A trip to Frodsham

I headed up to Frodsham in Cheshire at the weekend, a town i have not been to before. Though at times i did not think i would make it! I changed trains at Chester, somewhere else i have not been before, but at Helsby (the stop before Frodsham) the train was stopped due to trespassers on the line. This did give me a chance to look around Helsby station but as time went on it did look like the train might be turned around.

Luckily, after an hour the all clear was made and i made it to Frodsham. I climbed a very steep hill which gave a good view of the surrounding area, and gave me access to the church. You can see my photos here.

Death Knows No Calendar

This is an excellent locked room mystery by John Bude. An artist is found dead in her studio, apparently murdered by someone but the room was locked from the inside so how did it happen?

As usual, the crime is mostly investigated by an amateur detective (as it is a Golden Age novel), in this case it is Boddy, a former Army officer. He begins to investigate a varied set of suspects, who all possibly had competed for the artist's affections, including a missing priest and the victim's partner.

An interesting murder mystery, though maybe not one for many surprises. The mystery works more for it's ingenuity of how the fairly obvious culprit carried out the crime than anything else but it a perfectly decent story.

Star Wars #54

Years ago (a lot of years ago in fact) i used to get the Star Wars comic every week. We're talking back in the late 1970s and early 80s here. Like much else from my childhood, the comics have now long gone as i didn't have the foresight to know that one day people would pay good money for such things on a global visual network yet to be created. 

However, one comic did survive as it was left at my Grandmothers' house and years later i made sure i would keep this one...

Star Wars #54 then was released on Valentine's Day 1979 and includes a Star Wars comic strip and two other stories (The Micronauts and The Warlock which i wasn't that interested in back then and not so much now either). The Star Wars comic started off a weekly comic telling of the first Star Wars movie but once they blew up the Death Star, and Darth Vader went spinning off into space, they had to continue the comic with an early example of the Extended Universe at least until Empire Strikes Back was released in 1980.

The story here concerns Luke, Leia and Tagge who appears to be some kind of galactic mafia boss who hates Vader. Luke and Leia are trying to discover why and how Tagge can fly TIE fighters into the atmosphere of the gas giant Yavin, while at the same time evading Tagge's TIE fighter patrols. Of course, the story here was set between the two films and no one but George Lucas knew that Luke and Leia were siblings, so we get a little bit of mild incest.

The cliffhanger has their ship under attack by TIE fighters and the intriguing teaser that next week is called "R2 D2 Casualty Of War", as to what happened in Star Wars #55, i can't remember, but obviously R2 was fine as he made the next film OK...

Jane's Freight Containers 1975-76

My book collection contains well over a thousand books covering many subjects, often obscure. Perhaps the most niche is this one which is one of Jane's famous large reference volumes. This one is dedicated the logistics which power world trade: shipping containers, ports and operators.

Where would we be without the shipping container, so much of the world's freight is now carried in these things by boat, train and truck. The ships and ports sections are probably the most interesting, though of course much of the information contained in here is a bit out of date.

But the humble shipping container still rules the roost, being transported around the world daily in the thousands. Quite a few end up repurposed for use as storage, or just abandoned to rust away.

Lifeboat Directory

The sort of book which really appeals to me, in more ways than one. Lifeboat Directory by Nicholas Leach and Tony Denton is, as the name implies, a directory of boats which have been operated by the RNLI (whom i have always strongly supported) in British waters.

The book includes the full range of lifeboats from sailing boats to modern motor boats and even hovercraft! Every boat has a small profile and photograph. This really is an excellent book packed full of information and very lavishly illustrated.

Highly recommended.

Asterix & the Picts

This Asterix adventure was the first in which the original creators of the indomitable Gaul (Goscinny and Uderzo) did not have a hand in the creation of.

The Asterix saga was at a major turning point therefore. The creators were either too old to continue or had already passed away, the only way the franchise could continue was with new blood at the helm. You can imagine that the team of Ferri and Conrad, who created this story, felt a huge amount of pressure when they were putting Asterix and the Picts together...

NuAsterix (a term i invented, feel free to borrow) could well have lived or died on how good this story was. If it had been bad then there might not be much chance to keep the characters going for much longer. Luckily, Asterix and the Picts is actually pretty good!

I wouldn't say its the best Asterix book ever but it is definitely the best for some time, and certainly better than most of the ones Uderzo wrote and drew on his own after the passing of Goscinny. Not that i am as down on Uderzo's version of Asterix as some people are, the books are still pretty fine or at least OK but they lack the subtlety and warmth of the older books.

Asterix and the Picts takes a bit of a middle ground, it still has some of the more slap stick graphically heavy humour of Uderzo's Asterix but also some more of the word play and puns of the original version. The story gets off to a bit of a clumsy start but then starts to find its feet and includes a few genuine laugh out loud jokes. 

In truth, the book was a bit safe and maybe lacks a clear identity but you can understand that because of what was riding on it. I suspect NuAsterix is now safe for the foreseeable future and a number of other volumes have followed. By Belanos what a relief!