Hillside Meditations

All´s well. So although I tried to read slowly and sparingly I finally reached the “close” of both “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” and the whole saga today. I was not one of the early HP fans, I started to read in 2001, when I bundled up for a weekend with the first three paperback volumes all at once and worked through them. I always thought that JKR had a problem sorting out for whom the books were really meant - children or adults? Somehow style and content and size of the books did not always match in my view - a children’s book in adult clothes or vice versa? Today I think that perhaps I missed the point that the books aged with their heroes - and so did the intended audience. HP has never been great literature - the prose is not refined enough, but all the books have made a good read. And that is true for the final volume, as well. Indeed, I think, it is one of the best in the series - at the end it reaches moments were it becomes as fascinating, gripping, dramatic, moving, epic as Tolkien’s LOTR. And, yes, I did weep at some moments at the end of the book and I was sorry to say Goodbye to all those who do have aquired places in my life over the years after all. I belong to those who would have left away the very, very, very end which I deem needless and a bit too soft and rosy and candylike, but perhaps this is some of the things targeted at a younger audience. All in all the Deathly Hallows is a worthy conclusion to a remarkably successfull series - and who ever liked one of the six books about HP published previously will have some very fine hours enjoing this last installment. Well done, Mrs. Rowling, well done.

HP, DeathlyHallows, HarryPotter, Rowling

• ttaglist: HP DeathlyHallows HarryPotter Rowling, DeathlyHallows HarryPotter Rowling

I am cataloguing the books I own - quite a lot of work, but Librarything.com helps a lot and seems a good place to store my list of books.

My list (go to http://www.librarything.com/profile/cnrenner
is a work in progress - it will take a few weeks to be completed.

“Smile I can and murder while I smile” is not all that is to know about Richard III Plantagenet . Author Josephine Tey aka Elizabeth MacKintosh aka Gordon Daviot managed to write a sparkling little mixture between mystery tale and investigative history journalism, first published in 1951: The Daughter of Time , quoting Sir Francis Bacon` s description of Truth.
“Inspector Alan Grant of Scotland Yard, recuperating form a broken leg, becomes fascinated with a a contemporary portrait of Richard III, which bears no resemblance to the Wicked Uncle of history”…”who killed the Little Princes in the Tower”? The story is exciting and enlightening (if like me you have known only Shakespeare’s version of the Wars of the Roses), the approach is novel (Scotland Yard detective turns historian out of bordedom) and I felt stimulated to do some more and deeper reading on English history.

The book is a fine read as a whodunnit, although it takes some energy to keep your course among all those Edwards, Margarets, Elizabeths, Warwicks and Richards (no idea why the Birtish nobility could not choose among a greater variety of names to keep things clear). I spent some very pleasant evenings with this novel.
Recommended reading afterwards (or before): Shakespeare’s Richard III , of course, but also the wonderful historical-romantic Richardian novel “The Sunne in Splendour” by Sharon Kay Penman and Robert Louis Stevenson’s “Black Arrow” . A good idea as a preparation before you start: Wikipedias entry on the Wars of the Roses - and do print out that “simplified family tree” of the English royal family that helps a lot indeed.
First rate - A Da Vinci Code “Between the Red Rose and the White”!

RichardIII, Tey, "The, Daughter, of, Time", "Wars, of, the, Roses", mystery, review, book, literature

• ttaglist: RichardIII Tey "The Daughter of Time" "Wars of the Roses" mystery review book literature

For some hours now this photo and some others with similar messages have been spreading across the Flickr photocommunity. People are fighting back!
Without a reason I know about the photocommunity www.flickr.com (owned by Yahoo!) started a censorship measure against users in Germany, Hong Kong, Korea and Singapore:
“If your Yahoo! ID is based in Singapore, Germany, Hong Kong or Korea you will only be able to view safe content based on your local Terms of Service so won’t be able to turn SafeSearch off. In other words that means, that german, singaporian, korean and Honkong users can not access photos on flickr that are not flagged “safe”.

Of course I am vehemently against any kind of censorship by anyone anywhere. Let us support the fight of the Flickr-community! Please blog about this incident and the flickr-users fight against this blatant case of censorship and spread the word!

When any government . . . undertakes to say to its subjects, ‘This you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know,’ the end result is tyranny and oppression, no matter how holy the motives. Mighty little force is needed to control a man whose mind has been hoodwinked.

Robert A. Heinlein, If This Goes On…

“Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves; and, under a just God, can not long retain it.” –Abraham Lincoln, from the April 6, 1859 Letter to Henry Pierce

With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably.

Star Trek TNG S04E21

flickr, yahoo, www.flickr.com, censorship, hoodwinked, hoodwinking, thinkfllickrthink, censor, againstcensorship, tyranny, oppression, thinkflickrthink,

• ttaglist: flickr yahoo www.flickr.com censorship hoodwinked hoodwinking thinkfllickrthink censor againstcensorship tyranny oppression thinkflickrthink

Teddy in Munich is quite an outstanding idea: they organize a sightseeing tour for your favorite soft toy. You send your bear or tiger or ape or whatever to the organizers in Munich, Germany who take the toy on a guided tour, a Munich-by-night-trip (in small groups!), a beer garden or the Oktoberfest, and even offer sports events like golf or bungee jumping and a language course , take photos and prepare travel albums and send Teddy back in a comfortable box after seven days of fun and vacationing.

So you might talk to your Winnie Pook about booking a trip really soon now? Send him away while you take the long-planned trip to Hawaii and you won´t have to look for a nanny for that time any longer.

bizarre, teddy-in-munich, softtoy, travelling

• ttaglist: bizarre teddy-in-munich softtoy travelling

WWW.WEST-OF-HOUSE.NET has three blogs now:

• Hillside Meditations as my personal blog which I will try and resume in the way I have used it in the past.


• The Mountain Star* is meant to be a much more political and opinionated blog where I want to blog about my views of political, social, philosophical topics and issues I read about in the newspapers, hear and see about on radio or TV or witness on my own.


• Leserbrief* , the German translation for “Letter to the Editor” is meant to be the German-language matching piece to The Mountain Star* - the idea stems from my habit of writing letters to the editors of my favorite newspaper, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung that are not always printed. Leserbrief* is my very own forum that prints whatever I write

Just what the title says… please stay tuned.

It is Hillside Meditations´ s First Birthday today!!!
320 Posts, 87709 words, 302 comments (thank you!) in 12 months.

I had thought of doing some special things on this occasion, but as I have been a bit silent as a blogger in the last months this is only a quite little commemoration (and an inner promise to carry on, as I have come to like my blog quite a lot).

Do you remember my First Post to Hillside Meditations?

Thanks to all who occasionally drop by and read here - I am very happy for your visits!

blog+birthday, birthday, celebration, anniversary, blog+anniversary

• ttaglist: blog+birthday birthday celebration anniversary blog+anniversary

These two photos made it to Flickr´s Explore Group ! Makes me a little bit proud …

Flickr, photo+management, photo+sharing, community

• ttaglist: Flickr photo+management photo+sharing community