Easter Monday - a public holiday here and in Australia, so we have arranged to talk on zoom to our younger daughter Sarah, who lives just outside Perth with her husband Francis and their 7-year-old twins, Lily and Jessie.
08:00 Unfortunately Lois and I don't want to talk too long today because Lois has strained her back and she can't sit for very long at a time, so I send Sarah a text in advance of the zoom call.
09:30 The call begins, but we limit it to 30 minutes today. The twins are very sweet as usual, showing us the boxes for the chocolate Easter eggs that Lois and I gave them for yesterday, Easter Day.
Lily (left) and Jessie showcase the chocolate Easter eggs Lois and I bought them
- how cute they are !!!!
The twins have started writing a story together, they say - something about a little girl who has too many unicorns, and decides she has to slim down her collection by holding a unicorn sale - as you do haha!
Lily holds up for the camera the story that the two of them have
started writing together - illustrations by the authors haha!!!
10:00 The call ends. Our other daughter Alison, who lives in Headley, Hampshire together with Ed and their 3 children is hoping to make a family visit to us next Saturday. Hopefully we can do a zoom call to Australia while they are here, so Sarah and her sister Alison can chat together, as well as the 5 young cousins. But it will have to be out of doors, to comply with the current lockdown restrictions, so we'll have to see!
16:00 We relax on the sofa with a cup of tea and a couple of brownies. I look at one of the books given me for my birthday just over a week ago, "The Horse, the Wheel and Language" by David W. Anthony.
flashback to my birthday, when I showcase my 3 book presents
I'm trying desperately to keep up with the speed of author David W Anthony's arguments to pin down the ancient language, Proto-Indo-European, which was the ancestor of almost all languages in Europe, India and Iran.
It's just a question of luck that we can sort of date of the time-period when Proto-Indo-European was spoken in a limited area: this period must have been approximately 3500 to 3000 BC. At that time the Indo-Europeans were still all living together in the same approximate area.
After that time, various groups of Indo-Europeans started dispersing over a wider area all over Europe and parts of Asia. However we can date the period before the "dispersal" or "diaspora" to 3500 to 3000, because, by sheer luck, this was also the period when the Indo-Europeans started using the wheel and wagons - a development that we can date from archaeology. And the people who started leaving this common "homeland" took the proto-Indo-European words for wheel, and for wagon parts with them, so that virtually all European and Indian languages have words for these things which are broadly similar - simples!
There were actually two words for wheel - possibly they designated wheels of two different sorts, but the "diaspora" took both of these words with them when they left the "homeland". So, for instance, the Welsh word for "wheel", which is "rhod", is related to the Old Iranian word "ratha", and so on.
How fascinating !!!!
We have already learnt, incidentally, in the previous chapter, broadly which groups left the "homeland" earlier, because they took with them the old-fashioned version of the word for "hundred", leaving the others time where there was less noise and banter: as a result they could come up with the more modern version of the word for "hundred", that mysteriously started with an "s". Lucky old them - we Germanics and others missed out on that one!
Damn !!!!
Nevertheless... I expect the so-called "blue" tribes thought, "Well, wheels have been invented now, and wagons too - we're out of here! A bit like the girl in the "Fun Fun Fun" song:
Well she got her
daddy's car
And she cruised through the hamburger stands now,
Seems she forgot all about the library
Like she told her old man now,
And with the radio blasting
Goes cruising just as fast as she can now
And she'll have
fun fun fun…
So after that - the invention of the wheel - the so-called "red tribes" wouldn't have seen the "blue tribes" for dust haha!
The Beach Boys - a modern-day version of the so-called "blue tribes"
16:30 Lois has meanwhile been getting on with planting this year's vegetable seedlings, in little containers in the utility room - how sweet they look once they have broken the surface! And some potatoes have already been planted in the raised beds, which is nice:
Lois showcases some of the vegetable seedlings she has planted in
little pots and containers in the utility room: how sweet they look!!!!
19:30 Lois disappears into the dining-room to take part in her sect's weekly Bible Seminar on zoom. I settle down on the couch and watch a bit of TV, a new season of the comedy series "Pls Like", which satirises the social media.
I haven't seen this series before, and there are a few laughs for me, as a baby-boomer, but not that many. I suspect it's quite well done, however, and probably very funny for any Generation X people who like to laugh at the Millennials.
What I need is a slightly different series, featuring Baby Boomers laughing at Generation X people laughing at Millennials. I suppose I'd better to write to the BBC and suggest that before anybody else does haha!
We see Generation X presenter and struggling vlogger Liam investigating two "influencers", Millipede and Honeeedeww [sic], who go on a holiday to Paris with "18-21s Holidays", in a today's coronavirus-style world, where the Government have set up a "Ministry of Influencers" - what madness !!!!
The Paris holiday for Millipede and Honeeedeww ends badly, and somewhat randomly, when their suitcases get stolen in the hotel lobby. This incident turns out later to be a plot device, however, because, stored in Honeeedeww's luggage is a yellow Polaroid camera [??? - Ed] containing compromising pictures of Honeydeeeww with the unctuous Conservative Minister of Influencers, Mungo Slate.
I think I miss most of the jokes in this programme, but there are some funny stills, and it's also an opportunity for me to learn some new vocabulary haha!
an amusing sign being put up outside a café
an amusing poster from the "Ministry of Influencers"
an opportunity for me to learn some new vocabulary haha!
21:00 Lois emerges from her seminar, and we watch this year's grand final of our favourite TV quiz, "University Challenge", the student quiz.
We are both tired and we imagine we are going to do very badly tonight in our effort to come up with correct answers that the students don't know. These are the top two teams in the competition after all. However our performance turns out to be not too bad in the end - we answer a lot of the questions correctly, and we get three answers which the students don't get, so fair enough!
1. Who was the British Foreign Secretary from 1807 to 1809 and again from 1822. He was the MP for Seaford at the time of his death in 1827.
Students: Castlereagh
Colin and Lois: Canning
2. Until 1973, Belize was known by what two-word name?
Students: [pass]
Colin and Lois: British Honduras
3. Rachel Talalay was a producer of which 1987 film by John Waters? Set in Baltimore, it stars Ricki Lake, Divine, and Debbie Harry.
Students: [pass]
Colin and Lois: Hairspray
So yes, we've still got it, but we feel we're hanging by a thread these days - oh dear!!!!
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzzzzz!!!!
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