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, February 13, 2019

F is for Flying Tiger Goes to Space!

A theme obvious at the Toy Fair in London last month was space; not the all-singing, all-dancing, enemy alien, interplanetary warfare, 'deep-space', space-opera type space, but 50-years since a small step, NASA moon-shot 'near-space' space!

The same theme was also in evidence on my last visit to Tiger, or Flying Tiger as they are now, camera was forthcoming, shelfies were taken and that's what we're looking at here!

1969 Moon Landing; Ballpoint Pens; Erasers; Evighedsterning; Flying Tiger; Glow-in-the-dark; Infinity Cube; Jacob's Ladder; Kennsington Olympia Toy Fair; Kuglepen; London Toy Fair; London Toy Fair 2019; Moon Shot; Neil Armstrong; Night Sky; One Giant Leap For Mankind; One Small Step For Man; Penalivus; Pencil Case; Plastic Novelties; Raketreol; Rocket Shelving Unit; Selvlysende Stjernehimmle; Slim; Slime; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Space Novelties; Space Novelty Toys; Space Toys; Sparebøsse; Tiger Stores; Toy Fair 2019; Toy Fair Olympia; Visklaeder;
Large astronaut erasers and I mean big; biggly-big, biggerer than a big-thing that's gone to university and had itself elected head of the Department of Bigness! Candy pink or a sort of dark ultramarine were on display, but I know that with the similar animals they've had the last few years, other colours tend to turn-up with re-stocks, so that may be the case with these, you can see they've obviously emptied a stock-box of pink and topped-up with blue!

1969 Moon Landing; Ballpoint Pens; Erasers; Evighedsterning; Flying Tiger; Glow-in-the-dark; Infinity Cube; Jacob's Ladder; Kennsington Olympia Toy Fair; Kuglepen; London Toy Fair; London Toy Fair 2019; Moon Shot; Neil Armstrong; Night Sky; One Giant Leap For Mankind; One Small Step For Man; Penalivus; Pencil Case; Plastic Novelties; Raketreol; Rocket Shelving Unit; Selvlysende Stjernehimmle; Slim; Slime; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Space Novelties; Space Novelty Toys; Space Toys; Sparebøsse; Tiger Stores; Toy Fair 2019; Toy Fair Olympia; Visklaeder;
Various novelty ball-point pens included an astronaut, I didn't buy one as it wouldn't make a stand-alone figure like the regency lady (courtesy of Peter Evans) I converted a year or two ago, due to the visible shaft between his legs . . . Matron! But if you are a novelty-pen collector, rather than a 'figurine' purist; there are three colours to find (that I know of), along with the alien (?) or fish in a bowl and Japanese ladies also visible.

1969 Moon Landing; Ballpoint Pens; Erasers; Evighedsterning; Flying Tiger; Glow-in-the-dark; Infinity Cube; Jacob's Ladder; Kennsington Olympia Toy Fair; Kuglepen; London Toy Fair; London Toy Fair 2019; Moon Shot; Neil Armstrong; Night Sky; One Giant Leap For Mankind; One Small Step For Man; Penalivus; Pencil Case; Plastic Novelties; Raketreol; Rocket Shelving Unit; Selvlysende Stjernehimmle; Slim; Slime; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Space Novelties; Space Novelty Toys; Space Toys; Sparebøsse; Tiger Stores; Toy Fair 2019; Toy Fair Olympia; Visklaeder;
To hold your novelty pen is this rocket pencil-case with a hinged hatch, it looks more like a booster rocket/fuel-tank than a proper Apollo series launch-vehicle, but the homage is there!

1969 Moon Landing; Ballpoint Pens; Erasers; Evighedsterning; Flying Tiger; Glow-in-the-dark; Infinity Cube; Jacob's Ladder; Kennsington Olympia Toy Fair; Kuglepen; London Toy Fair; London Toy Fair 2019; Moon Shot; Neil Armstrong; Night Sky; One Giant Leap For Mankind; One Small Step For Man; Penalivus; Pencil Case; Plastic Novelties; Raketreol; Rocket Shelving Unit; Selvlysende Stjernehimmle; Slim; Slime; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Space Novelties; Space Novelty Toys; Space Toys; Sparebøsse; Tiger Stores; Toy Fair 2019; Toy Fair Olympia; Visklaeder;
More space-related novelties including glow-in-the-dark ceiling decorations of planets with small stars or a packet of larger stars and a slime-filled rocket of more 1950's 'pulp' lines, in fact it looks a bit like the head section of Fireball XL5 - there's a project there for someone!

1969 Moon Landing; Ballpoint Pens; Erasers; Evighedsterning; Flying Tiger; Glow-in-the-dark; Infinity Cube; Jacob's Ladder; Kennsington Olympia Toy Fair; Kuglepen; London Toy Fair; London Toy Fair 2019; Moon Shot; Neil Armstrong; Night Sky; One Giant Leap For Mankind; One Small Step For Man; Penalivus; Pencil Case; Plastic Novelties; Raketreol; Rocket Shelving Unit; Selvlysende Stjernehimmle; Slim; Slime; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Space Novelties; Space Novelty Toys; Space Toys; Sparebøsse; Tiger Stores; Toy Fair 2019; Toy Fair Olympia; Visklaeder;
Plastic money-boxes of rather blunt rockets and weird space-alien monsters, I wasn't taken by these at all; the production values are fine, but the designs (and colours) are beyond kitsch and heading toward horrid, in my opinion!

Next to them were space-themed book-ends (which don't look heavy-enough to do their job) and a nice corner shelf in the shape of a rocket which does temp me - to make my own!

1969 Moon Landing; Ballpoint Pens; Erasers; Evighedsterning; Flying Tiger; Glow-in-the-dark; Infinity Cube; Jacob's Ladder; Kennsington Olympia Toy Fair; Kuglepen; London Toy Fair; London Toy Fair 2019; Moon Shot; Neil Armstrong; Night Sky; One Giant Leap For Mankind; One Small Step For Man; Penalivus; Pencil Case; Plastic Novelties; Raketreol; Rocket Shelving Unit; Selvlysende Stjernehimmle; Slim; Slime; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Space Novelties; Space Novelty Toys; Space Toys; Sparebøsse; Tiger Stores; Toy Fair 2019; Toy Fair Olympia; Visklaeder;
Finally and of no real interest to loyal readers, but photographed because they were there and covered in space imagery was one of those block-things which keep folding or unfolding into different pictures, they work like a Jacob's ladder . . . a bit!

Expect more and more space-stuff this year, both in the shops and on the Blog as we head toward the actual date, and I dare say the telly will be knee-deep it it.

1969 - increasingly looking like the high-point of human civilization, still striving for post-war liberal-democracy, striving for the stars, striving for peace, raising living standards . . . but Vietnam was grinding-on in the background, then came Thatcher, Regan, neocon 'Libertarian' psudo-economics, Afghanistan 1 (and 2) The Falklands, Nicaragua, big-hair and the Spice Girls, 9-11, four Gulf-wars, Internet porn and the Tellytubbies . . . I blame the Tellytubbies, horrid little monkey-faced Brwreakshitieers . . . Eh-ohh! A Mars-bar was 3d!

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