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.

Wednesday, October 31, 2018

A is for All Hallows' Eve - Bits & Bobs

Although coming soon after ITLAPD, we had a bit of a bean-feast last year on the 31st October, and while there shouldn't be (and technically - 'isn't'), there is always a sub-conscious pressure to perform similarly the following year, just in case a follower of the blog has been sat at home for the last 364 days, waiting . . . !

. . . and while I'm making no promises for next year, the Blog has managed to pull a small rabbit out of the hat, as at around the 1st August there was one image in Picasa, the next one, and nothing on the horizon, but due to donations from Brian B (Terranova), a contribution from Peter Evans and a couple of last-minute purchases, there is quite a bit to look at today,  which - apart from the bits in this post - we'll look at in the order they were shot/came in, so let's get started!

Gun ball Skeletons; Halloween Novelty Toy; Halloween Toy Figures; Halloween Toys; Plastic Skeleton Toy; Pumpkins; Rubber Skeleton; Skeleton Charms; Skeleton Novelties; Skeletons; Sprites; Stretchy Skeletons;
These three came in a mixed bag from a charity shop back in July, with the red one being one of those horrid, stretchy, cold, clammy, 'wet-feel' silicon things so beloved of certain kids, and not really destined to stay in the collection, but with nothing else for Halloween at the time it was photographed as worth a shot, and I liked how he could carry his commoner gum-ball/lucky-bag novelty skeletons like milk-bottles! As a size-guide, they are about 60mm.

Gum Ball Skeleton; Halloween Novelty Toy; Halloween Toy Figures; Halloween Toys; Plastic Skeleton Novelty; Pumpkins; Skeletons; Sprites;
The skeleton on the left in the previous picture is one of those modern semi-flat 'why did they bother?' types, but the other one is older and fully round, with the key-chain/charm-loop removed he'll pass muster in most of the recently issued skeleton armies, but he needs to find a weapon!

Flat Figures; Flats - Halloween Scene; Halloween Flats; Halloween Novelty Toy; Halloween Toy Figures; Halloween Toys; Lead Flats; Lead Flats Vignette; Pumpkins; Scully & Scully; Scully And Scully; Skeletons; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Sprites; Window Dressing;
Brian also sent the rather sparse display from Scully & Scully's window on a Halloween theme, let's hope the Christmas one is as good as previous years, as they've barely tried for Halloween, although looking up flats the other day, it's clear that while they produce plenty of Christmas and Easter stuff, Halloween isn't something commonly available, being a more US-centric  thing maybe, although getting ever more commercialised in the UK these days. And I love the autumn trees.

Halloween Novelty Toy; Halloween Toy Figures; Halloween Toys; He-Man; HeMan; HMOTU; Masters of the Universe; MOTU; Pumpkins; Skeletons; Sprites;
Not really a Halloween thing; as I think it's from He-Man (and the MOTU!); but where else do I post an evil looking elf/sprite/Jawa type thing? It's not even evil, being the same 'annoying kid' character many productions have, to give the younger viewers something to connect-with while their elder siblings get into the latent sex and/or ultra-violence, think: the space monkey from Fireball XL5, Tribbles, Jaja Binks . . . and there's always a brat or two in Jurassic Park movies!

It's marked Hong Kong, and made of a spongy yet dense rubber of the biscuity variety which has suffered both crumbling damage and osmotic staining, it took several scrubs to get it clean enough for posting, having had a hand in someone's pretty active and apparently quite mucky childhood! Many thanks to Chris Smith or Jim (from Sandown) for this one I think?

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