tea

Now for Something Completely Different

| mlatimerridley
Latimer is made of star stuff? Hurrah!

Latimer: Okay, so in this post I well and truly get my nerd on. What follows is an indulgence of my science fetish!

It might come as a surprise that I am a factual being, when my dreams are so rooted in the fantastical. But sometimes the truth is just as mysterious and awe-inspiring as the dream. I think that science is the great dream; the greatest mystery.

Recently I went to a general science conference, covering everything under the sun. It was the European Science Open Forum (ESOF) which was held in Dublin this year (Dublin is the City of Science for 2012 🙂 ).

This conference was incredible; for a start the program included five Nobel Laureates. Heavy-hitters as I was calling them.                                                                                 

The conference had two speakers that without a doubt I had to see: Prof. James Watson and Dr. Craig Venter. They’re like celebrities in science.

Now, you may or may not know who these men are. If you don’t, let me explain…

A conversation with James Watson

Professor James Watson, co-discoverer of the struture of DNA

Prof. James Watson co-discovered the structure of DNA in the 50’s with Dr. Frances Crick. He is quite an incredible man- at 84yrs of age, he is still active in research today!

The talk was a ‘conversation with James Watson’. It was very interesting. He can be quite controversal though.

He wrote a book called How to Avoid Boring People; one interest thing he said was to avoid being in a room with more than 2 Nobel Laureates (you have to laugh at the likelihood of that happening).

Watson said he hated going to the Nobel meetings because you end up with 10 Nobel Laureates in a room and they are incredibly boring. He snorted thinking you’d have to be boring to be one and that he was the exception.

It was amazing to get the opportunity to see him.

Dr. Craig Venter: ‘From Reading to Writing the Genetic Code’

Dr. Craig Venter, the background shows the cover of Science, the journal in which his group published their sequencing of the human genome in 2000

Dr. Craig Venter, sometimes called the ‘bad boy’ of science, was involved in the sequencing of the human genome. There were two groups racing to sequence the human genome at the time; the public group led by Dr. Frances Collins and the private group lead by Venter.

Venter had declared to the public group that his company could sequence the genome faster and for cheaper than they could. This kicked off the race between the two groups, leading to the genome being sequenced far faster than the public group had estimated it would be (3yrs ahead of the expected time-frame).

Craig Venter’s synthetic micro-organism, a bacteria called Mycoplasma mycoides JCVI-syn1.0

In recent years, more famously perhaps, Venter’s research group made the first synthetic organism.

It was very interesting to hear what his group (or an assembly of many groups) was up to and also to hear his thoughts on the future of science. 

He believes, for example, that in the future, during disease outbreaks, it will be possible for people to download vaccines from the internet and use boxes, containing his technology, to synthesize the vaccines themselves.

What an amazing thought eh? And not that farfetched.

Prof. Brian Greene: ‘The State of String Theory’

Professor Brian Greene

This was an incredible talk (even though I don’t do or understand Physics!). I am fascinated by the science of the universe.

Did you know- the heavy elements in our body came from the heart of an exploding star? All the particles that make up this universe have always been and always will be; how incredible is that?

It leaves you with a sense of belonging to the universe.

Prof. Greene also mentioned the multiverse- the notion that we are only one of many universes.

If these multple universes exist, it is believed that they would collide with one another and cause ripples to pass through each universe. 

Prof. Greene said, if we could detect these ripples, we could prove the existence of other universes. He said people were working on searching for these ripples (and they would be possible to find, if they exist).

Wow.

The infamous strings of String Theory… hypothecially!

Specifically though, Prof. Greene was talking about String Theory.

The idea behind it is that, if proven, it would be the unifying theory of physics- explaining all the parts that make up the whole universe and the energy in it.

It is a very complicated idea, and one that I can’t explain- so I found this brilliant TED talk that Prof. Greene gave (and it’s very similar, down to the letter in some parts, to the talk I heard). It’s about 20mins long, but it’s fascinating and he explains it in a clear way, so it’s easy to follow, if you are interested, I highly recommend it!

I left his talk feeling invigorated, awed and amazed. I had to jot down all I could remember.

Prof. Rolf-Dieter Heuer: The search for a deeper understanding of our universe at the Large Haldron Collider: the world’s largest particle accelerator

Large Haldron Collider at CERN

I couldn’t miss this talk. CERN is all over the media at the moment.

Prof. Rolf-Dieter Heuer (a particle physicist and Director General of CERN) was talking about the Higgs Boson. Which he said, if you ask him professionally he would say, ‘we have probably found it’, if you ask him personally he would say, ‘we have found it’.

Scientists, we are always so careful!

Professor Rolf-Dieter Heuer, Director General of CERN

He was a brilliant speaker, very funny and very interesting.

Professor Peter Higgs, Theoretical Physicist who first predicted the existence of the Higgs boson

Briefly (and in a very simple way, because I am no physicist!), the Higgs Boson, when found (as it likely has been), would prove the existence of the Higgs field.

The Higgs field is the way a particle gains mass (by interacting with the field). The stronger the interaction with the field, the larger the mass of the particle.

The field also has a peculiarity, in that, it can interact with itself.

So, again, a particle gains mass by interacting with the Higgs field, in theory, but in order to prove that the field exists at all- you must find the Higgs boson.

But why?

Why would finding the Higgs boson prove the existence of the Higgs field?

Prof. Heuer had a brilliant way of explaining the reason why:

He used this analogy: if he walked into a room full of journalists (representing the Higgs field). He could pass through the crowd, unnoticed, because they don’t know who he is.

The journalists don’t react to him.

Professor Rolf-Dieter Heuer, Director General of CERN… pointing!

However, if Einstein passes through the crowd, the journalists will react and crowd in on him.

And so Einstein gains mass (which is what the Higgs field does to particles).

The more known to the journalists, the more massive that person becomes (as they are all crowding in on them).

This is an explanation of how a particle gets mass in the Higgs field.

But, Prof. Heuer said, if for example he whispers a rumour into the room of journalists. They start to crowd in on each other, saying, “what did he say? Oh? Who?”.

This is a self-interaction of the field.

This forms the Higgs boson- self-interaction of the Higgs field= Higgs boson!

WOW! We all cheered. What a perfectly simple explanation of something I did not understand at all.

Professor Rolf-Dieter Heuer, Director General of CERN
“So, particle physics is really easy!!”

After he explained this, Prof. Heuer said: “So, particle physics is really easy!” (His wry smile implied he was making a funny; everyone laughed).

You might wonder, this is all very well and good, but how does the Higgs boson help us really?

Well, Prof. Heuer made this point; the internet was developed in the 80s at CERN. It was developed by the scientists so they could transmit their research to one another in a quick manner. At the time, they didn’t envisage any other purpose for the internet. But in later years, obviously they realised it could be used for other things. And it was only later that other uses became known.

Prof. Heuer doesn’t know yet what the Higgs boson can be used for, but in the future who knows?

I really loved this talk.

Prof. Heuer is amazing. I want to go to CERN and follow him around and have cups of tea with him and get him to tell me about the universe!

Would it freak him out? If I was in his shadow, with a cup of tea in one hand and a notepad in the other, going:

“Okay Rolf, tell me about the universe!” Latimer

“How did you get in here?!” Rolf

“I live here now…” Latimer

“Security!” Rolf

“Shush; I locked them in the Large Hadron Collider- anyway, let’s talk physics!” Latimer.

Ha…

‘What does Art bring to Science?’

Moving away from Physics now, I also went to a series of talks on; ‘What does art bring to science?’

The most interesting of these was the story of an American painter, William Utermohlen, who had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. This of course is incredibly sad, but Mr. Utermohlen gave a valuable, as before unseen insight into this progressive, destructive disease, by charting its progression with his self-portraits:

I found them haunting and somewhat disturbing to be honest, particularly the final portrait. It does illustrate a clear decline though, in a media that had not previously been shown.

It gaves the disease a very human element.

This was a very interesting talk; Mr. Utermohlen’s story really stuck with me.

Prof. Christian Keysers: ‘The Empathic Brain’

Professor Christain Keysers

Carrying on from this, I delved a bit more into the brain.

This was a brilliant talk about the biological basis of empathy.  Prof. Keysers gave an overview of empathy research.

He explained to us that empathy is not localised in a single area of the brain, rather empathy for different things is localised in different areas of the brain.

So,  people with damage to the brain, could loose the ability to feel certain types of empathy, but retain the ability to feel other types.

In terms of loosing the ability to feel empathy, Prof. Keysers said, if you loose the ability to feel e.g. disgusted, then you also loose the ability to feel the empathic disgust of others.

There was an interesting study carried out, where two groups, one male one female, were shown a card game. While they watched, the researchers monitored their brain activity.

The groups were shown a person playing fair and a person cheating, and winning. The cheater was punished and given an electric shock.

While watching the fair plays, both men and women had the same empathy levels. While watching the cheater being shocked, women had slightly reduced empathy, but they still had some empathy (sharing the cheater’s pain at being shocked).

However, men had no empathy while watching the cheater being shocked- in fact, it had activated a reward sensation in the brain! Indicating that the men were happy to see the cheater being punished, while the women were still empathising with the pain the cheater felt!

This begged the question of men and war, versus women and war. That perhaps there might be more psychological impact on women and this perhaps should be monitored more carefully.

Interesting right?

There was also a study carried out on ‘reading about emotions’. This study showed that people could empathise by reading; for example, they had a paragraph describing something disgusting and people felt disgusted by reading it.

The study suggested that people who read more may have more heightened empathy; but the reason why is not known.

Is it because people read more, that they have more empathy? Or is that they get more out of reading because they have the ability to empathise more with the characters (and that’s why they read more)?

Prof. Keyser mentioned something his old poetry teacher, from school, told him and it sort of stuck with me in terms of writing.

The teacher said that if you want to describe a person sailing on the ocean for the first time, don’t tell your readers what the ocean looks like, they already know- tell them about the person.

Tell them about their expressions. This is more informative, because this way they empathise more.

And in a scientific sense, you are activating the right parts of a person’s brain to feel attachment to your characters. So talk about the person, not the scenery.

Prof. Keyser wrote a book called The Empathic Brain and it’s a self-published one.

It describes an overview of empathy studies (not just his own). I haven’t read it, I did buy it though, it’s waiting on the Kindle- with many others, ha. But he said it was for everyone, so it’s not written in an overly scientific way.

Well, the conference was absolutely amazing.

I wanted to share some of the things I learned, though I appreciate that I might have rambled on a little. I hope it was clear and maybe a bit interesting in some way!

Being at this conference reaffirmed my love for science 🙂

Irishisms

| mlatimerridley

Ridley: It is said that the Irish people are a nation of storytellers. While I don’t know if this is true, it’s hard to judge yourself, I do believe that everyone here has at least one good tale to tell. We all also have one friend who was the class clown with the best, most outlandish long tailed stories, ever. This pal was just all round good craic. And when I say craic, I don’t mean the sniffy sniffy powder up the nose and now your flying through the stars kind. Craic here is everything from good banter, teasing (or slagging, which is basically good natured insulting, we love to do this), sarcasm, the atmosphere, jokes, music, singing, fun and just generally all of these combined to ensure you have a great time or night out.

Each country is unique. Personally though, I like to think the Irish sometimes have the strangest and sometimes hardest quirks to understand. So we’re going to share a few of them with you!

1. Irish people use a lot of fillers in their sentences that make no sense, though we understand them all the same and they sound nice. It keeps the conversation flowing (no awkwardness), examples included:

‘ah, sure that’s that really.’

‘You couldn’t be hoping for much more.’

‘Sure, what’s the use.’

We even have conversations with our cars-we just can’t shut up. The Irish like to talk. Des Bishop does a hilarious sketch of this actually. When we overtake someone in the car and they’ve moved aside to let you pass them. We switch on our hazard lights for a few seconds to say ‘thank you’ in car speak, then they will flash you with their head lights with a ‘you’re welcome’. You also get a ‘flash flash’ from oncoming cars, sometimes, to warn you about guards or speed cameras ahead of you (ah ha, policeman you won’t win today!) For the rude drivers or the ones in a particular hurry (but still rude) they come up behind you and flash you with their head lights asking you to move in. Once you do this and they’re safely ahead of you, you should receive a ‘thank you’ from their hazard lights.

2. Des Bishop also mentions the infamous immersion! It really is something that people in Ireland freak out about. Basically the immersion is turned on to heat up the water in your tank for the main taps or if you want a bath. Every single Irish mammy is convinced if you leave the switch on too long, the tank will explode. Even after my brother, who is an engineer, gave a massive explanation showing that it was actually impossible for it to blow up, my mother was silent for a moment and then said ‘Even still, just make sure you turn it off, you can never be too sure.’ No matter how many technical or scientific terms are hauled out, she’ll never be convinced!

3. We give the most confusing directions: “You go left, right, then you go right, right. When you come to the fork in the road, there’s a white gate to your left, ignore that and go the opposite way. Go down passed Lynch’s house, they’re the ones with the giant bullock in the field. Their dog is always digging up my azaleas, the fecker, go passed there, then go left, I think, and you’re there. Did you get all that?”

Despite these confusing directions, we’d prefer them to the sat nav. We have a deep seated suspicion and hatred for sat nav systems. We talk to them as if they can hear us. “You hadn’t a fecking clue where you were going, you got us lost again, you eejit!”

4. We’re a nation obsessed with the weather, we talk about it, complain about, analysis it and predict it. And at the merest hint of sunshine, we all strip down to our vests and shorts to show off our white chicken legs. We make the most of every sun ray as we know it won’t last long!

A good hello for any Irish person on rainy day would be; ‘Jesus, the weather’s desperate.’

And a typical answer to this? ‘Isn’t it just! You wouldn’t know what do be doing with it all.’ Nothing has actually been said here. It’s basically gibberish but the whole point is not to impart any important information as such, it’s just to be friendly and you’re showing a united, similarly miserable, front against the grey leaking clouds above.

5. In the summer, when the days get longer (the clocks change-we’ve daylight savings time) and eventually it’s still light at half 10 at night. People here will always remark, ‘There’s a grand stretch in the evenings.’ Grand here means nice or good.

Grand pops up a lot in Irish conversations. I tend to use it all the time. I don’t notice this, unless I’m abroad and I start to get funny looks. I like using it, though it is another example of a sentence filler. Say for answering something with a No, it softens it; ‘Ah no, you’re grand.’ Or you can also use it with a yes, ‘Oh grand, that would be great.’ Confusing, yes?

6. Red lemonade, it’s like normal clear lemonade, but with lovely chemical red dye in it. It’s unique to Ireland. We fought the E.U. to keep it, you know, when they tried to ban it. Yet I don’t know many people who actually drinks it these days, though because it’s ‘ours’ we don’t want to give it up.

7. Irish people and punctuality do not go hand in hand. We are generally late, for everything. This includes the public transport systems too I might add! 

8. When you pass an absolute stranger in your car on a country road, always wave, not crazy fast side to side wave, you’ll get a strange look for that. No, it has to be a slow hand up as you pass by (the even cooler, laid back farmer way is just raising a single index finger and a nod-the nod is optional.) If it’s a sunny day, you may get the wave out the open window. Exciting.

9. We all love cheese and onion flavoured Tayto crisps. Anyone who says they don’t isn’t a true Irish person. Quite a number of people will also get two slices of white bread and put the Taytos in between them to make a crisp sandwich. Yummers. (I don’t actually do this. Loads of other people do this though.)

10. We’re a nosey nation, we like to know about our neighbours and we gossip about them constantly. A simple hello can lead to the history of a single family, an example of an actual conversation I overheard yesterday:

“I saw Johnny Mac Donagh up town.”

“Johnny Mac Donagh, now whose he?”  (This question is really more, where does he come from, who are his people? You’re judged on your family, relations and connections more so than what you’ve achieved yourself.)

“He’s related to Josie who married Jim Murphy, the garage man. Bit of a scandal in that family. He was originally going with her second cousin Mary, then dropped her like a hotcake when he met Josie, but sure it all worked out in the end. They got married and had little Eoghan who ended up being a doctor. Or was it a vet? No, a doctor! Now he’s over in the Amazons or some such place, playing with monkeys.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah, Johnny was just out for the milk and the papers.” 

(And I was left wondering, what happened to poor Mary? And if little Eoghan was a doctor and not a vet, why was he ‘playing with monkeys’ in the Amazon?)

11. We have to refuse something three times before accepting it. It takes a type of coaxing to get us to agree. I think we say the first no out of politeness, we don’t want to impose, the second is to double check the person offering is serious and not just doing it out of courtesy, then the third time you can relent. When it comes to food or drink, never just assume an Irish person’s first no, actually means no. Always check with an ‘Are you sure?’ There will probably be a ‘Ah no you’re grand’, in this instance you just have to say ‘Ah, go on!’ And with a giant grin the other person will get stuck in to whatever you’re offering. You HAVE to ask again- this is very important. If not, when you walk away the Irish will turn to each with horrified looks and go, ‘the cheek of that! What was yerman/yerone thinking? Oh I’m ripping (angry)’!

If you’ve ever seen the show Father Ted, Mrs Doyle’s offer of tea with ‘Ah go on, go on, go on….” is a more exaggerated version of what actually happens. Speaking of tea, it is drunk the country over. There are two brands that rival each other here. You’re either a Lyon’s or a Barry’s tea drinker. Choose your side! (Lyon’s would be our preferable brand. We love you Lyons!) Tea is drunk for numerous reasons, and for no reason at all. I think the average is four cups a day per person in Ireland. Perhaps when I’m working I average around 4 cups, but on a day off….that could be easily doubled! I do like fancy coffees too, but if I was only ever allowed one or the other again in my life, I’d always choose tea.

12. When we go abroad, we love to use Irish. It’s our secret language. We could hate it with a passion when we’re at home, but when we visit a different country we all suddenly start using a cúpla focal as gaeigle (couple of words in Irish), knowing gleefully no one else can understand us. Though I’m waiting for the day someone turns around and starts talking back in Irish to me, that would be awkward!

13. Despite speaking English, we’ve warped it in such a way that someone visiting the country, even if they’re completely fluent in it, might think we’re speaking a different language all together. We’ve different sayings or ways of saying things that make no sense to visitors.

  • She’s a pain in the face (she’s very annoying).
  • How’s she cuttin’? (how are things going? Very much a country saying.)
  • I was scarlet for her (a Dublin saying, meaning I was embarrassed for her.)
  • Fair play to you. (well done to you-if you’ve succeed at something.)
  • It’s Baltic in here or it’s perishing in here (it’s absolutely freezing in here)
  • The craic was ninety! (it was fantastic fun)
  • What’s the story? (Another type of hello with also how are you incorporated into it, it’s a more Dublin version)
  • He’s a fine thing. (he’s handsome)
  • Don’t be foostering (don’t be messing around/wasting time)
  • She’s going to eat the head off you (she’s really angry and going to yell at you.)
  • Well (very lazy hello, how are you, between very good friends)
  • You made a hames of that. (you messed that up badly)
  • Would you cop on. (would you get some sense. Stop being an idiot.)
  • She’s a goose gob (she’s a silly idiot)
  • You’re gone in the head (You’re crazy/mad)
  • I’ll give you a shout. (It’s a way of saying good bye, ‘I’ll speak to you later’ but without any sort of actual commitment to do this. It’s an empty promise really!)
  • You wouldn’t be going to the shop? (‘be going’ comes from a tense we have in Irish, it’s called the continuous present. Also, we tend to ask for things in the negative. You wouldn’t be getting milk in the shop? Hinting that you’d like milk too.)

That’s just a few quirks that we have. It probably makes us all look a tad mental. But crazy can be charming….right? 🙂

If you’re looking for a funny look at Irish people and the strange things they love and say try this book: Stuff Irish People Love. Everything in it is so true!!

I’d love if anyone would like to share national traits from your country, are there many of them? Is there a country quirkier than Ireland? While you think of a few, I shall return to my book trailer creating! The days are flying by too quickly, we’ve so much to do before our book is published!

Tea shop

| mlatimerridley

Ridley: When you go on holiday, there comes a point when, despite enjoying your time away, you eventually start to want a few home comforts and familiars. Whether its a television programme, a particular shop, a type of food, a drink, or your own comfortable bed. You start thinking about how great it is.

For us, it was tea. We just wanted a good cup of tea, so when we discovered there was a tea café in the Ginza district, we were a little too excited.

Mariage Freres, Ginza 5-6-6, has 450 different varieties of tea from around the world. Personally, I just wanted a good cup of Lyon’s or Barry’s tea.

The number of teas available was confounding. Sometimes you can have too much choice! I wanted a normal cup of tea, but that felt a bit boring with all the fancy blends, added to that, the prices had our eyebrows shooting upwards. (9 euro for a pot of tea- each!) So the pressure was on to make the experience ‘worthwhile’. In the end, I said feck it and I stuck with the breakfast blends, going for something that basically was like Lyon’s tea. I didn’t want anything fruity!

The presentation was gorgeous. China plates. It was the type of place where my pinky could have tried to stick out, in an attempt at some sort of misguided grace. It also had quite a French feel, though on the way there we’d been expecting an English tea shop.

We decided to splash out so we also had crème brulee. Very tasty!

Ginza is definitely an expensive district, where people with money flutter around. On every corner and street there was a large brand shop, whether it was Chanel, Louis Vuitton, Gucci, YSL, all the sort of places that I basically have a security guard dogging my steps as I wander round with an open mouth, releasing various gasps at the prices and the words ‘I could buy ten handbags for that!’

(Without a doubt, it’s a place where the rich and famous hang out. We (well Latimer did) spotted Sean Lennon strolling down the street.)

The tea shop definitely cater to them, less so to the tourists. Its a type of fantasy dining for the Japanese in a way. For an hour or two they can drink fruity concoctions and pretend they’ve step out to a place in Paris. Except for the all male cast of servers in white suits, there were just women eating there.

The ladies were all extremely well dressed with branded handbags, I like to think that they were the wives of hard working rich business men. As with everyone we saw, Latimer and I sipped our tea and we people watched while wondering ‘cad é an scéal?’-literally, what’s the story, or rather what we mean is, what is their story, where are they from, what do they do, what are their lives like? This happens all the time, you see someone unusual, someone normal, someone with a strange hair cut, it doesn’t matter, we’re fascinated by their background. I’ve always wondered, isn’t everyone like this? The more you see the world though, the more you realised there are more people not like you than you ever could have imagined.

Before we left we popped in to their bathroom (its a long standing belief of mine that you can tell a lot of how the way a place is run and its cleanliness by the state of this room!) It had a normal toilet too. There was no fancy stuff with a controller, numerous buttons, heated seat and automatic flushing. It was nice to know where you stood with it! (I’m a sad individual, I know.)

While the café was on the first and second floors, downstairs there was a shop, they sold tea pots and loose tea.

It put me in mind of what an old apothecary would perhaps have looked like, with large impressive black jars of tea for sale and weighing instruments.

If you look closely you’ll see Latimer’s covert picture taking was spotted in the photo below.

While definitely an experience, if you love tea and are up for a once off visit, you should try here. Especially if you’re gasping for a good cuppa! Just be prepared to pay a little (read, a lot) more than you normally would at home

Sleep vs. Book: the cost of addiction

| mlatimerridley

Latimer: Two nights in a row I’ve been up until 1.30am. And that’s not good when you have to get up at 7am!

I ended up watching episode 2 of Game of Thrones on Tuesday night. It was pretty crap actually- too much talking and gratuitous sex. My flatmate (Orbie) made a very good point about the sex, “why is it never the ones we want to see naked?”

“Fair point,” I said. “Like Robb Stark.”

Orbie nodded, “And Jon Snow- the hottest things in the show.”

Silently, I nodded, this is true, but then I chirped up, “And Jaime Lannister?”

She didn’t reply. Is it just me? I’m going to wait for Ridley to shoot me down on that (I don’t expect her to, but the heart of a woman is a fickle thing. We find beauty in strange places at times and expect others to loudly declare they are sisters in arms with us, when in actuality they look at us with scorn and reproach! But then in turn, we’ll do the same thing when they come forward and admit their guilty pleasure!).

Anyway, so we watched Game of Thrones.

Then, I headed to bed to finish reading Book 2 of the Hunger Games (it wasn’t my intention initially to finish it, but that’s what happened- like a crack addict I OD’d on reading). I stumbled, bleary-eyed to the bathroom at 1am (1 chapter left at this point). As I passed Orbie’s room, the light was on (this was weird). “Hmm,” I thought. Then shrugged, stumbling back to my room to finish gobbling down Book 2.

I woke up the next morning in a hazy half-dream state. I thought I was in the games for a minute, in some weird trippy after-effects of late-night reading. I shook my head and struggled off to make my breakfast. It was a while before Orbie materialised, clawing her way out of her room like a drunk, doped-up koala. She stood blinking in the kitchen, “I’m so tired!” she moaned. “My eyes are burning! I can’t keep them open!”

I nodded, munching my toast. “Hmm, I know what you mean I was up last night reading.” Pause. “What time did you go to bed at?”

“2am!” she cried, using her fingers to hold her eyes open.

“What were you doing?” I inquired. My mind connecting the dots… I wondered….

“Reading.”

“What?” I pressed.

“Hunger Games Book 2!” she said with a sheepish smile, as if I would shoot her down.

“I knew it! Me too,” I squealed.

I told her I’d been up the previous night too. She asked if I had the one’s with the crap, horrible, garish covers (yes).

She scowled, “Those covers make it look like you are reading a kids book about aliens.”

I told her about how Ridley and I had gone to the bookshop after the movie (I’ll set the scene: movie ends, Ridley turns, a knowing smile on her face; “bookshop” she asks, but it’s not really a question. I squeal like a child on too much sugar “YEEY!”- she knows me too well).

Orbie levelled a knowing look at me, “I told you, you would like it” (she had seen the film the previous week and told me, “you’d like it; it’s very good”).

I sigh, “Yeah, yeah, you and Ridley!”

Then, Orbie and I stumbled off our separate ways to work.

I’m saving Book 3 for the weekend. I have it under lock and key. I have to, I need sleep!

My name is Latimer and I’ve been Hunger Games free since 1.30am on Wednesday.