The second day of the paving guys working out front. We get up
early again (7:15 am- yikes!) so we can open up the garage, if need be, because
the guys have left some of their equipment there overnight. You’d think that
after 14 years of retirement we’d be getting a few mornings when we can stay in
bed a while – but no! That actually rarely happens – oh dear!
Again there’s not much we can do other than wait around if the
guys want a decision on something or ask for a cup of tea etc.
work begins - on the driveway first
Unfortunately it starts raining again, even though the forecast is
for a dry, overcast day. So more delays in the work – damn!!!!
11:00 I read a bit more of 14th century scholar John of Trevisa’s essay on “The Marvels
of Britain” (1387).
14th century scholarJohn of Trevisa
Lynda’s U3A Middle English group has its regular monthly meeting
tomorrow on zoom, and John of Trevisa’s works are the group’s current project. Today I read a passage about the English-Welsh border of the time.
or in modern English:
“Below the
city of Chester runs the River Dee, which now divides England and Wales. Every
month that river changes its course, as men of that region say, and often
leaves its basin. If the water is drawn more towards England or toward Wales, to
whichever side it is, then that year the men of that side get the worst of it [i.e.
in any conflict - Ed], and the men of the other side have the best of it.
“When the
water changes its course, it presages such events. This River Dee runs out of a
lake called Pimbilmere [i.e. Lake Bala -
Ed]. In the river are great amounts of salmon. However in the lake
itself salmon are never found.”
How annoying for the people of those times that the River Dee
seems to have changed its course so frequently, causing a lot of local
uncertainty, and sudden shifts in the balance of power between England and
Wales in this instance. People should perhaps have demanded more “clarity” from
their rivers.
Luckily rivers are better behaved nowadays, and are more predictable.
I imagine that “River Science” has found ways of stopping these changes from
happening, although I don’t exactly know – so the jury is still out on that
one.
Also it’s not clear to me why salmon in those times didn’t like a
perfectly good lake, but seemed to prefer rivers – you’d imagine that lakes
would be more restful, as you don’t get such fierce currents as you do in
rivers. But again, salmon are not one of my specialist areas of knowledge –
apart from the fact that I like eating them, what I know about salmon could be
written on the back of a postage stamp – oh dear!!!!
a typical salmon
It’s a bit late now to ask the salmon in the 14th
century why they avoided Lake Bala – most of them will be dead I would imagine. Even live salmon
are in any case a bit hard-going to talk to, as a blood-sucking lamprey famously
discovered the other day (story: the influential American news website Onion
News).
According to the “Onion” story, the
blood-sucking lamprey told journalists that he had recently attached himself to
a salmon that “would not stop yapping
about her 7,000 kids”.
Another experience he had had with
a male trout in the same lake had scarcely been much easier, however. “I asked him a few questions about where he’s
from and what he likes to do for fun, and he made some quick little remarks
about the current out there today—basic chitchat, you know. I figure it’s just
a way to kill some time until I completely drain him of blood and leave him for
dead.”
What a crazy world fish live in,
don’t they! Scientists have known for some time, I think, that fish “talk” to
each other, using subsonic frequencies, but it’s obvious from this “Onion”
story that the conversations they have are not that scintillating, to put it mildly!
16:00 The paving guys go home –
most of the work has been done in terms of laying the bricks down, but they’ll
be back tomorrow to finish up. We take a couple of souvenir photos to document
their progress.
20:00 We watch a bit of TV, the latest instalment of Michael
Portillo’s series on Great Continental
Railway Journeys. Tonight he’s travelling through Austria to the Czech
Republic, finishing in Bratislava, the Slovak capital.
Who knew that the former combined state of Czechoslovakia was the
brainchild of the Czech founding father, Jan Masaryk? After WW1 and the
break-up of the old Austro-Hungarian Empire, Masaryk persuaded the Slovaks to
join the Czechs in order to make a bigger unit; a unit which he thought would be substantial enough to impress on the
Western Powers that it was worth guaranteeing their independence.
[I expect
a lot of people knew that – Ed]
After the fall of communism, of course, Czechoslovakia split back
into its two constituent parts – the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Lois and I
did not know that the two peoples actually have some quite different
characteristics – the Czechs tend to be liberal and relatively atheistic, while
the Slovaks tend to be more conservative and religious. Well, whatta you
know!!!
21:30 We continue to watch a bit of TV, an old episode of “The IT
Crowd” – the one where Jen applies for the job of Entertainments Manager at
Reynholm Industries, while keeping on her existing job as “IT Manager”.
Jen finds she has to be interviewed for the Entertainments Manager post by Douglas,
the company’s boss himself.
She discovers that Douglas seems to be unaware that Reynholm’s is
a byword in the industry for “institutionalized sexism”. Douglas protests, however,
that that “sexist” label was a load of nonsense, and he points proudly to the
fact that he had even received an award from feminist organisations.
Jen has to point out to him that the award was actually for “Shithead
of the Year” – Douglas hadn’t even bothered to read the award’s name on its
base. My god, what madness!!!
22:00 We go to bed – zzzzzzz!!!!
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