In Hiding

 The next entry will be my 700th, not that there's going to be anything planned like. Just thought I'd mention it, before moving on.

Anyway, the Figure in Hiding, one of my favourites from my childhood and one of the Hardy mysteries along with Hissing Serpent and Sting of the Scorpion which were held off for "contractual reasons" I.E. owned by someone else at the time. 

The revised edition is a wonderfully strange story about false eyes with Morse transmitters inside, evil eye folklore and a gang using a health spa as a hideout whilst getting facial surgery to evade the law. There isn't really any one figure that's in hiding and that goes for the original too, but its such a weird story that I have to add it. 

Also for some reason, looking online about Tony Prito and such. I guess he's a Sicilian Italian or at least that heritage, thanks to all the folklore here, oh and his boat being called the Napoli and all. 

Anyway the original is much darker and it seems more unfocussed as a result. A gang of crims lead by Doc Grafton (not a real doctor), is running home eye surgery as a scam for vulnerable people and taking the cash and feign surgery. That is not the real kicker though. That would be Virginia Sinder supposed daughter to one of the crooks and later turns out, just adopted.

She is really rather well written, too, a genuine basket case, with major daddy issues, who tries to drive into the Willow River to end it all and later on, hides out in a village to stop her "dad" taking her back, but through dumb luck ends up in Grafton's hide out in the woods.

 Anyway remake revision here. Original here.

Confuzed.

 Had an amazing run out at the bootsale today. A lot of people dumping stuff so my haul was literally, two bags full today.

Got a lot of new records to scan and upload, but highlights of this has to be Powell Fizz, Florian Kupfer Evolva, and a few obscure tracks on the Supertronics label. Finish it off with a box set of NCIS (season 1) and a fuck load of books, Martin Lewis Supertips dumped out and Celebrity cats. With crime writer Ruth Rendell holding a grey Weedle type, is my favourite obscure  cross over.

 Also been thinking about long forgotten ads and stuff, my current favourite is the one that says what is a man but sadly doesn't go into Dracula's quote from Symphony of the Night. 

What I was really remembering was an old Confused. com sponsorship post for early evening ITV2, back in like 2010, that used music from SaGa Frontier 2, I think its this which is map screen music. I should really do a video on The Children's Channel stuff, like Jack in the Box or Stories without words. But I'd have to get a robot to narrate as I hate the sound of my own voice.

Grave of the Fur flies

 Apologies for the bad pun in the title, though I guess it is kind of apt. Have been wading through a ton of spam in my inbox (the usual suspects here, and for some reason Norton which I've not used for over a decade) and reading books.

Sky Sabotage, which you'll probably get, soon, Private Eye's SARS 2 electric boogaloo casebook, about what should have happened when the coof arrived. And Meeting in Japan, Fosco Maraini, which the heading pertains to.

August time, so I'm guessing O-bon festival, it talks about Buddhist remembrance festivals for the fish taken and something about cats and Hachiko the Dog, bravely waiting for its master down at Shibuya.  Can remember bits from The World Ends With You where its implied he only stayed there because people gave him tidbits to eat.

Anyway, before I digress further, the cat bits and fishlore I've not heard before and as it was written in the late 50's (Italian Original) or early 60's (English Translation) maybe its the last gasp of old Japan, before the new Showa era wiped it out.

In August Buddhist monks and laymen go down the Sumida river in boats, both to say prayers for the drowned and to apologize to the fish of the river for having taken their lives with rod and line, spear, and net. At the Oizumi cemetery, and in many other places, impressive services are held for the souls of dead cats and dogs and other animals, sometimes including insects. On such occasions many people visit the graves of cats who became famous for saving their master's lives, often in highly dramatic circumstances; the celebrated Gokoku-ji and Eko-in cats, for instance. There is a bridge in Tokyo, the Nekomatabashi, dedicated to a cat which, with a somewhat under-developed sense of private property, tried to relieve the poverty of its sick mistress by stealing small gold objects from a neighbouring moneylender. 

The paragraph goes on to describe loyal doggo, Hachiko, waiting for his master's return.

Looking at English sources for this I've found very little about this gift giving cat, only that the bridge was in Koisihkawa ward in Tokyo (home of the Tokyo dome) and that the area is mostly unscathed from quakes, WW2 firebombing, and other disasters. It's also home to some impressive Tokugawa Shogunate graves too.

A monster cat lived there (Nekomata) and people were scared to cross it. There is also an Ukiyo-e print of a demon Weedle, from that area, too. I know it best from Megaten. 

There are plenty of tales of cats dragging stuff back to their owners, so maybe this is some postwar version from Japan. 

Edit. Found out what Eko-in is about, there's a shrine to cats and dogs there. Gokoku-ji is probably Gotokuji, as linked above (another cat shrine).

Figures in hiding.

 Here's a strange thing, been reading through and formatting A Figure In Hiding by Franklin W. Dixon, one of the original canon books that was extensively rewritten. 

The rewrite version of this is crazy, it involves the bad eye syndicate, a health farm and a big glass eye used as a shortwave transceiver. The original on the other hand...

Has someone attempt suicide. I'm not kidding, the boys are helping Fenton out by eavesdropping on some suspects in the hotel room. The daughter of the main suspect Rip Sinder, tells them to stop doing what they're doing, before its revealed that she's an orphan that Rip is looking after.

The next thing, she's running from the hotel and driving off toward the Willow River. The car goes over, but not before the boys pull her out and prevent her from topping herself, as she's nothing left to live for.

I've yet to find out what the gang is doing in that hotel room, or how it ties into a cinema robbery. The remake has Sinder saying very little, he's a big ex boxer who's taken a whack to the throat and cannot speak much more than grunts.