On Reviews and Spoilers: My Policy

Up till now my policy on spoilers was not to have them at all; to review and encourage people to watch a movie without giving anything away. I know first hand how spoilers can ruin your enjoyment when watching a movie or reading a book.

Once I was trying to decide which movie to watch at the cinema, so I went on IMDb to research. By mistake I clicked on Synopsis instead of Summary for the Spanish movie Timecrimes (2007). There was no spoiler alert. I still enjoyed the movie, however I didn't gasp at the plot twists, like everyone else in the cinema. I felt I missed on something, my viewing experience was diminished. By the way Hollywood is remaking this movie for 2012.

Edwardian Farm

Historian Ruth Goodman and archaeologists Peter Ginn and Alex Langlands are back in a new series - Edwardian Farm. This series was filmed at Morwellham Quay, a historic river port in Devon, England. It consists of twelve 60 minute episodes and shows farm life in the Edwardian Era, often highlighting how this changed from the Victorian Era.

This was an intersting time, horses were still being used for field work, but they had been replaced by water wheels for powering farm equipment and factories. Steam was still the power source of choice for trains and ships, but had either never caught on, or was already being replaced by petrol engines in other implementations.

My Favourite Books and To-Read List

I usually stick to classic books, and by classic I mean they must have time proven popularity. My favourites are Frank Herbert's Dune series, JRR Tolkien's The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, George Orwell's Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four, Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes series, and Stephen King's novels, especially the older ones.

Sometimes I feel adventurous, and I may be tempted to read a book if

Mobs and Riots in Victorian London

During Victorian times, Hyde Park and Trafalgar Square were frequently disturbed by mobs and rioters, until they became the recognised place in which to air popular discontent or grievance.

Sunday Trading Riots
In 1855, 150,000 people assembled in Hyde Park, and riots broke out in protest over the Sunday Trading Bill, which forbade buying and selling on a Sunday, the only day working people had off.

My Favourite Childhood Books

When I was young I read everything I found. During school holidays I spent weeks at a time at my grandparents house and they had a cabinet full of children's books, mostly by Enid Blyton. Slowly but surely I read them all. My grandfather had another larger cabinet with several decades worth of Readers Digest magazines, and I read quite a lot of those too.