Category: blogging

The cinema of my dreams – I never wanted to go to Africa – Episode 8

…

Was that a battle of wits?

…

I think I won the battle of wits, or whatever it was.

A few moments later he sat on the other side, pushing the chair back from the table, and me, as a deliberate act.

Distancing.

Besides adopting the speak when spoken to route, I was also adopting that age old modus operandi of not volunteering anything. If they knew anything they would have to tell me what they knew.

So, to begin with, another round of silence.

Then, after a few more minutes, s thin knowing smile, as if he knew everything I’d do before I did. Perhaps he was a psychology professor.

“What we you doing in a no fly zone?”

Well that answered at least two questions right there. We were where we were not supposed to be, and, as a stab in the dark, knowing how good the pilot was, we had deliberately strayed there.

On orders, or curiosity. No, orders.

Reason, suspected enemy or other activity in a designated area being used as cover. Had the Commander known about this and ordered a discreet incursion.

It felt more like a routine operation.

“I was not the pilot. You’d have to ask him, although that might be difficult now he’s dead.”

“The nature of you pre op briefing, then?”

“There wasn’t one, or if there was, I wasn’t included.”

“That would be a violation of regulations would it not?”

“You’d have to ask the military lawyers. I just make up the numbers, and do as I’m told.” I could add more but don’t volunteer information. Let them dig for it.

“Then why were you on board?”

He asked that question as if it was a surprise to him or someone else.

I think at that moment I realised there might be bigger fish that might get fried from this interview. There was an arrangement in place that if the pilot wanted to go up for extra hours, he had to take someone like me along, for situations like that which had happened.

This had been sanctioned by the Commander, but I don’t think it included heading out to hot spots. If this man was from our side, he might be on a witch hunt.

I looked at him in a new light.

This man was trouble of a different sort.

…

© Charles Heath 2019-2021

“What Sets Us Apart”, a mystery with a twist

David is a man troubled by a past he is trying to forget.

Susan is rebelling against a life of privilege and an exasperated mother who holds a secret that will determine her daughter’s destiny.

They are two people brought together by chance. Or was it?

When Susan discovers her mother’s secret, she goes in search of the truth that has been hidden from her since the day she was born.

When David realizes her absence is more than the usual cooling off after another heated argument, he finds himself being slowly drawn back into his former world of deceit and lies.

Then, back with his former employers, David quickly discovers nothing is what it seems as he embarks on a dangerous mission to find Susan before he loses her forever.

Find the Kindle version on Amazon here:  http://amzn.to/2Eryfth

whatsetscover

The cinema of my dreams – It continued in London – Episode 30

Vittoria and Juliet

…

What was it that found me finding ways to run into a woman that I really didn’t want to run into or see again?  And yet, it seemed everything I did, since Rodby reappeared in my life, revolved around her.

And it crossed my mind, while I was trying to find where she was living in London, that having a mother like Vittoria might have contributed to her ‘downfall’.  The biography of Vittoria wasn’t that of a society angel, more the pretender who was little more than a petty criminal worming her way into a field of rich pickings.

She’d been in service in the count’s residence, and as much as I hoped wasn’t a continuation of the old practice of masters having their way with their employees, or servants back in the old days, he might have forced himself on her, but I suspect it was the other way around.

If she was a grifter then she would have made him aware of the girl he sired, and if he was good about it, would have adequately compensated her, if only to keep it quiet.  Very adequately and for a long time until he died.  I suspect the countess didn’t know, and like most women in those sorts of marriages, probably didn’t want to know.

The reason why there was no surveillance in Juliet was because no one had found a starting reference point.  In other words, no one knew where she was.  And Cecilia was right, London was a big place if I wanted to pound the pavement looking for her.

The file said an internet search on her was performed, but the only information relevant to her they found was her fall from grace and very little beyond that date range.  It seemed Juliet Ambrose only existed for three years before I first met her.

That meant she had been someone else before that, most likely Juliet, the name of her mother at the time.  That, of course, suggested one of two eventualities, that she wanted to escape her mother, or the Count’s family because of her mother, and changed her own name, or her mother had informed on some fellow criminals to leverage a free ticket and going into a form of witness protection.

Knowing Juliet as I did, the former was more likely than the latter.

Now there was a new possibility that wasn’t a scenario in the file.  Had the count told anyone about the daughter, and the mother’s no doubt incessant demands?  That could be a reason for a hitman to remove the problem or problems.

I looked at the biography for Vittoria Romano again and noted she had a number of aka’s, Gallo, Rossi, and her birth name Moretti.

A quick search told me the Italian version of Juliet was Giulietta, so I put Giulietta Moretti into the search engine and waited all of 35 nanoseconds to get the obligatory 20,000,000 hits.  Popular girl.

But…

There on page three of endless pages on a fading Italian Rock and Roll singer, there was a picture, albeit of Juliet in her younger days, taken on the grounds of a mansion in Sorrento.  The Count had a place in Sorrento, and I looked it up in the list provided.

Yes.  It still belonged to the family.  I tucked that away in the mental notes stored at the back of my mind.  It would be worth a visit when I went looking for the Countess.

A further search through 32 useless pages of items found another.

Giulietta Moretti published a paper in a medical journal about a year ago on the effects on the human body caused by car crashes, and it was getting recognition by her peers.  So much so, that she had been asked by a group of surgeons to talk about it at a conference in Blackpool.

The day after tomorrow.

And…

It had an address where she worked in London, a morgue in one of the larger hospitals.  I now had a starting point.

My curiosity then switched to Alessandro.

I wondered if he knew the background of Vittoria.  Surely his brother would have alerted him to the trouble she was causing him.  Or, and this was a huge leap, had the Count not told anyone about her, thinking he had alone contained the problem.

If Alessandro knew then was he in cahoots with Vittoria in removing the Countess from the playing field.

What bothered me was that I saw Alessandro at the hotel at the same time as the countess, and I had no doubt he was the problem she needed to attend to.  How had he managed to spirit her away, if he did?  If not, why would she sneak out of the hotel and disappear?

Was it something to do with that meeting between her and Alessandro?  All good questions for a Detective Inspector.

It was particularly troublesome that our surveillance on the main players managed to lose two of them for a lengthy period.  No one had thought to stay in the hotel and were relying on the hotel’s own CCTV.  That, of course, showed nothing other than the countess and Alessandro arriving, and nothing after that.

There were a dozen CCTV camera feeds and I had them sent to my phone and that afternoon went through all of them, looking for anomalies, people ridiculously disguised, large crates or cases that could hide bodies, anything to show she had left, albeit disguised.

What she would want to be seen was anyone’s guess, but it may have had something to do with Alessandro.  What bothered me, though, was a report from the people who installed the CCTV system at the hotel.  It was interesting that it found its way to the Department, but not as interesting as the fact the number installed, and locations, didn’t match the number that had returned video for the time.  A second sheet noted that seven of the CCTV cameras were not in operation at the time, with no reason given.

As for Alessandro, he and I were going to have a talk sooner rather than later, and I was going to use my Detective Inspector warrant card for the second time.

Long ago, when developing guises, I got the chance to follow around a real detective inspector and learned the ropes.  He was a good detective and a better teacher.  It was my first item on the list for the next morning.

© Charles Heath 2023

A 2am rant: Is that a light at the end of the tunnel?

It’s a long-standing joke that the light at the end of the tunnel is the headlight of an express train coming right at you.

Metaphorically speaking, this is quite often true if you are a pessimist, but since I’ve converted to being an optimist, a bit like changing religions, I believe I’ve seen the ‘light’.  It’s a lot like coming up from the bottom of a deep pool, breaking the surface and taking that first long gulp of air.

Along with that elated feeling that you’re not going to drown.

What’s this got to do with anything, you ask?

Perhaps nothing.

As an allegory, it represents, to me, a time when I finally got over a period of self-doubt, a period where a series of events started to make me question why I wanted to be a writer.

I mean, why put yourself through rejections, sometimes scathing criticism, and then have the people whom you thought were your friends suddenly start questioning your choices after initially wholeheartedly supporting them?

Are we only successful or supportable if we are earning a sufficient wage?  Or better still, a New York Times No. 1 bestselling author?  Or, even better, having sold a million copies?

Is this why so many people don’t give up their day job and then find themselves plying the ‘other’ trade into the dark hours of the night, only to find themselves being criticised for other but no less disparaging reasons?

It seems like a no-win situation, the times when your mettle is tested severely.  But, in the end, it is worth it when the book is finished and published, even if it is only on Amazon.

You can sit back and say with pride, I did that.

That metaphorical light, you may ask.

When somebody buys that first copy!

What I learned about writing – Just why are we doing this thing called writing?

It’s a long-standing joke that the light at the end of the tunnel is the headlight of an express train coming right at you.

Metaphorically speaking, this is quite often true if you are a pessimist, but since I’ve converted to being an optimist, a bit like changing religions, I think I’ve seen the ‘light’.

It’s a lot like coming up from the bottom of a deep pool, breaking the surface and taking that first long gulp of air.

Along with that elated feeling that you’re not going to drown.

What’s this got to do with anything, you ask?

Perhaps nothing.

As an allegory, it represents, to me, a time when I finally got over a period of self-doubt, a period where a series of events started to make me question why I wanted to be a writer.

I mean, why put yourself through rejections, sometimes scathing criticism, and then have the people whom you thought were your friends suddenly start questioning your choices after initially wholeheartedly supporting them?

Are we only successful or supportable if we are earning a sufficient wage?

Or sold a million copies?

Is this why so many people don’t give up their day job and then find themselves plying the ‘other’ trade into the dark hours of the night, only to find themselves being criticised for other but no less disparaging reasons?

It seems like a no-win situation, but these are the times when your mettle is tested severely.  But, in the end, it is worth it when the book is finished and published, even if it is only on Amazon.

You can sit back and say with pride, I did that.

That metaphorical light, you may ask…

When you get that first ‘we’re publishing your story’ letter!

365 Days of writing, 2026 – 115/116

Day 115 and 116 – Writing Evercise

…

It was my second-to-last test before the final results of my year of in-field training were aggregated into a posting or an ignominious exit.

The last effort had been, as far as I was concerned, sabotaged by a colleague whose efforts were less than stellar, but had been schmoozing the test panel.

But, as someone else said, we cannot allow ourselves to believe the test panel would be so naive.

We should not have known who was on the test panel, but maybe that was also part of the test.  In the field, there were no panel members there to listen to your whining. You were on your own, or dead.

I sat alone that morning, not knowing who to trust.  Breakfast was a decent spread, worthy of a five-star hotel, but I had little appetite.  Two cups of strong black coffee and a scan of the morning newspaper.

The world was, as usual, still going to hell in a handbasket.  Page eight had a small piece about a missing scientist, one of several I’d read about over the last three months.

Patterns.

All seemed to have visited a nightclub, Ryker’s, in the seedier part of Boise, Idaho. 

Coincidence, maybe, but three of us had been given instructions to hole up in three separate three-star hotels that someone wanting to remain anonymous would stay at.

I had made the decision to have breakfast at an upmarket hotel and observe another class of people, just for a surveillance exercise.  I’d dressed up so that I’d fit in, channelling the lawyer/accountant vibe.

My cell phone was sitting nearby, waiting for the call.  It could be any time, or not for days.  We had to be able to deal with boredom and still stay honed.

It wasn’t easy.

The dining room was quite full.  For half an hour, guests and friends arrived and departed.  It was quite full, and wait staff were continuously threading their way, pouring coffee, taking orders, and being abused.

My waitress was amiable, even effervescent.  She smiled, filled the cup, and moved on.

As I watched her leave, I heard a scuffle nearby, and a body slid into the seat to my left.

A girl, mid-thirties, dyed blonde with dark roots, a recent change.  She wore a red blouse and a dark blue pantsuit.  Professional?

She turned to see me looking at her.  Usually, people ask before sitting down.

“Sorry.”  Breathless like she had been running.  I hadn’t seen her arrive.

She hadn’t brought anything with her.

Perhaps I should ask the question.  “Are you alright?”

She was scanning the entrance to the room, then stiffened.

I saw two men, one short, one medium, in cheap suits.  They were not police, perhaps private security.  They scanned the room, stopped at my table and without appearing to, moved quickly towards me.

“Oh, God.”  She looked as if she had seen the devil himself.

“Who are they?” I asked casually, keeping an eye on their progress.

“Trouble.”

“Do you need help?”

“You can’t…”

I shrugged.  As they approached, I stood.  I motioned for her to stay seated and raised a hand to my coffee waitress to come over.

The two men and the waitress arrived at the same time.  They took up positions that cut off the girl’s exit.  The look on my breakfast companion’s face was stark terror.

The waitress asked, “Coffee?”

“No.  Call the police.  The two men behind you are fugitives from a kidnapping my team have bren trackeing using this young lady as a decoy.”

I showed my FBI badge and showed it to the shorter man. “You don’t want to do this, especially with the CCTV cameras focused on you.”

“Walk away,” the short one said.

People were starting to notice, and a ripple was going through the room.  Police appeared at the entrance.  The waitress headed towards them quickly.  I had expected the two men to impede her progress.

The two men ran.  They headed for the nearest exit away from the policemen and disappeared from sight.  I put the ID away and sat.

The girl spoke to them and pointed in my direction, then in the direction the men had taken, and they followed them.  The waitress disappeared.

The girl did not look relieved in the slightest.  I said, “The police can deal with them.”

Another waiter stopped and filled our cups with black coffee and moved on.  It was as if nothing had happened, except there were a few looking and guessing at what had happened. I said, “Exactly how did you end up here?”

“Are you really FBI?”

“In a manner of speaking.”  I noticed then a purple mark on her wrist.  “What is that in your arm?”

She hid it.  “Nothing.”

“It’s something that might save you. What is it?”

“A pass-out stamp from a nightclub.”

“Ryker’s?”

She sucked in her breath and went on the defensive.  “It’s nothing to do with this?”

“Are you a scientist?”

“Who are you?”  She stood.  “I’ve got to go.”

I stood.  “Fine.  But I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what’s wrong?”

“No.  I can’t.” 

She took two steps, then stopped.  I think we both had the same thought.  Those men had not left; they were waiting for her to leave.  Somewhere outside the building.

She said quietly, “Not here.”

…

We left in the opposite direction from the two men.  I walked slightly in front of her, protecting her as I had been shown to do in similar situations.

The thought crossed my mind that this was a simulation, and I was surrounded by some of the best actors I’d seen, too good for our usual simulations.  They were second-year graduates honing their skills.

I had a gun, a license to carry, and instructions never to use it in plain sight.  I nearly broke that rule.

At the doorway, I checked and rechecked the perimeter and considered the possible four locations where they could be.  I didn’t think they’d attack inside the building, not the way they left in a hurry, their cover blown.

And on CCTV.  That was bad enough.  I was on it too.  But, here’s the thing.  How often do you find yourself in a situation that is so random, it’s unexplainable?

No unusual movement and no heads peeking from behind walls.  If it were me, I’d call for reinforcements and stake out every entrance and exit.

Movement, just in the corner of my eye.  Or not. 

Batten down the nerves and go back to basics.

Don’t stand still, keep moving, steady but not fast enough to attract attention.  Look purposeful, like you have somewhere to be, and above all, look like you know where you’re going.

But…

New city, no time to check the necessary information about it, the hotel, the exits, how to leave without being seen.  That was going to be my after-breakfast task.

I should have done it yesterday when I arrived.

Then a thought: basement.  All hotels had a basement.

Towards the back, stairs.  Down.  Through the lobby.  Damn.  I shook my head.

“We have to go down.  Via the lobby.”

“They’ll be waiting.”

She was right.  We needed a diversion.

I said a small prayer, crossed the passage and broke the fire alarm, setting it off.  Then we headed through the lobby.

She was right.  But they had not expected us to cross from front to back, but from back to front.  They got caught on the exodus heading for the front door, after we got through to the stairs.

And down, down a corridor and into the kitchen, through to the rear entrance left ajar so the smokers could get in and out.

It was where we would leave the building.

Just as bullets pinged off the wall above our heads as we exited.  I dove to the right behind a dumpster, dragging her with me, hearing her groan as we hit the ground, as more bullets pinged off the metal bin.

I pulled out my gun and fired several random shots in their direction, and the volley ended.

From the frying pan into the fire…

The door opened behind me, and several bullets hit the wall. Someone returned fire, then the alley went quiet.

Then, “You can come out now.”

The waitress.

We both got up off the ground and came out to see the waitress, who was no longer a waitress.  She showed us a State Police department badge.  “Detective Somers, who the hell are you two?”

“Agent Alex Pettigrew, FBI.  I think I’ve stumbled into something I don’t want to know about.”

The girl, “Professor Jane Blanch, neither of you has clearance high enough to ask any more questions.”

“And those two men?”

“You don’t want to know,” Jane said. She looked at Somers.  “Are they dead?”

“I hope not.  They have a thousand questions to answer.  Look,” she said to me.  “Just wrap yourself up and leave, and don’t come back.  This is not your jurisdiction.”

“As right as that might sound in your head as the right thing to say, it is not.  Whatever just happened is symptomatic of something much, much larger and is not going away.  It has something to do with Ryker’s Nightclub, science, and research.  Jane is not the first scientist to disappear from that cohort.”

“Pack it up and walk away, FBI man.  This is not your rodeo.”

“You going to save this woman?  There’ll be more where those two came from.”

“That’s my job.  You can leave it with me.  Miss.”  She had her hand in the Professor’s arm.”

The Professor looked at me.  “Thanks.”

“You feel safe with the Detective?”

“Of course.  Thank you again.”

…

Convenient.

When something doesn’t feel right, it generally isn’t.

As I watched them head down the alley, I had a bad thought.  What if what I saw was just a show?  This was the trouble distinguishing between what was real and what was training.

More than once, I’d say, in the post mission review after a training session and have my ass handed to me in a sling.

Do not trust anything or anyone.  The enemy will come to you dressed in any disguise, as your friend, as someone you can trust.  And thirty seconds later, they end up with a bullet between the eyes.

You rarely saw the bullet that had your name on it.

I waited until they were out of sight and followed discreetly.  I noted they did not go back into the hotel.

Jurisdictional issues were common.  County and State police pulled jurisdiction on what they called their patch.  We were not supposed to pull rank and were obliged to advise local authorities if we were working their patch.

Sometimes we didn’t have time.

I should be expecting a phone call if a different sort after breaking cover.  If the detective decided to call it, or if the detective was a detective.

I reached the end of the alleyway and stopped.  Should I have a weapon ready or just poke my head around the corner? 

This could go wrong in so many ways.

Ideally, there would be no one there.  The remote chance, the two men, the bogus detective and the girl were waiting.

I peered around the corner.

Two police cars, four officers, the detective and the girl standing by one of the cars.  No flashing lights, so not an active situation.

The detective was on her cell phone.

Not my problem.

But…

Where were the people who were shooting at us?  If there were police at the end of the alley, the fact that there were shooters in an urban environment would have led to lights and perpetrators under arrest.

There were no shooters anywhere, and they certainly had time to get away.

I leaned against the wall.  It had to be a simulation, and I failed because I had let the girl go into what was potentially a life-threatening situation.

My cell phone vibrated.  Yes, I’d learned the lesson about having an active or loud ringtone, exposing my presence.

No one else knew this number.  It was the bad news.

“Yes?”

“You have passed the final test and are being assigned under your FBI cover name.  We received a call from Somers, a detective with ISP investigations, to verify your identity.  You identified a possible kidnap victim, one of several in the past six months, and prevented a possible situation.”

“It was several notices in various newspapers.  I had no idea it was going to happen or if it meant anything.  She just sat at my table.”

“Not in your hotel.”

“Boring breakfast, sir.”

“A coincidence that just got you into the service.  Now you need to prove you belong there.  She’s waiting around the corner.  Good to see you didn’t trust that she was who she said she was, but I’m not going to ask what you intended to do if there was a problem.”

“Neither did I.  Good thing you called.”

Silence.  Perhaps flippancy wasn’t the way to go.

“Report through the usual channels.  We will update your cell with your support teams.  Good luck.”

I sighed, more in relief than anything else.  Then I pocketed the phone and walked around the corner.

She was expecting me.

…

©  Charles Heath  2026

Searching for locations: Tiananmen Square, Beijing, China

Some interesting facts before we get out of the bus…

Tiananmen Square or Tian’anmen Square is in the centre of Beijing name after the Gate of Heavenly Peace, a gate that one separated the square from the Forbidden City.

The Square contains,

   the Monument to the People’s Heroes
   the Great Hall of the People
   the National Museum of China
   the Mausoleum of Mao Zedong.

The square is about 109 acres and was designed and built in 1651, and since then been enlarged four times since, the most recent upgrade in the 1950s.

The Monument to the People’s Heroes

This is a ten-story obelisk built to commemorate the matters of the revolutions.  It was built between August 1952 and May 1958.  On the pedestal are reliefs depicting the eight major revolutionary episodes.

The Great Hall of the People

This was opened in September 1959, and covers 171809 square meters.  The Great Hall is the largest auditorium in China and can seat up to 10,000 people.  The State Banquet Hall can seat up to 5,000 diners.

The National Museum of China

This is one of the largest museums in the world and the second most visited museum in the world after the Louvre in Paris.   It was completed in 1959, and sits on 65 hectares, and rises four floors.  It has a permanent collection of over 1,000,000 items.

The Mauseloum of Mao Zedong

This was built shortly after his death, and completed on May 24th, 1977.  The embalmed body of the Chairman is preserved and on display in the center hall.

My own observations
This is huge; one of the largest public squares in the world, and if you’re going to walk it, like we did, make sure you’ve been exercising before you go.  It covers 44 hectares, borders on the Forbidden City, and has a memorial to Chairman Mao in the center of it.  But you cannot go near it, it’s fenced off, and it is guarded.

That’s both the statue and the square as there are random guards marching in random directions all the while watching us to see that we don’t misbehave.No one wants to find out what would happen if you jumped the fence around the statue, but I’m guessing you’ll have a few years to contemplate the stupidity of your actions with some very unhappy government officials.

Around the edges of the square are huge buildings, on one side is the museum 

and on the other is the Chinese equivalent of parliament.

Around the sides are also large gardens

At one end, where the Forbidden City borders on the square, there’s a huge flag pole flying the Chinese flag, and this too like the monument is fenced off, and guarded by members of all of their armed services.  No tanks rolled out during our visit much to our disappointment.  There is no entrance to the Forbidden City from the square

At the other end is the Mausoleum of Mao Zedong, which was closed the day we were there, as was the museum. 

There are four sculptural groups installed outside the mausoleum.

Other than that, it’s just another square, albeit probably one of the largest in the world.  It can, we were told, hold about a million people.

In a word: Might

We might have to use some might to beat the mite.  Confused?

Might is force, so expending might be much the same as what Thor does with his hammer.

We might expend some force; this might be a maybe.  You’re never quite sure when someone uses the word might, whether or not they will actually do it.

I might do a lot of things, but somehow, I never seem to get around to actually doing them,

Of and just for the record, it’s the past tense of the word may.  You know, you may do something, or you might not.

You might also use the word might when being polite, which seems to be a rarity these days because everyone is terse, tense, and in a hurry.

So might I go to the movie will always get a resounding no if it means you get home late at night.   And you’re only 10 years old.

I might be interested, but I don’t think so.  Let me think about it.  Which also means no.

Of course, if you’re slack in doing homework, you might want to try a little harder next time.

What might have been if only you tried harder?

Then there’s that little pest called a mite, though it goes by a lot of other names, one of which is everywhere, a termite.

Or a dust mite.

It also could be used slangily for a child in distress, that is, look at that poor little mite, he looks so tired.

Or another word for slightly, for example, the girl seemed a mite embarrassed.

The story behind the story: A Case of Working With the Jones Brothers

To write a private detective serial has always been one of the items at the top of my to-do list, though trying to write novels and a serial, as well as a blog, and maintain a social media presence, well, you get the idea.

But I made it happen, from a bunch of episodes I wrote a long, long time ago, used these to start it, and then continue on, then as now, never having much of an idea where it was going to end up, or how long it would take to tell the story.

That, I think is the joy of ad hoc writing, even you, as the author, have as much of an idea of where it’s going as the reader does.

It’s basically been in the mill since 1990, and although I finished it last year, it looks like the beginning to end will have taken exactly 30 years.  Had you asked me 30 years ago if I’d ever get it finished, the answer would be maybe?

My private detective, Harry Walthenson

I’d like to say he’s from that great literary mould of Sam Spade, or Mickey Spillane, or Phillip Marlow, but he’s not.

But I’ve watched Humphrey Bogart play Sam Spade with much interest, and modelled Harry and his office on it.  Similarly, I’ve watched Robert Micham play Phillip Marlow with great panache, if not detachment, and added a bit of him to the mix.

Other characters come into play, and all of them, no matter what period they’re from, always seem larger than life.  I’m not above stealing a little of Mary Astor, Peter Lorre or Sidney Greenstreet, to breathe life into beguiling women and dangerous men alike.

Then there’s the title, like

The Case of the Unintentional Mummy – this has so many meanings in so many contexts, though I imagine that back in Hollywood in the ’30s and ’40s, this would be excellent fodder for Abbott and Costello

The Case of the Three-Legged Dog – Yes, I suspect there may be a few real-life dogs with three legs, but this plot would involve something more sinister.  And if made out of plaster, yes, they’re always something else inside.

But for mine, to begin with, it was “The Case of the …”, because I had no idea what the case was going to be about, well, I did, but not specifically.

Then I liked the idea of calling it “The Case of the Brothers’ Revenge” because I began to have a notion there was a brother no one knew about, but that’s stuff for other stories, not mine, so then it went the way of the others.

Now it’s called ‘A Case of Working With the Jones Brothers’, finished the first three drafts, and I am at the editor for the last reading.

I have high hopes of publishing it mid 2026.  It even has a cover.

PIWalthJones1

Searching for locations: The Golden Mask Dynasty Show, Beijing, China

The Golden Mask Dynasty Show was located at the OCT Theatre in Beijing’s Happy Valley. 

The theatre was quite full and the seats we had were directly behind the VIP area; as our guide told us, we had the best seats in the house. 

The play has 20 different dance scenes that depict war, royal banquets, and romance.  There are eight chapters and over 200 actors, and throughout the performance we were entertained by dancers, acrobats, costumes, lighting, and acoustics.

The story:

It is of romantic legend and historical memories, the Golden Mask Queen leads her army in defeating the invading Blue Mask King’s army, and afterwards the lands return to a leisurely pastoral life until the Queen forges a ‘mysterious tree’.  When the tree has grown, the Queen has a grand celebration, and releases the captured Blue soldiers, much to the admiration of the Blue Mask King.
This is followed by monstrous floods, and to save her people, and on the advice from the ‘mysterious tree’, the Queen sacrifices herself to save her people.  The Queen then turns into a golden sunbird flying in the sky blessing the people and that of the dynasty.

Billed as the best live show in China, described as a large scale dramatic musical, “The Golden Mask Dynasty” it lived up to its reputation and was thoroughly enjoyed by all.

It was not just singing dancing and acrobatics, it had a story and it was told so that language and cultural issues aside, it worked.  There was a narration of the story running beside the stage, but it was hard to divide attention between what was happening, and what was being related.

Then came the peacock dance, with live peacocks

And this was followed by a waterfall, well, I don’t think anyone in that audience could believe what they were seeing.

I know I was both astonished and in awe of the performance.

What a way to finish off our first day in Beijing.

Oh, sorry, that high was dented slightly when we had to go back to our room.