What Happened at Midnight review.

 Got done reading through both editions of What Happened at Midnight, as the title suggests, one of the old Les Macfarlane stories before it was rewritten in the sixties.

I'll start off  with the original text, as there are quite a few parallels between the two. First off all we have the set up. Chet Morton has gathered the gang downtown, to the opening of a brand new automat. Whilst pissing about ordering food, some out of town lads start making trouble and (to cut a story in half) Joe Hardy barrels into a tall blonde haired bloke.

The same guy is also bumped into again after the boys pick up their mum's diamond ring from the jewellers. And that is the start of their trouble. At a party at the Morton farm, on the stroke of midnight, Joe is kidnapped by the blonde haired guy. And it takes a frantic search by Frank and an unlikely tip from Aunt Gertrude before he is rescued from a cave on the Barmet Coast.

There are several drag backs in this book to earlier stories, the Shore Road mysteries where the boys set up a trojan car to apprehend a gang and later on in the story with a nascent Bayport airfield as seen in the Great Airport mystery.

Nothing much happens until the boys catch sight of Joe's kidnapper again and they trail him all the way to New York, where Frank has his pocket picked and their cash and return train tickets are stolen. 

They decide to sleep out in Central Park and then hitch home, lucking out where they work at a cafe for a bit before catching a lift back with some company men (DOJ) on the look out for a big time crook called Taffy Marr.

Marr is working at a jewellers in town and soon gets wind that the boys are onto him and gets a plane from Bayport Airfield to escape. The boys also get a plane  but as its a piece of junk it stalls and they, dramatically bail out before it crashes, parachuting to the ground.

The gang is finally wound up on the coast and the boys recap this back at the Morton farm where a party is held in their honour.

 Remake.

The remake text follows it quite closely, but has the boys play burglar to steal an super portable radio on behalf of its inventor, to stop it getting in the hands of Taffy Marr's gang. The blond haired guy still captures Joe, but this is more to do with him eavesdropping rather than being bumped into.

There is no hitching, or automats in this one and the plane crash is worked in as a vintage biplane club (its never explicitly described as a biplane in the original.) and its pilot, who provides the means to track Taffy's plane. 

The Agents are now FBI rather than DOJ men, and the boys rely much more on the cops to get them out of trouble when  they are stranded in New York. But in most regards its still the same story but much more fleshed out.

Conclusion.

Whether you read the original or the remake. Its not a bad story, whichever you choose. The original is more dated and barebones, but at least you don't have the Hardys playing housebreakers for some super transistor radio. The remake is shorter but feels much more fleshed out, Joes kidnapping is not the main emphasis of the tale as it is in the original. Its more the theft of the radio and jewels.

Finally we have one line that's bugging me from the original.

All to the Worcester(shire) sauce. which from context seems to be the equivalent of lets go get 'em line its not a quote, but maybe an old slogan for sauce that is long forgotten. I'll have to dig around and see what I can find.

Oh and the non bracketed version is how Worcestershire sauce is known in the UK. Seems to be a yank thing where its spelt right out.

Brief.

 Not much to say this week. Glad to have the Charity Shops open again as well as the bars and clubs I could give  not one solitary fuck about. 

We picked up some quality trip hop, this includes Dummy Portishead, and Blue Lines by Massive Attack.

Also if you are on the twatter, give a look out for Ventla, a guy who uses a bunch of toys and fx pedals to make music and stuff, excellent.

Finally some book news. Got the last Sue Grafton I've been after J for Justice and a new Hardy boys book the Original What Happened At Midnight, which will require it's own write up as its different to the remake.

Making of a Moral Panic

Been wanting to write about this for a week now. You would have gotten this, earlier, at Easter, but here it is. There seems to be another moral panic coming over pron in schools.

There is a massive sex scandal going round independent schools and such, Dulwich college springs to mind, but it's not the only place its going down. "Rape culture." is of course to blame, as is the easy access to porno. Which reminds me of the old saying correlation is not causation.

Then there are "moderates" like Sarah Vine, wife of Pob, writing about how pron is the worst and bringing up stuff like bikini shots and wider culture is to blame for sexualizing women, and lets get this straight, it's only women. 

Because gay porn does not exist, trans porn does not exist and Lesbian porn certainly does not exist. As does the consensual stuff, shot on a potato cam, badly lit in someone's bedroom, or porn directed by women for women, that I'm pretty sure does not exist. It's only the worst of the worst, rough sex porn clips you know the throat fucker type shit. yer Max Hardcore style degradation, which I personally hate. this is all porn is to those types. And no you do not get any links for those.

Its judging every film ever made, on someone viewing video nasties or torture porn horror movies, and then writing a bunch of words that this is all that movies are.

I don't doubt there is some sort of "rape culture" there. And yes you should educate young men that pron is not what fucking is IRL. There is a whole ball park of things that people will or will not do, respect and don't pressure them into doing stuff.

Oh and then there's this.

"But if there is one thing I could do, it would be this: put internet porn behind a paywall. Make it impossible – or at the very least less possible – for young children to see stuff their brains can’t comprehend. Protect them from this stuff until they are old enough not to let it damage them. Because until that happens we run the risk of blaming our children for the sins of us adults."

I will say this though growing up in the 80's and 90's there was always porno about. Either in the Newsagents on the top shelf, or ripped up in the local hedgerows and parks. Hell, in big school, you can remember when you saw your first pron mag, as sure as when the day a dog got into the school playground.  (can't have been the only one who remembers this from school, actually, every body remembers the dog in the playground.)

Rather than police what your kids do online and take an interest. Its all paywalls and stuff which will not work and kinda exist now for paysites, anyway.

Easter

This is strange thought of mine. Only really coming together over the past few days and such, but I've held some of these beliefs for a few years now. The last one in particular.

OK time to explain myself. The Easter story is essentially this. Jesus is betrayed, crucified and resurrects a few days later. Xmas is all about his birth which we have concrete day to celebrate, albeit one not specified in the bible. But Easter is different every year. If Jesus was real. and the resurrection is real, shouldn't there be a specified day for Easter every year, given that you only die once, or is it implied that Christ dies and resurrects every year. 

And if he did die once and resurrect as scripture says, then shouldn't some of his followers in antiquity have made a note of the day of his death and resurrection, and basically worship Easter on that day year after year instead of this crazy moveable feast we do, year after year.

The second question is a thought I've held for much, much longer. It boils down to this. Given there is no date for Xmas in the bible and that the themes of Easter are, mythologically speaking, more to do with winter. I know the bible has it to do with the festival of Passover, but shouldn't we really celebrate Xmas in spring, with its theme of life and celebration, and celebrate Easter at the end of the new year due to its death and resurrection themes.

Unrelated Picture

Sky Blue Frames

Another late era Hardy boys book, scanned and edited down. This is the penultimate book we got and it shows. The quality of printing is pretty low, not quite sub west African evangelical tract level of printing but still not the best. Also we are down to 16 chapters, from the usual 20, (or 25 if you are an original series purist.) Finally there is no trail for a subsequent mystery (in this case Danger on the Diamond.) it just ends.

The story itself, isn't half bad,  I've yet to see a standalone review of it online, but its a solid 6/10. The boys stop a "purse snatching" at Bayport mall. The people behind it are setting up a mystery weekend and want the boys to stage a crime as part of it. They bring along Chet Morton and his sister Iola, who poses as the Hardy's sister instead. The plan is to bring along a Rhinestone necklace of hers and have Chet nick it while there.

Things take a turn for the worst, when there is a real theft from guests there, and its blamed on the Hardys as burglary tools are found in their room. This is where the frame part of the title comes into play. 

Its not a bad story, a little boring and gimmicky, but the later number stories are all like this. A few edits to the main story in the UK edition. All instances of 'parlor' are now rendered as parlour, and a line about a Reuben sandwich is removed (seeing as I had to google it, it's for the best. For the curious its a strange non kosher Jewish sandwich).

I'll be back tomorrow with a regular non book post seeing as its easter.

You can read it here.