Whale Tattoo

The secret of the whale tattoo review, then, when I should be wishing you a happy new year and putting myself to bed. 

The boys are helping out at a local carnival hoping to catch pickpockets on behalf of a MR Solo. Fenton has a case where a man, calling himself Black Right, has a missing ivory idol for sale,  that was looted a few years back. Those two cases couldn't possibly be connected... could they?

Indeed they are and when a stuffed blue whale is uncovered on a building site owned by Tony Prito's dad then it seems that some one wants to  stop them from putting two and two together and finding out who the gang on robbers with whale tattoos are. 

The action takes place in Bayport and Mystic Connecticut. There is a nice throw in to cryptozoology too, as the whale was washed up in Montauk where a mystery beast was also found in 2008. The whale, now owned by Tony Prito and Biff Hooper, gets stolen and the boys head out to capture it.

It's not a bad story overall, the Tattoo angle is strange for the point of view these days as the world and their dog seems to have some sort of body art. Back when it was written this was quite different, as only certain types had tatts. 

There is no real differences between the UK and US editions either. All references to carnies and such are gone. It's not as if we don't have these travelling fairs either. And the ending where Cousin Elmer (a long lost cousin and some sort of sailor) comes to stay is changed. But that is it.

You can find the original and the UK versions here. and here.

Year round up missed flipped skipped edition 2023

 It's the  time of year where we see all the things we forgot about over the past few days. It also includes vidya books and YTP and Youtuber stuff so without further ado lets check in.

Music. 

Coi Leray Girls are players too.

A.K.A. Girls are fit as fuck (which is what I sing along to it,) A.K.A. That track that ripped off the Message Grandmaster Flash but ended up sucking balls.

Theo Parrish. DJ Kicks.

Some top drawer Jazzy House and indeed Housey Jazz style tracks here. Forgot all about this and really wish I didn't.

TV.

All creatures great and small.

Used to watch this back in the day, and will say that this is a good version of proper modernization. Previous series had Jim Moir (Vic Reeves) on a break from drawing. This season Rio Ferdinand with a Ferret.

Books. 

The coming plague.

A thick old book looking at emerging diseases. It ended around 1995 and covered Ebola, Antibiotic resistance and the emergence of HIV / AIDS. Whereas the "Gay plague" as it was dubbed in the west did indeed rip through the gay communities of America. I was surprised to know that it was war and chronic needle shortage leading to reuse of syringes that lay the foundations of the AIDS epidemic in Africa. That and regular prostitution. It doesn't cover SARS or COVID as those were this centuries diseases, but the same rules apply. I'm pretty sure that SARS will have a natural origin along with the general shoddiness of Chinese safety protocols, that will be what caused the pandemic.

Youtube.

A few good things, such as Miles Power's demolition of Holocaust Denial. Including weirdo guy half naked in a kiddies playground. 

No if you want the best of the best, its a Ya Boy Zack vid on the whole trans autistic lesbians write inferior comic books vid. My thoughts on trans BTW is that you need genuine dysmorphia to be trans, its not a feeling or that I can't handle being a pretty girl so I'll be a boy instead.  Sorry doesn't work, you need to grow up feeling that my body is not the one I'm supposed to be in. 

Movies.

Finally saw the Mario film yesterday and it was a genuine joy laughing at all the little in jokes. Such as the Gamecube start up music on Luigi's phone, and Bowsers Ludwig von Koopa piano he sings along to.

Games.

Both Metroid Dread and Labyrinth of Refrain: Covenant of Dread are occupying my time. Absolute top notch, with ironically both a female lead in each game. The the latter  has lesbian nuns in it. Plus Madam Dronya is one laconic bitch. 

 

A tale of two kitties.

 This is the place where we'd usually expand on what music I'd thought was cool / sucked this year but seeing as we switched from Kiss FM to Heart at work then it basically boils down to the new Andre 3000 flute jazz album as the absolute best and Commercial  Cee Sprinter as the total nadir of the year. 

No I'd rather spend my time writing about cats or rather a tale of two kitties. Tabby McTat for the BBC and Mog on Channel 4. Both are set in London and whereas Mog is a full on nostalgia fest set in what looks like the 70's. Tabby McTat is a full on modern day, Multi-cultural London. As a result it feels weirdly off. Modern day things for a modern day audience.

Tabby, stars a busker and his singing cat, who thanks to a crook nicking his hat full of takings ends up in A&E while his cat wanders off to live with the weird lesbians and their cat Sock, a Black cat with a white paw. I thought one of them was trans at first until I clicked its supposed to be Islington and they're leftie weirdo types. One of the best things I can fully cheer them for is Weedle representation as one of Sock's kittens is a Weedle type. 

Weedle and Xmas 80x or so.

Anyway the two are reunited and busker bloke gets a place and takes on Tabby's son Spratt.

Mog on the other hand is a real gem. Based on the books by Judith Kerr, this is a real nostalgia bait for those of a certain age. It just screams family and cosyness. It has mum, dad, a daughter and son and Mog, trying to deal with change at Xmas. Dad gets a spanking great tree for his kids, and Mog is booted out. If you are an Autistic weirdo like me you'll see parallels to the autism experience of change and stuff. Mog decamps to the roof while this is going on. 

Meanwhile they have family over, a cheerful uncle and two aunties one dozy and one quite sane. You can imagine them living together as two spinsters or you can imply they're not. Anyway it just hangs together as a family unit. Mog does decide to come down via the chimney and runs amok,  before being captured and bathed. 

I will say its beautiful, and of a period of London long lost. The only non white is a Jamaica lady who's evil chimp child of a son likes Mog. Tabby McTat is the full on modern London with modern values, but this is for the old heads who grew up here and see it decline full time. 

You can see it here. Tabby McTat is on iPlayer which is not free and therefore doesn't get a link.

Round up year end edition. PT1

Apologies for this but I really should have kept a better tally of what I saw, listened to and played this year. But I didn't. So here is a few things that were actually pretty boss before we head off  for the annual Miranda awards.

Best.

CSI Vegas season 2. An episode called the promise was the best bit, a cold case of  child dumped in a lake 40 years ago and revealed as the water levels dropped, also we finally get Greg (Eric Szmanda) back as a visiting professor to help out the Crime lab.

Endeavour.  Final episode of the Inspector Morse spin off. One of those where you wonder what will happen to either Fred Thursday or his daughter Joan, both main characters and both never made it into the regular Inspector Morse show.

Lidl's Xmas advert.

Because you can excuse a poor year for everything with a festive raccoon. 

Rolf Harris making of a monster.

Proving that an entertaining wrong' un is still a wrong' un. 

Miranda awards, for televisual train wrecks. 

Unforgotten. 

We got a new case this year along with a new bird in charge. Its grim as it  involves a body buried in the wall of a house in south London. It also remains largely watchable with Sanjeev Bhaskar being an excellent actor. So why is it here. For fucking activism. Wokery and other bullshit politics. You know when the old Tory MP was a suspect you just knew he ended up doing it. (He didn't mind you but was fitted up for it. Because Tories evil).

 The Centerfold Murders

 A largely boring reconstruction of a murdered playboy bunny in the 1970's. Bailed out after 15 minutes and later found she posed for old softcore mags (NSFW) back in the 1970's. 

Caught on Dashcam.

This I've largely forgotten, apparently Andy Nyman narrates this, thought it was Jamie Theakston of Heart breakfast fame. What this needed was a Beavis and Butthead style laughing at accidents style. 

Finally Sainsburys Christmas advert. I care little what Father Christmas has for dinner. Though I've just seen this years Digitizer mans Daddy jokes so I'm guessing it's Roast Reindeer. 

Baphomet and Youtube

 It seems that America is having a normal one again. For my sins I follow a few culture war posters on X and it seems that they are  toppling statues in America again. Some literal baldy man version of the Chad meme guy has beheaded a statue of Baphomet, put up in Des Moines, Iowa. 

The overwhelming part of this thinks its a good thing, and focuses on the Christcuck right's obsession with guns, god and finding a place to start a family. As someone who's a autistic loner by trade and admission I'm in no position to own my own arsenal or plot of land let alone a bird to call my own. 

Besides as an atheist we really do use Satan to mock you, because church and state should be separate not tied together, so tight you cannot pull  them apart. That abortion should be a right and not contraception. 

In other news, I got another strike from Youtube, as the greatest moments in porn, (entirely nudity free but found fucking hilarious) got pulled for being spammy. No the real reason is that I stick to the 2010 Youtube rules if its funny I post and would never, ever link to or accept any monetization of my channel or paid sponsorship. You pulled it be you couldn't get an ad sponsor of it. We are not the same. 

That's why mum's go to Iceland

 We started reading through the Arctic Patrol mystery just as reports were coming through that Iceland was  experiencing a major volcanic event. That would have been last month when that big crack in the earth split open Grindevik.

Anyway Arctic Patrol mystery, serendipity aside, is the second Hardy boys book here. You may have got House on the Cliff in America. For us its the Hardy's trip to the cold north. The boys, Chet Morton and Biff Hooper travel  to Iceland to find one Rex Mar and say he's inherited $50,000 from someone who saved him back then. There is of course another mystery of a missing Astronaut training in  the harsh lava landscape of  Iceland's countryside. Gee  I wonder if the two cases are related.

There seems to be quite a good bit on Iceland here. Some language and last name customs along with talk on cuisine and the ever present elves. You don't get much difference between the two editions. We get the term sod hut replaced which sounds like a step up from the naughty step, and a few UK spellings of words, but compared to the later books which have bugger all done to it, this seems like a veritable litany of changes. Finally thanks to my printer dying you were supposed to get a copy of the map of Iceland printed in the front of the book. Also another cat I drew in biro back in the day (he's called Leo).

Anyway you know the drill UK version here US version here.

Who is this for.

Noticed an ad in the Sunday supplement in the week for one of those realistic babies, and it got me thinking... Who are these aimed at. I know there are sex dolls for those who, for some reason lack a partner (cough) or just have a fetish for silicone dolls. But I don't see this being the market at all. What I'm describing is a realistic baby often a newborn or so rendered in silicone. 

Something like this and I just don't get the appeal. I remember there being a baby Orangutan version as well, if you want your own lifelike librarian from the Unseen University. 

A few other things as well cross this area of appeal, the whole kids pageant thing and why you never became a dancer type programmes on TV. You know they used to have this on TLC where they followed a bunch of kids dancing. Never quite sure of the audience with this. If you're a paedo then there are far too many shots of the parents for you know "those" purposes. I guess its for women who did ballet / dance training as a kid and failed.