Escape from Blood Castle

 This time it's my brother's fault for reminding me of another book in my sprawling collection...

This one hasn't quite been in my possession since time immemorial. I bought it from the Chip Club primary school book catalogue in what was probably 1985 (the first page rather confusingly says it was first published in 1984 and copyright © 1985) . Or rather, my father bought it at my request - it's not like I paid for Chip Club books myself whenever the new leaflet made its way to the classroom, but I always got one from it. I expect many parents grumbled at being expected to buy a vaguely educational book for their offspring on a regular basis, but since my dad was a teacher, he was all in favour of the idea, however short of money we might have been. And this particular one is a real treat!

It's the first in the series of Usborne Solve-it-Yourself books, and by far the best of them. I eagerly bought some others in the range, only to find they were much simpler, less complicated and ingenious than this pilot episode. It's a great shame, but at least we got Blood Castle in all its glory.

Each double-page spread presents a puzzle for the reader to figure out before turning to the rest of the story. How does Ivor get into the castle? Obviously, he climbs up the lion statue, onto the roof, up the drainpipe and onto the ledge, where he fishes for the key on the windowsill using the nylon thread and sharp hook described in the text, then goes back down and lets himself in the front door. Ignoring the open door that leads to the snake pit, of course.

There's a page of hints (in mirrored writing) at the back of the book, just before the answers pages which explain everything. It's great stuff, and the following pages are perhaps the best of all:

What really happened? You might well ask, because the really clever reader of this book, i.e. me, might notice that the whole thing doesn't actually quite work. The answers page is wrong!

"The pendulum goes up not down. (Follow the cogs round to see why.)"

But if you do follow the cogs round, you'll see that the pendulum actually goes down, right onto Ivor! Check out the pink and yellow cogs on the left, just above the big wheel that the balls turn. It's disguised by the arrows being on opposite sides, but the two wheels are marked as both turning in the same direction! The artist made a mistake, and I'm clever enough to spot it! It's no wonder I was such a fan of this book.

And no, I didn't get the solution to a single one of the puzzles without looking at the answer page. But that's not the point!

I had a little practice in spotting flaws with Heath Robinson machinery probably shortly before getting Escape from Blood Castle - the Beano Comic Library no. 64, Baby-Face Finlayson in "Little Angel" came out in November 1984 and among the many, many silly pictures that were almost certainly the funniest thing I'd ever seen in my life up to that point was this unusually-powered lift:

... which even my eight-year-old self (unobservant oaf though I generally was) could see doesn't quite work the way it should. The rope should be attached to the treadmill, not to the man on it. Was it deliberate (I mean, it's so obvious), or was it a glitch in the brain of the artist? To this day I'm not sure, but perhaps it encouraged me to start scrutinising every picture I could find in the hopes of spotting other gaffes...