"Magpie Hall" - review

One of the fantastic gifts I received this Christmas was a book called "Magpie Hall". It's by a New Zealand author, who appears to have a good understand of New Zealand's history, at least in so far as our wild life, and the systematic destruction of it for the purposes of museum displays in "Mother England".

The main character is a thirty something year old woman with a liking for antique clothing, and tattoos, of which she has one for every time she has fallen in love (11 by the end of the book). She is also having an affair with a married colleague. Needless to say, she has to sort her life out.

Her Grandfather has died and left her his taxidermy collection, which was began by her great great grandfather, an adventurer and collector (and she latter learns, a tattooed man himself) who came to the country in search of natural wonders. She goes to stay in the family home before the farm is subdivided, and the house gutted out to become a bed and breakfast, much to her sadness.

There is a creepiness to the house that remains undefined for much of the story, which while mentioning that something bad happened when she was thirteen, leaves until the end of the book to actually say what that was.

The story of her ancestor and his marriage to his first wife is also told, made all the more interesting by the readers knowledge that she will eventually be murdered and her body never found.

This turned out to be a good read, and while the ending was not at all what I had expected it to be, this didn't take anything away from the story. I had expect, among other things for her life to be all sorted, and all the problems that arise neatly solved, this didn't happen at all, which I actually rather liked.

Turned Away Becuase Of His "Hat"

The other day the Cosmopolitan Club refused entry to a man because he declined to remove his turban, and their dress code states no hats. The club was hosting a special event in honor of this very man that evening, in honor of his work in the community.

As the turban is a part of his religious dress I would have thought he would be exempt. I would have thought that there would be a public outcry at a gentleman of good standing int eh community being turned away for wearing any garment that was so strongly linked with his faith. Apparently, not so much.

It made it onto the news and such, but the opinion polls on the various news websites shows a greater portion of respondents think the Club was right to turn him away.

All this does not effect me in the slightest, but it still seems wrong to me, that people don't see this as a weak excuse for discrimination.

Once again, I am a little embarrsed by my people.

Unexpected Sighting

The news showed a trailer for "Alice in Wonderland"!!!! And yes, it had the new and giant Cheshire Cat in it. It is even more evil than before, now it looks like my sisters cat.

oh the terror, and amusement and my own terror.

The only way I was able to get any sleep was to think of it as on of the monsters in "Where The Wild Things Are" which are not scary at all. Still, I suppress a shudder at the thought of it.

I Hate My Neighbors

My neighbor has crossed a line. It's called the property line I believe.

When I moved into my new place a little over eighteen months ago, I soon found out that the lady next door has too much time on her hands, as she came over to introduce herself, after I had been living there for a couple of months. She told me in great detail, the ages, genders and pet ownership status of all our neighbors. This included a run down on the hours worked by people in each house hold, very useful information if I was wanting to break into their houses. And, she told me all about how long I had been living there before I started parking my car in the garage instead of leaving it in the carport, neither carport of garage being visible from her house.

So, I have spent my days feeling very watched, and not free to do as I pleased in my own back yard, especially after the time she lectured me about how the tomatoes in my vegetable garden were diseased (actually a little wilted from the drought but otherwise just fine), a bit creepy as the vegetable garden is in the far back corner of my section and not visible from the street.

On top of this, half a dozen times now, I have come home to find my lawn mowed, privacy hedges pruned into ineffectiveness etc. This is not a friendly thing done by a nice neighbor, this is trespassing committed by a neighbor. The last time this happened, the person had come within the property line to gather up grass clippings which they then used to smother the artichoke seedlings in my garden, which all died. I have always suspected it was the husband of the spying on me woman, but could never prove it.

So on Saturday I came home, having been out for only a couple of hours, and my lawn had been mowed into the dirt (it'll be a long time before I have even grass coverage again). And, all the parsley in my herb garden pulled out, leaving a giant barren patch in the middle of my garden. The destruction was continued into the back yard where the main stem of my Italian parsley had been broken off and left on the ground. A bucket that had been sitting along the back fence had been carried across the property, up the hill and up turned on a post.

I was furious! So, well I didn't shout, but I wasn't quite either, swearing at the self important jerk who had killed my plants for no reason.

I went out again, to cool down where I wasn't able to see the distraction. Came home, and within minutes here came the number one suspect, strolling into my yard looking down his nose as my rosemary but otherwise puffing out his chest in satisfaction as he viewed the dust that had been my lawn.

He told me, as though he had done me a favor, that he had mowed my lawn. I asked him (very politely, no swearing, no aggressive body language, no shouting) why he had pulled out my parsley. It was "past it" he said. I asked if he had gone into my back yard as well, he denied it. But, honestly, the evidence said something different, and I find it hard to believe that two different people trespassed in order to kill parsley in the same morning.

So, I asked him, firmly, but polity not to come onto my property without my consent, I made it clear that to come onto my section when he knew I wasn't home was not acceptable behavior. He started carrying on about how if I looked after my place he wouldn't need to and how I should pay him for the work he had done, and how it hurt his knees. And I said that I would be happy to mow the lawn more often, but I required him not to come onto my property without my expressed consent. Because, lets be honest, he was in the wrong, he had no right to pull plants out, he lied about the extent of his trespass, and I had every right to take legal action against him for it. I was being very reasonable and polite in simply asking him not to come back.

He was furious and refused to agree to stay of my land.

I had to pay someone to come over the next day to tidy up his mess. And, as he and his spying wife went past, oh the look of satisfaction on their smug little faces. I guess they think I was submitting to their edict on the messiness of my garden and doing what they thought I should have done all along.

Clearly they need to be reminded of the laws regarding staying on their own side of the line, regardless of how they feel about plants grown for food instead of prettiness.

I also want to start keeping a couple of hens in my yard (I checked, and it is perfectly legal to keep hens in a residential property in my district), and now I have serious concerns about the safety of my birds while living next to this crazy couple.

So I'm moving.

T-Shirts for Scientists

I had this idea, that I could make and sell T-shirts, targeting university students or similarly educated persons. These shirts were going to have slogans and pictures that related to certain fields of science, and were incredibly funny to biologists, volcanologist, palaeontologists etc, but probably wouldn't really mean anything to other people.

For example...

"There are 10 kinds of people in this world, those who speak binary and those who don't"
- poster on the wall in the mathematics and computer science department at uni.
See? Funny, but only if you know what it is talking about. I was going to make T-shirts along a similar vein.

And, all my university friends are scientists, we all call ourselves geeks, and are proud of it. So, I was going to call my label "Geek Gear", with the logo being two intertwined G's which was going to be on the shoulder or sleeve of each shirt.

But disaster!!! Geek Gear already exists; some one has already established a label with the name.

I have other ideas for names, but they just are not as good. The label needs to clearly identify the clothing as being for people of a certain type, in just the same way that labels like, I don"t know, "Barbie" automatically tells you the what-ever-it-is is pink and small. Geek Gear would have been perfect, so I am a little bit sad at not being able to use it.

I have been having my own shirts printed for years and years, with one of my originals being "I (heart) scissors". It was awesome; funny, and a conversation starter. I had thought that I could include this in my little range. But, then that lecturer had to go and brutally stab his girlfriend in the chest with a pair of scissors, so it could be a little distasteful just now.

On the bright side, I have shown my scientist finds a few mock ups, and have had really amazingly good feed back, with pretty much everyone wanting to buy them. So all is not lost, just delayed.

The Evil that is the Cheshire Cat

Apparently "they" are making a new version of "Alice in Wonderland".... I don't think I should go see it. It's not that I dislike the story, but I don't think I should tempt fate, as it were, by seeing it on a big screen, in a dark room.

You see, I am kind of scared of the Cheshire Cat. There is nothing about it that doesn't freak me out. Everything from it's sex-offender-who-escaped-conviction smile and evil clown coloured stripes to its dripping with evil voice! I'm telling you, no matter what that cat says, it is actually telling you that you are about to endure a slow and painful death, and it is pleased to be the one who gets to tell you, because it enjoys the look on your face as this news sinks in!!!! Oh, and then there's the disappearing bit by bit, and leaving just a piece of itself behind. (Shudder)

I know it's odd, but at the same time I can't quite understand how or why no one else sees how horrible and pure evil it is.

I had actually forgotten this fear until I was sitting in a earth and ocean science lecture, and one of the slides in the power point being used had the Cheshire Cat in the corner, for some reason. It was an actual effort for me to sit still and look at the screen.

I have now started to wonder if my dislike of animals sitting/standing too still and watching me is somehow related.

Too Many Berries

I went to the supermarket the other day, my head filed with visions of chicken breast stuffed with cream cheese and a home made basil & pine nut pesto, wrapped in streaky bacon, served with some kind of salad with avocado and walnuts. I left the super market with not one of the ingredients, but two chips of strawberries.

I got into the car, only then remembering that I had been to the supermarket already that day, having stopped in on the way to work to get something for lunch, and had on that visit already bought strawberries. So, two days later I still have the best part of a kilo of them to get through! Oh well, never mind.

This got me to thinking of things that can be done with strawberries, like tossing the hulled berries in a little lime juice. Or, included in a green salad, along with red capsicum (bell peppers), I know it sounds odd but together in the same bite it will make you appreciate capsicum like never before.