White Wash



4000 Bauhaus/International Style buildings make up The White City in Tel Aviv, constructed in the 1930's by German Jewish architects who had immigrated to Palestine to escape the rise of the Nazi's. The White City is the largest collection of this style of building anywhere in the world.
Today, many of the striking buildings are in varying states of decay, while many are slowly being restored to their pristine white facades.

White walls against glaring blue sky with ripples of heat distorting the sharp, smooth lines and right angles; turning the structures into quivering mirages.

Grim Rieper







My costume for this halloween was Pauline Rieper/Parker, one half of the notorious Parker-Hulme teenage murdering duo, found guilty in Christchurch, New Zealand, in 1954 for the murder of Pauline's mother, thus providing the basis for Peter Jackson's 1994 film Heavenly Creatures.
Together they created an elaborate fantasy realm, 'The Fourth World', and hoped to sell their epic tales of adventure for adaptation to Hollywood films.
Pauline is best remembered for her detailed diaries, hatred of Orson Welles, and her love of Mario Lanza and Juliet Hulme.
Pauline's mother was viewed as the one stumbling block in the two girls' relationship, as both sets of parents began fearing the friendship bordered on homosexuality, and had decided complete separation was the only way to cure this 'mental illness'. Pauline and Juliet reasoned the only way they could be assured of staying together would be to bludgeon Mrs Rieper with half a brick in a stocking in a secluded part of Victoria Park.


Excerpts from Pauline's diaries:

We have decided how sad it is for other people that they
cannot appreciate our genius . . .
. . . but we hope the book will help them to do so a
little, though no one could fully appreciate us.

To think that so much could happen in so little time,
caused by so few. A terrible tragedy has occurred . . .

Mother woke me this morning and started lecturing me
before I was properly awake, which I thought was somewhat unfair. She
has brought up the worst possible threat now. She said that if my
health did not prove I could never see the Hulmes again. The thought is
too dreadful. Life would be unbearable without Deborah . . .

I rang Deborah immediately as I had to tell someone
sympathetic how I loathed Mother.

One thing Deborah and I are sticking to: through
everything, we sink or swim together.

Anger against Mother boiled up inside me as it is she who
is one of the main obstacle in my path. Suddenly a means of ridding
myself of this obstacle occurred to me. If she were to die . . .

About Bacon

It was so hot today I had to remove the pots from the window sill. The windows are the kind which open inwards, so the plants - an african violet, a strange shrub with purple leaves, and sundry others languishing and ill-kept - huddled in a cluster below the sill, dethroned for a breath of fresh air.

I leaned outside welcoming the lazy breeze infiltrating the soupy confines of the lounge, strong enough to scatter the dust particles caught in the direct sunlight, but not to stir the leaves of the relegated plants. The odour of bacon filters through from a neighbouring open window. I once knew a girl who gave up twelve years of devout vegetarianism for the smell of bacon. The smell was so pungent, she decided on the spot to abandon all her previous beliefs about the 'perils of the flesh', and try a morsel. It was the beginning of the end, really.
Now when I see rashers sizzling, the rind blistering and distorting, covered in a film of oil, I think of her mouth filling up with saliva.

Personal Preference

How to learn Swedish verbs:

There is an easier and more effective and entertaining way of learning the verb forms, though: By reading Swedish texts, newspaper articles, comic strips, and novels written in an everyday language (translations of Agatha Christie crime novels or love-stories by Barbara Cartland or whatever you personally prefer), you will soon meet all the common verbs - they are actually not that many - in a meaningful context, you will see their function in different sentences, how they are used in idiomatic phrases, and you will not have to spend time on the numerous verb forms that theoretically exist but are rarely used. The first pages of such a book in Swedish may naturally take some time to tackle, but it will not be long before you will be able to recognize and understand an amazingly large number of words. With a basic knowledge of the verb system in Swedish it will be even easier.

Now to begin my collection of Agatha Christie crime novels in Swedish for educational purposes.

Wood from the Trees





obsessed with the forest green penguin crime & mystery titles. the only problem lies in whether to begin collecting the works of Ngaio Marsh or Raymond Chandler?
and so to begin the florence wild crime library.

Whilst working at Special Collections daintily vacuuming mold off rare and old books, I began taking Ngaio Marsh novels off the shelves one by one to reread as I cleaned.

I would be satisfied if my personal library held the complete works of Ngaio Marsh, Raymond Chandler, Arthur Conan Doyle and Ian Fleming, along with sundry others.

I am always surprised I can read murder mysteries again and again, I would have thought the interest and intrigue would have worn out after one reading.