anef

Of flies and cats

Sun, 06 Dec 2009 14:49:50 GMT

When the kittens arrived I kept them in the spare room for a couple of days, to acclimatise them. I'd come up and feed them and play with them and sit and read so they would get used to me. During one of these times a fly came in and buzzed around. (How? The door was shut. Never mind.) They were fascinated, following its every movement, trying to climb as high as they could to catch it. Eventually it came within reach, was caught, escaped, buzzed around a bit, was caught again, played with and finally eaten. That was fun! Where did that fly go?

Then I let them out, gradually introducing them to the rest of the house. Over the last few days they have grown in confidence, exploring all corners, jumping on the furniture, running up and down stairs and knocking things over (so far no breakages). They are particularly fond of running along behind the sofas, and jumping down behind the one in the bay window. 'What's down there?' asked Michael. 'Nothing,' I said. 'Just a lot of dead flies.' (OK, I do hoover regularly but not so much behind the sofas).

They also seem to have got the runs, although are fortunately (barring a couple of incidents) pretty good at using their litter trays. I mentioned it to the Cats Protection lady, but she thought it was probably due to the change in habitat. 'You haven't been feeding them anything strange, have you?' she asked. No, I said. Just what you recommended - one packet of wet kitten food twice a day between them and the dry food that they're used to.

This morning as they were running around I looked behind the sofa again. There are no dead flies down there any more. Just a few black bits of debris. I think I'm going to start hoovering down there regularly.

Cat update

Sat, 28 Nov 2009 10:17:14 GMT

So the cats are now installed in the spare room. They have a place of refuge (under the sofa-bed, currently in sofa form) and food, litter trays, toys etc. We kept them shut in for a couple of days so they could get used to the idea that this was their new place, and I've been going in to sit and play with them. They have been friendlier than I expected - Freddy being very friendly and purry, but also the little black and white one that is currently called Jess*. Even Ruffles** has been coming out to see what is going on, but taking refuge back in the darkest corner soon after.

I left the door to the spare room open yesterday, but mostly they spent the day under the bed. However, when la_marquise_de_ and Jackie (who is on LJ but I forget her name) came round yesterday there were surreptitious climbings down the stairs and peeking through the banisters. Eventually they dared to explore the sitting room, rushing in and then rushing out again. Freddy came first, of course, and then Jess, but eventually even Ruffles came down, not wanting to be left out. They got very excited, running up and down the stairs and Freddy exploring the furniture. They retreated upstairs eventually, but there were runnings around during the night and I came down this morning to discover that various things had been knocked over, including a lamp which miraculously is undamaged.

*Must think of a new name for her. Jess just doesn't work for me as a name. I'm thinking Sophie as she clearly has the brains of the bunch - it's noticeable that she's just as curious as Freddy, but she always lets him go first into potential danger. I quite like Judy, but I don't want to give her the name of one of our friends. Other possibilities so far include Cleo or Josephine. Or Maria, though that's another friend. Dunno - any brilliant ideas? I should really just wait and see what fits - for our previous cats the right names have appeared over weeks of living with them.

**And Ruffles is a silly name for a cat, but he's so shy that I find it hard to get an idea of his character. It's funny that he's such a scaredy cat when he is so enormous.

Cat update

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 18:13:27 GMT

So a few weeks ago Michael and I went round to the lady who fosters cats for the CPL and looked at her kittens. She had a litter of three grey tabbies and one black, two boys and two girls. They ate chicken enthusiastically and played energetically. I thought I could probably take a couple of them, but there wasn't really the "wow" factor and I still had a bit of a hankering for a ginger kitten. So when she offered to let us look at her feral kittens I said "yes please!"

She had them downstairs in a couple of rooms that are her office and conservatory. There are three of them, a brother and sister (currently called Jessie and Ruffles) and their best friend Freddie. Jessie is a little black and white cat, and Ruffles is a monster. He's a huge tabby cat with spotty wildcat markings, amber eyes and an enormous fluffy tail. He's twice the size of his sister. They're both quite shy and although they will play happily and also eat chicken they tend to run away if I try to stroke them. This is made up for by Freddie who is a normal sized tabby boy (although he has ominously large feet), with dark, quite thick stripes, and the sweetest little round face. He seems to be completely unaware that he is a feral cat and is very friendly and purry, very happy to be stroked and will even rub noses.

So when we set out that afternoon we had the following ideas about cats. We wanted two of them so they could amuse each other while we were away. They needed to be short haired as Michael is asthmatic. And I wanted a ginger one. Instead I seemed to have fallen in love with three, one of them (Ruffles) large and fluffy, and none of them ginger. Ho, hum.

After we left we had a debate about whether we could cope with three cats. Three kittens is awfully sweet, but three cats are a lot of cats. We had a lot of discussions with friends and thought very sensibly about it. We could have said that we would take two of them, but it seemed hard to leave one behind as they all got on so well. And Michael said very sweetly that I should go with what I wanted. So with much trepidation we are taking all three.

We are away quite a lot in November so they are not arriving until the 25th, by when they will be all vaccinated, microchipped and neutered. I am going round to see them as often as I can, at least once a week, and plying them with chicken in the hope that they will remember this when I get them home. They will be about six months old when they arrive.

So I'm looking forward to having them, although with a bit of trepidation as it's actually a very long time since I've lived with kittens, even though these are more like adolescent cats. I'm sure it will be a learning experience for all of us.

Pumpkinification!

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 18:56:03 GMT

Well, I was all set to tell you how I made Claudia Roden's filo parcels with pumpkin and feta cheese (excellent) and a pumpkin, bean and corn stew from the Greens cook book (OK but needed more chillies).

Instead, I shall merely relate that in a pumpkin-related incident, I have sliced my finger with a sharp knife, and it is sore.

Poot!

Towards cats

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 17:06:45 GMT

Have been visited by nice Cats Protection League lady and told that the house is officially approved for the installation of cat or cats. Well, one would have thought so, but You Never Know. Let's hope they have some cats to offer.

Tabitha

Fri, 11 Sep 2009 17:24:30 GMT

Well, it was bad news at the vet. Mrs Ford thought that Tabitha was quite near the point where things would start going downhill fast, so she put her to sleep while she was still quite cheerful and not in pain. I’m sure it was the right decision – I’ve had three weeks of her being quite cheerful and friendly, and we had a nice time out in the garden today.

Please don't ring - I'm not up to talking to anybody.

Tabitha

Fri, 14 Aug 2009 13:16:30 GMT

Well, she' s been in and out to the vet this week. On Monday Michael took her in because her face had all swollen up, and the vet gave her some more antibiotics. She took some more blood tests and said when they came back we'd be able to decide on whether Tabitha would be able to cope with an operation to take the teeth out.

On Wednesday Tabitha turned out to have a red, weeping patch on her face and I got some cream for it. On Thursday the vet rang to say that her blood tests were back and the thyroid seems to have stabilised. She was very keen to get her in to take out the bad teeth, so I took her in again today. The vet said that there was a possibility that the problem with the teeth was not an infection but mouth cancer, so she would take an x-ray as well.

Just now the vet rang to say that Tabitha was still under anaesthetic, but there was a lot of deterioration in the bone of her mouth, under the teeth, and she is 90% sure it is a tumour. She is going to do a biopsy and send it off for analysis which will take a week. She says mouth tumours in cats are usually very aggressive and if it is one Tabitha may not have more than a few weeks.

Please don't ring me because I'll only cry down the phone.

Tabitha is not well

Sun, 09 Aug 2009 07:24:05 GMT

Turns out that she has thyroid problems. She has lost huge amounts of weight over the last few months. I didn't really notice (I am a Bad Cat Mother), because for the whole of her life (or the last ten years of it since we moved to Cambridge) the vet has been saying "Your cat is too fat, she needs to lose weight". So it never occurred to me that she was getting unhealthily thin. From 5 kilos last year she has gone down to 3 kilos, and then last month to 2.5.

So I took her to the vet a couple of weeks ago because she had a weepy eye, and the vet said "that is the least of her problems". The weepy eye is probably because of an infected tooth, and the vet can't anaesthetise her to take it out because of the thyroid problem. Her heart might not take it. So she gave me some antibiotics, some thyroid medicine and said "come back in 3 weeks".

Unfortunately the thyroid medicine seems to be making her sleep all day, and through mealtimes. I took her back to the vet on Friday, and saw the other vet, who looked at the tooth, which seemed to be better, and said that sleep was when the heart slowed down and repaired itself, so that lots of sleeping was probably not a bad thing. In fact Tabitha has put on 0.25 kilos just in the couple of weeks of being on the tablets, so there is some good news. He gave me some more thyroid pills.

Yesterday, she hissed at me when I tried to pill her, one side of her face has swollen up, and the weepy eye is still weeping. So I deduce that the bad tooth is bad again, although she is eating quite cheerfully. That is, once I have found the particular tin of cat food that she really wants to eat, as opposed to the muck that I keep trying to palm off on her.

So I guess it's another trip to the vet next week, which means somehow fitting it round work and Naomi's wedding. I might try to see if Michael can take her on Monday. Sigh.

Rowing results

Sat, 25 Jul 2009 14:29:29 GMT

Well, the Bumps are over for another year. I must admit when I woke up this morning and thought "I don't have to row today", I felt pretty happy. So how did they go?

Our starting position on day one was behind another boat from the same club, (Our Great Rivals, henceforth known as Julie's boat). I should explain that the rivalry is (almost) entirely amiable, and many of us in the two boats have rowed together in the past. Our club happened to have two places together in the second division, and Julie's boat were ten seconds faster than us in the getting on race (timed race just before the Bumps), so they were given the lead position.

On the first night they bumped before we could catch them, and we rowed over, pursued all the way by a boat from St Radegund's, which was actually overlapping us for much of the course but failed to touch. So that was very exciting.

On the second night, we bumped the boat that Julie's boat had caught on the first night, and they bumped again. Here are some photos of us getting the bump - last photo on page 1, first four on page 2. I'm at number two in the orange and black - sorry about the frightful facial expressions!

http://www.jetphotographic.com/browsephotos.php?id=6341

On the third night we bumped the boat that Julie's boat had bumped on the second night, but they failed to bump.

So picture us last night, back behind them again, and knowing that we had failed to catch them on the first night. We tried our best, but although we caught up half a length on them (the boats start 1 1/2 lengths apart) we didn't make up any more ground. So we both rowed over. Which, I suppose, gives us hope for next year!

Best of Bath Awards

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 10:02:13 GMT

Having spent a long weekend in Bath I thought I should give some awards for the Best Things We Saw in Bath. This is wholly idiosyncratic as we completely failed to make it to many of Bath's main attractions such as the Abbey (and yes, we were staying about 50 yards away from it).

Best Ruin

The Roman Baths (Well, duh!)

Best Museum

The Herschel Museum, a Georgian house with a garden and a tiny cinema in the cellar where they show an excellent film narrated by Patrick Moore.

http://www.bath-preservation-trust.org.uk/?id=8

Best Restaurant

DeMuth's vegetarian restaurant where Caro had the unusual experience of being able to eat everything on the menu, and thus having Choice.

http://www.demuths.co.uk/

Honourable mention to the Circus, where we had a lovely lunch on our last day.

http://www.thecircuscafeandrestaurant.co.uk/

Best bookshop

Mr B's Emporium http://www.mrbsemporium.com/

(but run a very close second by Topping and Co http://www.toppingbooks.co.uk/ )

Best shoe shop

Shoon - I needed some smartish low-heeled sandals for a wedding and they brought me at least seven possible pairs. Sorry, can't get at the website.

Best clothes shop

Oh, all right, Uber, for the Not Your Daughter's Jeans http://www.uberview.co.uk/index.html

But there were lots more museums, restaurants and shops that we failed to get to. Must go back sometime.

Helen Mirren in Phedre

Sun, 14 Jun 2009 07:58:27 GMT

To the National Theatre yesterday with la_marquise_de_ and the Marquis, whose LJ name I forget, and Michael WINOLJ, to see the Dame in Phedre. Having failed to see Diana Rigg in Medea, many years ago, I was determined to see this, and booked tickets ages ago. Helen Mirren! Greek Tragedy! What's not to like? Well, unfortunately....

Visually the production was stunning. The BBC review puts it best: "Nicholas Hytner's new version benefits from not just a first class cast, but a breathtaking set - a marble palace drenched in Mediterranean sunshine, with a sky of holiday brochure blue that darkens as the ghastliness unfolds." Add to that growls of thunder from the blue sky at moments of tension, and you have all the atmosphere you need.

But the director Hytner seemed to think that the play was problematic, and decided it had to be performed as Racine's audience would have seen it. The programme says: "How did the actors manage to secure the audience’s attention? They performed in a declamatory style: they employed an artificially emphatic pronunciation and intonation; and they made extensive use of gesture." Unfortunately, that's the way that Hytner decided to direct it, and for me it didn't work. I found it really frustrating as he has directed some productions that I've loved - The History Boys, and Much Ado About Nothing with Zoe Wanamaker and Simon Russell Beale which was one of the standout experiences of last year. In Much Ado the actors inhabited the text, the lines came to them as naturally as breathing, and you really believed that they were thinking up the quick-fire dialogue on the spot.

Phedre could not have been more different. The gestures were stagy, the actors declaimed their lines as though they were reading them from the script, and Hipploytus was just wooden. Theseus reminded us all of Brian Blessed, enough said. There were points where they seemed deliberately to ruin the sense of a sentence by breaking at the end of a line. Helen Mirren was good in parts, as was Margaret Tyzack as her old nurse Oenone, but I kept being distanced by the acting. There was one performance which really made sense of the lines, and that was from John Shrapnel as Theramene, Hippolytus's aged advisor. Every line that he spoke had meaning, and he did an absolutely terrific messenger's speech reporting Hippolytus's death. It was very dramatic, but he spoke with the text, illuminating it, not against it.

Anyway, I'm still glad we went to see it - at least I won't spend the next few years regretting that I didn't make the effort. And it is apparently going to be shown in cinemas on June 25th, so you can make your own minds up.

Clearing out the freezer

Sat, 30 May 2009 16:03:23 GMT

The freezer is over-full. Some of the stuff in the freezer is ice cream. It's hot outside. I should eat ice cream.

It seems reasonable when I put it that way.

A London Family by Molly Hughes

Fri, 24 Apr 2009 15:36:58 GMT

As part of the project to read books that have been sitting unread on my shelves for longer than six months I picked up the above, intending to flick through it. After fifteen minutes I found that I could not put it down, and I've been reading it pretty constantly for the last couple of days.

It's actually three books bound into one: A London Child of the Seventies, A London Girl of the Eighties, and A London Home in the Nineties. It's the story of the author growing up in Victorian times, with a family of four older brothers. The first book deals with her home life and the second (so far) with her schooldays and her first work experiences as a teacher.

Her father died unexpectedly when she was a child and there was very little money, so she decided to go to the best possible school so that she could earn a living. Fortunately her aunt, a tin entrepreneur in Cornwall, managed to pay for this. Molly's contemporaries were studying for Newnham and Girton (which presumably could not be afforded) but I was fascinated to discover that after matriculation she got a place on the very first women's teacher training course in Cambridge. I was thinking vaguely of Homerton, but suddenly realised that as the Principal was Miss Hughes (no relation - the author's maiden name was Thomas), this had to be Hughes Hall in its earliest incarnation.

It's a fascinating documentary of Victorian life - I was staggered by her description of going on a bus, which was so utterly different from now, and of the family taking trains down to see their relatives in Cornwall. Trains were invariable late in those days, which makes you wonder how early commuters managed, but perhaps this was only long distance trains. In the second book she describes a twenty-six hour train journey to visit her fiance's family in Aberdovey, which sounds appalling. It also paints a fascinating picture of Victorian women's education - the Head of Molly's school was more or less inventing this from the ground up.

The bare facts don't give you any idea of the charm of the narrative. The author has a very fast-paced, readable style and a lively sense of humour. Tragedies happen but she does not dwell on them, being determined to extract the most from every situation. Anyway, I think it's great. It's fascinating and hugely enjoyable. I was cursing the fact that the third book seemed to stop before the First World War, as she wrote it in 1937, but have just discovered from Wikipedia that there is in fact a fourth volume, set between the wars, which I have just ordered from Amazon. Apparently she died in South Africa in the fifties.

My aunt, the geneticist

Tue, 14 Apr 2009 20:28:06 GMT

My aunt died just after the New Year. Here is her obituary in the Guardian "other lives" section.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2009/apr/13/obituary-margaret-perry

Drat that pigeon!

Mon, 06 Apr 2009 21:47:18 GMT

Huh. Well, we had the pigeon down the kitchen chimney experience at the weekend, complicated by the fact that the kitchen chimney is in fact blocked by the extractor fan. So we had to unscrew the extractor and take it out and then try to find the bird (not at that stage definitively identified as a pigeon) in the clouds of soot that descended from the chimney. Bird not immediately apparent. There were, however, a couple of greyish feathers in amongst the soot.

'Maybe it flew away up the chimney?' suggested Michael.
'Maybe.' I was not so optimistic. We shone a torch up the chimney but still no pigeon. Then we swept up a lot of soot, and contemplated getting the extractor fan back into the chimney. The plastic hose had come unstuck, and it was not immediately apparent how it could be reattached.

At that point our builder returned my panicked phone call, and said that if we had not managed to get the fan back up the chimney by the next afternoon (Saturday), he could come by and fix it, but not earlier.

Then the pigeon made its appearance, sitting beside the fan, on top of the stove. It must have been perched out of sight up the chimney, waiting to make its move. It was completely soot-free, and paralysed rigid. Michael opened the French windows. 'Maybe it'll fly out of its own accord if we just leave it alone for five minutes.'

Five minutes later it had flapped its way over to the (firmly shut) window opposite the stove. At this stage Michael lost patience and decided to shoo it out. It went, eventually, after flapping three times round the kitchen for effect.

Now all we had to do was reattach the hose, stuff the extractor fan up the chimney and screw it back in. About an hour later it was more or less in place, although Michael couldn't manage to screw it in properly with our crappy screwdriver with twelve replaceable tops all of which fall off when you try to actually screw anything in. Note to self: Buy proper screwdriver. Or set of screwdrivers.

Fortunately the next day our builder showed up with an electric screwdriver and finished the job. The extractor fan is (mirabile dictu) actually working. We even managed to feed Sunday lunch to eight people the next day, and if any of them noticed crunchy bits of soot in their food they were too polite to mention it.

In other news...

Tue, 17 Feb 2009 22:42:13 GMT

Bad Black Cat Next Door keeps trying to get in through the cat flap. Every so often I hear a thump as he head butts it. The trouble is, it's not that robust, and I'm afraid he may break it. Am thinking of solutions involving water pistols. Any other ideas gratefully received.

The Bethlehem Murders by Matt Rees

Sat, 24 Jan 2009 14:32:22 GMT

This is the first in a new series of detective stories, set in (you may have guessed) Palestine. Although it's not brilliantly written (contrary to the claim by a certain Colin Dexter on the front) I'd definitely recommend reading it. The prose is workmanlike, and I only say it's not particularly well written because the characters spend a lot of time explaining things to each other. Without getting into the politics, the novel gives a convincing idea of what life is like for ordinary Palestinians, caught between the Israelis on one side and the Palestinian gunmen on the other.

The characters are good, especially the detective, who is a history teacher on the point of retiring (or being sacked for being too liberal). He gets involved because one of his old pupils, a Christian, is being set up for a murder that he clearly didn't commit. The author asks how you can maintain humanity or the semblance of a legal system in the face of the overwhelming pressures of life in Palestine at the moment. And the answer is a depressing one. I think the book is well worth reading, and I'll look out for the next in the series, but I think I'll pick my moment to read it - not when I'm feeling a bit low, for instance.

Christmas past

Tue, 06 Jan 2009 15:52:22 GMT

It being 12th Night (according to some) I have taken down the decorations. Gone lights, gone tinsel, gone beyond, all sparkly things, altogether gone!

On the other hand, Christmas cake: Not Quite Gone.

Boxing Day gardening

Fri, 26 Dec 2008 14:30:35 GMT

Have been out doing some weeding. The good news is that some of the bulbs that I planted in the autumn have survived and are sending up new little green shoots tentatively into the air. The bad news is that -er - I have trampled some of them with my great clod-hopping feet. Oops!

Christmas Day

Fri, 26 Dec 2008 09:24:30 GMT

I went to Mass at King's College yesterday. Despite having lived in Cambridge for a number of years, I'd never been to the Christmas choir service before. Michael's away and I was due at Naomi's for Christmas lunch, so it seemed an ideal opportunity. One of my friends from rowing had assured me that I would get in, but by the time I actually joined the queue (at ten to eleven, due to faffing about) I was expecting to have to stand at the back. In fact they had filled the chapel with folding seats, and the last few rows were empty.

I had barely sat down before the choir procession started, and we had to stand up again. All the choristers wore red cassocks, with white surplices over them, and some of the boys were very tiny indeed. The tiny ones were followed by tall young men, and then at the end a small group of choir girls and ladies. They all gathered at the back with candles, incense and the processional cross, and sang Hodie Christus natus est, before processing to the front, and past the screen, so that they were lost to view.

King's Chapel is a great long building, and there was no amplification, so that although we could hear the music and singing perfectly well, the words of the service were mostly inaudible. Fortunately we were provided with comprehensive orders of service, including the words of the sermon. But mostly, when there was no music, I sat and let my eyes wander over the building. Stone dogs and griffins support the royal coats of arms, the three lions quartered with fleurs de lys. Crowns, roses and portcullises adorn the walls. Slender columns run up the walls and branch out above into graceful fan vaulting, like an alley of stone trees in a stone forest. On a grey day, muted light leaches through the stained glass windows, blotting the stone with mottled blues and yellows.

And the music! It was a full sung mass with Latin and everything. The setting was Mozart's Missa Brevis (in F, K192), so there wasn't just organ music but violins as well, which seemed a little strange in the medieval chapel, but it was very beautiful. We the congregation got to sing too; Oh come all ye faithful, Once in Royal David's City, all the old carols, and at the end my favourite, Hark the Herald Angels, just at the upper end of my range, so that I had to let go and fling my voice upwards and let it fly up towards the great spaces under the roof, hoping it would fly true. Because of the length of the chapel, the carols had to be sung at a very stately pace, otherwise the time delay between the people at the front and at the back would have been too noticeable. Even so, the timing felt a bit odd at times, and I found myself guessing where to come in somewhere around the note.

The choir sang descants, which I also love, although they weren't the traditional ones but written by the choir master. I do love that great shrieking descant to Hark the Herald Angels, with the notes that I could never reach even when I used to sing in the church choir. Never mind, it was still lovely. And I came out feeling as though I'd done a proper Christmas thing.

What I have done today

Mon, 22 Dec 2008 16:18:49 GMT

Bought new Christmas tree lights
Decorated the Christmas tree
Gave Michael a lift to the station
Collected an Amazon parcel from the post office
Wrote and posted the last remaining non-local cards
Delivered some local cards
Dull domestic stuff (hoovering, cleaning cat litter tray etc)
An hour's work (aargh! not supposed to happen in the holidays - something came up at the office and my colleague rang me)
Read part of large multi volume fantasy novel by Juliet Marillier (well, I enjoyed it, anyway)

I think I deserve some Christmas cake, don't you? Well, deserving or not, I'm going to eat some. And read more of said novel.

Then I may put up some Christmas cards round the walls.

Darwin Festival in Cambridge in July

Fri, 12 Dec 2008 10:05:32 GMT

I'm posting this as my friend Rebecca has asked people to publicise it:

There will be events to celebrate the life and work of Charles Darwin all over the world in 2009 - it is the bicentenary of his birth and 150 years since the publication of the Origin of Species.

Three years ago Professor Patrick Bateson established a committee in Cambridge made up of academics from all disciplines which gave itself the task of setting up a Festival to celebrate the legacy of Charles Darwin. I was one of the members given the task of organising a Darwin and the Arts series of events for the Festival.

The Festival programme is now complete and Festival booking has now gone live. You can see the full programme on:

http://www.darwin2009.cam.ac.uk/

It is to be a week long. Each day academics, philosophers and intellectuals such as Dawkins, Attenborough and Dennett will give lectures but there will also be a significant number of arts events - poets, artists, novelists and playwrights will talk about Darwin or give readings. This includes two significant highlights - a major event with Ian McEwan and A.S. Byatt at the Corn Exchange and a major exhibition showing Darwin's influence on the arts at the Fitzwilliam.

Do have a look at the Festival website and please forward this email to other people you know who might be interested in attending these events.

Many thanks, Rebecca Stott

Die a Little by Megan Abbott

Wed, 10 Dec 2008 18:22:58 GMT

Have just finished reading the above. It's an amazingly well-written noirish detective story, set in LA in the 50's (or possibly 60's). Unlike Chandler et al it's told from a woman's point of view. The narrator (Lora King) is a school teacher whose beloved brother Bill marries a woman from the film industry. Gradually Alice's secrets seep into the text, and start to corrupt Bill and Lora's lives. The prose is tight, the characters seedy, and the narrator's motives are a secret even from herself. I was gripped from beginning to end.

Also read: Jennifer Stevenson's Trash Sex Magic

The Borders of Life by G A Kathryns

Sun, 07 Dec 2008 12:35:43 GMT

This is a puzzling book, in more ways than one. I picked a copy up at Novacon, and started to read it a couple of days ago. It's a story about an elderly women (Alma Montague) returning to her hometown, a small town in Mississippi, in order to restore the family mansion and then live out the rest of her days in peace. But nothing is quite as it seems. Who is the mysterious Mr Dark? Why does he give her a key that only she can see, and what is the land that she finds when she uses it, peopled with the dead (but also visited by some of the living) and shifting unnervingly between the past, present, and future?

Having read the first hundred or so pages I was intrigued enough to look the book up on Amazon, only to find that neither it nor the author exist. Neither on Amazon.co.uk nor on Amazon.com. I then googled, and discovered that G A Kathryns is a pen-name of Gael Baudino, and as far as I can tell there are no other works under that name. I've never actually read anything by Gael Baudino, and I don't know if anyone would recommend them. [Going back, if you put the ISBN number into Amazon it not only recognises the book but offers you a number for sale in the Marketplace. This must be Amazon being crap, then.]

So, I've finished the book, and I'm still baffled. I mean, yes, obviously, it's about the approach of death and reconciliation to it, but there are an awful lot of plot strands that aren't finished off. Was there intended to be a sequel? Am I being dense and just not spotting that the answers are all there in the text? In which case please would someone explain to me what is going on with Mrs Gavin and Magic, and a couple of other things that I can't describe for fear of giving away the plot.

Would I recommend it? Cautiously. It's well written, and what's going on is interesting, though baffling. She seems to me to be very good at describing the tensions and odd relationships between white and black people in a small town in Mississippi, so that's worth reading it for. Overall I enjoyed reading it. I wouldn't say it was a must read, but good if you like that sort of thing.

Black Ice

Wed, 03 Dec 2008 10:26:22 GMT

I went for a run this morning, quite slowly, as the pavements were icy. I decided to walk across one of the side-roads, and discovered my feet slipping around on the wet-looking stuff in the middle. Yes, this morning, everything that looks like water is in fact ice. And I saw two cycle accidents in the half hour that I was out. One woman tried to turn left in front of me and went straight over. Not hurt, fortunately, and the car that was heading towards her stopped until we had picked her up and got her stuff out of the road. She was pretty shaken up though. So what happened to the Council's road gritting programme?