Dressing up for World Book Day

Sir Thomas and Lady(?)/Squire(?) Poppy!  We couldn't find his sword anywhere, but that's probably for the best! ;)

Free Childminding Kit!

Wow...just *WOW*...Day before yesterday Flyingpops went to Leatherhead to pick up her box of "toys" (that she has been due for a while) to help with getting started as a childminder (courtesy of the local council), but oh *boy* - when we opened it up (it came in that lovely white wicker storage box at the back of the shot) it was a case of open mouths all round, the contents I have inventoried for you below (working roughly top to bottom, but you can click the image to see the notes I have added if you like) -

• A "Sonic Explorer" sound amplifier...
• A Kiddyzoom Digital Camera and matching storage case...
• A TTS Tuff Cam 2 digital camcorder
• Two wireless walkie talkie phones...
• A 2Gb SD card (for the camcorder/camera)
• A "make 'n go" (Duplo compatible) remote controlled (whatever you want it to be)...
• A "Bee bot" (like a mini Big Trak to teach basic programming skills)
• Two play mats (for the Bee-Bot to navigate, according the kids chosen programming)
• An Easi Scope Electronic Microscope (connects to a PC, results shown on VDU)...
• A TTS Talking photo album...
• A Silverlit R/C I-Bug (Ladybird shaped)...
• An Easi Speak Digital Microphone...
• A mini metal detector...

(and that's not all)

- she also got (to make it up to her for the delay in getting the toys to her) a hard storage box filled with about 30 (very expensive) kids books...

I don't even want to *begin* to tot up how much that little lot would have cost us to buy (the camcorder alone is worth £85, and kids books cost about a tenner each)...

Urm...*astonished gasp*...thanks council! ;)

Bargain - Christmas with Gordon

Christmas with Gordon - RRP - £15, the price at Tesco Canary Wharf (where normally the mark-up is about 20%) this morning?

Three Quid...! Ka-ching! ;)

Petite Anglaise by Catherine Sanderson - book review

I've started reading Petite Anglaise by Catherine Sanderson, not the well known (and staggeringly well written) blog (which I must admit I dip in and out of from time to time - especially now, as parenthood beckons), but the accompanying book...I mention it simply because it's so completely unlike any other blog books, most of the other ones I have read (Belle de Jour/Blood, Sweat and Tea - that sort of thing) have been simple collections of carefully selected posts, perhaps tidied up a bit, put into a logical order - in fact, exactly the sort of thing one would expect from a blog book - after all, the hard bit has already been done, it's just a matter of picking out the diamonds for publication...

This one is very, *very* different - to read it is almost like putting on a DVD with the directors commentary playing instead of the main soundtrack, it follows much of the history of what is covered in the blog, but written again completely from scratch - this time telling the truth about what really happened and deeply analysing both what she wrote on the blog and her motives for doing so, explaining what was going on in her mind, and in an incredibly brave move it also includes pointing out where she added embellishments to make posts seem more amusing or poignant...an example being the episode where she was left trying to set up the video conferencing system in the office ready for an important meeting and ended up giving a room full of executives a close up of her cleavage (a classic bit of comedy), in reality it was just one IT guy at the other end, still embarrassing, but nothing like as funny...it's refreshing, it's interesting, and it also explains why each of her posts was unfailingly entertaining - because they weren't necessarily entirely true - it's made me wonder just how many other blogs I read are just very slightly fictitious...anyway, it's a highly entertaining read, standing head and shoulders above it's competitors simply for it's unique perspective - to be recommended...

Stephen Fry in America

I had the pleasure yesterday of being lured into catching up (via BBC iPlayer) with watching the first episode of the extremely entertaining new show "Stephen Fry in America" by first discovering a small excerpt of the accompanying text on Mr Fry's blog...and I actually think it was the right way round to do it...As the episode played, I had the privilege of knowing what was going through his head as each experience unfolded (including being able to chuckle as I recalled the odd "embellishment", shall we say?)...interestingly (and somewhat obviously) the TV show, while highly enjoyable and decidedly educational in it's own charming way, in this case seems like just an executive summary for the rich detail, measured insight and beautifully woven prose in the book - which I have made up my mind to buy...as in this case it's clearly the richer element of the pairing (and not just a limp money spinning ploy as is occasionally the case)...

Oh, and funnily enough, this isn't actually the first "Stephen Fry incident" of the week either...On Tuesday I discovered (via Big Blue), that Mr Fry twitters...so I thought I would add myself to his adoring fan list (as you do) and tune in to his tweets from time to time...it was only when checking my gmail a little later in the day that I noticed the update which had arrived shortly afterwards..."Stephen Fry is now following you on twitter"...wow...

I'd better make an effort to be interesting then...! :0

Books etc. closing down in Canary Wharf

Wah...(well sort-of-wah)...spotted the other day that my nearest book shop in Canary Wharf, was closing down! I don't buy a huge number of books in book shops (as it's so much cheaper online), but if I've had a bad day, or if I've finished a book off and need something new for the way home, or if I'm off on holiday and need to quickly stock up, or even the odd present - suffice it to say it's saved my bacon on a couple of occasions (in a number of ways) and is near enough to not eat too much into the commute...so you can understand I was just a little bit upset when I saw the signs, but just not upset enough to run in and buy a load of 50% off books with a smile on my face...

Today I am wondering what on earth they bothered for...another shop is opening -but- it's a Waterstones (as you can clearly see if you click that picture and peer through the silver covering on the windows)...! Found a news story confirming it here...but the crazy thing is, they had the front doors open today, and when I peered in I noticed that they haven't even bothered to re-fit the store, it's exactly the same layout, same shelves, same tables...same books? Well, almost certainly not if they belonged to a different retailer, but I imagine the stocks arriving now won't be *much* different from those which populated them previously...

Rather a curious move...but not one I am going to question (as a consumer)...I'm just going to say "thanks for staying as a book shop"... ;)

Dexter - Differences between the book and the TV show

I decided (as I mentioned previously), to take a dip into the original books after enjoying the TV series so much, and guess what? They are *rather* different (same basic storyline, but the TV show adds a lot more depth to the sub-characters)...

Hmm, now can I do this without any serious spoilers...?

Right at the start of the book Dexter himself introduces the reader to his "Dark Passenger" - when he is comitting murder he tends to refer to himself as "We" and "Us" (even when speaking out loud) - it isn't until season 2 of the TV show that this dual personality is in any way acknowledged and even so he always refers to himself as "I"...

Dexter's 'methods' vary, following a "searching for some hidden truth" theme, like by using his knife (in one example) he can literally find tangible answers hiding under the skin, it's just a matter of discovering the correct method...oh and he always wears a mask...

Dexter uses the word "important" a lot in the book, for example "the body was completely drained of blood, this was important" or "the girls were all fair haired, this was important" without a lot of further explaination, as if the reader were just supposed to understand (which is quite haunting and powerful)...not a mention of the word on TV, but I think I can understand the need for them to make him a more 'friendly' person...

The book is all from Dexter's point of view, a little like you are taking a ride along with him (sat quietly next to the aforementioned passenger), the TV series explores all sorts of different characters point of view (expanding many of them considerably into side-plots)...

Deborah in the book is suspicious of Dexter right from the start - saying things like "How do you *know* that?", prompting Dexter to carefully insert little mistakes into his predictions of what killers might be thinking...it doesn't work though (and without going into details) from the conclusion of the first book, she discovers that her brother is a serial killer (which is going to make things interesting!), in the TV show she is still none-the-wiser as of the season two finale...

Rita’s abusive ex-husband Paul doesn't exist, or isn't mentioned anyway...(much simplifying the girlfriend situation)...

Angel is referred to as "Angel (no relation)" and we don't hear much about him, and even less about his ex-wife (nothing in fact)...

Dexter doesn't have a real 'buddy' at the station (sorry Masuka)...the Dexter in the book actually rather dislikes him...

It's not the "Ice Truck Killer" it's the "Tamiami Butcher" (smacks a bit of dumbing down, I think I could have been introduced to the area with a nice panning shot of a "Welcome to Tamiami" sign)...

Camilla Figg is much younger and infatuated with Dexter (working nearby in the lab) rather than a filing clerk and mother figure who worked with Dexter's father (back in the day)...

Oh and one of the main characters is murdered...but I'll let you find out who, where, how and why... ;)

I have also learned that the second book ("Dearly Devoted Dexter") has virtually nothing to do with the TV show (yes!)...the first one did actually follow the same story arc, only the end being *considerably* different (but I won't ruin it)...so that means I have some nice fresh Dexter fiction to chew on while I wait for September...excellent... ;)

Bookmooch - swap books free worldwide

This is worth a post all of it's own - Bookmooch - basically it lets you swap books with people the world over (free apart from the price of postage), it works like this - you go around your spare room, blowing dust off all the books you don't want any more, then type in their ISBN number to build a catalogue (just by doing this you can earn credit (10 books put up for offer earns you one free book in return)...if one of the other members wants a book you have listed you pop it in the post to them and when they get it you earn more points, 1 point if they live in the same country as you, 3 points if they are in a different one (to offset the extra postage cost)...so then you take your earned points, browse through all the books listed (you can browse by location, so in London, for example, there are 3082 free books listed at the moment) and pick away, each locally sourced book costs 1 point, each one from abroad costs 2 points...simple as that, the only other thing is that you must maintain a 2:1 ratio (send one out for every two you get, just in order to keep everything moving)...

Have a go!

Hiding the Elephant, by Jim Steinmeyer - a review

So I have just literally this morning finished consuming the last few pages of the incredibly entertaining "Hiding the Elephant" by Jim Steinmeyer, he who designed David Copperfield's illusions and provided stage FX for several Broadway shows (including the staggeringly impressive transformation scene at the climax of Disney's "Beauty and the Beast" that Flyingpops and I marvelled/scratched our heads at when in New York)...as such an accomplished creator of the seemingly impossible, Mr Steinmeyer is probably the most uniquely appropriate person to write a definitive history of the "Golden Age of Magic", and he definitely doesn't disappoint.

The story opens in gas-lit Victorian London to the terrified gasps from the audience as "Pepper's Ghost" takes it's first shimmering steps across the stage, through the birth of the Spiritualist movement (and the frauds that both perpetuated, and grew rich from it), onto the lavish productions of the Egyptian Theatre as magic shows came of age, then across the ocean to America, following the desperate attempts by competing shows to clone each others illusions, resorting (on occasion) to robbery, bribery, spying and even (staggeringly) blatantly walking on stage during a show! Watch, through all this as Houdini dreams and struggles for recognition in a field where he is destined to be forever mediocre at best, the crowd clamoring only for his escapes (much to his frustration) leading, eventually, to him lashing out at his idols and crushing competitors around him until his sad undoing by his own arrogance...

At each stage, the seven (yes, only seven) basic concepts behind the most famous illusions in history are clearly explained, with simple diagrams, and even snippets of the originators notes or memoirs to accompany them...where no clear idea remains how the tricks were accomplished (Houndini's vanishing Elephant at the Hippodrome, for example), a very good argument is made for a possible solution, and then, at the last, the author himself takes on the task of re-creating (using masterful detective work, his own considerable experience, and detailed historical research) the final remaining mystery from the time - that of the Vanishing Donkey - an illusion that was somehow never solved until we read of his attempt to perform it live before an audience of fellow magicians in the final chapter...

An unmissable book...

Robinson Crusoe - First Edition

So I just finished reading Daniel Defoe's "Robinson Crusoe"...it wasn't as easy as I imagined, the last version of the story I probably picked up would have been at least 60% cartoon illustrations and begun "There once was a young man called Robinson Crusoe who dreamed of being a sailor"...this version (being a *very* slightly tweaked version of the first edition copy from the Library of the University of London) is notable for several reasons -

• It's actual title (in full) is "The life and strange surprising adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of York. Mariner; who liv'd Eight and Twenty years all alone in an un-inhabited ifland on the coast of the americas;near the mouth of the great river Oroonoque. Having been caft on Shore by shipwreck where-in all the Men perifhed but himself. With an account how he was at laft as ftangeely deliver'd by PYRATES"...(titles not being required to be quite so punchy in those days then)...
• It is credited as having been "Written by Himfelf" and was passed off as a factual, autobiographical piece (but apparently this wasn't unusual at the time - it being 1719)...
• The style of writing is seriously rambling, page after page being turned over to huge amounts of repetition, in fact, it takes 5 pages to explain to the reader that his father wasn't keen on the idea of him going to sea, and is littered with conjecture (although this could just be in keeping with the intended autobiographical style of the piece)...oh and after *86* pages, the story starts all over again from the *beginning* when the character of Robinson Crusoe decides to reproduce exactly the journal that he kept on the island (until he ran out of ink)...
• Rather surprisingly, spoken words are in italics, for example "Well then said I if God does not foresake me, of what ill consequence can it be, or what matters it, though the world fhou'd all foresake me, feeing on the other hand, if I had all the world, and fhou'd loose the favour and blessings of God there wou'd be no comparison in the loss?" (the work of a lazy type setter at the printers, perhaps)...?
• The spelling (as you may have already noticed) of a lot of words has dramatically changed, "ld" as in "would", is largely represented as "'d", "s" is replaced with a sort of slightly swirly "f" shape at the start of some words, "ugh" on the word "through" is lost, and even whole words are spelled entirely differently - "Murder" becomes "Murther", "Human" becomes "Humane" and "clothes" is spelt "clothe"...
• Further compound this with the fact that the meaning of a lot of (obviously commonly used at the time) words have been completely lost to modern use, for example - "meer" meaning "complete", "amuse" meaning "to be deceitful", "hanger" meaning "short sword", "physical" meaning "medicinal", "salvages" meaning "Pagan natives", "perspective" meaning "telescope", "pickle" meaning "to rub salt and vinegar into the back of a flogged man" and "motion" meaning "an impulse"...
  

So you can understand it was far from a simple matter to try and translate this relatively recent text (in historical terms) from the English of the time into anything close to recognisable, processable and thence enjoyable prose...still, it was a fun exercise to go through (easier than "Mrs Beetons book of household management" even if just for it's diminutive size in terms of pages, harder than Poe or Lovecraft, for roughly the same reason) even prompting a random stranger on the London Bridge train one morning to comment that it was odd to see someone reading such a book outside a classroom...

...now if only I can find a copy of Robinson Crusoe part II...which, believe it or not, does actually exist... ;)

Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone - Inconsistencies

Upon finishing Deathly Hallows, I decided I would read the first book again...I think it might be because there were a number of characters I wasn't entirely sure I remembered (as JK was busy tying up all the loose ends, in ever more complex knots, while I was just busy concentrating on the main story)...and because my only real memory of the first book now is courtesy of the movie...and also because it is fairly short (comparitively) and thus easy going...

I've noticed a number of interesting things, even where I am in the proceedings (about 6 chapters in)...(Got to be careful here not to spoil anything, but) -

1) I had forgotten that the story begins during the joyous celebrations after Voldemorts fall seventeen years before the events at the end of the last book...it felt very "full circle" to consume it again...

2) Mrs Filch gets a number of very early mentions (I had completely forgotten she even existed when she next cropped up in the main story)...

3) The Dursleys behave like they belong in a Rohld Dahl book...a bit OTT compared to the rest of the series...

4) During our very first introduction to the Weasley family (totally inplausably) Mrs Weasley confesses that she has no idea what platform the Hogwarts Express leaves from, despite (as we are told only paragraphs later) having spent the last 7-odd years putting Cedric, Percy, Fred and George on it (and, even worse, is then reminded where to go by none other than *Ginny* who has never even been to Hogworts as she is too young)...

5) In Harry's invitiation to Hogwarts, it clearly states "Students may also bring an owl OR a cat OR a toad", so how come Ron has a rat? It's even been present at the school before, because Ron explains to Harry that it is a hand-me-down familiar, like his second-hand robes and wand (and what happened to "The wand chooses the Wizard"?!)...Oh well, maybe plot devices are allowed to breach school rules... ;)

6) Who on *earth* is the Dumbledore in this book, and what has he done with the real one? ;) His "just a few words" before the feast are (to say the least) rather out of character...(although you could argue that the later, slightly less insane Dumbledore is his abnornal "war-time" persona, and thus this "peace-time" persona is the normal he)...still rather odd though...he doesn't normally waste words for no reason, in my experience...

7) (On a more positive note) - At the sorting hat, it's clear that JK had done her forward planning, I think by this stage in the story almost every (child) character we have to worry about for all of the rest of the books (one or two exceptions, Luna for example) have been introduced...

8) It's also completely obvious why such a lot of adults pick up this book, interested having heard all the hype (usually encouraged by people much further on in the rapidly maturing storyline) and are immediately turned off by how juvenile at all seems...If you want an example of cringeworthy nonsense (rather than the good kind of nonsense) I refer you to the Hogwarts School song (urk)...

Still, I'm enjoying it as much as the first time...maybe even a bit more now I'm free to poke at the holes and try and link up some of the threads...it's a bit like going back and watching the early episodes of LOST searching for "crosses" in the background... ;)