As it was my birthday
I recently bought from a charity shop two
books in one Edgar rice Burroughs The Mastermind of Mars and Fighting
Man of Mars of the later books in his Mars series
I first read the
original Mars Books Princess , Gods, Warlord , Chessman ,Thuvia when I was
about twelve and had worked out
the basic plot by Warlord of mars
John Carter of Mars
swordsman in muscle harness
tracked down his kidnapped princess
to yet another undiscovered Martian
city ruled by a tyrant hero thrown into pits and escaping from pits , tied up beautiful princess is rescued
ending with tyrant toppled in sword fight and replaced
by his exiled relative who JC of M had saved from death earlier.
It seemed to be the
easiest way for John Carter to make friends .
Over the years I
found that Manator,
Zodanga and Odar all merged into one and the great white apes and
allied giant insects ended up fighting
yellow men
Mastermind of Mars
involved a 1920s variation on the
sword wielding a newer earth born hero seeking his kidnapped princess in a more gothic
undiscovered Mars of brain transplants stolen bodies and mad scientist
Fighting Man of Mars a very 1930s
Mars the adventures of a
Martian Native ordinary Joe saving
at least three kidnapped princesses tied up by mad
tyrant and against a backdrop of yet another dead sea
bottom city where mad scientist
makes mad tyrants
secret weapons and invisibility cloaks.
I should get out
my old
John Carter Mars books again
Another childhood
TV space series
I remember was UFO set in
the far future of 1980 and based around the secret government agency S.H.A.D.O
as in all far future organisations
funded by one shilling in every
pound
UFO was an early TV tie in and some of my earliest toys were UFO
technology the missile
firing moon base ice lolly
shaped interceptor backed up by what was to me the boring toys
of the "mobile one"
tracked missile firing garbage
truck like tank and Commander Straker's ordinary looking executive automobile which did not fire anything.
One toy missing from this 1970s UFO Dinky series
was the toy I always wanted at the time but discovered
was now
available forty years after
I really wanted one
That of the Sky
diver submarine the
supersonic fighter plane
"Sky" launched under
water from the submarine
"Diver"
Launched to its own varaition on the shows teleprinter disco beat "Sky" looked
like a combination of F86 and
Bachem 349A Natter came spectacularly out of the ocean, flew around briefly like a bad tempered wasp before
blasting invading flying saucers out of
the sky with a single shot from its underwing
rocket launchers which also doubled
as engine pods.
How "Sky " returned to link up with the submerged
"Diver" was a mystery
perhaps it did the whole launch
thing again but in reverse.
Of all the UFO technological breakthroughs Skydiver was the
most true to life
in the tradition
of the submarine aircraft carrier from the Royal Navy's ill fated M2 biplane
fighter equipped submarine ( M2 itself converted from
a submarine armed with 12
inch battleship gun ) from the
1920s to the planned squadrons of Convair Sea
Darts stored in the three hangar decks
of 9000
ton Atomic submarines designed to
surface at the north pole and intercept incoming Soviet bombers coming in low over the arctic circle .
On the job front it is a
year this week since I last taught full time and having found nowhere new I
am still bitter about redundancy, loss of regular
income and miss the working week.
Despite the
opportunity being in IT training
my last interviewers in their questions concentrated more on what I had
been doing in this last year post redundancy than what I did
from 1997-2012
I still get too many
messages over the year
in reply to me
even asking if any learning providers
want volunteers "we
are completely fully staffed, but thank
you for your enquiry and good luck for the future."
I tried a number of times
in the last week to add this
new post to my blog but
had connection problems and error messages every time I tried
so some delay
updating
