Forum Subscribe via RSS IconRSS or e-mail About this Site Link To Us Sites We Like
Legal Stuff Privacy Policy


Archive for the ‘Books and Magazines’ Category

category icon category icon

Captain Cobwebb and the Quogs

Posted by Big Boo on August 13th, 2010

Captain Cobwebb and the QuogsToday’s post is about one of those things I distinctly remember liking as a child, yet when I try and remember the details everything is a bit hazy. I’ll start by telling you what I remember.

I would have been around ten at the time, still at primary school, and at the end of the day the teacher still used to read the class a story, though being as we were that bit older it was a longer story split over several days or even weeks. At one point a book was chosen to be read that kept the entire class enthralled. That book was called Captain Cobwebb and the Quogs.

Now, I couldn’t tell you exactly who Captain Cobwebb was, because as far as I can remember the heroes of the story were two young boys. I might have completely mis-remembered the plot, but it went something like this. The two boys stumble across an underground realm inhabited by sinister creatures called Quogs. The Quogs were presumably spider like in some way, because I distinctly remember the boys being caught and bundled up in a silky cocoon of some sort. Obviously they escape, and bring about an end to whatever nefarious plan the Quogs had in mind.

A bit slim on details I know, but there is one very specific detail I do remember, which is that at one point the boys needed to supply a pass phrase to get inside a locked door. It was a very silly pass phrase made up of lots of gobbledy gook words, and it went like this:-

Is it not a fact that stangipostril skiddibumperies of the collywoblic neuroproxis, are metatarsely plod-lodricate.

Read more…

category icon

British Eighties “Funny” Comic Books

Posted by Big Boo on July 12th, 2010

Dennis and GnasherI’m sure most of us, at some point in their childhood, had a period where they were an avid reader of a particular comic book. Of course there are several kinds of comics, and you may well have been a fan of one or more of these at different times.

There were comics aimed more at boys (e.g. The Eagle, Roy of the Rovers etc.) and those aimed at girls (e.g. Twinkle, Bunty etc.). There were the more US style of comic book, normally smaller in size and generally about superheroes, but my particular favourite genre was the good old fashioned British “funny” comic, such as The Beano, The Dandy and Whizzer and Chips.

Some of these comics had already been running for decades by the time I started reading them, and some are still going strong today. Changes have obviously occurred as the years have gone by, with some titles merging with other comics, characters being dropped (and possible reinstated) and of course the move from newspaper style paper and two colour images to the glossier, full colour pages a lot of comics have today.

Without doubt the two prime examples of this style of comic book were The Beano and The Dandy. The Beano tended to appeal to the more mischievous child, what with its lead character being Dennis the Menace. The Dandy was more likely to appeal to the more well behaved youngster, as its main characters were Desperate Dan and Korky the Cat, who tended to get into trouble accidentally rather than on purpose!

These subtle differences in the characters meant that a lot of kids would become devotees of a single comic only, and arguments in school playgrounds over which comic was “the best” could get quite heated!

Read more…

category icon

The Monster Books

Posted by Big Boo on April 28th, 2010

monster ellen blance ann cook quentin blakeBoth Li’l Boo (my wife) and myself have fond memories of the Monster books from our early childhood. Like the books featuring Roger Red Hat and company these books were a series which many primary schools had for helping teach children to read. They were written in the early seventies, but schools being schools they were still to be found in libraries well into the eighties, and probably beyond.

The books were written by Ellen Blance and Ann Cook, who drafted in the help of children to make the text read as if a child had written it. Illustrations were provided by Quentin Blake, who’s sketchy style suited the books brilliantly. From the illustrations Monster was vaguely humanoid, but must have been at least eight feet tall. As if that wasn’t enough to make him stand out in the crowd, he was also a pretty shade of purple.

From day to day monster didn’t wear clothes, or if he did it was a skin tight lycra jumpsuit. In common with many cartoon characters who generally wear nothing, he did wear clothes to aid with the storytelling. For example, in one book he goes for a bike ride, and wears a T-Shirt and shorts to do so.

Monster lived in a house with his friend, a little boy who was always just referred to as the Little Boy. The pair got up to all kinds of adventures as the Little Boy taught Monster about the world, and Monster helped people out with the aid of his magic umbrella, which could turn into different objects appropriate to the story.

At first the big purple Monster was all alone in a human world, befriended only by the Little Boy and other children. Before long though, a “girlfriend” for Monster was created, named simply Lady Monster. She looked almost exactly the same as Monster, except she had long hair (Monster was bald) and she normally wore a dress – at least she had grasped the concept of covering yourself up! Unsurprisingly Lady Monster also had a little child friend, who was called… The Little Girl. No prizes for guessing that one!

A few years back we tried tracking down some copies of the Monster books, which we managed to do both in the UK and the US. We ended up with some duplicates of a couple of the stories, and in particular one book (Monster and the Toy Sale) was interesting to see the difference in the two versions. The UK version mentions a “traffic policeman” whilst the US version uses the phrase “traffic cop”. I guess UK book publishers were a bit more prim and proper back then than they are now!

Search for The Monster Books items on Amazon.co.uk
category icon

I-Spy Books

Posted by Big Boo on March 24th, 2010

i spy booksI was browsing around my local bookstore the other day when what should I spy (sorry, couldn’t resist) but a display of I-Spy books, with the friendly fat face of the Michelin tyre man beaming up at me from the front covers. I was instantly whisked back to sitting in the back of the car, looking out the window as we travelled along, hoping to see a crane or an AA van or some other thing that I could then tick off in my I-Spy book.

The I-Spy series were very similar in style to the Usborne Spotter’s Guides that I’ve written about before. The I-Spy books were generally smaller in size (I hasten to use the word pocket sized since most things described as such tend to not quite fit into pockets as well as they might suggest they do) than the Usborne equivalents, and tended to be about subjects that you were more likely to see whilst travelling, such as cars, the highway code or going on a train.

The premise was the same though. The book was full of pictures of different objects and things that you had to spot. A little box next to the object allowed you to tick it off as “spied”, and depending on how rare the object was garnered you a different number of points.

Simple and for the most part a lot of fun, although you couldn’t help feel looking through the objects and thinking some of them were incredibly unlikely that you would ever see. For example, I don’t think I’ve ever seen that triangular highway code sign that has a car going off the end of a pier into some water. I’m sure they must exist, I’ve just never seen one.

Read more…

Stocking Fillers - Suppliers to Father Christmas
category icon category icon

The Moomins

Posted by Big Boo on February 24th, 2010

moominsMoomins are odd looking creatures who most resemble hippos, and were the invention of Finnish artist Tove Jansson. The originally started life in a series of books, the first of which appeared in 1945. This book was called The Moomins and the Great Flood, and it told how the Moomin family came to live in the Moominhouse in Moominvalley.

The main hero of the stories was Moomintroll, who was a young inquisitive Moomin who was fascinated by the world around him. His mother and father, Moominmamma and Moominpappa, also featured heavily. Moomintroll had a large extended family who often came to stay, including a female Moomin called, no not Moomingirl or something like that, but bizarrely The Snork Maiden?!

Other frequent guests of the Moomins were Snufkin, a wandering lad who played the harmonica, and the frankly scary Little My, who seemed to have a permanent scowl on her face and who got irritated about things very easily. Little My lived almost permanently with the Moomins, and despite being a bit disruptive at times could often be useful to have around.

Read more…

category icon category icon

2010 – The Year We Make Contact

Posted by Big Boo on January 6th, 2010

2010-odyssey-2What more fitting a way of starting off my posts for 2010 than with a bit on the film and book 2010! Both book and film arrived in 1984, when the year 2010 seemed like ages away. However, unlike some of the wilder predictions of other pieces of science fiction, 2010 probably isn’t that far off the mark. Sure, we don’t have sentient computers or manned space ships orbiting Jupiter, but I don’t think we’re actually that far off from these achievements.

2010 is of course the sequel to 2001: A Space Odyssey, which was written by Arthur C. Clarke back in 1968. The film of 2001 was released in the same year and was directed by Stanley Kubrick, and has gone on to be one of those classic critically acclaimed films that are considered by many to be a must see. The film is probably best known for having relatively little dialogue although two lines in particular are oft quoted, these being “Open the pod bay doors, HAL” and “My God, it’s full of stars”.

The storyline of 2001 sees the crew of the space ship Discovery One, which is orbiting Jupiter (originally Saturn in the novel), get bumped off by the ship’s computer HAL 9000 as it decides it doesn’t want to die (i.e. be switched off). Astronaut Dave Bowman manages to survive, although only because he is sucked into a mysterious and huge black monolith which is in orbit around the planet.

2010 picks up the story with the Odyssey Two being sent to Jupiter to try and discover what went wrong with HAL. When they get there they find that HAL is the least of their worries, as hundreds of monoliths appear on Jupiter, increasing the planets mass so that it will implode and turn into a star. This process is being controlled by a group of aliens who wish to study and promote life on Europa, one of Jupiter’s moons.

It has been a good many years since I saw 2010, so my memories of it are hazy, but having done a little research into the plot for the purposes of writing this post I’m actually quite interested in seeing it again. I would say I’d read the novel too, but I never seem to quite find the time to read books any more, which is a bit of a shame.

Search for 2010 items on Amazon.co.uk
category icon

Newsfield Computer Magazines – Crash, Zzap! 64 and Amtix

Posted by Big Boo on October 2nd, 2009

zzap 64Back in the 1980’s there were a wide variety of home computers available, but arguably the most popular in the UK were the ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64 and Amstrad CPC. OK, the BBC Micro was popular too, but when it came to playing videogames, those first three were normally the best choice for quantity and variety of games. And before people complain, I know, the BBC Micro may have spawned the classic Elite, but it wasn’t exactly overladen in games compared to the others.

The quality of the games available for these computers was not always guaranteed though, and so before owners forked out between five and fifteen pounds for a cassette tape with the latest game on many would first turn to the reviews in a computer magazine to help them in their choice. Some of the best respected magazines for games reviews came from the magazine publisher Newsfield.

The first Newfield review magazine was named Crash, and it solely covered ZX Spectrum games when it was launched in 1984. Compared to the other magazines available at the time it was a fresh direction. It was all presented in an edgy, more cool approach than the more stuffy attempts of other magazines.

Gone were the type in listings for naff games written by other readers, and instead you got extensive reviews of the games, handy tips and cheats (remember the good old POKE codes?), and maps and play guides for different games. The reviews were particularly revolutionary because they often had the opinions of more than one reviewer. If all the reviewers liked it, chances are it was a good game, and if it was really good it could be given the coveted Crash Smash award!

Read more…

category icon

Twinkle

Posted by Big Boo on July 22nd, 2009

twinkleWhen we were growing up my sister and I used to enjoy reading our weekly comic very much.  I tended to flit between the Beano, Dandy, Nutty and Wow, basically the funny comics, depending on which had the most interesting piece of free plastic tat sellotaped to the front cover.  My sister on the other hand tended to stick with her favourite, which was Twinkle.

Twinkle was published by D.C. Thompson (better known for The Beano) and was aimed squarely at young girls, being dubbed “the picture paper especially for little girls”.  Twinkle was also the name of the little girl who graced the front cover of every issue, where she would be seen doing something fun but incredibly sweet and good, such as bathing a puppy in her dolly bath, or dancing round a May Pole.  Remember the May Pole at the school fete, with all its ribbons that got twisted together when the kids skipped round it?  When was the last time you saw a May Pole?  Sorry, gone off topic…

Read more…