"Romance scams" - they're all the rage at the moment, aren't they, but they're nothing new, let me tell YOU (!), especially in Denmark.
a Danish woman loses her heart to a convincing
"romance scammer"
And yet those scammers are human beings too - that's something we often forget: but it's something that my medium-to-long-suffering wife Lois and I are reminded about this afternoon. And this "light-bulb moment" happens, surprisingly, during the fortnightly meeting of the local U3A Intermediate Danish group that the two of us, on paper at least, jointly "lead".
I say that Lois and I "lead the group", but in practice, however, it's usually the "group" - mostly women of menopausal age and older - that leads us, with their often salty "banter" - and, annoyingly this banter is not even going on in Intermediate Danish, as it should be, but in advanced, semi-fluent (!) English of the Worcestershire variety, the county where most of us live.
What madness! Lois and I sometimes throw up our hands in despair during some of this 'banter', but what can we do? Luckily we make sure that we take part in the group's online meetings in our kitchen-diner, so we can easily get up and make a cup of tea, and 'talk-amongst-ourselves' until the group "runs out of steam", and we hear them, audibly, [That's always the best way to hear things! - Ed], yes, as I say, we hear them audibly wondering where Lois and I have got to (!).
us, this afternoon, siting at our kitchen table, wondering when the group members are going to join us, until
we realise we haven't clicked on "Join meeting".
Oops! What madness !!!!
Worcestershire is a bit of a melting pot of "Englishes", as you probably know: the south of the county is very rustic and west-country, the west of the county merges into Welsh, and the northern part, including Worcester itself, the county town, is firmly "West Midlands", sometimes even a bit "Birmingham" or "Brummie".
Luckily all three of these varieties of English are kind-of mutually intelligible - at least 50% the time anyway (!!!!).
Worcestershire - a veritable "melting pot"
of different varieties of "Englishes" (!!!)
Here's a quick 5-minute guide to some of the most peculiar words or phrases you may hear "around these here parts" if you happen to stray over this way, by mistake probably (!!!):
1. "All right, bab?" or "You okay, babber?" - these are both terms of endearment, and not to be confused
with "babby", as in...(see below)...
2. "Can I have a look at the babby?" which means somebody has spotted your little offspring sleeping peacefully in its "pram", or "stroller" as people call them these days (!).
3. "You'm best go down to the Citizens Advice Bureau" - an example of part of the irregular Worcestershire verb I'm, you'm, he'm etc etc. A further example is, "Am ya going downtown?", which is a polite enquiry, suggesting you may be going in the wrong direction - depending on the situation (!).
4. "Am ya going downtown, Bert?" or "Am ya going downtown, Ern?" - again, it's not that the speaker thinks your name is Bert or Ernie (Sesame Street aficionados please note (!) ) - these names are just a couple of additional "terms of endearment" round here, like "mate" for men, or "darling" for women in the 'standard' language.
Of all these collected terms of endearment, "Bab" is currently polling highest, with Ern falling behind - perhaps fatally? I think we should be told.
5. "It's black over Bill's mother's" - means you'd better take your umbrella, because it looks increasingly like it's going to rain.
So there you have it - Bob's your uncle! Go out on to the mean streets of Worcester, and fearlessly "do your worst" with the local "lingo" haha! Take your umbrella, and while you're about it - get the t-shirt too haha!
Worcester's top-selling t-shirt
And somebody even calls me 'Bert' today at Clive's Fruit Farm, Upton-on-Severn, when Lois and I call in there this morning to get some stuff for the weekend, and have a coffee-and-cake in the café.
someone calls me 'Bert' when we drop into Clive's
Fruit Farm for a coffee and a cake, and a
browse through Clive's shop and delicatessen
for a bunch of stuff including a jar of Kit's
Runner Bean Chutney - yum yum!
Honestly, I ask you - do I LOOK like a Bert? (!)
[It's hard to say, Colin! Honestly, does it really matter, in the grand scheme of things? (!) - Ed]
"But Colin, what's all this got to do with 'romance scammers'?", I hear you cry! [Not me, I don't care! - Ed]
Well, seeing as you're asking (!), it's our Danish group's fortnightly meeting today, as I mentioned above. And our Danish group is currently reading a book about a Danish romance scammer, Jay, a handsome 29-year-old who, under various assumed names, specialises in scamming older menopausal women, which, incidentally, is our Danish group's key "demographic", appropriately enough!
a typical older woman in bed with a younger man
Jay's most recent victim is a menopausal college art teacher called Ursula. One problem Ursula has with the relationship is that Jay's fresh young face is always blurry to her in bed - she's long-sighted, like a lot of us older people, but she doesn't like to wear her reading-glasses while they're "getting it on".
She'd probably manage better in a standard British double-bed size of 4'6", but unfortunately she has to "entertain" Jay in one of those awful Danish one-and-a-half beds [Danish: halvandenmandssenge"], which are "something and nothing", as Lois and I say. We went on holiday to Denmark several times between 2012 and 2018, when our daughter Alison and her family - husband Ed and their 3 children - were living in Copenhagen.
And many of those crazy "one-and-a-half] beds are barely 4' wide, which is a bit cramping, we always used to find!
On the plus side, Ursula finds that her menopausal "hot flushes" [Danish: "hedeture" - literally 'heat trips': nice phrase!) keep her warm, whenever Jay turns over in bed taking the duvet with him. So it's not all bad!
Anna Grue's "Judaskysset" ("The Judas Kiss") -
the novel about a young Danish romance-scammer
that our group is reading
Our group is, painfully at times, gradually getting through the book, I'm delighted to reveal. And in the chapter we're currently reading, Jay has just left recent jackpot-lottery winner Ursula for good, having emptied her bank account.
There's a heart-warming passage that we read today, however, that makes us realise that the typical romance-scammer has to pay his own emotional price for his crimes, which makes us all stop and think before we condemn such "criminals" - a little too harshly perhaps?
How's your Intermediate Danish, dear Reader? It's sadly gone 'rusty' for a lot of us, hasn't it, but don't worry: I'm here to help haha!
When our group reads this passage this afternoon, we discover, tearfully, that Jay is, after all, not made of stone (Danish: ikke lavet af sten), and that some of his victims really "get under his skin" or "under his hide" (Danish: under huden). And Jay knew that for the rest of his life, for instance, he'd "never be able to forget the sight of Ursula's face as she waved goodbye to him, trying in vain to hide her tears", as he went through the check-in gate at Copenhagen Airport, bound for a flight to the South of France where, unknown to Ursula, Jay was planning to spend some, or all, of Ursula's billion-kroner lottery winnings.
Poor Jay !!!!!
Awww!!!! Bless him! And let's hope maybe poor young Jay will get to keep the billions of kroner, tax-free, that he's scammed off Ursula. After all he worked hard for it for six months, scrunched up with Ursula in her tiny excuse-for-a-double-bed, and having to hand her her glasses whenever she needed them.
Bless his little cotton socks haha!
But what a crazy world we live in !!!!!
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