Spy in the House of Love - Anais Nin

This month's bibliogoth book took awhile to grow on me. (For all that I read it in a day). I really enjoyed the writing style, but the apparent gender differences in the first half just bothered me a bit too much. I could see people arguing about how this was a good example of the "intrinsic" differences between men and women and their attitudes towards sex. I also wasn't sure why the main character was so interested in going and sleeping with other men when she didn't seem to enjoy it at all. Something changed for the second half and I found myself enjoying it a lot more. Though I still found the main character a little enigmatic. I think it'd be a very good book for a lot of the party people I know and will be interested to hear people's opinion's of it at the meeting.

Colchester - (aka Chav town)

In search of more Roman Britian beluosus and I went to Colchester yesterday for the day. We decided they would be a perfect choice as they had ruins, Rome and a castle. In the Castle Museum there was even a display of very rare, newly discovered Han Dynasty burial goods! The Chinese display was lovely, the dancers really looked like they were moving, and it was very well put together.

The castle museum itself was also fantastic. (Though we did have to go on a guided tour to see the Roman ruined temple to Claudius and the tour guide, as predicted, was unbearable!) We spent all day going through their Roman Colchester exhibit. It included several things we'd seen copies of the week before in the Hadrian exhibit. It was a really great museum, and being within the castle just made it extra fun!

Unfortunately we didn't have time to go to the Natural History Museum, which I have to say was in the BEST setting EVER for a Natural History Museum! Clearly someone in Colchester has a sense of humour!

Afterwards we spent some time in the abbey ruins, which were also really pretty.

Well worth a visit, though the HUGE numbers of Stacy Slater clones that were wandering the streets made it rather terrifying at times.

( pictures )