Recently read: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, Lewis Carroll

I can’t recall having ever read these books as a child. Working my way through the Guardian 1000 novels list, I’ve plucked all of the books off my shelves that are on the list that I haven’t yet read. I’ve had a copy of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass for years.

I’m sure everyone knows the main theme of the story – Alice follows a white rabbit down a rabbit hole into a fantasy world, filled with talking creatures and magical food, and in Through the Looking Glass Alice slips into a mirror world, which is largely shaped around a giant game of chess.

I think the joy of these stories is in the fantastical creatures and scenarios. The characters do and say the strangest things, and are described so clearly that you really do feel like you’re looking at how you imagined things as a child.  Alice as a central character carries the story along.

I found the stories didn’t have much of a direction, though I’m sure that as a child this wouldn’t have troubled me at all – maybe it’s only as an adult that I expect a story to follow a clear structure. It was worth reading these books, as they paint such a lovely picture of a different world. I did enjoy stepping back into my younger imagination.

A treasure hunt in London

Last weekend I organised a hen-do for one of my best friends. Bit of a tricky one, as she’s quite an active person, but being January a lot of the typical activity places weren’t available. So I decided that a treasure hunt would be a fun and active thing to do, and also give people a chance to see a bit of London. My friend lives in London, but I always used to find when I lived there that I didn’t really do much sightseeing.

After a bit of research, I couldn’t really find any pre-made treasure hunts online. So I wrote my own.

I thoroughly enjoyed writing it, and we were really lucky with the weather – it was a beautiful, sunny winter’s day. It was freezing, but I made sure we had a meet point in the middle for a sneaky drink so that got around that issue.

The route:

Treasure hunt isn’t quite the right title, it was a kind of scavenger hunt with various tasks. But one of the main objectives was to take people on a nice route through London.

I arranged for us to meet at London Bridge, and the route took the teams through Borough Market and then along the river, stopping off for drinks near the Royal Festival Hall, and then crossing the river, taking in the Trafalgar Square and Covent Garden area, finishing with drinks in a bar near Seven Dials between Covent Garden and Soho.

This is one of my favourite routes in London. I used to walk part of it to work every day, and frequently walk sections of it when I go back to London. There are some great sights, and some unusual things to see. I won’t give details of all of the tasks (there were 45 in total), but here were some of my favourites:

• Buy something nice to eat in Borough market – this was ideal, as the first task it meant people had the option to get a snack (high priority in my mind) and also made it easy to split the teams up – it’s hard to follow the other teams in there as it’s very busy.
• Various photos, including doing your best thespian pose outside a theatre (the route takes in several, including the Globe and the National), capture all of your team in a photo with St Paul’s Cathedral in the background from Millenium Bridge, streets which feature on the Monopoly board (there are quite a few in the Trafalgar Square area).  We had fun with this, and there are just so many good cues for photos.
• Buying various things relating to the bride-to-be including a postcard from an art gallery (and writing a nice message on it), the most unusual souvenir possible, various snacks.
• Finding unusual things – like the Moomin shop that’s recently opened in Coven Garden.
• There’s so much history and art everywhere you look – Blue Plaques, various murals along the foot tunnels underneath bridges, also often there are artworks or inscriptions in the floor at certain points. I fitted in quite a few questions about history and interesting facts – for example, what body part can be found sculpted onto the Admiralty Arches?

Some good extra pointers

There are quite a few information signs in London, which highlight a map of where you currently are and provide information and a map for the immediate area. These help if you don’t quite know where you are, especially for people don’t know London, though it is good to mix the teams so no-one gets completely lost!

I planned the route out, and gave people maps of the locations of the meeting points. I also gave them the postcodes for the bars, so those with maps on their phones could use them.

Timings:

I wrote 45 tasks for people to complete, thinking that they wouldn’t finish them all. But everyone got them all, though they had to go at a fair pace! Total time available for actual hunting was about 2 hours 45 minutes. Obviously this didn’t include the break in the middle for drinks. So it easily fills up an afternoon.

Points:

I allocated points for each task, but didn’t weight them. I should have done, it’d be even better if some tasks were worth more than others, especially when there’s a bit of time pressure. The teams were fairly even, and I made sure there were prizes for everyone, but it would work equally well with a more competitive focus.

Some resources I used for planning:

• Openplaques.org - which details what is on blue plaques, and where they’re located
• Openstreetmap.org for looking at the route in detail
• I googled quite a few things
• I also asked other people to check through the plan I’d made. A second opinion is always good, and they added a few extras in too.

For anyone thinking of doing something similar:

I think this worked really well. I enjoyed putting it together – it meant I could pick out all of the places I love and share them with other people in a fun way. There is so much to see, it would be easy to create a longer or shorter version, and I’d love to try writing one for different parts of London. It can also be really personal to the individual and is a great way to bring a group together. It didn’t cost me anything, though if we visited any galleries I made sure I donated to them. We saw some lovely sights, and got some great photos. And everyone felt they deserved a nice dinner at the end of it.

 

Recently read: Arthur & George, Julian Barnes

Book 2 on my list to read in 2012 was Arthur and George by Julian Barnes.

Arthur & George tells the stor of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and George Edalji. Their stories are told alongside each other for the first part of the book, generally switching from one to the other. The stories cross paths as a result of the Great Wyrley Outrages.

The stories are based around true events and characters, and I find that period of literary history fascinating. I love Conan Doyle novels, and many of the other authors of the time, so each time another author’s name is mentioned it made me want to read more into this period. Throughout the book a range of sources are quoted widely, and there is a note at the end of the book to state that, with the exception of one letter, all quotes are authentic. I love this, as the story has been pieced together so fluidly, and incorporates a lot of detail which is taken from primary source material. It’s an amazing combination of imagination, story telling and historical narrative.

One of the things I love about reading is that it always inspires me to read more. Reading Arthur & George has made me want to read more novels from the same period, as well as make sure I put some time aside to read a bit more history, which I talked about a few months ago but haven’t really made much progress on. A few more to add to the list, but after reading Arthur & George I can’t wait to get onto my next book.