If Wishes Were Horses

Winx after winning the 2017 Turnbull Stakes

It now appears that due to the continued infestation of the Delta variant of Covid 19, public attendance at this year’s Spring Racing Carnival will not be permitted.  This is disappointing news, but I can hope for a normal Autumn carnival next year.

I’m particularly aggrieved  at not being able to attend the Cox Plate. I did purchase an early bird ticket to the Cox Plate in the hope that by the time it was run in late October that Covid  would not be still an issue, but I received a phone call from Moonee Valley Racing Club the other day advising that that public attendance was not allowed and that they will refund my outlay on the ticket.

If I could have attended next Saturday’s Turnbull Stakes meeting at Flemington I would have been somewhat mollified at missing the Cox Plate, as the Turnbull Stakes features several horses that I would have liked to see in the flesh.

It looks a great race with star mare Verry Elleegant, whom I have not seen in action since her three year old days, up against potential new star of the turf and current favourite for the Melbourne Cup  Incentivise and 2020 Cox Plate winner Sir Dragonet. Verry Elleegant won the Turnbull Stakes last year, and will be out to emulate the great Winx who won the race in consecutive years in 2017 and 2018. She has to beat Incentivise who won the Makybe Diva Stakes and six consecutive races in Queensland prior to that.

I also would have liked to see triple Derby winner Explosive Jack and Golden Eagle winner Colette  who I’ve not seen in action before.

On the up side of lockdown at least the distance one is permitted to travel has been extended to 15 kilometres, so I could go to the Victoria Market yesterday. It’s the first time I’ve travelled on public transport since early August.

I’ve almost forgotten what normal is after nearly two years in lockdown. Who knows what the new normal, when everyone’s vaccinated and borders open, will be like. It’ll be different from the old normal I suspect.

My current killing time reading is the wonderful Gods, Graves, and Scholars: The Story of Archaeology by C W Ceram which I have read a couple of times before and reviewed on this blog back in  2009. For light relief, on my Kindle, I’m reading Domestic Bliss and Other Disasters by Jane Ions, a well written witty contemporary novel. It’s been shortlisted for the 2021 Comedy Women in Print Prize.

As for computer gaming, Monkey Island is still keeping me amused at present.

And alas Bingo remains missing, though never far from our thoughts.

The Longing– A perfect game for Extended Lockdown

The Longing – promo image

With Victoria’s Covid 19 stage 4 restrictions extending for the foreseeable future, it struck me as appropriate to start playing the recently released computer game The Longing.

Classified as slow gaming, it takes 400 days to finish. In fact once you start the game you are not obliged to play, but can wait for the 400 real time days to pass to see the ending.

The time ticks down as you play the lonely Shade, servant to a sleeping king, who must wait out the 400 days so he can wake his master at the preordained time.

Passing time as the The Shade, you can explore the extensive cave structure and keep busy in one way or another by creating a cosy abode in which to pass the time. There are (real)  books to read, music to make and art to create.

I’ve only played briefly over two days so far and have yet to explore the caves in depth. It’s no use being impatient as it’s a slow process and The Shade moves at snail’s pace. In some cases he must wait for a door to open or a stalactite to grow before proceeding further.

It’s an intriguing and very original concept of gaming which I shall enjoy dipping into every so often. I sincerely hope that Covid 19 will be a distant memory by  the time The Longing comes to an end next year.

On the subject of computer games, I’ve played a few engaging escape the room type games recently.

The latest was Agent A: A Puzzle in Disguise, where you play the eponymous hero tracking down the wicked Ruby La Rouge, evil agent of MIA’s arch enemy HAVOK.  This clever game was created in Australia by Yak & Co.

Agent A – promo image

There are five chapters in the game, so it’s gratifyingly  long  with a plethora of intriguing puzzles to solve.

Another, very beautiful, escape the room game is the exquisite Luna: The Shadow Dust. 

Luna – promo image

In this game a boy falls from the sky in a bubble of light. It is your task to guide him up a tall tower to solve the mystery of his fall and recover his lost memories, solving puzzles as you move higher, often with the assistance of the  pet.

It’s a charming, albeit short game, and the puzzles are unusual, beautiful and a pleasure to solve.

On the reading front, after finishing David Mitchell’s new novel Utopia Avenue which I loved to bits, I’ve been reading my way through the Dublin Trilogy, a series of four detective novels by Caimh McDonnell featuring the extraordinary Bunny McGarry . They are page turners,  very funny, but also quite violent.  They were an eBook  gift for my birthday from a friend. At first I was in two minds as to whether I was going to like the books, but I have become quite addicted as I progress through the trilogy. You can get a free eBook of short stories  if you sign up for Caimh McDonnell’s monthly email list.

At this time of the year I would normally be heading off to the racetrack for the Spring Racing Carnival, but alas it doesn’t appear as if the public will be admitted at all this season.

This weekend at Flemington features the Group 1 Makybe Diva Stakes. I wish I could be there to watch it live, as I would have liked to get a look at the highly regarded Russian Camelot who won the South Australian Derby in spectacular fashion and is an early favourite for the Melbourne Cup. But then again, with heavy rain forecast for tomorrow, I won’t regret not being there so much and will be content to watch the action on my computer.

And with such things, like the Shade in The Longing, I pass the time during lockdown.

Winter in Ivanhoe

Yellow Rhodedendron – spot of colour to spite the cold

I am not looking forward to this first winter in Ivanhoe, not that I welcomed it in the old house in Northcote either.

This current residence is a cold house, due to the insulation which makes it cool in summer, but in winter it’s a different matter.  A giant gum tree in the next door neighbour’s garden effectively  prevents sunlight from reaching our back yard, and a distinct chill invades the house.

The house has three different warming systems, only one of which we use. B  has objections to the ducted heating system, arguing that it is wasted energy in that it heats the entire house and we both prefer a cool bedroom at night. 

When we first moved here back in September there was a gas flame fire, but it turned out to be purely decorative and was useless as a heater. Thankfully it has been replaced with a real gas flame fire, which works, and is the sole means of heating we use. 

Bingo the cat loves it and toasts himself in front of it when it’ s operating – later in the day when the chill really sets in. The rest of the time we rug up and endure the cold.

Speaking of the cats, Bingo is now fully grown, a small but perfectly formed cat with a big attitude, and is still as naughty as ever.

Bingo shredding the door mat

He has however learned better table manners and now responds (with vocal objections) to NO when told to get off the table when we’re eating.

These days he has been spending a lot of time under the house growling at another cat, an oldish long haired tabby who lives a couple of houses up and visits every morning. According to its owner, Bingo visits their house too and the two cats engage in the same growling and howling activity there as well, though it doesn’t escalate into anything more serious.

There are other cats around – a young rag doll called Theo and other moggies of varied colours.

Talya understandably loathes Bingo, but has learnt some of his bad habits, such as climbing all over the benchtops and licking out saucepans in the sink, something she would not dream of doing before. 

She has also become incontinent, pissing inappropriately on the floor, and shitting on the rugs, which we’ve been forced to take up and put out of her reach and close doors to rooms we don’t use regularly. Her behaviour is stress related I think and we can’t think of any way to break her of the habit, other than forcing her to go outside last thing at night and early morning,  the usual times these “accidents” are likely to occur.

Bingo is merciless as far as Talya is concerned, constantly teasing her and disrupting her peace by jumping on her when she’s sound asleep.  Both cats get fractious when they’re hungry and are terribly distracting until they are fed.

That’s one of the reasons I haven’t been writing any posts of late, but truth to tell I haven’t been feeling all that inspired to add words to a screen and nothing much has happened to excite my interest in writing anything.

I did attend the Eilen Jewell concert back in May and it was as good as always. I took along the Canon G16 camera, but found to my dismay that the battery was almost flat as was the spare, so I couldn’t take many photos.

Eilen Jewell and her ace band at Thornbury Theatre – 23 May 2018

I  couldn’t resist purchasing the below poster that was on sale at the merchandise table and get it signed.

Eilen Jewell poster produced by Moon Rabbit Press

As usual I’ve been passing the time reading and playing computer games…

Back in April I downloaded to my Kindle six Joan Aiken novels that had just been issued as eBooks, having been out of print as physical books for many years.  As they were only $6.00 each it was an irresistable temptation.

Joan Aiken is one of my favourite writers who I have been following since the 1960s, when I first discovered her “Wolves” series of alternate history children’s novels, which encompass 12 books in all, the last published after Joan Aiken’s death (in 2004) in 2005.

She was a prolific writer, producing over a hundred books, for both children and adults.

The six novels I downloaded were her delightfully wicked Regency and Gothic romances, and I binge read them one after the other over the past month or so, and thoroughly enjoyed indulging in their guilty pleasures.

Most of the computer games I’ve been playing were ones I had played before, except for Keepsake a game I actually have on DVD, but was unable to play it when I got it in 2006, due to various issues.

It was recently released on Steam, so I purchased it and played it and found it to be a quite engaging game with an interesting plot and unusual puzzles, some of them very hard to crack.

 

It was also a lengthy game with many locations to explore and is set in school for magic ala Harry Potter. The heroine is Lydia who arrives at the school to begin a course in magic, only to discover that the academy is deserted, with no sign of pupils or teaching staff.  Lydia is particularly distressed by the non appearance of her childhood friend Celeste whom she has been looking forward to seeing again after many years.

The game basically centres around Lydia’s search for answers to the mystery of the deserted academy, in which she is assisted by Zac, a shapeshifted wolf who claims he is really a dragon, whom Lydia releases from a cupboard where he had been locked up before everyone went missing.

I’m of course hanging out for the beginning of the spring racing season, still a month or so away, but promising to be a bit more interesting than last year, with a few new potential stars of the turf emerging recently over the Sydney and Brisbane carnivals. And Winx will be back in action soon, quite possibly on 18 August in the newly promoted to Group 1, Winx Stakes  - formerly the Warwick Stakes, now renamed in her honour. 

I’ve already purchased a ticket to the Cox Plate;  Winx’s main target this spring, where she will be aiming to become the first horse to win it four times.

Detective Fiction

Crime fiction is one of the literary genres in which I dip my nose quite regularly.

Recently I was contemplating how varied and wide ranging are the locations and historical eras in which detective fiction is set. You have series of them set in the oddest places, like Nazi Germany in the case of  the Berlin Noir novels of Philip Kerr, Vespasian’s Rome in the Falco series by Lindsey Davis, Bombay in the Inspector Ghote novels of HRF Keating, Amsterdam in Jan Willem van de Wetering’s wonderful Grijpstra and de Gier novels,  Medieval England in Ellis Peter’s Brother Cadfael Chronicles, and so on.

This train of thought came as a result of a book I received recently for my birthday. It was Killed at the Whim of A Hat by Colin Cotterill, an author I had not previously encountered.

Was I in for a surprise! Killed At The Whim Of A Hat is a delightful book. It’s an unusual crime novel set in Thailand which is where the author resides.

The heroine as described by the author is Jimm Juree…”a feisty Thai lady journalist with relatives that make the Adams family look like  Alexander McCall Smith characters”

Colin Cotterill does write his books in the above tone, so they’re humorous and witty. For instance, there are quotes from George W Bush at beginning of each chapter, which are strangely relevant.

As well as being entertaining, Killed At The Whim Of A Hat is also a first rate crime mystery.

The book was my introduction to the detective fiction of Colin Cotterill.

Why haven’t I read him before!

Colin Cotterill,  I have discovered, is best known for his Doctor Siri series of detective novels that are set in Laos in the mid 1970s, shortly after the Communist takeover of the country. Dr Siri Paiboun’s investigations start in The Coronor’s Lunch, which of course I hastened to acquire (in ebook format) as soon as I’d finished Killed At The Whim Of A Hat.

When we first meet him in The Coronor’s Lunch, Dr Siri is a 72 year old former communist rebel, who is appointed by the new ruling party as State Coroner because he is the last doctor in Laos. This honour, Dr Siri is none too keen to accept, having a yearning for retirement after years of struggle and hardship in the jungle. However he does assume the responsibilities of the position and undertakes post mortem investigations with the help of his staff of two, an odd pair who are Nurse Dtui, who wishes to advance her learning, and Mr Geung a simple fellow who knows the ropes in the mortuary, despite his mental deficiency.

Dr Siri however is not one to toe the line; he is curious, curmudgeonly and also blessed, or cursed, with an unusual ability to see the dead, who provide him with pointers and clues in his crime investigations.

There are seven books in the Dr Siri series to date, with an eighth to be published later this year, so I intend to read all of them. In fact, they’re addictive. 

I really like Colin Cotterill’s jaunty style, and his ability to create endearing, all too human characters. It’s refreshing to find a novelist with such a light touch. That doesn’t mean there’s no violence or horror within the novels; in fact you get quite a bit of action along with a touch of the supernatural, and cliff hanger chapter endings. Also you learn quite a bit about the history and folk lore of Laos, which I admit I had not previously bothered to inform myself of.

Highly recommended if you like entertaining novels set in unusual locations, or even if you just enjoy a good page turning read.

Also check out Colin Cotterill’s website – it’s great fun and he’s also a talented cartoonist.

Strike a Light! Cat Politics has a Kindle

My brand new Kindle arrived today from Amazon and I’ve been exploring its capabilities.

It’s a pretty object and looks even more handsome in its leather cover.

This is what it looks like before you switch on the power…

The picture changes every time you turn the Kindle on and off.

This version of Kindle has free Global wireless, so I could instantly log onto the Amazon Kindle store and browse the Kindle books on offer.

I selected a childhood favourite, Treasure Island and it downloaded instantly.

You may wonder at me, a dedicated book worm, and devotee of the physical book, succumbing to an ebook reader, but I figured it was about time I got with the trend. I do not have a mobile phone nor an ipod, let alone an ipad, so as gadgetry goes the ebook struck me as my sort of thing. Think of the shelf space and forests it will save!

I have been exploring the Project Gutenberg site and have discovered a veritable treasure trove of old, out of print and hard to get novels. For instance, all Josephine Tey’s detective novels are available for free in ebook format on the Australian Project Gutenberg site. I can send the text files to my Amazon Kindle account and have them converted to Kindle format for free.

I look forward to exploring the world of ebooks and testing my Kindle further.