Danskcolin: Thursday January 28th 2021

10:00 A phone call from the NHS: Lois and I have been invited to have a first dose of a coronavirus vaccination on Saturday afternoon at the old Cheltenham East Fire Station, which is a relief. We're trying to prepare as much as possible - we'll need to park in the Lido Car-park, and buy a ticket before or after we have the jab. So we'll go with credit card, plus a pocketful of cash in case the card doesn't work - my god! Also I've downloaded the pay-by-phone app, although I've had mixed results with these types of app in the past: well we'll see, I'm going to try using the phone first, because it's no-contact.

Mine and Lois's appointments are only 2 minutes apart, so it should be a quick job (or a quick jab), we reckon. We'll have to wear something suitable for a quick job/jab, while still looking broadly respectable, we decide.

The weather forecast is for sleet most of the day, but as long as that forecast isn't "escalated" to heavy snow, we should be all right, I think. With wind from the east, from the Continent - brrrrrr!!!!

Is there anything else we haven't thought of? We've already done a "dry run" to practise, and I think that was last Thursday. At all costs we mustn't mess this one up haha!!!

Flashback to last Thursday - we reconnoitre the Sandford Lido carpark (left):

it turns out that the old Cheltenham East Fire Station building is just across the road

from the car-park entrance, just off this picture to the right - simples!

We watch some old dears crossing the Keynsham Road to get their jabs - bless them !!

the entrance to the old Cheltenham East Fire Station building where the old dears

are getting their jabs

10:30 It's our U3A Danish group's fortnightly meeting on Skype this afternoon. The group's Old Norse expert, Scilla, has been away from Cheltenham for a few months now, staying with one or other of her 3 children. I talk to Scilla every so often on her mobile phone to check on how she's getting on. I ring her this morning, however, and she doesn't answer, so I have to just leave a message.

14:30 A shorter-than-usual nap-in-bed and then Lois and I launch into our Danish group meeting, which I "chair" (allegedly). Loads of Nordic fun and laughs but by the end of it Lois and I feel as stiff as boards with aching backs and limbs - my god. I think it's because for 90 minutes we're sitting leaning heavily over the laptop's speakers to try and understand the Danish that's being spoken - oh dear, we're getting old, no doubt about that.

Right in the middle of the meeting, Scilla rings - she's forgotten it's our meeting time, so I agree to ring her back for a proper chat later in the day. It's nice that she has rung just now, though, because it gives her the chance to exchange a few words with the other members of the group. She's still staying with her son Ben in Brighton but may soon be moving on to stay with her other son Tom, who lives in Frome, Somerset. And she's thinking about possibly returning to her flat in Cheltenham in the near future as well, which is welcome news.

17:00 Lois and I are always totally exhausted after what we call "Danish days": basically we've got nothing left.

So we've pre-arranged with each other to have a "Parsley Box" ready-meal (no need to refrigerate them, so you can hoard stacks of them haha!), and there's no preparation needed. And, after that, an inert evening on the sofa in front of the goggle-box is in prospect - oh dear.

our choice for tonight's Parsley Box meal - Lancashire Hotpot: yum yum!

Correction: there'll be a bit of preparation too: Lois always likes to add some fresh veg, which enhances these meals significantly, to put it mildly - oh dear!

20:00 We settle down on the couch and watch a bit of TV. There's an interesting programme in prospect: the latest programme in Mary Beard's series, "Inside Culture".

We're both quite interested in language and so we've been looking forward to tonight's programme. It proves to be hugely disappointing on the language front, however. We think that in a lot of programmes these days they try to cover too many issues with too many guests, and the result is a lot of superficial segments that haven't got the time to tell you anything particularly new or stimulating.

Sara Cox's recent series of book review programmes, "Between the Covers" was another example of this: a plethora of guests and far too many books to review - Lois and I didn't come away from any of the programmes thinking that this or that was a book we'd like to read. So what's the point if you can't do that haha!

Luckily there's one interesting segment tonight in which Private Eye editor Ian Hislop proves to us that disinformation, e.g. all the current dumb anti-vaccine propaganda on the social media, is not a new phenomenon.

the current anti-vaccination disinformation

The very first vaccination campaign started with local Gloucestershire physician Edward Jenner's use of cow-pox to ward off smallpox, starting in 1796 (you probably know that's why vaccination got its name - from "vacca", the Latin for "cow" - simples!).

But Jenner faced similar challenges in his day, as regards anti-vaxxers and reality-deniers etc. There were no social media in those days, but it was common practice to display cartoon prints in city shop-windows carrying similar messages.

Hislop shows us a print by Gillray that illustrates what he speculated were the effects of being injected with cowpox including: cows emerging out of every imaginable orifice, a man growing horns, and even a woman giving birth to a cow out of her skirts - my god !!!!

James Gillray's cartoon "The Cow Pock: the Wonderful Effects

of the New Innoculation" (1802)

In those days shops which showcased prints by Gillray and other satirists were constantly updating their window-displays, creating a sort of running commentary on current events.