River of Adventure

This week has been hell or so, been hit with the mother of all flu that left me no choice but to call in sick for the first time in ages.

On the plus side I have finished my entire book log and have finally read through The River of Adventure by Enid Blyton.  This is the last of the series of Adventure stories for older boys and girls and of course old gits who like to poke fun out of things.  This is no exception. 

Remember how they would say the Famous Five stories were problematic and that they were racist, sexist and contained the word queer far too much.  This is basically them but with everything turned up to 11, as it were.  Contains 4 kids and a parrot, rather than the usual 4 kids and a dog also with a bit more parental guidance than usual.  This time it's secret agent man Bill, his Mrs. Allie and Kids Phil, Jack, Dinah and Lucy Anne.  The Parrots name is Kiki and is some sort of Cockatoo.   

Tasked with keeping an eye out on shifty Arab Raya Uma, and with his kids recovering from a bad case of flu, he has them accompany him on a case down the Abencha River on a trip to recuperate, while keeping an eye out on wily foreign, Mr. Uma.   They have a native guide called Tala who pilots the boat and has comedy broken English.  And following a stop at Cine Town a makeshift settlement created out of an old film set, they pick up the snake charmers nephew Oola who basically becomes Phil's slave for most of the trip.

You are here for problematic stuff and lets face it most of the time its them filthy smelly A rabs and Oola in particular who seems to get beaten and slapped around, when he's not Phil's slave.  He's also noted as being unclean and in need of a wash.  Something only the gypsies were in Classic Famous Five.  The other thing is that the word queer is liberally sprinkled throughout the text, if you are a sensitive prick and can't tell when that word is used for something genuinely strange, then it may trigger you.  My suggestion is to go fuck yourself, and get over it.

Worst thing is far into the book where events have happened and its just the kids and Tala sailing down the river trapped in the current, they overrule him to go down some dangerous path, true  they do end up in a lost temple in the dark, but this is an experienced boat man they just pull rank (dare I even say privilege) on and set down that path.  It just stuck in my craw, that a bunch of white kids would know best instead of the boat master.

Also this is modern day Syria they are sailing through or some such analogue of, no one is Muslim, There is talk of the bible, with names and such, and they also spell Sargon of Akkad as King Saigon, you know that Vietnamese king of the Akkadians.   Some of the places also seem rather close to Arabic,  places such as Ala Ou Iya (Al Laouiyah ot more like a corruption of Hallelujah) and Ullabaid (Allahbaid) I don't know if Enid Blyton ever left the UK or just consulted an atlas or local library. 

Finally Phil gets a snake courtesy of Oola.  Its a defanged poisonous reptile and spends most of its time in his shirt.  Some times his head pokes out, please do not confuse this with his penis which plays no part in the story.

Old Mill Done.

Finally finished up transcribing The Secret of The Old Mill. Will have to say that all in all that I enjoyed getting back into typing stuff up again.  Took all in all, about 8 weeks to do (in spare time after work and sometimes before work, I'm not the fastest typist.) Now going through some downloaded files to see what is the originals and what is the books we got here, in all to do it again. 

I'm only going to be looking at those stories that got an extensive rewrite in the 60's, so its basically the first 24 books and probably less if the pdf.s I downloaded are what they say they are.  The downside is that the originals aren't cheap, $25 (£18)per copy and the same again to ship to the UK on Ebay and around £10 for  the Applewood reprints which cover the first 15 or so books.

Any way, here is the original Secret Of The Old Mill, all proof read and typeset correctly.

On  a side note when did we drop the hyphen from to-night and to-day. It seems weird seeing this in period texts as its entirely absent from "today's" written language.

Oh and I may have touched on this before, but if you'd like some Cliff Notes to go with this explaining stuff then I will only be too happy to oblige.  As some of the terms used are quite obscure, especially the old underworld slang Mr Hardy uses from time to time. Chet Morton for that matter has some pretty obscure slang too for the interested.

Croydon

First trip in ages back to Croydon for a good old junk tour, and to be honest nothing really changes.  Though this time I managed to find all the Charity shops.  They are up past the tram lines at the top of the town. 

Did see a few promising places and find a few things.  Managed to grab Butt of Course by the  Jimmy Castor bunch, from the legion, cool sleeve on this and I believe its funk if Discogs doesn't lie to me. 

The hate foundation had a few good CD's in including The Knife (Dull) and a secretsudaze double mix which looks promising.  And the first ever Fabric mix CD from Craig Richards, which is also a good un.

Worse though, Croydon still has its problems including weirdo christians, no kangz this time but what I believe to be followers of John The Baptist.  There is still the Grenfell cunt spewing his hateful left wing bile about the tragedy.  Also a poster showing the Asian Phillip Schofield (the mayor) with the signs no blacks no dogs no irish lined out with bashment, dubstep and Grime.  Which is probably even worse, I believe hip hop culture, and its tropes hold back black culture even more and listening to just this is even worse for young folk. 

In short, not a bad day but still glad to be home.

New Year.

Never really did give you the round up of other stuff from the past year.  We covered TV and music and didn't cover other types of video content or books and games.  Will have to compile a proper list this year of stuff we enjoyed especially TV and music.

TV because there are still things here I missed out on.

Maya documentary about using LIDAR to discover new ruins in Guatemala.  I know I should get  the proper title from Tivo but I cannot be arsed.  Remembered this as I was watching Reeves and Mortimer's big night out.  Essentially its using Radar on a plane to look through the jungle to find new ruins.  Also.

Reeves and Mortimer's big night in.

Vic n Bob with stances, dances, Ghostbusters, and George Ezra singing with a burning heater on stage with the two interrupting him with requests.  That is what would stick in my mind the best.

Books

Just finished Past Tense Lee Child and can heartily recommend this.  If you like genealogy and a creepy motel in the woods, oh and birdwatching too, you'll not be disappointed.

Can also recommend  Carlos Magdalena Plant Messiah, with his talk on endangered species and his dedication to resurrecting those that are at the edge of extinction.  For cactophiles there is a bit on Graffiti on Neoraimondia in Peru, providing a glimpse of culture and weather back then.  But even if you don't like cacti and its coverage is minimal, there's much more food for thought and asides on everything from island endemics to waterlilies in Australia.  Also a sobering thought at what we could lose, due to climate change and rampant human overpopulation.#

Online Video.and YTP and the state of this.

Like I said before we had a few people killed off by Youtube last year, the entire Tomservo channel got mixed due to some humourless bastard not getting a joke.

Not many landmark videos this year, We already gave you a new Digitiser the Show as part of the TV line up, so I'll direct you there. 

Potholer 54 on a Conservative challenge to climate change is my stand out of the year.  Apparently Thatcher got it whereas Reagan didn't, she foresaw the  world warming at an alarming level and wanted to do stuff about it.  It elaborates on and is quite excellent showing new technology around renewable energy from a side you wouldn't think is pro environmental or just climate sceptic.

Missed and Flipped, Cactus edition

Can't think of any shows I had missed out on this year that I didn't cover except the usual ones, Endeavour and The Durrells which is my pick every year. Likewise music which I get to hear less and less commercial stuff each year.  Awful Kiss stuff aside, Dua Lipa or Jax Jones Instruction or whatever they call themselves, total bollocks by the way.

No my missed and flipped bit this year is a follow up to the Mail's Cactus article with a bit about Topshop, as they had a stall with some cacti for sale in their Oxford St branch.  This was due to me not having a mooch uptown to verify what they were on about then.

It's Barry the Cactus for those who are curious about what it's all in aid of.  A small stall halfway in the ground floor of Top Shop, Oxford Street.  There is said to be a counterpart in Selfridges, as well but as this comes from their main site its unconfirmed if it's real or not.

So what do you get.

A few basic species in fancy pots for £10, to be fair mind, if you are after some designery pieces for interiors or a modern flat, and you don't mind a pot without a whole in the base, then its not bad.  Bear in mind that the site itself uses old names like Vatricana and Notocactus, but this is far from bad.

They also do keychains with tiny, doomed seedlings in and a small bottle of Cactus food for about £5 each, I would steer clear of these and get some tomato fertilizer from your local garden centre which is much cheaper and comes in a bigger bottle, 

I got a small Mammilaria with the last of a gift card and some cash.  I know how to grow cacti already, but picked up their tip card after all.

Here are my general cactus tips if you wish to grow along with me.

Give em a lot of light, they come from a really sunny areas, so a south facing window sill is best or if you have a greenhouse, conservatory.  Bottom line, find the brightest spot and stick them there.

Watering. If its Spring and Summer, water weekly and feed monthly. If its autumn ease off watering at the end of  September. If its Winter don't, for further information please re read.

Heat.  A good half of the species will tolerate 5 F provided they are kept dry,  this increases to 3/4 if you can guarantee 10F.

Substrate.  You'll need a gritty soil that is free draining, if you'll be potting on.  You want a pot the next size up and a loop of newspaper to fix around the plant to pull it out and generally handle.

Use John Innes compost with extra grit.  We sometimes use Cat Litter (the non clumping type) for really water intolerant species.

And that is it.

Last of Last Christmas

Its been an odd year for Music in general, boxing day being the traditional day we hold our autopsy on all things good, bad and ugly music wise.

We cover stuff new this year as well as things new to us, so lets get on with the good.

Chris Carter Chemistry Lessons 1.

Part of Chris and Cosey, which is in turn one half of Throbbing Gristle, I got this in September after an indifferent break away.  Its a good mix of modular sketches and sounds from long ago to present day.  Worth a listen for any synth head.

Aphex Twin. Collapse EP.

We saw the actual posters up on Elephant and Castle tube, and the EP while great, Is overshadowed by the whole pop up shop thing, where you could by the bears from Donkey Rhubarb and an umbrella styled on the ones in Windowlicker EP.  All very nice but the video to T69 Collapse is possibly the best thing all year and harks back to the old IDM days.

Ceephax Acid Krew.  Fossil Funk Piano Mix

Another great video this and a stellar track to go with it as well.  With his cat Byron spinning around on an office chair and shouts out high street shops, in other words the typical Ceephax style.

Ramz Barking.

A half track for me with the acapella showing up on Youtube, I normally hate grime, with a passion so its nice to see a track that isn't terrible or not entirely so.  True its not my thing, but its not terrible and you can alter the lyrics to say I'm Barking, She's Barking.

Billie Humphrey. Black and Blues.

70's jazz that sounds like it should have come out on Ninja Tune and the like back in the day, don't know if any of the tracks were played on Solid Steel but its definitely something that crowd would enjoy.

Fabric 100,

The final ever metal tin box edition of the track goes out with a 3 CD set from Craig Richards Terry Francis and Keith Reilly.  You know what to expect, techno and some deep house mixed well.
A fitting end.

Larry Heard Cerebral Hemispheres.

Mr Fingers himself returns to form with some brilliant acid a collaboration with Paul St Hilaire from Rhythm and Stealth's Dub Techno and a stunning 12 with mixes which are the dogs bollocks,  Most definitely my track of the year.

BAD STUFF.

My bad stuff is not so much this year with few terrible things, for once I'm not at work to hear Kiss Breakfast so that is in itself a blessing.

Maroon 5 Cardi Gan B

This is a half awful track, I hate Maroon 5 and Cardi B seems to be the Budgens Nicki Minaj, which  no one ever asked for.  The song isn't so bad and if you can get the instrumental version off of Youtube there is some not terrible guitar work which is saying something from me who usually hates guitar.  The worst thing is every time I've tried to edit it, I make it worse, want to make this stripped back as fuck, literally like the acoustic guitar clicking away and not much else.

Clean Bandit With Selena Gomez Woof Woof Woof or whatever its called.

Its garbage and I can't stop singing along to the chorus, woof woof woof indeed.

Last Christmas

Hello this is the annual television round up of the year, a mix of hell and heaven and in the wider context of it all, a few words before going in.

A lot of things shut up shop this year.  Fabric discontinued their metal box compilations (more tomorrow) Solid steel closed after 30 years, Mark Kermodes' film review channel is now mothballed and A Dose of Buckley my near namesake on YT posted its last worst off before signing off. Oh and Terra Battle shut down its European wing and I can't be bothered to download the APK and make a US account.

So you'll need some good TV to give you a lift.

Christmas Tapes at The BBC.

The best laugh I've had on the BBC in ages.  They were sort of the precursor to Youtube Poop and a blooper reel, if you've ever seen the Rainbow twangers sketch, complete with ebaumsworld logo plastered over it, this is were it originates (well LWT really.)

Sentence mixing, nerdy clips, shots at management and a Dalek that says bollocks, something that could have been easily shown on BBC 2 instead of  BBC 4.

Dynasties.

A long form look at an animal in its environment, includes Chimps, Tiger, Wild Dog and Penguins.  Worth it just to see them struggle day to day, oh and scientists carving steps for penguins so they don't freeze.

The Undiscovered Kenneth Williams.

Victor Lewis Smith's masterful look at our Ken and bringing out some rare and unbroadcast material from the really quite unhappy bunny.  Not a lot from Carry on, but plenty from his diaries and a few college clips.  Also The Undiscovered Peter Sellers and a Stanley Baxter one to come.

Manson The Lost Tapes.

A look at Sharon Tate and the La Bianca murders, with generous helpings of home film shot by his extended family of onlookers.  Quite creepy in places, it boils down to Sex, Drugs and Mind Control. oh and Mansons shitty rock put out by one of the Beach Boys.  Stand out Yewtree revelation is that Manson had butt sex with a 14 year old.  So a massive nonce as well as mass murderer by proxy.
Possibly not on Youtube but if you see it for download any where then grab it.  Also as its ITV and hippies, there's quite a lot of tit and bum as well as willies too.

Digitiser The Show.

We'll add this here as its quite possibly the best thing, I've on the platform in ages.  It has Chris Gannon which I like, as well as Mr Biffo himself, his  rival as they bring to life the teletext series, into some fever dream of a show,  There are all the characters you remember, Mr T and his bins, The Mans Daddy, Chart Cat and Zombie Dave. There is always something in every show that will crack me up, whether it being lobbed up in a minute, Rampage remakes, or just the fact that it feels like a show from the 90's TV but from some obscure channel (ITV brown) at an odd time.

Vic and Bobs Big Night Out.

Forgot to add this thougn I still have to watch half of the episodes.  So far I've seen the man with the long stick, George Ezra and a heater fire, ghost busters and Mulligan and O'Hare.  No one spoiled their view mind, which was all right.

Miranda awards for TV hell.

Not a lot here that sticks out here in my mind.  There was the John Le Carre Remake that felt like a long good punch up, no for my award this year its the Cheddar Man Documentary that is total bollocks. Oh and a mixed bag Dr Who.

Cheddar Man is the blackest Briton ever recovered from Cheddar Gorge.  A blue eyed Thuderf00t look a like with burnt cork skin, blue eyes and weird skin.  I have no doubt in the genetics of  Cheddar Man, apparently he came originally from what is now Spain, but the show itself was a mess.  Also can remember the article in New Scientist pouring cold water on the genetic theory of colour.  I don't care if he's black to be honest its a shit documentary at best.

Edit. Dr Who goes here as well, not because it's terrible, in fact I liked Demons of The Punjab and the Rosa Parks episode despite what sounds like that whore Paloma Faith giving it a US ending (we shall overcome surely), nor is it the Dr Herself now.  I've grown on Jodie Whittaker, and knew they'd do her proud thanks to Missy as a female Master.  No its the return of politics which is bollocks as usual.  The spider episode with Not Trump as president shooting a big spider in homage to Resident Evil.  Or the Pkunk or whatever it was eating a medi ship alive, terrible episodes.  Which means that good episodes like the parallel world one with the Frog as ruler was few and far between,

Oh yeah them mentioning Raze and them playing shitty grime can do one as well.