It was just over a year ago that my dad took me to the ROM to see the Terracotta Warriors. I decided I should pick up something small to remember the day by, and when I went to the shop I saw some keychain ornaments of insects in amber.

It came down to choosing between a scorpion and a shiny beetle, and after long and careful deliberation I went with the shiny beetle. It could easily have gone either way, but one item was just slightly more intriguing to me.

On the one hand – scorpions are deadly, and therefore more masculine, and carrying one around on a keychain could be seen as a charm to symbolically endow me with scorpion-like power. But on the other hand – SHINY!  : D