So You want to be a Shogun…

These days we have elections if we want to change our government. That did not happen in Japan four hundred years ago. Imagine that you live in a castle, have lots of poor people working for you, have everyone paying money to you, and have your own private army. You are a Shogun.

Your castle is built on top of a hill for a few reasons. The first is so that you can feel taller than everyone else; the second is so that you can see your enemies coming, chuck things at them and shoot arrows into their helmets. Your castle is designed to protect you from other shoguns who want to take over your land, your people and especially your money. It is raised above the ground on a bed of enormous rocks that have all been fitted together perfectly. The actual building is made of wood. Each floor is built around a ‘keep’ which is the main tower through the centre of the castle.

So, are you feeling strong and powerful now? Good! And you will need to keep feeling that way if you are to protect what is yours – after all you probably took it, by force, off the shogun who was there before you. This was possibly your cousin, your uncle, or even your brother (family barbeques could have been a bit tense in those days).

In the upper levels of the castle the floors are built with big planks. These are laid with gaps between them so that you can see what your relatives are doing on the lower floors. If your evil cousins send in ninja to take over your castle, you can see them coming. You just close the trap door and wait until your samurai have killed them or driven them out.

One of the ways that you protect yourself is to sleep with a group of samurai in your wardrobe. You probably don’t want to imagine that you are a samurai, because you would have to stay awake night after night, squashed into a narrow cupboard with a number of other smelly blokes, and with nothing to do but hope this is the night where you see some action.

Imagine that one night the ninja sneak up the hill. Your guard on the watch tower doesn’t see them because he has fallen asleep. They get past your other guards by pretending to be geisha girls, and they make it as far as your bedroom. They pull off their geisha girl costumes and prepare to kill you. At this moment, your watchful samurai leap, shrieking from the cupboard. The ninja a. wet themselves and b. reach up and jump towards the beams overhead to get a good grip. They do this so they can kick the samurai away. This strategy does not work because you, the Mighty Shogun, have had the local carpenter shape all the beams so they’re rounded and the ninja’s fingers slip off. Congratulations! You have won…this time!

Definitions:

Shogun – a type of king of a large area who kept his subjects in order by using his army.

Samurai – warriors, in charge of the shogun’s army.

Ninja – martial arts experts who were often employed as assassins

Geisha girls – highly skilled women trained in music, dance and conversation. They were very beautiful and were trained from a young age to be companions for men.

Physics, and the world supported by turtles

I am up to page 26 of A Brief History of Time, by Steven Hawking. What a spectacular read, although some of it I definitely do not understand. It astounds me that there are people in this world who are able to juggle numbers and through looking at them, analysing them, adding, subtracting, etc, can suddenly say, Oh my God, look at this, I just figured out that apples don’t bounce when you hurl them onto concrete, or,  Jeepers, I just worked out when all life as we know it will come to an end.

Despite the world of numbers shunning me as an outsider, I read what physicists say about certain things and find them rather exciting. For example, I love the idea that to prove String Theory (a cosmological theory based on the existence  of a hypothetical one dimensional sub-atomic particle having the dynamical properties of a flexible loop) someone needs to discover at least seven alternative universes.  I can’t wait for the day when someone, using the numbers suddenly says, ‘Oh my God…’.

But really, they will be a little too late, because Terry Pratchett already discovered at least one of the seven missing universes. For those who don’t know, he is an author with a mind almost as stunning as Steven Hawking’s,  although clearly much more eccentric. Pratchett’s Disc World is supported by a giant turtle, elephants, etc. I am waiting for a physicist, using the numbers, to one day predict the existence of the elephants and the turtle.

I used to hate science, but now…

A sadist masquerading as a science teacher once tried to make me cut up a rat. I refused. I failed science that year, and the next. Then a slouch with nicotine breath, disguised as a maths teacher, recommended that I quit maths. I did. Maths and Science were subjects for those who had minds constructed quite differently to mine; they were aliens who could look at numbers piled on top of each other and using their alien powers and their secret Mr Spock ears come to some kind of conclusion about them. Science was just smelly, and really, think about it, people who want to cut up dead animals should work in an abattoir.

I was, I found out a little later, strictly a literary, drama-ish sort of girl.  Shakespeare, Jane Austen, P.G. Wodehouse, these became my heroes—and still are; Oscar Wilde, Samuel Beckett…well you get the picture.

Now I get to the point. In order to write my current novel, I have had to research PARTICLE PHYSICS. And I love it. I don’t understand it, but I find it soooo interesting: waves of energy, discussions of probabilities, particle accelerators, String Theory, Chaos Theory, protons, neutrons, gluons (glue).  Fascinating.

I think I find it enthralling because this brand of physics deals with the building blocks of the universe: how it all happened—stuff that is really mind blowing (sorry about the cliché).  Cutting up rats just doesn’t compare. I am sure Doctor Who studied this stuff in Time Lord school. I knew there was a reason I loved Doctor Who apart from Tom Baker and David Tennant.

Jane Austen Heroine–in my dreams

As I wandered across the gracious, spacious, spreading lawns of the olde worlde Ercildoune homestead, last weekend, I could almost imagine that I was indeed wandering the grounds of Pemberley. Well, not quite, but this stately, almost mansion, graces one of the most beautiful properties I have ever seen. My daughter and I were city interlopers amongst a bevy of country women there to listen to the engaging, fascinating and inspiring Ita Buttrose,  and a gaggle of health professionals, talking about women’s health issues. The day was entitled ‘Diamonds in the Dust’ and presented by ‘Ballarat and District Division of General Practice’. The really exciting thing for me was the fact that I used to live at Ercildoune. Oh yes. I would like to say that I once glowed with that particular shiny, elusive something that characterises those who have more money than the rest of us, but I can not tell an untruth–well not at this point anyway.

My father was a stockman on the Ercildoune property when I was born. We lived in a wee cottage out the back somewhere, just where I don’t know, because despite having wander time–the kindness of the present owners prompted them to allow roughly 200 women to meander around their stunning property–we couldn’t find anything that matched the old photo I have. The question still remains, how much of that same shiny, elusive something rubbed off the landed aristocracy and on to me when I was a mere six months old. Not as much as I would have liked.

Creativity and school?

My daughter recently read an article that cited an ongoing study, begun in the 1970s, in which creativity levels in school children are measured. How do you measure creativity? I don’t know how ‘they’ do it, but get this. Those running the study have found that in the U.S. kids stopped being so creative (?) again sketchy on the details here, when schools began doing the equivalent of the Naplan testing that our schools are currently so excited about. I will get more details and a link to the article so that we can have a proper look at these statistics. Food for thought.

The fate of ‘The Princess of Pushkar’ and other things

I just re-read my first post and realised that I have a word missing. Oh well. It is a little nerve racking to write on a public space for the first time. The first time I wrote on Twitter I experienced the same thing: sweaty palms, rapid heart beat, spots before my eyes. Anyway that’s not what I wanted to say.  For those of you who have read ‘The Princess of Pushkar’ and are still holding your breath wondering what happens to Rani, her sisters, Pradeep and Sanjay, you should breath out now. The second book is written, but due to circumstances beyond my control, can’t be published at the moment. Watch this space for updates. Currently, however, I am writing a stand alone novel set in India–just a little earlier than the 10th Century–actually 2000 years earlier. Hmmm. But it is also about a couple of modern kids. It is a lot of fun. I have had to do some research into theoretical physics for this book–now I actually know a tiny amount about protons, neutrons, quarks and gluons. What are gluons? I hear you ask. Apparently they stick the quarks together–glue–get it. When I asked my scientific source what gluons were, I was expecting a complex scientific answer. Isn’t language splendid.

A review by suite101.com

The Princess of Pushkar, In the Shadow of the Palace was such an exciting book to write. It was my first, of course, but I have always loved India and have traveled there many times. So writing a book about historical India was just thrilling. It involved much research–also a first. It was also difficult because I am impatient by nature and I just wanted the story to unfold automatically while I grabbed information from the ether. That really didn’t happen, but it was all so much fun.

The second book in the series is written but as yet unpublished. The third book is planned but as yet unwritten.

http://www.suite101.com/content/book-review-in-the-shadow-of-the-palace-a105452

I am currently writing a novel set 3000 years ago in India.