Monday January 17th 2023

09:00 Lois and I sleep in a bit - we neither of us slept well last night. Possibly our milkman was on our minds again, and we both thought we heard him around 2 am, which is a crazy time, but some milkmen like to do it then - call them weird if you like! When we get up we find he's left us our 4 pints as usual - what a guy!

As it says in the old doggerel:

10:00 I look at my emails and find I've got a "rune" query that's come in overnight by email, which is exciting. They don't come along very often these days, that's for sure!

Runes are the characters that made up the ancient alphabet used by all the Germanic tribes before they learnt the Latin alphabet that we still use today. Rune letters were designed to be easily carve-able on stone or wood or whatever they had in those days before the introduction of paper.

some typical rune letters, as used by the Anglo-Saxons

My friend Joe, who is emailing me with a query is an avid fan of the "Vikings" TV saga. He's noticed a Viking woman's sword that had some runes etched into it, and he's wondering whether the inscription means anything or whether it's just a random set of carvings made up in the show's props department.

I'm no expert but the second word on the sword looks like the Old Norse word for "sword" to me ("sverth" with the definitive ending on the end), so I wonder whether the whole inscription means Trika's Sword, or something similar.

But I stand open to correction if there are any properly qualified runologists out there - don't be shy haha!!!!

I think if I came into possession of a shiny new sword like that, the first thing I would do would be to have the words "Colin's Sword" inscribed on it. It would cost a bit extra, but so what? You can't be too careful these days, particularly if there are Vikings or other plunderers around, who would just as soon walk off with it as look at you, in my experience. 

Just saying - take it as my "super-tip"  of the day if you like, if it should ever happens to you!

flashback to May 2013: I examine a rune stone at 

the former Viking fortress at Trelleborg, Denmark...

...and in the museum, where we get the chance to dress up.

Tremendous fun !!!!!

13:00 We have lunch and we're still discussing history. Lois tells me about the book she's reading at the moment, Jenny Uglow's "In These Times", telling the story of the Napoleonic Wars (1793-1815) and the ways in which they affected the lives of ordinary people in Britain.

Who knew that during the years that Napoleon stationed a massive army in the Boulogne area of Northern France - supposedly poised to invade us - that enterprising business-men in England had the idea of running boat-trips up and down the French coast, so that British holiday-makers could observe this massive but useless French army? 

the Grande Armée ("Great Army") that Napoleon

stationed near Boulogne from 1803, supposedly poised to invade Britain:

but what a madness it all was !!!!

Was this the first example of tourism? We think maybe it was. And it just goes to prove what Lois and I always say - that at this time, over 200 years ago, Britain was fast becoming what we might call a truly "modern country" - the first such in the world presumably, a country where leisure and tourism had really started to take off in a big way.

But what a crazy world they lived in, in those far-off times !!!!

19:00 We have our roast pork dinner, postponed from yesterday because of a joint of meat that failed to defrost after 8 hours in the sun - what madness !!!

our roast pork dinner with roast potatoes,

sprouts and parsnips - yum yum!

21:00 We relax on the couch with tonight's edition of one of our favourite TV quizzes, University Challenge, the student quiz. Tonight's contest is between Newnham College Cambridge and University of Cardiff. It turns out to be a close-run thing, with Newnham winning by 150 points to 140.

It's becoming harder now for Lois and me to get one-up on the students because only the really good teams are left in the competition. Nevertheless, despite our weakened state we still manage to get 5 correct answers that the students fail to get, which is gratifying.

1&2. Give the precise English equivalent of these Spanish titles of works by anglophone writers, inspired by experiences in the Spanish Civil War.

(a) Cuando parti una manana de verano

Students: "When Breaks the Summer Morning"

Colin and Lois: "As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning" (Laurie Lee)

(b) Por qué escribo

Students: "Why Write?"

Colin and Lois: "Why I write" (George Orwell)

3. Said to be close to extinction, the Mulanje cedar is the national tree of which landlocked African country? The tree takes its name from the country's highest peak.

Students: Rwanda

Colin and Lois: Malawi

4. "Be still, stop chattering" is the secular cantata by JS Bach and is often known by the name of what beverage?

Students: the Wine Cantata

Colin and Lois: the Coffee Cantata

5. In which century did the following occur? Peter the Great studied shipbuilding at Deptford, London, and the Ottoman Empire besieged Vienna unsuccessfully for the second time.

Students: 16th century

Colin and Lois: 17th century

Well, not much to boast about is it, but you see, it doesn't take much to send us to bed in a good mood that's for sure!

22:00 We go to bed - yippee!!!!!