I try to "guesstimate" the distance between the large snowball
and the slightly smaller one (about 13 ft?)
[Why don't you get them to hold the front page for that story? - Ed]
15:00 Lunch and a nap in bed, and then we take the car out for a run - we haven't used it for 6 days. We drive through the sad streets of town, and note down the places that are still open - mostly it's mini-supermarkets and convenience stores, with people in masks shuffling around between them - my god!
16:00 We settle down on the couch and have a cup of extra-strong Earl Grey tea with one of Lois's delicious home-made biscuits - yum yum1
I check on my smartphone to see the latest thinking on Europeans' DNA, so I can observe the people walking past our house and make a snap judgement on their likely ancestry. There's an interesting article on the subject on the Quora website by Luis Gonzalez of Buenos Aires.
Today's Europeans are a mixture of 3 ancient populations, apparently - we know this by studying the bones of ancient people buried thousands of years ago, at different times [obviously! - Ed].
About 40,000 years ago, there were only Western Hunter-Gatherers (WHG) around. They were dark-skinned, blue-eyed and tall (6' 1" or 185 cm).
Around 8,000 years ago, a new lot of people came in from current Anatolia, the Early European Farmers (EEF), the Early Neolithics. They built Stonehenge and thousands of other enigmatic stone constructions. They were pale-skinned with dark hair and eyes. They were shorter than the WHG guys (around 5'4" or 165 cm). They assimilated the WHG minority and became the ethnic base of Western Europe.
Around 4,000 years ago there was a third wave of invaders, pretty much men only, herders coming from the Pontic Steppes and the Yamanaya culture, who stormed in: they had horses, wheeled carriages and bronze weapons. They were cattle-herders and warriors. They gradually wiped out most of the males of the EEF culture, and went to bed with the EEF women, the cheeky sods! They were tall and white, with dark hair and eyes.
Males in the current European population's have a y-dna (passed from fathers to sons) that is overwhelmingly Steppe Herder (Yamnaya), while the female population's mitrochondrial dna (passed from mothers to daughters) is almost fully EEF.
admixture proportions in modern DNA
Fascinating stuff! But does any of it make sense?
This afternoon I try to observe people passing by our house on the street, but so far I haven't managed to categorise any of them definitively. But I suppose I'm just a beginner at the moment - I expect I'll get better with practice!
I suspect, however, that the person we refer to as "shopping woman" is clearly an EEF with a small trace of WHG (just a hypothesis at the moment - I'll talk to her at some point, and check all this out obviously!). I reckon she's about 5' 3", just like Lois.
Later I get some help from one of my Welsh second-cousins, Ruth in Herefordshire. She has showcased for me a useful little chart to help determine people's origins. The only problem is that you have to ask people to show you their bare feet before you can make a final decision. Otherwise it's pretty much guesswork.
I like this chart because it's much more definitive than Gonzales's one, which is a bit vague to put it mildly. At last - we're making some progress here!
20:00 Lois disappears into the dining-room to take part in her sect's weekly Bible Class on zoom. I settle down on the couch and watch the latest episode in Ben Fogle's series, "New Lives in the Wild", which each week showcases people who give up their conventional careers etc to live out in the wilds somewhere, miles from anywhere, and try to be self-sufficient.
This week Ben's subject is 70-year-old Jake Williams, who left behind a failed marriage and a conventional life in the 1980's, to move to a remote set of buildings in the Cairngorm Mountains in Scotland.
Jake is a bit of a hippy. and his idea was to set up a commune. The problem was that nobody was tempted to join him, and you can see why. So he's become a hermit instead.
He's a nice enough guy with a sunny disposition and a sense of humour, but his place out in the Cairngorms is a complete tip - every building is crammed with stuff: you can barely move inside them. He never throws anything away. And the yard an outbuildings are littered with vehicles, none of which work any more.
Presenter Ben Fogle (left) arrives to meet hermit Jake William
But Jake isn't really a hermit by choice. And now he's lonely of course. He tries to attract tourists - he set up an Airbnb in a caravan which he has stuck high up into a tree in his yard, where any guests would be afraid of trying anything too vigorous, that's for sure. My god!
Jake's Airbnb "caravan in a tree": no thanks, Jake haha!
He tried standing as a Green Party candidate for Parliament, but failed to get elected. Now he wants a woman, but where to find one? There's a single woman, Caroline, living nearby, but she doesn't seem too keen to take him on - no surprise there!
Poor Jake !!!!!
Ben goes with Jake on a visit to a local pub, "The Grouse Inn", but they turn out to be the only customers. Jake says he doesn't go there very often - they used to hold dances there, but these fizzled out a long time ago, and you can see why. Oh dear!
Lois and I have been in pubs like that - oh dear!!!!
Poor Jake (again) !!!!!
21:00 Lois emerges from her Bible Class and we watch tonight's episode of Winterwatch, which keeps a watchful eye on wildlife in the UK through a team of presenters and a network of hidden cameras. But we're sleepy and we both nod off. Lois is still asleep when the programme's closing credits and sig tune come on.
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzzzzz!!!!!
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