Ouch

This is what the inside of my head looked like for the majority of the day. And this is what it sounded like when I tried speaking: mumble mumble pain mumble mumble sore mumble can't talk, retch.

Nice.

It's the quiet ones...

We have now lived in our quiet little suburban area for five years and have got quite a good relationship with our neighbours.

Today we woke up to no electricity. So we went to check with various others in our street to see if they knew what was going in. It transpired that apparently quite a few post codes were affected by the power cut. But we got caught up chatting to our arty and eccentric neighbour R for a bit before we bid him toodle-pip to come home and have breakfast. He is an interesting character - very sweet, highly eccentric and mad for anything gold and ancient. The bigger, the more ostentatious, the better, in his opinion. He paints, draws, carves and sculpts and has today decided to give me a lovely drawing he had done of Audrey Hepburn a la Tiffany's. Which I'll frame because it is stunning.

I was busy rifling through a small kist to make space for some hardback books which we've not looked at for about a year, when he knocked on the door and stated that he was quite bored at home and do we mind if he visits for a bit. Of course I said no, I don't mind at all, because all I have to do is feed him a line like: "I heard that there was quite a delay in Alexander being buried in Alexandria by Ptolemy. Why do you think that is?" And off he goes. I would love to attend a dinner with him and Tony Robertson. I can just imagine the arguments and conversations.

Anyway, so we decide to have a BBQ because the electricity is still off. We chat about everything and the conversation rambles like a drunken driver, from lost treasure, to the price of gold, to artwork, to why Americans would pay that much money for statues without arms or heads (R does not understand this at all and said that he would refuse to own a statue, no matter how old, unless it was perfect.), to how much chocolate is good for you, and how much we dislike our mutual noisy neighbours.

And then he drops a bomb. He's carved one of the beds found in King Tut's tomb for his own use. And it is there, in his tiny house, all seven foot wotnot of it, completely inlaid with opals and precious stones, covered in real gold leaf. My jaw dropped, Mark politely choked on some grilled chicken. And then Ray says: yes, I've decided to leave it to you both because you would appreciate it.

My eyebrows have not returned to their normal position.

What you have to understand about R is: he looks like a hobo but is anything but. Around both wrists are these exquisite thick gold torcs inlaid with emeralds and rubies which he had made for him by a jeweller. Around his neck he wears this pendant in the shape of a Macedonian bee, also inlaid with precious stones. These things he keeps covered up because really, who would think he is wearing anything valuable underneath clothes that are that paint splattered and in that bad repair?

He regales us with his gold coin collection which is in a bank vault somewhere and how one of them is so very rare that there are only three in the known world....He looks at us and then smiles enigmatically and shrugs saying that in the end he can't take it with him but it's nice to have them and look at them, when he can. We chat a bit more over loads of roast meet and suddenly we are being invited to his house in a few weeks' time to see all the antique items he's bought over the years. He had a cast done of King Tut's face in bronze (it weighs 80lbs) and had it covered in gold and inlaid all the jewels himself. Mark and I are boggled. Gobsmacked. Other treasures include a table laid out in mosaics depicting Medusa. His walls are painted with scenes from Babylonia and ancient Egypt.

Listening to his stories of the people he's painted or whose houses he's decorated really does make us wonder...who is our neighbour really? And what exactly is hidden behind that very normal facade of his home...We can't wait to visit, to be honest. He is the best enigma I've ever come across and fantastic muse fodder.

I really wish that the exams didn't loom quite so large on the horizon otherwise I would be upstairs, writing furiously. But sadly, from tomorrow it is goodbye real world, hello study-Liz.

But the mystery remains.

Rag and Bone Man finds Cold Cup

Yes, I'm a treasure seeker at heart - watch out Indy and Lara. How incredible is this story?

****
From the BBC website:

A metal cup acquired by a rag and bone man from Somerset has been revealed to be a pure gold goblet from the 3rd or 4th Century BC, worth up to £500,000.

The vessel has two female faces looking in opposite directions with their foreheads decorated with a snake motif.

William Sparks, who ran a scrap metal business in Taunton during the 1930s and 40s, left the ancient treasure to his young grandson John Webber.

The goblet is to be sold by Duke's auction house in Dorchester, Dorset.

Mr Webber, 70, said: "My grandfather was originally a proper rag and bone ban from Romany stock and lived in a caravan.

"My father died in the war and afterwards my grandfather gave me some things shortly before he died.

"One of the things was the cup which I remember playing with. Because he mainly dealt in brass and bronze, I thought that was what it was made from."

After forgetting about the cup for years he rediscovered it last year when he moved house.

"I sent it to the British Museum and the experts there hadn't seen anything like it before and recommended I had it tested at a laboratory," said Mr Webber.

The analysis confirmed its age and that it had been painstakingly crafted from just one piece of gold.

Peter Northover, the scientist who reported on the gold analysis, said in the report: "The method of manufacture and the composition of the gold are consistent with Achaemenid gold and gold smithing."

The Achaemenid empire was based around Persia, but at its height stretched from Iran to Libya. It was wiped out by Alexander the Great in 330 BC.

Ivan Rebroff

I was visiting a few blog and livejournal sites and discovered that a hero of mine, Ivan Rebroff has passed away! It happened back in February this year.




He had the most amazing voice and I remember growing up, listening to his music. My parents had a selection of his records and it was through listening to his music that it encouraged me to sing too - badly, admittedly, but it helped cultivate my love of music.

His musical range was four and a half octoves, ranging from soprano to impressive bass registers. He was unique in that he learned to sing a lot of folk music from across the world, phonetically. I distinctly remember an LP we had of him singing Afrikaans folk songs. He made them sound wild and amazing, as opposed to the usually wrist slittingly depressive stuff the Afrikaans folk singers usually churn out.

What a loss to the world. Pavarotti and now Ivan Rebroff! I have noticed a distinct lack of decent classical music in my CD collection and have plans to remedy that shortly.

Long live the Nightingales.

Competition for Mila

We've been to see Doomsday on Saturday (I know a weekend of debauchery - two movies!).

As sad as it is, I love the Resident Evil movies and Mila's character Alice in those...but, having said that, Rhona Mitra (who plays Eden Sinclair) in this new Brit movie, Doomsday will probably be able to kick Mila's butt from here to...well, Doomsday. Total heresy, I know...but as female butt-kickers go, Mila's had the market cornered for a bit now...but with the new kid on the block...she had better watch her toned derriere.

And apart from that, New Girl is also seriously HOT and can kick an armoured warrior's considerable butt. Fantastic fight sequences and the car chases are superb.

Okay, so I'm not the world's best film critic, but I really enjoyed it, more than I thought I would. It was a good movie, fantastic amazing soundtrack and a good cast, some from the Dog Soldiers cast too, which is pretty cool. And boy, if ever the shit hits the fan, I want a Bentley. And Rhona should be the one driving it.

Iron Man

It's official. Robert Downey Jnr is HAWT.

What an excellent movie. Saw it earlier today and enjoyed it thoroughly. And did I mention RDJNR is hot?

And Oh God, please let there be a sequel... http://www.ebaumsworld.com/video/watch/380326/

Rabid Wolves

This is right up there with my stick figure joke obsession. I showed this to my boss and was accused of having a "foreign" sense of humour...eh?

Shameless Self Promotion

The above is the name of my rapidly growing and expanding book review blogsite. I am seriously endeavouring to have it grow (organically) so if there are any authors out there who want their books reviewed, do get in touch!

The website is: http://www.myfavouritebooks.blogspot.com/ . I've got a few things lined up - a lot more books to review along with one or two competitions. The first one looks like it might be Lilith Saintcrow's new Jill Kismet book to be published officially here in the UK (buying them from Amazon.com does not count!).

The others are in the process for consideration by one or two other publishers. It is exciting stuff. I love reading and combining reading with reviews works really well for me - it forces me to make sure I keep ontop of what is coming out in the genres I like reading and one day to be published in! Oh, and people skills. A lot of those need sharpening and smoothing out.

I am pleased to say my final legal assignment is now in - only one more building technology assignment to go .. and then the exams on the first of July. Needless to say, I am sort of breathless in a pained kind of way about this!

But then I will have the summer off to read, write and mooch about. Tripple yay!

Sold!

Yay! I just sold my first ever item on Amazon market place - and I feel a bit chuffed and a bit traitorous too...but at least the book will be going to someone who clearly wants it. And it is a brand new, unwanted gift which has been sitting on my bookshelf for I think...2 years or more, from people at work (who managed to get my reading taste oh so very wrong). Too excellent a quality to give away to a charity shop.

How sad that I get excited about selling on second hand things...sigh. The legal assignment has clearly addled my brains.

2 questions down, 1 to go

After yesterday's complete debilitating migraine I have had to split today in half - today was meant to be my relaxing day with very little to do except read and write, but hey it turns out, the gods had other things in mind.

So first part of today was spent completing Question 3 of Final Legal Assignment. I still have question 2 to do but will be able to research that even more on Sunday and Monday.

And for now, the rest of the afternoon will look like this: read a bit more on the very excellent The Fall by Michael McBride from Snowbooks, make a light lunch as my innards are still not coping after yesterday's illness, maybe have a nap, oh, decorate the succesfully baked butterfly cake which I did early this morning at around eight, make dinner for my exceedingly hard working husband who does not look a day over 30. Read some more, transcribe some handwritten novel notes onto computer (reminder: must rename work in progress) fool around with one or two ideas for musemuggers short and later this evening, relax with some popcorn to watch Criminal Minds.

Bliss.

Treasure Ship Found off the coast of Namibia

This amazing article from today's BBC website:

Namibia finds treasure shipwreck

A 500-year-old shipwreck laden with treasure has been discovered off the coast of Namibia.
The country's diamond company, Namdeb, says it found the wreck during operations on the seabed.

The find includes three bronze cannons, thousands of Spanish and Portuguese gold coins, and several tonnes of elephant tusks.
There were also human remains and navigational instruments. Excavations in the area were halted immediately.

Archaeological experts have identified the cannons as coming from early 16th-Century Spain.
It is thought to be the oldest shipwreck ever discovered in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Namdeb said it came across the wreck on April 1 during operations in the Atlantic after finding some copper ingots and the cannons.

The company is speculating that the ship may be linked to Portuguese explorer Bartolomeu Dias, who went missing in 1500 after becoming the first European seafarer to round the Cape of Good Hope.

Namdeb spokesman Hilifa Mbako said the Portuguese and Spanish governments had been alerted and they expected a team of experts to be dispatched to the site shortly for further investigations.

"The shipwreck holds more questions than answers," he said.

Namdeb is a joint venture between De Beers and the Namibian government.

This story is complete and utter muse-crack! Off I go to go and make notes and research. I've long wanted to set a story in Africa/South Africa during the 16th and 17th Century.

More competition news

A week later we've been contacted - yay! - we will be going to Bruges in October. Am totally thrilled.

Tomorrow is Mark's birthday. Am really excited for him. We're all trooping off to a posh bar in the West End - here's hoping we don't have to end up scrubbing the dishes at the end of the night to pay off the bar bill!

Happy Birthday Mark!

A cupcake a day...

The almost-birthday girl

In an effort to experiment with baking cakes and such (I've got a very important person's 2nd birthday party coming up) I tried my hand at making and decorating cupcakes today and let me say, what a doddle.

I had huge amounts of fun. I also - again - tried to bake the butterfly cake which I have managed to pull off once before. This time around - big disaster. Just like the round tins which I tried last week.

I am clearly better at baking the smaller cakes, biscuits, scones, breads and muffins - no big patterned or round cakes for me...hmm. This is a problem as the butterfly cake is what is needed for the 2nd birthday party of my god-daughter, Ashleigh (as pictured above).

I think more experimentation will be required, much to Mark's horror as he is worried that his slim waist will expand. But it is all in the name of a good cause. Fortunately the party is on the 10th of May so I have plenty of time. Addresses on a postcard for those who want some of the flop cakes - they invariably taste gorgeous but come out a bit...broken.

On the other hand, it gives me great joy to brag with my excellent cupcakes.

Warm, out of the oven



Experimentally decorated



The completed product.

These sell for £1.75 at a stall in Greenwich. It probably cost me 25p to make and decorate. Go figure.

Happy Birthday to the Bard!

With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come.
William Shakespeare

Savage Chickens

This from the excellent Endicott Studio blog and it made me laugh out loud. This is totally for Jamie and all struggling authors out there.

http://www.savagechickens.com/blog/index.html

Gok the God

I've not watched many episodes of How to look good naked, but those that I have is simply amazing and uplifting.

Gok is a God. He should run for Mayor of London. Or grand high poobah of the UK, at least.

My brain hurts

What a day. Got up too late to go to gym. So we stayed in.

Mark watched the boxing match on Setanta Sports after breakfast and I hauled all my legal papers out to start on my next assignment. I have been glued to my laptop, legal folder with assignment notes, Oxford Law dictionary and the thrilling Smith and Keenan's English Law handbook kept me company.

I took a break to bake some cake. The cake was a disaster. Not in taste but shape. It is official. I cannot bake round sponge cakes. I ended up running next door with a rather mishappened cake for our neighbours to devour. They have kids that will eat anything.

My brain hurts and my eyes are red and gritty from staring at the computer screen and all the legalese. I'm going to bed now. I can't wait to be done with this course. I know I've said I am enjoying it. Just not today. Today was a bit of a write-off, even if I did manage to get the whole of question 1 with all its extra bits done. Only two more questions to go. Deadline is the 8th of May. It will give me a chance to work up more case studies as I've been told in my previous assignment that there is a general lack of those in my work.

Hmmmmm. Zombie....

Competition won!

Yep! Won the XFM phone in this morning before breakfast for a weekend's paid accommodation at a four star hotel and spending money and Eurostar tickets, over to Bruges...in conjunction with the new movie coming out called "In Bruges".

How superb is that?

This has to be the biggest prize I've won, thus far, in my career of entering random competitions.

So very pleased! Just waiting for the organisers to give me a call so we can work out dates.

Lies to tell tourists

I fell off my chair laughing at this. The email is from the London Time Out newsletter and I just had to share this with anyone who has ever been stopped by a tourist and asked for directions or information. I am always a good girl, trying to help as much as I can, but these lines just bring out the wickedness.

Lies to tell tourists

“Oxford Street used to actually be in Oxford. It was dug up and moved to London after the West End was demolished in the Blitz”

“In keeping with the capital city's keen sense of history, haggling is standard practice in all of London's museum shops”

“Waterloo station was built on the site of the Battle of Waterloo. The spot where Napoleon was captured is commemorated by a plaque in the Upper Crust near platform ten”


“If you've enjoyed your tube journey, you can tip the driver. To get their attention pull the 'emergency' cord in each carriage”

In the news

I try not to get too worked up about newspaper articles that I see and read. But two have stood out for me today:

I can just imagine the hilarity in their village - running for money? But these guys did it today. And they are awesome! Here is the article.



Something else I spotted which really just goes to show how much wrong there is in this country today, where fallen soldiers are not afforded the respect they deserve. This is the article drawing telling and heartbreaking comparisons with the way fallen soldiers are treated in Canada, compared to the UK. Heartbreaking stuff.