About Me

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No Fixed Abode, Home Counties, United Kingdom
I’m a 60-year-old Aspergic gardening CAD-Monkey. Sardonic, cynical and with the political leanings of a social reformer, I’m also a toy and model figure collector, particularly interested in the history of plastics and plastic toys. Other interests are history, current affairs, modern art, and architecture, gardening and natural history. I love plain chocolate, fireworks and trees, but I don’t hug them, I do hug kittens. I hate ignorance, when it can be avoided, so I hate the 'educational' establishment and pity the millions they’ve failed with teaching-to-test and rote 'learning' and I hate the short-sighted stupidity of the entire ruling/industrial elite, with their planet destroying fascism and added “buy-one-get-one-free”. Likewise, I also have no time for fools and little time for the false crap we're all supposed to pretend we haven't noticed, or the games we're supposed to play. I will 'bite the hand that feeds', to remind it why it feeds.

Sunday, August 24, 2014

M is for a Thousand!

So...blimey! One thousand posts active, bit of a landmark, certainly didn't think I'd get here, especially having so much still to cover, visit or look at for the first time...still to come!

I really am very grateful, even if I don't always seem so...that's the Asperger's - be thankful you're 'normal', whatever that is!

 1000th

There are five posts still in draft, and with the posts I've deleted over the years, I don't know what the true total is, and with the three other Blogs that were brought back here, it's only about 900 actual Small Scale World posts.

I'm not running a competition or anything, and this is the last time I'll do one of these self-indulgent jobbies...except a quick mention of the million-hits in a future News, Views Etc... . Reason being - when you start a Blog, you are more than happy that anyone would like to read or follow your whitterings, and therefore the landmarks 'mean something', but the truth is the nature of the Internet means all the totals will inexorably rise, and the task itself become - at times - a millstone! Which sounds graceless, but it's not...

Overview

The last time I did one of these overviews I was asking for a couple of 'followers' (the only time I've done so or will do so!), as I was a few off a hundred, and several people answered the call, then it sat at about 103 for quite some time, suddenly climbed to 109, sat there for about six months and recently has risen to 111. And I'm very grateful to all those who follow, visit or just dip-in occasionally.

I don't see it going much further as the nature of the Blog's subject matter means it has a limited audience for followers, and the bulk of the new traffic comes straight from Google.

At the same time I mentioned that it was one target of three, "more on which later"...well 'later' never happened and the other two targets are long forgotten but were probably 800 posts and 300,000 hits or something like that. As you can see, the half a million slipped-by a few weeks ago, and that's a more unbelievable number than 1000 posts, believe me!

'Stats'

The reason I took such a 'graceless' line above is because I seem to have hit and crossed a 'tipping point'. June was the highest hit total ever at 17+ thousand, with July coming in at 24+ and August looking good for 23, when it's usually a quiet month, it would seem that the million will be here soon, this is all new traffic from Google, and I don't see it dropping off, as it's not 'toy collectors', it's Internet surfers!

This is good news for anyone who blogs as it means that the more you put-up there, the higher you climb the Google-ranks. I used to be the 18-million-and-somthing'th most popular Internet page, now I'm 'only' the 13,410,283rd!!

Although, as I've said before, these 'stats' are only a guide, the fact is they didn't come in until the late spring of 2010, so how they've slid back to May 2006 when I didn't start Blogging until December 2008 I don't know! And the hits between were never counted, nor are the hits from the imported Blogs.

The plot thickens...

I think we've covered about 10% of the companies in my archive, if that, and will never cover all of them, although I'm working on A-Z pages, how that will pan-out remains to be seen as I've already had to cut them down, to load properly. I was hoping for them to be comprehensive listings, but Blogger doesn't like long pages and the letter 'A' was going to be the equivalent of 400pp at A4 size! So the pages will be 'thumbnail' company sketches, with the product listings as separate (text only) posts on the main blog, which has the added benefit of getting them included in the tag list.

We've also only looked at 20% - if that - of the stuff in my collection, but with a lot of it in storage (the bulk of it!), if I'm not quite struggling; I'm having to be a bit inventive in order to feed the beast (the millstone I was talking about!) with new copy.

In the next few days/weeks, we might finally get the French combat infantry box-ticking done; Photographs taken over two years ago, mentioned several times since, loaded in February/March and now 4 of the 5 posts languishing in draft! [the other is a rant against rude eMailers!]

More Galoob is coming and the rest of the 100-figure carded HK sets. Something will go up tonight as I know you don't want this navel-gazing crud sitting at the top of the homepage! There's more knights to come and the rest of the material for the Khaki Infantry page, a page on composition, with pages on metal & plastics, scale/size/ratio/gauge, manufacture and general jargon/lingo in the pipeline.

Links - There are some dead links, but I don't have time to find them all, if you don't tell me when/if you find one I won't know and they'll sit there some more. Equally I don't have time to surf the whole Internet for your probably precious and possibly worthwhile Website/Blog/Web Page, so if you think you should be in one of the link lists, or if you think I'd like to link to you, let me know...'Pages' of links are a long term goal.

Long time ago!

So thank you for visiting, whether regularly, occasionally or just dipping-in.

Double-thanks to the few who comment - it's the comments that add to the whole for other readers, and it's a mild frustration that some people who do visit, don't comment, and I'm not referring to the war-gamers and modellers, they have little reason to comment unless a post pushes a nostalgia button, it's the professed 'collectors' who don't comment here, but then spend hours discussing the minutiae of Engineer Basevitch elsewhere, as if mass-produced 'new production' is ever going to be significant! Ooh - you hated that didn't you? But you'll be back...silently* Meantime I'll take the lack of comments as a sign I'm 'getting it right'.

Triple-thanks to those who have contributed articles or photographs, I can't cover everything and don't have everything so all contributions are gratefully received.

*You may have noticed I've been getting a little less tolerant and a little more sweary (arse, shite and bollocks mostly), this is a trend set to continue, I may have had a posh education, but I've seen all sides of life, and I'm not your typical small-c slightly grey, middle-class, middle-English conservative tosser...and I'm definitely turning into a grumpy old git.

Life's too short to waste on a voice that's not yours, or on tolerating idiots, plagiarists or people who 'accidentally' discover Tatra two weeks after it's appeared here, or who adjust their pages to reflect information published here - without crediting the blog...More rants are an inevitability, as are more 'political' posts, but I'll try to illustrate them with Toy Soldiers, as I did with the WWI winge the other day!

1001st Coming-up...

11th Oct. 2017 - I lied, I did 1 and 2-million-hits posts and will probably do a 2000 posts 'post'! Soon. The more you do and the more traffic you get the more interesting it is to watch! And who would have predicted the PSTSM putting their retarded heads over the parapet!

8 comments:

Sean said...

Well done on the milestones, and or millstones. Blogging can be a blessing or a curse. Although I swear like a sailor in the comfort of my own home, I try to keep it tamped down when I'm in public. But i do think that some times people like a little bit in blog posts, or so it seems. Maybe if your saying something controversial. Ultimately you do have to be true to yourself. Keep up the good work and I'll try to chime in more, although I'm firmly in the gaming toys camp.

Hugh Walter said...

Hi Sean - Thanks for that, I don't expect guys like you to comment (and you have!), and I'm crap at commenting on the other war-games and modelling Blogs because it's outside my TAOR!!

If Paul didn't run his Monday Mystery competition he'd not hear from me from one year to the next - and he often comments here - but I always read his posts and yours, and Johns...if it's in my link-list I follow it!

But with a 1000 hits a day I know 500-odd of them are from 'collectors', and it seems to be a 'spite your nose' thing....

When one of 'you guys' (for want of a better phrase) runs a competition, you get a decent response...when I was giving away a hundred quids worth of Horrible Histories, I was struggling to get entrants (ended-up getting friends and fellow students to enter!) despite all the American collectors winging on forums and other Blogs (they do comment on!) that they weren't available in the States?

By pretending I'm not here, or that they aren't visiting they ruled themselves out of a decent freebie! Not that I'm singling out American collectors!

No - I don't swear in the street, but it's a good emphasiser, if it wasn't we wouldn't have been doing it since the dawn of time, but it's the pretending we don't, or taking a 'church line' on not doing it I'm rebelling against...I think I'm hating the falseness of being grown-up! Yet getting old enough to be more honest with myself (big five-oh last march!), which means...?

I guess I'm more colloquial than I think has come across in the past? Also I think some days you are naturally drier, other days the subject matter requires a detailed post, but when it's common stuff I can't take it too seriously, or if I see an opening for a scurrilous aside!

I may - of course - just be being overly anal or pretentious!!!

Hugh

Sam Wise said...

Congrats ? no ! Thanks ! Blogger is a good way to virtually meet people and share with them...
I've learned a lot too about the Hobby and the "Toys" ("Hobby and the Toys" : good name for a music group, isn't it ?)
Statistics are what they are : statistics ! The most important for me are the comments...
That's why I try to comment the other blogs of nice fellows, like you !
Keep on blogging !

Hugh Walter said...

Cheers Sam - in a little bit of serendipitous synergy...Dr Who magazine issued figures again this week (for the first time since Christmas?) with two new figures (vintage ice warrior and... er... something else!), I got you a set!

I must get it all sent off to you, but it's not going anywhere else in the meantime!

Hugh

M-7 said...

Love your blog! - 'nuff said...

Hugh Walter said...

Thanks M-7 - Like yours too!

Paul Foster said...

Nice one Hugh.

Its always good to have targets when you start this sort of lark but its important not to get too worried about achieving them all.

My only real target I have is to try and get 20 posts a month and try and answer most comments.

I note my blogger timeline goes back to 2006 as well, although I did not crack a post until Jan 2008. A wee bit confused about that too.

Always good to see your MMM answer in the inbox on Tuesday morning. 95% correct usually...Dagnabbit!

Keep up the good work!

Hugh Walter said...

Hi Paul - You do better than me and that's for sure! Some months I manage no posts at all, then I do 40 in 20 days! Hay ho, the answering comments is the most important thing, definitely...if they've taken the effort etc...

Cheers mate. H