Anyway, I’m due my regular reflection on a small person who is, quite frankly, rather brilliant.

Ramona’s hit the toddler stage full blast, running around like a loon and talking nineteen to the dozen now. There are lots of exchanges like this:

R: “Driiiiiink… driiiiink…”
Me: “As soon as I get you into your sleeping bag, you can have your drink. You know that.”
R: “Yes, Mummy. I know.”*

And she’s valiantly banging away at full sentences:

R: “Daddy carry ‘mona down’tairs?”
Me: “Yes, darling; he’ll be back in a minute to take you downstairs.”
R: “Daaaaaddyyyy… open the door, carry ‘mona down’tairs now!”

The long and painful bath phobia is now over – in fact, she throws a strop if she thinks she’ll miss her bath, and pointedly stands at the bottom of the stairs announcing “goo’nigh’, bath-time” and clutching Weasel to her chest. She’s becoming more and more dextrous and fearless, although she’s still bewilderingly daunted by stairs and won’t climb more than one before requesting to be picked up (though to be honest that’s something of a relief).

She’s obsessed with reading, as ever, and I’ve managed to nab a couple of audio recordings of us reading together. I really want to grab some video of her amazing reactions to her favourites. Full kicking, squealing, overexcited toddler joy. I’m going to miss that so much and am determined to enjoy every moment, and have them to look back on!

She’s also rather obsessed with the box, and we’re having to make an extra effort to model good behaviour by turning it off. Most of her favourites are positive and educational, from ‘Mi Tubble’ (Something Special) to Peppa Pig, a work of subversive genius that I enjoy watching as much as – possibly more than – she does, but nonetheless we’d like to direct more of her energies to things like painting and drawing, the latter of which she’s recently become quite interested in. (By which I mean scribbling aimlessly, but the crayons have helped her become very reliable with her colours as I hand them to her one by one as she gets the colours right!)

She’s a phenomenally good eater, and a fair sleeper, both of which I’m thoroughly grateful for. And she’s a sociable little soul who has learned the value of a cow-eyed “pleeeeease?” already.

She can be a bit of a drama queen, as I think are most toddlers, so of course the flipside to all this incredible development is throwing massive, often unexpected hissy fits that are quite extraordinary in their volume and extent.

But it’s so easy to forget that when she trundles around the house randomly throwing guerilla hugs at people’s legs while yelling “CUDDLE!”.

I’m so easily pleased.

*Sounds massively precocious, but actually mimicking Chris Haughton‘s brilliant book, A Bit Lost, in which she fills in the part of Squirrel. Other classic Ramonaisms taken from books include yelling “MEEOOOOWW! Poor Mog!” (Meg and Mog) and insisting “‘Iway Bat, ‘Iway Bat… R… R… Rat” because I’ve corrected her so many times (The Highway Rat).

My blogging history is pretty much LiveJournal… Vox… (brief foray into Blogger)… here. My LJ was locked, my Vox was not under my real name but I gradually put real photos on it. And then I started working in this field and thought it would be a good idea to have an online home for me.

Of course there are downsides to that. When I had a blog not in my name, I could blog about family and friends without making their identity public (to this day if I’m going to say anything really personal about someone on Twitter I’ll do it by DM. It’s not fair otherwise- it’s my public profile, not theirs). I wrote about my pregnancy before I told work, which was a wonderful outlet. I could be, I think, a little more honest and transparent, as we all are under a film of anonymity.

But I also couldn’t easily talk about my work, and was always second-guessing how much I could say about myself.

Part of the reason for creating this site was essentially to have something that could serve as an online CV. It’s good to have a place to collect achievements and things I’ve been involved with. Every so often I update my real CV without doing anything with it, just to give myself a sense of what I’ve learned and where I’m going and I often come back here to remind myself!

That’s why I couldn’t call this a blog about anything in particular. I talk about social media because they’re the basis of my job and a major interest. I talk about babies and parenting because that’s my life at the moment. I talk about Disney and cakes and books and feminism and cats because I want to.

I used to think that maybe that was a weakness of this blog, and I think it put me off updating it sometimes. I’ve got so used to the pro-blogging world that I felt like this blog ought to have a niche area of interest and stick to it (fairly) rigidly. But of course I’m not trying to make money out this blog. (One could argue that ultimately I’m trying to make money out of me, but I think if you’re considering hiring me for something then it’s okay if you know I have a life outside work. I would have thought that would be a bonus, actually). I’m not trying to appeal to a particular audience. I’m just using this in a simple, cave painting kind of way: to talk, to share, to vent. And, if I’m lucky, and people are interested, to listen, too.

I’ve just gone back to the start, really, and just taken blogging for what it is for most people, most of the time.

But you know if I were ever going to launch myself down the path of pro-blogging for myself, I’d want to keep this bit of Pro Blogger wisdom about not comparing myself to others in mind.

And now maybe I should get on with the actual blogging about stuff other than, erm, blogging.

I have a bit of a secret weapon on board here, which is the less mouthy Goldstein in the partnership: my husband. Look, here he is! And here! Give him a wave.

He patiently listened to my mad ideas about cats and Disney and Disney and cats and blogging about Whiffle. And he made them into something that I think speaks pretty well of me.

I’ve also tidied up the copy on the Pages and removed some of the extraneous bumpf. I’m a great believer in spring cleaning writing – and websites – and this bout of scrubbing and polishing was long overdue.

I hope you enjoy the new look.

It’s no shock to anyone that I’m a big Disney parks fan, and anyone who’s ever asked knows my favourite park is Epcot. Since I first visited a mere two years after it opened, it’s always been the park I’ve looked forward to the most. Being a bit techy, a bit foodie, a bit of a traveller, a bit of a geek, it’s the best possible theme park in the world (or World) for me. And knowing that it started life intending to be the model of a future city is just insanely appealing. But I’m an Epcot fan, not an Epcot history buff; I live too far away and visit, by financial necessity, too infrequently to spot every update or track every plan for the space.

Pedersen, a former Unofficial Guide researcher, has taken all that insane appeal and married it to an Epcot (and EPCOT Center) geekery that is truly admirable and a little scary – in a good way. This is not a guide book but a history; it describes the evolution of every single attraction in the park, from Mission: SPACE to the Mexico pavillion and back again. Drawing on planning permits, information released by Imagineers, decades of Walt Disney World promotional literature and much more, it balances scene-by-scene detail with little forays into fun fact territory.

Picking apart an attraction might sound negative, but it’s actually fascinating. Far from destroying the magic, it heightens it; in the case of lost and lamented Horizons, it’s practically the only way those of us who can’t make it to a WED Convention might hope to relive it and share it with those who never got a chance to experience it. The encyclopaedia* layout also means it’s easy to skip over parts that are less personally interesting; I admit the development of Innoventions etc. is not half as interesting to me as the growth of the World Showcase pavillions, so I more-or-less skim read the list of stalls and stands.

I was not tempted to skim elsewhere, however, because the writing style is full of wit, lightheartedness, self-awareness and passion. It made me laugh out loud a couple of times, and smirk a few times more. It could do with a little tidying because annoying language fascists like me might be a little distracted by the odd typo, but given the overall eloquence I feel I’m nitpicking. (Now you know how much I liked it; when have I ever been that laissez-faire about language before?!)

Really my only criticism is that there isn’t more of it. The abrupt ending after the last bit of World Showcase miscellany has been thrown in made me feel a little bereft, especially as there was an engaging introduction. Admittedly I’m unsure what else there was to cover, but I was sorry to see it end and somehow wasn’t expecting it. Perhaps that’s the curse of the Kindle.

The UK edition is currently available from Amazon for Kindle, but a paper copy is forthcoming. You can also follow the author, @EPCOTNRG, on Twitter and visit his website, devoted to the ‘flora, fauna and fun of the world’s greatest theme park’.

*US spelling in the title, UK spelling in the review. So there.

At long last, Yates’s changes made sense. His near-compulsive need to shovel in extra set pieces (as if Harry Potter didn’t have more than enough already) was restrained and used with a certain amount of charm. Steve Kloves had grabbed back the script with both hands – his absence was keenly felt in HP5 and, as I’ve already said, his dialogue couldn’t rescue HP6 – and the story was coherent even for the likes of my husband, who has seen most of the films but read none of the books.

While Daniel Radcliffe still sometimes seems to emotionally tune out and Rupert Grint was necessarily underused, Emma Watson’s Hermione deftly took the centre stage that she is often afforded in the final book and the all-star Who’s Who of British National Treasures always could be relied upon to turn in generous and gripping supporting turns. Alan Rickman was necessarily sidelined, but that will only make his more pivotal role in the final installment all the more fun to anticipate.

The visuals were dark, gloomy and sweeping, as befitted this darkest of conclusions. Yates even snuck in some unexpected raciness, which was slightly disarming but served as a good reminder that the key cast isn’t actually 11 years old anymore. The costume and makeup crew gleefully went to town on Bellatrix, and the various transformations, from Polyjuice Potion to Stinging Hexes are delightfully gruesome.

Although I wasn’t as taken with HP7i as I was with the stunningly constructed Azkaban, for the first time I think it’s more because it’s very difficult to compare half a film with a rounded story rather than because every director apart from Cuaron has been slightly disappointing. I was left feeling like I’d seen a very long trailer for a considerably potentially exciting final film, but also that I was okay with that.

Not one for the really, really faint of heart or sensitive youth, but worth enjoying in the cinema nonetheless.

If you’re pregnant and you have a feline presence in your house, you can guarantee that the first thing you’ll get asked is “what are you going to do with the cat(s)?”. The person asking is always a little purse-lipped when you say things like “erm, feed them, stroke them, take them to the vet when needed, you know, the usual…”. Apparently a cat is only considered a member of the family until another human member of the family turns up.

This is largely because of fear caused by misinformation, or at least a rather panicky take on the facts.

Read more: http://life.bitchbuzz.com/pregnant-you-dont-have-to-evict-your-cat.html

The photo is of one of our cats, Casper, who has taken to Ramona rather well, sniffing at her and occasionally flomping (the act of flopping down dramatically) nearby to watch her. She sometimes smiles at him.

1. My first BitchBuzz column about motherhood, kids and parenting is up. It’s called Are You Thinking About Having a Home Birth? The next few are likely to focus on money, cats, baby milestones and stuff like that.

2. Next Weds (27th) I’ll be heading to West Malling, Kent, to present to a CAF (Charities Aid Foundation) Market Insight session about technology. I’ll be covering Dogs Trust online in a nutshell. I don’t know yet if the presentations will be hosted somewhere online, but they might well be.

3. My daughter slept for nine hours last night. Okay, that’s not so helpful to you, but it is to me. And this is my blog, after all.

4. Ash (my husband) is still casting an eye out for any way that he can swap some design skills for events experience. He’s spent a week at Dogs Trust HQ and a day at a centre making himself useful and is chatting to a couple of other charities and individuals; please do step forward if you need him!

Ridiculous names aside, you know going in that there are only three ways the unpopular girl lusting after the high school heartthrob can end. They get it together and she becomes incredibly popular, they get it together and it ends badly or they never get it together. I ruled out the first thanks to the book’s general tone, but to avoid spoilers I won’t tell you which of the other two it comes to.

Lee is extremely well-drawn, so naturally she’s deeply annoying. Frankly if most of us look back at our behaviour during our teenage years we’d probably find ourselves to be pretty irritating as well. She comments once that a particular friend “liked her before she became likeable” and it’s a very shrewd observation. Her self-absorption is inevitable and irksome, and her moments of introspection are on-the-money cringe inducing. Scenes with her parents, where their Indiana suburban simplicity is thrown into sharp relief against the rich, untouchable parents shepherding their Boston born and bred offspring around campus are particularly sharply observed.

To a certain extent, Prep is done a disservice by its book jacket, screaming with references to Salinger and The Secret History. While I could possibly accept a (limited) comparison to the latter in the way that Lee is the awkward outsider in the Richard role, I think trying to make Fiora into Caulfield is a huge error. And that’s not a criticism; Prep is much more enjoyable when you accept it for what it is and don’t try to pigeonhole it. I have a bit of a loathing for “if you like this, then…” recommendations, anyway. Authors aren’t cookie cutters and even within a particular genre there’s huge variation.

As a penetrating yet amusing take on teenage alienation it’s a worthwhile read that, if nothing else, ought to generate a few uncomfortable moments of self-aware reminiscence.

Find out more about the Transworld Summer Reading Challenge. Please note that opinions are my own and unbiased; I am not required to give the books a positive review.

Oh, and they’re all stuffed animals.

I have to admit, I struggled a bit with Amberville. On the surface of it, it sounded a little off-beat, clever, unusual – a fantasy universe in the same vein as Jasper Fforde’s Nursery Crime Division series or Robert Rankin’s The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse. I even loved the cover with its stuffed animal take on Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks (with Emma Rabbit as Jo Hopper, of course). But actually the stuffed animal world seemed at times a little gimmicky, although the reason for its use as a warped mirror held up against our own world became more obvious as the story progressed.

It’s really the second half of Amberville that makes it, but it’s very hard to talk about it without revealing rather too much about the twisty plot. Each animal representative deliberately plays to stereotype; for example, Eric Bear is your everyman, Sam Gazelle a “mincing” (yes, really) male prostitute, Archdeacon Odenrick is a penguin, in black and white clerical gear. To some extent this means a bit of predictability, but to give ‘Tim Davys’ – it’s a pseudonym for ‘a Swedish author’ apparently – credit, the plot still packs a few surprises. However, the underlying themes of life and death, good and evil, religion and afterlife are well-trodden indeed, and Amberville holds few revelations here. It is perhaps the kind of book that appeals most to those that already agree with its thesis on morality; for me it felt a bit tired.

But if the moral didn’t do it for me, Amberville certainly gets points for originality of setting, and the kind of gleeful, haunting darkness that drips through it. Despite being carried out by stuffed animals, there’s nothing funny or less unsettling about scenes of torture, madness and betrayal, and they certainly stay with you. If you can ignore (or embrace) the underlying theme, there’s always the sneaky mystery story and detailed setting to enjoy instead.

Find out more about the Transworld Summer Reading Challenge. Please note that opinions are my own and unbiased; I am not required to give the books a positive review.

And that was just fine, as it turned out. References to earlier plot lines were swiftly explained without too much exposition for the latecomer, but with enough to feel quickly acquainted with the battery of faintly bizarre characters. The Bryant and May series centres on the eponymous detectives who make up the core of the Peculiar Crimes Unit.

Something of a law unto themselves and perpetually falling foul of the Met because of it, the PCU brings together a motley but talented crew of detectives and forensic types who investigate the kinds of crimes the other departments can’t solve. In this book, there isn’t even supposed to be a PCU; they’ve been officially suspended, pending investigation which seems to be inevitably heading towards formal disbanding. Just as it seems there’s nothing left for the team but to find new jobs (and, in Bryant’s case, shuffle inexporably towards a lonely death from old age and lack of stimulation), a headless corpse turns up which leads them into a race against time to solve a murder, prevent chaos striking a huge development project and possibly even save their careers.

Of Bryant and May it is Bryant, an eccentric, highly intelligent officer with an encyclopaedic knowledge of London and it’s convoluted history, that is the more striking. May is his sensible fall guy, against whom he bounces his ideas and who keeps him on the path of what passes for sanity in Bryant’s world.  The rest of the team is a mixture of sensible, likeable types  – the almost disappointingly realistic ones – and the slightly odd; Jack Renfield, for example, who’s trying to simultaneously shake off a reputation for being widely disliked and the Dracula jokes that follow his name about.

The strongest highlights of Bryant & May On the Loose are the fascinating points of London history and the clever pacing. Although you’re essentially given plenty of the detail that’s usually revealed at the end from the start, the intricately wound plot leaves plenty of room for guessing – and, indeed, second-guessing – and leaves just enough unsaid to keep the reader turning pages eagerly. Fowler is also far too skilled to suffer from the excessive exposition problem that occasionally surfaces in mysteries based on a long-buried secret; he works the historical detail into the plot in digestible chunks.

Although I’m not raving with excitement over the book, I couldn’t point out a specific criticism to level at it; a few things occasionally slightly grated(some uncomfortably unlikely dialogue, the odd overdose of eccentricity), but nothing that would stop me going on to read others in the series, which I now fully intend to do. All in all, it’s an enjoyably quirky, admirably pacy and interesting mystery, which is just fine by me.

Find out more about the Transworld Summer Reading Challenge. Please note that opinions are my own and unbiased; I am not required to give the books a positive review.