Can you tell me what it is yet.

Currently reading through disgraced children's TV presenter Rolf Harris's True Animal Tales, a free pick up from the bootsale, and it's not a bad read. Its a small collection of mainly true stories that normally would be confined to a side bar in Fortean Times but here are extrapolated into a whole book. You get tales of bravery and brushes with death, incredible survival and fuck all notes or indeed idea where these tales come from. A few I remember such as the tale of Hachiko the Akita waiting patiently for his master (transcribed incorrectly here) at Shibuya station, but of course never coming home. A baboon that was employed as a signalman in Victorian South Africa and a few massive animal tracks A la the journey home. There is an audio book version of this listed on Amazon along with the book itself, really hoping Rolf himself is reading this, as that would cap it off. Finally a nice touch on the cover of this, Rolf covered in young pussy (and by that I mean he's smothered in kittens) that is reminiscent of Vic Reeves covered in stuffed monkeys as Hugh Scully in a Smeel Of Reeves and Mortimer. Still can't beat them allegations, huh.

RARE and EXTINCT at Kew

Nice day out to Kew for the first time since our disasterous trip last year. A dull day to look around the gardens and for once in a blue moon a Facebook ad that wasn't auto blocked was relevant to my needs. An exhibition on plants that are endangered or now extinct in the wild from a variety of sources. Its on till the 17th of November in the small octagon bits between the main Temperate house, if you're interested. With a few overspill bits in the main Temperate house. We went on the Friday and like I said it was a dull day. As I'm not a member I had to pay £15.50 to get in (the cheapest I've had for ages) and had a look round. First impressions. Not mentioned really but there is quite a healthy Jackdaw population here that I've never seen elsewhere in London and the most Jays I've seen in one place too. The main exhibition is free to enter (it takes up the whole temperate house) and shows a variety of plants that are either extinct in the wild or critically endangered. This includes various island flora such as ST. Helena and a few taxa from South Africa (Conohytum and a Whorled Heath) along with the Lady's Slipper Orchid which is nearly extinct here in the UK. I'm not sure about there being 200 species of Conophytum but thanks to the Chinese they are being collected to extinction, which is not good.

St Helena Redwood.

Something doubly rare. Aloe Albiflora a white flowered Aloe.

Vampire Trail.

Danger on Vampire trail is the 42nd Hardy boys book released here, and it seems to be something of an anomaly. There are two stories which the boys are investigating, the first is the wholesale fraud on the Magnacard credit card (a sort of prototype American Express) and the second is the illegal mining of sapphires up in the rockies. The anomaly here is as it's written in the early 70's is this the first story or detective novel solely concerned with credit card fraud? The main story is that Biff Hooper, friend of the Hardys has a bloodhound called Sherlock which they bring on a trip out west celebrating Chet Morton picking up a cheap trailer which turns out was bought fraudulently on a Magnacard. Several incidents take place as they head towards Denver, Colorado and there is a show down of sorts up on Vampire Trail complete with imported Vampire bats. There is a few things here for pedants like myself. Chet has no hobbys in this one. Biff Hooper gets a dog for this one novel. Though I'm pretty sure he had another called Tivoli in another book. And we learn that Mrs Hardy wants a sapphire as its her birth stone making her birthday fall in September. Anyway there isn't too many differences between the two editions. We get no next book at the end and a few terms are changed, trailer is now caravan. You can read both the UK and US versions here and here.

Uptown Ranking

A round up of stuff if you will. Yesterday we went up town to see if the Orb's Orboretum was released, Spoiler it wasn't. But it gave us a chance to get out and see London, for the first time in ages. Well the non burb bits, anyway. There was a march planned to unite the right. I never saw any of these supposed nazis, but I did see a bunch of crusty, Socialist Wanker types lurking by the Eros statue in Piccadilly. In fact it was a funny old day after all. A couple of things I wanted were either disappointing or not out yet. Also managed to find a Meta Quest at work. And after a lot of faff managed to get it to work. I suppose if you buy into VR as the future it's OK, I ended up getting a headache after 5 minutes or so, and my wreck of a laptop is definitely not supported. So we downloaded Kid Icarus for SNES instead, and am having fun with that. Finally leave you with the funniest sign I saw from the Socialist Wanker types.

Family stuff.

Don't usually post the personal here. Its not important to the wider world to know about me too much, I'm not a celeb and my life isn't interesting. We took a trip out west to seem my Aunty for the day, haven't seen her for about a year or so, though my mum keeps in touch. She has a small dog that's an absolute nutter and she quickly settled in to destroying her favourite toy. Took the cross rail to Heathrow and then a bus on. It's the first time I've ever been to Heathrow airport in any context and well its a big airport. Eavesdropped on some people on the train over. Hilarious anectode about her boyfriend eating half her birth control pills and wondering why he got all grumpy. Got to see my cousin and learned that my other cousin is hoping to get married next year. I wish tehm luck in all that they do, especially if they want kids. Aunty is doing fine, and liked the birthday card I sent. Finally, if you're a fellow robot who hates noise and such then Hayes and Harlington is not a good place to wait for the Heathrow bound train for crossing over. I counted at least 4 express trains rocketing through and its the closest I've come to a meltdown in ages. Not good.

Masked Monkeys

So the Masked Monkey or the Hardys go to Brazil. A nice case here for the boys tracking down the sensitive son of rich industrialist J.G. Retson. Theres a good subplot of Chet running a golf ball extraction empire from his pick up truck (surely on loan from the Morton farm). But mostly its the boys in Brazil trying to avoid the attention of a masked howler monkey called Diabo, and his owner Joachim San Marten. Anyway you know the drill. Original Here and the UK version Here.

Kamikaze Rats.

Here's a real mystery. This comes from a bootsale pick up of an old copy of New Scientist dated 5-2-81. That's the Fifth of February. An article in their forum section, details a new video game from Japan called Rat Patrol. No developer given nor publisher. I will quote the article below in full as I'm not sure if this place can do scans now. Kamikazi sic Rats Hot from Japan is perhaps the dottiest video game yet, Rat Patrol. Hordes of brown rats dive from the sky (yes, the sky) onto a peaceful city. Charles Fort and Arthur C Clarke would love it: it beats showers of fish or frogs any day. With quite unrat-liike stupidity, the beasts plunge into the hail of fire from your laser weapon, expiring with pitiful squeaks when hit. Rats which survive their skydive make nests in the bowels of the city and generally cause trouble. As the game proceeds, strange flying objects appear, bearing a read heart-shaped symbol. These are a kind of aerial love hotel for rats- centres of reproduction from wihich fresh supplies of vermin pour forth. If you can contain your laughter at the sheer absurdity (well, they are called amusement machines) you will find that it is quite a good game. But arcade operators had better watch out. As every scientist knows, there are now many people who find cruelty to rats no laughiing matter. An animal-lover who is not amused by this particular amusement might feel entirely justified in sticking his chewing gum in the coinslot so as to protect the minds of the young and the dignity of our fellow mammals. As far as we know, there is still no Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Space Invaders. Joking aside about as society for the prevention of gamer cruelty. What is this, exactly. Its not a bootleg Space invaders, nor Galaxian as the whole spawn bit doesn't work with this nor does the landing either as Galaxian doesn't do this and Space Invaders is a clear game over. In fact putting in various rodent permutations, the closest we get is Unviersal's Cheeky Mouse from 1980, a game where rats do fall from the sky and burrow down to steal cheese, but there are no lasers as you whack them with a mallet, or heart shaped love hotel. I would be a few years before they had a hit with Mr Do! so this is obscure. So this only half fits. If anyone reads this and knows. Pop a comment in as its quite a mystery.