hadei boisu

One of the things of being a Hardy Boys fan is finding out that they translated the boys adventures into many different languages.  I've seen bits up on the wiki of them translated into Hebrew and of Norwegian versions of the books. I never realised that one of those languages would be Japanese until I was looking for old books on Ebay.

house on the cliff

Looks like there was 10 books in all and I've attempted to translate the titles into English. So I've decided to put my dog level Japanese skills to good use and translate what I could for the curious.  Incidentally I don't know who the illustrator is, but the quality of artwork is rather good throughout.

great airport mystery

I now know how many were actually translated for the Japanese market, but not what revision of the text was used to translate from. but I know now that the translator was called John G McCaleb a translator for NHK Radio and a book on colloquial English, with help from Hitoshi Moroki or Isshi Matagi (name Kanji are bastards to do btw.)  The publisher was Yomiuri Shimbun who are known mainly for newspaper publishing.The Charles Tuttle Institute brought the rights to Japan in the mid 60's so I'm guessing its using the revised texts. Though the page counts are quite high so maybe its the original version after all.

anybody want to correct my dog level japanese here.

A partial series list is detailed below as well as a few shots more from Namacha Panda's ebay listings.

(it totals about £50 for each book with p+p btw) though there are some books available on Amazon Jp too but they are also pricey.

Book list

1. House on the cliff  ﾊｰﾃﾞｲ 誘拐事件 Hardy Abduction Case*
2. The Secret of the Old Mill 水車小屋の秘密 The Water-Mills secret
3. The Missing Chums 消えた仲間たち Vanishing Company
4. The Great Airport Mystery 姿なきパイロット The Formless pilot**
5. The Short Wave Mystery 剥製動物の謎 The Stuffed Animal Riddle ****
6. While The Clock Ticked 黒いリムジン Black Limousine ***
7. Secret Warning  黄金のファラオ The Golden Pharaoh
8. The Sinister Signpost 不吉な標識 The Sinister Sign
9. What Happened At Midnight 深夜の訪問者 The Late-night Caller/ visitor
10. The Secret Panel 秘密の壁　The Secret Panel

*Not a bad translation actually as House on the cliff is as much to do with Fenton Hardy getting kidnapped as it does with Snackley / Snattman running a smuggling ring from the old house.

** I'll ask on RHDN's script and language board about this as its probably wrong,

*** NB had to look this up as its been ages since I've read the original. A guess from the cover art, and a look on wiki for the synopsis. This is also the only time Hurd Applegate appears here as there is no Tower Treasure as the canonical origin mystery. Or Aztec Warrior if you're a British reader.

**** This is also rather a more accurate description of the mystery as well, about half the book is dedicated to taxidermy specimens used to hide stuff in. As well as short wave radio.

So there you have it, all the information I could find about the Japanese series. Looks like John McCaleb also translated the Nancy Drew mysteries as well. The titles are on the wikipedia page linked above. Sorry I had to update this on a Monday of all days, but this couldn't really wait.

Streatham Junk Tour

We did a visit to Streatham, South London, on Saturday. Unlike previous posts, which have some familial connection, Streatham, despite being South London where my dad's side of my family come from, has precious little of all to do with us.

Its uncharted territory and is ripe for a good junk tour. We didn't know what to expect, only that the high street is long and has a few charity shops including a few book and music dedicated Oxfams.

We got off to a really good start as we got a Venetian Snares single in Balham and a few mix CD's including Kevin Saunderson mix on Defective. 

The bus to Streatham is right outside the tube station, which is convenient, (it's also the only bus that goes from that stop so you can't miss it) and after a while we got to where we wanted to go.

They had quite a load of shops and we ended up taking a punt on A Certain Ratio Graveyard and Ballroom CD as Discogs app was being cunty. Its really good new wave rock / dance and for one makes which I didn't hate guitar stuff with a passion.

Also picked up a few promo CDs which ranged from The Orb with Lee Scratch Perry (good) Eyeballs  Invisible Castle(drone) and French For Cartridge (bleurgh Indie Kids.)

Final pick up was a solo release of Xaviera Gold's Mucho Man a nice slice of dark house from 1989 and one of those that never got played out nor got any attention back in the day. Its really good and seems criminally overlooked.

Having enough of that we decided to get the bus back to Balham and go home. Pro tip the stop you want is behind the station, and there is a choice of buses too. One goes to Stockwell and the other Balham. Easy to pick up the northern line to reach across the river or reach central London for other places.

So in hindsight Streatham is the Walthmastow of the south.

Hounslow Junk Tour

Decided to go on another junk tour and this is one that I've wanted to do for some years now.

In a similar vein to my trip to Peckham this is another trip back to my childhood but this time its on my mum's side of the family as my granddad lived there for most his life. 

I can remember getting the train down with mum and dad and getting off  and going down piggy alley (probably not its real name) and head toward Cromwell Road. They built a massive hindu temple there in the mid 90's about the same time my granddad passed on.

Anyway this didn't actually turn out to be a trip to Hounslow itself to begin with. I wanted to go to Ealing but seeing as I had a choice of Richmond or waiting for the Ealing train, decided I'd visit there and have a look around. Their charity shop choices are limited and coming out to rain and seeing a bus for Hounslow decided I have fuck all to lose by getting on board and heading off there.

They still have a few places I remember as I came in. The bus station and the Treaty Centre which I remember opening as we got balloons, to take home. There is also a Blenheim Centre too which houses an Asda, a Bum (B+M) and a Barnardos. I could have gotten a CD dedicated to Gurbani Fonts which I guess is to do with Sikhism. Pity there wasn't 9 other CD's I wanted for a £1 as I'd have whacked it up on Archive.org for everyone.

Still raining as I came out and found my way to the main drag. Found the Cex where my cousin's kid worked. They have some communist little cunt out by the main entrance to the centre with a sign saying how wonderful Cuba is as a socialist paradise (It's not.) And came across the worlds grimmest game shop with an entire top row of DS games dedicated to 42 board games and brain training.

Working down we bought a ton of techno in the Princess Alice to make up for it and decided to call it a day and seemingly took the longest route back home which sucked.

10th Anniversary.

At the beginning of December it shall be 10 years since I started writing this blog. 

I set it up to basically have an output, online and act as an archive to things that I would have forgotten about over the years. Stuff like British Cable TV, Polish cartoons, Hardy Boys detective novels.  A love for the PSP and PS Vita consoles, and some Rom hacks that I've played and liked.

I have at times written reaction pieces to bad reporting on cacti and have received at least 1 comment that wasn't spam over the years. 

Looking at my earliest posts I really wanted it to be called Lobster Egg, in part derived from Roger Irrelavent in the Viz and essentially Davey Jones strips which speaks to my level of stupid. But it turned out that the name was taken by a food blog, which was a bummer.

I still don't know 100% where Tibbet, as in my name for a cat, came from. Pretty sure its Mrs. Kitten from the classic Smoke and Fluff but of course intensely corrupted. See also Mrs Nibble / Mrs Cobble from Blackberry Farm tales for the rabbit equivalent. 

It also seemed that I was a bit haphazard in my posting, putting pages up rather than every Sunday, like I do now.  

I was a proper hammer on feminism then, which would take Darkness Savior on Tumblr of all places to turn me on to the whole MRA / Skeptic community. I still like the news critic stuff like Tim Pool, Short Fat Otaku, Vee, The Britisher and even Sargon and Thunderf00t when they're not too cringy.

I added a twatter profile some two years ago and its brought me daily dogs, cats, game knowledge and left wing cunts galore to laugh at. 

Its bittersweet to look back at how the time has gone and that, and for once decided to do what every other cunt does when it advances in years. Adds a shitty retrospective post.