After the joys of Christmas and the new year have left us and that January gloom has set in, let us get back to the consumerism that we’ve all been trying to avoid in the longest pay month in the calendar. So we’re going to have a look at what products that we would happily snap up if they were in production.

1. The Blyton colouring book: Well in my case a Famous Five adult colouring book. As the adult colouring bookshave become such a Western phenomenon it would be amazing to see a book of Blyton’s illustrators works all ready and waiting for colouring. It would certainly fly off the shelves to our particular market. I mean who has never wanted to colour in one of Eileen Soper’s illustrations? I know I have!
   

   Who wouldn’t want to colour in Julian threatening Mr Stick with a pie? One of Ju’s more likable moments for most people, would certainly be a colouring treat.

2. The 90s Famous Five TV series on English DVDs with ALL the episodes: Well we know we can get them from Spain, Germany and Holland but the UK has yet to honour the 90s Famous Five with the same treatment as the 70s series received a few years ago. What would be nice if the 90s set could include interviews with the cast and crew, as well as all the behind the scenes footage that was recorded at the time. Some of this footage can be found on the German copies of the DVDs, but you get the feeling that there is some missing! Anyway, that’s high on my lists of ‘would like to sees’ as a 90s fan.
   

   

   De Vijf the Dutch DVDs of the 90s Famous Five

   

   The De Fem Danish DVDs of the 90s Famous Five

   
   
3. New hardback editions with original texts and illustrations: What every collector craves, brand new, beautifully bound editions to go with our lovingly collected early editions. The proper illustrations and text in place, and un-touched by the censors. What could be nicer? Also given that there seems to be trend in republishing adult classic novels in lovely cloth bound editions, I don’t see why this isn’t possible for a classic children’s author.
   
4. A brand new TV series: Wouldn’t it be lovely if we had a brand new TV series, not something that has been done before, but another, the Five Find-Outers or Malory Towers. I would go for Malory Towers personally (and so would Fiona) and you could make them feature length and have all six years done. You get more scope from something like the Five Find Outers though as they have 15 adventures to get through! The only thing though is that as pureists we’d want them to be as close to the original books as possible wouldn’t we?(As a side note/Post Script; wouldn’t it be lovely if these Magic Faraway Tree Movies were to happen? We’ve been promised them for years and years and they’ve never materialized!)
   
5. The last thing I would like to see on this list would be favourite phrases, pictures, fan slogans (such as “team Julian”) printed on T-shirts and hoodies. You see a lot of that about these days, especially for big things like Harry Potter. There are tonnes of quotes and things Blyton fans could have on hoodies, jumpers, t-shirts etc. One of my favourite quotes is one from Five Get into Trouble where Julian confronts Hunchy. “You’re so sharp you’ll cut yourself!” says Hunchy. To which Julian replies, rather sassily, “So my mother told me when I was two!” In fact I might even have to design myself my very own “Team Julian” hoodie to keep me nice and warm. The other half might not be so impressed however.
   

   An example of the kind of clothing line I’m talking about, taken from the Harry Potter fandom.

So anyway, those are my five things I would like to see from the Blyton estate this year, and you never know there may be more to come when I think of them, in fact I’ve already got a couple of ideas brewing. Let me know if there is anything else you’d like to see, and I’ll pop it in the next blog!