Missed and Flipped, Cactus edition

Can't think of any shows I had missed out on this year that I didn't cover except the usual ones, Endeavour and The Durrells which is my pick every year. Likewise music which I get to hear less and less commercial stuff each year.  Awful Kiss stuff aside, Dua Lipa or Jax Jones Instruction or whatever they call themselves, total bollocks by the way.

No my missed and flipped bit this year is a follow up to the Mail's Cactus article with a bit about Topshop, as they had a stall with some cacti for sale in their Oxford St branch.  This was due to me not having a mooch uptown to verify what they were on about then.

It's Barry the Cactus for those who are curious about what it's all in aid of.  A small stall halfway in the ground floor of Top Shop, Oxford Street.  There is said to be a counterpart in Selfridges, as well but as this comes from their main site its unconfirmed if it's real or not.

So what do you get.

A few basic species in fancy pots for £10, to be fair mind, if you are after some designery pieces for interiors or a modern flat, and you don't mind a pot without a whole in the base, then its not bad.  Bear in mind that the site itself uses old names like Vatricana and Notocactus, but this is far from bad.

They also do keychains with tiny, doomed seedlings in and a small bottle of Cactus food for about £5 each, I would steer clear of these and get some tomato fertilizer from your local garden centre which is much cheaper and comes in a bigger bottle, 

I got a small Mammilaria with the last of a gift card and some cash.  I know how to grow cacti already, but picked up their tip card after all.

Here are my general cactus tips if you wish to grow along with me.

Give em a lot of light, they come from a really sunny areas, so a south facing window sill is best or if you have a greenhouse, conservatory.  Bottom line, find the brightest spot and stick them there.

Watering. If its Spring and Summer, water weekly and feed monthly. If its autumn ease off watering at the end of  September. If its Winter don't, for further information please re read.

Heat.  A good half of the species will tolerate 5 F provided they are kept dry,  this increases to 3/4 if you can guarantee 10F.

Substrate.  You'll need a gritty soil that is free draining, if you'll be potting on.  You want a pot the next size up and a loop of newspaper to fix around the plant to pull it out and generally handle.

Use John Innes compost with extra grit.  We sometimes use Cat Litter (the non clumping type) for really water intolerant species.

And that is it.

Last of Last Christmas

Its been an odd year for Music in general, boxing day being the traditional day we hold our autopsy on all things good, bad and ugly music wise.

We cover stuff new this year as well as things new to us, so lets get on with the good.

Chris Carter Chemistry Lessons 1.

Part of Chris and Cosey, which is in turn one half of Throbbing Gristle, I got this in September after an indifferent break away.  Its a good mix of modular sketches and sounds from long ago to present day.  Worth a listen for any synth head.

Aphex Twin. Collapse EP.

We saw the actual posters up on Elephant and Castle tube, and the EP while great, Is overshadowed by the whole pop up shop thing, where you could by the bears from Donkey Rhubarb and an umbrella styled on the ones in Windowlicker EP.  All very nice but the video to T69 Collapse is possibly the best thing all year and harks back to the old IDM days.

Ceephax Acid Krew.  Fossil Funk Piano Mix

Another great video this and a stellar track to go with it as well.  With his cat Byron spinning around on an office chair and shouts out high street shops, in other words the typical Ceephax style.

Ramz Barking.

A half track for me with the acapella showing up on Youtube, I normally hate grime, with a passion so its nice to see a track that isn't terrible or not entirely so.  True its not my thing, but its not terrible and you can alter the lyrics to say I'm Barking, She's Barking.

Billie Humphrey. Black and Blues.

70's jazz that sounds like it should have come out on Ninja Tune and the like back in the day, don't know if any of the tracks were played on Solid Steel but its definitely something that crowd would enjoy.

Fabric 100,

The final ever metal tin box edition of the track goes out with a 3 CD set from Craig Richards Terry Francis and Keith Reilly.  You know what to expect, techno and some deep house mixed well.
A fitting end.

Larry Heard Cerebral Hemispheres.

Mr Fingers himself returns to form with some brilliant acid a collaboration with Paul St Hilaire from Rhythm and Stealth's Dub Techno and a stunning 12 with mixes which are the dogs bollocks,  Most definitely my track of the year.

BAD STUFF.

My bad stuff is not so much this year with few terrible things, for once I'm not at work to hear Kiss Breakfast so that is in itself a blessing.

Maroon 5 Cardi Gan B

This is a half awful track, I hate Maroon 5 and Cardi B seems to be the Budgens Nicki Minaj, which  no one ever asked for.  The song isn't so bad and if you can get the instrumental version off of Youtube there is some not terrible guitar work which is saying something from me who usually hates guitar.  The worst thing is every time I've tried to edit it, I make it worse, want to make this stripped back as fuck, literally like the acoustic guitar clicking away and not much else.

Clean Bandit With Selena Gomez Woof Woof Woof or whatever its called.

Its garbage and I can't stop singing along to the chorus, woof woof woof indeed.

Last Christmas

Hello this is the annual television round up of the year, a mix of hell and heaven and in the wider context of it all, a few words before going in.

A lot of things shut up shop this year.  Fabric discontinued their metal box compilations (more tomorrow) Solid steel closed after 30 years, Mark Kermodes' film review channel is now mothballed and A Dose of Buckley my near namesake on YT posted its last worst off before signing off. Oh and Terra Battle shut down its European wing and I can't be bothered to download the APK and make a US account.

So you'll need some good TV to give you a lift.

Christmas Tapes at The BBC.

The best laugh I've had on the BBC in ages.  They were sort of the precursor to Youtube Poop and a blooper reel, if you've ever seen the Rainbow twangers sketch, complete with ebaumsworld logo plastered over it, this is were it originates (well LWT really.)

Sentence mixing, nerdy clips, shots at management and a Dalek that says bollocks, something that could have been easily shown on BBC 2 instead of  BBC 4.

Dynasties.

A long form look at an animal in its environment, includes Chimps, Tiger, Wild Dog and Penguins.  Worth it just to see them struggle day to day, oh and scientists carving steps for penguins so they don't freeze.

The Undiscovered Kenneth Williams.

Victor Lewis Smith's masterful look at our Ken and bringing out some rare and unbroadcast material from the really quite unhappy bunny.  Not a lot from Carry on, but plenty from his diaries and a few college clips.  Also The Undiscovered Peter Sellers and a Stanley Baxter one to come.

Manson The Lost Tapes.

A look at Sharon Tate and the La Bianca murders, with generous helpings of home film shot by his extended family of onlookers.  Quite creepy in places, it boils down to Sex, Drugs and Mind Control. oh and Mansons shitty rock put out by one of the Beach Boys.  Stand out Yewtree revelation is that Manson had butt sex with a 14 year old.  So a massive nonce as well as mass murderer by proxy.
Possibly not on Youtube but if you see it for download any where then grab it.  Also as its ITV and hippies, there's quite a lot of tit and bum as well as willies too.

Digitiser The Show.

We'll add this here as its quite possibly the best thing, I've on the platform in ages.  It has Chris Gannon which I like, as well as Mr Biffo himself, his  rival as they bring to life the teletext series, into some fever dream of a show,  There are all the characters you remember, Mr T and his bins, The Mans Daddy, Chart Cat and Zombie Dave. There is always something in every show that will crack me up, whether it being lobbed up in a minute, Rampage remakes, or just the fact that it feels like a show from the 90's TV but from some obscure channel (ITV brown) at an odd time.

Vic and Bobs Big Night Out.

Forgot to add this thougn I still have to watch half of the episodes.  So far I've seen the man with the long stick, George Ezra and a heater fire, ghost busters and Mulligan and O'Hare.  No one spoiled their view mind, which was all right.

Miranda awards for TV hell.

Not a lot here that sticks out here in my mind.  There was the John Le Carre Remake that felt like a long good punch up, no for my award this year its the Cheddar Man Documentary that is total bollocks. Oh and a mixed bag Dr Who.

Cheddar Man is the blackest Briton ever recovered from Cheddar Gorge.  A blue eyed Thuderf00t look a like with burnt cork skin, blue eyes and weird skin.  I have no doubt in the genetics of  Cheddar Man, apparently he came originally from what is now Spain, but the show itself was a mess.  Also can remember the article in New Scientist pouring cold water on the genetic theory of colour.  I don't care if he's black to be honest its a shit documentary at best.

Edit. Dr Who goes here as well, not because it's terrible, in fact I liked Demons of The Punjab and the Rosa Parks episode despite what sounds like that whore Paloma Faith giving it a US ending (we shall overcome surely), nor is it the Dr Herself now.  I've grown on Jodie Whittaker, and knew they'd do her proud thanks to Missy as a female Master.  No its the return of politics which is bollocks as usual.  The spider episode with Not Trump as president shooting a big spider in homage to Resident Evil.  Or the Pkunk or whatever it was eating a medi ship alive, terrible episodes.  Which means that good episodes like the parallel world one with the Frog as ruler was few and far between,

Oh yeah them mentioning Raze and them playing shitty grime can do one as well.

All we want for Xmas is Cactus.

The mail has been at it again with some dreadful copy by Sarah Rainey about cacti and Millennials.   Specifically a few lines about popularity and that, saying that they're not cheap and a few lies about flowering and toxicity.

They do talk to a few people from our side including Eddy Harris (really enjoyed his articles on Mesembs in the journal) and the people from Cactusland a.k.a Southfield Nurseries (we have a leaflet knocking around of theirs indoors).  They also mention Monty Don as being a fan as well as failed abortions Smiley Virus, whacko Jacko's Daughter and Cara Monobrow as being fans, which I can find fuck all about, outside this article.

There is the usual cliche of them being desert plants, when from numerous talks I've been to, have seen them in various dry environments from roadside banks, pine woods, lurking in dense scrub to mountains covered in snow and rolling plains.

They cover a few species here which is nice. They name drop Blossfeldia Liliputana, a weird loner of a species that is the smallest cactus in the world, Kinda lump Welwitschia in with the greater Cactaceae (its not, though it is part of the complex that has Ephedra  in it), its long lived and has only one pair of leaves its entire life.  They also think a Haageocereus is worth £200,000 (mine cost a £1 though that's Decumbens and not the endangered Tenuis, still not a looker mind).  Oh and they seem to think that the glochids of Cylindropuntia Fulgida are poisonous, rather than highlight their strange fruiting arrangement (short version they will throw out a bud on last years fruit).  She gets brownie points for pointing out that they have juice in their fruits as well, which is also akin to beetroot in its ability to stain everything.

There is a run down of species which I'll add here, paraphrased to fuck.

(c) Joyce Coccozza

 Echeveria.  A genus of 180 species (I don't have the lexicon here to check its probably right.)  Used in floral clocks, rock gardens and bridal displays.  Can be propagated from stray leaves (some species only).  Part of the Crassulaceae.

This is from a trip to Kew.

Sanseveria. Mother in Laws tongue, supposedly tough but I managed to kill mine so would tolerate a bit of heat.  Flowers look like a bog brush.  Worth £20 or so, but you do see these at boot sales along with Aloes so worth keeping a look out there.  Succulent, still not a cactus.

Pinya De Rosa

Opuntia.  Can be a bastard to flower in the UK, though if it does its worth it,  Better known as prickly pears or Cholla to some, split into a few different families now.  All of them evil spined.
Finally a proper cactus.

They don't flower here.

Euphorbia.  Poisonous as hell, with an irritant milky sap and a variety of shapes and sizes.  Includes the popular architectural plant, you see in photo shoots and lifestyle supplements, stuck on a wall way out of any direct sunlight, its no wonder it doesn't flower.  Pro tip, if it has two spines coming directly from the main stem, sort of at a right angle, with no central spine and ring of smaller spines its a Euphorbia.  Not a cactus but looks like one, flowers can be unimpressive.

You all know this.

Finally Schlumbergera. The crab or Christmas cactus.  You will have seen these on sale in shops now its Christmas time.  I don't need to add much, except that there is a Schlumberger House near Gatwick Airport, which is nothing to do with the plant, and everything to do with oil mines (genuinely didn't know that).
Oh and yes its a cactus,

The shape of water review.

Its an odd one this as I've only half watched it (playing a game while listening, if you must know) but there is something I don't like about the Shape of Water.  I guess its the obvious 60's setting of deep south Murica but its the same sort of thing that spoiled the Rosa Parks episode of Dr Who, that there is no real connection outside of America and the villain isn't sympathetic, being a one note, racist misogynist cunt.  Racism's bad mmkay.

Oh there's positives,  like them having our duck shoe brush which is neat, and the soy boy living with all the cats and watching musicals on TV and Sally Phillips as a literal dumb broad getting naked and jack off in the tub. 

But its the heavy handed propaganda that wears it down.  I know 60's America was a racially divided place and that the cold war was at its height, but it sucks.  The main bad guy is just a caricature, a bigoted southern boy preacher army dude who is literally a cunt to all and sundry.  We're supposed to sympathise with the monster I know, but once the cleaning team break it out of the facility to fuck it senseless underwater I kinda lost all hope for it.  That and it eating soyboy's cat, if it did that to one of mine it would literally get a shotgun to the face misunderstood or not.

Which brings me to another thing that kept me awake last night, almonds activated, and such.  I heard it said that it looked like the Merman Rikuo from neglected Capcom beat em up Darkstalkers and yeah it does remind me a bit, of him, but like I said before I woke up middle of the night and I could only think of one thing.  She's fucking a Mirelurk.

Or more specifically the Mirelurk King from Fallout 3, this is not your amazonian God, you treat with respect.  This is  the bastard you waste all your ammo on before you run out and it kills you.  Mirelurks are utter bastards, armoured bastards at that, but these take the cake.  And that's what killed it for me.  For all the inter species sex underwater, and cliched, one note villains, its this that finally did for me. 

Final Score 12 bottlecaps / 100

9 years.

Finally through with scanning in all of my aunts photos,we collected up when we cleared her place out last year.  I have a bunch on my hard drive ready to edit and cut to size, but for now scanning is done.  I still have all of our photos to do and whatever, is on those 8 mil films we had over the years but all our slides and my aunts photos are done now.

Sad news is that we lost my uncle in the week, he'd been ill for ages and my mum n dad are going down to my other aunt's place to help out.  I have work and am definitely not invited although I do have leave left which is galling.   At least I have a bunch of photos to send down.

And finally its 9 years since I started this blog, even though I've fuck all plans for next year when it reaches 10 years.  I hope to still do this as far as I can.

Oh and I finished the secret of the old mill and am typing up the original version as I can't find the original text online.

Secret of the old mill post script.

This is sort of a follow up to last weeks post and yesterdays subsequent re edit of said post, about the original editions of the Hardy Boys detective series. 

I've decided to have a look and see if there are any pdfs or ebooks for download, and it seems that there are, sort of.  There are places where you can get the whole series or so as PDF files these are the late 50's reprints and are a good place to start.  I will warn you though that they seem  to have been formatted by an actual ape, such is the poor job they've done with it.  Chapter headings occurring throughout the story and some weird formatting makes it a chore to read. 

Worse some of the original stories are missing, this includes the original Secret of the Old mill, so it looks like I'm forced to type out a version from my own copy, and that's not getting me stated on tracking down the original version either via Amazon or EBay.

Looking at copyright here it seems to be a cluster fuck of differing lengths depending entirely on locale.  It covers ghost written works too so these books are totally covered.  Its 70 years here and 90 in the US, meaning nothing ever goes out of copyright, ever.  Which means depending on what version you have it maybe out of copyright or within the next 20 - 200 or so years.

In other words the:

*Short version if you're US based an would like a massive touch typing exercise and have access to a lot of Hardy Boys book including the original versions, then you could take on this exercise in futility and put a good quality copy out there for us.

*Long version is the Byuu option.  I track down and buy any of the original versions I can get, or at least will ship to us here in the UK.  Clean up the formatting of the PDF. files of what I have and then transcribe them out word for word in Libreoffice and host them somewhere for people  to download.  I have all the European releases and a few of the American releases too. 

*The other, other option is to grab the ebook files which is also going to be expensive, and is at the whims of the originals being deleted at any time. That is of course the worst ever option as I hate digital only, propriety media.

Comment below if you think this is a worthwile endeavour, or even a fools errand. 

Secret of the Old Mill a review of sorts

Finally gotten round to reading the original reprint of  The Secret Of The Old Mill by Franklin W Dixon.  The version we had under the Armada  imprint was the later reprint which was dumbed down and reworked.  Its been so long since I've read it, (and yes I have all 87 titles from the UK print run) I had quite forgotten the plot to it.

Synopsis
Frank and Joe have to deal with a case of  counterfeiting when they are passed a bent 5 buck note at the station, whilst waiting for their father to come off a train. What does this have to do to with the people who have started up the abandoned mill at the edge of  town.

I'm about halfway through and to me this doesn't read like a kids book now.  Its not dumbed down and the words and language used aren't like what they are nowadays. In fact a couple of times I've had to result to using my trusty Chambers dictionary to look up the meaning of  a few words.

There is a brief piece in the front of this reprint about changing language use and such and themes.  This amounts to the word queer being used in a few places including the delightful term "Shoving the queer" which Fenton Hardy points out is an underworld slang for laundering counterfeit notes which made me lol pretty hard.  Incidentally both Tony Prito and Phil Cohen seem to be treated with respect in this book, no ethnic slurs against Italian Americans or Jews here.  Which leads us to.

Dynamic.

Frank and Joe are well Frank and Joe.  Frank is the smarter one and Joe is the more athletic one there is nothing more of note to add here about them here.

Incidentally, the book has some sort of sequence going on with the Hardy's motorboat The Sleuth being bought from the proceeds of the reward from the Tower Treasure (incidentally its the only one of the original series where someone dies, its quite dark I  thought, maybe darker in the original).

Although it has been said they are college students and attend Bayport college, this is the first time I've seen the Hardy's actually do college stuff, here they are revising for a Latin and Geometry exam.

Callie Shaw gets a cursory mention and its quite odd as she seems to be independent and living away from her parents, she is staying with her cousin Pollie who runs a beauty salon and is also a victim of the bent notes, this time a $50 note which is a days takings back then.  Which is odd as I could have sworn she had parents who lived in Bayport in the original series we got.

In fact the biggest rework to the original character goes to Chet Morton who in the revised editions was a lazy but dependable mate who was forever going on about food, the latest fads and riding his beat up lemon of a car.  The classic editions he's the archbishop of fucking banterbury.  In other words an insufferable cunt and the class clown.  He's still a fat bastard mind and dependable but if there is any film remake then you know he'll be played by Adam Sandler and be a goof ball.

 A few other things of note, Barmet is a village across Barmet bay which the Hardy's visit on the Sleuths inaugural run.  Their relationship with the local police is strained, Chief (Ezra Collig) and Oscar Smuff seem to be the stereotypical "donut cops", those of little ambition and fob the boys off with signs that they are looking into the case, all the while enjoying a game of Pinochle.   Con Riley is portrayed as stupid and lazy, who often sleeps on the job.    Chet Morton pranks him up with a package for "Muggins" which turns out to be an alarm clock that rings when he tries to have a kip whilst on patrol.

I'll not spoil the end for you but I will say that its plausible and tense and I'd love to see if there are any more of the originals around.  Like the new books I've edited this post and have started up the UK version which is number 16 on the list.  Its not as good and is re written, but it is what I remember it to be. 

The Secret of the Old Mill. Applewood Books reprint edition. Leslie Macfarlane, for F W Dixon.

Slides Done

Couldn't find the plane stuff so here's a BEA shuttle bus.

Finally done with scanning in all the slides and films, that my grandad and other relatives filmed over the years.  Found a fresh biscuit tins worth in the back room and these were the last of them.  A few bits from Kew and Syon Park, some shots of London and some of the lights on Oxford Street from 1963, oh and me as a toddler from 1978 (am old). I've added a few bits and pieces to Archive.org but I see no reason in not sharing them here.

Enjoy coke with a guinness and skol.

That's the movie and not the welsh wonder himself.

You can see the main problem I have with the scanner I own.  Namely it'll give out this insane light bloom in the corner which you can see in some of these shots. The original scans of these were mostly unusable due to this.  I had to quickly scan one at a time and then save and exit line up another slide and scan it like that.  I'll add some plane stuff for those that like that sort of shit, my grandad lived near Heathrow so you'll see a few planes and that.

Is that some hideous Yogi bear with Popeye.

Wow, you are big pervert.

We got one of those emails, you know the type, someone playing at hacker claiming to have commandeered your webcam when you visit teh pron site and they want cash or they will have release pics / clips to all your address list contacts / friends / family / your dog.

I knew that it was bollocks straight away, not only because the Mail ran an article about the scam but because we have our cam taped up with black tape since we got it, that and it ended up in our spam folder with a big warning saying  this is a scam dude.  You are not seeing anything unless I stand in front of it and even then why would I take the tape of the cam.

It was sort of scary for a minute as it starts with a partial of an old password of mine (from Myspace and KVR and barely used for anything else), but then scrolling down and reading through it and that it required money to be paid in mickey mouse cash (bitcoin) or it will go to close relatives and people on my address book. So in all its going to fuck all people then.

Sadly though the worlds greatest "hacker" didn't have any badly mangled euphemisms for masturbation, just the line wow you are big pervert along with some broken English.  Which still made me laugh even though its true.

I can see how someone would get suckered in, it did seem genuinely scary until I realised how old the login info it was and that gmail recognised the scam straight away.  We ran a few scans to see if there was malware and virus on my system but it turned up fuck all.  In short if someone says that they have that they're bluffing especially if  your cam is gaffer taped over.

Round up of sorts.

Sorry if everything is getting messed up now but we're having central heating put into our house so I have to rehome a lot of stuff luckily my room only needs a few bits and pieces moved but it means a good chunk of the CD collection and all my albums will need to me moved further in.  Also it means I get to purge a bunch of old magazines from way back.

Mostly EGM and Edge magazine but also throwing in some MAD magazines and a bunch of junk too that is ages old that I never really tackled before.  I suppose there is all that space/

TERRA BATTLE.

On halloween, Mistwalker nixed their entire European server killing off my entire 3 year progress on this. Its still available for US and Japan at present but after going to all the trouble of downloading an American APK. file and registering again, I found that my file didn't carry over.  This is also a pretty good reason for backing up everything and not trusting something that is always online to always be there.  We switched to Granblue Fantasy with its built in English option.
Though if you are going that route, Mobage is a bastard to connect to. even more if you don't speak Japanese.

Weedle Guide.

This harks back to the first blog post I ever submitted here.  I explained what a Tibbet was (and you can see what a Tibbet is from our header) but not what a Weedle was or rather Wheedle as it was back then.

A W(h)eedle is basically a black and white cat with a white tip to its tail, its colouration should be medium neither too white or too black. He was my pet cat growing up and was called Whisky as we wanted a gender neutral name (or more accurately not saddle him with a girls/ boys name if he was the opposite gender).

Better photos when I get round to scanning our old albums there's lots of this guy.

To help you with this I've appropriated a guide from Wiki to help you understand what the various shades of Weedle are.
Incidentally that maybe catloaf stance Whisk is adopting there but we called that stance a meat pie when growing up.

If a Weedle has a black nose it is called a Kitler.

Hackney Trip

Took a trip out to that great progressive land of the East end, or as you may know it Hackney. An upmarket hipster paradise that also has its fair share of hideous stabbings and is of course a left wing hell hole, its also a great place to go searching.  Like every progressive shopping area there are no real shops that ordinary people go in such as Poundland or WH Smiths but plenty of boutique shit with inflated prices and such.

There are a few good charity shops even if they are few and far between, I always seem to pick up stuff from the Salvation's Barmy and this is no different.  We had a Disney T Shirt, a noise comp CD and an original Hardy Boys detective novel (the original version of The Secret Of The Old Mill) in hard back.  Have a complete armada run of the UK titles so will have to read them to see what differences there are from revised to Original.

No the most important thing is that there is a pretty good cactus shop just down from the Toy Museum at Bethnal Green.  Its called Plant Warehouse and is almost opposite the pricey flower warehouse, I first took notice whilst walking down the street and they had some large plants in the window that looked decidedly succulent.  A Cyphostemma no less so with that I had to take a further look.  There were a lot of massive plants in the window including a Cleistocactus with dried flower remains for £1200 and a few of the bigger Euphorbias including a Tirucalli type and Ingens.  They had smaller Mammilarias for £10 in pretty nice clay pots and a few Hoya leaves in pots for £5.

Worst of all were some strange bowl garden selections including 3 columnar types a few  Mammilaria's  a Titanopsis and a Faucaria.  Also they had Ganoderma mushrooms for sale in  a small wooden arrangement, they are the ones with the dubious health claims and such.  Also our Pilea Peperomioides* is worth £20, which is pretty cool.  All in all the stuff they had there was massively pricey, if you have deep pockets and the heat to keep some of this stuff then good luck, me I'll stick to our club shows and stuff.

Didn't come out properly but £20

*this fucking site. really. I got my original Pilea from an old lady who came to the club who called it the Oriental Jade Plant.  Its a massive progenitor of offspring which means that unless you send them out to people you will be stuck with ever more piles of Pilea.  Like all nettle family its flowers are insignificant green string although perversely would love to see a macro shot of the bloom itself.

See nothing to write home about.

Club History Part 2.

This is the final part of this BBC4, 3 part series looking into the birth of dance and its continued degeneracy at the hands of American club culture.  I signed off last time with the words fuck my life, or something similar.  Yeah that was pretty prophetic to say the least.

It starts off OK with a look at DJing with DJ Greg Credit to the Edit Wilson explaining the basics of beatmatching and a classic clip of him doing the same on the tube.  Works up through hip hop exploring the whole two turntables mixer style and lands firmly in Ibiza some time in the mid 80's.

Alfredo playing various tracks from the broadest beats around to a mega diverse crowd, something to get the crowd moving no matter who they are.  Its a leftfield choice but also quite a good pick,  I would have gone with Ron Hardy at the Muzic box here, but its how house and acid was seen outside the states.  Later on its Danny Rampling transporting these sounds back to Shoom and dear old Oakie at Spectrum and later mixing the Happy Mondays album Pills, Thrills and Bellyaches, bringing in the rock kids to the clubs, See also Stone Roses Fools Gold.

Its still bearable at this point, it talks to Normal Cook aka Pizzaman  Fatboy Slim, about DJing and such and the crowds, and Tiesto's "single handed" creation of trance as a gay form of techno. But mainly its about crowd adulation, playing the same style for 8 hours, making cash before burning out and coming back with a more varied sound.   TBH this is still the best thing he ever did.

From then on its down hill all the way with the rise of the mega club and the mega DJ and the whole EDM Degeneracy.  You get a bit of David Guetta, with some Kelly Rowland crossover that finally got the Yanks to play dance on the radio opening the doors for Black eyed Peas and all the other stuff that makes me weep.

Worse we have Steve Aoki a dude that's taken to DJing while prancing about like a little twat. No actual mixing here just poncing about and lobbing cake at the audience when he plays specific tones in his pre mixed sets.  The audience lap it up like Pavlov's Dicks that they are, and I couldn't shift the whole Brasseye  Drugs episode they must have something wrong with their Shatners Bassoons.

It then calmed the fuck down with a few bits and pieces from underground DJs the Black Madonna and Midland (me neither). I have just googled Mike Read's Stalker and her and have been pissing myself laughing as its an uncanny resemblance.

In retrospect if you can ignore the last 30 minutes of this its all you  need to know about DJing plus all the real heroes here are limited to a few sound bites such as Jeff Mills and Nina Kraviz which is a shame as her and Helena Hauff are probably the vanguard of what I call real DJing and welcome female perspective to boot.

BBC Club history.

BBC 4's Can You Feel it is a sort of gun to the head of dance music, you know kinda like a cucked version of what Sky Arts did a back last year but on the BBC instead. I can definitely say this though, it  benefits from the BBC's cash input, as rather than a UK centric outlook, you have full access to all the American DJs this time.

I'm currently two thirds of the way through, with the final bit on DJs recorded to watch this coming Friday, but I feel qualified to put in my two pennorth in, just like the old official games mags did from 10 minutes of playing so here goes.

The first part is actually pretty good giving a lowdown of the origins of the 4/4 beat with a healthy focus on pioneers of house.  Never knew Ron Hardy was bi though his whopping smack addiction was skated over but its always good to see them credit a true master (there's a bit of archive stuff of Frankie Knuckles too).  We get the Belleville 3 on racism and forging Techno from the whole cloth of European synth pop and funk via the Electrifying Mofo / Mojo.  Finally we have its all gone Pete Tong  and his single handed introduction of House to the British public via his house sound of comps.

There's a token poke at the North with 808 State (well A Guy Called Gerald and a weirdly uncredited Graham Massey and some other guy who could be Martin Price). Mostly though its the BBC dollar reigning large here as you have talking head shots from Vince Lawrence, Screaming Rachael, Craig Loftis, Steve Silk Hurley, and Joe Smooth talking about house in the old days and such.

First part here.

The second part is where it all goes wrong for me, it big's up the the whole mega club era and EDM bollocks whilst overlooking the whole warehouse rave aspect.

Its still good mind you. From the Loft to Studio 54 and the Paradise Garage complete with Larry Levan at the controls, to the early days of rave in the UK via the second summer of love. 

Its good to know that:

In the old days that you could run stuff from lamp post electricity to power your illegal rave.

Amnesia was just an after hours club in Streatham.

Danny Rampling's Shoom was located in a basement warehouse out of Southwark

That the Factory in Manchester closed due to massive gangster infiltration (sadly also there from the start).

It goes off the rails at the end speaking to Moby about EDM trash in Vegas and that its more of a fairground experience with showpiece bollocks and actors. Also weirdly glosses over the whole criminal justice bill era of raving, though its nice to see Creamfields get a look in.

Second part here.

Like I say, I've not seen part 3 yet though this does not bode well and I quote.

"With in-depth interviews with David Guetta, Steve Aoki, Tiesto, Paul Van Dyk, Black Madonna, Moby and Midland"
and as an afterthought at the bottom.

" Other contributors include Pete Tong, Jeff Mills, Terry Farley, Fabio, Nina Kraviz"
Fuck. My Life.

MSG Event Banstead

Don't know if I've ever blogged about this before but this my second trip to Banstead way out in Surrey at the edges of that London.  We have good reason to go there as there was an MSG event on in the hall there.  Its the Mesemb Study Group for those wondering what I'm on about.  A society dedicated to all things Mesembryanthemum, this includes popular genera such as Lithops and Conophytum and less popular genera such as Psammophora or the myriad weedy annuals such as Cleretum.

Being a mostly South African group of plants and such, they are currently in flower due to it being Spring there, so an autumn show is perfect to show them off.  A mix of 2 buses, the DLR and a Tube connection got us there and after last times failure to find the place we had a pretty good idea where it was.  Its off the main road as you head into town, for those wondering.

Its a nice hall and I paid my admission to go in. There was a bank of tables set out with show plants and at the edges various people I knew selling plants and such.  I got me a Titanopsis and a Mossia both plants I've never actually grown before along with a Conophytum Piluliforme which I've sort of grown (a few conos definitely not that species).

There are some decent show plants there including a giant of a Mestoklema in flower and an Astridia that was something special.  Also really old Mitrophyllum that was older than me.  I didn't stay for the auction which had a map of Namibia that was owned by noted field researcher Desmond Cole.

Going back was a nightmare, I decided to leave early to look around the charity shops and such, decided to take the Croydon bus back not realising that it goes around the houses.  Comes in the top end near the trams and there is a cracking piece of wall art of Astro Boy as you come in that's worth a look.  Took the tram and then some more buses before getting in about 6 ish, a good 3 hours travelling just to get home.

Edit Pics liberated from drop pox.

Astridia Hallii.

Astridia Halli a good 12'' / 30 cm in length.

Mestoklema Tuberosum Flower Details

One of the few tuberous rooted mesembs, this is a huge 2ft / 60cm tall and is around 50 years old.

Ebracteola Montis Moltkeri

A close up of this guy, grown by Eddy Harris.

Tanquana Hilmarii

A habitat type shot, that works so well.

Lithops

Finally some more familiar faces to end with.  Love this Lithops Karasmontana ssp Bella.

Conophytum Group

Comophytum group from Derek Tribble. There is a sneaky Othonna in there too if you can spot it.

Somerset

Should have said that there I was away last week, but seeing as both phone credit is low and the fact that I would have had to use my phone to send this means that you'll get an update where I can type on a proper physical keyboard.

Somerset then, a bit of a *Jehovas curse of a location for me, I lost £40 and my electric shaver down there which doesn't inspire me to come back anytime soon, which is a shame as when the sun was out and the rain kept away its a great lush place.

We stayed with sodseasons. in what turned out to be the dog part of their holiday complex, so if you would look out of your window you could see a great variety of dogs and even be visited by a friendly dog (in our case a choco lab) if your door was open.

We were halfway between Burnham on sea and Brean close to Weston Super Mare.  Which means huge tidal ranges and vast sandy beaches mixed with mud and dangerous quicksand.  It means there is quite a substantial dune system in place for those who like there wildlife, mostly dominated by Sea Buckthorn and bramble with the occasional small tree and wild flowers.

We had a few trips out including Weston Super Mare which is OK but when we went there they had, I guess a dead body under the pier.  There was police tape across the pilings and a hot forensics officer sitting talking to a local.  I have no idea what went on and finding out about stuff is of course is hit and miss as local news doesn't cover this.

We went to Minehead which is infinitely better and because a distant relative of ours lives there.  We had a meal and talked about old times, they live out in the middle of nowhere, off the beaten track which is cool but also a bugger to find.  A nice place but you'd definitely want to drive to get any benefit of the place.

Our final trip is to the village of Watchet which boasts an excellent harbour and a stop on the steam railway, so one for all you trainspotters out there.  Also please visit the community museum there, if you really want to be reminded of what the late lamented Plumstead museum looked like.

All in all a good trip let down by bad luck.

Berrow beach gale edition

Minehead.

Watchet museum well worth a visit.

Weston Super Mare dead body edition.

Manic Mushrooms with Barbara Cartland doubling up for Peach

SClub7 ? Brean funfair.

*thanks for making it this far. I have this notion that the Jehovah's Witnesses cause me bad luck and there was a supposed kingdom hall in Burnham On Sea.

Aunt Elsie

Aunt Elsie and Kim.

echinopsis chamaecereus

Going through a bunch of old slides from my mums side of the family and have come across some that my aunt Elsie took.  I can tell that I'd want to meet her as for starters all her stuff is named and that I find fascinating, as most of what my granddad shot wasn't, just generic shots of my mum and auntie on holiday.

I never met my aunt Elsie as she died before I was born, I knew she grew cacti and had a few books from Brian Lamb, including a pre release version of the pocket encyclopedia of cacti and a binder full of spare pages that made up the exotic collection of their books. 

I have a slide scanner culled from when Maplin went bust and have been slowly digitising my families slide collection. I can tell what slides are her's as well as them being named and that they are on square 127 film slides which are a bugger to scan.  I found adding them manually and jiggling them to get an area in shot is the way to process them.

Blue Pool swanage part a

blue pool Swanage.

Iron Wok Jan

Not sure if I've covered this before (that is the peril of being long running) but have recently started to read Iron Wok Jan again.

For those of you not familiar with this series, its a cooking manga that focuses on uber jerk Jan Akiyama and his rivalry with the Gobancho Chinese restaurant.  Though the issues that I have the rivalry is between the super critic Otani and both the Gobancho and Akiyama families in one big Chinese food cook off. Indeed the earliest anthology I have is volume 14 where Nitani brings in a talented french chef to cook a next level goose dish and challenges Jan, Kiriko Gobancho and Celine to match it, whilst dressed as pigs before a live TV audience.

This is one of the reasons why I like this the other is that its super detailed about food and such.  Things will be added in footnotes about what such and such is and what style its cooked in.  I learned about chinese seasoning and Yuzu, as well as an epic way to steam fish. That was incidentally Jan's battle vs a hemostatic cooker a type of souped up Microwave and the chef with it.

As the books themselves are now out of print, (I have a few picked up cheap from Forbidden Planet years back, in fact this is where I first encountered it) and are not cheap, I've put a link up in the first paragraph to the first 7 books on line that you can read for free, ironically its none that I actually own, but if demand is strong, I would consider scanning what I have (Volume 14, 18, and 20,21 and one or two more) and putting them up on dropbox or archive. org.

Here comes a very special guy.

What I spectacularly failed to tell you about last weeks post is that I got on the bus home to find a friend of my was the driver. 

We keep in touch via facebook and have written letters before but we hadn't met face to face for a good 18 months and that was briefly.  So its a good thing he contacted me on facebook to say that it was his wife's birthday and that there would be a party at his place and would I like to come.

I gave it a few minutes to mull over I didn't know the place where he was living, and after googling it came back as a few streets away (I had an old address of his in Bexleyheath) so when a man says jack... you jack. 

It was pretty cool too, he has a cool cat that consistently tried to snag chicken from the table and a lot of kids there, mainly his.  His eldest had been to Tossa De Mar the same as me and I wished I could have asked him where he stayed (he went with the scouts) but mainly I remember it for him playing acoustic guitar and singing some odd blues songs with another guy. 

We got talking about the good old days and of people, of Beavis and Butthead, (we were fans and used to do the voices all the time back then).  All in all a good time, as they say online 11/10 would definitely go again.

500

Its my 500th post here. I didn't realise that I'd reached that milestone til I'd logged in. Officially I'm coming up for 9  years here on blogger and for better or worse I still enjoy it.  I should celebrate and that or at least put a cake gif up or something.

Happy anniversary.

Celebration over I wanted to talk about Tit bits magazine a sort of weekly world news but old dead and English. I'd seen it about in shops that dealt with ephemera and the like, and always wrote it off as some sort of porno wannabe. It doesn't exist now but it was a magazine that summarised the news into bite sized stories and tabloid style trash.  Looking through the discarded boxes at the bootsale today we finally grabbed a copy along with Drexciya The Quest CDR and some shoes.

My  copy's from Nov 1977 so I'll do a run through on this.

On the inside cover is some Elvis tat celebrating the newly dead king.
Page 3 is the only political bit here going after then PM James Callaghan.

A weird story about martial break ups in high rise blocks. This is from an estate in Mitcham South London. Battery Hen wives barks the title, its all a bit sinister if you ask me.

A nice ad for Ultra Hi-Fi units (part of Thorn Emi)

Some quite frankly odd looking sculptures here, from a berk in Switzerland. Also looks like they'd fail health and safety if done today.

A few bits of interest as visionhire are offering a pong tv game along with their 20'' colour telly rental. Also a brief bit on palaeo diet / preserving wild food stocks a good 30 odd years before Kew decided to do  the same with all the worlds flora.  Interesting it starts with scientists believe.

Its Sterling Hayden and he's on the grass. A weird one this as the Dr Strangelove actor claims he quit booze and took up marijuana.  Lived on a houseboat and died of cancer.

Weird Z list celeb precursor thing with the Schwepps ad blokes daughter saying he's a sexpot.  Looking up on IMDB it seems she was briefly married to Boycey from Fools n horses and had a bit part in Fawlty Towers.

A buzz box to help you kick the fags, I wonder what ever happened to bio feedback devices sounds like quackery to me.

A big ole ad for Embassy fags here and some dubious slimming advice on the facing page. Just douse yourself in cold water and you could lose weight too.

Center pages have a full colour pictorial of a motorised harem complete with titty shots. Personally its just an upmarket paedo van / passion wagon but what do I know.

More car bollocks here along with an ad for Mobil super oil.

We hit the problem pages  here along with an ad for Southern Comfort on the facing page.

We have a page on how to kiss and how to put marzipan on a cake also Angela Bradshaw says what happens to film stars after 40.

Eric Morecambe had a column here and there is a vaguely naughty comic strip from the Sporting Spagthorpes.

Coming to the end here so as its all sports bollocks will say there is a full page ad for a proto vape thing called MD4, a passion Pill for the over 50's (its an implant) and the classified ads (porn, dating, new age tat and accordions).  Finally we have the letter pages and on the back page a bunch of music on tape or LP, looks bastard horrendous if truth be told.

So there you go if this gets to I don't know 100 views I'll make this into a PDF for you to download.

Cuntendo.

For those wondering why the heading up there is all in aid off, Cuntendo is the specific name given to Nintendo, when the big N uses its muscle to crack down on the little guy, either Youtube lets players or game genie dudes.  If you haven't heard the news, Nintendo has been going after rom sites ahead of their Switch VC revival thing (oh and mini console remakes).

An obscure bunch called loveROMS and Love retro were the original recipients of the ban hammer but it looks like many other sites have caved and removed TOSECS.  Planetemu the french guys do not host Nintendo roms now (and were my go to guys for old roms) and Emuparadise have removed all their romsets now and have effectively shut up shop which is bad. 

There is a great set of tweets on Twitter by Frank Cifaldi about the whole preservation side of things, (given that twitter is a left wing echo chamber that in itself is a miracle) and from someone else who travelled halfway across Japan to preserve some obscure bits of SNK history. If you want a job doing well its worth giving it to a pirate. 

I've been downloading on and off ever since I had the net and before that with a few discs of stuff gotten from bootsales.  I've seen places fall such as Cherry roms, ICEroms and even downloaded stuff from Dope rom and a few Angelfire places back in the day. Along with the last bastions of good journalism such as Insertcredit and Andriasang.  True I've seen a few horrible places (full disclosure I had a porn dialler from one back in the day) but I'm sure those won't return thanks to these going under.

Surely rom corruption is classed as modern art right.

Then there is the other stuff such as art project / homebrew fan translation side of things which attempt to make new games or just port stuff that wasn't deemed commercial back then. Or make innumerable hacks out of SMB or Marioworld, or even fix up the the emulator in the NES and SNES Mini to side load extra roms and such, and that's without going into the straight up preservation side of things, backing up 30 year old plus media and ensuring future people get to play these games.

An AFX Advert.

Or rather c'mon you cunts lets 'ave an AFX advert.

I first heard about this, from my Twitter timeline, a photo of the Aphex Twin logo on a wall and someone saying this is at the Elephant and Castle (our closest tube back in the day, put this down to living in the South East).  My ears perked up at this and we decided to go down that way and take a detour and find it.

It is indeed at the Elephant and Castle tube station, more specifically if you want to find it or just happen across this post 6 years from now. its located just outside the middle exit to the south bound branch of the Northern Line, as you come in or indeed, go out.  Took me ages to find, even though its not small, exited at the far entrance and looked along the Bakerloo station  before doubling back and finding it at the last.

Northern Line

Of course what I found out, is that there were two posters exactly opposite each other.  I could bark up the wrong tree here about mirror magic and getting caught between two images.  Think Granny Weatherwax from Witches Abroad and such, but if I'm honest I don't know what it all means.

this is the opposite side of the wall.

As far as I can tell I have no idea what this is all in aid off. It could be like last years live show at field day complete with Fingers Inc intro.  Or  more likely a new album along the lines of Syro or Cheetah.  I will of course update you when I know more.

Oh and when I got off at Morden this shit was going down.  Cue lots of 20 something ladies in not very much (it was baking out) and blokes in their best tees and beards (Seriously would have killed for the I love techno shirt).  On our way home from Sutton we saw this stretch jeep limousine thing outside a church and thought of Windowlicker.  So will leave you with that image here.

Lemme put mah shit on.

EDIT its for a new EP coming out in September and its sounds fucking lush.

Haiti talk.

First up some sad news, looks like the only decent news channel has gone HD only which means no more SD France 24 or France van cat as its known on pain of death. Wiki reckons its up in the high 800s now along with all the Asian networks so will have a look. If not it looks like I'm going to have to default to the terrible Russia Toady or TFTWorld.

Feature Presentation. Haiti:

We attended a talk on the Cacti of Haiti on Wednesday in the welcoming dank basement of Keston Community centre, its been hot as hell here, so it being in the cool is the one benefit of the heat. Our guest speaker was Paul Hoxey who undertook the trip along with some people from the Gibraltar Botanic Gardens (which  I've been to).

Something of an unknown quotient, Haiti is the perpetually disaster prone, french half of Hispaniola along with the Dominican Republic its Spanish counterpart and Cuba, they are some of the oldest and largest bits of the Caribbean.

Thanks to many problems such as natural disasters and poverty / aid cycle, Haiti can be thought of as an African nation in the heart of the Caribbean.

Most of the trees have been cut down for charcoal production leaving the cacti behind in big stands across the island.  Thanks to aid most people live on a subsistence level, leaving Haiti as a gibocracy if you will not growing stuff if you give it for free.  There is litter and pigs roaming free in the major cities and yet it can be stunning with plenty of beaches.  The upside to this is its poorly explored with only Charles Plumier visiting in 1700's and Ekman in the 1920's contributing a lot to their flora. 

Its a stunning talk with a focus on cacti, there's a new Cereus that Plumier found and has only been described now, along with a few Melocacti and Pilosocereus.  There is some ruined forts that were built to fight the french and the spot where Columbus landed in 1492.  It has great potential, stunning beaches and the people seem resourceful, its just a shame that its held back by aid culture and handouts.

Riverbank Matters

Decided to take a trip down the river path by the Thames today. Woolwich to Thamesmead about 2 miles or so and its a nice trip out.  Here are some notes on what I saw.

Today we saw a load of swans swimming along by the main wall.  Further along were ducks including off season Mallards with chicks and an Egyptian Goose on the wall. 

I note that their blackberries are more like the wild varieties than the bigger cultivar versions on the wasteland at work. 

People running, cycling and even some gymnastics (mainly stretching) which is new for me.

A lot of butterflies, more than I've seen in ages.  This includes mainly Large (Cabbage) Whites, Gatekeepers, Meadow Browns, a Jersey Tiger moth and a blue possibly either Common or Holly.
Edit its a female Holly Blue

A guy on a bike reckoned he saw a snake, it could be a Slow Worm which is local here or it could really be a snake.  (I've never actually seen a wild British snake, hopefully one of these days.)

Police, beauty and K9

Fans of strange TV rejoice, as Propeller tv have picked up Police Beauty and K9 for showing.  Saw this while having nothing to watch on a Thursday and periodically come back to it as its mesmerisingly awful.  

Reminiscent of NHKWorld  a news channel that was a weird mix of News and safe space, this evokes the same feeling as bugger all really happens.  Set in Beijing its an all female dog patrol unit that never fights any crime.  There is You You who is  pretty and I think owns the big Lab Cherry there is also Ni Na who owns a Springer Spaniel (a Howl) but in English her name is the sound of a police siren makes (we don't have much onomatopoeia but we are proud of this).  Oh and did we say that nothing happens.

Tuesday after world cup is case in point, a woman threatens to kill herself because her cat Little Emperor has gone missing after her derpy boyfriend let it out after a row they had. (and they are all its here all critters seem to be genderless but I digress)  The team are mobilised and You You says that her dog can sniff it out, cue brave doggo sniffing out embarrassed kitteh hiding out in a stairwell.  The woman does not kill herself and a lecture is given to them about considering Little Emperors feelings when next they have a barney.

Oh and the voice acting in this is wonderful the boyfriend  comes across as retarded and the girlfriend haughty. If you've ever seen telenovela dubbed you'll know the level of voice acting here.

Back to the show and our girls stop to pick up a run over mutt they spot on the ring road out of town and take it back to their local neighbourhood vets.  In the only piece of drama, their superiour and the vet decide on a name for our injured pupper. 

How about Wonder squeaks one guy.  no it was found on the fifth ring road out of town so why don't we call it fifth ring.  I'm guessing its better in Chinese but our hapless doggo is named fifth ring and the rest of the show is his battle to regain the use of his back legs.

The ending theme is the sort of thing that would grace a romance anime and fits in with the strange incidental music as a whole.

A word of warning there seems to be no English subs up on Youtube at the moment though Propeller are showing it with English Subs and dubs.  Which is how I've been shitposting about it here.

Yesasia have Mandarin TV Box sets for sale if you speak chinese though as noted the whole series seems to be up on Youtube.

Anyway UK viewers its on Sky 185 at 8:45 PM weeknights.

 

Local Museum and River news.

This is kinda tangentially related to my holidays as I looked this up whilst abroad, but I've often wondered if the small river at the top of Wickham Lane had a name.

Apparently called the river Wogebourne or the Plumstead river, its source is in Shooters Hill and ends up somewhere in Thamesmead.  A few things intrigued me about this as a kid that I couldn't quite shake,

Firstly, there is something like a sewer line running under Gatling road about halfway down and always assumed it was exactly this. (more on this see point 3) 

Secondly an old neighbour long since passed once told me that there was a river running at the back of Wickham Lane, He basically lived and died in the house a few doors down and had a lot of local knowledge.  Also one of the people to get me interested in cacti.

Thirdly and this backs up point one, we were hanging around waiting for the van to pick us up in Blithdale Road garage area and had Thames water show up to check on what we thought was a sewer line. They told us, as we were bored and asked what they were doing, that it was actually an underground river and showed us it flowing quite heavily down toward the railway lines.

Putting this together we now can guess that it carries on, across Bracondale / Brinkburn and cut across Mottisfont road on the other side of the railway down toward Thamesmead.  I hope this is of use to someone.



Sad museum news.

It looks like our borough museum will be closing soon, its not a patch on what it was when it was upstairs in Plumstead library.  I guess the closing of the firepower exhibit hit it hard.

Catering to war and arsenal stuff (think munitions not the football club though they were local back then) its got a few cannon and uniforms and an array of shells (no really, still think munitions) and some borough archives.  Did a visit Saturday and they were some  really nice people there, its got a few things about making cannon and such but isn't what I came for.

What I came for was something like the old Plumstead museum the one I always had a look round when going to the library.  The one with bits of roman pot, and a stuffed fox and a whole display case of fossils from Abbeywood.  They had a humming bird whose feathers would turn from dull brown to a brilliant green when the light caught it.  Also there was a display case dedicated to bobs (an odd snooker variant) and other things from the thirties.  Where all this is now I don't know but I hope its not lost.

Edit 2021. I've added a picture of the river, when out for a walk today. Its only above ground point is on Woodbrook Road / Wickham Lane, before it cuts into the woods and carries on as an underground river.