lizarfau

All done!

2009-11-26T03:26:06Z

All written! I have actually written an urban fantasy novel! Well, the first draft of one. And now there's a storm so I'd better get off the computer!

NaNo etc

2009-11-20T06:48:22Z

My NaNo is going really quite well. I've written 34,000 words, so 14,000 to go between now and the end of November. Writing urban fantasy is an interesting experience – this is unlike anything I've written before, and I feel it's been gruelling in parts because I don't know the genre well and don't know its conventions. In a way, perhaps that is an advantage, because I think "Where shall I go from here?" and work it out for myself without knowing what the normal conventions are. For a while, the book morphed into misery memoirs and then became quite thriller-like, so it's a bit of a genre-bender. But as I get farther through it, I realise that when I rewrite I probably will be able to do something decent with it. The length's good for a YA novel, and the plot's worked out well from the bare-bones idea I had, and I've come a long way in the past week, having fallen behind in week 2 and wondering if I should give up. So I'm happy with this.

We've had some hot weather lately, and I'd forgotten how exhausting it can be – and how distracting it is when the fire siren goes off on a total fire ban day and you hear fire trucks racing along the road. I think everyone in fire-prone areas feels more nervous this summer as a result of what happened last summer. We're now involved in a newly established fireguard community group though, and have attended some informative sessions as a result of that. It's been good meeting some new people and getting to know others better.

Ju Gosling from Bettany Press is here in Australia for three weeks and attending the NCC Victoria meeting tomorrow. We're also having a meeting about my books in a couple of weeks' time. While we could actually do with a bit of rain, it's nice for visitors from the northern hemisphere to enjoy some sunshine, so perhaps sunny days with overnight rain would be nice.

Secrets at St Jude's: Jealous Girl

2009-11-17T23:29:37Z

I bought this last week from the fabulous Book Depository , which not only posts books to Australia from Britain free of charge, but sends them airmail too. I got my books in a week. How can this be sustainable? Anyway, long may it – and the mighty Aussie dollar – last.

However, I was really disappointed in this book. I really enjoyed the first book in the series, Secrets at St Jude's: New Girl, which I read when I was in England earlier this year. That had a good mix of traditional school story elements/formula in a contemporary setting. But this second one is basically full-on chick lit in a boarding school. All Gina and her friends seem to think about is boys, boys, boys. Now, I appreciate this is pretty realistic for a bunch of 15-year-old girls, but it makes for a boring read. For a while, it looked as if they might forget about boys for a little while when their English teacher announces an inter-house competition for a one-act play.

The English teacher seemed to enjoy the slight hush that this announcement brought. Although most of the girls in the room realized that their career options were limited to doctor, lawyer or accountant, a few still nursed a secret longing to be Hollywood film stars.

Doctors? Lawyers? Accountants? With the exception of Min, and possibly Niffy, God help us all if this vacuous, loaded lot end up in these professions.

Anyway, Gina decides to write one. Amy wants to act in one. But it all gets forgotten somewhat in a plot that focuses on whether Gina's boyfriend is two-timing her or not (and it's glaringly obvious to the reader that of course he isn't) and whether their massive differences in background (she's very, very wealthy, he isn't) will be a problem (and it's glaringly obvious to the reader that of course it will down the track, if not in this book). Gina does write a play (off-page) and it gets chosen for the competition, but we don't get to see anything of the competition. Perhaps that will be in book 3, as this book ends mid-term at Hallowe'en (American Gina persuades the housemistress to have a Hallowe'en party at the boarding-house). But if it does, I won't know about it as I don't intend to buy the third. I know I'm not the target market, but really there's only so much gushing over boys and references to exclusive handbag brands a person can take.

Hurray!

2009-11-11T06:15:23Z

Good news for the Australian publishing industry today. The proposed changes to territorial copyright, which would have resulted in overseas versions of local books being sold cheaply in our market, have been knocked back by the Rudd government.

I hate the way this story has been written, as if the Australian book-buying public are being cheated so they can't buy dirt-cheap books. Because what would have happened, had the changes gone ahead, would have been the death of the local Australian publishing industry.

And the end of Australian culture as depicted in Australian literature. The cheap overseas versions would have come from America, and there have been plenty of horror stories about how American versions are changed to suit the US market - especially in children's books. I want my child to grow up seeing the world he knows being reflected in books. Of course I'm happy for him to read British and American books. What I'm not happy for him to read is Americanised versions of Australian books, where references to football are accompanied by an illo showing kids playing gridiron or references to cricket are replaced by basketball, and doonas become whatever Americans call them. I want him to be able to read about Aussie kids living in places he's familiar with and doing the things he does, so that his world is reflected.

So it's a happy day for anyone involved in the Australian book industry - apart from the big "sell-everything" chains that would have been happy to sell our children Americanised versions of Australian books, with American quotas that have no bearing on our Australian society at all.

It's worth a glass of wine in our house tonight, for sure!

ETA Here's a better angle on the story than the link above.

Marilla's Zero-alcohol Raspberry Cordial

2009-11-07T12:11:46Z

My plan to make lots of things from Cherry Cake and Ginger Beer this year didn't quite come off, did it? ;) But, you know, there are lots of years ahead to have a go at a few of the recipes. And, having seen that today (and the rest of the week) was going to be in the 30s, Gabe and I thought we'd have a go at making Marilla's Zero-alcohol Raspberry Cordial.

And, unlike the Holiday Lemonade, it's been a great success! We used frozen raspberries as fresh ones are too expensive and we've diluted it with carbonated mineral water. It's really delicious - highly recommended. It tastes much, much better than raspberry cordials from the supermarket, whereas Holiday Lemonade really wasn't up there with the fizzy stuff on the shelves!

Here's a photo of our raspberry cordial:

Very nice out in the backyard on a hot day!

The Secret Author

2009-11-07T07:49:31Z

Award's latest editions of Enid Blyton's Secret series (The Secret Island, The Secret of Spiggy Holes, etc) are now on sale here (and might have been for a while, but I've only just come across them). They look and feel fabulous - quite bulky, as if there's a lot of story in them. And I was wondering whether Gabe might like them,when I picked up The Secret Valley, a continuation or filler in the series, written by Trevor Bolton and published earlier this year.

If you didn't know, you'd think it was written by Enid Blyton, not some fellow writing in 2009. And that's judging the book by its cover (which, as we all know, we shouldn't). The Secret Valley it says on the cover. Enid Blyton it says on the cover. The back cover blurb talks a bit about the adventure Mike, Jack, Peggy and Nora (and the hideous Prince Paul) are going to get into. No mention of Mr Bolton having written it. In fact, you have to look inside, at the half-title page to see the words "by TJ Bolton" in little letters. And, really, who looks at the half-title page apart from people working in the book industry?

Any casual shopper, looking for a Christmas present for a kid, would think they were picking up a Blyton original. Even those who read the Secret books as a kid might think this new title is just a title that's been changed (like The Secret of Killimooin is now The Secret Forest ... why?). A quick look at Keith Robinson's kiddie-magnet Blyton site would show you lots of kids who think Ms Blyton is still alive. So why wouldn't this book be authored by her?

Not only does this cover have to be against a Trades Descriptions Act somewhere, but it's terribly unfair on an author not to be credited for his work. (Well, unless you count the half-title page that hardly anyone's going to glance at.) Previous Blyton continuations have credited the author: Anne Digby's name appears in smaller letters on the cover of "Enid Blyton's" Naughtiest Girl continuations. Pamela Cox's appears in tiny letters on "Enid Blyton's" St Clare's fillers. But, wait! I found that Pamela Cox's recently published Malory Towers continuations are also on sale in Australia (in which case it would be really nice, Borders, to have Carmen Reid's much, much better Secrets of St Jude's books out here as well). The cover says they're by "Enid Blyton TM". So where does Pamela Cox get credited? On the half-title page.

Move over, Carolyn Keene and RL Stine. Enid Blyton is here.

Boo, hiss.

Which Witch? by Eva Ibbotson

2009-11-03T05:44:12Z

I''ve read and enjoyed The Morning Gift, A Song for Summer and The Dragonfly Pool by Eva Ibbotson, following recommendations by witchy_rachel , but until this past weekend, I'd never read one of her books aimed at younger children.

But Which Witch? is great! It's very neatly plotted and very funny ... and I'm not really a big fantasy fan (I still remember feeling disappointed on discovering the four Pevensie children headed off into a magical world of talking lions and fawns instead of down a secret passage after smugglers! :) ). I'm really not sure how much appeal it would have to boys, given the story revolves around a wizard who needs to take a wife (his assistant tries to organise a contest in the vein of Miss World, lol), but I guess I'll find out when Gabe reads it! But I'll definitely try her other books aimed at younger readers now, as well as her other YA titles when I come across them. In fact, I've already started reading The Secret of Platform 13.

NaNowriMo Day 1

2009-11-01T11:00:10Z

A good start today - 2000 words. Especially good as it's been really hot weather and we were away for the weekend - though not for a long weekend, sadly, as neither my husband nor my son have a day off tomorrow (it's Cup Day, so a public holiday on Tuesday).

So 48,000 to go.

Fever of the Bone by Val McDermid

2009-10-05T10:02:44Z

I didn't really need to visit the Val McDermid forum to know that the Tony and Carol shippers wouldn't like her latest Tony Hill novel, Fever of the Bone. There are, after all, great chunks of the novel where Tony and Carol aren't even working together, let alone making out, the way so many fans want them to. But I loved this book - it's my favourite Tony Hill book since Wire in the Blood. Not least because, for the first time since the TV series, also called Wire in the Blood, started, Tony Hill in the novel sounded like Tony Hill in the early books, rather than like Robson Green playing Tony Hill.

I like all Val McDermid's books, but I always feel a bit ambivalent about the Tony Hills, however good they are. I find Tony's impotence boring and Carol's drinking and the whole will-they-won't-they thing between them grates. I like Carol's team, though, especially Paula - and it was good to see more of Paula in this latest novel. I think the only other series I like despite not caring at all about the main protagonists is Elizabeth George's Linley mysteries, where in particular I can't stand St James and Deborah (and Helen!) - LInley is bearable, but Barbara's the one I read the books for.

Fever of the Bone has Tony and Carol on the trail of a serial killer who is murdering teenagers previously groomed on the social networking site, RigMarole. Although I guessed what the killings were all about before Tony and Carol did, I still haven't worked out whether RigMarole existed before the novel or appeared alongside it, given ads for the book are all over the home page. It was good to have some of the action set in Worcester, too - it's not so long since I was there for the Australia v. England Lions cricket ... Anyway, I found it hard to put this book down, and now have a long wait before a new book by Val or my other favourite crime writer, Peter Robinson. I've heard Stuart MacBride is good, so might give him a go.

NaNoWriMo 2009

2009-09-28T09:03:49Z

Earlier tonight, I signed up for NaNoWriMo 2009. For those who haven't heard of NaNoWriMo, it's a US-established but worldwide writing lark, whereby you have to write 50,000 words in exactly one month (that month being November; it's an annual event). I wrote the first draft of To All Appearance, Dead for NaNo 2005, so I know it's a good idea to do it. I just haven't done it since. But a few people from my R/L writing group are doing it, so we can support each other, and I'm sure there'll be others from LJ communities/GO communities who'll be doing it as well. At the moment, I've no idea if November will be busy or not workwise for me, but I was actually super-busy in November 2005, and I still managed it, so there are no excuses really.

I just have to decide what I'm going to write, but there are four weeks to think about that before NaNo starts. And if I complete NaNo, that'll mean I'll have written drafts of three novels in four months, which is no bad thing. It's always good to have first drafts to polish, improve and rewrite.

Is anyone else from my flist doing NaNo this year?

I just read online ...

2009-09-25T07:35:32Z

... that Primrose Cumming, who wrote my all-time favourite pony book, Four Rode Home, wrote the Bella Barlow comic-strip series for Tammy. Is this true, does anyone know?

Bunty Summer Special 1972

2009-09-22T08:34:02Z

This arrived in my letterbox today courtesy of my mom in England. I'd heard that there were facsimile copies of some old comics being given away with The Guardian last week, and asked my mom to get me whatever she could find. Although it's been fun receiving my copy of Bunty, I do feel a bit guilty about this, as The Guardian cost my mom a pound and she most definitely is not a Guardian reader. Then there was the postage to Australia on top. And for a summer special that, given I was 10 in 1972, she must have bought me before many years ago!

But if I did read it back then, I had no memory of the stories at all. Of course, The Four Marys were there, in an amusing story in which a cottage in the St Elmo's grounds has been taken over for training the girls in 'housecraft' (a splendid storyline and one which I wish I could use for Cotterford, as I'm sure Juliet and Amber could do some very illicit things in a cottage). The girls have to compete in teams of six, and it's no surprise that the Four Marys are teamed with those school snobs Mabel and Veronica, who are "utterly, utterly" appalled that they are expected to do "a charwoman's work". "It's all right for Mary Simpson, I suppose," says Mabel. "I mean, she is of the lower classes - " Mary Radleigh sticks up for Simpy by being quick to raise her fists - now I don't actually remember Raddy being like that, but she tries to punch Mabel's lights out twice in three pages in this summer special, so she must have been the fiery one - but only ends up losing ten points for her team. Mabel and Veronica do everything they can to avoid the domestic chores and also have fun sabotaging the Marys' valiant efforts - until Simpy has a brainwave that results in the two snobs having to do their bit. At the end, the girls win the prize - a trip to the Ideal Home Exhibition in London - but Mabel and Veronica go down with mumps and can't go. Hurrah!

The other stories are all complete, and include another amusing one called 'Tommy the Tomboy', in which a feminist mother sends her daughter to a 'we'll-teach-anything' school and asks the owner to teach Thomasina (Tommy) to be a man. "It's a man's world, but we are working for equality for women," declares Tommy's mother. "And the only way is for women to be the same as men, able to take over all their jobs!" So Carol, owner of the school, decides to teach Tommy such manly things as chopping wood, boxing, and stoking the boiler. Unfortunately, though, Tommy is no George Kirrin or Tom Gay - for a start, she wants to be called Thomasina. Anyway, just as Carol's getting somewhere, the mother reappears wanting her daughter to become girly - a rich uncle has died and Tommy will inherit everything as long as she's feminine and hasn't been contaminated by her mother's involvement with the Feminine Freedom Fighters (known as the Three Fs , ahem ... ). It's all looking bad for the inheritance when the solicitor comes to check out Thomasina's feminine behaviour, but Carol's quick thinking and a little mouse save the day.

I won't go into details about the rest of the stories, but there are a couple with 16-year-old girls who run their own businesses as main characters. Another sign of how times have changed since 1972, when the majority of 16-year-olds did have jobs.

But the biggest surprise (apart from Raddy's fisticuffs)? The summer special is only 32 pages! Now it seemed to me back when I was 10 that summer specials had many, many more pages than that ...

The Price of Love by Peter Robinson

2009-09-18T08:52:26Z

Four years ago I won a copy of Peter Robinson's Aftermath in a raffle at a Sisters in Crime event. A couple of weeks later, I took it on holiday to Noosa and devoured it in a couple of sittings. The following day I found what was then his latest book, Playing with Fire, in the newsagent, bought it and loved it as well. Over the next 12 glorious months I bought and read his backlist* (yes, an expensive raffle win, this!), following DCI Alan Banks's investigations in any old order, then found myself in the same position as I am with my other favourite crime writer, Val McDermid - having to wait 12 months between new books!

The Price of Love is his latest book - a collection of ten short stories, plus a novella featuring Alan Banks, in which he reflects on his last case before leaving the Met, 20 years ago. This was, of course, the read of the book: we get to find out how Alan got his scar and what state his marriage to Sandra was in when they lived in London (rather worse than I'd imagined from the first few books in the series). There was one thing in it that really niggled me - Banks's discussing intimate (and undisclosed to the media) details of the murders with a copper who wasn't on the case. I found that really out of character for him. But it was still an enjoyable read - and a little sad too, with Alan's reflections on how both his life then and now were/are in a mess.

The short stories vary in quality, and overall I thought this collection wasn't as good as the one he published a few years ago (Not Safe After Dark). It includes a short story featuring Frank Bascombe, the World War II 'special constable' who solved a couple of crimes in Not Safe After Dark, but this story was too obvious and therefore nowhere near as good. There are also a couple of Banks short stories, including the atmospheric and murderless 'Blue Christmas'. Probably my favourite short story was 'The Price of Love', about a young boy solving a crime. I enjoyed this for the 1960s holiday in Blackpool as much as for the plot - it brought back memories of my own childhood holidays in Blackpool boarding houses, where I was always looking out for Blyton-style crimes to solve, hopefully involving smugglers ...

Now I have 12 months to wait to find out what's going on in Banks's life, but in the interim, Val McDermid's latest, Fever of the Bone, awaits ...

*All except for one book - No Cure For Love, set in and only published in North America. I wish it would come out here!

The Eternal Kiss: Vampire Tales of Blood and Desire

2009-09-13T01:41:57Z

Apart from watching Twilight a few months ago, I knew nothing at all about the vampire genre when I bought this anthology. I've never seen/read Dracula, even. But a while ago I had an idea for a vampire story. I knew a lot about the 'world' that will form the backdrop to the story, but nothing about vampires. So, I decided, if I really was going to include a vampire element in this story, I needed to know something about the conventions of the vampire genre.

So I bought this YA anthology - which includes stories by Libba Bray, Cassandra Clare, Holly Black and Sarah Rees Brennan - last Saturday, alongside the latest offerings by my two favourite writers, Peter Robinson and Val McDermid. I started reading Peter Robinson's book - also a collection of short stories - first, then picked up The Eternal Kiss and read Libba Bray's story, 'The Thirteenth Step'. This was a brilliant story about vampires feeding on drug-addicts on a 12-step program in an undesirable part of New York. I was hooked and read the stories in order, leaving Peter Robinson ignored on the bedside table. As in any anthology, not all the stories were good, but some, especially Cassandra Clare's (hers was definitely, for me, the best in the book, with a great twist, and I'm really inspired to read more of her work) and Libba Bray's, were excellent. And because they're YA, many of them felt like those old stories I read in Jackie in the 1970s - only with vampires and rather more gritty - so, oddly, there was something of a nostalgia element as well.

Anyway, the best thing about the book for me was discovering a new genre that I like. I read mainly crime or girls' own-style books, and in recent years I've found myself getting tired of and turned off by the increasing brutality in crime novels. And if the crime novel's not brutal, then it's wise-cracking chick lit, which I probably dislike even more. So I'm down to only two or three crime writers that I still follow. As for the girls' own, I've pretty much completed my collection now, and don't have anything much left that's going to be new to me. So it's good I've discovered a whole new genre out there to read. Oh yes, and now I know a bit more about vampires, I might get that urban fantasy written at last.

On a more negative note, one of the things I noticed in the anthology was something that dorianegray had commented on in terms of an urban fantasy in her LJ recently. There was little to no sense of place in these stories. Even Libba Bray's New York setting could have been a grungy part of Melbourne, London, Moscow ... anywhere. I wonder if this is deliberate in terms of urban fantasy and the ability to sell it anywhere? That it's somewhere or nowhere but could be anywhere? That way, everyone can relate, so everyone will buy, regardless of where they live, as happens with more traditional, other-world fantasies. Perhaps the fantasy experts on my flist can enlighten me?

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

2009-09-03T12:33:08Z

I find it hard to believe that I made it to the grand old age of 47 without ever having read The Secret Garden. I'm not quite sure why this book escaped me when I was a book-devouring child, but somehow it did, along with Little Lord Fauntleroy and A Little Princess. Though I have at least seen the 1980s BBC adaptation of A Little Princess, whereas I missed out on the 1990s movie of The Secret Garden, and any BBC adaptation there might have been.

Anyway, I've now read The Secret Garden, and it's an enjoyable read, though there are some really cringeworthy early-20th-century moments, such as the treatment of Indian natives and ten-year-old Colin's perspective on battered wives. The book is basically about how two disagreeable children become quite normal and nice (well, almost normal and reasonably nice in Mary's case and still a bit tiresome bratty in Colin's) thanks to not having to spend all their time cooped up in an enormous house on their own, plenty of fresh air, meeting Dickon, a country boy who has a way with wildlife, and re-establishing a long-neglected 'secret' garden. I struggled a bit with the Yorkshire dialect, though liked the way Mary was so keen to learn it! The ending seemed very rushed, with an unconvincing road to Damascus moment for the guardian. But the thing this book made me want to do, more than anything else, was go out and do some gardening and plant things!

Now I might read the other abovementioned titles. Perhaps A Little Princess will make me want to clear out the attic?!

Death on Tiptoe

2009-08-28T08:54:01Z

Death on Tiptoe was my first Greyladies purchase, and I have to say that I do like the cover. Greyladies was criticised in a recent Folly review for their covers, but I don't find the front cover of Death on Tiptoe dull at all - I think it looks very stylish.

But you should never judge a book by its cover, and unfortunately I found the content of this book on the dull side. It's a whodunnit, written in the 1930s by RC Ashby, who later wrote the 'Jill' series of pony books under her married name, Ruby Ferguson. It starts out well enough: a houseparty gathers together in a hideous old castle; there's plenty of tension 'twixt guests and hostess; and a game of hide and seek in the dark leads to murder ... I enjoyed the book up till that point.

But then came the investigation, which really plodded along. I had a problem believing that the amateur detective Lionel West - a judge, but also a suspect - would really be allowed to help the police with their investigation, even back in the 1930s. West was a bit of a bore, and also a bit too keen to protect his friends when he suspected their involvement in murder. And somehow the denouement just wasn't convincing. If this is an example of Ruby Ferguson's whodunnits, I can see why they haven't remained in print while the Jill books have. Maybe she should have written an equestrian whodunnit? I suspect she'd have shown rather more prowess at that ...

Sport, sport, sport

2009-08-23T23:42:09Z

I had so much lined up for this weekend – Davitt Awards on Friday, writers' festival followed by drinks with a friend on Saturday, and a free family pass to watch the Melbourne Storm v the Manly Sea Eagles on Sunday – that at the back of my mind was the thought that with so much to look forward to, one of us was bound to get ill and skittle the whole thing. But it didn't happen and I got to do all of it – the power of negative thinking! Ditto with the cricket – I fell asleep just before lunch last night and decided to go to bed. Ponting and Hussey were batting, not much was happening really, and I thought probably they'd still be in by stumps, and maybe the tail would be in tonight. But no – when we got up it was all over and England had regained the Ashes! I was happy, though it has to be said somewhat disappointed for the two boys in my house, one of whom was philosophical, but the other of whom is devastated. But yes, I bet if I'd gone to bed thinking "This is all over, England'll have 'em all out by tea", Ponting would have scored 200.

Now I'm trying to watch stuff on the BBC website and getting frustrated by the "only available within the UK" footage. What about us expats who paid our licence fee for YEARS? And what's this deal whereby you don't have to have a TV licence to watch iPlayer if you live in the UK, but you can't watch it if you're outside the UK "because you have to have a TV licence". Grrr. Oh, well, I've been able to watch Sky's coverage on our free-to-air SBS channel all series, as well as Test Match Special in the car, so I suppose I can't complain too much.

The rugby match yesterday was great! I don't follow rugby league at all, but we'd got the free tickets and I really enjoyed it. It was a close match and we had good views of the ground. It was a shame the Storm lost, but you can't have everything in a weekend, can you? Hawthorn (AFL) won, England won, and Wolves (English Premier League) lost and the Storm lost. Two teams out of four ain't bad.

Crime and cricket II

2009-08-23T01:54:27Z

Yesterday I went into the city for the Writers' Festival panel on 'Crimes within Crimes' with British author Tom Rob Smith and Australia's Marshall Browne. I got in early, so had time to wander around the second-hand book stalls, and also take a look in the overcrowded bookshop that was selling titles by the various Writers' Festival panellists. I hadn't read books by either of the authors I went to see and thought about buying a couple - but I couldn't find an Australian price on the cover, so didn't. I found a British price and rather wished I had my Pommie money still with me so I could have said, "Here's the seven pounds ninety-five - that's what it says on the cover". So I'll look out for the books elsewhere, where I can see a price, I think.

The panel was interesting, though there seemed to be a bit of friction between Tom Rob Smith and Liz Gaynor, a judge who was chairing the panel. I'm not sure what that was all about, but he seemed to contradict everything she said. Anyway, Marshall Browne was very relaxed and interesting and talked about how he never plans his books. He begins with a visual image and takes it from there, never knowing what's going to happen next. Tom Rob Smith says he plots his books beforehand, so he has some sort of structure to work with as he's going.

Afterwards, I met a friend from my writing group for a drink, and we went to a fabulous bar with a view over the Yarra to the Arts Centre. Then I came back and watched the cricket till I feel asleep. So I didn't see Trott's century. Very interestingly poised is this final test match - my gut feeling is that Australia can bat it out for two days for a draw and retain the Ashes. Actually, I wouldn't put it past them to send that ball flying to the boundary over and over for an almost unbelievable win. I don't know if I can stand the tension tonight!

lizarfau @ 2009-08-22T13:04:00

2009-08-22T03:10:54Z

Had an excellent night at the Davitt Awards (for Australian women's crime fiction and true crime) at the Celtic Club last night. I caught up with heaps of people I hadn't seen for ages, and also caught up with people I'd seen only the other week. The speaker, Justice Betty King, was brilliant and wonderfully opinionated, and the awards went to:

Best adult crime novel:
Malla Nunn, A Beautiful Place to Die

Best YA crime novel:
Catherine Jinks, Genius Squad

Best true crime book:
Chloe Hooper, The Tall Man

Readers' choice award:
Katherine Howell, The Darkest Hour

I listened to Test Match Special in the car coming home, and when I got back put the telly on and watched cricket until tea. Amazing afternoon session! Who will win, I wonder? I feel a bit nervous about tonight's play, but first I'm off into the city again for a writers' festival session on crimes within crimes ...

Otcha, otcha!

2009-08-03T12:30:11Z

When we were in the UK, we visited a friend of my mother's. She told us a story about when her husband was at primary school (this would have been in the 1930s) and the class was asked to write a poem. One of her husband's friends wrote a poem he'd read in a comic. Here it is:

Otcha, otcha
When I getcha
O ye bad men of the west,
You'll be gone
And lost for ever
I'll blow daylight through your vest.

Great poem, isn't it? We laughed so much at this!

When his teacher saw it, her response was ... "I'll blow daylight through your vest. You've had this out of a comic."

Has anyone heard this poem before? Or know the comic it was printed in? Anything about it at all? A Google search reveals nowt!

What I read on my holidays

2009-07-22T00:41:26Z

They haven't made their way out here, so I'd been waiting a while to buy and read three contemporary school stories published in the UK over the past 12 months: Secrets at St Jude's: New Girl by Carmen Read, Class by Jane Beaton, and Jinxed by Sara Lawrence. Were they worth the wait? Read on ...

Secrets at St Jude's: New Girl was terrific. Like the others it's more chick lit than school story, but it still contained some school story elements, including some great pranks (stealing the housemistress's glasses, sabotaging the boarding-house feast for parents; boys ending up hiding in bed in the dorm ... ) and a happy, GOish ending. The heroine, American Gina, doesn't want to go to boarding-school in Scotland and has a deal with her mother that if she gets good grades, she can leave at the end of term. I think you can guess how this works out. The friends she makes in Daffodil dorm are interesting, and all have their own specific parent problems. I thought this was an excellent contemporary take on the traditional girls' school story.

Class is aimed at older readers and has a teacher, Maggie, as its main character, but follows the school year through the eyes of three young students as well. You'd think this Malory Towers for adults angle would work well, but I was really disappointed with it. Too many issues were solved too easily and too many things were too obvious. Maggie's relationship issues left me cold – who in their right mind would be with Stan in the first place and David was a bit up himself, especially telling her she should apologise to the school inspectors for yelling at them, when every word she'd said had been true anyway. The ending was set up for the next book (more urst-to-come with David), which I don't think I'll be rushing out to buy next time I'm in England.

Worst of the three was Jinxed, the sequel to High Jinx, which I read and enjoyed last time I was in England. But Jinxed really is a poor follow-up. The plot doesn't really get going until the book is nearly over, and the return of Liberty Latiffe, flown back to Saudi Arabia by her outraged father at the end of the first book, is neither convincing nor necessary, as she's the most boring character by far in this second book. The characters sound like caricatures, their conversation peppered with 'like, totally, so', something that I didn't notice in the first book. I won't be buying the third book.

What I did on my holidays

2009-07-22T00:13:34Z

How can a whole month go by, just like that? We had a great time in England. We squeezed in far too much to do it justice here, but here are just a few highlights/memories from the trip:

* Beautiful weather in the first two weeks, resulting in plenty of sitting out in people's back yards till 11pm drinking Pimms and other alcoholic beverages. We don't get those long summer nights in Australia, and I'd forgotten what they were like.

* A brilliant exchange rate - 49p to the dollar - meant England was a much cheaper place to visit than it usually is. Adding to the good-value factor was a host of two-for-one entry fees to attractions and two-for-one meal deals. We ate out nearly all the time, finding even London prices cheaper than Melbourne ones at the moment. I'm going to miss those meal deals!

* Catching up with family and friends, having days out with them, going out for meals with them and enjoying lots of chat and laughter. Playing on the equipment with my cousins at Telford Park - middle-aged women and big slides go well together!

* Visits to loads of great places, including Sea Life aquarium in Birmingham, Dr Who exhibitions in Coventry and Cardiff, Coventry Cathedral, the City of Caves in Nottingham, Bosworth Battle Field and Heritage Centre, Birdland at Bourton-on-the-Water, Cadbury World at Bourneville, Warwick Castle, the London Transport Museum, the London Eye, the Tower of London, Telford Park, the Safari Park at Bewdley ... And we went to see Australia v England Lions at New Road, which ended in a draw. Attraction highlights were definitely Bosworth Heritage Centre and Cadbury World, both of which were very hands-on and offered a range of things to interest and occupy both adults and children. There was lots of free chocolate at Cadbury World too, to Gabe's delight! The London Eye and London Transport Museum were also excellent, as was the Safari Park at Bewdley.

* Finally seeing the inside of the renovated Tudor part of Haden Hall, which is only open to visitors very occasionally. This was a derelict building when I was a kid, and a local pressure group saved it from demolition in the early 1970s. The Victorian part was restored and opened to the public in the early 1990s. The Tudor part isn't furnished like the Victorian part, but it was interesting to see and definitely had a creepy atmosphere. The sort of place you could have filmed Spiderwick in ...

And now I am back and hoping for lots of work to come in so I can save up for another trip back! :-)

The Sittaford Mystery

2009-05-24T12:54:58Z

I read lots of Agatha Christie novels in my early teens; in those days, when the YA genre didn't exist, they were a natural progression from the childhood mysteries of Enid Blyton and Malcolm Saville. But I haven't read Agatha Christie much as an adult. I like her plots and her clue-puzzles, but not her (lack of) characterisation or her writing style. Actually, I think I prefer Agatha Christie as done on TV in the 1980s and 1990s (Joan Hickson as Miss Marple and David Suchet as Hercule Poirot) to Agatha Christie on the printed page.

However, someone mentioned The Sittaford Mystery on a forum recently, and when I came across it in a second-hand bookshop yesterday, I thought I'd give it a go. Apparently, snow, lots of it, was important to the plot. So I thought it would make a nice read over a winter weekend. As it turned out, this was a particularly balmy winter weekend (20 degrees), so no open fire to read it in front of ... but no matter.

And, what a surprise. The murder occurs really early in the book. Really early. The body is discovered in chapter 3 and we never actually meet the deceased. I didn't realise any Agatha Christie books existed where the murder didn't happen until at least midway through the book.

And, second surprise, there's no familiar detective in this one. No Hercule Poirot. No Miss Marple. No Tommy and Tuppence (thank God, too, for that). In Christie books it's quite common for Poirot or Miss Marple to appear quite late in the book to solve the crime, and I kept waiting for that to happen. This book, after all, is set in a hamlet, the murder is announced during a seance at the exact same time as the victim is meant to have died (oh, what dodgy forensics). Surely, surely Miss Marple would make an appearance having heard about the murder via some relative or maid who just happens to live in Sittaford? But no. In this book, Emily Trefusis, the fiancee of the accused, and Charles Enderby, a young journalist, play detective. Do they appear in any more books, does anyone know? I quite liked him, but found her irritating.

As a teenager, I used to find it easy to work out whodunit. It was always the least likely person. Obviously, I'm out of practice, because I didn't guess it. But it was the least likely person. And yes, snow is very important to the plot.

Poetry

2009-05-23T00:16:01Z

Plenty of poetry on my flist this morning! In general I'm not a great poetry lover, but there are some I really like. Being cynical by nature, my favourites stem from the 1930s when poets were writing about things that were very wrong with the world. The ones I like least are those that go on and on about the beautiful countryside (the pastoral poets). Yes, I agree that the countryside is beautiful, but why did they never mention the flies or the cowpats? Hmm.

Anyway, here's one of my favourites. I won't print it in its entirity. Just my favourite verses.

Toads by Philip Larkin

Why should I let the toad work
Squat on my life?
Can't I use my wit as a pitchfork
And drive the brute off?

Six days of the week it soils
With its sickening poison
Just for paying a few bills!
That's out of proportion.

Ah, were I courageous enough
To shout, Stuff your pension!
But I know, all too well, that's the stuff
That dreams are made on.

Given I don't think I know anybody who's really happy in their job, this probably sums up 21st century life pretty well!

And another that could have been written for our times is Louis MacNiece's Jigsaw II:

Property! Property! Let us extend
Soul and body without end:
A box to live in, with airs and graces,
A box on wheels that shows its paces,
A box that talks or that makes faces,
And curtains and fences as good as the neighbours'
To keep out the neighbours and keep us immured
Enjoying the cold canned fruit of our labours
In a sterilised cell, unshaved, insured.

Just think, this guy never even saw a MacMansion ... But if he were alive and wrote that today, he'd be castigated for not putting a positive spin on it.

More (and more and more) Terms at Malory Towers

2009-05-10T06:42:05Z

The new Malory Towers books by Pamela Cox are out - well, half of them are. Three were published on 4 May with the other three to follow in September. These books follow Felicity Rivers's school career after Darrell left, because, of course, everybody who read Last Term at Malory Towers thought: "Gosh! I wish I knew what happened to Felicity after Darrell left school." No, me neither. I won't be buying these, but have a couple of thoughts about their publication:
* The six books are being published almost simultaneously, as happened with Ann Bryant's new series of boarding-school stories, Silver Spires. All six Silver Spires books were published in August last year. Is the instant series going to become the new norm with children's books, I wonder? It's interesting, because when I was a kid the books in the bookshops had been around for years - Enid Blyton, the Chalet School, the Lone Piners, the Jills. Waiting from year to year for books to be published didn't happen. Well, I suppose you had to wait for years and years for Armada to publish the Chalets, but the hardbacks were there and in libraries and schools. But in general, if you liked a series it was possible to read the lot. Whereas maybe if the target market for Silver Spires, for example, had to be content with one or two books appearing every year, then their interest might well be gone before the third book came out. Much better from a marketing perspective to have the whole series ready to buy.
* The new Malory Towers books aren't the only Blyton follow-ons due to be published over the next or so. The syndication of Enid Blyton is now well underway, and in the years to come the name Enid Blyton on the books won't mean any more than the author name Carolyn Keene on the Nancy Drews. I really don't like this. For all I know the new books might be brilliant (and I have heard many people say that Trevor Bolton, who's writing The Secret Valley, a new book in the 'Secret' series, is an excellent writer). But once you add in these new books, plus the new Famous Five ones, and the Naughtiest Girls, and the Just Georges, you're going to hit the point where there are more non-Blytons with the name Enid Blyton on the cover than Blytons with the name Enid Blyton on the cover. I do feel the same about the Chalet School series fill-ins and continuations, but at least that has stemmed from fandom, not from a big company trying to turn a well-loved author into a "brand". Only time will tell whether these new books prove as enduring as Enid's originals have been.