Wednesday December 2nd 2020

08:00 Lois and I tumble out of the shower. Today it's one of my "walk days" (I must go for a walk every other day, according to the schedule worked out by my NHS physiotherapist, Connor). It's unpleasant weather, not raining, but cold and damp, but we try and make the best of it. There are not many people around, and the top of Cleeve Hill is shrouded in mist, but never mind.

we go for a damp walk on the local football field: the top of Cleeve Hill is shrouded in mist.

The hills do look sort of eery, and maybe this is why there are not many people around this morning. Is it an omen? We read an interesting article recently on Onion News that recommends people take omens more seriously than I'm afraid we do.

GENEVA—Explaining that simply identifying the phenomena can significantly reduce the risk of early mortality, the World Health Organization released a study Wednesday revealing that the vast majority of deaths worldwide are caused by a failure to heed omens. 

WHO officials told reporters that properly identifying a portent of death and immediately visiting a local shaman dramatically reduced the impact of omens, especially if individuals combined the practice with regularly ringing a bell to ward off evil spirits.

The study also confirmed that even after experiencing an unmistakable and foreboding premonition, such as an owl appearing in the daylight, nine out of every 10 people failed to carry out even the most routine measures to subdue the unhallowed forces surrounding them by burning a tin of sage and sweetgrass in the centre of a room in which they eat and drink.

 If we’ve learned anything from our analysis of global mortality statistics, it’s that as soon as a wizened old hag visits your doorstep in the dead of night, you need to immediately kill and bury a bird, then recite a hymn over a goblet filled with polished pebbles,” National Institute of Health director Francis Collins told reporters, adding that younger men in particular shouldn’t take their safety for granted if the crone suddenly disappears into the fog of night. “In the morning, go back and sprinkle smouldering ashes on the bird’s gravesite, then stomp three times with bare feet to vanquish fire with flesh.”

 Everyone sees the omens, but how you react will make all the difference,” Collins added. “You can live a long, healthy life in the presence of these omens if you just take the necessary steps and incant the names of the four directions every day.”

The report makes sense to us, anyway, and when we get back indoors again, we resolve not to go outside again until the mist clears. We may have just escaped a nasty fate there!

11:30 I ring Scilla, our U3A Danish group's Old Norse expert, who is currently staying with her daughter just outside Canterbury, Kent. She seems in good spirits. I ask her if she's watching the Icelandic murder mystery series, "The Valhalla Murders", currently airing on BBC4. But she says her daughter's family "can't get BBC TV" - they do nothing but watch movies on Netflix all evening, apparently. What nonsense!!!

And what a crazy world we live in!!!!

12:00 I hurry into the kitchen and make one of my "signature" lunches: poached egg on a piece of ham, on toast, with oranges for dessert. Yum yum! Then it's off to bed for an hour.

14:30 Today it's our U3A Danish group's fortnightly meeting on Skype. It's a lot of fun, but Lois and I always feel quite stiff after sitting over the laptop on the dining-room table for 90 minutes. I don't know what the answer to this is - it's another annoying feature of lockdown: if we don't sit almost right on top of the laptop, people say they can't hear us. What madness !!!!

16:30 I look at my smartphone. My Hungarian penfriend, Tünde, has told me how József Szájer, a Hungarian MEP (Member of the European Parliament) has caused outrage in the world's tabloid press for having been caught in an orgy and gangbang in Brussels with 25 other people, mostly men. During the police raid, Szájer attempted to exit the scene through a window and got injured - he was also found to have drugs in his backpack.

Sjájer is a member of Hungary's ruling Fidesz Party, which is opposed the LGBT movement and to gay marriage. Predictably the story about his escapade in Brussels has not been carried by the majority of the Hungarian media, which is pretty much under Fidesz control.

It's interesting that RyanAir, the budget airline, were smart enough to turn the story to their advantage in a bid for attracting air passengers attracted by the lifestyle of the Brussels men concerned.

My god, what a crazy world we live in !!!! But nice to see private enterprise taking advantage of Szájer's misery, that's for sure!!! Let's not let it go to waste haha!

And doesn't it make you glad that the UK is getting out of the EU? I was a Remainer 4 years ago, but I'm quite ready to admit that I sometimes get things wrong: and why does Sjájer qualify for "European Parliament immunity" for heaven's sake. My god !!!!

18:00 We have dinner and afterwards listen a bit to the radio, a new Sandi Toksvig series on the Danish concept of "hygge" or indoor cosiness and feeling snug when it's not very nice outside, weather-wise and everything else-wise, that type of thing.

The Danish concept of "hygge" has had a lot of publicity in Britain over the last couple of years, but Lois and I thought it would be nice to have it explained by somebody Danish. As we often sing to each other:

"There is nothing like a Dane

Nothing in the world

There is nothing you can name

That is anything like a Dane"

Sandi is broadcasting from her wooden cabin near a lake in the Danish countryside - she says her great-grandfather built the cabin "as a secluded place to come and escape the incessant 'happiness surveys' that take place in Denmark all year round". 

Sandi asks her first guest, the artist Grayson Perry, what he understands by "hygge". He says that to him, it means "cuddling up to a warm fire, lighting a candle, and all those sorts of West London-y things that probably bring me out in hives".

They discuss the lockdown. What they have disliked the most is the lack of variety in day-to-day life. Sandi says the thing she and her partner have missed most is "the sound of other people dining around us, in a restaurant". Eventually they got hold of a sound-effect of this and they play it while they're eating - listening to the clink of cutlery and the sound of people saying things like, "Mmmm, lovely, delicious!" and so on, just quietly in the background.

Those crazy Danes!!!! But we love them!!!

flashback to February 19th - the last time Lois and I ate in a restaurant

(Webbs Garden Centre) - happy days !!!!

20:00 Lois disappears into the dining-room to take part in her sect's weekly Bible Class. I settle down on the sofa to watch the 4th episode of the Icelandic crime series, "The Valhalla Murders".

I try to keep up with the plot about the crazed serial killer, and I'm trying desperately to filter out all the personal stuff about the two main detectives (Kata and the stony-faced Arnar) and their tortured private lives - my god! Kata is worried that her teenage son has been involved in the gang-rape of a fellow-student, and that he may have been the one filming it. And Arnar's father has just died in a care-home, and Arnar's siblings are acting strangely - I don't really understand why. Oh dear.

Anyway back to the murders! About 30 years ago, Reykjavik's social services were running a boys' home, called "Valhalla", out in the frozen wastes miles out of town, where the staff were routinely cruel to the boys - and this cruelty apparently included night-time rapes, we learn tonight. 

Three of the former staff at the home have in the last couple of weeks been found stabbed to death - each with the murderer's "signature" scratched out on their faces, so we're talking about a serial killer. I've been speculating to myself that the killer is probably one of the abused boys from the home, but we don't know that as yet.

So three of the cruel staff-members from the home have been killed already - Thor, Omar, and Brynja. But there's another staff-member, Gudmundur Finnbogasson, or "Gummi" for short, who hasn't been killed (yet). Thank goodness Icelandic can shorten these terribly cumbersome names they give each other - my god!

In tonight's episode, "Gummi" finally cops it, however: he gets pepper-sprayed and stabbed in his flat by a mystery visitor. presumably the serial killer, because he leaves his signature on Gummi's face, as expected. 

Earlier the same day, however, a few hours before he died, "Gummi" had phoned an Icelandic TV network, saying he was ready to talk to the police about what used to go on at the boys' home, and saying that one of the boys who was a former resident at the home, Andres, now in prison, knows who the killer is. And when Kata and Arnar visit the prison, Andres tells them he believes the killer is one of the older boys at the home, Steinthor Jonsson ("Steini"), who was in the same prison and became suddenly religious, recently escaping from the prison, and vowing vengeance against somebody or other.

The two detectives, the stony-faced Arnar (left) and Kata, question Andres at the prison

Aha! The religious Steinthor ("Steini") seems like a good bet for the killer, it seems to me, because we know that the killer sent the first three victims a photo with a biblical quotation attached, a couple of weeks before he stabbed them to death.

flashback to an earlier episode: one of the detectives on the case, the stony-faced Arnar,

reading out the biblical text that was sent to the killer's first 3 victims

Those crazy Icelanders!!!  But we love them all the same, needless to say!!! 

21:00 Lois emerges from the Bible Class, and we sit and chat for a while, and then go to bed early. Does that qualify as "hygge"? It's certainly not very nice outside, weather-wise. We think that this probably is "hygge", but we're not completely sure. The jury's still out on that one. We'll ring Sandi in the morning, to check!

22:00 Zzzzzz!!!!!