As you can see the shelves are multi-purpose, but that’s all about to change.
The problem?
I have been buying books and I am now running out of shelf space, so the drinks will have to go.
There have been quite a few that have been reduced in price, and this is the time when I buy up big.
The problem is that I have so many, and no more space for shelving, that sometimes I have to ‘recycle’, but a friend of mine doesn’t mind because those recycled books find a good home elsewhere.
Even so, I don’t think I’ll stop buying books.
They’ll just have to lie around on the floor is stacks.
As some may be aware, but many not, Chester, my faithful writing assistant, mice catcher, and general pain in the neck, passed away some months ago.
Recently I was running a series based on his adventures, under the title of Past Conversations with my cat.
For those who have not had the chance to read about all of his exploits I will run the series again from Episode 1
These are the memories of our time together…
This is Chester. We both agree that summer has come early.
But that’s about all we can agree on. I’m going to start calling him a cranky cat.
For the last week or so the temperature has been hovering in the low 30-degree Celcius mark, and we have been subjected to the constant aroma of smoke from bushfires raging north and south of us.
Normally, the hot weather doesn’t arrive until after the middle of November, and then the temperatures are around 30 degrees with moderate humidity.
Now, it is hot, with Sunday being about 36 degrees Celcius, and not a day to venture outside the airconditioning.
And, that’s where the cranky cat and I disagree.
He likes to sit at the back door and collect the breeze that flows from the front door to the back door and hates it when I run the airconditioning because I have the doors closed.
When that happens, he comes into the office and sits on the table next to the printer with his angry face on.
I figure using the printer might disturb his protest, but it doesn’t.
And to ignore him is at your own peril because, after a few minutes of silent protest, he comes over and starts pushing keys on the keyboard.
One day I expect he will type ‘you are a very bad servant’ for that I am.
I’ve stayed in a few places where ghosts were purported to be roaming the passages at night, but apparently not the night I was staying.
And that’s something else that I have a problem with, why is it ghosts only come out at night, or is that just the perception I have hot from reading up on the subject.
Maybe my view of ghosts is somewhat stilted, after all, I think my first introduction to ghosts was watching The Centerville Ghost, a movie I saw on t.v. when I was very young.
You have to admit Hollywood’s perception of ghosts is quite interesting.
But…
Do you think they are real? Do I think they are real?
I think I would have to be presented with some fairly solid evidence they exist, but perhaps not to the point of meeting one.
There are, it seems countless examples of ethereal forces, you know, wind blowing where there’s no wind or draught outside, room temperatures dropping for no apparent reason, knocking, rattling of chains, strange noises like low moaning.
And yet…
There are hotels you can stay in such as the Chelsea Hotel in New York, where it’s possible to run into Sid Vicious.
Sorry, not staying there any time soon.
Then there’s the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel in Los Angeles where it’s possible to run into Marylin Monroe, who lived in room 229.
That could be an interesting encounter.
Another is the Westin St Francis in San Francisco where the actress Virginia Rappe died while attending a party held in Fatty Arbuckle’s room, Arbuckle’s room, who was later accused of assaulting and murdering her, and whose career tanked after the incident.
Her ghost is seen moving about the hotel tearing her hair out. It seems all of the spectral activity occurs on the 12th floor.
Good to know if I decide to stay there. I wonder if they have a 13th floor?
Perhaps in too old to be running the gamut of paranormal experiences, the old heart is not as strong as it used to be.
Tiananmen Square 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.
As some may be aware, but many not, Chester, my faithful writing assistant, mice catcher, and general pain in the neck, passed away some months ago.
Recently I was running a series based on his adventures, under the title of Past Conversations with my cat.
For those who have not had the chance to read about all of his exploits I will run the series again from Episode 1
These are the memories of our time together…
This is Chester. He’s decided to look the other way.
We are not on very good terms. Three times in a row he’s decided to wake me at some ungodly hour of the morning on the pretence that he needs feeding, and three times he’s sniffed it and walked haughtily away.
If that was not bad enough, he’s now barracking for any other team than the Maple Leafs. And to make matters worse, he’s now calling them losers, which technically is correct, but we are missing Marner, and Tavares needs more time to get back into it, and I can’t tell you where Mathews is, but he needs to come back real soon.
On top of this, I’m starting to feel for Anderson because they got rid of Hutchinson as a backup goalie and I didn’t think he was that bad.
Trust Chester to say that Hutchinson hadn’t been in a winning side for a while. Obviously, he’s a keen observer of the game, or he’s figured out how to use my phone and the NHL / Maple Leafs apps.
OK, enough of the boring stuff.
I’m in need of some mood music so I put on Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. Yes, it’s definitely annoying Chester.
Now, brevity is something that I have not been able to fully wrap my head around.
The dictionary explains Brevity as
‘concise and exact use of words in writing and speech’
So…
I remember working with a writer a long time ago who explained certain authors styles, and for James A Michener of Hawaii fame, he said Michener wrote sentences instead of words, paragraphs instead of sentences, pages instead of paragraphs and chapters instead of pages.
It was a little harsh considering I’d just read the book and had liked it, despite its length and the time it took.
But some time later I realized he was not criticizing Michener, but trying to tell me, in his, what I came to discover, interesting way, that I should strive to write more compactly.
I then came across a book by Brian Callison which was exactly that, the concise version, a story that fitted into about 200 pages.
That too was a good book and it took me a day to read it, and by his use of that economy of words, it read quickly.
Of course, I have tried over the years to emulate both styles, and to a certain degree, failing, because I think I have created my own style which is somewhere in between.
Still, when editing, it is always in the back of my mind that I should be
Using words instead of sentences
Using sentences instead of paragraphs
Using paragraphs instead of pages, and
Using pages instead of chapters.
The chapters, he said, with an air of amusement, will always take care of themselves.
It is located in Dengfeng Ave, Dengfeng, Zhengzhou, Henan, China, at the southern foot of Mount Song, 13 km northwest of Dengfeng City, Zhengzhou City, Henan Province.
A map of the Temple grounds, which would come in handy before you enter the grounds, so that you have some idea of what there is to see:
A bit of history:
The Shaolin Temple was originally built in 495 during the Northern Wei Dynasty (368-534). For over 1500 years, Shaolin Temple has developed through good and bad times. The temple was firstly destroyed in the Northern Zhou Dynasty (557-581), then rebuilt much later as the Zhihu Temple. In the Sui Dynasty (581-618) the temple was renamed Shaolin and became one of the largest Buddhism monasteries in North China.
Good fortune in the early Tang Dynasty (618-907) was followed by bad fortune in the later of Tang Dynasty, it improved during the Song Dynasty (960-1279) until 1312 in Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) where it returned to its former glory. The Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) also made contributions to the development of Shaolin Temple.
Due to the wars of the modern era much of the Temple was destroyed.
The Shaolin Temple, nestled in the forested mountains of Henan, its the birthplace of Kung Fu and Zen Buddhism. The Shaolin Temple embraces many exciting attractions, such as the Hall of Heavenly Kings (Tianwangdian), and the Mahavira Hall (Daxiongbaodian)
This is not a single building, that’s not how the Chinese work. It’s a whole host of buildings, the first of which is up some steps, through a gate, then along a tree-lined avenue with monument stones to some more steps, past a cauldron burning incense, and then to the temple. There are several monks inside.
The front entrance:
Inside the entrance building, there are some large statues that I’m guessing are there to scare away the wrong sort of people
Once past these characters, you are on a walkway between pagodas where there are trees, and sculptures
and through the next pagoda brings you to the first of the temples. There are three doors and three buddas. This is through the middle door
And no you can’t go inside, you just stand on the outside looking in.
In one part of the temple there were three monks, and, believe it or not, they were all on their mobile phones.
This is certainly not ancient times, so what did the monks do before mobile communications?
Up some more stairs to the next building,
And so on till we reach the one at the top. Outside each is a cauldron burning incense, and that aroma hangs on the air everywhere you go in the compound.
Then it’s a case of what goes up must come down, and strangely enough, it doesn’t take as long to go back down, and in doing so we got to see and hear a bit of singing by the monks.
There was a story to go with the various buildings and other aspects but I didn’t hear half of it, and couldn’t understand our guide for the rest.
All in all, it was an interesting place, but still not worth the money we paid.
As some may be aware, but many not, Chester, my faithful writing assistant, mice catcher, and general pain in the neck, passed away some months ago.
Recently I was running a series based on his adventures, under the title of Past Conversations with my cat.
For those who have not had the chance to read about all of his exploits I will run the series again from Episode 1
These are the memories of our time together…
This is Chester. He’s decided to be my personal alarm clock this morning.
It was a two-pronged attack.
First, he jumps from his bed, which, in our room, is a pile of blankets on a massage chair, on to our bed just about where my pillows are, regardless of the fact I might be lying there.
It can be quite disconcerting, as he decided to go for a walk across the back of the bed.
Even more so if he decided to let us know he’s not happy.
Come to think of it, when is he ever happy?
Second, he wanders down the end of the bed and lies down on your feet. Being a Tonkinese, he’s a lot heavier than he looks.
If you decide to gently ease him off with a few subtle foot movements, he then starts attacking your feet. This can be a painful exercise in summer if all that covers your feet is a sheet.
So, this morning…
We stayed up late to watch the last four episodes of Jack Ryan series 2. It’s one of those things where you get hooked, and don’t realise the passing of time.
Consequently this morning I’m tired, and it’s past cat feeding time.
I should know better than to ignore him.
When the first two wake up calls fail, he goes to a third, comes right up in my face and taps me on the shoulder, then lets me know just how unhappy he is with me.
As some may be aware, but many not, Chester, my faithful writing assistant, mice catcher, and general pain in the neck, passed away some months ago.
Recently I was running a series based on his adventures, under the title of Past Conversations with my cat.
For those who have not had the chance to read about all of his exploits I will run the series again from Episode 1
These are the memories of our time together…
This is Chester. You wouldn’t think he would have an interest in horse racing.
But…
He does. Today, in Australia, is the day the Melbourne Cup is run. It seems to be the biggest thing on the racing calendar, not only in Melbourne but the rest of the country.
Chester, as usual, doesn’t seem to think it’s all that great.
He wants to know why the cat races are not televised.
What cat races?
It seems he had been watching Fox Sports, and there’s dog races, greyhounds he says.
I’ve heard of them, even went once or twice when we lived in Melbourne, where there was a dog race track.
Well, he says, if they can race dogs, they can race cats.
I appear a little sceptical. What are they going to chase?
Mice.
Isn’t that a little cruel, I mean, you’ll get the animal rights people up in arms.
Over mice, he snorts. No one likes mice. But if it’s a problem, why not rats? Everyone hates rats.
So, I say, you’re up for it then. We could make a killing.
A shake of the head, and nose in the air. “Of course not, I’m a pedigree cat. That’s for the alley cats. I’ll be watching from the Royal box thankyou.”
Thrills, Spills, and just a dash of Romance 