hver uge, der går.

Loftets eneste veldokumenterede sektion, lige ved siden af loftlemmen:

et nylige billede: bemærk de store tomme områder !!!!

Affaldsbeholderen er nu 105% fuld – hurra!!!!  Resultat!!  Bolden er i nettet ha ha ha! Og kommunens skralddebil vil bespare mig for at måtte køre over til deres Wingmoor Farm-affaldsdepot og genbrugscenter, hvilket er rart haha.

Stoke Orchard: kommunens Wingmoor Farm-affaldsdepot og genbrugscenter

14:00 Jeg går i seng for at tage en gigantisk eftermiddagslur. Jeg står op kl 16, og Lois og jeg slapper af med en kop te i sofaen.

Gill min søster i Cambridge ringer til mig. Hendes datter Maria og Marias forlovede Toms bryllupsdag  i byen Newmarket nærmer sig. Gill siger, hun har tænkt sig at deltage i en ”stilfærdig” dameselskab i Maria og Toms hus i weekenden – hvor spændende! Hun og Peter, en alvorligt handicappet katolsk præst, planlægger også at tilbringe en lang weekend i Manchester i slutningen af februar, så de kan se lidt mere til deres ældste datter Zoe og Zoes partner Chris. Gill og Peter planlægger også at tibringe 5 dage i Paris i maj – du godeste, travlt travlt travlt!

tilbageblik til maj 2015: Gill og Peters 30. bryllupsdag:

(fra venstre til højre) Tom og Maria (der vil gifte sig om et par måneder), Chris og Zoe, Lucy,

Gill, Gills bedste ven Jill, Jills mand,  og Peter (i kørestolen)

17:30 Vi spiser aftensmad lidt tidligere, end normalt: én af de færdigretter vi købte for nylig i CookShop:

Bagefter skal vi ud. Lois ønsker at deltage i sin sekts ugentlige bibelseminar, der finder sted i aften i byen Brockworths bibliotek. Jeg kører hende over til hendes venner Alf og Mari-Anns hus, og sætter hende af. De vil køre hende til Brockworth, hvor alle 3 vil deltage i seminaret.

en typisk nylig seminar – Mari-Ann (til venstre), Alf (nr 2 fra højre) og Lois (til højre)

19:00 Jeg kommer hjem igen. Jeg har lidt alenetid igen og jeg bruger aftenen på at lytte til radio og se lidt fjernsyn. Jeg hører først et interessant program i serien ”One to One”, bestående af et interview med forfatteren Tim Parks.

Dette program giver mig lidt af et chok, for at sige mildt. Lois og jeg har læst nogle af Tim Parks bøger. Han er englænder, men bor og arbejder i Italien, og da vores ældste datter Alison var studerende i Pisa i 1990’erne, læste vi Tims morsomme bøger om italiensk liv og italienernes vaner osv, som forberedelse på vores besøg på Italien hos Alison.

Tim fortalte os for eksempel, at italienerne ikke kommer ud af huset, hvis der er den mindste sky i himlen. De venter på at solen dukker op hvis de vil tage på familieudflugt og den slags – sådan en politik virker ikke i England, unødvendigvis at sige!

Tim Parks i Italien

Desværre begyndte Tim for nylig at lide af smerter i bækken, og grundene var rent psykologiske, viste det sig. Han kunne simpelten ikke stoppe med at ”tænke” (intet mere, end det) hele dagen hver dag hvert enkelt sekund, dvs tænke i særdeleshed på, hvad han kunne skrive om i sin næste bog, og den slags.

Han havde forældre, der var besat af religion: hans far var en præst og det tog ham en masse tid til at blive fri fro sine forældres type af livstil, indrømmer han - de plejede at bruge hele dagen på at læse biblen og studere den osv. Du godeste, sikke et vanvid!!! Men jeg kan relatere til mange af de ting, Tim taler om i dette program, det må jeg nok sige.

Jeg må passe på, at jeg selv ikke får smerter i bækken – yikes! I øvrigt har han kunnet lindre sine smerter lidt med meditation og lignende.

Stakkels Tim!!!!

22:00 Lois kommer tilbage fra Brockworth og vi går i seng – zzzzzzzz!!!!!!