He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse

I actually did something that felt entirely different in London yesterday and went to see The Mousetrap. I say 'entirely different' because this very much feels like a 'proper' play to me compared to a musical, but I suppose if you're not much of a theater goer then it's all much of a muchness to you. It's the longest running show in London and I've often passed by it near Covent Garden and been curious so I decided to just go for it. It's also my very first interaction with literally anything to do with Agatha Christie as I'm always a bit prejudiced against her work as I associate it so strongly with grandmas in a twee and old fashioned kind of way, but I do love a good crime thriller so I was prepared to be wrong.

Unfortunately I was not wrong and I won't be buying any of her books any time soon, but I still enjoyed it! I didn't look at anything to do with the plot in advance as I really wanted to try and avoid spoilers, I didn't even read the program just in case. So I won't spoil it for you, but just to say that I saw half of the ending coming but not all of it. It does feel like a very old fashioned play to me which I'm not personally a fan of (and why I'm not even interested in old musicals or even revivals of old musicals) There's nothing offensive about it, but for example the humor just doesn't land for me (I'm not into the 'farce' style), the script felt a bit stilted at times, and the plot just relied too heavily on coincidences that just don't feel in any way believable and all of these things stopped me from being able to fully engage with it. But your mileage may vary, and it was certainly one of the most varied audiences I've ever seen in a theater which can only be a good thing.

Of course being in London I had to make use of having so many shops accessible, and of course being me I spent most of it in the book store. I've been spending more time in BookTok/BookTube/Book Reddit lately which has left me with a bit of bookshelf envy. I read a lot, but most of my books are either digital or thrifted and my shelves are a messy hodge-podge as a result. I don't care about most of it, books are made to be read after all, but I've always really admired these recent Hodder editions of Stephen King's works. Stephen King usually has super ugly books so I've never felt bad about having almost his entire bibliography digital only. But then I saw these! Admittedly the two I've bought so far aren't the best examples of this amazing cover art, but look at Misery, 1922, The Body, or The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon and tell me these aren't well designed covers. And as an illustrator I love that stuff, and as Stephen King is my favorite author I decided that this is the 'aesthetic' book collection I have to have. I'm really excited to build this! Books are really important to me but not something I've ever allowed myself to spend much on, so this really is something that feels like the ultimate treat. All of the spines are a different solid color too, so when I eventually have the full collection it'll form a rainbow on my shelf.

These were the only two books I could find in this binding (there are so many different editions in the UK it's kind of exhausting) and whilst they're not my favorite designs I'm pretty happy with them being the start of my collection - Four Past Midnight which is a collection of novellas which includes The Langoliers was the first book by King I ever read and The Langoliers was my favorite of that collection and arguably what got me started reading him in the first place. So really I couldn't ask for a better place to start my physical book collection.

Remember a day before today

Since I've been getting into Elvis I've really been itching to go digging through the antiques stores. Unfortunately I live in Europe so there's not much to be found like I'd imagine there is in the US, but it never hurts to look anyway, and really I love any excuse to go antiquing. It's fun to look around and fantasize about what my future forever home might look like.

Bears like this always break my heart a little bit. Someone clearly loved him very fiercely once, and judging from how worn he is probably carried him everywhere for comfort. And now he's locked in a cabinet and will probably never have the chance to be loved like that ever again :(

I love weird oddities. A pig playing a violin, why not.


The one single Elvis thing I found. It's a clock and his legs swing from side to side for the seconds. I did not buy it.


I can never resist a frog.


The things I did buy. The dress is genuine 1950s and was cheap because it has a hole in it, but I think I can fix it up and it'll make a nice summer dress. Also some Donovan and Elvis records, and a tiny little porcelain Alice.

The second star to the right shines in the night for you

This is my second lot of film from when I went to Disneyland Paris, and it might just be my favorite. Like I said in that last post, I'm really not a photographer and I'm not interested in trying to be and because of this I'm really not a perfectionist about it. And there's so many things that I am a chronic perfectionist about that I really try and protect this carefree attitude I have towards it because it excites me like when you're a kid and you don't care about the outcome because you're just delighted by the experimentation and process. I sent these reels off to be developed professionally, and there was a mistake during the process which "ruined" the film and they were so apologetic about it. At first I was disappointed I'd lost the photos however they may have come out, until I realized that they'd been sent to me anyway and they're perfect. It's a black and white film, so to me the textures just make the photos look about 100 years old, like the kind you'd find at a flea market. It also gives me that nostalgic feeling for old social media, when we'd delibrarely add grain and frames and light leaks to digital photos to try and make them look more tangible.