08:00 Last night, just before I went to sleep, I read the most extraordinary news about our language, English - my god! And I wake up wondering whether I should text my friend Lynda, who leads the local U3A "Making of English" group before she goes out for her daily shopping expedition.
Lynda's group was formed about 4 or 5 years ago, and the other members and I have, since then, been painstakingly tracing the development of our language starting from the time of the early Neolithic farmers on the Russian steppes.
And at the moment the group has got stuck in the 15th century - a bit like Doctor Who when he got stuck in a big traffic jam under New York. And we can't escape and get back to the present - help!!!!
flashback to 2007: Dr Who gets stuck in an enormous traffic jam
in the subterranean motorways under New York, and can't return to the present
And then last night the news broke, in a bombshell report carried first by Onion News, the influential American news source:
BEIJING—Shedding new light on the origins of the
world’s most popular language, an international team of linguists announced
Thursday that a newly uncovered manuscript confirms China invented both spoken
and written English 700 years before the Western world.
“These remarkably well-preserved bamboo slips appear
to show that Zhou dynasty scholars developed the English tongue as far back as
the third century BC, long before the language arose in Britain,” said Li
Zhang, a professor of comparative linguistics who examined the text, which
outlines the alphabet and basic grammar rules of English, in addition to
including the first known uses of words such as “barbecue.”
“By the time Anglo–Saxons began cobbling together
their language from Latin, French, and Germanic sources, the Chinese had
already mastered it. There are even some passages in this manuscript that
appear eerily similar to the work of Shakespeare, though they are of far
superior quality.”
Li went on to explain that the Chinese gradually
abandoned the English language, finding its 26-letter alphabet too limiting and
opting instead for the convenience of Mandarin’s more than 50,000 characters.
This is, without doubt, the most astonishing development ever in the struggle to chart the history of our language - this is quite simply a total game-changer, and no mistake!
Well, we'll see - I'm half expecting Lynda to dissolve our little U3A group, so we can go back to the drawing-board on this one! Yikes!!!!
11:00 Connor, my NHS physiotherapist, has scheduled 30 minutes of exercises for me today, the dreaded so-called "List A", so I have to let Lois go on her walk alone to the local football field.
Lois at the start of her solo walk
Luckily, as can be seen from the selfie above, Lois has taken her phone with her, which was really lucky, because today turns out to be a momentous day in the history of the so-called local "football field" - and she witnesses some of the first spade-fuls of earth dug up in the so-called extra-bit of the football field, to mark the start of the creation of the so-called "sensory garden", defined on line in the following terms:
"Sensory gardens include features, surfaces, objects and plants
that stimulate our senses through touch, sight, scent, taste and hearing"
Lois discusses this with me. We understand the sights and scents, and touch maybe, but we don't get the "taste" bit - although we imagine the "hearing" is to do with hearing bees buzzing or something similar.
What sheer madness!!!!
aerial view of the football field, showcasing the so-called
"extra bit", earmarked for the creation of a sensory garden
Lois is lucky enough to be able to witness one of the Parish Council
sub-contractors digging up some of the first
spade-fuls of earth in the creation of a future "sensory garden"
Apart from work on the planned sensory garden, Lois says the football is quiet, apart from the usual dog-walkers.
Lois and I aren't natural dog-lovers, we're officially cat people. But our adventures together on the football field have led us to recognise and to have a nodding acquaintance with, the many local dog-walkers and their dogs.
For us it's become quite a rewarding experience to be able to say hello to some of these, both to the owners and to their dogs. We've become just abit like Ricky Gervais, who went on record in this week's Radio Times to say how satisfying this sort of meeting and greeting is to him also, even though he's a big international star.
Ricky says he knows about 200 dogs by name, some of them who get walked on Hampstead Heath, London, and some in Central Park, New York, which is nice.
Ricky Gervais "knows about 200 dogs by name" - my god!
Lois and I recognise some dogs more by their coats than by their faces or barks, we have to say. And we're not alone in that, as witnessed by another of this week's bombshell reports in Onion News.
CHICAGO—Shaking their heads as they
watched the 6-year-old beagle mix walk by with its owners, sources expressed
concern Tuesday that a local dog must be neglected, noting that it was always
seen wearing the same set of clothes.
“That poor thing owns one shabby
outfit,” said 43-year-old neighbour Kelsey Hoyle, who added that she had never
seen the dog wearing anything but the thin, flimsy garment on its walks,
either, no matter how low the temperatures dipped.
“Sometimes I see him just staring
out the window, all by himself, and it breaks my heart. You know that dog
doesn’t have a good home life. He’s probably abused. God, it makes me sick.” At
press time, Hoyle added that there was no way the dog’s owners bathed him more
than once a month.
I must say, Lois and I have never seen a case as bad as that witnessed by Kelsey Hoyle in Chicago, but I guess it's probably just a question of time.
What a sick world we live in !!!!!!
flashback to December 10th last year: behind us, in this selfie
happy dogs roam free, and any doggie coats are
fresh from the washing machine today - and that's for sure!
16:00 Lois and I settle down on the sofa with our tea and slice of Christmas cake (me) and currant bun (her). I look at my smartphone.
Tünde, my Hungarian pen-friend, has sent me a Hungarian news report about the UK Government's relaxation of some of the COVID restrictions in England, to go into effect later this week.
The report, by Dömötör Bálint in telex.hu, says that "The biggest British newspapers
had already reported last week that relaxing coronavirus regulations (re masks, working from home etc) was
Johnson’s master plan for regaining popularity after the battering received by all the revelations about Covid-era "parties" in Downing Street".
Well, that may be true - but if it enables Johnson to stay in Downing Street, that's fine by me! We mustn't let Dominic "Barnard Castle" Cummings dictate events, that's what I say !!!
We're backing Boris !!!!!
However, I don't think Lois and I will change our behaviour very much, whatever form the relaxation of the rules takes. It's no bother to put a mask on on the few occasions where we might need it - we've got used to that. And we're going to continue mostly to live "in each other's pockets", as we say in England.
flashback to May 2020: Lois and me "masked up" and
"in each other's pockets"
Tünde has also sent me an amusing poster for "Fidesz", the party of crazy Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. Recall that the country has a general election coming up in April, so soon all the gloves will be coming off, if they're not off already!
The woman seems to be saying "Real Men Vote Fidesz" - is it a genuine poster or is it just a joke?
I think we should be told haha!!!
And just when I thought that the "Real Men Don't...." and "Real Men Do..." starter lines had died a death after what - 40 years(?), in fact they seem to be making a comeback, in Hungary at least, and maybe tomorrow here as well, who knows!
flashback to the heady days of the
"Real Men Don't Eat Quiche" craze of the 1980's
Happy times !!!!
20:00 Lois disappears into the dining-room to take part in her sect's Wednesday Bible Class on zoom. I settle down on the couch and watch the 1990's Christmas special episode of the sitcom "One Foot In The Grave", all about irascible retiree Victor Meldrew and his long-suffering wife Margaret.
Do you remember this one? You know, the one where, just before Christmas, Victor orders a garden gnome, and due to a binary error in the software, he finds that 256 have been delivered to his doorstep.
And in order to return the unwanted 255 garden gnomes safely to the retailer and get his money back, Victor has to make sure that they don't get broken. The weather is stormy so Victor and Margaret decide to bring them into the house for safe keeping.
You must remember!!! Surely!!!!!
the moment Victor and Margaret discover that 256 garden gnomes
have been delivered to their address in error
the couple just manage to stash all the gnomes
here and there in the house before it's time to go to bed -
poor Victor and Margaret !!!!!!
When they eventually run out of space, Victor finds he has to take the last gnome into their bed with them - oh dear!
Of course it's all madness, yes, but yes it's also tremendous fun !!!!!
21:00 Lois emerges from her zoom session and we watch today's edition of "Winterwatch", a series that monitors wild life in the UK by means of a network of live presenters and hidden cameras.
Who knew that snails were so friendly and liked going around in crowds? We see a picture, sent in by Martin Yarrow, a viewer from Dorset, showing a whole tree trunk completely covered in snails.
presenters Chris Packham and Michaela Strachan show us photos,
sent in by a viewer, of a tree trunk completely covered with snails
- what madness !!!!
Yes, what madness !!!!
Apparently, when the temperature goes down to about 60F or 15C or so, snails start to think about going into hibernation. They often look for spots like a tree trunk and then a whole group of them will hibernate there communally.
And snails have a couple of supplementary strategies for getting through the winter. For starters, they have a glycerol compound in their blood, a compound that works a bit like anti-freeze in a car engine. This stops them freezing inside their shells.
Snails also "go bathroom" immediately before the hibernation process. so that there's nothing fluid inside them to freeze.
And lastly, using mucus, they seal off the entrance to their shells with something called an epiphragm. That mucus dries hard and protects them throughout the course of the winter. And the snails can survive even if the temperature drops to 3F or -16C.
And a tree trunk, especially if it's in a sunny position, will probably stay dry a lot of the time, which is also good.
presenter Chris Packham in full flow, explaining
the snails' strategy for getting through the winter
Can Lois and I learn anything from these snails to improve our own approach to winter?
Well, we already do at least one of the things that the snails do - I won't say which haha! But I'm not sure we quite fancy sleeping stuck to the side of a tree trunk, so this whole idea may prove to be a non-starter from the get-go. But we'll have to see !
But what a crazy planet we live on !!!!!
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzzzz!!!!
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