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.

Monday, March 18, 2013

H is for a Hover of Hong Kong Helicopters

I'm rather pleased with these pictures, nothing special, just a nice juxtaposition of 'cheepie' helicopters covering 60-odd years of both toy production and helicopter usage in combat.

On the left is a modern/current production pound-shop toy from the nineteen-nineties through to the noughties [awful bloody word], and showing in the inimitable style of Hong Kong/Chinese toy producers, the sort of command/control/utility helicopter flitting around in Iraq or Afghanistan.

The middle machine (with a bit of a mend on the rotor!) is the classic HK take on the UH1B 'Huey' or 'Slick' of Vietnam and the drug wars of the 1960's, 70's and 80's and was a typical rack-toy inclusion in carded sets of the late 1970's/80's. I have a couple of complete ones but they both have red plastic rotors and look a bit silly - even by HK standards!

While on the right in each picture is an early HK toy dating from the late 1950's to the early 70's and while also trying to depict a UH1, seems to carry some of the earlier 'chopper' styling of the Korean conflict or a dozen brush-fire/colonial-exit conflicts about it.

Each given a vaguely corresponding figure from Airfix as a scale reference.

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