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.