A temple to what?

I am an atheist. I'm also always a little unsure how to spell the word, but there's no squiggly underline, so I think I'm good. Anyway, my point is I don't believe in a god or supreme being or that the world was created in seven days. I look around me and I see what goes on in the name of religion and I don't agree with all that. I don't believe that what counts as religion on this planet today was dictated by some deity, it all smacks a little too much of man's fallibility to me. But, and here's a pretty big but, that's what I think and if you think differently, if you believe, than that's OK. Because in the end we live on a pretty big planet and there's room for what I believe and there's room for what you believe. If (this is another biggie) we can live peacefully and harmoniously, then in the end we don't think too differently, do we?


And then there's Alain de Botton. I've read a couple of his books. Both of which I enjoyed, although there was probably some pages in On Love where I wanted to slap him. He's not a philosopher who leaves me scratching my head and feeling stupid, but does encourage thought. And so I suppose in one sense this whole nonsensical idea of a Temple of Atheism has encouraged thought and a decision making process. I don't agree with it. 

Rather than attack religion, De Botton said he wants to borrow the idea of awe-inspiring buildings that give people a better sense of perspective on life.

Personally, I find the Guggenheim in Bilboa, kind of awe-inspiring and because I like art the inside, it gives me a better sense of perspective on life too. 

And the tallest suspension bridge over the Tarn Valley in France, I think that would do it to. In fact going over the Severn Bridge on the back of a motorcycle on a windy day pretty much did it for me too. 

[Richard] Dawkins criticised the project on Thursday, indicating the money was being misspent

Given the amount of debt we're all in at the moment, £1m probably isn't going to solve a great deal, but I do agree that it's money that could be better spent.  

[Dawkins goes on to say] ... that a temple of atheism was a contradiction in terms.

That was my first thought. 

The idea has echoes of earlier atheist spaces, ranging from churches converted to "temples of reason" during the French revolution to the Conway Hall in London which is run by the humanist South Place Ethical Society.

Ok so these are/were spaces that served some function to the public. It wasn't just a space right? In which case if you want a temple of something why not give your £1m to... libraries. Don't know, it's just an idea, they're underfunded, threatened with closure, encourage free thinking. They may even lead some people to give up on religion, or get better at cooking, who knows? But they do serve a purpose. 

The temple features a single door for visitors who will enter as if it were an art installation.

Because let's face it, that's what it is isn't it? It's a 151 ft tower (snigger snigger) not to atheism, but to the person who managed to raise £1m pounds from anonymous donors and others who want their mere mortality remembered by a great big phallic grave stone in the middle of London, because they can't have a gravestone in a cemetery because they don't believe. PURLEASE. Go and think up some good ideas and leave atheism alone.  


Thanks to @dadwhowrites who alerted me to this silly, silly idea yesterday. Although we usually compare three year old bad behaviour, he also puts up lots of cool news articles on Twitter (which get me thinking) and he blogs here: Dad who writes


Quotes are from this Guardian article: 

Alain de Botton reveals plans for 'temple to atheism' in heart of London

And photos are from Google image search. 

A Memory: Yellow

Assisi, Italy

A book review: Howl's moving castle

Title: Howl's moving castle
Author: Diana Wynne Jones
Published: Greenwillow Books (1986)

Synopsis: In the land of Ingary, such things as spells, invisible cloaks, and seven-league boots were everyday things. The Witch of the Waste was another matter.

After fifty years of quiet, it was rumored that the Witch was about to terrorize the country again. So when a moving black castle, blowing dark smoke from its four thin turrets, appeared on the horizon, everyone thought it was the Witch. The castle, however, belonged to Wizard Howl, who, it was said, liked to suck the souls of young girls.

The Hatter sisters--Sophie, Lettie, and Martha--and all the other girls were warned not to venture into the streets alone. But that was only the beginning.

In this giant jigsaw puzzle of a fantasy, people and things are never quite what they seem. Destinies are intertwined, identities exchanged, lovers confused. The Witch has placed a spell on Howl. Does the clue to breaking it lie in a famous poem? And what will happen to Sophie Hatter when she enters Howl's castle?

From Amazon.co.uk

  
Star parts: Start with action, introduce your main character straight away, let your reader know what he or she wants. To be honest Wynne Jones doesn't do that. By the time Sophie had got herself into a perfect pickle I was rather fed up with her. She was a wet blanket without a ingle bit of oomph around her. Or at least that's what I thought until she picked the wrong customer to get all lippy with and as I said ended up in a bit of a fix.


Another strong point in the book are the characters. Right from the beginning Wynne Jones made the reader lost sympathy with Sophie, so that when she has to sort things out we're right there with her cheering her along, because she's finally taking some action. Her sisters Lettie and Martha are originally painted as Sophie sees them, and boy is Sophie wrong about her sisters. Michael provides some relief from all the tricky characters by being exactly what he says he is, Howl's apprentice. Calcifer tries very hard to be mean, but he just can't manage it in the end. And Howl, well you never quite know with him, although I did suspect that he couldn't be all bad. 


I loved the world building in this book and then when we were unexpectedly transported back into our own world those scenes were hysterical, but I won't say too much about that. Wynne Jones' imagination keeps the reader hooked and then makes you go back through the book to catch all those little hints and clues that you missed the first time. 


Black clouds: This is more of a slightly grey cloud on the horizon that can be blown away. The beginning was kind of slow and I was slightly tempted to put the book down, I'm glad I didn't. And the ending was all kind of quick. It reminded me a bit of the ending of Oscar Wilde play (I won't say which one) or a certain Shakespeare play (again won't say which one), and perhaps it was all intentional, but I would have liked maybe a page more of ending. 

  Do I recommend it: What do you think? Of course I do and I've got another Wynne Jones in my TBR pile. 

It's not time for the holidays yet

One of the things I never appreciated about France until bagging a Frog was the importance of holidays. At work the february school break is called Ski break. Now as one who has never skied, I can drop a whole load of reasons why I don't want to try (and regularly do to my sister in law as February swings round), but this major clue about where holidays lay in the French psyche still didn't get through to mine. The summer holidays are called 'Les grands vacances' another big clue, and I'm sure I've written here about how Paris clears out during the summer. And Boulogne Billancourt as Paris' 21st arrondissement is no exception. If anything, last year our residence was like a ghost building as we rattled around here post move. So why am I mentioning it now? Because in order for the big clear out to take place, the French spend January scouring the internet looking for somewhere to stay. And frankly all those holiday villas, houses, apartments are  starting to blend into one and I can't look at another 'annonce' right now. 

So, here I am turning my mind to my writing resolutions 2012. Thankfully, what with it being January and all (just about) EVEYRONE has already posted theirs, so I've pilfered the useful ones!

1. This one isn't directly a writing one. Someone wrote about mind and body and I'm certainly happier when there's a little physical activity  going on in my life. NO! *blushes* I meant exercise, sheesh. So I'm going to swim once a week. I was aiming for 1k, but my sports coaches have pointed out that first I need to stop pushing off the sides of the pool! 
2. I will write a synopsis (Thank you writing gods. Nicola Morgane's Write a Great Synopsis came out YESTERDAY). 

1. I will write a query letter (I think that's Nicola's next book!)
2. I will knock the revision of current WIP on the head. 
3. I will send off some pages to the editors/agents from the December conference I attended. 
4. I will write the first draft of the thing that I started in November. 
5. Crit group is a must (especially since we've shifted to evenings and there's a bottle of wine involved). 
6. Maybe attend one SCBWI thingie. 
7. Keep an eye out on the Chicken House website and see if they're running that MS comp again this year. (Part one of that plan is now in place in that I follow them on Twitter). 
8. Keep the social networking manageable -No Tweetdeck, cull regularly. 

And lastly I will take the balloons down. Party time is over, it's time to get to work. 

A Memory: Doorways

Cultural characters

The other day I was checking my Twitter feed on the way to work when I came across one that linked to a now taken down article in The Guardian and stated that French parents were better than me. Of course, that was bound to set my blood boiling and my little thumbs furiously smacked out a reply all about those great French parents. Then I planned a great big long rant about French and UK parenting, before remembering that this was a writing blog. 

By the time I got to work (having already tweeted the 140 characters of aforementioned rant) I had that little moment to reflect on the fact that my child is half Brit, half French. In our parenting combo, right from the off, everything the other did was wrong. Totally wrong. Not because it was wrong, but because we were brought up differently. Where the Frog suffers (and believe me it shows all over his face) the indignity of having to put his child on time out and then asking the child if she understands why she was on time out, I have to chew my lips when I can see the three year old is dying to leave the table, but we haven't all finished eating yet. We're different. It's different, there's no right or wrong parenting. The book French Children Don't Throw Food, may purport French parenting styles, and we may read it to further our understanding of social anthropology in the same way that we might read A Year in the Merde, but we're not actually going to start acting like the French, because we're culturally programmed not to.

Which brings me to writing. I've lived here for eleven years, before that a couple of years in Madrid and before that Mexico. This year I can no longer vote in the UK, I am well and truly an ex-pat, yet I still write British characters. I can't stop. I just don't feel equipped to write a French one, and wouldn't dream of writing a Spanish or Mexican. I may put them in as minor characters, but as a main I wouldn't dream of it. I think that as my child grows up, I'll be in a unique position to write the French character and may even do so one day, but at the moment it's easier to create a whole new fantasy world.

And then boys? Do I write boys? Yes, British boys. But I was reading this blog the other day: Interview with Shelly Harris, and she raised the point:

I was surprised how much I had to learn about a male viewpoint, and how different it can be from that of a woman. 

She also wrote from an  British Asian point of view and talks about how she went about making the voice authentic. And that is the point. I'm not saying we shouldn't do it. Having just reviewed Unhooking the Moon, by Liverpudlian author Gregory Hughes, one of the things that I really liked about the book was that the characters seemed real. As writers we can write from a male/female POV or a Peruvian one, if we so wish, we have that liberty, but we have to make it true.

And just to prove this was a writing post, books mentioned during this post:
French Children Don't Throw Food by Pamela Druckerman
A Year in the Merde by Stephen Clarke
Jubilee by Shelly Harris
Unhooking the Moon by Gregory Hughes.