29 on 4 2

So, Channel 4's terrestrial debut of Season 29 of The Simpsons began slightly later than it normally does on the 22nd November, and wrapped up on 17th December. Here, then, are several thousand words examining the various episodes they censored, as well as other notes of interest mostly concerning cases where there are alternate versions of certain episodes, compared to my earlier notes on potentially problematic/interesting-for-other-reasons episodes made before the run started.

Broken Gamebooks #1 ½: Realm of Chaos Redux

Way back in the first ever Broken Gamebooks article, nearly five years ago now, the inaugural adventure gamebook under discussion was the sixth GrailQuest book, Realm of Chaos. I have some startling new revelations to share with you, which were provided by commentator Ed Jolley. (Ed has also left some thoroughly interesting notes on some of my other posts, which you would be well-advised to seek out.)

Five Years

It was exactly five years ago today that the very first post was published to cwickham.blogspot.com. It was, of course, a review of an obscure series of adventure gamebooks from the 1980s.

I'd only started writing that review the day before; as I note in it, I got into a conversation with Andrew Ellard on Twitter about an adventure gamebook he'd had as a child but was struggling to identify, and at his suggestion I ended up writing a review of the series. And suddenly I needed a place to post it. I'd always meant to start a blog some day, and this was the impetus I needed to finally get around to doing so. I decided to see how long I could keep updating it on a weekly basis, which turned out to be almost exactly three years; for the two years since then, I've had a similarly totally arbitrary target of keeping it updated monthly. And, to my mild surprise, some people have been quite interested in what I've written.

To mark the fifth anniversary, then, I thought I'd look at the ten most-read posts according to Blogger's stats page, and see if I can work out why these pieces are so popular and if I have anything new to say about them. If you've been a regular reader over the last half-decade, why not try to guess which posts they are before reading on?

Yes, obviously I know why not, but play along, OK?

Clash of the Metal Titans

The first four series of the iconic robotic combat gameshow Robot Wars were a straightforward knockout tournament: each episode comprised a single heat, the winner of which would progress to a semi-final, and the winners of those would progress to the Grand Final. Thus, the episode titles for those series followed logically: "Series 2 Heat K" or "Series 3 Semi-Final A" make it clear what you're talking about.

But after the Fourth Wars, the UK championship took a temporary backseat for Robot Wars Extreme, a series featuring a wide range of different mini-tournaments. Each episode of Extreme 1 featured a mix of the different ongoing tournaments, plus the occasional one-off battle. So with the exception of the two Annihilators (which featured six robots who qualified from the earlier "Mayhem" melees fighting together, with one robot being eliminated each round until only one survived), and the Second World Championship, those episodes don't have any easily identifiable moniker.

Except the original Radio Times listings appear to have given each episode a title. One fight in each episode would be branded the "Main Event" of the night, and most of these titles come from those: I don't know if these were official titles given to them by the production team, or if the RT made them up themselves. At any rate, the episodes were titled thusly (read this list alongside the Robot Wars Wiki's episode guide if you like):

1. The Challenge Belt
2. The Ultimate Mayhem
3. The International Inferno
4. The Ultimate Vengeance
5. The Armed Forces Mayhem
6. The Ultimate Vengeance
7. The Annihilator Special
8. The Ultimate All-Star Conflict
9. The House Robot Rebellion
10. The Second World Championship [NOTE: Shown in this position on BBC Two, but had aired as Episode 16 of the earlier BBC Choice run]
11. The Forces Special [NOTE: Shown in this position on BBC Two, but had aired as Episode 17 of the earlier BBC Choice run]
12. The All-Star Quarter-Finals
13. The Flipper Frenzy
14. The All-Star Semi-Finals
15. The Tag Team Terror Final
16. The Annihilator Special
17. The All-Star Grand Final

Given there are two different fights dubbed "The Ultimate Vengeance", the two Annihilators are not differentiated between, and one of the twelve Mayhems has seemingly been arbitrarily given the title "The Ultimate Mayhem" just because it had Hypno-Disc in it, these titles are sadly not terribly helpful. Still, the Radio Times listings are the only place I've ever seen these episodes referred to as anything other than "Episode 1", "Episode 2", etc.

Nog een Artikel met een slecht vertaalde Nederlandse Titel

Last time on the blog, my attempts to track down the obscure 1991 Diamond Brothers TV series brought the attention of Netherlands-based reader David; as the show was a British-Dutch co-production, he was able to provide me with a large number of contemporary pieces about the show's broadcast in the Netherlands from Dutch newspapers. David had a few more notes to give me after reading my resulting piece, which I think deserve a post of their own.

Vraag Gewoon Nog een Keer om Diamant

Last time on my epic quest for the never-repeated, never-released-on-home-video Diamond Brothers TV series from 1991, blog reader Giles Leigh had tracked down a whole bunch of newspaper and magazine clippings pertaining to the series' broadcast in the Netherlands. Bearing in mind I knew the show had been a co-production with a Dutch filming company, allowing for filming on location in Amsterdam, this is possibly something I should have thought to look into before. Ahem.

Anyway, another blog reader, Netherlands-based David, has now been in touch with another selection of clippings from various Dutch newspapers covering the series' broadcast there; I am tremendously grateful to him for sharing this veritable treasure trove, and for helping out with the translations. Pictured above is the first of these, taken from the 8th April 1991 edition of the Leidsche Courant and featuring, unless I'm mistaken, a never-before-seen publicity still of Colin Dale and Dursley McLinden.

Broken Gamebooks #20: Sword of the Samurai

By pleasing coincidence (since I'd originally planned to cover something else entirely, but logistical issues -- namely, that the gamebook series I meant to write about turned out to have a set of reprints by a different publisher a few years later that fixed several of the problems found in the original versions, and it's going to take a while for me to track everything I need down -- mean we're getting this instead), Sword of the Samurai is both the twentieth entry in the original Fighting Fantasy series, and the twentieth entry in our ongoing series examining mistakes in adventure gamebooks. So what's the problem?

Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie & Fred & Wilma & Pebbles

Here is one of the sillier, yet strangely intriguing, mysteries surrounding The Simpsons. "The Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie Show", as well as being correctly considered one of the greatest episodes the show ever did, was also the 167th episode to be broadcast -- meaning it overtook The Flintstones as the world's longest-running prime-time animation.

Most versions of the episode use the Sgt Pepper's parody couch gag -- this was definitely the version used on the original US broadcast on 9 February 1997, and it is also the version used on the Season 8 DVD. However, an alternative version of the episode exists, which uses the couch gag from the Season 4 episode "Kamp Krusty", where Our Favourite Family run in to find the Flintstones already on the couch -- obviously done in reference to the episode's record-breaking nature. However, this has obviously been hastily done, since the audio from the Sgt Pepper's couch gag is still playing over it. ("Kamp Krusty" also featured a screen in the end credits saying the Flintstones appeared courtesy of Hanna-Barbera, which is presumably not found in the alternate edit.)

There are two known places where this alternate edit is or was seen -- US syndication, and Sky One's original UK broadcast of the episode, which was on 13 April 1997. A theory is that after the original broadcast, people suggested that they should have used the Flintstones gag, and someone went back and made the edit to the network copy so future broadcasts could mark the milestone. (The fact that the alternate version was seen in the UK at all indicates that it was not done specifically for the syndicated version -- copies of episodes for overseas broadcasts tend to be copies of what the network had, not anything that was done for syndication.)

Now, look at this video someone's made of all the Season 8 couch gags. At 47 seconds in appears the alternate Flintstones-visuals-Sgt-Pepper's-audio gag... with the Fox Network logo in the top right corner. Is this from the one and only US network repeat (which was on 25 May 1997)? Because that would seem to go an awfully long way to validating the above theory, although it does raise the question of why the DVD uses the original version when they generally go with revised versions -- perhaps someone on the commentary team noticed the oddity and decided to get the "correct" visuals restored?

Gordon's Alive

A few years ago I wrote about obscure and unarchived ephemera related to The Brittas Empire, including the series of 10-minute fitness-related shorts Get Fit with Brittas -- a significant part of the show's history that were not on DVD, or indeed anywhere else. So it seems worth flagging up that the fourth episode, Gordon Works It Out, has just resurfaced on YouTube. (EDIT: I've just noticed the same episode was also uploaded to YouTube two months earlier, as part of a longer video which also includes a trailer for the rest of the series at the end.)

The most notable thing is that this episode was written by Ian Davidson & Peter Vincent, who were part of the team of writers brought in to write the last two series after creators Andrew Norriss and Richard Fegen departed. I was a little surprised when their names flashed up at the end, since it really doesn't feel much like even the post-Norriss/Fegen version of the show, but maybe that's just the oddity of a sitcom meeting a legitimate attempt to educate the public about healthy living, which this apparently was. There's a very strange, un-Brittas title sequence, too.

Also note the joke at 3:51, and that this episode was broadcast on BBC One on the 8th of August, 1997...

Vraag Gewoon om Diamant

Last time on my quest for the missing 1991 Diamond Brothers TV series, I mentioned I had some information I'd been sent by Giles Leigh about the show's broadcast in the Netherlands. Bearing in mind I already knew the show was a co-production with a Dutch film company, perhaps this is something I should've thought to look into myself before now. But anyway, since that last post was already earth-shattering enough, I decided to leave what Giles had sent me for another day and another post to avoid it all being a bit too much. And here we are.

29 on 4

At some point this autumn, Channel 4 will begin airing a new-to-terrestrial season of The Simpsons, first screened in the UK by Sky One around four years ago; the eighteenth season of the show they've premiered, and, in all probability, the fourteenth consecutive season to make its debut in the tried-and-true weekdays at 6pm timeslot. Based on the last few years' form, this will probably start early in November, but it could start at any point from September so it's good to get this in now: for the third year running, the blog's guide to potential censorship cuts for those watching along. As ever, keep an eye on Wesley Mead's UK schedules page to find out exactly when.

Before we get started, a general note: When these episodes were first aired by Sky One between December 2017 and May 2018, they were shown in a new, later-than-usual regular timeslot of 8pm on Fridays, which has stuck for every season since. This means that Sky's original broadcasts of these episodes were, with one notable exception, completely uncut, even the Treehouse of Horror; I cannot say the same for any repeats they made in earlier timeslots.

Just Ask For South By South East: The Book of the TV Serial, Only It Turns Out It's a Bit More Complicated Than That

When we last left my ongoing quest for the missing 1991 Diamond Brothers TV series, I was still reeling from a startling revelation: the TV series was not actually an adaptation of the third Diamond Brothers book, but rather the book was a novelisation of the series. Not only that, but it appeared one of the reasons why nobody had ever realised this in the time since the series fell into obscurity and the book became the far better-known version was because when Walker Books reprinted South by South East in 1997, several sections of the text were significantly rewritten, removing or changing sections from the 1991 version of the book. I strongly suspected that the material only found in the earlier Lion Books printing that coincided with the broadcast of the TV series was originally in the show, was faithfully novelised by Anthony Horowitz when he did the book, but then removed when he did his rewrite a few years later. But without access to the TV episodes, I had no way of knowing for sure.

Except, of course, that the title sequence for the series is on YouTube. Jamie, who uploaded the only footage of the series publicly available, does have access to the full series, but as he is not the license holder he can't upload anything else (so please, please don't pester him about it, least of all on my account -- he's not deliberately withholding the episodes, he just can't share them for legal reasons; he is working on a documentary about the tragically short life of Dursley McLinden, for which he tracked the episodes down in the first place, and may be able to include some more footage from the series in that). But it occurred to me that surely it would be OK to ask him a few questions about the material that's only in the 1991 version of the book and check to see if it was in the TV series?

And it was, and I can tell you that Jamie delivered in spades; I am enormously grateful to him for taking the time to do this. So let's take a second look at the differences between the '91 and '97 versions of the book, with the tremendously helpful addition of the perspective of someone who's seen the TV series. (I would recommend you read my first comparison of the two different editions, linked to above, if you haven't already before going on to this one.)

L'escouade Mystère

I noticed from my stats page today that quite a few new readers have been directed to the blog today from a French-language forum about adventure gamebooks, so if you're one of them, a very warm welcome to you. The page in question was specifically linking to my review of The Mystery Squad adventure gamebooks, and I learnt quite a lot of new stuff about the series' publication in French from it, specifically:

• The final two books in the series were never published in France for whatever reason; a similar phenomenon affects several other series of the time, such as the GrailQuest series which also never saw its last two entries published over there.
• As you can see from the picture above, the French editions used original artwork for the covers rather than the photographic ones, although they did mostly use the original internal illustrations (with one important difference... see below).
• In France, the Mystery Squad were rechristened Thomas Laloupe (Casey), and Rémi, Anatole and Julie (James, Bodger and Beans). So presumably French parents in the 1980s were less cruel to their children.
• Finally, what probably really makes this post worth writing: the series' frequent rebus puzzles, which I didn't mention in the original review but probably should have done, were redone for the French-language editions, so here's a comparison using the one uploaded by Gauthier, the author of the article:

The French version decodes to ES-PIONS-NON-DIVERS-ALLAH-TOUR-JUS-LIT-ET-RE-MI: Let's spy divers at the tower. Signed Julie and Rémi.

The Diamond Solution

On a previous edition of what is now apparently the blog's defining mission to chronicle every oddity concerning the Diamond Brothers books and their film and TV adaptations, we looked (well, correspondent Simon Drake looked at it and I made some extra notes) at two different edits of the 1988 film Just Ask for Diamond -- a longer one, which was originally released on VHS in the UK, and a significantly truncated one that appears to be the only edit of the film available on DVD. Lacking information about what was originally shown theatrically or was available overseas, I couldn't determine exactly what the deal was with the two versions. But thanks to another reader, Giles Leigh, who carried out some research into home video releases of the film outside the UK, I think we can, at the very least, make a pretty educated guess about what happened. Much of what you are about to read is what he sent me, and I am enormously grateful to him for doing the work and giving me permission to reproduce it here.

Just Ask For South By South East: The Book of the TV Serial (Definitely)

You know, when I first started writing about a series of comedy detective novels originally published in the late 80s and early 90s, and the obscure television series they spawned, I didn't really expect them to end up becoming such a big part of the blog. But they have, as the story behind them has grown progressively more and more complicated and the number of mysteries they've thrown up has increased. So before we dive into the latest of those, perhaps a recap of the story so far would be useful.

I first inquired about the 1991 TV series The Diamond Brothers: South by South East in December 2017. At that time, I believed the TV series was an adaptation of the third book, and there was one big mystery, and one little one:

• The TV series was extremely obscure, to the point that not so much as a single still image from it could be found on the internet.
• The book was published on 14 March 1991, and the TV series began broadcasting just twelve days later, on the 26th.

Over the next few years, the response I got was more than I could possibly have hoped for. Steve Williams submitted Radio Times listings that provided the first photographic evidence of the series' existence. I was sent an extensive second-hand account of the original broadcast. My own research turned up a promotional poster. It turned out the series might have been released on VHS in Spain. Someone who was an extra on the production for one day even got in touch. Finally, in May 2021, footage of the series actually emerged on YouTube in the form of the original opening titles. Bearing in mind that back in 2017, I semi-seriously floated the theory that the series might actually have been some sort of elaborate hoax, I was pretty happy with all that had come to light -- short of the actual full episodes turning up, I'd done about as well as I could.

But then, only a few weeks later, I was sent something that cast a new light on the second mystery (the TV series' extremely close proximity to the release of the original book). Christian-Bernard Gauci informed me he owned an edition of the book from 1991 which he, and I, quite reasonably assumed was a TV tie-in edition:

But as I thought about this, something seemed off. If there was a TV tie-in edition, surely it would've had to have been published more or less at exactly the same time as the original book? Wouldn't it have been a bit odd to have the book published with two different covers at the same time? And then a staggering possibility hit me: This wasn't a TV tie-in edition of the book. It was the only edition of the book published in 1991. Because, contrary to what everywhere (including the first page of later editions of the books) that mentions it says, the TV series wasn't actually an adaptation of the book, but the book was a novelisation of the TV series.

The Stupidest Puzzle in Adventure Gamebook History

You try to cross back to the real world, but it is no good. Some force holds you here. It will be released only if you are successful in the Trial of Ghosts. You have heard that in some parts of Titan, humans practice barbaric forms of trial. For instance, a sorcerer might be thrashed with stout branches of thorn. If the wounds on his body form, in the judges' opinion, shapes born of Hell, then he is burned as a necromancer; if not, he is released, though he may be near death or scarred for life.

In the same way, the Trial of Ghosts is arbitrary - a matter mainly of luck. On the opposite page is what you see on the ground in front of you. Roll one die: this is the number of the square you start on. You now have to pick a route through to the centre, which is where the judges sit, and is indicated in the diagram by a question mark. The route you take must consist of only five squares, including the one you start with. The route can go vertically, horizontally, or diagonally from square to square. Thus, if you start from 4, your route could be 4, 7, 183, 21, 19. When you have chosen your route, turn to the paragraph whose number is its total (234 in the example above). If the paragraph makes no sense, you have failed the test and will be hanged on the gallows, with the crowd's laughter ringing in your ears. Because you are currently bound to this world, your POWER will be drained and your physical body will die too. Good luck!

Section 309 of Phantoms of Fear, there, with a puzzle charitably described by the Fighting Fantasy Wiki as "flawed in multiple ways". If it's not obvious from the text, you are in a dream world during this encounter, so whether or not the paragraph you reach as a result of this puzzle makes sense or not may be up to the player's interpretation.

Edit Wars #14

Just a quick one this time, but this is an interesting development: It appears that circa Series 4 of the original run of Robot Wars, participating teams could receive the live, uncut studio footage of battles they participated in on request. This means that two battles featuring Iron-Awe survive in their raw, unedited form:

Iron-Awe vs Mazakari vs Mortis: Uncut Version vs Broadcast Version

Iron-Awe vs Steg 2: Uncut Version vs Broadcast Version

Also, I mentioned these on Twitter when they first started appearing, but this channel has recently uploaded an absolutely enormous number of videos from the live events in '96 and '97 that were effectively a pilot for the TV series. It may well be that some of these clips are the same ones that convinced the BBC to commission the show, so it seems worth mentioning them here...

Just Ask For South By South East: The Book of the TV Serial of the Book (Maybe)

So far this year, my never-ending quest for the 1991 Diamond Brothers TV series had had two big breakthroughs: the sleeve for a Spanish VHS release surfaced in March, and then the actual title sequence followed suit in May. Short of the actual full episodes turning up, I thought maybe we'd had all the discoveries we were ever going to have.

I was wrong, for today Christian-Bernard Gauci got in touch to tell me he owned a TV tie-in edition of the book. Thanks to him, I am able to shed a little more light on this lost series. More pictures and my "analysis" follow under the cut.

Unsung Heroes

Remember HeroQuest? It was basically a simplified tabletop RPG crossed with an adventure board game. Very much your classic dungeon crawling setup. BoardGameGeek describes it as "Milton Bradley's answer to Dungeons & Dragons", which is a pretty good description. It's been out of print for many years now due to legal issues (although a crowdfunded revival is currently in the works), apparently relating to co-developers Games Workshop, but still remains fondly remembered despite a second-hand copy of the game being likely to set you back at least £60 on eBay, quite possibly much more, to say nothing of the various expansion packs released over the years.

But there were also three -- seemingly pretty obscure -- adventure gamebooks based on the board game. So let's talk about those.

Truth, Lies and Videotape

As you may be able to tell from the fact that I am illustrating this article with a picture taken from Wikipedia, I was extremely scrupulous about the rules against on-set photography.

On Saturday night, my first excursion outside of Bristol in eighteen months was to Pinewood Studios to be in the audience for a recording of Would I Lie to You? I have some (spoiler-free) notes on the subject.

Get a Clue

The episode of I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue I was in the virtual audience for, with the panel of Tony Hawks, Marcus Brigstocke, Henning Wehn and Vicki Pepperdine, was broadcast on Radio 4 this evening, and is available to listen to for another 30 days here. Here's some notes, mostly on things that didn't make the edit, for the curious.

The Diamond Problem

When I first wrote about the incredibly obscure 1991 Diamond Brothers television series, I really wasn't expecting to get the response I did. I have received many, many e-mails and tweets on this subject -- more than everything else I've written about put together. People digging out old TV listings to prove the series actually did exist. Supportive and informative messages from those who remembered watching the original and only broadcasts. People putting me onto the trail of other information, and where I could possibly track down a copy. The second post in this series -- as far as I am aware, the first time any visual record of the series had ever been posted online -- is the most-viewed post on this blog by some distance.

But before there was the 1991 series of the third Diamond Brothers book, there was the 1988 film of their first adventure, which also starred Colin Dale and Dursley McLinden as the brothers and was also adapted by Anthony Horowitz from his own novel (the film's director, Stephen Bayly, served as an executive producer of the TV series). And, thanks to one of those correspondents, Simon Drake, I've learned that the film has its own interesting story. Here's what Simon had to say on the matter:

In the mid 2000s, I picked up a DVD of Just Ask For Diamond, a childhood favourite that i'd had on VHS for years. When I watched the DVD, I was convinced it was missing a load of Nick Diamond voice over and some other bits. I used to regularly post on the IMDB forums asking if anyone else's DVD was incomplete from their VHS, but no one really responded. I picked up a couple of different JAFD DVD releases (there were several versions on multipacks) thinking they might contain the extended voice over and they all seemed to be missing what I was sure I'd remembered being in the film. 

So I spent £20 on a VHS copy, and did a side by side comparison. And I can confirm the VHS version from the early 90s and the UK DVD release do differ. 

Just Ask For South By South East And You Shall Receive

Over three years ago, I first wrote about the long-missing 1991 CITV Diamond Brothers series, and its total obscurity to the point I voiced a theory I had held for many years before starting this blog: the series never actually existed and was actually some sort of elaborate hoax.

Since then, I've managed to establish its existence with pages from the Radio Times, a thorough second-hand account from someone who watched it, a promotional poster, and the sleeve for a Spanish VHS release. But even the briefest of actual footage from the production has escaped us.

Until now.

Broken Gamebooks #19: Return to Firetop Mountain

The 50th book in the Fighting Fantasy series, the centerpiece of the range's 10th anniversary celebrations, a sequel to the very first book in the series -- and originally intended to be the last book of all in the series, but the special attention given to the range for these various milestones caused sales to spike and it carried on in its original form for another three years.

But that is not all Return to Firetop Mountain is known for.

Gerry Anderson on the BBC

Although Gerry Anderson's numerous sci-fi television series -- including the filmed in Supermarionation Stingray, Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons and Joe 90 -- are closely associated with ITV, there are several generations of viewers who were introduced to them when the BBC repeated them in the 1990s, and again in the 2000s. That, however, is not quite the full story.

Solo Pide Un Diamante

Much thanks to commentator chyneeze for letting me know about this. Regular readers of the blog will no doubt be more than aware of my ongoing quest for the 1991 CITV Diamond Brothers series... a series that is deeply obscure because it was never repeated or released on home media.

Except it seems it might, in fact, have received a VHS release.

In Spanish.

A Little Variety

Anyone with some level of familiarity with Calvin and Hobbes is probably aware of the story concerning the "missing" cartoon. Here's a quick link to the two strips for 28 November 1985, just ten days into the strip's run; the alternate strip appeared in half the newspapers running the comic at the time, and the one that appears in the books (including The Complete Calvin and Hobbes) in the other half. Whilst no official statement was made, the generally accepted theory is that the one not archived was altered out of fear that children might try and imitate Calvin's desire to bathe in a washing machine.

Whilst that is the only case of a strip completely changing, there are five other C&H strips with two different versions. In three cases, these are dialogue changes, and Wikipedia's article on the strip gives the dates for the comics in question but not exactly what's different. So, if like me, you Googled those strips to see what was different about them after reading the Wikipedia article on Calvin and Hobbes... here you go.

The Clue Bibliography

Radio 4 comedy shows, especially panel games, don't seem to get an awful lot of tie-in books. The one and only such release for Just a Minute was Welcome to Just a Minute!, Nicholas Parsons' remarkably thorough history of the show from 2014. The News Quiz appears to have had at least one in the 1980s which I might look into at some point (there are a few other books called "News Quiz Book", but the title's so generic they might be unrelated to the radio show). The Unbelievable Truth had a pretty good stab at one a few years back, but perhaps covered too similar territory to the numerous QI books.

One happy exception to this rule is I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue, which has had no end of attempts (well, eight) to replicate some of its various rounds in print since 1980. Since there doesn't seem to be any kind of guide to them available anywhere, I thought I'd have a go. (Since it has to expressly tie into the show, I have excluded things such as memoirs or other books by the regular panellists, and I have also reluctantly left out Jem Roberts' fully authorised history of the series, which needless to say you should buy if you haven't already.)

Coping With Nostalgia

I am sure that many readers of the blog around the same age as me will remember these. The Coping With... books, by Peter Corey, did for self-help books what Horrible Histories did for history books -- a terrible analogy, since they actually predated those books by several years, but never mind -- and lasted for twelve titles between 1989 and 2000 (plus a diary for the year 1999), each tackling a different subject, including Parents, Exams and Tests and the 21st Century. Each book follows a broadly similar formula: an introduction to the author and his entirely fictional team of researchers, a history of this book's subject, an A-Z guide to the subject, and then an afterword and appendices. Whilst the books had their tongues firmly in their cheeks, they did offer some sincere advice on the matter to hand. But the humour was what I wanted to cover here, since the books had a habit of getting crap past the radar which stuck in my mind beyond any of the sincere advice. Or, in some cases, just not bothering with any pretence of a radar at all. To cover the extent of said filth, I have decided to find, to my mind, the most risqué/risky joke in each entry of the series.

Poskitt's Puzzles

Last year, I looked back at the Killer Puzzles -- a series of notoriously difficult puzzle books from the 1990s. If you haven't read said look back, then for goodness' sake go and do so now, or this post will be even more inexplicable than it already is.

Into the Lyraverse

When I started looking into the various different adaptations of His Dark Materials that preceded the current TV series, I was interested in one specific part of one adaptation in particular: the much-derided 2007 feature film The Golden Compass, and its ending, which is probably the most notable thing about it apart from the fact that its box office performance played a big part in New Line Cinema getting merged into Warner Brothers. In the book, and indeed most adaptations, Lyra's friend Roger is killed when Lord Asriel severs him from his daemon in order to tear a hole in the Northern Lights that leads into another world... but whilst this sequence was filmed for the movie, it was cut during editing (various contradictory explanations seem to exist as to exactly why -- some sources say it was too depressing a note to end on, others claim that test audiences were confused and thought the meaning of the sequence was that Lyra had died and when she followed the opening into the other world she was actually ascending to Heaven). The stated intention was to open the sequel with it instead, but we all know how that turned out.