Halloween Fun, Fear and Fancy Dress

Halloween has become a proper mishmash of cultures and ideas since it all started. And who even knows when it all began? The celebration seems to have started around the ancient Gaelic festival of Samhain, a sort of harvest festival linked to the collecting of crops and the slaughter of animals for winter, the Celts also linked this time of year to a thinning of the walls between the worlds, where spirits may pass.

Later, half stolen by the church (as so many pagan festivals were) it became All Hallow's Eve, the eve of All Saint's Day (hallowed meaning holy) and All Saints day a day to honor the saints. Of course people liked to cling on to the superstitions and fears of the past too, so spirits and the departed were caught up in it all over again.

The idea of dressing up seems to stem from the Scottish tradition of guising, where children dress as the dead and perform entertainments in exchange for apples, cake and nuts. In Americia this has become trick or treat with vague threats for those households not giving treats to those dressed up!

The Day of the Dead in Mexico (Dia de Muertos)  also occurs around this time so it is of no wonder that it too is stirred into the melting pot of myth, magic, respect and fears of the dead in costume and decoration, though it's origins are slightly different.

Zombie Bride

In the US trick or treat costumes have totally moved away from those of the dead or of scariness, with people dressing as cowboys, cartoon characters and animals. But in the UK we still look to scare or at least cause a squeak of surprise with our costumes, drawing from around the world with vampires and werewolves from Eastern Europe, mummies from Egypt, voodoo and zombies from Haiti, ghouls, wraiths, goblins, ghosts and skeletons. (and even killer clowns!)

Spider Ghoul - guaranteed to give you nightmares

While I won't be attending a halloween party this year I do plan on greeting the trick or treaters that visit the house in costume!

Stop staring at my coccyx!

There is no excuse not to look fabulous while terrifying if you pop over to the Morphsuits website and check out the amazing costumes. This year I will be wearing the gorgeous Sugar Skull suit, with a mask of course. But there are many frightening suits to choose from. How about a clown costume? A monster? an alien?

What would you choose?

Pop over to Facebook and let me know - or let Morphsuits know! and visit me on twitter to see me in the suit on halloween.

You still have plenty of time to choose and buy a suit - prices start at  £9.99 and they have suits and fancy dress costumes for all shapes and sizes, adults and children.

I was sent a Sugar Skull Morphsuit in exchange for this post. And for reference, I'm a size 12/14 and the ladies large is slightly too big on me! So while there is extra room for pumpkin pie and sweets, you might be better buying a medium if you are a 12.

A Utopia of Dystopias

utopia - 1 ( usually lowercase ) an ideal place or state.
            2 ( usually lowercase ) any visionary system of political or social perfection.

Dystopia - noun, a society characterised by human misery, as squalor, oppression, disease, and overcrowding.

I can't help noticing the influx on the YA (young adult) reading scene of the 'dystopian novel'. It seemed to catch fire (see what I did there?) with The Hunger Games and has continued with the Divergent series. Both sagas have been made into films.

There are so many of these novels on the shelves now. Uglies, Matched, Gone, I'm sure you could name dozens. 

Of course dystopian novels are nothing new. There was 1984 and Brave New world. The brilliant Do Androids dream of Electric Sheep (filmed as Blade Runner) and Fahrenheit 451.

But lately two things have struck me. The first is that they are very firnly aimed at young adults rather than adults and the second that they seem to also be aimed at girls. Female leads and heroines have been popular for a long time, Mina Harker in Dracula, Julia in 1984 to name a couple. But suddenly it seems the female lead is back with rather a bang!

Suddenly the 'feisty' (I hate that word!) female is the norm, the woman that notices the rot in the supposed utopia, revealing the horror beneath. The young girl  that dares to kick out against the society that controls everyone including her.


Is this only a blip? Or are our authors (male and female) seeing the important role the female lead can have in society?


Or maybe, they just realise that it's still the girls that do the most reading...


What do you think?


(and are there any great Dystopian Novels I've missed, with excellent female leads?)

 

Sometimes I look at taxidermy items on ebay ...

actually I do it a lot. I have a saved search for Victorian Taxidermy and get email alerts. What can I tell you. I blame my parents. Taken to the BEST MUSEUM in the whole world as a child I was hooked on tiny stuffed animals from an early age. Much like the man I admire, Walter Potter (see his work here). I discovered a modern day taxidermist who also admires Walter's work. She is Amanda at Amanda's Autopsies and her work is fabulous!

I have long wanted a tiny creature anthropomorphised as a Dr or a Victorian lady or gent, maybe as a barber shop singer form Edwardian days....moving on

So I look on ebay and a while ago I convinced my dear long suffering hubby that we NEEDED a stuffed red squirrel, a long dead victorian one obviously. He agreed! (we he grunted and didn't actually say no, which as all women know is a huge YES from any man) So I bid on a rather nice cased set of squirrels.

I lost. I chickened out at the last moment and lost the lovely rodents.

And then..

I found Tufty (as I have named him) and he is mine, I have won. I own a dead animal in a box. I am happy.

Now to convince hubby we need a group of rats in boating jackets....

It's NOT big, and it's NOT clever,

When I was about 15 or 16 I smoked.
Only a bit, maybe one or two a week if I was lucky (should that be unlucky?) I was strictly ‘other peoples’ in what brand I smoked.
Once I was 18 and living outside of home I occasionally bought my own cigarettes. I still rarely smoked more than one or two a week, mostly I smoked when friends did on a Friday or a Saturday night. Peer pressure, yep, it was both big and clever. But it was also ‘cool’.

I usually smoked exotic and enticing brands like Black Russians, More Menthol or Multicoloured cocktail cigarettes with gold coloured filters ...it was all about the glamour. Packaging and presentation had a direct effect on whether I would buy a brand, I was beyond excited to discover a brand called DEATH that was sold in Brighton that came in a suave black coffin shaped box, too naïve, and too stupid to care about the irony it was quickly my favourite.
I never became addicted to cigarettes, I never smoked more than a couple a week and after the age of 24 rarely smoked at all. I haven’t smoked now in over 20 years.

 I wish smoking wasn’t cool. A smoking ban in public venues has done a lot to stop smokers, it is not so chic to huddle out in the rain to catch a quick puff. Lack of advertising has also helped to stop children and young adults starting the habit and of course you now need to be 18 to even begin. But I think another great preventative would be plain boring non-trendy packaging (think the classic TESCO VALUE campaign!) which is why I’d be happy to see all cigarettes sold in plain white cartons.
 I know all the arguments about cigarette taxes helping the country. I’ve heard things in favour of an outright ban (I’m not in favour mainly as it would only serve to make it cooler!) I think the best way to ensure that less people risk their health is to make smoking a real decision, based on proper information and not ‘oooh look – how cool is that packet!’ or ‘how handsome is that cowboy smoking!’

Run Free little dog : Jeep 16th July 1999 - 5th May 2011

IF IT SHOULD BE

If it should be that I grow weak

And pain should keep me from my sleep,

Then you must do what must be done,

For this last battle cannot be won.

You will be sad, I understand.

Don't let your grief then stay your hand.

For this day, more than all the rest,

Your love for me must stand the test.

We've had so many happy years.

What is to come can hold no fears.

You'd not want me to suffer so;

The time has come -- please let me go.

Take me where my need they'll tend,

And please stay with me till the end.

Hold me firm and speak to me,

Until my eyes no longer see.

I know in time that you will see

The kindness that you did for me.

Although my tail its last has waved,

From pain and suffering I've been saved.

Please do not grieve -- it must be you

Who had this painful thing to do.

We've been so close, we two, these years;

Don't let your heart hold any tears.

--- Anonymous ---

 

I have had Jeep since she was 8 weeks old and I was 6 months pregnant. She has grown up with my DD. Jeep has always been a well behaved, slightly odd and adorable dog.

Jeep had had a brain tumour diagnosed back in October which had been kept in check with daily steroids, but she had a sudden turn for the worse yesterday, with confusion, pacing and twitching, and some incontinence. We didn't want to keep her here 'just for us' and it was hard to see her so upset. She had a huge tea (!) and at the vets she was still hungry enough to munch on fish snacks, in fact she was so busy snacking she didn't notice the injection, and died with a mouthful, the perfect way to go for a Border Terrier.

Do we need a silence?

Every year, once a year, we have silence, quiet, hush.
We say it is to remember the dead, the lost, the harmed.
Some say it glorifies war, horror, pain.
Some say it is boring, useless, unimportant.

Today the sky is filled with clouds, rain, tears
and again we will stand, sit, wait
for the two minutes, the 120 seconds, the pause;
and find a gap in our busy lives, our work, our family
a time we can remember, think, consider

but will we?

In a short 2 minutes what will you do?

Animals, friend or foe

I have read some strange stories in the news lately, and maybe it’s just a coincidence that so many wild animals seem to be killing people lately, or maybe (worse) wild animals kill people all the time but we only hear about them some of the time! But whatever there have been some strange tales in the news lately, so for anyone that missed them I’m sharing them here.

First I spotted the headline ‘Crocodile on Plane kills 19’ and I refused to read the story because I felt that the story would only disappoint after such an amazing headline but how wrong I was, for it transpired that a crocodile had been smuggled onto a plane – forgive me while I imagine ways you can smuggle a crocodile, in your luggage? Disguised AS luggage? Down a leg of your trousers? (risky but can be done with ferrets so who knows) Under a jumper “my oh my that guy is fat and has scaly belly skin’? the mind boggles – but however it happened it appears that the poor crocodile was not securely smuggled (always secure your smuggled crocodiles folks!) and it escaped on the plane, running about and generally terrifying the passengers who dashed away from the ravening beast, unbalancing the plane and causing it to crash! And the worst bit was that the poor crocodile was one of only 2 survivors of the crash! but was killed by rescuers at the scene! Now THAT is a news story.

(as an aside – maybe he smuggled the croc into the plane in a bag of toy crocodiles in much the same way this lady smuggled a tiger cub……)

But jeepers creepers if it doesn’t get worse!

Imagine, you go on a safari holiday, you watch animals during the day and camp in cabins at night, eating round the fire, enjoying the sounds of the wild. Protected in your compound you pop out (with your wife) for a late night outdoor shower under the stars, does life get better? Well it can certainly get worse! Just when you thought soap in your eyes was the worst that could happen, 5 lions attack you! Yes not 1, not 2 not even 3 but 5 lions attack you IN THE SHOWER! This is the stuff of nightmares, and in the case of Pete Evershed  the cause of death too.

And of course last week a young boogie boarder was killed by a shark in the waters off of California, a young man that had joked about 'what if we get attacked by a shark'.

 Nature is fighting back people! By careful out there!

(How morbid would you need to be to keep a Top 10 animal attacks list  though, yeah I'm looking you Time Magazine)

Wordless Wednesday

Lies to tell small people ... or, What is true?

I've always had an honesty policy with my daughter. I won't lie to her.

I hear you all saying "but what of Father Christmas? What of the Tooth Fairy? how do you explain them?" and the answer is that I explain them in the same way I explain other beliefs. When DD asked me is the tooth fairy real? I responded by asking her what she thought. She said "I hope she is real, I want her to be real, I don't want her to be YOU!" so I said, well lets hope she is then, there is money under your pillow so maybe she is. Is this lying? (does she KNOW!) maybe, but it works for us. Ditto Father Christmas.

"someone at school said that Father Christmas is your parents"

"did they"

"yes, they said your parents buy all that stuff in your stocking"

"do you think I buy all that stuff? as well as all the gifts you get round the tree?"

"well......I don't know"

"do you think he's real?"

"do you?" (wowser now she's chucking it right back at me! I've taught her well)

"I've always believed in father Christmas, he brought me toys when I was small, I think that once you don't believe then maybe he stops and sometimes parents then carry on doing it"

"Yes, I think he's real, not the ones in shops though, they aren't real, they are just people dressed up"

So with all this honesty hanging about, talking the 'sex' talk was a breeze, (helped along by Babette Cole and her funny and informative book 'Mummy Laid and Egg') but what about the other great taboo in our western culture........

DEATH

Now, I know a mum that lied about death so much with her kids as they grew up that I can only assume they will never trust her again, not only (like Phoebe's mum in friends) did she fast forward videos to avoid deaths (such as Bambi's mum's) but when a much loved and very old dog died she told them it was at the hospital, this was 7 years ago, they still ask after the dog "the nurse says she's still too sick to come home" really? after 7 years? (actually because I'm honest I had told my DD that the dog died so she wouldn't ask after the dog, her friend said the dog was at the hospital and my DD piped up "No she's not, she's dead, my mum told me!" so really they are trying to catch the mum out in her big lie but I digress)

So, death, DD has always known that things die. On a purely practical level I told her, things wear out, bodies wear out too, everything dies one day, this is to make room for all the new babies, if no one died, no one could be born, the world would be still, and boring, nothing would change.

We have had pets die, there were tears, and burials. And moving on.

All good. But what happens next........where do we go when we die? Back to the old 'throw the question back' time! Where do you think we go? what do you believe? I've told DD my Christian beliefs. But pointed out that no one 'knows' as no one has ever come back to tell us. So there are lots of things people think; some people think when we die, that's it, just nothing; some people think we come back as someone or something else to live again; some believe in other worlds or places we go to like heaven; or that we stay here but invisible, like ghosts; but they are all just beliefs, no one knows for sure.

DD is happy to believe, and she also thinks maybe (as Terry Pratchett's Death has hinted) we all get what we believe we'll get when we die. (which is not always what we deserve, but there you go) That said, DD and I plan to party in heaven, where there will be pets by the way....this is confirmed by my dad who is a Rev. so he should know! Everyone will; be happy in heaven, if you are not happy without your pet, your pet will be there! so there you go (I'm guessing there may be pet free zones for those that dislike them :-))

When DD tells me that I mustn't die, I never say "I won't" (how silly to promise that!) I always use, "I don't plan on doing it anytime soon", when I or anyone else is sick and she asks if they will die, I rarely say 'no', but usually go with "I doubt it, it's only a cold" or "I hope not, but they are very ill, we must hope the Drs can help them get well". So for me telling the truth is much easier than telling little lies. And so far none have come back to bite me.......

Rainbow Bridge - a Poem about pet loss and where pets go

Christina Rossetti writes the best poetry (in my opinion) about Death

REQUIEM
When I am dead, my dearest,
Sing no sad songs for me:
Plant thou no roses at my head,
Nor shady cypress tree:
Be the green grass above me
With showers and dewdrops wet;
And if thou wilt, remember,
And if thou wilt, forget. I shall not see the shadows,
I shall not feel the rain;
I shall not hear the nightingale
Sing on, as if in pain;
And dreaming through the twilight
That doth not rise nor set,
Haply I may remember,
And haply may forget.
From Goblin Market and other poems (1862)

REMEMBER

Remember me when I am gone away,
Gone far away into the silent land;
When you can no more hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.
Remember me when no more day by day
You tell me of our future that you plann'd:
Only remember me; you understand
It will be late to counsel then or pray.
Yet if you should forget me for a while
And afterwards remember, do not grieve:
For if the darkness and corruption leave
A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
Better by far you should forget and smile
Than that you should remember and be sad.
December 29, 1894

Things the darling child says

obviously all children are amazing.

Just being able to learn a whole new language from NOTHING in a couple of years can convince me of that! but while busy learning a language they are learning so much more! Imagine if we continued to learn at the rate of a child! Go on just stop and think for a second, good lord! the world would be filled with amazing brains, it would be incredible....

so with that in mind it should come as no surprise to me that my own 10 year old is as bright as a button and while lacking the experience of an adult, and having a rather 'black and white' view of the world (not always a bad thing!) she can occasionally still stun me with utterances of brilliance, although to be fair they are also often questions...

example one

The other day i was talking about babies, she is baby obsessed!, and we were talking about all the things that babies need etc etc I asked her (just on a whim as it's a hot Twitter topic)
"What age do you think a baby should be breastfed until?"

Her reply? "Until it wants to stop?"

Of course! how simple! how have so many learned adults missed this!! not 4 months, 6 months, 1 year, until he has teeth, until he can, walk, talk etc etc but UNTIL HE WANTS TO STOP!

Excellent 10/10 go to the top of the class!

example two

this morning we noticed that one of the stick insects is extremely ill/old and near death. I suggested it may be a kindness to 'put it out of it's misery' (we've done this before - she always does it while sobbing uncontrollably! I'd always worried she would be scarred for life) but today she looked at the stick insect and decided it was not yet time.

Then she turned to me and said "When I am old and nearly dead i want the Drs to put me down like an old dog so I don't suffer" I explained that, oddly, that isn't allowed. She was shocked!

"But they do it with dogs! People are more important than dogs!" I explained that some people think that killing people for any reason is wrong. I told her about the clinic in Switzerland...

"well then I 'll go there" she said "they seem sensible"

OK Just a quickie

not sure how this strange thing happened but a weird conversation about food that I had with my daughter at the weekend ended with a bizarre question that made us both laugh so hard we couldn't breathe. So now I'll ask you (and I expect answers!)

What is your favourite dead animal?

(see now I'm giggling again)