Danskcolin: Tuesday September 24th 2024 "What 'monkeys' are hiding in YOUR family tree!?!"

Our ancestors - yours and mine: a funny bunch weren't they, something you'll know even if you've only done even the most basic family-tree research, i.e. even if you've only gone back, say, the first 2 million years, it's still just as plain as the nose on your face.

As these ground-breaking [no pun intended (!)] archaeologists duly found recently [Source: Onion News International]:

And fast forward to, say, 900 AD or thereabouts, and things don't seem to have "moved on" that much, typically, do they, to put it mildly. Am I right? Or am I right (!).

And "Naughty Gwilym", as we call him (!), is the first topic of conversation I have this morning in bed with my medium-to-long suffering wife Lois, who does a lot of family-tree research. It's a bit of a lonely job, researching your family, so it's nice, on a chilly September afternoon here in Malvern, Worcestershire, if we can laugh about it a bit under the bedclothes occasionally.

Also, it's also nice if, through the magic of the internet, you can find a maybe-rather-distant relation to join in the laughter with us as well - what we call in our house a "threesome": of the wholly-wholesome variety, needless to say!

what could be nicer, on a chilly September afternoon in Malvern

than to laugh about our "crazy" ancestors under the bedclothes (!)

Last week Lois had a "contact" with a young family-tree "digger", Joe, who had a naughty great-great-great-grandfather, Thomas, who was the sister of Lois's great-aunt Sarah. We reckon Joe is a youngster, because he uses the word "amazing" a lot, as in "If you had some photos of [him], that would be amazing" - see what I mean? It's 'young-person-speak' for the' old-codger-speak' expression "most welcome", in case you're 'getting on a bit', to put it mildly, like what Lois and I are [sic] (!).

Lois and Joe - how they are related....

We often think of Victorians as being a bit straight-laced, but it wasn't always the case, and they didn't always bother to get married, even, before they started having children - so a bit like today, really, wasn't it.

Joe's ancestor Alice was on (or was it "under" (!)) her "third man", when she got together with Joe's ancestor Thomas. And Thomas, who served in the Royal Navy, must have had a sense of humour, because he used to go around with a parrot on his shoulder, Joe says.

What a crazy world they lived in, back in the 1900's !!!!!

Joe's joking ancestor Thomas could have looked

like the sailor in this old photo - I wonder.... !

Lois and I feel we can enjoy our afternoon in bed today and do some family-tree-laughter between the sheets with a good-to-fairly-good conscience. We've had a productive morning to be proud of, dropping in at Malvern tyre-specialist HiQ to get a replacement offside rear tyre fitted (as you do (!)), and then going for a walk over the wonderful expanse of our local Poolbrook Common.

HiQ Tyres, Malvern, where we get a replacement

offside rear tyre (as you do haha!)

our walk this morning through the long grass of

Poolbook Common, under the lee of the Malvern Hills

Sometimes I feel like we're just like a couple of toddlers, let loose to stagger about through the long grass of the common, in the lee of the 700-million-year-old Malvern Hills: two old codgers a bit younger than those hills, certainly, but albeit not by much haha (!)..

As always, we feel suddenly let off the leash, like the Beatles escaping their fans in the "Hard Days Night" film (1964), or like the tots in the Frank Sinatra song, "You Make Me Feel So Young" (1946).

the Beatles escaping their hordes of adoring fans and "making

a break for it" in the 1964 film "Hard Day's Night"

lyrics to the Frank Sinatra song from his album "Songs

for Swinging Lovers, song written in our birth-year of 1946

Except that in our case, it's more like "stumbling across the meadow, struggling to reach down and pick up those forget-me-nots and get back up again".

Still, the principle's the same isn't it! [Not really, Colin, if I'm going to be frank (!) - Ed]

And what with our morning activities in the town and our afternoon in bed, I don't get any time at all today to work on the thing that's most hanging over my head at the moment: the so-called "talk" I'm due to give next month to the local Malvern U3A "History of English" group, all about "Scottish English".

flashback to a few days ago: I showcase

the major source I'm using for my talk: Millar's

seminal "History of the Scots Language"

However, I see from Radio Times that the BBC4 are repeating the first 2 episodes of the 1990's Scottish sitcom "The High Life", so maybe I can get a few column-inches for my talk from that, I'm hoping. So fingers crossed.

21:00 We watch the first two episodes of this Scottish 1990's sitcom "The High Life", which is all about two Scottish flight attendants, Sebastian and Steve, currently restricted to low-prestige "domestic" work, trying to "live the dream" by making the break into the world of Air Scotias "medium-to-high-prestige" international flights.

The show opens with a bang, as sex-mad Steve takes his camp colleague Sebastian to task over his drinking: so far it's close-to-exact "Standard English", albeit heavily-accented, which is nice, and Lois and I feel we're going to be with a chance of following the show's fast-paced back-and-forth dialogue, so fingers crossed!

In this scene, sex-mad Steve (right) accuses his camp colleague Sebastian of being an "alky", ie "lush" in Standard English, so an "alcoholic":

A few minutes later, Steve is showcasing to Sebastian the Scottish positive thinking "bible", that he's just bought:

"Dinnae Be Feart" - getting a bit more Scotch now, ARE we (!).

To be serious for a moment, though, Lois and I have always wondered whether we should go on Saga Holidays cruises or coach-tours, which are especially designed for older travellers.

However, we didn't know that there's apparently a Scottish equivalent to Saga Holidays, called "Gaga Tours", and in this scene we see Sebastian and Steve welcoming a party of Gaga Tours travellers on board their aircraft:

Ah, yes, "stookies" ! "What are they, Colin?", I hear you cry. [Not me - I've gone away to grab 1.5 litres of Lambrusco (!) - Ed]

I'm sure I read about "stookies" in my 'History of the Scots Language book', didn't I? I've got the book to hand, so I check the reference - apparently it's means a plaster cast for e.g. broken arms, legs etc.

Yes, "stookie" is a Scottish word for a plaster cast, and amazingly it comes from the Italian word "stucco". Whoever said that studying obscure books on linguistic history doesn't help you with modern sitcoms (!).

Ah yes, the old "window-box" gag - the oldies are always the besties, aren't they, to put it mildly (!).

Just before take-off the pilot makes another announcement over the tannoy:

As the time approaches for serving breakfast, we hear another announcement from the pilot over the tannoy:

Oops!!!

And later, when it's time for passengers to reclaim their teeth to help them with the famously "chewy" Air Scotia breakfast...

Oops (again) !!!!

Study Notes for Scots language 'aficionados': other Scotticisms Lois and I pick up on during the show include "numpty" (=idiot, now used south of the border also), "black-affronted" (=embarrassed), "dinna fash yersel'" (=don't get annoyed - from French), "cludgie" (=toilet, possibly from 'closet' and 'lodge'), to "greet" (=weep, from Old Norse).

Fascinating stuff isn't it!

From time to time Steward Steve could be accused of being a bit too familiar with some of the plane's female passengers.