rosanicus | Entries tagged with books: biggles

Finally read the Biggles with the funniest title!

It's a fun one, bu t I do object a bit to Biggles' extreme ignorance in the matter of what could a group of career criminals POSSIBLY want with a REMOTE SCOTTISH ISLAND full of PEAT while they're transporting BARLEY in via boat. Hmm Biggles I don't know, it's just such a mystery. He clearly overcame his alcoholism in the interwar period and then decided he would be deleting the concept of alcohol from his brain, relearning it every time it comes up on a case and then deleting it again.

Some other notes:

Obviously I adore Bertie in this. He is trying so hard to have a fun time and Biggles won't stop reminding him that he is "working" and needs to "do work". Meanwhile he would much rather be fishing for lobsters, residing in a castle, and possibly engaging in some like deerstalking. The bit where he catches the crab, stands around for a bit being sad about the lack of lobster, and ends up launching the crab at a baddie by accident is absolute peak WEJ comedy and I adored it. A good one for Bertie laughs, not so great for Bertie having much to do on page - although he and Rod did get to go fishing and caught a good amount of delicious fish, so score one for them.
Ginger also has a variable time in this one. I really loved the note about his new lighter which Bertie gave him and he uses so often &Co have started teasing him about it. Given that he doesn't smoke I have to imagine he is really getting contrived with his excuses for using it, which is a fun little thought experiment. He also got conveniently kidnapped in a way which advanced the plot, so he's really on a tear here.
LOVED Biggles' occasional bitchy asides here. His reply to Bertie about the castle are really excellent, as is his ongoing frustration with Rod's desire to go in guns blazing. He's trying so hard to be a perfect example of modern policing and people will not stop carrying around shotguns, locking him into ancient kitchens, and shooting at his besties. A little bitchiness is very excusable.
The presence of the Navy in this is so much fun. I loved when the team showed up to rescue the scuppered boat and we got the 'frogman' getting suited up - LOVE the term frogman. It's so whimsical. And the fact they showed up literally minutes after Bertie threatened the baddies with them on no evidence whatsoever was extremely good.

Overall, I did enjoy this one. It's slow to start and is a bit lacking in actual drama and intrigue, but I did wake up at half past five this morning and spend 45 minutes reading this instead of scrolling through YouTube shorts, so I appreciate it on that front at least. I may write a missing scene at some point of them all huddling for warmth in the lean-to and/or getting up to the things that the title implies (for those of us with dirty minds).

A real game of two halves this weekend! And a lot of catching up from the past month...

Starting with the bad, I finally finished reading Bad Gays: A Homosexual History. I didn't like it! Annoyingly, I was initially really excited to read it (three years ago, when I started reading...) because I'd listened to and enjoyed a few episodes of the podcast, but as a book it felt poorly structured and I really disliked the way it subconsciously draws equivalence between varying levels of 'badness', as if being a Nazi and being mildly kinky are equally worthy of inclusion in this book's bloated, YFIP list-esque chapters. Not a fan.

In the Biggles world, I read Sergeant Bigglesworth, C.I.D., Biggles' Second Case, Biggles of the Interpol and Biggles in the Baltic. I really enjoyed them all, with Interpol being probably the least favourite due to inconsistency between stories, and my favourite being Baltic. I'd been putting it off due to the Evil vS, but it's a really cracking adventure and features such breathtaking insane thrills that I just can't resist. The bit at the end where Raymond admits that everyone thought they'd be dead in a day was truly fantastic, Biggles was SO CROSS. I hope they got at least a few days to unwind after this, but knowing Biggles he probably got involved in bringing down a spy ring while trying to walk in the park.

CID and Second Case were fun adventures as well. I love Bertie becoming an integrated member of &Co, I really do love him, and the drama and whump potential was really good stuff for my id. I do wish the polar bears had been given a bit more play, but to be fair I always feel this way about giant animals in Biggles books. I admit it's been long enough now since I read them that I only have faint memory of the actual plot, but the huge pit of Chekov's land mines was probably the highlight, especially when they vaporised a Nazi.

Finally, I read Hungerstone by Kat Dunn, which was excellent. It pushed me past two of my misgivings, which are that I usually bounce off first person POV (with the notable exception of Rivers of London, and now this!) and also that I haven't always enjoyed ambiguity in fiction. But here it is: an ambiguous gothic novel in the first person which had me up past midnight to finish it. Lenore is a fantastic protagonist, closed off and traumatised and working so very very hard to win a game rigged against her. The point where she snaps is built up to with such fantastic tension that the pay-off had me actually clapping in delight. The structure where nearly every chapter ends with a hook for the next also worked extremely well, to the point I was turning to my partner basically every chapter to say 'You won't BELIEVE what happened NOW'. Extremely readable, slightly haunting, highly recommended.

What I've Just Finished Reading

Four books this week! First up: the Ted Scotts.

I read The Lone Eagle of the Border, Over the Jungle Trails, and Lost at the South Pole. Unfortunately at this point the shine has very much worn off the Ted Scott... coin...? and therefore I am slowing down in my consumption of this formulaic children's adventure series, possibly to a full stop. These three were variously annoying and racist, although I did enjoy South Pole for what it was. As always, the subject of the title came into play about 2/3rds of the way through, and the whump potential of getting lost at the South Pole was resolved in maybe half a page despite them being lost for THREE DAYS!!!

They have also been getting progressively less amusingly homoerotic and more focused on American Exceptionalism, which, ick.

On the plus side, I also returned to the warm, comforting embrace of & Co with Biggles Takes Charge.

tweague was singing its praises on the Discord some time ago (echoed by many others!) but my copy was stuck at my parents' house after a late eBay delivery, so I was only able to get my grubby hands on it this past weekend.

Friends, this book is SO good. A podcast I like once described the experience of watching a poorly remastered film as like 'watching Seinfeld while sitting in an inch of ice-cold water', and I thought about that simile a lot while reading Ted Scott. Ultimately the trappings of Ted Scott are the ice cold water which reminds me constantly that instead of Ted I could be reading about BIGGLES and ALGY and THE REST OF MY GOOD FRIENDS. It was a genuine joy to follow Algy on his trip to La Sologne, where he got rapidly involved in countering an assassination plot involving - who else? - Erich von Stalhein, in one of his many 'fuck I hate my life' appearances in the series. They got some quality hate-flirting in early on, and I was absolutely screaming over the scene where Algy calls Biggles just to have him persuade EvS that Algy's not fibbing about his purpose in being in France.

Just an absolute blast end to end with some delightful subterfuge and a general commitment to the bit which I really, really missed.

OH ALSO: we finished reading The Strangeworlds Travel Agency in class. The children seemed to like it well enough but - predictably - are much more openly enthusiastic about the next reading book (Who Let the Gods Out by Maz Evans), which features extensive fat jokes in the first chapter. Not really feeling it but I didn't choose the books, so I'm soldiering on.

What I'm Reading Now

Technically Sergeant Bigglesworth, C.I.D., although I haven't touched it much since before I started Takes Charge. And I did get Edward Said's Orientalism off the shelf again, although that does not serve as a guarantee that I'll read any of it.

What I Plan to Read Next

Some more Biggleses! I am behind and wish to submerge myself in the oeuvre once more. I also have a deep desire to reread the first few Worralses, again inspired by the Discord, hence the icon.

Hello, I call as I crawl from my cave (the cave is called 'being a primary school teacher')! I have read three Biggles/Gimlet books in the past fortnight and I have a few thoughts, which I will share below.

Biggles in the Orient

An absolutely cracking adventure yarn! I confess I have occasionally struggled with the WW2 books - Baltic is still only about 15% finished on my ereader, and while I love Spitfire Parade for introducing Bertie it's not exactly the strongest of the short story anthologies. This circumvented my apparent struggles here by having the whole plot set somewhere I know very little about, especially during WW2, and with a mystery with just enough red herrings to be satisfying to solve.

Biggles is under so much stress in this book and I can only hope that immediately post-book 666 Squadron get the leave they're owed and smother Biggles in a cuddle pile of some sort. Honestly it's been long enough since I read now that the details have faded somewhat but the scene where he discovers Moorven's crash has definitely stayed with me. He cares so deeply and so immediately about people and it's always a blessing and a curse!!

Gimlet Goes Again

It's been absolutely ages since I read King of the Commandos so it took me a while to rediscover the characters but I had a good enough time with this. The thing about Gimlet is he is absolutely never the POV character (as far as I remember, anyway) so he has this really odd, elusive quality to his character. I loved

tweague 's Gimlet&Bertie schoolfic so much for this exact reason - Gimlet is just genuinely inscrutable, and I find it a pretty compelling way to write a character. Unfortunately we also have Cub who is sort of Ginger but bloodthirsty, and Copper and Trapper who are respectively Cockney and Canadian and possibly gay but not much else. I liked that more of the Kittens appeared in this book but they didn't get much play since they were rescued so late. I don't know if I would recommend this series in general but the Biggles & Co cameo in this book definitely makes it a light recommendation to the fandom.

Biggles Foreign Legionnaire

Took me literal months to get past the first two chapters of this, then I read the last 160 pages in one sitting last night. It's a pretty fun read and has a number of excellent moments but I have to admit the experience as a whole left me a little cold. I wished there was more Marcel for one - especially since there's a bit of Marcel whump occurring offscreen! - and also that there was a little more Biggles POV than there ended up being. The entire sequence in Kurdistan was of course wonderful but again it felt slightly sterile, possibly because it starts so late and then has to be resolved within about thirty pages.

I enjoyed Ginger's point of view on Von Stalhein quite a bit, to be fair - especially the part where he notes that Von Stalhein seems to think, just for a moment, that Biggles has shot at him and looks genuinely a bit upset - but AGAIN I just feel like it wasn't enough. I know I have my shipping blinders on for this but I just always want more flirting, okay, and there was barely any! On the plus side I finally have context for a number of fics I read back when I first joined the fandom a year and a half ago (holy shit), so those will be due a reread soon.

Next on the docket is Murder by Air, because

black_bentley reminded me Steeley exists and I need to get back on the Steeley polycule wago. For my health. Incidentally, I now have a 'Teacher Reads' display bit in my classroom and am slowly getting over the embarrassment of being honest about it (three Johns in a row...).

I did have to look up the punctuation for this title.

Anyway: I got a copy of this in an Oxfam Bookshop in Henley-on-Thames and delighted the cashier by doing so, which was nice. It's one of the few early books I don't own, and I got it in the blue-and-yellow Oxford University Press edition which fits in nicely with my hardbacks of Hits the Trail, Defies the Swastika AND Charter Pilot. It's also an edition which contains Keir Starmer Algy, which I will mention every time I possibly can due to my moral obligation to horrify

black_bentley.

Algy looking exactly like Keir Starmer

The Ruritanian romance is such a good vehicle for Bigglesian hijinks, I'm sad WEJ seemed to fall out of love with it as a subgenre during the SAP era. I know the literary world moved past it somewhat but god I just love it. If I am mistaken PLEASE tell me which Biggleses to elevate to the top of my teetering TBR! Lucrania is a feasible enough micronation and I really liked the detail of it being ringed by mountains. It's also more specifically linked to current events at the presumed time of writing (I know it was published in 1940 but it feels like it was written pre-WW2) and has some firm Stance-Holding from WEJ on anti-semitism (he is against it). For all that the representation of Simon Kretzner is not exactly stellar, I appreciate that our main man William Earl went for it. Weirdly, I read this a few days after my mum expounded on the virtues of The Chalet School in Exile, which also features characters being staunchly against anti-semitism to the extent that they have to flee the country (if I ever read Chalet School I may start here).

Obviously I cannot review this book without mentioning that it is an early von Stalhein book and therefore chock-full of cheerful homoeroticism and Spy Nonsense. I really enjoyed EvS's attitude in this book - he's flirtatious when he's confident and flirtatious when he's bluffing and even insouciant when being held at gunpoint outside his own car. I probably shouldn't just quote the entire scene in the hotel bar but - look. It's just unbelievable how much fun Biggles and EvS have in this period of canon. I will however include one quote which I feel hasn't had much play and made me CACKLE.

"I am staying not far away, so naturally I take a great interest in all our visitors - particularly English people, for whom, as you know, I have a great regard."

I still can't tell how sarcastic this is supposed to be but it is so funny to me. Erich, you like three English people and two of them are sat opposite you at this bar table. The interwar Biggles/EvS dynamic is simply delicious and I can't believe I've RUN OUT. Devastated. Throughout the book they are locked in a long distance battle of wits in which they constantly surpass, trick and outwit one another and it's just so wonderful. They are perfectly matched nemeses and I wish they would kiss about it.

( Minor spoilers! )

Overall, I had a fantastic time reading this one. Now I need to go think about Algy/EvS hatesex set at some point in his imprisonment...

Obligatory Taskmaster link...

Anyway, this was my latest Biggles read! I've had it high on my TBR ever since

philomytha informed me of its Cornwall setting and - having bought a hardcopy for a fiver at a collectibles shop in Reading last week - I finally got round to reading it for myself.

Essentially it's a classic Biggles formula. Raymond invites Biggles into his office and complains about the fact that Biggles hasn't solved an aerial mystery yet, then informs him that there's been a potentially relevant development - the murder of a Cornish police officer on the road that crosses Bodmin Moor. Feeling professionally intrigued but also pessimistic (Biggles is in a bit of a downer mood all book, poor man), &Co drive and fly down to Bodmin themselves and do a little investigating...

It's nothing new really, and for a late series SAP book I wouldn't expect great innovation in form, but what this book did have in spades was TENSION and ATMOSPHERE. Maybe it's my Devonian upbringing showing but I fucking love a moors setting, and this book delivered it with style - even if it's clear the moors aren't exactly WEJ's favourite place in the world. Frankly between this and Hits the Trail I think he might just have it out for like... flat areas. Anyway, the really standout part of this book was the Bertie & Biggles friendship, which really shone through in the first half of the book.

Bertie gets to show off his expertise on heather of all things, linked to a youthful interest in grouse hunting (which he did in Scotland, apparently - another potential Gimlet crossover?). He also has a really spectacular whump plotline, involving stumbling through the moors in the dark, falling down a large hole, getting seriously concussed and almost burning to death. Honestly, the fact that WEJ finally learned that serious head injuries should be treated in hospital is admirable character growth on his part considering the last one I remember coming across was Biggles & Co where von Stalhein probably gets a skull fracture.

The mystery itself is intriguing and while it doesn't really play by the rules of The Game, I enjoyed the way it unfolded and especially the part where Bertie tries to say that an aristocrat can't be a villain and Biggles is rightfully unimpressed by his line of reasoning. It's nice when WEJ has even a mote of class consciousness pop up in a book!

I will say that the book's denouement (( Unpleasant spoilery details )) was treated in an EXTREMELY blase manner which I think detracted from the rest of the admirably open emotion in the rest of the book. I think possibly WEJ was trying not to traumatise the presumed child reader but if you're doing that, WEJ, did you consider not writing it? Also this book contains the phrase 'bad tempered old bitch' which took me completely by surprise. The last use of 'bitch' I came across in Johns was in Steeley Flies Again, a book ostensibly for grown-ups, so seeing it here threw me for a loop.

Overally, it's a recommendation! Algy mans the phones for most of the book but he gets a few good moments. Ginger is suitably helpful, especially in rescuing Bertie from the hole he fell down. And Biggles gets to express frustration and try theories and generally be a capable but human detective! It's a good read and I'm pleased I read it - now to write H/C fic about Bertie in concussion recovery...

On Monday last week we had Year 6 external writing moderation. We'd been preparing for it pretty much non stop for two months, and in those two months I think I might possibly have read about four pages of any book which wasn't written by an eleven year old child. And so it was with great relief that I discovered that without that sword of Damocles above my head I have managed to smash through TWO Biggleses in under a week!

Biggles Hits The Trail

My edition of this is one of the wartime dustjackets but I think it was actually printed in the early 50s. The main draw is that the text is larger so it looks like I'm read a big and worthy tome when in fact it is Biggles vs invisible radioactive monks.

Anyway, I enjoyed this! It's a very strange book, with a number of insane twists and turns which don't quite come together, but I have to admit that the sheer balls to the wall madness of it all drew me in. The initial scene at dinner with Algy and Ginger heckling Biggles is perhaps one of the greatest opening scenes in Bigglesian history, and I'll cherish it always. I also liked the way that Malty summoned them to his home to attend to Dickpa, and that I can interpret Dickpa and Malty's relationship as the sugar daddy dynamic of all time (but this time, the sugar daddy is the mid-twenties nerve case sugaring his middle aged boyfriend).

I would caution against reading this without a stronger stomach for the Oh W. E. Johns school of beleaguered sighing, though. IYKYK.

Biggles Goes To School

And on the other end of the insanity spectrum we have Biggles at Big School. I liked this well enough, especially that it had at least some continuity with The Boy Biggles, but I found that (once again) it mostly made me wail 'he's LITTLE' every time something once again happened to Biggles. He finds a father figure who seems willing to nurture him in some way who almost immediately gets shot in the chest by poachers and when he cries over it the other boys make fun of him!!! He's LITTLE!!!!!

My favourite interlude was of course the day that a pilot came to school and Biggles saw an aeroplane for the first time. And then in the same chapter he manages to save a bear from getting shot by an angry mob through the medium of kindness. BIGGLES ❤️.

Also, as a treat after all this work stress, I got myself a small friend.

� small teddy bear wearing leather flying kit and a white t-shirt saying 'Biggles' in the movie font.

� small teddy bear wearing leather flying kit and a white t-shirt saying 'Biggles' in the movie font.

He apparently had goggles once upon a time but my only evidence of that is quite a lot of perished rubber stuck to his fur and other clothes.

I can't say that the experience of reading this was entirely without problems. However, it was also full of bizarre and wonderful insanity. So here is my power ranking of all the short stories in lieu of an overall review. I will say that the connecting tissue of Ginger telling the stories to various members of 666 Squadon was consistently my favourite part, because it's so fun getting to see them in a bit of downtime as opposed to the go go go action of something like Spitfire Parade.
( Enjoyable Nonsense )

( Entering the Danger Zone )

( Racist Quarantine )

Have started reading Follows On for the third time! I just can't seem to stick with it for one reason or another, but as a result of this repeated approach I have spent a lot of time appreciating the insanity of the opening few pages.

To whit -

Ginger: I saw von Stalhein in town today!
Biggles: How did he look? Physically? Still sexy and evil I hope
Ginger: Actually he looked a bit tired
Biggles: :(
Algy: Ugh I bet he's doing SPY WORK, AGAIN (Thinking about the imminent jetsetting they will be doing in pursuit of Biggles' errant nemesis)
Biggles: [Literally two page long rant about how spywork is actually a very honourable profession, and anyway von Stalhein has had a hard life]
Ginger: He doesn't even like you!
Biggles: [Shrugs as if this doesn't occasionally keep him awake at night]
Ginger: You do also remember he's actively trying to kill you a lot, right?
Biggles: :')

Then Gaskin shows up and Johns describes him as 'powerfully built' so I can freely imagine him being at least a head taller than Biggles. Anyway all this to say I'm having a fantastic time.

Finished a reread! Frankly I am shocked this one never got made into a film or (I think) into a serial for the TV series. It's so thrilling! There's dogfights and dawn executions and even a princess with a dashing love interest. Yes I still love the background romance in this book which is basically three lines and Biggles taking a paternal interest in Ludwig's happiness (read my Ludwig/Mariana fic or face the consequences).

Pursuant to this I wanted to try and do a Goes To War fancast but was immediately thrown up against the wall that is trying to cast & Co. So I come to Dreamwidth, cap in hand, to ask for crowdsourced ideas. I do think we can be temporally flamboyant and cast from any time period since the movie is NOT getting made unless something very unlikely happens. Obviously my dream is a Malory Towers-style CBBC series but the budget would never work out, although once the books are properly public domain I think we might get something in development as nostalgia bait.

THE CAST LIST

( Read more... )

DISCUSS.

I can't summon the words to review this really I am simply sat in awe. What an absolutely insane thing for W.E. Johns to conceive of, plot, write and publish without apparently any knowledge that he had put pen to paper and written... Biggles Looks Back.

Things I loved in no particular order:

Biggles' shabby sausage
The fact that they go to the glass manufactory TWICE and are forcibly taken out to a delicious lunch by the Italian proprietor TWICE.
A secret passage figures significantly into the plot. And it exits from a literal tomb.
All the fairy tale references, and of course that it culminates with a genuine happily ever after for Biggles, Erich and Marie.
Biggles and Erich spending multiple nights co-sleeping with no one but an owl to see what happened.
Marie using the golden opportunity of being flown out of the country to smuggle jewels.
Everyone crowding around the breakfast table to once again talk about where in the world Erich von Stalhein could have got to.
Biggles unsubtly perusing maps of Central Europe and moping around the flat so hard that everyone does an intervention.
Erich being a VIOLINIST. Private accomplishments!! C'mon Biggles he wants to demonstrate them to you soooo badly, just let him.
The fact that Reinhardt accidentally gives Biggles the exact photographs he needs in an attempt to thwart him.
Everything to do with the entry into the castle, from the car chase to scaling the cliff by climbing tree roots to Erich showing up and joining the fun.
Algy accidentally doing a bit of a Biggles impression by listing off some of Erich's professional accomplishments, even if he is doing it to try and persuade Biggles out of rescuing him.
THE RESTAURANT SCENE. How time flies when I am with you! The fact that they have dinner together all the time, it is not helping them beat my personal Garak/Bashir comparison allegations .
Pursuant to the restaurant scene, the fact that Johns makes sure to mention that Biggles and Erich go to Marie's little cottage All The Time to talk about their adventures.
The bit where Marie asks Biggles if he and Erich have become friends and he says 'very good friends'. I adore them.
Marie being so steely and determined in her own quiet way, having to deal with Reinhardt and his lackeys.
Bertie being Bertie. Need I say more.
EDIT: The ongoing theme that is Erich von Stalhein being extremely willing to lay his life down on Biggles' behalf. Given his self-preservation instincts in previous books being finely honed enough to let him swim through crocodile infested waters and survive, it says a lot! Nothing good about his self esteem obviously but it's catnip for me the angst hound.
ANOTHER EDIT: Finally learned the meaning of the word lugubrious thanks to the use of its adverbial form no less than three times in the narrative.

Basically: WHAT a BOOK.

After a very shaky start I have to say that this book absolutely rocked.

( Spoilers ahoy )

My current fic writing is all slow going, but I did start writing a fic yesterday set in the 30s where Biggles Algy and Ginger meet a dragon in the mountains of Northern Wales so at least the ideas continue to flow. The dragon may or may not be related to Idris from Ivor the Engine.

Current Mood: curious

I picked this one up today on an impulse, and besides a few errors of transcription in the Very Legal ebook copy I used I really enjoyed it!

Biggles being forced to go on holiday harkens back to the WW1 stories in such an interesting way. Raymond noticing that he's been working too hard too long and he's on the verge of a breakdown is the sort of support I enjoy in this series, the fact that they care about each other's mental wellbeing as well as the physical. As someone who struggles with relaxing while on holiday I can very easily empathise with Biggles' first few days on holiday, wandering around feeling at loose ends and stressed out about not relaxing. And then suddenly it all eases, which must be lovely, and I can only imagine the relief in Mount Street when the postcard about his first truly peaceful day arrived.

( Plot Spoilers! )

Cornwall as a setting for a murder mystery is definitely a common conceit but this is my first Cornish mystery and it was nice to read! I imagined (probably somewhat justifiably) that Polstow is a stand-in for Padstow, geographically relocated so it's close to Truro, and since I've actually been there I could envision some parts of the setting, although I don't remember Padstow having massive cliffs, that was more Bude's line. I also liked the cast of characters, especially Captain Gower who is so perfectly characterised I can only imagine that Johns had met a few men in the same line.

I didn't miss the presence of the rest of & Co as much as I thought I would, although I'm pleased that this didn't become the norm for the series. It was fun when Biggles called Ginger and carried on the whole conversation one-sided in the narrative - I can only imagine Ginger's bemusement at being ordered to send a secondhand book on British Guiana to Truro for secret reasons.

Before I conclude this post I am honour bound to mention

sholio 's fantastic sidequel to Goes Alone, Postcards from the Seaside. Reading this fic was the thing which brought Goes Alone up my reading list from 'probably not' to 'soon'!

EDIT: Just tried to log this on Goodreads and it redirects automatically to Biggles Goes to War. WHY

Having ploughed through (I believe) sixteen issues of The Eagle alongside the *cough* very legitimate *cough* ebook for missing bits, I have officially finished Biggles in the Blue!

( Review )

What I'm really here to do, however, is to share some of the illustrations from both in the Blue and in the Gobi, which was serialised directedly after Blue concluded. Both were illustrated by Edwin Phillips, who varied in his interpretation of the characters but never wavered in making them just slightly more twinky than Stead, which I appreciate as a twinky Biggles fan.

( Illustrations )

The last image I'll put here isn't Biggles at all. It is instead an advertisement for Colman's Mustard, because as it turns out in the fifties the advertisers liked to put a bit of thought into what type of print their ad would appear in and so suit it to the medium. In the case of The Eagle, this resulted in the ongoing adventures of Jimmy Walls (one strip has him rescuing a fawn from a literal towering inferno) where every strip ends with him eating a Walls Ice Cream, and also The Three Mustardeers and their arch nemesis the Slipper (because he always slips away, you see). The advert which had me actually reading these alongside in the Blue was one in which the Slipper tricks them into following him into a series of catacombs full of skeletons and then abandoning them in the dark. Then it turns out one of the children (the Mustardeers are at most thirteen or fourteen years old) has thoughtfully brought some chalk and a pocket torch, so they manage to escape the catacombs quite easily. And then they have sandwiches with Colman's Mustard, although they don't say what else they contain so for all I know the sandwiches are just bread and an inch of mustard.

( The Three Mustardeers )
I must know the entire saga of The Three Mustardeers. Is there a D'Artagnan of Mustard? D'Artadijon? It's almost too much to consider.

As I am currently in the unenviable position of having seventeen competing things my brain wants to be doing and therefore incapable of doing any of them: here are my thoughts on The Rescue Flight.

( W.E. Johns vs The Limited Third Person )

We are solidly into week two of the summer holidays which is my excuse for my brain needing some oil a la the tin man. Next week my fiancee is visiting (we are at our parents' houses for the summer, the luxury of the life of supply teachers) and we're going wedding dress shopping so hopefully that'll kickstart something romantic in there!

Got Rescue Flight from the library today and I simply must know more about this...

A horrible thought struck Thirty. "Gosh! We haven't any kit," he muttered.
"What do you mean - you haven't any kit?"
"Well, you see, we flew over, so we couldn't bring any with us."
"It will come up on a tender, I expect."
"Possibly," answered Thirty non-committally, catching Rip's eye. "Meanwhile we have nothing to go on with."
"No matter. You can get some small kit from Roddy, the mess secretary, and I can probably dig out an old suit or two of pyjamas. They may be a bit oily because on summer dawn patrols I sometimes fly in them - but that needn't worry you." The flight commander stood up. "See you later," he said, and disappeared inside the hangar.

Oh and of course the introductory description of Biggles is lovely as ever, I just love my delicately featured guy with his core of steel (heart and stomach of a concrete elephant, etc).