KTEL games

Got a bunch of old videos from the last bootsale of the season. Home recorded stuff, which includes early things on Channel 4 and ITV. Namely someones recording of Grand Hotel with Marlene Dietrich and what I'm going to talk about today. A home recording of Cosgrove and Halls The Wind in the Willows. Or rather, one specific ad found on this. KTEL are known for either fad kitchen gadgets or shoddy compilation records from the 70's, which includes this which my dad still has somewhere. It seems that they had another line up to their bows as well. Video games. Mostly what you'll see on line is some sort of double ended Atari game trash, but it seems that for the British market they also put out Speccy / Vic20 stuff. Looks like there were a few tapes as well as the one's in the vid. There is a full list here of what Speccy games were put out. VIC2O fans can go here to see all of KTels releases for that platform. Keep you posted if I find anything else of note.

Can you tell me what it is yet.

Currently reading through disgraced children's TV presenter Rolf Harris's True Animal Tales, a free pick up from the bootsale, and it's not a bad read. Its a small collection of mainly true stories that normally would be confined to a side bar in Fortean Times but here are extrapolated into a whole book. You get tales of bravery and brushes with death, incredible survival and fuck all notes or indeed idea where these tales come from. A few I remember such as the tale of Hachiko the Akita waiting patiently for his master (transcribed incorrectly here) at Shibuya station, but of course never coming home. A baboon that was employed as a signalman in Victorian South Africa and a few massive animal tracks A la the journey home. There is an audio book version of this listed on Amazon along with the book itself, really hoping Rolf himself is reading this, as that would cap it off. Finally a nice touch on the cover of this, Rolf covered in young pussy (and by that I mean he's smothered in kittens) that is reminiscent of Vic Reeves covered in stuffed monkeys as Hugh Scully in a Smeel Of Reeves and Mortimer. Still can't beat them allegations, huh.

RARE and EXTINCT at Kew

Nice day out to Kew for the first time since our disasterous trip last year. A dull day to look around the gardens and for once in a blue moon a Facebook ad that wasn't auto blocked was relevant to my needs. An exhibition on plants that are endangered or now extinct in the wild from a variety of sources. Its on till the 17th of November in the small octagon bits between the main Temperate house, if you're interested. With a few overspill bits in the main Temperate house. We went on the Friday and like I said it was a dull day. As I'm not a member I had to pay £15.50 to get in (the cheapest I've had for ages) and had a look round. First impressions. Not mentioned really but there is quite a healthy Jackdaw population here that I've never seen elsewhere in London and the most Jays I've seen in one place too. The main exhibition is free to enter (it takes up the whole temperate house) and shows a variety of plants that are either extinct in the wild or critically endangered. This includes various island flora such as ST. Helena and a few taxa from South Africa (Conohytum and a Whorled Heath) along with the Lady's Slipper Orchid which is nearly extinct here in the UK. I'm not sure about there being 200 species of Conophytum but thanks to the Chinese they are being collected to extinction, which is not good.

St Helena Redwood.

Something doubly rare. Aloe Albiflora a white flowered Aloe.

Vampire Trail.

Danger on Vampire trail is the 42nd Hardy boys book released here, and it seems to be something of an anomaly. There are two stories which the boys are investigating, the first is the wholesale fraud on the Magnacard credit card (a sort of prototype American Express) and the second is the illegal mining of sapphires up in the rockies. The anomaly here is as it's written in the early 70's is this the first story or detective novel solely concerned with credit card fraud? The main story is that Biff Hooper, friend of the Hardys has a bloodhound called Sherlock which they bring on a trip out west celebrating Chet Morton picking up a cheap trailer which turns out was bought fraudulently on a Magnacard. Several incidents take place as they head towards Denver, Colorado and there is a show down of sorts up on Vampire Trail complete with imported Vampire bats. There is a few things here for pedants like myself. Chet has no hobbys in this one. Biff Hooper gets a dog for this one novel. Though I'm pretty sure he had another called Tivoli in another book. And we learn that Mrs Hardy wants a sapphire as its her birth stone making her birthday fall in September. Anyway there isn't too many differences between the two editions. We get no next book at the end and a few terms are changed, trailer is now caravan. You can read both the UK and US versions here and here.

Uptown Ranking

A round up of stuff if you will. Yesterday we went up town to see if the Orb's Orboretum was released, Spoiler it wasn't. But it gave us a chance to get out and see London, for the first time in ages. Well the non burb bits, anyway. There was a march planned to unite the right. I never saw any of these supposed nazis, but I did see a bunch of crusty, Socialist Wanker types lurking by the Eros statue in Piccadilly. In fact it was a funny old day after all. A couple of things I wanted were either disappointing or not out yet. Also managed to find a Meta Quest at work. And after a lot of faff managed to get it to work. I suppose if you buy into VR as the future it's OK, I ended up getting a headache after 5 minutes or so, and my wreck of a laptop is definitely not supported. So we downloaded Kid Icarus for SNES instead, and am having fun with that. Finally leave you with the funniest sign I saw from the Socialist Wanker types.

Family stuff.

Don't usually post the personal here. Its not important to the wider world to know about me too much, I'm not a celeb and my life isn't interesting. We took a trip out west to seem my Aunty for the day, haven't seen her for about a year or so, though my mum keeps in touch. She has a small dog that's an absolute nutter and she quickly settled in to destroying her favourite toy. Took the cross rail to Heathrow and then a bus on. It's the first time I've ever been to Heathrow airport in any context and well its a big airport. Eavesdropped on some people on the train over. Hilarious anectode about her boyfriend eating half her birth control pills and wondering why he got all grumpy. Got to see my cousin and learned that my other cousin is hoping to get married next year. I wish tehm luck in all that they do, especially if they want kids. Aunty is doing fine, and liked the birthday card I sent. Finally, if you're a fellow robot who hates noise and such then Hayes and Harlington is not a good place to wait for the Heathrow bound train for crossing over. I counted at least 4 express trains rocketing through and its the closest I've come to a meltdown in ages. Not good.

Masked Monkeys

So the Masked Monkey or the Hardys go to Brazil. A nice case here for the boys tracking down the sensitive son of rich industrialist J.G. Retson. Theres a good subplot of Chet running a golf ball extraction empire from his pick up truck (surely on loan from the Morton farm). But mostly its the boys in Brazil trying to avoid the attention of a masked howler monkey called Diabo, and his owner Joachim San Marten. Anyway you know the drill. Original Here and the UK version Here.

Kamikaze Rats.

Here's a real mystery. This comes from a bootsale pick up of an old copy of New Scientist dated 5-2-81. That's the Fifth of February. An article in their forum section, details a new video game from Japan called Rat Patrol. No developer given nor publisher. I will quote the article below in full as I'm not sure if this place can do scans now. Kamikazi sic Rats Hot from Japan is perhaps the dottiest video game yet, Rat Patrol. Hordes of brown rats dive from the sky (yes, the sky) onto a peaceful city. Charles Fort and Arthur C Clarke would love it: it beats showers of fish or frogs any day. With quite unrat-liike stupidity, the beasts plunge into the hail of fire from your laser weapon, expiring with pitiful squeaks when hit. Rats which survive their skydive make nests in the bowels of the city and generally cause trouble. As the game proceeds, strange flying objects appear, bearing a read heart-shaped symbol. These are a kind of aerial love hotel for rats- centres of reproduction from wihich fresh supplies of vermin pour forth. If you can contain your laughter at the sheer absurdity (well, they are called amusement machines) you will find that it is quite a good game. But arcade operators had better watch out. As every scientist knows, there are now many people who find cruelty to rats no laughiing matter. An animal-lover who is not amused by this particular amusement might feel entirely justified in sticking his chewing gum in the coinslot so as to protect the minds of the young and the dignity of our fellow mammals. As far as we know, there is still no Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Space Invaders. Joking aside about as society for the prevention of gamer cruelty. What is this, exactly. Its not a bootleg Space invaders, nor Galaxian as the whole spawn bit doesn't work with this nor does the landing either as Galaxian doesn't do this and Space Invaders is a clear game over. In fact putting in various rodent permutations, the closest we get is Unviersal's Cheeky Mouse from 1980, a game where rats do fall from the sky and burrow down to steal cheese, but there are no lasers as you whack them with a mallet, or heart shaped love hotel. I would be a few years before they had a hit with Mr Do! so this is obscure. So this only half fits. If anyone reads this and knows. Pop a comment in as its quite a mystery.

PS-3

We got a new synth today. A Yamaha Portasound PS-3, and no it doesn't have anything to do with Sony. It's like some sort of analogue string machine and looking online it seems to be an analogue synth using square waves. Whether that is true or not remains the question. But it is a nice looking synth complete with gun style music case. Anyway more info about the whole portasound series can be found here. EDIT. A week on and it sort of works. It's mostly square waves with sounds being better with the sustain added. A few are glitchy but with new batteries and a few caps prodded about, it works. Mostly.

Ibiza Part3

I'm not sure if this counts or not. But this time round I've not been watching foreign TV much. They still had clubbing TV on playing gabber at 5am which is cool and Fernsehn Sud is still showing its space channel which is NASA clips and unsigned techno. 

Spain still has Doraemon on TV and we caught the band bit from ruleta del suerte. AKA wheel of fortune. Oh and there's Sharkey and George in Catalan. 

Dora ey mon. 

 I think last time we mentioned all the animal stuff we saw, and that includes the elusive balcony gecko. We'll add that we also saw a Turtle Dove which is rare here and part of the twelve days of Xmas. 

Ok seems we didin't do that after all. Just talked about the nudists and Es Canar. We had a few good things here including a nice shot of a Bath white and a Locust that crashed into our balcony window at 11PM on the last night home. We saw our Graush gulls and a Shag, along with a blackbird. A few nice cats at a bar but never worked out where the Peacock lived. Finally we saw an octopus holed up in a little hole in the rocks. He had a cask of Amontillado thing going on where he'd walled himself in with only a tentacle and beady eye peering out to give him away. really nice.

Holiday part1 Es Canar vs Cala Nova

 We went back to Ibiza. Es Canar to be exact. To the same hotel. This time its not so great. Had patchier wifi and the lift broke down a few times. But can't really complain its a 3 star place. You get what you pay for. 

Anyway rant over. You'll want some sort of comparison seeing as the pic in the above link is Cala Nova beach. Both are Es Canar, but the main beach at Es Canar along with the harbour is much nicer. True both have a good variety of things to see but there are more bars and places to visit at the main beach.

Cala Nova also has an ever present current when swimming / snorkeling so bear this in mind. Its also a quieter bay further down the coast with much more nature. Though we saw a Purple Stinger Jellyfish when swimming which didn't endear me much. The main attraction of Cala Nova is that its full of naked hippies. Its not a nudist beach per ce, it just has its share of washed up old people and free thinkers in dreads letting it all hang out. Including a grey haired prick with a man bun totally in the raw. Worse everyone who saw him, laughed.

Es Canar doesn't have its share of washed up hippies on the beach but does have a nice array of fish and that. Quite a collection of mullet and two spot bream including the little bastard who took a nip out of my leg. Also if anyone is remotely interested there is a small octopus walled up (entirely its own doing I may add) near the little jetty at the end of the bay. 

Finally you'll also want directions. Es Canar is on the east coast above Santa Eularlia des riu. You can get the 18a bus in and the main stop is in the main square. The beach is straight down the street. Cala Nova is further along and if you're in Es Canar don't bother getting the bus unless you have mobility problems. You can access it by heading along the top road and chucking a left at the Hotel Coral Beach. Cala Nova beach is on the right at the end of the road.

Cala Nova Low light exposure experiment.

Es Cana at the back of the Jacaranda bar

Gecko

 As you can tell, I'm away at the moment. Back at the same place, and, we share a room with a Gecko.

It's only on my second week here and it's been this long till I've noticed him. He sneaks out from the emergency stairwell and out towards the balcony light, after the moths that come. Just a smol boi, looking somewhat like a plastic toy, I've yet to get his photo (he's shy) but I do have an earlier photo from after the storm.

Edit. The best I could get was a small clip of him peering over the light outside my balcony.

The pic above is after a storm came. They had him on the car park wall.

Psycle essentials guide

 This is a short guide to Psycle, a barely maintained tracker style DAW for those who still play the old way.

I won't go into depths of what Version you want. Both are good. So if you want either the 32 bit or 64 eithers fine.

The newest version seems to have a virus and is marked as alpha. It works and has fixes for some VSTs, but it's also an alpha and I've had problems rendering sound, so get the previous beta version for now.

Use the installer and set your plugin directory. You'll also need to grab Polacs VST3 wrapper so you can use the latest instruments, unless you want VST 2 only. They'll be split into either synths and effects (unless it's the alpha, then it's all in one) with VST3s showing as VST3 synth name.

Oh and one final thing. Version your work. Make a folder where your track is saved and every time you save put it as a new track, Track 1, 2, 3, and so on, as it has a habit of crashing when loading (and sometimes while you work).

I'll add links and stuff over time, but it should be all you need yo get started.

Samurai Swords

 The mystery of the samurai sword is the 58th book in the Hardy Boys series and concerns the visit to America of a reclusive tycoon Takashi Satoya. He disappears en route to his hotel from his limo and as Fenton Hardy is tasked with his security is unceremoniously dumped from this task detail .

There is a secondary plot of the theft of a katana from the Palmer Dade auction house also owned by Satoya Takashi. Fill in  with a motorcycle gang plot and some insider dealing deep within Satoya's own company, and you have a pretty good story. The various plot points come together and play out with a big showdown with some yakuza thugs a biker gang and a very surprising ninja, that saves the day.

These later UK Hardy boys are word for word the same as the American releases, including spelling and terms. Angus and Robertson just reused the scripts without much localization, and apart from one line which could be from the text file I'm going from, has no real differences.

Anyway you can read the original here and UK version here. 

Double update.

 Not too much to say here, but it seems there are two alternatives to RHDN now. Seeing as it'll close at the end of the month these are neoromhacking.net.    a nice old skool forum type update of the main site, and  romhack.ing a bare bones version at the moment but more crucially has the old dinosaur image from years ago, which is a boon for the old heads out there.

In other news it seems that the far right rioters are getting sentenced. Well the fat fucks that call themselves far right, anyway. Mostly they seem to be football thugs and looters in my eyes, with a sprinkling of actual racists in there. Let me paraphrase this to you. If you need to riot to get your message across then you have failed. It will be doubly hard for people with actual grievances to get their thoughts and points across in an actual peaceful non violent protests. 

And if you think this will be only for those parties, such as reform, that you disagree with. Let me tell it to you straight, it'll be implemented across the board. In fact I can't wait to see the hope not hate brigade get hit with this. The whinging will be delicious. 

Also when it comes to disinfo, how come Hate not Hope are not being investigated for spreading fake news, when they post that the "far right" are coming to Walthamstow and Harrow, when in reality there was none.  Just an excuse to assemble the usual rent a mob of the far left, pro palestine weirdoes that are already here. 

Finally, A big thanks to the Rasta man busker outside Dalston train station for playing Waiting in Vain. One of the best Bob Marley tracks. Period.

Fighting words.

 If you've been living under a rock this past week, you can't have failed to notice that a lot of angry, pissed up blokes have been rampaging about our towns burning and looting and generally fighting the cops over what is largely thought to be "immigants coming in and taking our jerbs."

The catalyst was the stabbing of 3 young girls at a Taylor Swift yoga class by a Rwandan teen, which morphed into some world class disinfo, that it was "teh muslamics," and spread online by the far right (3 men and a dog) to turn into violent protest. Incidentally I'll put good money on that guy being a Christian from a strong god fearing family. Not saying there aren't Muslim Rwandans but if you really want to smash up a place, why not make it a church and target Christians, as its also a deadly ideology spreading hate and lies. Or is that too on the mark.

Anyway whatever was left of this now has largely burnt itself out like a scouse library and now all we have is the inverse, gangs of far left rent a mobs which are more peaceful but just as hectoring. Walls of stand up to hate and socialist wankers with endless placards and Palestinian flags. 

As you can see I'm a centrist. I don't want either groups in Britain. Far as I'm concerned people come, people go. Immigration albeit limited and legal is what made the UK, the old Eddie Izzard Mongrel Nation springs to mind. 

The ability to send back those that hate our way of life or are criminal are also what makes this country great. 

The integration of the immigrant class into our society and not balkanizing into ghettos and tribal lines are what makes this country great. 

I don't really stand with Farage or Tommy Robinson especially the latter. I will say that as part of the working class, we are never given a voice to speak about our fears. We're a Labour run and supposedly socialist democracy. Both noted poorshaggers and meant to at least be on the side of the common man. But I see none of that. 

You want the final word on this and someone who can put it better than I could. This piece from Andrew Neil a former giant of the left, and now Mail columnist.

RHDN is done.

 So it seems that Romhacking.net is going to close. A spiritual home for me for the last 15 or so odd years (subs plz check) and one of the few places with a decent forum.  I know its to do with site maintainer Nightcrawler being pigheaded about this and a few other things. But the good news is that the forums and hacks / translations are preserved on archive.org now. 

I know its just a stupid short few paragraphs from me, but I really hope the community comes together and offers up a decent alternative whilst keeping the traditions of  offering a helping hand to newbies and such. I was never a hacker or anything and mostly lurked there, but like I say its my first port of call when I get in from work. Hit the forums and see what projects people are doing. 

Dogspeed and R.I.P. 

 

Wild, cats!

 A trip up town yesterday, making sure I avoided the Tommy Tank bring our "Ingerland" home rally and all I see are a bunch of ugly tranners in dresses for a Trans Pride Rally. Jesus they have their own Troon bus. Anyway what you'll want is a brand new book to keep your mind off of this. 

The Secret of Wildcat Swamp, is the 38th Hardy boys book here and one of the last of the original rewritten stories. It involves the boys going out west to dig up a fossil camel with their science teacher, and falling into a mystery along the way. Like  I say its the rewritten edition we have, purloined from school when I left for the last time as we broke up for summer hols.  So this is sort of appropriate. 

It's a good adventure complete with some differences between the two books. The original scans to 25 chapters and extends out the boys riding the rails and meeting a circus strongman that is gone from the rewrite. Also a weird tale about Adam and Eve is also cut from this (something about them being giants) to save space.

Anyway you can get the original and the remake here. and here. 

Junk Tour

 It's been a while since I've been out of ideas,  posted about the bootsale. It's in a big field in Kent and takes a few buses to get to, so in the end I'm there right at the death, where as twenty years ago it would have been peak time. 

The good thing about being at the end is that there is a lot of free stuff to pick up. We sadly passed over an annotated photo album that had a lot of someone's photos from around the world, this includes Rhodes, which I've been to, just didn't have the room.

We have slides which is always good but is often a challenge to see where places were.

Dover some time in the 70's

 Books are also a good bet, we got a book on the Trees of Europe, and another on metaphor and Aspergers. Me I never had a problem with idiom such as break a leg or such, maybe its because we use them a lot in our family. General directions though are a different matter. 

Normally we have a massive space here for Music related stuff such as records, tapes and CDS. The only thing we had was a Mojo CD on Electro and a cute kid saying that a record was a big DVD. Which was nice.

Lastly we have an Ultraman picture frame. I'll put a photo up of this if anyone wants it its quite cute and that. 

Ghostbusters 2016. How to fix

 Had the misfortune to see this in the week. By Christ is it a fuck awful piece of cinema. One of those films alongside some dreadful Will Ferrell piece that I can only last 10 minutes before I can say I'm out.

The thing is, though I despise feminism in all its forms an all girl Ghostbusters wouldn't be half bad. Just get the right people to do it. Except we have Melissa McCarthy in this who is a constant ball ache and what I took for Cid Highwind from Final Fantasy or buff Simon Belmont from Captain N(once). It is instead Kate McKinnon. 

For yank actresses that are funny you could have had Tina Fey or Amy Poehler in this in fact I have this brainworm that they auditioned Alyssa Milano for this, but a check says no. Hell even a pre slim Rebel Wilson would have been better.

For unfunny American Comdiennes there is always Amy Schumer, and now I've got this hideous thing about her going on about her Helen Hunt. Which  I suppose is one small mercy. 

How would I fix this. I'd put it in the UK. I know it'd be London for international audiences, but ideally  I'd set it somewhere up north. Have Jennifer Saunders play Ray's role, Spengler would of course be Caroline Aherne and Catherine Tate for the Venkman's role. That leaves Meera Syal to be play Winston. I know we would have to have a black woman as an analogue but I can't for the likes of me have Gina Yashere play him.

I wouldn't mind Martin Clunes as the receptionist and for some reason it would have to have Stephen Fry in it. I know she's long gone Caroline Aherne, so this would have to be pitched in the late 90's or mid 2000's. Oh and from the tone it'll obviously be a parody like the old Comic Strip presents titles. 

Ibiza part 2

 So Ibiza then. We're going back this August which was a surprise to me. Same place same resort which is nice. Anyway, TV is the regular thing for the second week back and I have to tell you.. it's not much that isn't to do with football.

Euros here ATM. Which reminds me on a tangent, that the auto teller machines here in Spain show missing person notes on their screens.

Diversion over and we saw a few things in Spanish. Salvage Hunters in Spanish, CSI Miami, and of course Doraemon.  

Ibiza being Ibiza there is a few clubbing channels on the TV including Clubbing TV which through the art of glitch, showed some DJ sets as well as gear reviews (a new Oberheim synth was one.) and someone woman trying to take Simone Angel's crown interviewing some no mark DJ. And every one without fail, glitched and twitched via the art of poor bandwidth and data moshing.  

Not clubbing TV but another channel that succumbed to datamosh

Apart from that, though, little of anything of interest. 

Ibiza vol1.

 Animals and plants.

I've spent an hour downloading and renaming about 300 or so photos from my holiday. We have a few apps that will help out, I'm on iNaturalist now so I can get ID of stuff that I have no hope IDing on my own. Also on plant stuff, the app Flora Incognita gave me almost 100% ID rate on wild flowers and also cultivated stuff too. 

Big up to this guy's rizz.

Nice to see a Collared Dove duo. In fact along with House Sparrows these made up a duo of birds in decline in the UK, but doing well in Ibiza. Safe to say I never took a bad shot of these, and I took a few. 

Grauch.

Another bird doing locally well if not so hot overall is the Audoins Gull. These replace the Herring Gull here in Ibiza. even down to the reputation of being a chip thief. Wiki seems to play it down but as its all inclusive here. I've seen them sweep down and steal chips from a Dutch family. 

Finally we saw something that was only really present in Santa Eularlia the Pitiusos Lizard or Ibizan Wall Lizard.

Proud of this shot.

Along with a Red Palm Weevil and its attendant notices of bio control on various palms, this was the creature I saw the least here. 

Cute

To be fair, this is a massive palm pest, so seeing this least, is a good sign. 

We used to be...

 ... A proper internet.

Ever noticed how the net is shit now. I'm not talking about search which has been borked for ages. But discourse. A whole, we can't talk about "sensitive topics," because Google imagines us as a bunch of Suicidal Syd's ready to throw a seven at the slightest notice. We say unalived rather than talk about death head on, because god forbid something we all face in our life time should be taboo.

Worse of all, because of some nannying censor, all comments are policed within an inch of its life, less someone let slip and inconvenient truth under the guise of trolling.

Yeah I got an old Justin Bieber shit post vid removed by YTube. Something that ceased relevance a good 10 years ago. Still my rant still stands.

Eye beef ah.

 So, you'll get a short entry here. Hate phone typing so suffice to say, I'll not take up your time.

Been here a day and, it's Ok. Weathers nice, and the TV is mostly Great! As Ibiza is club orientated it's like my culture won instead of rock, so you get clubbing TV, where you can watch a DJ spin records or watch them review an Oberheim OBX with its inevitable Behringer clone.

We found the bus stop, and if this actually works, a link to TIBbet (TIB) buses. So if you're here and want to travel you can look it up.

Game plan

The reason you're getting an extra dose this week is that another hiatus is on the way. I'll see if I can post from the resort but for now... you're getting books. 

Game Plan for Disaster is the 74th book released here in the UK. It's not a bad story seeing its all about hand egg (U.S Football). The quick version of this is two stories. Kevin "Ace" Harrington state's star player is being targeted by mystery accidents and gamblers, whereas Robbie Stevenson son of the head of the Library is being targeted by two thugs who convinced him to steal a rare edition of Edgar Allen Poe's The Gold Bug. 

It's quite a nice mix of stories for once. Not everyone is part of one gang for once. Everyone seems  to want a piece of Ace and they get busted one by one. 

We'll also take a minute to say how nice the illustrations are in this one. And that the Hardback Angus and Robertson edition that I have completely spoils the plot. Clue its not the boys lost in the woods which is the cover for every other edition. And that includes the UK paperback.

Also for some reason we do not get a next episode / book trail in this version which is the only difference between the two editions. 

 Anyway US edition here.  UK edition here.

"Exciting" Cable news

 God knows how I managed to luck into this but it seems Archive.org have come up trumps once again. 

Actually I know full well how I got there, looking for stuff on Video Buyer and User magazine. But what we have here was literally the unsearchable. A full scan of the magazine we got in the mail from Cable and Wireless every month or Videotron as it became.

There is HVC or Home Video Channel  which was always scrambled, and was part of the adult channel. 

 Also not being Indian or of South Asian heritage there are listings for Indra Dhnush which has information here. Finally there is the pre NBC Superchannel with the looping dog animation and Voltron but no Conan O'brien or Tonight Show with Jay Leno. 

The Children's Channel bit is causing me some grief as some of these do not ring a bell. Stories without words was normally Bunny With Chequered Ears / Teddy Dropear. But this suggests some stuff which I don't remember. 

Anyway if you want to check out what August 1991 was like for us go here.

Bee Orchid

 One of those things I really didn't expect to see. I know we get the Pyramidial Orchid flowering along the verges here near London, in July, but this was out of the blue. 

Went to the bootsale and got a few things, a load of slides and comedy on tape. Was about to leave the giant field its held in and noticed a small pale flower in long grass.  It couldn't be an orchid, could it!?

It is exactly what it is and its remarkably small for what it was I would say its about 2cm or nearly an inch.

I hunkered down and took a few shots, including a close up of the flowers. It's a Bee Orchid Ophrys aperifera. One of the lesser seen orchids here. 

I knew Kent had a few orchids but never expected them to be this close to the smoke. 

Shattered Helmets

 What happens if you mix lost media, a Greek exchange student and some dangerous criminals. You get the Shattered Helmet.

The main meat of this story is the search for an old Mycenaean Helmet used in a silent movie, The Persian Glory, and the Hardys and Chet Morton taking a course on film making at a community college and the arrival of a pen pal from Greece, Evangelos Papandropolous. Fenton has his own case trying to put away a crook by the name of Filbert Francisco "Twister" Gerrold.  These cases of course, intersect. Add into the mix a campy and arrogant fellow student Leon Saffel and you have what amounts to a pretty decent adventure. 

The nature of old nitrate film stock is of course explained (it's basically a fire hazard) and the search for the silent movie, the helm was used in of course has parallels to modern lost media searches for songs used such as Geronimo or the most mysterious song on the internet. 

Finally as they have a Greek pen-pal, their search ends up on the Greek mainland with a further trip to Corfu, which is known as the childhood home of Gerald Durrell. We also went there for a holiday some time the the late 90's. You want a groan from us tell us how we walked miles to reach Paleokastritsa after going once on a coach trip. We also had to take a trip back on a small boat, like the one the Hardy's used.

Differences.

Not many and its mostly spelling. One thing not changed or picked up on is Rabbitbrush, which is a shrub in the Asteraceae family. Like a bushy version of Senecio or some of the New Zealand Daisy bushes.

You can read both the US and UK version here.

Racist plants.

 This article turned up in the paper on Wednesday, via the Beeb's Gardeners World magazine. Its a pretty poor version of the one as it gives six plants that are supposedly racist. Mostly that they were found by people who at one time owned slaves. 

That's it, the only people with the funds to explore in the nineteenth century, were also the ones bringing back plants to the UK and Europe. Stuff like Camellias and Wisteria, which are the epitome of suburban gardens round here. 

The other thing is things called Hottentot. Which is supposedly a racist name for a certain race of San Bushman. So it's not things like the actual Hottentot Fig Carpobrotus Edulis, an invasive succulent naturalized in many areas around the world, but something not actually flagged up. The Jade Necklace plant which I never knew as anything but Crassula Jade Necklace. Crassula Rupestris X Marneriana to give its proper Latin binomial.

They also don't mention Mother In Laws Tongue now sadly retconned to Snake Plant or Mother In Laws Cushion (Kroenleinia Grusonii) which we know now to be a weird Ferocactus / Echinocactus hybrid. Which is weird, but understandable, as it comes under sexism / Les Dawson jokes.

Free Mobile Games (non Gacha)

Hah loser.

 This isn't some scam post, or telling you how to get free games. It's more like ripping the ass out of them.

I play freeware games on mobile. Jelly Quest, Merge Hexa and an actual rarity, an ad free Solitaire game.

Motorola actually gives you some optional software when it has system updates and almost always its bastard awful. 

ADS

First of all apart from rare games, nothing is ad free. It may have some sort of banner ad and an unskippable ad for more awful games or crypto or dating, but at its worst it'll have multiple ads. I got rid of an old mainstay for putting unskippable audio ads in a level when I have the sound off. Also I've seen plenty of strange ads, one had weird lesbian shit in this (weird lesbian succubus shit at that) and they all routinely lie to you about the gameplay. 

Point two with the ads they are always with some sort of pseudoscience, brain training or boosting IQ, even though as one user found when hex editing, it routinely cheats. Finally point three, it immediately assumes you are a grandma in this and have never ever played any sort of video game in your entire life. 

99% OF YOU WILL NEVER BEAT THIS.

And its true. You'll delete it long before the game ends.

Part 2. Reused assets.

I wonder what amount of these merge clickers, word webs and candy kings, use the same stock assets, I don't know as  I can't program, but it seems that everything uses stock bits and pieces to put games together in Unity or some such. Maybe piracy could be a thing for this and rather than making virus in games, just put out a crack or trainer that gets rid of the ads for good.

Part 3.We lost the arcade.

I can remember about a good ten years ago. that Rev Flat Top aka Stuart Campbell, had a site up reviewing games for iPhone that were ad free. He called it the new arcade. The thing is, it feels like we lost the arcade. Nothing is proper hard, thanks to RNG and cheating, there is no skill in mobile (maybe pathos, but that's nethack and will own you.) everything is super easy and anodyne. No endless mode which I've always wanted for candy crush. No try again loser, and no lives or such. Its all easy. 

Junk Tour and boot sale

This isn't the first junk tour of the year but its the first that I've had based on what I've seen from Twitter of all places. 

I follow some of the Viz writers and watching a trip up to Victoria station, it seems that there is a gachapon place there. With a few banks of capsule vending machines, but I never found the place, we did find a place that sold rubber ducks. So its not all bad. 

The house of Mr Jammy

We did our usual trip along Wilton Road to the shopping place there. The shops didn't have much and we got root beer, which was nice but didn't see the shop cat which I saw before. Picked up a Marimba CD and a few twelves.

Today.

We was late at the bootsale due to the bus being late. So we had to make do looking around the discarded piles Picked up a wet floor sign and managed to buy a back to basics CD in a metal tin. Which was nice. Also stuck with two trash CDs including Migos Trap and Nick Harper for what I wanted (late 80's German house from a bunch that would go on to do much better things).

EDIT. 7/7

So a random trip to Ealing Broadway and we finally find there is a gacha place here. £10 for 5 tokens card only, but it'll net you some premium anime goodness. There is quite a bank of machines to try out and a lot of anime tie ins so if you like your Indonesian basket weaving films this is heaven. 

Got some weird sauna frog and a cat from some kind of cat beat em up thing.

Laws of life.

 This is some nonsense that you can ignore. It may not even be correct at all, but I've been watching creationist stuff, about the universe needing a creator and also about how the universe seems to have some laws on how it works over every discipline of science. Relax I'm not going full retard here and saying that there is a god. Far from it. It's just that I've been thinking about how it could work.

A few things such as Answers in Megadrive putting up a short on Fractals, and saying that there must be a god, because maths. Then looking at the laws of thermodynamics and such, saying that energy cannot be created from nothing. There has to be something. And lastly, all the laws of chemistry and biology. In other words, what if these laws are part of a larger whole. What if that is god.

If the supreme deity is just some great overall superscript that when run creates things with a set of defined rules that allows a universe to run with minimal input. You really wouldn't need man made  religions and stuff, superscript cares little for humanity, its just a byproduct of these instructions. If life progresses, then it could be anything here. There is no salvation, because life is not guaranteed and if it is, is largely down to chance that it makes it to an advanced level. 

There are laws governing how life progresses but whether it progresses to anything resembling intelligence is another matter entirely.  

In other words you have a god, but it cares naught for you. it cannot be worshipped or acknowledge prayers, it cannot save you from yourself. You are alone in this universe. Only You. 

No Russian

 For some reason we've been going through a phase of getting Russian stuff, like last week we picked up from the boot sale a haul of records from the old Soviet Bloc. This Wednesday we also got a book on Cacti also in Russian. From the 70's and with that old period charm of poverty and despair that a failed ideology creates. Nevertheless it has its charms, and for some reason zero copyright info in the inside label. So will have to get my big scanning hat on and upload this.

You'll want to know the records, and as I've a backlog to hack through I've only done two at the moment. One is based on Chinese Horoscope and is a mix of rock, pop and some odd electronica. You can find its discogs link. Here My personal pick is the weird one about a dog.

The other so far listened to is Free Jazz which is pure Wire readers style wankery. But it has a few saving graces in that there is some nice flute bits before the piano and brass overwhelm it.

If you care it can be found here My personal pick is either B1 or A1. Also note. This seems to be non Russian looks like its one of the Baltic stats either Latvian or Lithuanian. No Cyrillic for one. Oh one last thing the sleeve it came in is for something else entirely 

I'll add more in the weeks to come. 

Update.

Had one more to listen to. 

In Spe. In Spe.

This one is for the prog rock fans as there is quite a bit of guitar noodling on this and not much synth only stuff, despite their being a Prophet 5 listed as the instruments used. 

Vavra set up.

 Just a few bits on setting up Vavra VST, the Waldorf Q emulator in your DAW.

You'll need to put the dll file in a separate folder and add in the bios files for this as they are supplied as Midi files for some arcane reason. 

This is all.

Skyfire

 We found a lot of Russian records tossed out and logging just what they are has been a bastard, so forgive me if this is a short review of no 83 the Skyfire Puzzle.

The Skyfire Puzzle is kinda like the shark jumping episode of Happy Days, you know from here on it's all downhill from here. To put this in some sort of context, the boys are trained up for some fictional space shuttle program down at Cape Canaveral, in order to work on a case involving sabotage and foreign powers. Its a good story, and along with the desert phantom case are prototypical versions of the later casefiles series. 

Frank Hardy gets a love interest that isn't Callie Shaw, though its pretty tenuous if they're an item. Oh and the Van has a fucking modem circa 86 that can be used to analyze video, from space. 

That's right the boys are in low earth orbit due to signing up for the Skyfire shuttle program. 

There are no differences between the two books but you can read the UK edition here and the US edition here. Note, I had to add in a paragraph which was missing from original scans. The joys of having every UK edition of the original series.

Emperor's Birthday 24

 My birthday today normally comes with a gift, so here is Sony Vegas 13 up on Archive.org from "Sony" themselves. Seeing as I lost the key for my original this is a dogsend. 

Boot sale gods have smiled on me with a good amount of porn / old dance magazines and some vinyl for £20 records are.  John McLean Declaration of Love on Ariwa. Five Star, Depeche Mode People Are People Mute, Some rap comp on LB Bads LaRhon label, and finally Sly and Robbie Land of Rydim. 

Magazines are:

Your Choice Magazine 1st Issue Nov. 82. 

Free! x4 with MC Pugwash on the cover in a Father Christmas outfit.

Touch Magazine x 6 and as a note from here on out not safe for work

Rustler 130 UK Edition x1. June 85 if counting on from this is correct.

Experience Busting Out vol1-1.

Vibrations Vol 9-9

Exposure vol 12-8

Last but not least Claudia 12e Jaargang nr.1 Which is both Red hot and Dutch. 

As well as a box of slides and a stack of cds and videos. Which'll keep me busy for weeks to come. 

Junk Trip Dartford

 Seeing as the bootsale is off due to high winds, we decided to look around Dartford instead. 

Its one of those towns that I like, if you are in Derbyshire then Buxton has a similar vibe to it. Just a nice chilled out and laid back town. Tried to redeem some MC D winning" simps" and ended up winning a free coffee which I'll have to redeem later.

Otherwise not a bad trip out. Got the special edition of Leftfield Phat Planet with the extra mixes and the Aaliyah more than a Woman cd (Masters at work mixes ftw). We also have a version of Marc Almond's Black Kiss single mixed by a Mark Schneider, possibly this guy. 

Nothing will top last weeks mad anti racism cd by Genie called Attitude, though, full on tracker style afro dance / house with a good side order of bat shit insanery. The alt channel has mixes up if you want a look. In fact I recommend all bad music fans to at least check out the slow pop mix. 

Plus a sub, too. You're welcome. 

Heaven.

This is something I've been wondering about the past few weeks. As you may know, I don't believe in a religion, but do believe in a heaven or so. True there's no god there or at least, if there is, a kind of Shinto type of situation where everything houses a god to some degree or  where god is dead, but its essence is infused in the land itself.. There is a hell to go with it for those that have pissed me off in life but for what its worth, I get a heaven with my family / pets back and runs Spring to Autumn with a permanent Med climate. Think So Cal or the Balearics if European with a cold night and warm days with cooler days / warmer nights in the off season. I grow cacti and would definitely want them to grow outside.

Which gets me thinking about the Bible and its version of events. They can describe hell to the nth degree but the best they can come up with is a sort of item world from Disgaea 5 where its a house with endless houses inside. Or a promise of eternal life stuck inside church with god.  Its never explained well what there will be awaiting the faithful, save for vague promises of riches in heaven, eternal life and one of gods matryoshka doll rooms. 

Presumably heaven is some sort of Christ based TARDIS, where you get to spend it with the non doctor.  The Mormons at least let you have celestial sex.  So you better hope you'll get to spend it with classic era Jesus rather than later Chibnall Jesus, where everyone is woke. Unless that is your fetish. Me, I think I'd take my chance with my heaven, at least they'll be people I care about there. 

Easter Greetings

 You'll probably get a proper update tomorrow. But for now have a happy Easter to those that celebrate and for those that don't, hey tomorrow means cut price chocolate.

Spiral bridges.

 We're up to the based numbers, as this is number 8 in the series here. 

The story this time is that the Prito construction company has been suffering sabotage attempts on a bridge building project out in Kentucky. Fenton Hardy is out of commission, due to him suffering at the hands of the crooks, so its down to the lads (and it is the lads) to bring them in by joining the project.

There are the usual small edits such as a few spelling edits and baseball terms and bum of course being tramp now. But it's still quite a powerful story and one were the boys face genuine malice and threat. Fenton isn't all powerful in this as his near death experience attests. We could have done without the "Con speak", though I've heard one of two of the terms used normally. Arkintay indeed.

Anyway UK version is here and Original, here.

Offbeat oddities. Samh

We are reading through Panorama of Saudi Arabia, a badly edited book on, well, Saudi Arabia. Its a mish mash of Islam and poetry and black and white photos of various bits and pieces of Arabian life. There is however a list of plants with Latin names and their corresponding names in Arabic. 

The upshot of this is, well we have a mesemb, Mesembryanthemum Forskahlei (now Cryptanthum or Opophytum Cryptanthum according to my trusty Hartmann pdf.). Along with a few Asclepiads and Glassworts. Its Arabic name is Samh and seems to have some sort of medical potential for ulcer control and a ethnobotanical use for controlling blood sugar. It also seems to be used in cooking as the seed is ground to make flour. I quote 'and samh, a wild seed, is collected in northern Arabia to make coarse bread. 

Mesembryanthemum is now this weird mix of annual and non annual plants now. Can remember the BCSS journal when it proposed that the species Aptenia Phyllobolus and Browannthus were part of it now along with Sceletium which is used for chewing tobacco in South Africa. Opophytum as it was, is one of the weird annuals that nobody grows. I'll probably side with Heidi Hartmann that they are separate from Mesembryanthemum proper, as its an annual and such. But I'm willing to reconsider if we get a big DNA analysis showing familial lines

The book, well the best thing I can say about it is that it needs a bloody good proof read. So that you don't get stuff like this sneaking through on every page. 

Edit. Pic working now. 

Necrolog: Toriyama

 This was a complete surprise, Akira Toriyama was, as if he needed any introduction a Mangaka. In fact the Mangaka of the modern age. You ever watched Dragonball  or Dr Slump he did that. You played Dragon Quest or Chrono Trigger, those were his art designs. 

The Dragon Quest's slime, Goku and Piccolo, along with Bulma and Master Roushi, so many great characters. World feels a lot worser with him gone.  

Can remember having a few Dragon Ball memories as a teen, nothing in English, a French Tankobon and a Spanish floppy cover as they had more Manga than us in the 90s. A long forgotten memory of a live action version on MTV also from that time, that no one remembers. And later on assorted Dragonball games and anime on various small channels. The last time  I saw this was Dragonball Super on, I think Pop, in Mallorca last year at 6am.  

The game side was also in Mallorca, seeing the games on import going for 18,000ptas in 93. Oh and an actual Dragonball, ball that I may still have somewhere. Along with a DBZ shirt. Dragon Quest came a lot later. An official DQ8 for PS2 is the first Euroland ever got along with the originals for DS and 3DS.

Chrono Trigger was the first ever ROM that I got a first party PC pad to trigger a multi button input. And outside a limited run for NDS still isn't widely known here. 

Oh and a final thing about Chrono Trigger. Yuji Hori is the only member of the Dream team still alive.

Interbang and stuff.

 I'm pretty sure we've written about Interbang before on here. Part of the old Children's Channel before it was turned into Trouble. For those not invested already, it was an adventure show where two lads had to find mini towers of Pisa hidden throughout the world. Never quite sure of the payoff for this as I've never seen the end, but the whole thing is up on Youtube. 

Also Pulp Librarian, posted up a bunch of Hardy Boys covers on X, which were mainly from the later mainline entries (100 plus) and the case files series. The strangest thing I took away from this is a scan from a comic book from Gold Key comics.  Apparently a tie in to a Saturday morning cartoon, it comes off as Scooby Doo but a rock band. And yes there are film scans up on Youtube as well.

Smugglers cove

 Another book for you and another one based on the Angus & Robertson hardback editions, so expect there to be no differences in the text.

The boys are framed up for stealing a local businessman's portrait of Simon Bolivar, when they're named as couriers of the aforementioned picture. There are a few side stories as they track some smugglers and poachers in the everglades, before it all comes together in the last 2 chapters, where its found that the smuggling and poaching teams are part of a larger group. 

It's a odd tale this as the stories never really gel together. The beasts that are the target of poaching, the American Alligator is said to endangered, but a quick look on the IUCN red data list shows that the American Alligator is of least concern. Whether it was when it was written is anyone's guess, but they are now said to be increasing in population.

Also for  some strange reason we get to see Florida Man in his natural habitat. In this case some nutter in full wizards get-up performing alchemy out in the swamp. Of course he's being duped by the smuggling gang so they can steal a diamond necklace from him. Palming gold into his crucible of slag, to convince him that he's succeeded. 

Anyway, as I've said before, there is no difference save for the numbering of the books between these two editions.

You can read the UK and US editions here and here. 

Down the tubes.

So the clown in charge of this city has decided to rebrand the overground rail lines with new names. Personally I never new that the big amorphous orange blob that is the London overground network really needed to be split into several smaller lines to make it easier to navigate. Its just the overground, you don't need any fancy names that make it more confusing. 

We all know why he's doing it, its just a virtue signal so the idiots vote him in again, and overlook the chronic mismanagement and rising crime rate that is characteristic of his term in office. In fact grand dumb vanity projects like this are more like Boris Johnson's term in the mayoral hot seat. But no its fucking labour.

The lines in question are going to be rebranded as such. 

Bus Conductor line (Windrush line) Islington to West Croydon. Which covers all the worst areas of the capital, and is a fitting memorial for the many West Indians who provided vital service as bus conductors back in the day. 

Weaver Line.    Because something something, textile industry. 

Little Line (Liberty Line) Because three fucking stops deserves its own line, obviously. 

The Bobby Moore memorial line (Lioness line) I will also accept the Queens Park Rangers line. As it at least covers the area it concerns (West London). Anything is better than some wimmin wun the euros and deserve their own thing. 

The Minmay line (Mildmay Line)  Covers the actress Lynn Minmay and her efforts to achieve world piece through song.

The Insuffragette line. Because nothing says indulgence like domestic gender terrorists. The line you want is the Lemon line. 

Dragon Year 2024

 Don't normally write this up as such, but I do enjoy going up town and watching the lion dance at Chinese New Year. I hate fireworks and such but this guy dancing around and the drums pounding is my jam.

The past couple of years I've missed out either due to Covid or missing entirely,  and this year is no exception, we came to early and they weren't set up in time. Havea shot of the Lion dance team that I though look good enough to post. Hope you danced your asses off. 

Dork Web

 It seems we're getting another moral panic over the internet, specifically the dark web in general. Thanks to this article, here, about the murder of Brianna Ghey. Scarlett Jenkinson used the dark web to look at murder and so called red rooms to look up fucked up content online. Although reading this we have no idea what she actually saw.

Apparently its what all the kids are doing nowadays which I'm sure is nothing but scaremongering and bullshit on behalf of the author drumming up views. He's apparently never heard of Liveleak back in the day or any amount of gore trash which I never bothered with back then. 

The fact is watching some Labour twunt chuntering on about regulating the net on Sky news means that the greatest resource we have ever had is being regulated out of existence, along with the double edged sword of Social media, which I'll admit is mostly good when its good and depressing at its worst.

But back to the article and I note he's got some sort of porn site up, most of what you'll see he's describing is actually on the normie web TCG sites, not sure about zombies but all the rest I've seen over the years.

Also given that every .onion address is a string of numbers and letters means you'll have to bookmark and such so browser history unless you're deleting every time. The fact is I've been a few times for of all things Mr Metokurs blog on Poa.st and the Syro album release website*. Apart from that without knowing any addresses and stuff and despite it baked into Brave as its incognito mode, I have fuck all reason to use it.

* This was actually on brand as it detailed every process your computer used to view the page and varied if you used no adblock or privacy blocker software. The cover of Syro famously lists everything expense and process that went into financing / making the album and if you are any way anal retentive makes fascinating reading.

Everyman.

One of those posts you see on the internet from time to time is the archetypal leftist saying that Jesus was a queer brown socialist just like them, and the follow up is them recoiling when the guy says, oh you like Jesus, have you tried reading the Bible. 

Its one of the dumbest quotes ever alongside the cartoon of  Rupert Murdoch blaming the foreigner for stealing all the stuff when he has a huge pile of stuff and we should improve society somewhat peasant meme. You can be sure that an ex Christian has read the bible, in fact I often joke most of the atheists I watch on Youtube were balls deep in the church, before leaving (and simping for social justice). No the thing I'd like to point out is the socialist Christ meme.

In fact the hardcore bible nut will have their own personal Jesus, they create from their upbringing, and a more moderate will have their own take. In fact you want a black Jesus, its feasible, or that one where they made him look more like a 1st century Jew (which if he existed, would most certainly be.) 

Another fact in this is that Easter is so tied in to Passover means he doesn't follow the pagan tradition of dying at the year end and being reborn in the spring. 

You want him to be the prince of peace then fair enough, he is. You want to emphasize his strength (which is how they converted the Vikings back in the day) then you can do that. The fact remains, Jesus is all things to all men. That he never died or will return from death means little, he's just an archetype a metaphor, an everyman, a peoples placeholder. If you want him to do all those things and they mean stuff for you, fair enough, but for me the risen lord meant nothing as he never rose or died to begin with.  

Bombay boomerangs.

 An odd one for sure. The boys get involved in a mercury smuggling racket that evolves into a national security threat.  They investigate thefts of mercury from freighters in Bayport and Baltimore and the mysterious Bombay boomerang which possibly has something to do with the Super S missile stolen from the Pentagon. 

Joe rings a wrong number and is put through to the Pentagon where his call is intercepted by someone being attacked, the only clue is something called The Bombay Boomerang (he was supposed to call a mercury supplier).  

This tale mixes some dark themes and cringe humour in places as Fenton Hardy goes undercover to crack the case only to end up in a barrel and dumped in the bay at Baltimore, and an Indian sent to kill the Hardy boys thanks to a mix up over them committing sacrilege against the Hindu god Krishna. 

Cringe comes from the Radio DJ Teddy Blaze who would be a massive Smashy & Nicey clone if he wasn't feeding information to the mercury gang via his broadcasts. Its made worse in  the US version where his records are known as hot platters. At least it isn't vinyls, which would be beyond the pale. 

Special mention must go to how the boys are written in this. They come across as sharp talking and quick witted with at least one snappy comeback to whatever the crooks  throw at them. In some of the books they're written in they come across as flat, but here they feel alive. Even more so that the bloke who actually wrote it, Victor Buranelli, did three of the worst Hardy Boys books, The revised Flickering Torch and The Flying Express and the execrable Witchmaster's Key.  

Anyway you can read both the Original and UK versions here. 

Drawing again

 Have been on an art rush, so to speak these past few weeks. Not only am I working on this years calendar (theme videogames and OC Heads and Tails), but have found time to do this small edit based on opera singer Lawrence Tibbett.

Can't remember what book this was that sprung forth the whole Tibbet thing as a shorthand for cat, my guess is the classic Smoke and Fluff, 

EDIT it's from Five Little Kittens, We obviously had a lot of Ladybird books as a kid. As a final punishment have seotpit aka Tiptoes  the Mischievous kitten which was often read to  Weedle as as he slept at the base of my parents bed. But more often or not he was buried deepd down under the duvet with me. 

He did get his own back by clawing the hell out of Watership Down as no one paid him any attention. In fact it was at the last battle with  General Woundwort when he went rogue. Along with the Horse and his Boy its one of those books that I've tried to read a few times but never got. 

Happy New Year.

 For  the first time in ages I went to Greenwich park. I wanted to look around the meridian line and the clock museum but its now £18 to get in, and last time I went there it was free. 

They are renovating the grass areas to restore it back to the 17th century original, so it looks rough at the moment.  If you really like dogs and are a tourist then give it a go. Me, I'll not be going back anytime soon. 

Better times was had looking round Greenwich town itself. There are a few charity shops but none open on new years day.  The local Music Video Exchange is open and I manage to get a few good things in the bargain rails. This includes Body 2 Body Let's get Intimate and a hopefully not too smacked up Neil Hawaiian House EP. Oh and Freeman by big  Darryl Pandy.