Monday #238

Posted on October 9, 2017 by Fiona

So I’m back from my holiday and it’s time to crack on with business and that includes our usual monthly round up this week! Hope you like the look of what’s coming up!

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Blyton for Grown Ups: The Red House Mystery by A. A. Milne

Posted on October 6, 2017 by pippastef

4735746Betcha didn’t know that A. A. Milne, the father and creator of Winnie the Pooh wrote a mystery novel. Well neither did I until I was out on holiday with my Dad in Weston-Super-Mare and spotted this book on the shelves of Waterstones. I knew I had to buy it, who wouldn’t? We know A. A. Milne so well for Winnie the Pooh and especially now that new film is coming out “Goodbye Christopher Robin”, I thought it might be quite topical to look at one of the books he isn’t quite so well remembered for and was in fact his only detective novel.

Shall we take a look at the book then?

A time before Pooh

The Red House Mystery is one of those gentile mysteries, a la Sherlock Holmes from Arthur Conan Doyle or one of Agatha Christie’s brilliant inventions. I know from researching that A. A. Milne did play on the same cricket team as Arthur Conan Doyle for a while, so that would indicate a possible link to characters mirroring each other.  However, Anthony Gillingham, Milne’s protagonist, isn’t quite the same Sherlock Holmes as Doyle created. He has a wonderful Milne-ness about him, and is more human than Holmes could ever really be. Gillingham is on the same page as most of the readers, he’s almost ‘normal’ and he just thinks it would be fun to have a go at this detective lark, especially when his host at the big English country mansion, Red House, goes missing after a shooting.

He has a trusty sidekick Bill Beverley, who acts rather more ‘Watsonish’ than Gillingham acts like Holmes, but still enables Gillingham to come up with some rather brilliant theories as to the disappearance of their host and the murder that has taken place. It’s rather an upper middle class, if not upper class situation murder just like Poirot wuld be investigating.  Published in 1922, after the first world war, it contains the archetypal characters you’d expect, the brave boys wounded, the ones who came back from the war, the vicar, the flat footed policeman. It really harks towards the usual cosy crime novel we have seen before, but there is something compelling about it, possibly because it’s a ‘locked room’ mystery where no one can really have done it.

It was received with critical acclaim in 1922, with many praising it, and without a doubt it is a wonderful book, and story. I can’t quite remember whodunnit, because it’s a while since I read it, but it is of that time and ilk that allows for the mystery to be exciting and engaging.

It is probably the best time period in regards for the mystery novella because we don’t have the interference of science and forensics. The hard work was done by the human hand and allows for the brain to work and actually strive to come to the conclusions that these detectives in the novels come to.  That’s really why I enjoy these novels so much!

The fact that Milne created this book before Winnie the Pooh even came along is amazing in itself, but it still has the feel of Pooh’s adventures in the Hundred Acre wood  but with that cutting edginess that comes with a good crime novel.  It really is a lovely easy read. I do honestly suggest you find yourself a copy and enjoy!

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Putting the Famous Five in order

Posted on October 4, 2017 by Fiona

Sorry to anyone who thinks I’m about to skelp Julian for being bossy, or George for her temper. I actually want to do something even harder: put the series in order of most to least favourite. I’ve always had books I really love, ones I quite like and ones I think aren’t quite as good as the rest, but I’ve never examined it closely enough to work out exactly what order I would rank them in.

MY #1 FAVOURITE

The start is easy:  all-time favourite is Five Go to Smuggler’s Top, so that has to occupy the #1 slot.

I have always loved Smuggler’s Top, though I find the ‘why’ very hard to put it into words. It was my favourite right from the start, though I don’t think I read it more often than the others – I pretty much always read all 21 through in order. It was one of two that I had with a dustjacket which was nice, many of my others were hardbacks missing parts of their spine, 70s paperbacks or rather nasty shiny new paperbacks. I did discuss the effect hardback vs paperback had on me, and it certainly wasn’t a case of all hardbacks being my favourite, if you love a story enough it won’t matter what the book looks like (or indeed if it’s even a book and not on a Kindle but that’s getting off-topic).

Ok, so Smuggler’s Top was just a really lovely looking book, but it is also a great story. I have always LOVED the start with the drama of the tree crashing down on the house (my signature on the Enid Blyton Society Forums reads:

“It’s the ash! It’s falling!” yelled Julian, almost startling Dick out of his wits…
“Listen to its terrible groans and creaks!” yelled Julian, almost beside himself with impatience.

Yes, there a bit missing in the middle but there’s a character limit and those are the best bits! I still get a shiver down my spine when I read that bit and in my hormonal state the next time I may even cry.

And of course after that is the spooky Castaway Island with its marshes, endless tunnels, secret passages and of course the sinister Block and Mr Barling. It has some good red herrings like Mr Lenoir’s temper and some funny moments like Sooty pretending he bit Block to protect Timmy.

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MY BOTTOM TWO

It may seem a bit strange to go from the top to the bottom, but I know these positions for definite so it’s easier to do that and then work out the rest.

M two least favourites just happen to be the last two titles: Five Are Together Again and Five Have a Mystery to Solve. Blyton, it is generally agreed, was starting to decline in writing powers towards the end of her career. You can argue when the decline started but it was definitely in the early 60s, and these books were published in 1962 and 1963 respectively. Banshee Towers (generally regarded as a very weak title) came out in 1961, and her very last full-length novel (again, widely regarded as not up to her usual standard) was The Hidey-Hole in 1964. Saying that, I love Five Go to Demon’s Rocks and that was a 1961 book, so not everything from that period was bad.

Anyway, writing skill aside, why do I like these less than the others?

Five Have a Mystery to Solve has just never ranked that highly for me. There are parts I like – the journey down the well for example – but it irks me that the sea-faring Five are foolish enough to get stranded on an island. I also dislike Wilfrid all the way though (even if he improves) so that doesn’t help. This is one I had in rather an ugly paperback (which, if I remember rightly, had the blurb from another book on the back).

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Somehow the left book seemed uglier than the right one.

Five Are Together Again is disappointing for different reasons. The last book, in my opinion, should either have harked back to the glorious Kirrin days of some of the earlier books or taken us to somewhere new and exciting (in the vein of Tremannon, Demon’s Rocks, Hike etc). Instead we get the Five camping in someone’s garden and a cursory glimpse of Kirrin.

The mystery itself isn’t particularly great either – it’s The Rilloby Fair Mystery recycled in a new setting. We’ve also already had the Five live alongside Fair Folk in Wonderful Time, and  Circus Folk in Caravan, so even that element fails to bring anything new.

It’s not a bad book, I hasten to add, but in comparison with the other 20, it does seem lacking.

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THE LIST

1. Five Go to Smuggler’s top
20. Five Have a Mystery to Solve
21. Five Are Together Again

puttingthefamousfiveinorder1

What would your top and bottom books be?

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Monday #237

Posted on October 2, 2017 by Fiona

I’m on holiday this week, all the way away in sunny (hopefully) Tenerife, so I hope you like these blogs that have been prepared for you all ahead of time!

Monday#237

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The Mystery of the Strange Bundle, part 2

Posted on September 29, 2017 by pippastef

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I think I must be in some sort of ‘anti-Fatty’ mood right now because I struggled to finish this book. It didn’t appeal to me I guess and the mystery is a bit dry. Lets take a look shall we?

When is a mystery not exciting?

Enid Blyton has written before about the children in her books being ill before they miraculously get better and get embroiled in a mystery. Five Get Into a Fix is one of my favourite books because of the change of catalyst for the story, but The Mystery of the Strange Bundle has been so disappointing.

The most exciting thing that seems to come out of it, is that there seems to be some spies around, or something that is not the usual in Peterswood which is great! Give me something nice and juicy like that, something to really get my mind working and fizzing and just tumbling through possibilities!

However… it’s so poorly executed that I just can’t believe it even made it to publishing.  If it didn’t have Blyton’s name on it, she wouldn’t have gotten it published, especially not today. There is nothing new to this book, its the usual ‘Oh I can’t believe how brilliant Fatty is’ rhetoric, and spotting things that adults can’t. I mean ok, Goon is… as stupid as ever, but surely these ‘different’ kind of policemen should have been at least three steps ahead of Fatty, I mean he’s only a school boy!

It’s just so frustrating that this whole books seems to exist just to prove Fatty the hero once again.  The other Find-Outers barely have anything to do with this mystery, apart from collecting a few clues and bits of information. It seems such a waste. I suppose my biggest pet peeve on this one is how Goon acts towards Fatty, when he basically has a fight with him, when he lifts the sack from the bottom of the river. It’s childish, uncalled for, and just wrong. Fatty is a teenager (maybe about 15?) and he’s being set on by an adult, who is supposed to be in a position of responsibility, it’s not good.  There is very little mention of discipline, just that Inspector Jenks makes Goon uncomfortable but there’s nothing to do reprimand the man, who should really lose his job for that behaviour!

To top it all off really, the inspector and his friend find what they’re looking for without too much trouble,  Goon’s invited to tea with the FFO and Buster saves the day! We don’t even get a wonderful dramatic nasty guy catch! I mean what sort of novel doesn’t have the bad guy actually getting caught? So disappointing.

My thoughts

I cannot recommend this novel at all. I just can’t! My instinct is to tell you to keep away from it, because its just boring and painful to read. The ending is anti-climatic, the story is slow, sluggish and fairly forgettable over all, and of course Fatty’s new found talent is the real reason anyone finds anything out at all, who could have guessed?

It’s old, its stale and it just shows to me, that however much I do love Blyton, the stories she wrote sometimes were no good. They were old, tired, and just not as brilliant as some of her other works. I enjoyed the Mystery of the Pantomime Cat, it was different and exciting, but the Mystery of the Strange Bundle did just not do it for me. I’m sorry.

Let me know what you guys think of the book in the comments. I’d like to know!

Next review: The Mystery of Holly Lane

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Make Way for Noddy Episode #76 Noddy Loses His Bell

Posted on September 27, 2017 by Fiona

It’s the start of February right now and in the hope of me having some maternity leave from blogging I have sat down to do what I thought would be some quick and easy TV reviews. Oh how wrong I always am. I was going to watch an episode from Noddy in Toyland on the Channel 5 catch up site, which I had already placed a link to in my guide to Blyton on TV. Unfortunately, none of the episodes work. They just take you to a 404 error.

So after a rethink I found there are some episodes of Make Way for Noddy available (from around #51 to #100) and so what is what I will do instead. I don’t like starting near the end of a series but seeing as I can’t start at the beginning I just chose an episode title I fancied.

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THE SHOW

We start with what can only be desribed as a very annoying theme song which seems to go on for ages. I pity the parents whose children love this show and subject them to this song over and over (and thoroughly hope I will not be one of them!)

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You can tell the show is an older one as the CGI world is not very good. The characters are OK, they have texture and so on but the inside of Noddy’s house, for instance, looks very cheap and flat. Also, strangely, he has a shower cubicle in the corner of his one-room house, and a sink, but no toilet. Then again, Blyton never had anyone use a toilet so perhaps it is in keeping with the books that way.

LOSING THE BELL

Quite a few things in Toyland make Noddy’s head start nodding – but not the milkman. The first is his alarm clock waking him up, and then later, a sudden stop in his car sets him off again. It is at this point he realises he doesn’t hear his bell ringing, it’s gone! He hears a deeper bell, and that’s the town clock chiming. Then another bells rings, but that’s on the door of a shop. That can only mean one thing, apparently. His own bell is lost.

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FINDING THE BELL

Noddy being the brainless toy that he is, decides he will search all of Toytown to find his bell. Straight away I was thinking ‘but hang on, he hasn’t been down any alleys between shops or through the park…”

Thankfully Big Ears is at least as bright as I am, and asks Noddy if he has been to any of the places he has searched before. By this point that include behind shops, in flowerbeds and in dustbins.

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Only then does Noddy understand that he should retrace his steps to find the bell. He takes this a little bit too literally and takes his car in reverse (literally) along the route he had taken that morning. PC Plod must have been on a day off otherwise I am sure he would have had something to say about Noddy driving at speed in reverse all around the place.

Rather conveniently, at every stop the person there can remind him of where he had been he saw them. So the clockwork clown sends him to Mr Sparks at the garage (a darker-skinned Scotsman but definitely not a golliwog), Mr Sparks directs him to Dinah Doll’s stall (Dinah a dark-skinned doll was added to the books around the time the gollys were removed), Dinah reminds him he brought Martha Monkey from the train station. After that he manages to remember he had come from home before that.

And lo and behold, his bell is sitting right outside his own front door.

FINAL THOUGHTS

I’m sure two-year olds will like it. It’s brightly coloured and it had a simple but fairly interesting story line to follow.

These older shows are nice because although they have fallen foul of the ‘everything must be CGI’ way of thinking, they at least are not full of technology. I don’t understand why every show now must have a tablet computer or smart phone device assisting the main characters. Your average pre-schooler doesn’t carry a tablet around every day (even if they do have one at home to play with) so why do TV characters seem surgically attached to theirs?

Anyway I’m getting away from the point here. I thought it was OK, not really enough to hold an adult’s interest or spark any real debate or discussion but it wasn’t designed for that. It will entertain a toddler for the ten minutes it’s on.

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Monday #236

Posted on September 25, 2017 by Fiona

So I’m back from Dundee, and my visit to Fiona and baby Brodie, who is gorgeous, and it’s business at usual this week with blogs! Hope you enjoy!

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The Mystery of the Strange Bundle

Posted on September 22, 2017 by pippastef

So I failed. I had one job and that was to read the book on my way up to Fiona’s when I was on the train, and I didn’t. On top of that, I’ve just not been reading because I’ve been trying to help with Brodie (he’s got a good pair of lungs on him!) and I have just failed completely in my simple task. So I’m going to review the first half of the book for you. Let’s go!

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Illness abounds

Oh woe are the Five Find-Outers, they have gone down with the flu, thanks to Bets as she’s managed to get it first over the Christmas hols, and given it around to everyone. When we join them they have managed to be mostly on the mend, and Bets is better and visiting the others faithfully.

After she gets annoyed at Pip, because he’s being mean to her, she decides to go and see Fatty who enjoys her company even when ill. Pip asks her for some bulls’ eyes, so she pops to the sweet shop and buys some for Fatty as well, thinking he’s probably at the same stage as Pip in his recovery.

When she gets to Fatty’s he already has a visitor, much to his mother’s surprise, not to mention that Fatty also appears to be asleep which adds to the confusion. The old lady who is there is apparently known to Fatty and has met the Trottevilles before. Mrs Trotteville isn’t convinced and then the cover breaks when Fatty reveals himself to be the old lady in the chair.

Mrs Trotteville is not impressed, especially given that the cook has given Fatty her aunt’s old smelly clothes. She wants to throw them away or wash them at least and Fatty won’t let her. He convinces his mother that Bets can take them down to his shed before she goes and the clothes are left and the woman forgotten.

Bets and Fatty sit down to talk, Mrs Trotteville having invited Bets to stay for tea, and Fatty tells Bets that he has begun to teach himself to throw his voice and become a ventriloquist. Apparently he’s been inspired by someone visiting his school in the last term and wanted to take it up. How he managed to ‘perfect’ his new skill so quickly, I don’t know, because its a very difficult and precise skill, and it takes people years to perfect it. However this is Fatty, why am I not surprised that he took it on with ease? He’s Blyton’s perfect character after all.

What I do find really distasteful is that he scares Bets with this ‘talent’ so much that she genuinely is trembling with fear. Fiona disagrees with me, saying that Bets is just a big baby, but there’s two sides to this issue. To me they hinge on Fatty’s personality. One is the mature, sensible boy he can be sometimes, when he’s actually in the middle of a mystery and looking after the others, but when he’s bored he can be brutish, and when he’s showing off he is just a pain. He can be so flippant and disregards so many opinions and feelings because he’s the ‘great’ Fatty. Fiona thinks I just don’t like him and that many people would disagree with me about him. Feel free to back one of us up in the comments!

The beginning of the mystery 

After the generally recovery from the flu the five and Buster start to explore the village once more much to Mr Goon’s disgust. He’s gotten rather big for his boots since the children were ill because he was able to run after any mystery that may have occurred. He’s as insufferable as ever, back to being rude about Fatty (not that he doesn’t deserve it) but he should at least have manners when dealing with the children and Fatty. When Bets is on her way to visit Fatty, she bumps into Mr Goon, and he tells her what he thinks of Fatty and is quite rude really. Bets then blithely tells Fatty everything who laughs at Goon, but is determined to find a mystery to beat the policeman to solving it.

Anyway, once the children are more recovered from the flu, they are out and about, trying to find a mystery before they go back to school, but nothing appears until there’s a break in two doors down from Larry and Daisy. Again there doesn’t seem to be much of a mystery and it rather feels like there won’t be much of the mystery until the very end of the book again. Still, best to keep going and see where we get with this.

Please tell me it gets better?

Next review: The Mystery of the Strange Bundle part 2

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A prize for the most updated of Enid Blyton’s text

Posted on September 20, 2017 by Fiona

As you will probably know I have written several series of posts on the updatings to Blyton’s texts, looking at the first book of a series (and a few Noddys). I would now like to award a (dubious) prize to the ‘most edited’ title.

THE SHORTLIST

Our contenders are:

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THE METHODOLOGY

There are two possible ways to rank these books. First would be a simple ‘highest number of edits’ chart, but that’s probably not quite fair as some books are longer than others. The second would be to work out the average number of changes per chapter (though now I’m starting to doubt myself and wondering if it should be by number of pages, as some might just have very short chapters…)

SOME RESULTS

Anyway, using the first method, our chart would look like this.

  • In last place is The Secret Island with just 59
  • Still under the hundred-mark is The Twins at St Clare’s with 83
  • Five on a Treasure Island comes in next with 117
  • Then not far behind is The Island of Adventure with 128
  • First Term at Malory Towers would come next, with 133
  • The Mystery of the Burnt Cottage would scoop the coveted top spot with a whopping total of 187 changes.

SOME MORE RESULTS

However, let’s see what happens when we work out the average per chapter:

  • The Secret Island (3)
  • The Twins at St Clare’s (4)
  • The Island of Adventure (4.5)
  • First Term at Malory Towers (6)
  • Five on a Treasure Island (7)
  • The Mystery of The Burnt Cottage (10)

So The Mystery of the Burnt Cottage is still in top place, and The Secret Island is still at the bottom, but it does change around the order for those in the middle.

IS THERE A BETTER WAY OF DOING THIS?

I then started to look at number of pages, thinking that would be more accurate (as some books have longer chapters than others) and there I stumbled upon another problem. I wasn’t sure whether to use the paperback number of pages, or the hardback. So I counted both just to see what the difference was. For most books, it wasn’t significant. Five on a Treasure Island and The Secret Island had almost exactly the same number of pages in each format. First Term at Malory Towers differed by sixteen pages (the paperback being longer), The Twins at St Clare’s was 35 pages shorter in paperback, The Mystery of the Burnt Cottage was 52 pages longer in paperback, and then, The Island of Adventure was a whopping 136 pages longer in the hardback!

I had expected the paperbacks to be shorter – cheap, economy paperbacks cramming as many words per page and most lacking illustrations. But that wasn’t really the case. So clearly there’s a lot of variety in terms of font size and words per page.

My problem really arose with Five on a Treasure Island vs. The Island of Adventure. In paperback they are exactly the same length. In hardback, The Island of Adventure is 1.7 times longer. Any attempt to work out which had been most edited (and by what margin) would have to take that into account.

And so, I found myself counting words on a page. I just picked one average page that was all text (I don’t have all year for this, despite how long I’ve gone on…) that made Five on a Treasure Island around 51,000 words and The Island of Adventure 68,000, the latter being only 1.3 times longer. (The chapter numbers gave a 1.7 increase too, incidentally.)

In addition to that, the hardbacks of Five on a Treasure Island and The Secret Island are the same length but Five on a Treasure Island is around 10,000 words shorter.

Therefore I have come to the conclusion, that in the search for pedantic, pathetic accuracy, I will be doing a word count on all the books…

So, with a rough estimate of length, here are the books from longest to shortest:

  • The Island of Adventure 68,000
  • The Twins at St Clare’s 55,000
  • Five on a Treasure Island 51,000
  • The Secret Island 62,700
  • First Term at Malory Towers 49,500
  • The Mystery of the Burnt Cottage 43,500

And so, let’s see what that means, drumroll please! (I will be quite annoyed if this list is in the same order as the first one mind you.)

  • The Secret Island remains in last place, as there was an edit for every 1,062 words.
  • The Twins at St Clare’s is still in second-last place, with an edit for every 662 words.
  • The Island of Adventure moves down to fourth place (same as in the per chapter result) with an edit per 531 words.
  • Five on a Treasure Island comes third (it was fourth in total and second by chapters) with a change per 435 words.
  • First Term at Malory Towers retains second place (but was third by chapters) with an edit for every 372 words.
  • And you know what that means! The Mystery of the Burnt Cottage is the unequivocal winner, with a change made for every 232 words.

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Yes, Mr Goon. I’m as perplexed as you.

So the final order doesn’t look too different, but I think it’s the most accurate. If there are any mathematicians or statistical analysts out there, please let me know if my methodology stinks.

AND NOT FORGETTING…

And just as a little bonus: Noddy! Thankfully the Noddys are all exactly the same length so I can order them easily.

  • Noddy and his Car (47)
  • Here Comes Noddy Again (39)
  • Hurrah for Little Noddy (32)
  • Well Done, Noddy (20)
  • Noddy Goes to Toyland (14)

That does give Noddy and His Car an edit for very 165 words, though… Even Here Comes Noddy Again has one per 200 words, making them both more edited than even The Mystery of the Burnt Cottage. 

You know what? It would just be simpler if they didn’t edit any books, and then I’d have nothing to count and nothing to obsess over. Wouldn’t that be great??

 

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Monday #235

Posted on September 18, 2017 by Fiona

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A Writer’s Garden 2: What we know about the original Old Thatch gardens

Posted on September 15, 2017 by pippastef

Last week we looked at the most up to date information we had from Old Thatch gardens and got an idea of the kind of place the cottage and gardens are, but as mentioned we don’t know very much about Old Thatch in Enid Blyton’s own time.

Shall we have a look at what I’ve been able to find out?

Citation: Many thanks to the tireless and hard work of the Enid Blyton Society for uploading the periodicals of The Teachers World magazine for my research in this article.

Welcome to Old Thatch

In July 1929, Blyton moved into Old Thatch at Bourne End and wrote in her Teachers’ World column about the garden and how wonderful everything was. She describes the lily pond, the rose arbour, the tall yew hedges that still surround the gardens today, as are the trees that surround the garden and the brook at the bottom. So by the sounds of what Blyton wrote in that copy of Teachers’ World in 1929 the actual layout of the garden hasn’t changed all that much by and large. Possibly the only big alteration is that a second house was built on part of the garden at some point and this was only possible with a piece of the garden being sold off.  You can read the whole piece either on the Enid Blyton Society page here, or look at the scan they made below.

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How can you dispute such a perfect description of a writer’s garden, from their own pen indeed?  You can check out the other pieces of writing Blyton did about Old Thatch here to find her other descriptions.

There were other bits and pieces that could help up piece together the garden at Old Thatch and there are some surviving photographs of the family there. One of the most famous pictures is of Blyton with Bobs the dog, sitting at the “wishing” well at the back of the house under Gillian’s bedroom window. 3E742AB500000578-4331320-image-m-38_1490013237932

You can see from this picture that there is a lot of space behind the house at this point, no masses of beautiful flowerbeds as planted by Jackie Hawthorne and her husband when they owned the house and then opened the gardens. There is a lot of space in this garden, perfect for a new family and lots of pets.

Tess Livingstone

Tess Livingstone wrote a book, Enid Blyton  at Old Thatch where she goes around with Gillian Baverstock (Blyton’s oldest daughter) and discusses the garden, and the experiences had in it.

Fiona has read it properly whereas I only had time to skim through, but the idea that this book can allow us to have a glimpse of Blyton’s garden as it was way back when she was the owner is something to delight in. The added voice of Gillian as well is a perfect accompaniment to the book and the guide, with someone who actually remembers the garden and the joys it brought. Goodreads tells you more about the book here

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My point being that all these things could have been researched up to make an entry into the The Writer’s Garden by Jackie Bennett to add such a beloved children’s author to the book where so many other prolific authors are mentioned and looked into. All right, so my blogs haven’t been the extensive ones you’d have from Fiona, but this is just minimal digging to show that there is enough to not leave Blyton out of these kinds of books.

What do you think?

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When people search for Enid Blyton what are they looking for? (#3)

Posted on September 13, 2017 by Fiona

I have found so many funny/strange search terms I’ve had to do a second post. Though now I’m thinking about how those strange terms are now on the blog and we are even more likely to have people find us while searching for spiders… (just a note to say that any capital letters in the search terms have been added by me – to make them easier to read!)

FAMOUS POEMS, SHORT POEMS, FUNNY POEMS, ANY SORT OF POEMS

Our top search terms mostly revolve around Enid Blyton’s poetry, which is interesting. In fact, four of the top five mention poems (capital letters added by pedantic me):

  • Enid Blyton poems – 386
  • poems by Enid Blyton – 169
  • Enid Blyton poems for children – 100
  • poems of Enid Blyton – 94
  • Enid Blyton poem – 55
  • Enid Blyton poetry – 49
  • poem of Enid Blyton – 45
  • poems written by Enid Blyton – 42
  • famous poems of Enid Blyton – 35
  • short poems by Enid Blyton – 35
  • Enid Blyton poems list – 29
  • poem by Enid Blyton – 25
  • famous poems by Enid Blyton – 15
  • funny poems by Enid Blyton – 14
  • Enid Blyton short poems – 13
  • poems Enid Blyton – 12

I think you get the picture! That’s over 1,100 views from people searching for poems. (There are also more poem search terms such as firework poems etc).

Other top searches include Malory Towers, Famous Five fan fiction, Laura Petela, Jemima Rooper, Jennifer Thanisch, Enid Blyton fan fiction, The Famous Five, Marco Williamson and Eileen Soper.

OOPS, DID YOU REALLY MEAN THAT?

Further down the list are some which garnered only a few views and some are unintentionally funny (or potentially offensive):

  • fatty Enid Blyton and Enid Blyton fatty I know what it means, but it sounds rude!
  • amysteryforninepence from someone whose space bar was broken?
  • borne end flooding 13 feb 2014 oddly specific for spelling Bourne End wrong.
  • deads leave but maybe that’s creepy rather than funny.
  • poets of Enid Blyton she had many personal poets, she kept them in a cupboard…
  • hairbrush spank this could have taken them to many worse places.
  • crinkley bottom noddy I can’t begin to work this one out
  • characters of Anne Kirrin she had many characters, a tiger being just one.
  • famouse five book review makes me think of five famous mice…
  • famous five tv serious images nothing light-hearted allowed
  • Paul Child as the Famous Five he’s so versatile he played them all
  • Philip spanks Amelia could also have lead to bad places
  • why did Enid Blyton call Margaret Daykin Daisy it wasn’t just a Blyton thing…
  • foto Fanny Kirrin again, what?
  • Enid the spider I wonder if this is the same person as searched for enid blyton spider malory panties before.

10657

AN ENID BLYTON BLOG THAT DOESN’T MENTION ENID BLYTON ENOUGH

Searches for Enid Blyton only brought 36 views, but I think that’s because we don’t often use her full name. It seems silly to tag every post with Enid Blyton on an Enid Blyton blog! It rather goes without saying, but it unfortunately means that we fail to rank with Google with that as a search term. (I suspect those 36 may have come via Google images or similar.)

GOSH, THE TITLE JUST ELUDES ME

TV series about 4 childs on island and dog Gorgiana. I remember it so well, that TV series about those four childs on an island and one of them was called Gorgiana. She had a dog. Oh, what was its name? (Or was the dog called Gorgiana, I really can’t remember!)

Bill adventure train castle book. And then there was that book where Bill went on a train and had an adventure in a castle. What was it called? Adventure in a Castle? No, that’s not it…

2-castle-weird

 

ENID BLYTON IMPOSTERS

There was a chap, a long time ago who wrote under the pen-name Enid Boyton (or sometimes Boyten). He claimed that it was a complete coincidence and it was not deliberately chosen to look like Enid Blyton, but here are some more potential impostors (or perhaps just bad spelling?)

  • Emid Blyton poem if i knew if only I knew who Emid was.
  • Book review of Noddy and the Bunkey part 19 by Emid Blyton this one’s obviously quite prolific, writing nineteen part novels about the real Blyton’s characters.
  • Why Emid Blyton wrote the poem with fireworks? if you ever track down Emid, do be sure to ask her!
  • Edin Blyton smuggler ben this one’s also using real Blyton titles!
  • Enid Bylton poems good old Enid Bylton…
  • stories writtrn by wnidblyton I’m surprised this one even found us!
  • Naughty Amelia Jane in Grid Bottom in Tamil – The famous Grid Bottom is perhaps a famous Tamil author?
  • Images of the characters of Dick in Five of Enid Bottom – Never mind Dick having multiple characters but we now have Enid Bottom. A relation of Grid Bottom?

 

 

 

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Monday #234

Posted on September 11, 2017 by Fiona

So I finally got the August round up now, and its back to normal this week! Enjoy!

Monday#234

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August 2017 round up

Posted on September 10, 2017 by Fiona

Fiona has, of course, gone on maternity leave, so this is all me now, you lucky things! Let’s get a crack on then.

WHAT I’VE READ

It’s been a busy month but managed to fit some reading in between everything.

  • Too Many Cooks – Marina Pascoe Reviewed here.
  • The Ravenmaster’s Boy – Mary Hoffman
  • The Caravan Family – Enid Blyton – Reviewed here,
  • The Mystery of the Invisible Thief – Enid Blyton – Reviewed here.
  • The Mystery of the Vanished Prince –  Enid Blyton – Reviewed here.

Current reads:

  • Russian Roulette – Sara Sheridan
  • Peggy and Me – Miranda Hart
  • Feet of Clay – Terry Pratchett

WHAT I’VE WATCHED

  • Lord of the Rings and Lord of the Rings the Two Towers – my other half likes the movies a lot so I agreed to watch them with him.
  • Red Dwarf
  • Top Gear
  • The Antiques Road Trip

WHAT I’VE DONE

  • I’ve had my first taste of amusement parks – I have been taken to Thorpe Park by the boyfriend.
  • The other “fun” thing I’ve been made to do is go fishing. I mostly read throughout the afternoon while the boyfriend caught roach (much to his annoyment) and one carp.
  • I’ve had a couple of bbqs when the weather hasn’t been too bad.
  • And most of all this month I’ve been going gooey eyed over photos of Fiona’s baby boy Brodie who graced us with his presence at the beginning of the month.

 WHAT FIONA HAS READ

Only a few things (understandably) : mostly on my phone while I’ve been feeding the baby.

  • Dead Until Dark (Sookie Stackhouse #1) – on audiobook
  • Ah Sweet Mystery of Life – Roald Dahl
  • Living Dead in Dallas (Sookie Stackhouse #2) – on audiobook
  • Breastfeeding: Everything you need to know about – Suzanne Fredregill
  • The House of Closed Doors – Jane Steen
  • East End Angel (Campbell Road Saga #5) – Kay Brellend

And things on the go:

  • What to Expect the 1st Year – Heidi Murkhoff
  • The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar – Roald Dahl

I’m also listening to the Harry Potter audiobooks again but I’ve slept through too much of them for it to count again.

WHAT FIONA HAS WATCHED

  • Still haven’t missed an episode of Hollyoaks yet!
  • The new series of Can’t Pay? We’ll Take it Away.
  • Only Connect (still getting the odd answer right)
  • Legomasters 

WHAT FIONA HAS DONE

  • Well, as Stef has mentioned – I’ve had my baby! (I’m typing this one handed while he sleeps on me!) He was 8 lb 11.5 oz at birth and he’s now 9lb 13oz at 4.5 weeks!
  • Had lots of sleepless nights
  • Changed tons of nappies
  • Eaten most meals with one hand
  • Taken out an Amazon Prime subscription and ordered something baby related nearly every day
  • Taken hundreds of photos of Brodie

 

Posted in Personal Experiences | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

A Writer’s Garden 1: Old Thatch in the present day, part one

Posted on September 8, 2017 by pippastef

I came across a book The Writer’s Garden by Jackie Bennett, at work last Saturday and immediately started flicking through it to see if I could find any information about Enid Blyton’s own beloved gardens, but the book was annoyingly devoid of them. There was one reference however, where they mentioned the demolition of Green Hedges and the fact that her garden was lost, however I felt there was something missing on this one point. What about Old Thatch at Bourne End? That was a garden that Blyton took great pride in.

Anyway I thought I would add to the book with the Old Thatch gardens I know from my visits before the owners closed the garden to the public. One of my absolute favourite happy places I miss these gardens terribly and their calming atmosphere, not to mention the brilliant cake they used to provide in the tea room! Now I’m not much of a gardener, and so I’m going to show you some of the photos I have taken over the years I visited Old Thatch and hopefully give you an idea of what it was like and a few books to look at to get an idea of what it was like in Blyton’s day! Lets take a bit of a photo tour this blog and then next blog I’ll let you know what we know Blyton had her garden like.

Enjoy!

The lychgate at Old Thatch

The entrance Garden to Old Thatch through the gate.

The first part of the garden you are brought to is the court yard at the side of the house and you don’t necessarily get the full impact of the house and gardens but its so magical to step in there, its hard to stop yourself tearing around the garden at top speed.

Formal garden

Old Thatch front window

Formal garden
Formal garden
Water fountain

The tea room garden.
The pencil garden
The Original Rose Arbour
The Daisy Statue at Old Thatch

 

There are so many pictures of Old Thatch, I wish I could show you them all but that would be impossible right now. Next week I’ll have a look at what we can find out about what the garden was like in Blyton’s day.  Follow the Tags “Bourne End” and “Old Thatch” for more blogs and pictures about this amazing place.

Posted in Enid Blyton | Tagged , , | 4 Comments

When people search for Enid Blyton what are they looking for? (#2)

Posted on September 6, 2017 by Fiona

A long time ago I did a post about the search terms which brought people to our site, (I also had some in a Monday post, with made-up illustrations) and while looking for things to write about for my maternity leave posts I noticed a few funny ones and thought I could do a second post.

It’s interesting to see what weird and wonderful things people put into search engines. I’m sure many will have come to our site and found something interesting or useful, others will be very disappointed as we have no information on spiders called Enid.

I DON’T THINK YOU ARE IN THE RIGHT PLACE

Like the enid-the-spider searcher, some people will be disappointed to find our blog after searching for things like second form at malory towers read online free. Sorry, but no. We don’t illegally publish whole books that are still under copyright. (A few long out of print poems are another matter.)

A lot of people clearly want that though, and think it’s OK, as I’ve noticed a few more results for ‘book title read online’.  Read Nooddy books online being one, which is worse because of the terrible spelling. But it’s not as bad as Secert Seven Win Thorgh book dwolond. You have to give Google points for working out what this person meant!

Famous Five pdf books4you.blog.com is wrong twice. We don’t do illegal PDFs and strangely we are not called books4you.

One or two baffled me, like Hilary Mckay. On searching I’ve found out she’s a children’s author published by Hodder, but we’ve never written anything about her!

Scarlet pimpernel is another. I suspect the words come up in one of our monthly flowers posts, but I imagine many people would think of the famous novel first!

Eileen A Soper who was David Morton is also interesting, as I can’t think of any connection between the two. We certainly mention both of them on this site, but not usually in the same sentence (until now.) There is also a second entry of Eileen A Soper and David Morton. The same person, I wonder, or is there a common confusion out there?

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Months that ended on a Monday in 2015. Nope, we are not a calendar.

g.r. no. 197980. I don’t have a clue.

I STARTED TYPING AND THEN I…

Some people like to live dangerously and not finish their searches:

The first modern observation of the… Of the what? (And how did that lead them to us?)

The name of the charecter five run away together. What character would that be? Sorry, charecter.

Eileen Soper boy. Eileen Soper illustrated many boys. Was there a particular one you were interested in?

What species dog in enid blyton. Many? Well, in her books. Not necessarily inside Enid herself.

FANFICTION REQUESTS

There were a lot of searches for Enid Blyton fan fiction. Many were straight foward like famous five fan fiction. Others were very, very specific. Perhaps the person had once read a fan fiction and forgotten its name, but I can’t believe that’s the case every time.

  • Five Find Outers fanfiction Fatty hurt
  • Fanfiction Enid Blyton Anne gets kidnaped
  • Julian kiss George Enid Blyton fanfic – you do know they are cousins, right??
  • “Julian” “George” “kiss” “fanfiction” – this person is determined!
  • Enid Blyton fanfiction about Barney and Diana’s romance

annegetskidnapped

ARE YOU CHEATING BY ANY CHANCE?

Just like last time there are a lot of people looking for summaries and synopses of books. We’ve even got one for a critical appreciation of a title. Fair enough, but how many of them are meant to be writing their own? Many also want summary by chapter or quite in depth things – why not just read the book?

I suspect this person could be: write a character sketch of any of the main character of Enid Blyton. That looks like they’ve bunged their homework assignment (perhaps they’ve specified their author of choice as I’m not sure how many schools specifically assign Blyton) straight into Google looking for answers.

But then again maybe it’s teachers looking for inspiration – this sounds like a teacher doesn’t it? Enidblyton poems for class one (apart from the missing space, but even teachers can make typos.)

What do the Famous Five book Five Get Into Trouble talk about and illustrations opinion. Not too sure what this means but again, reading the book would probably help.

My favourite character in and why I like it Five on a Hike Together. How is Google supposed to know who your favourite character is and why you like that book?

Or how about Enid Blyton french verbs. Do your own French homework! (Ok they may be looking for any examples given in either Mam’zelles class.)

Why we inspired by Enid Blyton. I don’t think Google can answer that for you either.

And Famous Five Go to Billycock Hill powerpoint presentation… make your own!

BOOKS THAT WERE NEVER PUBLISHED

Malory Towers Fourth Grade when the school was temporarily relocated to the US and the girls studied math and ate gum.

Five at the George summary. I’m torn as to whether they mean George or not. Gorge would make more sense, even if the Five never did go to a gorge.

AND THE DEEP AND MEANINGFUL

Why has Noddy changed? One searcher asked. I imagine this typed in a very mournful way, lamenting the fact that Noddy is now a CGI boy with a tablet computer. Why indeed, has Noddy changed?

Why did Enid Blyton Five Find Outers Bets age. Oh why did Bets have to age? Or do they mean why was she younger? Both very important queries.

Was Five Go Mad in Dorset racist -wikipedia -wikia – a good question, really! (And they were smart to exclude Wikipedia from their search.)

 

noddy-toyland-detective

I think that’s enough for one week. I have more for later, though!

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Monday #233

Posted on September 4, 2017 by Fiona

Ok, it really shows when Fiona’s not around. I know, I failed to do the August round up, so it’s down for this weekend as well! Please forgive me! Anyway, this is what we have coming up this week. Enjoy!

wedfrisun6767

 

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Blyton for Grown Ups: A Man of Some Repute by Elizabeth Edmondson

Posted on September 1, 2017 by pippastef

A-Man-of-SR-400-200x300

I read this book a long time ago, but realised this week that it was pretty much exactly the kind of book we’re looking for for this blog and decided that a recap on my part and a blog wouldn’t be too much of a bad thing. Apologies if my details are a bit off, it’s been about  year, but it made such an impression I knew I needed to let you know all about it.

A very English mystery

The series title says it all really: this basically is just a mystery based on everything England is famous for, based in the 1950s. The feel of it is a world recovering after the second world war, while being embroiled in a good old fashioned English mystery.

The suave Hugo Hawksworth is like an Agatha Christie sleuth, Enid Blyton grown up Julian Kirrin, Dorothy L Sayers Lord Peter Wimsey all rolled into one. Hugo Hawksworth is an intelligence officer who’s been sent on a different kind of mission. I think he was injured somewhat, there’s a lot of references about his leg, which I think is the problem, so this little job at Selchester Castle is supposed to be just a nice little ‘office’ job to while away the time.

Selchester however had the tragedy of losing its earl seven years earlier and his only daughter can’t wait to be able to declare her father dead so she can sell up and move on from the family home. Her cousin however, Freya Wryton, feels more of a connection to the family home and hopes her uncle will one day return.

When a skeleton turns up in the church it all changes and maybe Lady Sonia won’t need to get her father declared legally dead after all – because he really seems to be. Hugo and Freya join teams in an unlikely fashion to try and solve the mystery of the skeleton and what happened to the Earl on that fateful night seven years previously.

It really is a thrilling read.

Grown up Blyton – Are you sure?

I couldn’t be surer about this one. I love the period of history it’s set in, I love the feel of the cosy crime mystery and the proper language, the lack of technology and the manners of everyone. I really adore this time period and Elizabeth Edmondson really makes you feel the time – you feel the fifties from top to bottom. The mystery itself is totally Agatha Christie based and logical like Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes but in a sort of Enid Blyton Fatty/ Julian/ Philip /Jack kind of wrapper.

More genteel than Marina Pascoe’s Barlett and Boase mysteries, and more 1950s than the crime noir of Sara Sheridan’s Mirabelle Bevan, A Man of Some Repute is for those who want a grown up mystery with the nostaglic feel of the childhood heroes they read about who solved wonderful cases and had wonderful adventures. The good part about A Man of Some Repute is that it has that Blytonian feel to it, the more sedate, case working, brain picking, clue finding mixture that makes Blyton a joy to read.

I don’t think I could recommend this book enough. Even now, after so long I can thoroughly enjoy the book because it’s high quality. Edmondson makes a fantastic feeling in this book and carries you along. I can’t wait to re-read and read the subsequent books.

Please do try this book, I promise you, you won’t be disappointed!

Let me know what you think in the comments!

Posted in Book reviews, Other Authors, Reading Recommendations | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

The Adventure Series on TV: The Castle of Adventure, part 8

Posted on August 30, 2017 by Fiona

Unusually we are not resuming after a cliff-hanger. Instead we have had time to swallow the reveal that Sam, dodgy pedlar of ‘farm-fresh’ eggs, and eater of snacks uninvited, has actually been Scar all along.

LUCY-ANN’S SHOCK

While we’re all surprised at Sam being Scar, Lucy-Ann is simply shocked that Scar is Sam. Dinah whispers this to her, so that they aren’t overheard. But idiotic Lucy-Ann immediately shrieks SAM so that he comes over and opens the curtains on the bed. Where’s the others? he asks right away.

Now we’ve seen Sam behaving pretty threateningly but he really ramps it up as Scar. Holding up a very large gun he says we’ll deal with them later. Though it’s a bit James Bond bad guy-esque, if they intend to leave the girls alone for a while before ‘dealing with them’.

ELSEWHERE THE WORLD’S A VIDEO GAME

At the military compound soldiers are running everywhere as an alarm goes off. Grogan’s only watching but it looks like a video game where you’d have to get inside without being seen.

Even more like a game (perhaps along the lines of the original Tomb Raider etc) Tassie leads Jack down the tunnel (so large you wonder how on earth they missed it from either end before). Anyway, for no reason a load of barrels and boxes fall after they’ve passed. In a game this would give you the challenge of a) staying ahead of the avalanche and b) stopping you going back on yourself. On TV though, they’re fairly oblivious until they dodge a few barrels at the end of the tunnel. As soon as they’re clear of the tunnel exit the game, sorry, script caused a huge boulder to fall and completely block it off.

We then move onto a game more inline with Street Fighter (or my favourite – Streets of Rage!) where Jack and Tassie are pounced on and driven to the floor by a couple of balaclava clad men. Before I/they get carried away they do realise quickly that they’re only a couple of kids and luckily Bill’s right there to ensure their safety a moment later.

EXCUSES, EXCUSES

Now it’s time for Bill and his men to get into the castle for the big rescue and capturing of the bad guys.

Of course, Button’s tunnel is conveniently blocked. (In the book it’s a narrow pipe/stream and the kids can barely squeeze through so it’s of no good for the adults). There is a door, but like in the book it’s locked.

He doesn’t even mention the plank. Of course the plank is gone, but I’m sure with the might of the MOD behind them a plank of some kind could be rustled up rather quickly. Again, in the book the plank/window would be no use as it’s one of those tall narrow slit windows that the children can only just squeeze through. Bill and his burly men stood no chance. On TV the window’s a decent size (Philip’s a decent sized teenager and he makes it through) and I’m sure they’d manage. It just seems daft to have changed two elements of the story that would have given the men access and then to have to hurriedly block/ignore them.

So to get inside they blast the lock off the door with a machine gun. In the book it’s done fairly quietly with a blow torch type thing. Goodness knows why that had to change – and considering they sneak around cautiously once inside it seems very foolish to have announced their arrival with gunfire!

 

Then again their discretion also spoiled a bit by Jack’s bright yellow sleeves!

BACK TO SAM/SCAR

I feel the need to add that Sam, as Scar (which I assume is his real identity), loses his amiable country burr. He still had it when he threatened Tassie and Rose all those times so it’s odd to hear him suddenly speaking in a different voice. He’s also a lot quieter which adds to the menace (he does shout a bit but he doesn’t constantly boom). Somehow the fact that our earlier meeting with Scar saw him whisper the whole time made it the more surprising that Sam and Scar are one and the same.

Continue reading →

Posted in Blyton on Screen | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Monday #232

Posted on August 28, 2017 by Fiona

It’s that time of the month again when we look at what we’ve been blogging about this month. You’ve got me doing it this time because of course, Fiona has her hands full! Hope you like the look of the blogs this week!

Monday#232

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