With my little eye...

[venta]

Help me out, I'm curious...

[Poll #229222]

(As ever, if non-LJers want to answer, they can mail me.)

Comments

[arralethe.livejournal.com]

What made you think of that?

[venta.livejournal.com]

Just came up in conversation whether or not they were well known... which I'd never previously questioned. I assumed everyone passed long car journeys with them :)

[jiggery-pokery.livejournal.com]

I saw an I-Spy knock-off at some point last year. Can't remember the title or the subject; it clearly had the same format, just none of the branding and mythos. At the risk of falling for an urban legend: no Bellamy, no point.

[jiggery-pokery.livejournal.com]

Cute history of the phenomenon, article from someone who was involved with the admin suggesting that the series peaked in the '50s and '60s, article confirming Bellamic influence.

It's tremendously amusing that of the seven respondents to the second poll, between us we have a 0% success rate at earning the required 750 (or was it 1,000?) points for success (second-class success at that) even once.

[venta.livejournal.com]

suggesting that the series peaked in the '50s and '60s

Hmm. We had postulated 70s, I didn't realise they went back so far. So basically, those of us in the backward north were still playing the games of the 50s well into the 80s :)

[jiggery-pokery.livejournal.com]

There's got to be the scope for an affectionate parody using the poll feature: I-Spy LiveJournal.

Our collective ineptitude grows still further: having gone 0-for-11 at even a single book between us. Not quite sure how many of your second poll voters went to Oxbridge - at a guess, "most of them" - but that really doesn't say much in favour of our collective observation skills :-)

[venta.livejournal.com]

You think observation skills were an issue?

I'd have thought it was more an apathy-based problem :)

[venta.livejournal.com]

at a guess, "most of them"

Out of interest, why would you say that ? At a quick count, I think I make it around half. Though there's some people I don't know where they went to university.

And I have no idea why people at Oxbridge should be more observant - head in the clouds, most of 'em :)

[jiggery-pokery.livejournal.com]

All the ones whose universities I know went to Oxford - six from 12. Possibly the same six you know, possibly not.

Why I said that was because all the people I know on your Friends list went to Oxbridge - so, by obviously correct and safe extrapolation, so must all the people I don't know on your Friends list must have gone there as well. Ahem.

And I have no idea why people at Oxbridge should be more observant - head in the clouds, most of 'em :)

Sad but true!

[jiggery-pokery.livejournal.com]

Actually, please someone remind us as to how I-Spy admin worked.

Wasn't it the case that you were allowed to self-certify yourself as a second-class (whatever) at n points and only needed to send the book off for ratification when you claimed the title of first-class (whatever) at n+x points? (*) We might well have a second-class spy amongst us yet.

(*) And so the D&D XP/level system was born, only counting backwards, in a different country as part of a game that the D&D pioneers would likely never have seen.

[cardinalsin.livejournal.com]

I never had I-Spy, but I had Find 50 which I assume are the same.

[frax.livejournal.com]

Find 50 was brilliant! I wish they were still around but I don't think they are.

[(Anonymous)]

I-Spy books were linked with a newspaper (??Daily Mail when it was a broadsheet) and there really was a Big Chief I-Spy who thought up the whole idea. He got obits in the nationals when he died, I seem to remember.
I belong to the 'had a book once but never finished it' brigade but I'm old & I went to Durham

Controversy!

[wimble.livejournal.com]

Inspired, I went to google, and got handed two contradictory references to "Big Chief I-Spy": http://www.twoatlarge.com/ralph/rmisc/spy.html and http://www.klif.demon.co.uk/life/people/ispy.htm

The first says it started with the News Chronicle, and then moved to The Daily Mail. The second link has the chronology in the reverse order. More noticably, they credit different people with actually being Big Chief I-Spy.

Maybe I ought to ask my mother if she's still got any of mine.

"I-spy Computer Hardware" anybody? Double points for a PDP-8!

[(Anonymous)]

News Chron folded or was absorbed/became something else so suspect it ended up with the Mail

[(Anonymous)]

_Of course_ I did them as a child. Don't recall ever sending one away once I'd got enough points, though.

Better still, Victoria, my daughter, is also a fan of them. We've found some pretty obscure road/roadside signs!

--
Richard (age 38 but feeling younger)