2.41 Tess Gerrritsen, Girl Missing (1994)

Annwfyn's review of *Girl Missing* made me want to read it: http://50books-poc.livejournal.com/384480.html

And I enjoyed it. It's a a cross between a romance and a forensic crime thriller. Of course, the forensics is very dated - in the mid-1990s things were a lot less forensic-y.

But, still, a good, light read.

November books

Last month I finished the Harry Potter series. I find the ending quite hard to understand because they do that thing which people always do in adventures where they refuse to share any information.

It makes sense to keep the whole Horcrux thing a secret when Dumbledore asks Harry to. At that point they are trying to surprise Voldemort. But at the point when Voldemort is attacking Hogwarts because he knows that the Trio have destroyed several of his Horcruxes, surely at that point it is the time to share the information.

While in the Room of Requirement do you not quickly say, 'Ravenclaws, he has a Horcrux hidden in an object associated with your house. Any ideas? Get on it?

Also, we need to destory this Horcrux here. Please volunteer to do that.

Also, we need to kill the snake before we go for Voldemort. Concentrate on getting the snake and Harry will go after the king pin.

This way we have the best chance of success.'

For goodness sakes, what is the point of hoarding the information when you can increase your chance of winning and improve the odds of your allies surviving?

( Read more... )

Advent Calendar

I made an Advent calendar, designed so we can do something each day of December. So far, it's worked quite well.

As you can see, the 'calendar' is made of modified matchboxes.






Here is a close up of the calendar.



And inside the calendar are papers telling us to read, sing, cook, make or give on that day.



So far we've had one make (for which we made paper chains) and two gives (for which Pearl put stamps on the Christmas cards and wrapped some presents for her friends in paper she made). So far, very successful.

Culture and a Three Year Old

1 - We went to the Princely Treasures exhibition. The byline is European Masterpieces 1600-1800 from the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Pearl’s take away: It has an outstanding play area. (Which it does. Some inspired genius has built a mini-Versailles cubby house complete with hall of mirrors and a chandelier. Also amazing costumes. And crowns. Also Marie Antoinette wig.)

2 - We also checked out Extraordinary Stories from the British Museum, the free exhibition at the museum.

The museum’s blurb: The exhibition will be filled with some of the British Museum’s most important objects, rarely lent to other museums, representing many of the 54 Commonwealth countries. Individually and collectively they tell extraordinary stories about the world's people, who we are and where we've come from – taking visitors on a 1.8 million year journey around the world.

Pearl’s take away: There is a seriously scary sculpture of a dinosaur in the foyer. Scary! Very very scary.

Also, we went out to the cafe afterwards.

3 - The WA Indigenous Art Awards.

Pearl’s main impression was that there was a Trevor Nickolls picture showing a man stuck in a prison tree, like the Derby prison tree. I can’t find an online image of it, but it is striking.

Pearl repeated that he was stuck and this was very bad. He was stuck and somebody should get him out. Perhaps with a rope, because he needed help, because - stuck.

She mentioned it three or four times, and I was surprised at the strength of her reaction. The expression of the man in the tree is not terribly anguished and I expected she would interpret it as the man climbing the tree.

I found it hard to respond because of the Police connection. I think I could have explained that some people are silly and are mean to other people because they are a different colour, but I want her to trust the Police and to go to them if lost so I don’t want to instill the message that sadly the Western Australian Police have a long tradition of racist brutality referenced here, very strongly, with reminders of the practice of chaining Aboriginal prisoners by the neck and the Derby prison tree.