Monday November 4th 2024 Do YOU launder YOUR money - every Monday perhaps if you're a traditionalist (!)"

Here's another rather personal question, dear Friends - sorry!!! Have you ever been tempted to launder some bit of spare money you might have had lying around? 

Most of us have, haven't we, at one time or another - but speaking personally for a moment, I have to hold my hand up and confess that my medium-to-long-suffering wife Lois and I have never yet "bitten the bullet": we've just stuck to laundering our very ordinary clothes, unsophisticated as that may seem !!!!

flashback to July: my wife Lois wielding her

washing-line prop for the umpteenth time in

our tiny back garden here in Malvern, Worcestershire

[Warning: some garments have been redacted,

out of shot to the left - just saying !!!!]

I think that, realistically, Lois and I are far too old now to learn to do it for money, at the "ripe" old age of 78, would you believe!!!! Money-laundering is a bit of a young person's game, to be frank. We should have demanded that our parents initiate us, but it's too late now, to put it mildly!!!!

This isn't true, however, for local lad Elton (8), who's learning, very young, how to do it, thanks to his proud dad. Onion News (West Worcestershire) has more on that story:

Awww!!! Imagine that - little Elton from just up the road here, in the lovely Worcestershire village of Nob End, only 8 years old, and already knee-deep in quasi-legal banking operations. 

Awwwwww (again) !!!!!

And today, Lois and I spend a lot of our time trying to prove we're not laundering money - we're just a couple of honest "old codgers", never tempted by a career in terrorism -  simply trying to sell our house here in Malvern and buy one nearer to our daughter Alison, who lives in Headley, Hampshire with husband Ed and their 3 teenage offspring.

The process today has meant, for example, taking pictures of ourselves and our driving licences with our phones and so-called "uploading them" to somebody or other who, weirdly, seems to take an interest in such things. What a crazy world we live in !!!!!

me (78) and my medium-to-long-suffering wife Lois (78) - not terrorists,

but allegedly only "marginally-to-slightly capable of independent living" (!)

And it's become "marginally-to-slightly urgent" now that we've become only "marginally-to-slightly" capable of so-called independent living" (!!!).

the whacky form we've been sent by the solicitors

handling our house purchase in Liphook, Hampshire,

about 5 miles away from our daughter Alison and family

So that's our big story at the moment - but let's put it into perspective, just for 10 seconds or so at least! Some would argue that the upcoming US Presidential Elections are marginally-to-slightly more important, in the longer term anyways [sic] !!!

That's certainly what Lois's copy of "The Week" magazine seems to think - it "plopped" through our letter-box last week while we were away in Hampshire trying to find a suitable house to buy over there.

Lois's copy of "The Week" magazine, that "plopped" through our

letter-box here in Malvern while we were away last week

Each week the magazine gives us a digest of all the big news from home and abroad over the last 7 days. And this edition's feature on "Best of the American Columnists" ends with this chilling warning:

Yikes and double yikes !!!! And my advice - carry on reading my blog at least for the next few days, because I'll be announcing the identity of the next US President right here as soon as the info reaches me, possibly even "pipping to the post" the bigger national and international organs. So watch this space - remember: it's never been more important!!!!

And if you want to know what these mysterious "swing states" are all about, look at how journalist Campbell Robertson explained the mystery to Swedish reader Rebecca I., in today's New York Times.

Fascinating stuff !!!!

Luckily, some light relief also comes in today in an email from Steve, our American brother-in-law, attaching one of the amusing Venn diagrams he monitors for us on a weekly basis on the world wide web, which is nice!

Hahaha! 

And the first one, "patchy connection getting worse the further away you get from the south of England" resonates particularly with Lois and me. You see, it's one of our hobbies to check on the punctuality (or otherwise!) of trains between Hereford and Worcester on the local WMR-GWR line about half a mile from our home, an activity that has become the highlight of many of our daily walks:

flashback to September: "Late again? Oh dearie me!!!"  

- Lois and me checking on the punctuality (or otherwise) of 

the now unreliable 'Hereford-to-Worcester Flyer'

And we're going to be sure to forward that "doozy" of a Venn diagram to our son-in-law Ed, our daughter Alison's husband, who's something high up in one of the UK's railway company conglomerates, including one of the companies that operates on the Hereford-Worcester line.

What madness !!!!!

Luckily there are also further "lighter" stories in the news at the moment. Steve alerted us to this "doozy" in the Guardian, all about the mysterious dialect spoken in the backwoods of Sweden, the language known as "Elfdalian". NB No connection, by the way, with the elf languages referenced in the works of JRR Tolkien - just saying!

JRR Tolkien (right), creator of the concept of "Middle Earth"

with its family of Elfish languages, all unrelated to Elfdalian 

Although it's classified as a dialect of Swedish, Elfdalian isn't as similar to Swedish as you might think. It has existed in a more or less fossilised form since medieval times, and remains in many ways like the original Viking language of Old Norse. A little over 100 years ago, some Elfdalians were still carving their correspondence, post-Christmas thank-you letters, notes to the milkman etc, on so-called "rune-stones", would you believe.

flashback to May 2013: Lois and I visit the Viking fortress

at Trelleborg, Denmark, during the years when our daughter

Alison and family were living in Copenhagen (2012-2018)

Yes, some Elfdalians carried on using runes to write in until about 1909, making them the last people on earth to use this ancient writing system, while, by contrast, the more forward-looking Swedish-speaking Swedes started giving up runes in the 14th century.

typical exchange during a murky financial transaction 

in the "bad lands" of Sweden's backwoods

And whereas the Swedes can normally understand most Danish and Norwegian, they have much more difficulty understanding the Elfdalian speakers in their own country, which is also weird.

Look at this sample text in Elfdalian. 

I don't speak Elfdalian myself, but from my intermediate-level knowledge of Danish, I'd guess that it means something like "Thou couldst not [do it], thou wilt not [do it], and now thou wilt pay for it with thy life. Thou art - effectively - dead!" 

[Swedish: "Du kunde inte, du vill inte, och nu ska du betala det med ditt liv. Du är - sannerligen - död!"]

And here's Colin's super-hint for this week: if an Elfdalian says that sentence to you, it's probably best to start running like the clappers. Just saying !!!!

Colin's super-hint for the week: if an Elfdalian says this to you

I advise you to start running like the clappers. Just saying!!!!

Also, Lois and I didn't know that the Swedes in earlier centuries were very keen to make Swedish above all into the country's dominant Nordic language. They fiercely suppressed the use of Danish and Norwegian bibles within their borders, confiscating all copies found, while allowing unrestricted use of Finnish and Estonian bibles, two of the other minority languages also spoken in Sweden. Finnish and Estonian are not Nordic, you see, and so were not considered a threat.

Fascinating stuff, isn't it!!! [If you say so! - Ed]

Will this do????

[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]

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