Camel Seen Through the Eyes of Others

Joe, the American, moved to the Middle East.

He had a good job in a bank, lived in a nice bungalow with a nice swimming pool just outside town, and in general enjoyed his new life.

He did not know anything about the local people, though. He would like to get a bit closer to them and their way of life, so he bought himself a camel and rode it to work in the morning and to his home in the evening.

Everything went well for a while, but one morning the camel wasn't there. It had been stolen.

He went to the police to report the matter, hoping they could him get his stolen camel back.

"What was the colour of your camel?", the police officer asked Joe.

"Well, let me think. Grey or brown or green or something. Actually, I haven't really noticed."

"Did it have one or two humps?"

"Well", Joe hesitated. "I haven't really paid attention to that. You know I just threw my saddle over the back and rode it."

"Was it a male or a female camel?", the officer asked in desperation.

"It was a male", came the prompt answer from Joe.

The officer looked at him in amazement. "How come you know the sex of the camel, as you seem to know nothing else about it?"

"Well that's easy", Joe said. "When I ride down high street every day, I see people pointing and hear them say "look at the dick on that camel!!"".

Rationing may Dammage Your Health

Some people are stubborn. Some people are very stubborn and will hold on to their rights no matter what. My Grandfather was of the latter type - I have been told so by several of his ten children.

He died when I was twelve. He was then in his early eighties. It was at the time when people first started talking - although incredulously - of the possible damaging health effect of smoking.

I had never seen my Grandfather smoke and I asked my Dad if he ever did.

- Well, he did when he was young. Then he stopped when your Aunt Augusta was born - it was too expensive. Then he smoked again from the beginning of the Second World War until 1949.

- Was it because of the war that he started?, I wanted to know.

- I guess you can say that, my Dad answered. You see, tobacco and a lot of other things were rationed during the war. You got coupons you had to hand in, when you bought something, and so you could only buy small quantities, especially of goods like tobacco and coffee. Your Grandfather didn't like other people to get what he was entitled to so he smoked while the rationing was in force and stopped when it was over.

- So don't always stand on your right, he warned me, it might not always be for your own good.

Wanted: Professionals

I was out walking the dog in the early afternoon and came across my Uncle Jack. He was evidently in a good mood and he was smiling.

"I had a stroke of good luck today", he said. "You know the two Persian rugs we got for my second wedding. I have been looking for a long time for some professional cleaners. There are so many around, who don't know how to do it properly, and I don't want them ruined."

"But this morning a saw a van in front of my neighbour's house. Two men were loading a few rugs into the back. I went over to talk to them. They had just set up business, had been properly trained in the right methods of cleaning valuable rugs, and know they had started a small business in a town nearby. They talked professionally about the quality of the rugs, and I decided that those were the men I needed for having my rugs cleaned. They were very friendly and agreed to take my rugs with them right away. I went to my house to get them and put them into the car. They will be ready in two days, and the will be brought to my house without any extra charge. It is nice to come across some real professionals."

I walked on, and came across Uncle Jack's neighbour. He was evidently not in a good mood. 

"What is this world coming to", he asked. "You can't even leave your house for a couple of hours in broad daylight. I went to the bank today, was away for a maximum of two hours and when I came back, my house had been burgled. They must have been professionals. All my oriental rugs have been taken - nothing else."

I should be phoning Uncle Jack, but I keep putting it off.

You Have to Fight

Here's another story from my grandfather. At one time he was working in a sawmill. He was a member of the trade union as everyone else was, as the mill was a closed shop and therefore only took on union members.

Every year the pay and work conditions were fixed in an agreement between the management of the mill and the union. My grandfather at one time was elected as a union representative and took part in the preparations of the demands forwarded to the management ahead of negotiations.

It was before these matters were taken care of by men and women with degrees in economics and business administration. Demands were worked out by the men on the floor. Often in the evening over a glass or two of beer after a long day of hard work. And the agreement were negotiated by the representatives of the men on the floor.

The great day arrived. My grandfather and two other men - one was Carl, the boss of the workers, and the other one was an ordinary representative like my grandfather - went up to the Board Room to negotiate. Their nails were clean and their shirts were white for the occasion.

They sat down at the nice table in the formidable room. Bottled water and real glasses were on the table and the manager opened the meeting.

"We have had a look at your proposals, and I am pleased to say, that we can accept all your demands", he said.

Carl got up. His face had turned red and he looked angrily around the room. "Then they are not high enough" he retorted and left the room, slamming the door. My grandfather and the other representative got up silently and followed him. 

Miracle in thin slices

My grandad was a carpenter. Of the old school. He loved to tell about his time as a apprentice with a master carpenter. It was hard work, long hours and they were treated with little respect.

They were 5 apprentices, and they all received board and lodging in the master carpenter's house. They had the meals together with the master's family, but the apprentices never got the prime cuts or the juiciest pieces. The master's wife was parsimonious.

At breakfast one morning one of the apprentices suddenly cried out: "it's a miracle, I have got my eyesight back!".

"Your eyesight back? What do you mean?", the master asked.

"Well, yesterday I couldn't see the butter on my bread, but today I can see the church tower through my slice of cheese" he said, holding his slice of cheese in front of one of his eyes.

One two many

There are three kinds of people:

Those who are good at mathematics and
those who are not good at mathematics.

Worse to Come

We are back in 1793, in France. It is in the time of the French Revolution. People are being executed, and the means of execution is the guillotine. A cruel way of dying.

It's the wrong place and the wrong time to be an aristocrat. One of those have be apprehended and summarily sentenced to death by the guillotine.

The guillotine has been set up in town square and a crowd has gathered to watch the cruel execution.

The unlucky aristocrat is led to the guillotine by two men. As he makes his way up the seven steps to the platform where the guillotine is erected he stumbles and falls.

"This begins badly", he sneers.

The Right Timing

Bill had a small farm. He was doing well, but he had a problem with large flocks of crows on the farm. He decided to call in a specialist with a rifle to help him getting rid of them.

He found one advertising in the local phone book and called him. Things were arranged. He would come the next day and shoot the crows with his rifle. "What time will you be here?", Bill asked. "At 8 or 9 in the morning", he answered.

The next morning he arrived at the farm with his rifle at 8 in the morning. He was good. He shot a lot of crows, but did not manage to get them all, so they agreed he would come again the next day. "I will be here at 8 or 9", he said.

The next day he arrived at 8 in the morning and finished off the work. Then he sat down with Bill to have a cup of coffee. "You did a good job", Bill told him. "But I noticed that yesterday you put the rifle butt against your left shoulder, while today you put it against your right shoulder. How come?". 

"Well, you see", he answered, "when I wake up in the morning I look at my wife sleeping next to me. If she is sleeping on her left shoulder, I put the butt to my left shoulder. If she is sleeping on her right shoulder, I put it to my right shoulder."

"What if she is sleeping on her back?", Bill wondered.

"If she is sleeping on her back I come at 9", he said.

Always take a bomb

We are going on holiday, me and my wife. And we are going by plane. Normally we go by car, but  this year we are flying. I have always been a little bit afraid of flying. And after we ordered our holiday there have been several accidents and lots of lives have been lost. I am worried.

I talked to Uncle Jack about it.

- Don't worry, it's the safest way to travel, he said.

I was not convinced. I'm afraid a terrorist of some kind will be on board with a bomb.

- What's the probability of that? was his reaction. Think of the thousands of flights everyday. When did you last hear about a bomb on a plane? The probability of someone with a bomb on a plane is extremely small.

I must still have looked dubious, for he added:

- Bring a bomb yourself. The probability of two people bringing a bomb on the same plane is infinitesimal, it is almost non-existent.

Uncle Jack has a solution to every problem.

Mutual Benefit

It was in the early days of tourism. Train lines covered the country, the automobile had made it entrance and more and more people could afford a holiday.

On the west coast of Denmark, in a small fishing village, a small hotel was built, and the wealthy tourists from Copenhagen arrived for their summer vacation. You could tell the tourists from the locals without any problems.

A radio reporter was sent to the place to report on this new phenomenon of tourism on the far away west coast.

"What is there for the tourists to be seen here of extraordinary and amazing things?", he asked an old fisherman.

"Well, for the tourists there are us", he answered, "and for us there are the tourists", he added.

Improve Yourself

I signed a petition today. Don't let the Rich ruin the Riviera! It was a petition against a new marina. A group of people want to build a small harbour, mainly for pleasure craft, in the small village by the sea where we spend our summer holidays. It's incredible. Think of the extra traffic on the roads leading to the village, and think of the coastline where our cottage is. It will never be the same again. And think of the noise of boat engines and people hanging out at the harbour drinking beer till late at night. and what might happen to the value of our cottage. And just now when we have had the swimming pool installed and have started building a garage for the 4 wheel drive.

I signed the petition and accepted to take some sheets to have more people sign the petition. I managed to get a few. It was mostly women signing. But when I asked my wife she wouldn't sign. Her father had a small sailing boat and I guess she has always imagined that some day we might have one too. And the a small harbour in the neighbourhood would come in handy. And I suspect that she thinks that with more people in the village, there will also be more shops.

I also brought the petition round to Uncle Jack for him to sign. "This is you chance to help make the world a little bit better", I said.

He looked at the petition. "The only sure way to improve the world", he said "is for everyone to try to improve his own behaviour and not the behaviour of others."

Special by Choice, Normal by Nature

Paul is a young man. A student.

He is not like everybody else. He listens to fusion jazz, his clothes are from charity shops, by principle he doesn't watch films made in Hollywood, he's a vegetarian, he reads Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. In his free time he studies Icelandic, and he spends his holidays in Denmark. He loves nature (although it is more a moral love of nature than actual contact with the thing itself). He even considers converting to Hinduism or painting his bicycle yellow. He is a truly interesting person.

I met John the other day. Paul is our mutual friend. We were all in the same class in school. I asked John how Paul was doing. "Oh, he's doing fine", John said. I met him a cocktail party a few days ago. He has decided to change from languages to law. There's more money in that he claims. And you wouldn't recognise him. He wears fancy clothes now. He is off to Monaco and the French Riviera tomorrow, for a holiday."

I must have looked a bit perplexed. This didn't sound like the Paul I knew.

"He has a new girlfriend now", John explained. "She studies business administration and her father is a manager in a big company. And she is really beautiful - hot and sexy." 

While you Wait

Bill was about to go to Europe. His parents and their parents and their parents before them had all been farmers in Iowa, and no one had ever travelled outside the US. Or that is, almost no one. His great grandfather had fought in Europe in World War II. He had been with Eisenhower in Operation Husky - the Allied invasion of Sicily. He had be wounded about a month after the invasion and returned to his fathers farm i Iowa.

Bill had promised his great grandfather that he would visit Sicily, the island of which he had heard so many stories, and the beauty of which had been praised by his great grandfather. Before leaving for Europe he went to see his great grandfather in the board and care home where he was now living.

"Can I bring you anything from Europe, anything from Sicily?", he asked the old man. His great grandfather thought for a minute, got up, went to his chest of drawers, opened the top drawer, and started searching. At last he found what he was looking for and went back to where Bill was sitting. In his hand he had a small piece of cardboard. "It is maybe ridiculous", he said, "but when I was in Sicily I took a pair of spare boots to a small shop to have them repaired. I never got the chance to collect them again though. It was a small shop in Agrigento, and the owner was a very nice young man who understood English. They were marvellous boots and I would be very happy to have them back"

He handed Bill the small piece of cardboard. It had a number printed on it and the name and address of a shop (a calzolaio) in Agrigento. Bill was fond of his great grandfather and said that of course he would try to collect the boots, but he knew that it would be impossible.

Nevertheless, a month later he found himself in Agrigento. He remembered the small piece of cardboard his great grandfather had given him. Thanks to his gps he soon found the street marked on the piece of cardboard. It was a narrow alleyway in the old part of town, and much to his surprise he found an old shop with a sign saying "Calzolaio".

He went in. Maybe the owner could tell him something about the previous owners of the shop. At first the shop seemed empty. Then an old man slowly got of from a chair behind the counter. Bill handed him the small piece of cardboard, thinking it could be fun seeing how he would react to it. 

The old man put on his glasses which were hanging in a string around his neck. He looked a the piece of cardboard and slowly made his way out back. He was gone a very long time. Finally he came back. He handed Bill the piece of cardboard and said, "they will be ready Friday".

Happily Discontented

- It's too bad. Most people just doesn't care about animals. All they care about is making money, and then more money. It makes me SO angry. They just don't understand that animals has a soul too. That animals need love.

And she had another sip of tea, and she fed her dog another biscuit.

- And then they charged 50 euro! 50 euro for one hour of work. They just came along with their van and the machine and within an hour they had finished and left. Greed! Greed is the most horrible thing in the world.

And she had another sip of tea, and she fed her dog another biscuit.

- And that lady won 10 million euro! It's not fair. She already owns a house and a convertible. All I have is the house that I inherited from my parents. And a 5-year old Volkswagen. And I won only the second prize in the lottery. Only 1 million euro. It's not fair!

And she had another sip of tea, and she fed her dog another biscuit -

and she lived happily discontented ever after.

Higher Manual Education

One, two or three kisses on the cheek or a handshake. There are many ways to greet friends, friends of friends or distant relatives.

Friends from Southern Europe sometimes blame those of us from Northern Europe for being too cold, because we do not do the social kiss, but shake hands in stead.

I don't agree. I think I get much more from eye contact and, possibly, a smile, and that a handshake can express at least as much friendliness, empathy and compassion as a kiss on the cheek. In the final analysis I suppose it depends on what you grew up with. 

Now science has shown that a handshake express even more than we thought. Scientists say in a recent study that the strength of a person’s grasp may also be one of the most useful ways to measure people’s true age. And not only that, but also your level of education (“We found that based on this survey, a 65-year-old white women who had not completed secondary education has the same handgrip strength as a 69-year-old white women who had completed secondary education ...").

So from now on when you meet someone with a very firm handshake you can be sure of one of two things:

1) Either the person in question has been to university, or

2) the person in question has read this blog.

The Local Angle

Catastrophes of all kinds hit the headlines. Both the smaller local papers and the big national papers.

In 1912 an Aberdeen paper ran the headline Aberdeen Man Drowned at Sea.

The same event was also reported in the big papers. Here one of the headlines was The Titanic has Sunk.

Mad I and II Missing

George I and II were OK, but George III was mad. Or rather, he became mad. So mad that sometimes he had to be tied up.

This, of course, is great material for fictional treatment. In 1991 a play was staged in London. The title of the play was The Madness of George III, and it was written by Alan Bennett.

In 1994 the play was made into a movie. The original title, however, was changed. It was no longer The Madness of George III. It was changed to The Madness of King George. 

Why was that? Well, at least according to urban myth, the reason was that the producers were afraid that people wouldn't bother to see The Madness of George III if they hadn't seen I and II.

For Whom the Lights Beep

My Uncle Jack is a tourist guide. He takes visitors around the old brewery and tells them all about how beer was brewed, and he knows the names and uses of all the old utensils and machinery. He can also tell you stories about all the former owners of the place and of the people who worked there.

He is a properly qualified guide, and to prove it he wears a blue badge indicating that he is a tourist guide.

One day after having shown visitors round the old brewery he walked home through town. He had forgotten to take off his badge, and while waiting at a zebra crossing for the green man to come on, he was approached by a lady, an American tourist.

- "Excuse me", she said. "I see that you are a guide. I have been wondering about these pedestrian crossings. I can understand the green and red man, that's like in the US. But why does the beeping come on, when the pedestrians have a green light? What is that for?"

- "It's for the blind", Uncle Jack answered. "In this way they can hear when the light is green."

The lady looked perplexed for a moment, then said with disdain: "In the US we don't let blind people drive!"

Now my Uncle Jack never forgets to take off his badge when off duty.

Smiles and More

Everybody going to work by car in the morning knows how boring it can be. Congestion everywhere and stressed parents trying to get their kids to school on time. To make it more interesting I started to time my drive. By cutting corners, using a free lane to get ahead and then edging my way into the lane I should have been in, not letting anybody out from a side road etc. I managed to cut nearly two minutes of my half hour drive to the office.

But that also got boring in the end. Now I have devised a new strategy. I count smiles from other drivers and road users. I let another car get into the line (1 smile), I do not enter the intersection until I am sure I can make it across before the light turns red (1 smile), I give way to cars waiting to enter from a side road (1 smile), I let cars enter the nearly blocked roundabout (1 smile), and there are many other ways to make life easier for your fellow road user.

My record so far is 7 smiles. My target is to get to 10 smiles on a drive to work before the summer holiday. Can you beat that? And the strange thing is, I actually also have managed to get to work as fast as I used to.

And a smile to start the day on is a nice thing. One day a lady even blew me a finger kiss.

It's not just about the Computer

I was helping my daughter with her computer. Buying a program on line and installing it. Everything seemed to go smoothly, that is until the program was installed and we wanted to try it out. We had to enter a code - and the code provided did not work. What a nuisance. Shut down, reinstall - still no access to the program. We tried this and we tried that till we no longer remembered what we had tried. I think you have all had that experience.

Last resort. We had to call Support. I dread calling these helplines - but what can you do. I had a cup of coffee and a cigarette to brace myself up and dialled the support number.

Press 1, if you want assistance in French, press 2, if you want ........ etc.

And after that I got through right away. But that wasn't the only surprise. A sympathetic female listened patiently to my description of the problem. She asked calmly in clear and perfect English about some further details. She was given remote access to my computer (after politely informing me about the implications of this). Then she explained what she was doing as she competently went through some settings and account statuses. It turned out, as I believe is usually the case, that I - i.e. the client - had not paid enough attention to the details and had tried to open an older, preinstalled and not-activated version of the same program.

The problem was soon solved and she offered to help with default settings for some of the programs. Great.

Even those of you who are not and has never been married know that to help others solve a problem all too often implies impatiently letting them know how stupid they are.

But not so this time. The whole session took place in a calm, professional and friendly atmosphere. I had the feeling she was genuinely interested in helping me solving my problem. She made my day. Competence counts.

I felt in a good mood. I decided - against my inner nature and guiding principles - to be nice to everybody (at least for the rest of the day and maybe the first part of tomorrow). "Moien!", I said to everybody when I was out bicycling in the afternoon. (Moien is Luxembourgian for It's a beautiful world, I love you, have a nice day!). 

So Moien to all of you.

That's what happens when you come across friendly and competent people.

Microsoft rules! Long live big corporations.

NB! I hope they give her a big banker's bonus. Bill Gates would have done worse without people like her.

Cheating

"Hi handsome! Do you want to come home with me?", she asked. "You look so sexy. We could have some fun and make love. Come on now! it will be so great". 

"She" was a gorgeous girl. Blond, sexy and at least 20 years younger than me. And she came up to me just like that, when I was walking in a street downtown. The unimaginable suddenly became imaginable.

"I'm sorry", I said. "I am married, and I love my wife very much, and I would never cheat on her. You are a very beautiful girl, though, and I'm sure you will have no problem finding somebody else, even somebody younger and more handsome. But thank you for asking, I do feel a bit flattered. I wish you a very pleasant day. Enjoy the lovely weather."

She then laughed and told me that everything was being recorded by a hidden camera. Someone was trying out how sexual harassment would work if applied by females on males, and not in the more common opposite direction. And it was going to be shown on television if I accepted. I accepted without hesitation.

I told Uncle Jack about it. "Wow", he said, "that's the perfect answer for a hidden camera. You were lucky. I'm glad I wasn't there. It could have been embarrassing. But it doesn't sound like you, what happened."

I had to admit that I had been having a coffee at a cafe opposite and had seen the crew at work.

"That's cheating", he said.

April by the Fire

April sat down by the fire. She was soon joined by by June and May. July came, followed by August. February, January, September, beautiful October, November, March and December also turned up and sat down by the fire.

 

This was an official meeting. The only point on the agenda was to divide the year between the ladies present. A long a tedious debate followed. At long last an agreement was reached. June got the days of many hours of sunshine, July and August got the days of hot weather, October the days of falling leaves, December the much loved Xmas season, etc. etc.

 

They were about to leave, when they noticed that April sat sleeping by the fire. She had been asleep for a long time, and no days had been allocated to her. She was very upset, but May promptly offered her three of her own days. The others followed suit, and all offered her a few days from their own month and soon she had a full month of her own.

 

And that's the April that we have come to know and love.

Parental Guidance

James was twelve years old. One day, walking home from school, he saw that new posters had been put up everywhere. On lamp posts, on walls and in the shop windows. They were bright and colourful and they announced that a travelling show would visit town for two weeks. Cowboy Girls - The Hottest Show on Road the posters proclaimed. And there were pictures of beautiful horses and young suntanned, blond girls.

 

That night at dinner he asked his parents if he could go and see the show. "No!" his dad said, "it's not something for you. You would see things you ought not see."

 

James, of course, was disappointed, and for the next couple of days he pleaded with his parents for a ticket to the show. But his dad was adamant: "No, you would see things you ought not see."

 

However, being a resourceful young man, James managed to get a free entrance by helping carrying seat and benches into the big tent, when the travelling show arrived in town. And he went to see the show. Only trouble was, that one of the neighbours had seen him go in and had told his parents.

 

Dinners were quite silent for a couple of days. One evening after dinner his mother, however, said that maybe it wasn't all that bad after all. "And what did you see, that you ought not see?", she asked with the curious smile of a mother following her son's advance from a child to an adolescent. 

 

James looked down. "I saw Dad", he said quitely.

Harassment at Work

This story goes back to the 60s.

 

The economy was on the up. The consumer society was under way, and people started spending after the meagre immediate post war-years.

 

Many young people saw an opportunity. One of them was Tim. He soon realised that a television set would be a must in all homes in the years to come, and he raised money in the bank to set up a shop in High Street. Televisions, radios and records.

 

Business was good, more than good. Tim The Telly Man his shop was named. Soon he had to employ extra staff, the shop was extended and he became the symbol of the modern entrepreneurial man in town. And he got himself a fast and fancy new estate car for deliveries to customers. You just saw the back of Tim The Telly Man, it said in big bright letters on the back of the car. Thinks were moving fast.

 

One thing wasn't moving so fast, though. It was Tim's father. At that time I worked in a furniture factory in town, and one of my fellow workers was Tim's old man. He was not in the production line properly speaking, but moved around the shop floor to do the odd jobs of cleaning, small repairs and applying a few drops of oil or a bit of grease to the machinery. And he didn't move fast. Not at all.

 

One day I noticed a grin on the other workers' faces, when Tim's father was in the vicinity.  When he slowly made his way past where I was standing, I found out why. A sheet of paper had been taped to his back: You just saw the back of Tim The Telly Man's Dad, it said in big bright letter.

 

This shows that harassment at work goes back at least to the days of black and white television, if not further, and that behind every son - sometimes far behind - there's a father.

You are going to die soon

An elderly couple turned up at the doctor's. The man had not been feeling well for some time, and his wife had persuaded him to come along to see a doctor.

 

The doctor examined the man. It was a thorough examination, and the doctor looked a bit worried. He prescribed some medicine and wished him good luck.

 

The wife took the doctor aside. "I want to know the truth", she said. "Will he make it?".

 

"It's a very rare and serious condition", the doctor said. "It doesn't look good at all. There is one chance, however. If you try to make his life pleasant he might make it. Let him eat good steaks, don't make him do the dishes, don't take him shopping, let him watch soccer on the telly on Saturdays, let him have his afternoon nap in peace, and above all, don't nag him. And remember, if you don't follow my advice, he will probably die soon."

 

The couple drove home in silence. At dinner the man finally had enough nerve to speak about the visit to the doctor's. "I saw that you talked to him", he said. "Tell me what did he say?"

 

"Oh, Honey, it's so terrible. He said that you are going to die soon."

High-Vis

- it's not moving, is it?

 

- no, it isn't. Or wait, maybe it moved a little bit. No probably not, just my imagination.

 

- yes, now I'm sure, it is moving. What is it?

 

I was standing with my Uncle Jack on the roadside outside his house gazing at something at the far end of a field.

 

- a small fluorescent yellow spot, moving slowly along the road", Uncle Jack ventured. "Then it's an old guy on a rusty bicycle in a headwind. I have seen this before, in the summer.

 

And he was right. The spot turned on to the road where we were standing. And as the spot approached we could see that it was indeed an old man on a rusty bicycle, and not just any old man - it was my dad.

 

I now remembered that my Mum gave him a high visibility bicycling vest for his birthday some years ago. She had for several years been after him for not taking care of his health. She had urged him to take up bicycling as he did when he was younger. He had maintained that it was not safe with the traffic these days. Too may drivers not paying attention on the roads. It was safer to sit inside the Pub. That's why she had bought him a fluorescent, yellow bicycling vest, which had been highly visible in his closet for years, but he had pretended not to see it.

 

- you've become sporty, Jack said. Who are you trying to impress?

 

- I'm not trying to impress anybody, he answered. I've been invited to Bill's anniversary. Bill's the stingy sort of person, and John said I had better bring my bicycle as there would be far between the drinks.

 

Motivation is important if you want to get fit. And I suppose that one kind of motivation can be as good as any other kind.

When Death Hits the Hardest

The day my mother died I felt relief. She died much too young, and she had been a marvellous mother and a wonderful person. She was loved by everybody.

 

She died of cancer. The last year of her life was misery. She knew she was going to die. She had pain, she suffered, and she feared the end. The last months of her life was spent in hospital. Gradually and mercilessly the cancer did its horrid work. At the end she was on morphine most of the time.

 

I was a university student at the time. Living in another town and busy with my own life and myself, and my future, as I believe most young people are. I did not go to see her in hospital every weekend, because it was a journey of several hours, and I had work to do (or was it parties I wouldn't miss?).

 

I was there the day the died though. The hospital staff had let us know that the end was imminent. And I felt relief when it was over.

 

I felt ashamed of myself. I felt relief, but I also felt I ought to be grieving my heart out for the wonderful mother I had lost.

 

Later that year I passed my exams. Every time I got a good result, an imaginary conversation started inside my head. I was imaging how I would pass on the news. "I told you not to worry, I can do it Mom .......". Oops!. There was no Mom, there was a void where she once was. The one I would most have liked to please by doing well was not there. The one I most wanted to tell the good news was not there. That's when her death hits the hardest. That's when the real tears came.

 

Later in life when getting my first job, getting married, becoming a father etc., I have always thought of my mother and how I would have liked to share those moments with her.

I used to hate it ...

When I was a teenager in the 60s I loved Pop Music. When a new record was released by the Beatles or the Rolling Stones all the boys in the class would gather at the house of the only one who had access to a record player to listen to the new record over and over again.

 

And with a bit of luck we might hear it on the radio one day. I was living in Denmark, and Danish Radio was a state monopoly. You couldn't just let people listen to anything they liked. People had to be "educated" in good taste. And good music taste was defined by progressive social democrats, most of them fascinated with jazz music. And being employed by the state they would stay forever, and if someone new got in, it was most likely friends or someone who had been "politcally" approved. Jazz, jazz, jazz was what we got, Pop Music was what we wanted.

 

1 (one) hour every day the was pop music on the air. Not much for a starving ear. Nobody liked to be disturbed during that our.

 

We listened to the radio a lot anyway, because music is nice, even if it is just background music to do homework to. This way we had thousands of hours of jazz music going through our heads. In one ear and out the other. But some of it must have stayed. Sometimes I hear some jazz music now - not on the radio where they now play only Pop Music - and I recognise it. I don't know the titles, I don't know the singers or the musicians, but I recognise the music that have been through my head many times before.

 

I used to hate it, now I love it.

 

Here's an example:

That jazzy sound

F.Listz and M.Ozart

Is there anything like an evening out? Dressing up in formal attire. Going to a restaurant for a nice three-course meal and from there to a concert. Not a rock concert, of course, but a classical piano concert - a recital. The atmosphere, all the concert-goers with expectant smiles on their faces.

 

You go and find your seat. The hall fills up. The light is dimmed. The audience goes quiet. The pianist enters, wearing a tuxedo. We are about to hear the music that have survived for centuries and still speaks to our hearts and stirs our sentiments.

 

Well, if you have not had the opportunity to go lately, I include a link to a great piano concert here:

watch

Mao on the Wall

When I was young we often discussed events in The Second World War. The Holocaust in particular. How could people not know what was going on in the concentrations camps? How could millions of people be exterminated without the world knowing about it? We thought that many people knew, but just didn't have the guts to speak out against it. That they pretended not to know. That they were either ignorant fools or cowards.

 

We were not going to be like that. We were for a world of freedom and social justice. But not the hard line Soviet form of communism, of course. We had pictures of Mao on the walls of our students' rooms.

 

Our children now ask us how could we do it. Mao caused the death of millions of people. We answer that we saw China as the model for a new kind of "soft" communism, a better world for the poor and equality for everybody. They do not understand, how we could ignore the facts. They think that we were either ignorant fools or cowards.

 

One day they will have children themselves. Will they also blame their parents' generation for ignoring the cruel facts of the world and for upholding ideals that lead to the extermination of millions? They will have learned from us, I hope, and not repeat our errors. They will make their own errors, I fear.

 

Time will show.

(Conservatives repeat the errors of the preceding generations, liberals commit new errors).

Convergence

There is nothing like a winter break. To get away from under the grey sky and the icy wind and down south to top up on vitamin D from the sun. So when my wife suggested 5 days in Nice, I was all in.

 

Now we are back again. And we have guests staying with us for a couple of days. Old friends from when we were living in Germany. Of course we had to tell of our trip to Nice.

 

My wife was enthusiastic. There were so many amazing shops and department stores in Nice. They had all the brands you could think of, and the people attending to you were very nice and friendly. There were so many things on offer that we had to buy an extra suitcase to get all our new acquisitions home. And the hotel was nice and clean and the service good.

And good Italian restaurants. At least as good as in Copenhagen and Stockholm.  All in all a very successful trip.

 

I looked at Dieter. "Have you been away this winter?", I asked. "We have been to Helsinki for a weekend", he answered. "And?", I wanted to know. "It's exactly like Nice" he said, "just without the Mediterranean sea and the palm trees".

 

The Final Bottle

Bill was living alone in a little wooden house on the coast of Scotland. He wasn't living a healthy life, way too much whiskey and beer. And a heavy smoker on top of that.

 

One Saturday afternoon he set off for the village pub. It was two miles away, but he took a shortcut along the beach. That was when he noticed a bottle washed up on the shore. There's nothing special about that, but this bottle still had a cork in it. The cork was protruding a little from the opening in the bottle and Bill was not one to leave a bottle like that unexamined.

 

He managed to pull the cork out, but only to find that the bottle was empty. He was about to throw it in the sea, when suddenly there was a sound like some sort of gas flowing out the bottle. And then there was a voice:

 

"Master, you have released me from my glassy prison. I'm at your service. Command, and I will fulfil two wishes for you"!

 

Bill hesitated. Then he had an idea. "I would like a bottle of whiskey that fills up again every time you drink of it."

 

As soon as he had said that he stood there with a bottle of fine Scottish whiskey in his hand. He couldn't believe his luck. He took a liberal sip - and the bottle filled up again. He did this several times, and every time the bottle filled up. He was beginning to enjoy himself.

 

Then there was an impatient voice from the bottle. "Master, I must move on. What is your second wish?".

 

Bill thought hard for some time. Then a smile came on his face :"I'd like another bottle like that", he said.

 

The Garlic Eaters

You are what you eat we have been told. Personally I was brought up on boiled potatoes, gravy and variations of pork, and occasionally fish at the end of the month when money were running low. That was the stable diet of most people when I was a boy.

Things changed when I went to university. I was part of the large post-war generation who got the chance to study. There were many of us, the first from our families to go into higher education.

We were quick to adopt to new ways of life and, I must say with some shame, quick to reject the ways of our parents and hold them in derision. Arrogance is quickly learnt.

Food was a major change. We had to try out the cuisine of other countries. Globalisation started with food. In the students hall we shared a kitchen, and we did not often eat boiled potatoes. Although we were all for the working class, we were too sophisticated to eat what they ate.

One of the new ingredients that we learned to use was garlic. It was cool to eat garlic. If you eat a lot of it, other people are likely to find out if you are close to them.

One day I overheard a conversation between two of the girls in the hall. One was Marianne (this is, of course, not her real name), and I have forgotten the name of the other. They had been to the cinema the night before, after having had a meal with plenty of garlic in it. They were in a good mood. They didn't talk about the film. They had heard to elderly ladies sitting near to them complain to each other about the reek of garlic. That made their day.

 

Is there anything more rewarding than feeling superior to other people. Feeling more sophisticated.

 

From then on they never went to the cinema without first having a healthy meal with lots of garlic in it.

Where we come from - The Potato Eaters by Vincent van Gogh

Conventry Cathedral

There is fog for as far as the eye can see. And probably even further. I am standing on the deck of a ferry crossing the English Channel.

I have been to Coventry. If you ever go to Coventry you should visit the Cathedral. It is not hard to find, it is next to Primark. It was bombed during the Second World War and was never rebuilt. The bare walls of the roofless cathedral stand there to remind you of what once was. Like a wound that has hardened but never completely healed. I visited the Cathedral. I had been there once before. It was in the 1970s when my brother and I went on a bicycle trip to England.

 

I don't have a photo from then, because neither of us owned a camera. I do have a photo of the Cathedral though, with my mother in front of it. She went to England on trip with an Christian Women's organisation once. It was her only trip abroad ever, and she had been very impressed with all the things she saw. She was from a generation where travelling abroad was not a common thing at all. She didn't have a camera, and the photo of her in front of the Cathedral was a present from one of her friends who was also on the tour.

 

 A year later she died of cancer, much too young.

 

That photo was on my mind as I stood there in front of the Cathedral. And it was on my mind now when crossing the Channel. We have been to the same place. We have seen the same wound.

 

Optional Extras

God created the cat (or evolution did, if you prefer). A beautiful animal with a soft fur and irresistible eyes. The cat is very agile and one of its fine characteristics is its innate ability to move along almost without a sound.

Or that was how it was created (or evolved, if you like). Now we have improved on its design. We have added an optional extra. We have put bells on it, so that it will make a sound when sneaking through the grass. This makes it more difficult for the cat to catch its prey, not least the garden birds.

Mrs. Chritensi and I have an old, beautiful cat, and for Xmas it had a band to wear round the neck, and the band has a bell attached to it. At first the cat didn't like it, but now it seems to have gotten used to it.

Uncle Jack came around and heard the cat and saw it. He was amused, and I had to explain to him that the bell was there to save the birds.

- whenever has that fat and lazy cat of yours caught a bird? And do you still call it a cat, he asked. Cats move along silently, and this one surely doesn't.

I had to think. It wasn't this year that it caught a bird, and it wasn't last year. Maybe the year before that.

Admittedly, a bell for our cat maybe doesn't make much sense. But at least it shows the neighbours that we care about animals.

Cynics and Sentimentalists

I can't stand people being good to other people. I start crying. I happens all the time when I am watching television. The bad guy turns good in the end and tears come to my eyes. Somebody helps a helpless creature and here we go again. An organisation stages a charity show, and when the speeches are on I cry again. And it is not only about being good to people - the same thing happens, if someone treats an animal kindly.

I even cry sometimes when I hear the weather forecast for the weekend. I am most definitely a sentimentalist.

My Uncle Jack is different. He is a cynic. He only cries in the darkness of the cinema.