Courthouse Museum, Ripon

Across the street from Ripon Cathedral is a small park with an unassuming building facing the church. This building was the courthouse built in 1830 and served as such until 1998. A year later it was turned into the Courthouse Museum. A few years later it was restored to its original 1830 interior decorations. The exhibit is friendly, informative, and fun for all ages.

Courthouse Museum, Ripon

The museum has three rooms. The first room is the Jury Room, where juries could retire and deliberate about the case before them. The room is lined with legal books and has a fun little puzzle that J and L loved.

Jury Room

Working together on the puzzle

Happy accomplishment

The puzzle also introduces an 1830s family, whose story is told throughout the rest of the rooms.

Victorian family tussles with legal system

The court had tried most every offense from "obstructing the highway" to theft. Another court dealt with capital offenses. Children were often treated just like adults, with the same legal process and the same punishments!

Punishments were often physical. The town market place had stocks, popular for first time offenders. The market provided plenty of rotten vegetables and fresh horse manure for flinging at malefactors. For second time offenders, public whippings took place, also on market day in the town market. For repeat offenders or more serious crimes, the sentence was a visit to the House of Corrections. Convicts performed various hard labor. The greatest punishment was "transportation," which meant convicts were sent to Australia for hard labor!

The next room is the Justices' Retiring Room, where the justices could retire and deliberate about the case before them. The room is more comfortable and cheerier, with a nice fireplace and portraits of various justices over the past 200 years.

Justices' Retiring Room

The main room is the Court Room where the magistrates would hear arguments and deliver verdicts. Another puzzle let the kids put all the characters in their right places.

The layout of the Victorian Courtroom (click to enlarge)

The Justices' Retiring Room leads right onto the Bench where the magistrates sat to listen to the arguments and preside over the trials. In addition to two manikin judges, J was able to dress up as a magistrate as well.

Magistrates' Bench

The (feather) pen is mightier than the (actual) sword

L liked the jacket but not the wig.

Looks like she might pass a harsher sentence than her brother

We looked out over the courtroom from the Jury Box.

The actual courtroom

The fellow seated in the middle is the Clerk, who would record the proceedings. Prosecuting and defending lawyers would walk around in front of his table, like the standing manikin. The boxes in front of the clerk are two for defendants and one on the far end for any witnesses. Behind them is a Holding Cell, where defendants would wait their turn. Up above the emblems of the local government is the Public Gallery where anybody could watch the proceedings. At one point the Holding Cell had a roof to prevent people in the gallery from pelting the accused!

J as the constabulary witness

L in the holding cell (the stairs are painted on but the accused would be brought up from below

View from the defendant's box

J as defendant

Following the Victorian family story, the young boy John was accused of stealing three hams worth ten shillings (equivalent to £25 or $39 in 2012 money). He was found guilty and sentenced to seven years...in Australia! Someone named John Baker really was sentenced to seven years transportation according the court records from 1833. Glad we live today!

North Yorkshire, Liberty of Ripon, and West Riding emblems

It was quite interesting to peer into the legal history of the area. The museum gets extra marks for the kid-friendly experience (even if they did send kids around the planet back in the day).

St. Peter's, Harrogate

St. Peter's Church is nestled into downtown Harrogate, almost literally surrounded by shops and restaurants and banks. When building began in the late 1800s the area wasn't hemmed in. Mrs. Mary Anne Fielde donated her large garden for a church and a school (which was completed before the church) and her house for the first vicarage.

One angle where you can see St. Peter's unobstructed

J. H. Hirst of Bristol was the architect and began the church. By 1871 the nave was opened for worship, though it took another five years to complete the rest of the church. Ripon Bishop Robert Bickersteth consecrated it on 3 October 1876. The tower remained incomplete for another fifty years, due mostly to insufficient funding. In 1926 the tower was completed but funding ran short again, so bells were not cast and hung until 1963! The parish has undergone various renovations, including one that just ended in 2012.

Nave

Main altar

The pulpit is unusual in size (a little small for the rest of the building) and in being made of stone. Many Archbishops of Canterbury have preached from it, including the recently retired Rowan Williams.

Also unusually decorated

The side chapel was dedicated as the Lady Chapel in 1910 and refurbished in 1966. Now it is a quiet prayer chapel. L went in to kneel down. I knelt beside her and we prayed the Our Father. Then we discovered a small artificial tree on which we could hang petitions. I wrote out a petition for L; J decided to write his own. He went to sit in the chapel and work on it while L and I looked around some more. When he finally gave it to me, it was mostly illegible to me. I'm sure God can read what J meant to write!

Lady Chapel

L and the prayer tree

The stone heads in the nave are an unusual decoration. They represent various archbishops from the 1800s. The guide book said that archbishops with crosses are typically local archbishops whereas those with shepherds' crooks are visitors.

Archbishop ? from York

Archbishop ? from Canterbury

Originally, the church was decorated in a "high church" fashion, with detailed stained glass windows that included painted glass.

Various saints with varying sunlight behind them

West Window

St. George flanked by Sts. Gabriel and Michael, Archangels

Another unusual feature is the little kitchen and dining area which is in the nave. One distinctive ministry of St. Peter's is feeding the hungry, which they do each day, providing breakfast for the homeless and distributing evening meals to any who come.

Blended in as well as can be expected

Movie Review: Day of the Dead (1985)

Day of the Dead (1985) written and directed by George A. Romero

I saw this over the summer on the ITV player but didn't want to post the review till after I could see Dawn of the Dead, which was just on the BBC's iPlayer! Then it showed up on the iPlayer so I could watch it again.

MPAA rating

Unrated

ZPAA rating

Adults only

Gore level

10 out of 10--The gore was full on here: lots of nasty looking zombies in full color (generally green-gray or blue-gray) in varying states of decay and damage; lots of zombies eating flesh and tearing up people (even people who are still alive); lots of zombie deaths by gunshot, head slicing, head drilling, etc.; a corpse with bugs crawling on it; internal organs falling out several times; cauterizing a wound with a hand-made flaming torch; blood flying and oozing everywhere.

Other offensive content

Lots of swearing and profanity; vulgar references to sex though nothing to see here; disrespectful attitudes towards everyone; calling the zombie problem a punishment from God; the U. S. Army men are a bunch of unsympathetic jerks.

How much zombie mythology/content

Unlike Night of the Living Dead, this movie doesn't hint at any causes for the zombies, other than one character who speculates that they are a punishment from God. Certain zombies show some more civilization or attempts at living peaceably with decent humans, though perhaps a mad scientist doesn't really count as decent.

How much fun

I laughed once or twice during the film and it seemed like it was intentional. At one point, the mad scientist gives a book to a zombie to see if he would try to read it. What book is it? Stephen King's Salem's Lot, not exactly the sort of tome to inspire civilized living.

Synopsis & Review

A mixed group of scientists and soldiers are hiding out in an underground bunker in Florida. They go out by helicopter to find people who might still be alive. The effort has met with no success. In the meantime, the scientists try to figure out what is going on, if there is a cure for the zombies or if they can be pacified in some way other than feeding on the living.

The movie features a lot of discussion and arguing between the scientists and the soldiers. In general, the soldiers are presented as a bunch of jerks who are more interested in fun things like killing and throwing their authority around. The soldiers don't see the point of trying to pacify the zombies in any way other than head wounds. And they have doubts about discovering causes or cures. They are cartoonish and one-dimensional villains for the movie.

The scientists are pretty rational. One doctor (who is nicknamed "Dr. Frankenstein") locates the part of a person's brain that survives when zombified. He attempts to civilize a zombie through a set of trial-and-error tests, giving rewards to the zombie (nicknamed "Bub") when he behaves properly. Rewards include classical music, books, and other items. You know the scientist is crazy when he offers a gun to the zombie to see if it recognizes it and what to do with it. Also, he keeps his experiments under wraps because he doesn't think the soldiers will go along with it. He's certainly right about that. Once he tells more people about what he is doing, the whole group starts to fall apart.

Civilization is a big theme in this movie. In addition to trying to civilize the zombies, there's also the sticky issue of these people trying to live together. They have a really hard time working together or communicating. Often they will have meetings where they talk past each other, only presenting their own points of view without listening to the others. They debate about the value of reestablishing the prior civilization. Meanwhile, two misfits, a helicopter pilot and a radio guy, have set up a little tropical resort room in the bunker where they can pretend they are at the beach having a good time rather than waiting around for the end to come.

The movie is noticeably from the 1980s. The music score and the hairdos immediately place the movie in time. The production is amazingly good, though it may be too good in the gory scenes, especially when people are pulled apart on screen. There's a few too many scary scenes that are just dream sequences, with the dying character suddenly waking up and saying, "Whew, good thing it was just a dream!" Once or twice is okay for something like that; here it is overplayed.

The ending is much more upbeat for a Romero film. It's reminiscent of Trading Places or Shawshank Redemption and is a bit of a strange counterpoint to the rest of the film. Maybe that is supposed to be a dream sequence too.

The movie is pretty interesting in its discussions though the depiction of the military is a little too relentlessly negative. The gore does require a pretty high tolerance for such things.

Movie Trailer

Book Review: The High King by Lloyd Alexander

The High King by Lloyd Alexander

After Taran finished wandering in search of his parents (which he never discovered) in the last book, he returns to his home, the farm at Caer Dallben. The homecoming is upset by more bad news--the Huntsmen of Annuvin have struck a grievous blow to Gwydion, High King of Prydain. They have stolen the black sword Dyrnwyn, a flaming weapon of ancient power that can only be wielded by those worthy of ruling Prydain. The Huntsmen have taken it off to Arawn, Lord of the Lands of Death, who is amassing a new army to subjugate Prydain. All the heroes work to raise an army and fight to regain the only weapon that can defeat the Death Lord.

Thus an epic war story begins the final Chronicle of Prydain. Taran and his friends work to avert the great disaster that looms over them all. The plot is a great way to revisit all the characters and places from previous books, allowing for further developments and epic confrontations. The war story is quite exciting with plenty of reversals of fortune to keep interest high. This book provides a great ending to Taran's story as well as the other characters. I highly recommend the whole series and can't wait to read it to J, who is just getting old enough for it.

More Kids' Art

L has been doing a lot of drawing in school and is getting quite skillful. She drew this hand without even tracing! She was quite proud.

Free-hand hand drawing of a hand

J has been doing some art at school too. He put together a whole book about firefighting. Here's what the fire they fought looks like.

J creates fire! It looks like a flaming horse to me.

At home, L first created a boot. Then she decided to expand the work by adding legs, another boot, a body, arms, and a head. She says it looks like a member of the family, but I will leave that to your imagination to guess who it is.

The right boot was the first part of Franken-family-member

Look familiar?

J helped make his sandwich one day, for which he was justly proud.

My own peanut butter and raisin sandwich

Speaking of food, for Mommy's birthday we made special cupcakes. Not spiders like on my birthday, but owls. The eyes are M&Ms. We'd have had more owls if someone hadn't eaten so many of the eyes. Again, I will leave it to your imagination to guess who would eat so many owl eyes. (Hint: It's not the same person)

Owl cupcakes (beaks are also M&Ms)

Dual/Duel Review: Christmas Inspired Beers

Dual/Duel reviews are an online smackdown between two books, movies, games, podcasts, etc. etc. that I think are interesting to compare, contrast, and comment on. For a list of other dual/duel reviews, go here.

Last year, I ran across a bunch of Christmas novelty ales and had a smack-down review where I picked the best. Not many such novelty ales came out this year (one or two cask ales did come out but I saw nothing in bottles). So I had another idea.

I originally wanted to have a whole bunch of beers inspired by the Christmas story with the possibility of making a Nativity set out of beer bottles. Apparently that idea was too impious and the Good Lord struck me and my family down with a stomach bug. I could only shop at local supermarkets for beer and found only two that I could shoehorn into the theme: Caesar Augustus and Wonkey Donkey. No Marys or Josephs or stars or shepherds or wise men. I could have found sheep but didn't even get around to that. So here are the two contenders:

First up is is Caesar Augustus, described on the label as a "Lager/IPA Hybrid." Instead of a sublime fusion of the human and divine like the Christ child, this beer fuses the worst parts from each side. It was a bit too insubstantial like a bad lager and finished far too bitter like a bad IPA. Perhaps a fitting tribute to an emperor who had everybody move around just so he could count them properly.

Second is Wonkey Donkey, a whimsically named "pale amber bitter." This bitter was nice--not too strong and not too weak. It's not outstanding but is a pleasant drink. Like the donkey that took Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem, this beer is a good, steady, and reliable and will get you through cold days and rough patches.

Clearly the winner is the Donkey. It seems strange that a donkey could best one of the most powerful leaders in human history, but I suppose Christmas is a time for miracles, isn't it?

Christmas Fayre at Church

One Sunday after Mass, our parish had a Christmas fayre in the church hall which was jam packed with people. In addition to the usual tombolas (including a bottlebola! Yes they were bottles of bubbly), raffles, and gift stalls they had two items new to us. One was bacon butties, which are simply a good slice of bacon (which is much larger and thicker than the puny strips Americans are served) on a bun. You can add ketchup or HP Sauce. They make a satisfying (if not entirely healthy) snack. The other new item was face painting, for which L signed up immediately. Sure, she had her face painted at the circus but never before at a Christmas Fayre!

Did a butterfly land on your face?

We had big fun even if we didn't win anything in the tombolas. We did pick up a book on celebrating Christmas for children from St. Joseph Picture Books.

Check out my review here.