It's what's inside that counts

Save the wrapping paper, save the world

Climate is changing. Resources are not inexhaustible. There will be generations after ours, and we have to leave them an inhabitable earth.

We therefore reuse the wrapping paper of our Christmas presents. The presents are opened carefully using a pair of scissors in order not to tear the paper. The paper is then solemnly folded and carefully and put in bags (mentally marked “good conscience”) and stored for reuse the following year.

 We are a large family and for Christmas we were 16 people. The average taking must have been around 15 presents for everyone. Every present is opened carefully, passed around to be admired and added to the receivers’ stack of presents. Many of them will be probably be put aside never to be looked at again.

My brother-in-law apparently was getting a bit upset with the slow progress, the prospect of the exercise having to be adjourned in order to be continued the following day – which seems to have become our private Christmas tradition - and the general overabundance of socks (after all you only have two feet).

He was in such a hurry to get on with the unpacking that he tore the paper. I looked at him disapprovingly.

- Oh! Come on, he retorted.

- This is like flying supersonic from Europe to New York to go out for an evening meal. Walking two blocks from the hotel to the restaurant to save fuel, and then look deridingly at people arriving from their New York home in a taxi.

Secretly I tend to agree with him. The less wrapping paper that is used again, the better for the world. That is, if new wrapping paper is not used instead.

 

Four Vegetarians and a Muslim for Xmas

It has been confirmed. The guest list for Christmas includes four vegetarians and a Muslim. The family is growing. The young ones have chosen their own ways of life, and some have found their partners for life outside the social circles of their parents.

 

We have all been together before. And we have had a fine time together. Our own diet has already changed over the years. Cutting back on meat - even a couple of days every week with vegetarian meals. No problem – well, no BIG problem. 

But Christmas Dinner! Traditions rule when it comes to celebrating Christmas. Roast duck or roast pork is tradition. Quorn and tofu is found nowhere in the Holiday recipes passed on by the Grannies. Pork was a predominant nutritional element in my own family’s many days of Christmas feasting. Alcoholic brewerages were by no way banned.

 

Well, anyway. Christmas should maybe not only be about eating and drinking. The table is as much the people around it as the food upon it. So let’s celebrate family and friendship. Old traditions die, new traditions are born.

 

The other night, In an absurd dream, I saw myself outside the church, waiting for people to come out after the mass. Finally my wife is there. What’s the news? I ask. “It's a boy, and his is a vegetarian”, she said.

So, COEXIST AND EAT WHAT'S ON YOUR PLATE.

Men Multitasking (with eyes closed)

Life is not was it was. Especially not, if you are a male.

Our contribution to childcare, cleaning and cooking has increased tremendously with the success of the women’s liberation movement. Fair enough, the couple should share the burdens of running the household.  And, admittedly, the women still do most of the work when it comes to shopping. What would the wardrobe look like without a woman in the house? And would there be one?

But there’s another reason for the increase in our burden.  The multitude of electronic appliances. Although many of them claim to be “intuitive”, only the cell phone and the credit card machine seem to be truly intuitive in the female sense of the word. The others are the man’s domain.

Try to think of the hours spent sorting out problems with computers, satellite receivers, the setting up of television sets, installation of game consoles etc. Add to this the maintenance of cars, often two in a household, and garden machinery. And of course the bigger houses we live in now. And we have, most of us, many more consumer goods than our parents had.

But all this has come at a price. We have less free time than our dads had.

We will have to start multitasking to cope. The women claim that they do that much better than we do. Maybe if we could learn it, someday it would again be politically correct to be man, and we would be accepted as equal partners.

I have started. Today I charged a phone AND a laptop, while AT THE SAME TIME having a nap on the couch.

I can’t wait to tell my wife.

 
PS: I shouldn’t have. And we will have been in our graves many years, before we will be politically correct, I should add.

Images in Words

Here is a quote from a great novel: She took out a picture of her daughter to show it to him. “No tell me what she looks like in words” he said. (From To the End of the Land, written by David Grossman).
 

How do you render in words what is depicted in lines and colours? It isn't easy, is it? Pictures don't say anything, the show something.
 

There is no exact verbalisation. A computer programme could perhaps convert a picture into other forms of data – splitting it into millions of pixels, each of them with a specific mixture of cyan, magenta and yellow. But it would not give any meaning – unless for another computer, which could recreate it as an exact copy of the original.
 

A description of a picture would be different for every person who made the attempt. It would to some degree convey the attitude and feelings of the one making the attempt. It might be a faithful, reproduction – but not an exact one.
 

Can words convey things that an image cannot? Something more than a precise mechanical representation? Something with a human touch to it?
 

And in the opposite direction. Words into images. You read a book, and in your mind you translate the words into pictures of characters, landscapes and situations. Different pictures for every reader.


I remember visiting an old castle. I looked at one of the paintings on a wall. A strange landscape and strange animals. Some big grey animals with a long peculiar nose, some spotted animals with a long neck. They looked like nothing I had seen before. I realised that it was a very old painting, probably painted on the basis of a verbal description by someone who had been in Africa.
 

If a story is made into a film, the pictures will already have been created for you. And they are the same for everyone.
 

Pictures of the Prophet Muhammad are not allowed. There must be billions of them in the minds of the believers.

 

 

Don't eat it, it's German!

I was born in Denmark and grew up in Denmark.

 

It was only a few years after the German occupation of the country.  In school we were lead to understand that Germany equalled marching, discipline and blind obedience of orders. After the War many people took great care to show that they did not like the Germans. Maybe they had neglected doing it during the war. After all, it could be very dangerous. Some of the dogs were even taught not to eat the lump of sugar at their feet, if told that it was “German”.

England, on the other hand, represented humour, humanity, nobleness, chivalry and in general everything good in this world.

This was the general view which my generation grew up with.

There was one person, however, who never said anything negative about the Germans. It was my father.  He had been in the resistance during the war, fighting the Nazis. He had shown his attitude during the war, and therefore felt no great need after the war to show that he was on the right side.

Fortunately you grow wiser with age. I have had the opportunity to get to know Germany and the Germans better.  I have realised that they are just like the rest of us. Would we have had the bravery to react differently from them under the same circumstances?

Kennedy said he was "ein Berliner". We are all Germans.

 

NB! As for our "free" choice of allegiances in times of war and occupation I can warmly recommend Sofi Oksanen's novel Purge (takes place in Estonia).

Nationalists without Borders

When are we most nationalistic? Maybe when we are living abroad.  

When you meet with your fellow contrymen, you will soon start reminiscing about your home country. How everything worked more smoothly there. How the food was better. How the weather was better. How your own Church or religion is superior to that of your host country. How people at home were so much more open-minded and tolerant. 

You are happy to have an occasion to speak your own language, and you take much more care to do it correctly and without the use of foreign loan-words you would use at home. You even dig up the word for “fuck” that once existed in your own language before the globalisation of the English word. 

Maybe it is like that for everyone. A sort of protection against the foreign and unknown. 

I heard a talk with an Arab girl on the radio. Her parents had emigrated to Northern Europe. She was born there. She grew up in what can probably best be described as a “ghetto”. She had a strict upbringing. Muslim customs and morality were scrupulously adhered to. Muslim  food was prepared in accordance with all the old rituals. The children were protected from the loose morality of the youths of the new country.

As a teenager she had the opportunity to stay with relatives in her parents’ village for at period of time. To her surprise she found that life was much more relaxed there. Things were not so strict. The old way of life, which her parents had cultivated and cherished in their new country, no longer existed in the same form in the old country. 

Maybe our “colonies” abroad turn into museums of national virtues as surviving only in the memory of those of us, who did not witness the change. 

On the other hand, maybe this is not so bad as it sounds. When we go to our home country on holidays, we are no longer nationalistic. We then, fortunately, become international citizens with an understanding of the people of the world in their multitude. The nationalists are now those who stayed at home. Within their borders.

To share what you do not have

Here’s a little story. It is about human nature. I have heard it in different disguises.

This is one of them: To homeless, destitute vagabonds are sitting on a bench in the park. They are talking about the world and its imperfections.

One of them says: “if only people would share, this could be a wonderful world with plenty for everybody. If I were a rich man and had two houses, I would give you one of them. And If I had two cars, one of them would be for you. If I could afford to go to the finest restaurant, you would be my guest. I’m sure you feel the same way. If, for example, you had two shirts, I’m sure you would give one of them to me.”

“No”, the other one says.

The first one looks at him in astonishment. “But why not?” he asks.

- “Because I do have two shirts.”

The direction (and misdirection) of solidarity

In my town there are basically two kinds of socialists:

- those who think that it is unjust, that the neighbour has a bigger car than they have

- those who think that it is unjust, that the neighbour can’t afford a car as nice as the one they have.

Solidarity can be with those who have less than you, or it can be with those who have more than you - in the latter case there's another name for it, which I can't remember at the moment.

Sunday Bloggers

In the old days, when I was still a boy, my parents took me and my brother to Church every Sunday. The organ was playing, psalms were being sung and prayers said. And we had to be dressed in our Sunday’s best, and our hair had to be combed (if not we might have continued this practice for a few more years).
 

It was before Hollywood took over from the Holy Church to teach us about good and evil.  

The best part of the performance was the live blogger. He must have had another name at the time, but it is so many years ago, that I have forgotten about it. He was speaking from a bloggers’ stand. A so-called pulpit, if my memory serves me right. Every Sunday he would, on the basis of a section from the Bible, deliver a live, oral blog on the morals of our everyday lives. Why it was important to forgive, why you would be happier giving than receiving, why you shouldn’t judge other people, why you shouldn’t envy other people, why you shouldn’t blame your faults on others and a load of other edifying stuff.  A new blog every Sunday – all year round.

 

It was a Church and it was about religion, but what I took with me was the humanism. Not the importance of God, but the importance of people and the way we behave to each other. Maybe this was not intended, but I think for many of my generation it worked that way.

The Music didn't Stop for Red

We all have certain pieces of music which we connect with certain places.
 

When I hear Roadhouse Blues played by the Doors, I am seeing streets in suburban London passing by swiftly, semi-detached redbrick houses in the sunshine and lots of black people in the streets. I am feeling the swerve of the car as we go through a roundabout, and I am being cooled on a hot summer’s day by the air drawn in through the open sliding doors of a Comer van.

The year is 1970. I was seventeen. Together with a friend I was hitchhiking in northern Europe. We had made it to London, and it was when we were leaving London that we had the chance of getting a lift with a tradesman.

We had a small cassette recorder with us and in London we had just bought this new Doors record, Morrison Hotel. The driver noticed our recorder and asked for some music. We listened to it for the first time.

“Turn it up”, the driver said. “More”, he added.  And with the volume at maximum we drove through the suburbs of London.  The first track was Roadhouse Blues. I think we listened to the whole record twice, before we were dropped near a motorway from where we could look for a lift to the coast and a ferry to the Continent.

To this day, this song brings pictures of driving through London suburbs in hot summer sunshine to my mind.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XWQrt00_NM

The Demoralizing Effect of Roadside Speed Indicators

The legs felt good. Of course I was tired, but I felt I was still able to put quite some force into it. Had been on my racing bike for about two hours and was getting close to home. I felt strong and good.

That’s when I heard the voice in my head – the inner commentator set off: 

 

And here’s the Sky train. They are keeping a tremendous pace to secure this stage for Cavendish. But what’s that. Who’s that on the other side of the road? It’s Pulo! Pulo looks to be taking this stage. Isn’t it just amazing? He won the time trial, he took two of the toughest mountain stages. He has the Yellow Jersey, he has the Polka Dot Jersey, and if he gets this stage, he can add the Green Jersey to his collection. Isn’t it just fantastic!

And bear in mind. All this after being his country’s top goal scorer at the soccer world championships earlier in the summer. Who doesn’t remember how he was changing from this football outfit into this bicycling outfit, hanging high in the air after being parachuted over the starting area for the Tour de France prologue in order to be in time for the Grand Départ? The crowd is going to love .......

I noticed a light flashing at the roadside. It wasn’t the photographers. It was an amber light. And there was a sign saying:

Vous roulez à 22 km/h. Or in English : you are moving forward at a speed of 22 kilometres an hour. After this sign there was another sign. Heimdorf it said.

I was back where I belonged.

The Sound of Europe Changing

Not long ago I was on a ferry –crossing from Dover to Dunkerque.

We were welcomed over the ferry’s intercom system. Safety instructions were given.

First in English. Then in French (after all we were on a crossing to France). Then in POLISH and, as the last language, in German.
 

It does not seem many years ago that we looked at unfamiliar number plates when going down the German motor ways, and discovered that they were Polish. And now Polish is slowly becoming a part of the public European soundscape. Most of us do not understand the language, but many of us have reached the point where we can identify it.

So, welcome to the sound of Polish. And to the Poles, of course.

Congratulations Sir, you're pregnant

My father told me this story.

It must have taken place in the 50’s or 60’s.

A professional cyclist had a call from the anti-doping authorities. Congratulations Sir, you’re pregnant, the official said on the phone.

He had been in a race and had been selected for doping control. This included an analysis of his urine. And now they had the result.

This is what had happened. During the race he had a small bag with a urine sample on him. It was fixed under one of his armpits so as to attain his body temperature.

The sample, of course, was not his urine - It was his wife’s.

NB! I don’t know if this is a true story. Does anybody know?

A Heart Percieved

“And what do you want to do, when you finish your studying?”, she asked. She was an old woman and had been invited as a guest lecturer. She had talked about her life. She had been the first woman in the country to be allowed to study medicine and practice as a doctor. She had been in the resistance, and she had been in the socialist movement. A very interesting story of hardship, struggle and progress had she delivered.

We were standing together the three of us. As soon as the lecture was over, we had left to buy some bottles of beer for the evening. It was on our way back to the students’ hall that we came across her, and she stopped us and addressed us.

“And what do you want to do, when you finish studying”, she asked.

John was the first to answer. “I want to study medicine like you.  When you see the misery and suffering in the Third World, you realise that you could really make a difference by working there.”

Peter went next. He wanted to study biology. The consumer society was devastating the world. Global Warning was not on the agenda yet, but there were of course many other causes for alarm. “We need somebody in this field, who do not just work to amass as much money as possible, but who wants to work in the interest of the environment”, he concluded.

She then turned and looked at me. I couldn’t resist and said: “I don’t know yet, but I really don’t care, as long as there’s some money in it.”

“You’re lying”, she said. “I can see straight through you. You think with your heart, not your brain.”

The Star or the Story

 Some years ago I listened to a talk show on a French radio station. The guest was a well-known film director.

He was asked about his thoughts on film critics and reviewers. He didn’t think highly of them.  Here is what he did, whenever a new film of his was released:

He would go to a cinema. He would not go on one of the first days after a release, but would wait till the critics, columnists and other professionals had been to see the film.  He would wait until the “ordinary” film-goers filled the auditorium.

He would not go in to watch the film, but would wait in the hall outside the auditorium for people to come out after the show. He would stand a bit aside, so as not to be noticed. And then he would listen to people talking together when leaving the cinema.

If they said things like “Oh! X is such a fantastic actor. He has never been better than in this movie.” Or “I really love Y. Her performance was one worthy of an Oscar”, he knew he had not succeeded in making the film, he wanted to make.

If, on the other hand, they said things like: “How could a mother do this to her own daughter?”. Or “A man like that should not be allowed to walk around freely”. Or “I thought she would never have the courage to tell him the truth”. He knew that he had succeeded  in making his film the way he wanted it.

NB! I forgot, which director it was. Does anybody know? Could it have been Claude Chabrol?

Nearaway Latvia

What are the names of the capitals of Estonia, of Lithuania, of Latvia? – I didn’t know either.

I was born in 1952. When I was growing up, I learned about London. Knew the names of the squares, the monuments and the museums. Pictures from there were impressed on my mind. I knew the streetscapes of Paris from French films. I knew the atmosphere of New York from television series. I read books written in Berlin. I saw paintings exhibited in Amsterdam. I drank wine made in Italy. The music I listened to was progressive pop from England and the US. My cultural landscape was the West.

 

And I was so concerned with the world. With the vile ways of the West. With the injustice in the US. With the war in Vietnam. With apartheid in South Africa. I shouted “Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Minh", I demonstrated against the deployment of US missiles in Europe.

 

The people of Prague must have looked on in wonder.

Eastern Europe was so close, bud we did not see it. It was not on our minds. Existed only in reality. East of imagination.

I didn’t know the first thing about nearly neighbouring Latvia and what lay beyond. I was too busy being ignorant and arrogant, too busy trying to make the world a better place.

And the world became a better place. Not everyone was blind.

Please accept my apology.

NB!

Postscript added April 2013: I have just finished reading The Memory Chalet by Tony Judt. Chapter XIV (Revolutionaries) is very pertinent to this blog entry.

 

Why men snore and women don't

He had been up a few times during the night. Wasn’t sleeping well. He did not switch on the light. Didn’t want to wake up his wife or his two sons, who were sleeping in the room next to their bedroom.

He must, however, have made enough noise to wake up his youngest. Michael peeped out from behind the boys’ room – looking half awake, half asleep.

“Sorry Michael, did I wake you up?” he asked. “The snoring woke me”, he said”. “The snoring woke me”.

“I am sorry”, he said, “I will try my best not to snore again.”

“It sounded like Mummy snoring”, Michael remarked. “Women don’t snore!”, I informed him. He is his mother’s star, and she is his idol. He seemed to accept it, and his head disappeared behind the door again.

The next morning they all slept late. It was a Saturday. His wife had some friends over for lunch, so he took the boys out for some hours. They went down to the marina to look at the boats and have an ice cream.

They were sitting on a pontoon enjoying the son, talking about school and their friends at school.

A man was dosing in the cockpit of one of the yachts. A young woman was videotaping him.

He was snoring.