Danskcolin: Sunday January 2nd 2022

16:00 Lois and I on the sofa look back on today as it looks so far - admittedly quiet.

Lois took part in her sect's two meetings on zoom, at 10:45 am and 12:30 pm, and found out about more COVID victims amongst sect-members: a young couple Sam and Lexi and their 6-month-old son Levi have all got COVID. But Lois says young babies can usually cope well with viruses, because they get a miscellanous "immunities" welcome pack from their mother when they're in the womb, a package which is kept topped up if the mother is also breastfeeding, which is a nice start in life, to put it mildly!

babies get a "welcome pack" of immunities from their mother

And elderly sect-member Ursula, who was in Cheltenham General Hospital last week being treated for pneumonia, must have picked up COVID there. Now she's been transferred to Gloucester Royal Hospital, where she has a room on her own. Oh dear, it must be that very infectious omicron variant, we're guessing.

flashback to December 8th: Lois and i visit Ursula in her Churchdown home

Lois and I review the day so far from our sofa.

I myself haven't achieved much again. I did go through the so-called List A of the exercises which Connor, my NHS physio, has scheduled for me today.

I also emailed members of the U3A Danish group which Lois and I run - the only such group in the UK. We're getting towards the end of our current Danish crime novel, and I need the go-ahead to choose our next book. Decisions, decisions!!!!

16:30 I look at my smartphone.

Tünde, my Hungarian penfriend, has emailed me alerting me to an article in the Observer newspaper which offers new hope for a change of government in Hungary.

The country's dictatorial-leaning Prime Minister Viktor Orbán of the Fidesz Party has been expecting to be challenged by a left-wing candidate in the coming spring elections - what he hasn't been expecting is a challenge from a right-winger like Péter, and what's crucial, someone who's committed to basic democratic principles, which will make a refreshing change.

Deal with that one, Viktor !!!!

The candidate concerned is Péter Márki-Zay - crazy name, crazy guy! And "MZP", as he is known, is dismissive of Orbán's much-vaunted defence of Christianity. He points out that he himself has been a church-going Christian since communist times, when Orbán was still a member of the Communist Youth Movement.

MZP says he used to vote for Orbán's Fidesz party but he hasn't done so since 2010. “I just became more and more upset with their populism, their betrayal of western values … and the corruption mostly,” he told the Observer. “Orbán has changed, not me.”

flashback to me on my first visit to Hungary in 1994:

an advert for the Fidesz party (above and behind me to the left),

at a time when Fidesz were still "the good guys"

18:00 We eat the rest of our CookShop "Christmas dinner" meal for 2. It indicates how sparingly Lois and I eat these days that we can make this ready-meal stretch to two evenings, which is nice.

The dessert is different, however - the lovely trifle that Lois made earlier this afternoon.

the second half of our CookShop Christmas ready meal for two

and afterwards Lois serves out two portions

of her delicious Christmas trifle - yum yum!

20:00 We watch some TV, the latest programme in the series "Amazing Hotels: Life Beyond the Lobby", where the presenters, chef Monica Galetti and food writer Giles Coren, go to unusual hotels around the world and try their hand at some of the jobs the hotel staff do.

Lois and I are watching tonight mainly because the presenters are visiting a hotel inside the grounds of the Tivoli Gardens, Copenhagen, which we visited with our daughter Alison and her family when we visited them over there during their 6-year residence in the city.

the Nimb Hotel, Copenhagen

To be honest, we're a bit fed up with this series in general. As the blurb in the Radio Times suggests, there's a lot of repetition in the hotel worker tasks that Monica and Giles are asked to do. And although the hotels are in various locations around the world, the hotels themselves are not that different from each other inside, when it comes down to it.

For this lack of individuality Lois and I blame the mega-rich people who can afford to stay in these places. Essentially they all want the same type of luxurious room, and the same type of food in the hotel restaurants, wherever they go. Only the views from the windows are really that different - what madness!!!!

It's interesting, however, to hear a bit about the history of the Tivoli amusement park, which is the world's second oldest. In the early 1800's, pleasure gardens were all the rage. In London, people were flocking to Vauxhall Gardens, and in Paris les Jardins de Tivoli.

In 1843 a Danish architect called Georg Carstensen pointed out to the Danish king that "when the people are amusing themselves, they don't think about politics". So the king allowed Carstensen to build on some land around the city's moat.

Tivoli Gardens in the early days

Carstensen also imported exotic influences from far-flung world cultures. The oldest surviving building from this era is his Chinese Peacock Theatre, built in 1874.

Carstensen's original Chinese Theatre (1874)

And who knew that 108 years after the park opened, Walt Disney himself visited, shortly before going off and building his own, his very own, Disneyworld in California? [I expect a lot of people knew that! - Ed]