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.