Thursday September 5th 2024 "Lost ANOTHER million £££ to scammers this week, HAVE we (!)"

Here's a question-and-a-half if ever there was one! Full text: "Have you lost [yet] ANOTHER million-£ [lottery] win to romance-scammers this week (!) ?" 

A lot of us have, haven't we, and sometimesm if you're a multiple lottery-winner, those [expletive deleted] scammers can strike multiple times, can't they. 

Yes, you've guessed it! My medium-to-long-suffering wife Lois and I can't spend the afternoon in bed today, because we're glued to our laptop (not literally (!)), trying to keep order amongst our fractious little local U3A "Intermediate Danish" group. As you'll remember, Lois and I are, for our sins (!), joint leaders of this group, all 60+ years, predominantly female, and - if Lois will forgive me saying so - predominantly "stroppy-with-it" (!).

us this afternoon, "glued to our laptop" (not literally!), wondering

where all our group members are, until we remember that we've

got to click on "Join meeting" or some such nonsense.

What madness !!!!

Our group is trying, painfully at times, to read a Danish crime-novel together, one that's all about a young "romance scammer", Jay, who's made a career out of scamming sexagenarian women out of their lottery wins, inheritances and other money, you name it. So considering our group's demographic, it's the ideal novel to focus on, packed, as it is, with useful tips for combating the romance scammers in our own lives, which is nice!

"Judaskysset" (The Judas Kiss) - the Danish crime novel

that our group is reading (or trying to read (!) )

[That's enough exclamation marks in brackets (!) - Ed] 

Our little U3A group has been energised this month by the appearance in our book of a new victim that local-scammer Jay (29) is "working on" - Birgitte, a local widow. 

Young Jay's previous victim was menopausal local college arts teacher Ursula, who, impulsively, had sex with Jay at their first meeting, on a desk in the college arts room where she worked. Ursula, however, experienced a lot of problems in her relationship with young Jay: when in bed, she was too vain to wear her glasses, so she could never get Jay fully into focus because of her long-sight, whilst on the other hand her menopausal "hot flushes" at least kept her warm when Jay turned over and took the duvet with him.

the annoying penalty for sleeping with a "duvet hogger" -

a situation, however, often mitigated by an intermittent "hot flush"

Now, however, in the case of Jay's new victim, local widow Birgitte, we're reading about the scam from Jay's point of view, which is a switch, and "refreshing with it". 

Widow Birgitte is 61, but she's described as "well-preserved" [Danish: velkonserveret], which means, our group speculates, that she hasn't "let herself go". But somehow "well-preserved" doesn't sound quite right in English, to an extent making 'old Birgitte' sound like a museum exhibit, or something that an archaeologist has just pulled out of a ditch. Do we have a word for it, in English? We'd like to be told!

Your suggestions please (on a postcard of course !!!!) !!!

Anyway, to cut a long story short [Finally! - Ed], young 29-year-old scammer Jay doesn't find Birgitte too challenging a woman to go to bed with, which is handy from his point of view. Birgitte had "looked after her skin", "toned her hair", and she went to the gym twice a week, so Jay was hoping to be able to "carry through the purely physical part of the job without great problems, perhaps even without pharmacological help" [Danish: farmakologisk hjælp]. 

During our group meeting this afternoon, we have a brief debate about what exactly this "pharmacological help" could have been - and our consensus is that the book's Danish author, Anna Grue, is probably referencing viagra here, a pill which increases a man's sexual desire. And the group's only genuinely Danish member, long-time UK resident Danish expat Jeanette, who before retiring, worked as a doctor's receptionist here in the UK, recalls that viagra was freely available at the time this book was published, in 2009.

Again, however, your suggestions welcome - as long as you can cram them (!) in on the back of that busy little postcard you've been scribbling on already (!).

a typical romance-scammer with his "pharmacological help"

We all check our Danish dictionaries for the exact meaning of "pharmacological help", but my dictionary, for example, was published in the 1980's, when, I'm guessing, viagra wasn't an option.

It's a second hand copy of Gyldendals classic Danish-English dictionary. And incidentally, don't you find second-hand books fascinating, especially if the original owner has scrawled something on the fly-leaf?

Look at this "doozy" of a fly-leaf:

I wonder - could the book's original owner, Pete Jones, who in 1994 was working for "Bramble Software Design" on the mysterious "Malaysian Railways Project" - could Pete be reading this blog post of mine today? Wouldn't that be totally amazing, incredible even, if he were? [To put it mildly! - Ed]

If you're out there, Pete, do get in touch!

16:00 Our group meeting ends, and Lois and I, as usual, are feeling totally drained by the effort of controlling our members (!). After all, we are 78 you know, and we regard ourselves as fully paid-up "old codgers" if ever anybody was (!).

Should I be referring to Lois and me "old codgers" in my blog, however? 

After this afternoon's Danish zoom meeting, Lois and I have an enjoyable phone conversation with one of Lois's oldest friends, Jen, who thinks it's always a mistake to think of yourself as old. After all, you're only as old as you feel, and, as people often say, 'old people' are defined in dictionaries as being "the people ten years or more older than you". 

Perhaps an alternative term would be more appropriate for my blog: "medium-to-long-lived" perhaps, "moderately ageing", or just "slightly old" maybe? Or "incipiently crinkly"?

I wonder...!!!!

21:00 We go to bed on yesterday's episode in the long-running sitcom "Last of the Summer Wine", you know, that slightly notorious one - "Who's That Mouse in the Poetry Group?".

In this scene, Glenda goes upstairs to find her husband, mild-mannered Building Society manager Barry, musing in their bedroom.

Yes, Barry's put his finger on it there, hasn't he. And it's a question all of us "moderately crinkly medium-to-old codgers" have asked ourselves occasionally, isn't it: "Where did the time go?"

After this confession from her husband, Glenda interrupts Barry's musing with an objection, challenging Barry's memory of the allegedly "fancy" underpants of his youth:

Oh dear! Poor Barry! And it just goes to prove what my medium-to-long-suffering wife Lois says - "Men just aren't so observant - they just don't notice things the way that women do", and I think there may be something in that - don't you?

[Oh just go to bed! - Ed

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