What's your White Whale

[SausagePourHomme]

What's something you've found before and would love to go back to but can't find it? A song, movie, book, perfume, anything...

I'll start. There was a mystery novel I liked at school, someone was committing crimes wearing a clown mask. They caught the perpetrator because they wrote their letter E with a dot instead of a line across.

Now you go...

A game I got in a Christmas cracker in the late 80s about the Bermuda Triangle. You had to race counters around a fold-up plastic map and try not to get 'lost'. It was actually quite good for a cracker game and I kept it for ages but I don't know what happened to it. I talked about it to my family recently but no one else remembers it.

oh that's a great one floridana! I hope you find it again one day tucked into a bag or at the bottom of a drawer.

Reminds me of a game a friend has kept from childhood that is a very simple concept, like snakes and ladders almost but with rockets and planets.

I read a fictional book once about islanders who traded in whale meat and oil. The main character was a girl who was mistreated by her dad. She carved figures (I think in whale bone?). She wasn't great at first but eventually got good enough to make good trades. There was a guy who loved someone but was forced into an arranged marriage with someone else. They lived in tents. That's about all I can remember - can't ever find it again.

There was another book I read when I was in primary school about a boy on an island. He was friends (I think) with a wolf. He had a wolf tooth necklace. The story was about how he managed to survive alone on the island. Again, never found any evidence this book exists either!

I loved that game @floridana!

I had a Space 1999 blaster gun. My friends & I used to run around on a Sunday playing Space 1999 around the estate.

Actually, there was a programme I used to watch as a child when I was the only one up that was...sort off from the perspective of blood cells? No idea what it was called. I suppose it was a cartoon about how the body works, but I remember really loving it! 😂 it was on just before Sharky & George, that much I can remember.

A book my teacher started reading to us when I was about ten and we were doing Victorians, and never finished because she went into hospital.
It was about two homeless Victorian children, the girl was called Jubilee.
They wanted to go to school but they needed a parent in order to so they asked a man they knew, called Mr Parrot.
Never managed to find anything about it anywhere.

I've never heard the term 'white whale'. Well now I know!

A book I read in high school as a early teen. A girl moves to live with her estranged grandmother. Grandmother uses a hot brick wrapped in newspaper to warm the beds and walks up and down railway tracks in search of coal. Turns out grandmother is deaf and has been lip reading.

Sounds like a depressing read, but I read it several times and thoroughly enjoyed it at the time. No idea of the name or author though?

I love threads like this.

@SausagePourHomme you should ask about the book on the What We’re Reading topic, someone might know it! Same for @Vampirethriller.

@MarmiteCoriander

I've never heard the term 'white whale'. Well now I know!

A book I read in high school as a early teen. A girl moves to live with her estranged grandmother. Grandmother uses a hot brick wrapped in newspaper to warm the beds and walks up and down railway tracks in search of coal. Turns out grandmother is deaf and has been lip reading.

Sounds like a depressing read, but I read it several times and thoroughly enjoyed it at the time. No idea of the name or author though?

Sounds like a Catherine Cookson plot line, I was obsessed with reading them as a teenager!

Cross posted with @MarmiteCoriander. Definitely worth asking on the reading threads.

There was a mystery novel I liked at school, someone was committing crimes wearing a clown mask. They caught the perpetrator because they wrote their letter E with a dot instead of a line across.

A book I read in high school as a early teen. A girl moves to live with her estranged grandmother. Grandmother uses a hot brick wrapped in newspaper to warm the beds and walks up and down railway tracks in search of coal. Turns out grandmother is deaf and has been lip reading.

I really want to know what these books are!

A girl who is ordinary who becomes a princess I tried to find the book as an adult and couldn’t find it anywhere also another book about hippos or elephants - can’t remember which and the girls hippos spent ages grooming and stuff and keeping pink (?) and then they played in a mud and had a fantastic time - can’t remember that book either

It was an American book.
It was called something like "stop or my mom will shout or yell"
The character has a brother called Nathaniel. I remember her friend's mom never shouted at her friend. There was one particular line that I do remember : "Melissa honey, feet belong on the floor not the couch" and the main characters' mom was always yelling at her.
Would really like to read the book again

@NotMaryWhitehouse I used to love a cartoon called Once upon a Time Life? It was French I think.

@NotMaryWhitehouse
Was it this one

@notmarywhitehouse I think you may mean osmosis Jones?

That is is @Confundo Apparently it is on Netflix. May force DD to watch it and find excuses to sit with her

@MarmiteCoriander

I've never heard the term 'white whale'. Well now I know!

A book I read in high school as a early teen. A girl moves to live with her estranged grandmother. Grandmother uses a hot brick wrapped in newspaper to warm the beds and walks up and down railway tracks in search of coal. Turns out grandmother is deaf and has been lip reading.

Sounds like a depressing read, but I read it several times and thoroughly enjoyed it at the time. No idea of the name or author though?

Like a PP said, this sounds like a Catherine Cookson book to me. She wrote some for older children/teenagers and I read some of them when I was about 12.

@NotMaryWhitehouse

Actually, there was a programme I used to watch as a child when I was the only one up that was...sort off from the perspective of blood cells? No idea what it was called. I suppose it was a cartoon about how the body works, but I remember really loving it! 😂 it was on just before Sharky & George, that much I can remember.

Was it the Magic School Bus? I used to love that show!

@Borrowbox @Confundo oh my god!!! 😥 it's JUST how I remembered..........

@Borrowbox

That is is *@Confundo* Apparently it is on Netflix. May force DD to watch it and find excuses to sit with her

Me too, with DS!!

I LOVED that cartoon too!! Might also make my kids watch it!

When I moved from a rented flat I to my first own property I lost a bag with two gorgeous scarves in it. Never seen again. Was very upsetting as I loved those scarves

Oops sorry! Just saw that you solved the mystery 😊