Greyladies

I know a number of you are interested in Girl's School novels and some of you collect them. This may be old news to you, but I came across a company in Edinburgh which reprints them - titles by Susan Scarlett (Noel Streatfeild), O. Douglas (Anna Buchan), Susan Pleydell, D.E. Stevenson and several more. Not my kind of thing - but Greyladies may be of interest to you.

ETA: "Girls’ School Stories - written for adults
Adult books by children’s authors
A spot of vintage crime"

Looks like a mix of other stuff they wrote and school stories aimed at adults not children

White Poppies

Annoyingly the flu jab on Friday meant I lost two hours in London in which I would have gone (probably walked) to the Quaker centre in Euston to pick up a white poppy, the ones from the year before last being lost or decomposed.

I would have had to wait the best part of an hour to get the train to St P, or spent that time getting there, so instead I took a circuitous route to Oxfam on Strutton Ground.

In theory I could go to London on Tuesday to pick one up, and it's not as if there aren't exhibitions to see, but it feels a little, er, overkill. I am wearing it virtually.

See here




On the other hand, I bought a copy of Survivor for £1.99, which as far as I can see is at least £48 less than it should have been, and looks like a relatively mint British paperback, too. There is much interesting 1970s and 1980s sf in this shop.

Secret Army

I don't often record comments on tv I watch - although to be fair I seem to have stopped writing about film and books at the moment - but just to note that I'm halfway through series two of Secret Army, which I wanted to watch because of its links to the sf series 1990. Secret Army is a drama about a group of Belgian resistance workers who help downed British airmen escape to Switzerland during the Second World War. I've managed to avoid the Allo Allo effect by having avoided that sitcom, although there is a certain amount of awkwardness about accents (characters being British, German, Dutch, French, American and of course Belgian - and when a leading female character suddenly becomes a lounge singer, shouldn't she be singing in English?).

Some familiar face of course, writers, directors and actors - I know Bernard Hepton from An Inspector Calls, but a couple of them went on to sitcoms, and there's him off Survivors and him from Howard's Way and a very young Ken Stott. The Black Guardian, of course, without the dead bird on his head - which is my memory of the role - and whilst that wouldn't be the only time I'm seen John Scott Martin not dressed as a dalek, it's the only time I've realised it having seen the cast list.

It's bloody cheerful stuff, not. I don't suppose I saw it at the time, but I think there was a repeat - the opening credits are familiar. They've clearly got a budget in the second series because there's more external shots (Brussels or a stand in?), and there's more incidental music (not always a good thing). I've no idea how it ends, but clearly no characters are safe (and the existence of a spin-off suggests one character at least survives). I must work out what slot it was broadcast in.