Learning Mayan and Cockney numbers

I knew it. Getting back to a writing routine was tough. It’s partly the backlog of stuff that always needs to be done when you’ve been away for a few days, and partly because I’m disappointed at not getting a place in this year’s New York marathon. The organisers e-mailed me to say that I ‘had not been selected’ for a place in November’s race. I think that’s their code for saying I’m too fat and slow and will just get in the way of everyone else. Fair cop. At least I waddled for five kilometres on the treadmill in my shed, so that part of my routine is getting back on track. I also managed a few lessons in Portuguese, and achieved my lowest ever rating for a lesson. Those Brazilians sure do have some weird accents in their written language. They can’t need all of them? English manages so well without those things, after all. Even French seems like a doddle compared to this.

The weather was so warm today that the shed was like a sauna. I need to finish insulating the walls and the ceiling so that the sun doesn’t turn it into an oven. The work I started on lining the interior with wood last year was ruined by the shrinkage of the planks during the winter. All my carefully measured lengths of wood around the window frames, originally fitted so tightly you couldn’t slot a piece of paper between them, shrunk so much that you could almost put a finger between them. But the higher temperatures of recent weeks had the beneficial effect of closing the gaps. A few more weeks and the wood will be back to the right size.

The only progress on The Sphinx Scrolls today came in my latest attempt at understanding the bonkers ancient Mayan language. Today was the turn of their numbering system, which is even more complicated than my tax return. They have some scary numbers, with some carvings recording dates so old that they precede the creation of the universe itself. Spooky. A kin is a day. A uinal is 20 kins. A tun is 20 uinals. 20 tuns makes a katun, and so on. It’s like bartering with a Cockney to buy a car: ‘I want two bags of sand and a monkey’, ‘Come off it, gov, it only cost you a Lady Godiva. An Ayrton Senna at the most. I’ll give ya’ a monkey, two ton and a pony.’

I wonder if there is some enigmatic Cockney graffiti somewhere in south London predicting the end of the world in the year Two Bags of Sand, Ayrton Senna and A Bottle of Glue (2,000 + 10 + 2 = 2012)?