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, November 20, 2016

R is for Ranty Guys (including the author!)

There is an anonymous Blogger out there; you may from time to time have encountered his Blog, although I doubt you've bookmarked it, as it's really only a vile litany of negativity! It's a bit of a rambling post today, but how do you answer someone who may be talking about some other 'Brit'?

"Get link for ranty rude guy" said the note on the dongle's 'to do' list when I moseyed-up the Public Library on Monday, I may as well have written 'find Piss-stain's Blog', anyway I got the link:


This was what one of his recent posts said (his posts only ever 'say' stuff, no pretty pictures of toys!)

Politics

Websites related to toys need not discuss politics.  Especially those related to manufactures   And the sent forums or blogs. Really sucks when these comments are by the site owner. And one is a Brit!!!   So please stop
and another . . .

"I don't think a toy soldier site of any type is the place bake statements or discuss the shootings in Orlandob IMHO"
 
Now, it has been my opinion (I have lots of opinions; I'm quite an opinionated chap!) for some time that anonymous commentators on the Internet are like piss-stains - known only to the person wearing those pants.

I don't know if he meant me, or some other Brit? But the "And one is a Brit!!!" with a capital 'a' and three exclamation marks is interesting, does he mean that Brit's shouldn't be Blogging/Manufacturing or 'sent forum'ing (?, another habit of piss-stains is to suffer basic illiteracy), or that he can't believe one would dare? Or: does he mean Brits shouldn't 'do' politics, specifically?

Or maybe - having correctly surmised that Brit's are miles beyond his Neanderthal rut on the evolutionary scale* - he can't believe one would stoop to his level, as many of his posts are political; only toy and toy-collecting 'political' admittedly; but political never the less? Hypocrisy: another of the dubious talents clung-to by piss-stains.

I have slowly come to realise, that while I had high hopes for the democratising power and educational possibilities of the Internet, it will never live up to those hopes until anonymity is disallowed, and all commentating has to be undertaken with the strength of the writers conviction, knowing he/she is 'known' to his/her audience - with all the risks that entails; especially in countries where arms are easy to come-by.

While the Internet will fail to educate until the ignorant can admit their ignorance and take steps to improve their knowledge level - with the aid of the Internet! Not that easy, as first you have to learn to avoid those bits of the Internet peopled by piss-stains, or at least recognise when you are in one of those bits, Wikipedia is the prime example.

It's something they are doing in Africa (often led by poor women organising co-ops) and Asia (more likely NGO involvement), while - in the 'West' - our dimwits wallow in self-pity and the blame-game, sat in front of a financed, wide-screen TV, watching porn in their stained pants, preparing their 'blue-shorts' for the coming victorious march back to the 1930's!

However, I digress, getting back to our man in the yellow trousers; I wrote an erudite and mildly amusing comment on that post (well, I thought it WAS, OK?), needless to say he didn't publish it, Soviet style censorship being a preferred method of those from the land of 'Free Speech' in the Penn-State Toy Soldier Mafia, and he is PSTSM; he reserves his worst bouts of excess verbal-diarrhea for some of its fellow members!

Although when I say he's PSTSM, he's obviously been kicked-out of the main gang by one of the ringleaders, so now he's like the runty snitch who follows the gang around going "I'll rob the store, let me rob the store, I'll show you, I'll let him have it, the filthy [insert nationalist epithet here] fucker, I'll kick him good and do the cash register, let me, please; I'll do his old-lady too, the bitch, heh, heh-heh" only to be rejected, yet again and follow-up with "You fuckers, I don't want to be in your gang anyway, you're all horrid, I'll have you! You'll see!"

All a bit over dramatised but . . . you get the picture, just look at his blog - I failed to find a positive post, it's all negativity, so much hate.

I don't like curry (except chicken korma), so I don't keep trying to eat it (except chicken korma), so, for Piss-stain and any other visitors who don't like my style: Don't visit my Blog - fuckwits!

You know; If you need to be fed fear-friendly, asinine-pap through a tube in your arse while you keep your head snuggly buried in the sand, you've accidently come to the wrong place, don't come here again - is my advise!

Exercise your personal choice through your personal freedom to not physically search-for and then click-on the links that brought you here! Make a mental note: "No to smallscaleworld.com", it's not hard.

The reason I had to remember to get the link to Piss-stain's Blog is because I don't link to it, unlike the hundreds of other sites I do promote, nor have I bookmarked it. As he himself points out; I don't need to know him.

Politics - real politics, not 'toy soldier' politics - govern every moment of every day of our lives, where we sleep even. Politics govern how we get our toys, what they are made of or what they cost. Politics dictates their availability and whether or not we can send them to each other and how much that might set us back. Politics sets the levels by which we can or cannot afford to Blog, or find the time to Blog, or the space to Blog, somebody without political conviction is nobody.

We live in a world which is actually dying, and our response is to start voting for the bully-boys we fought against in the 1940's, that is worthy of the odd mention!

I say all Bloggers should be at least a little political some of the time, it makes you a more rounded person and just like the Facebook where you learn to bite your tongue when someone you love says or re-posts something a little off-colour, so your Blog 'regulars' know when to ignore a post they may not agree with, only to comment on a neutral post a few days later to let you know they're still there!

The point is, all of us think differently about all sorts of things outside the field of our Blog, and in difficult times, such as these, I would argue (as - I'm sure - would piss-stain seek to justify his wittering) we all have a moral duty TO Blog a bit of politics, my posts are getting increasingly political, and I expect will continue to do so, the parallels are there - in the toys.

The next time we visit ships (which we have regularly and they are popular posts) I WILL have something to say about anti-ship missiles and the RN, or cutting-open our four newest vessels to put the corrected engines in and what that'll cost us!

We collect historical and military subjects that represent the forces which have shaped and (in the case of Ukrainian card figures!) are shaping our world, to ignore that, or - god forbid - sanitise it, is to fail to exercise our voice in a world where some are speaking too loudly already: Nigella Fáràgê (rhymes with c**t) springs to mind . . . there I go again: being 'political'!

Some, like Piss-stain, will post anonymous hate, others will post extremely erudite, educated points subtly hidden in the text; I suspect I'm somewhere in-between, think - rampaging bull in a cuddly-toy shop - a mess; but not much damage!

One of humanities least useful traits (and the only one unique to them I think) is hypocrisy, and having mentioned it above must admit I used to have 'handles' or nicknames on the internet, and - to be fair to both myself and everyone else - that's how it was in the early days, but now I don't. I first used my real name on HaT as I wanted to be equated to the work I'd done for One Inch Warrior magazine, not something I could do with an anonymous ID.

Then I realised I needed to be me here as well, so Maverick Collecting went for a Burton's (only a select group of friends use Maverick anyway!) and never came back. Then the Facebook caught me (not for long, that's knee-deep in piss-stains!), and really, it's liberating to be yourself, there's an honesty there - even if you annoy people!

So I at least, have to give some thought to what I say and how I say it, it's easy to mouth-off if you're a piss-stain, but you won't affect anyone's opinion, because they can't relate your wittering to you, you're just another piss-stain.

"Websites related to toys need not discuss politics" - but if they do they'll probably be the richer for it.

===============================================================

If you've read this far hoping for new toys- I've added another tractor to the jig-toy page, with no politics!

*That is of course a tongue-in-cheek comment - we all: are who we are - and Brits, Yanks or Rus, some are good, some are bad, some are evil and some are anonymous piss-stains.

7 comments:

Paul´s Bods said...

IMHO, the Person behind that blog and the FB/Yahoo pages, has got a few Problems..apart from thier spelling and grammar.

Anonymous said...

Very interesting points and a enjoyable read.
This hobby of wargaming, toy soldiers, military modelling or whatever, I personally do for pleasure. I love reading your blog and have great respect for all your posts and comments. I wish I could get my act together and start a blog but I have not had the courage to start one yet, that's why I rely on blogs like yours for useful and informative information.
My comment is posted anonymous(I am not the chap in the blog you are taking about) that is because I don't do facebook or google, its a personal thing.
Keep up the good work, this blog has preservative and keeps me sane in a slightly mad world.

Cheers for all you efforts, keep on blogging.
Will Harley

Hugh Walter said...

Will..it says 'Will', that's enough for me!

Seriously, I wouldn't advocate compulsory Blooging any more than compulsory politicisation (no spellcheck here people!), and - of cource - I can see why clubs and societies run 'no politics' rules, it makes sence in the normal course of events, the 50's, 60's and 70's when we were all moving toward/aiming for - liberal democracy, but in the last 18 months we've begun to see how easy it was for certain people to come to power in the 1930's, and I for one ain't going-down without a fight!

I think I was objecting to a man from the land of 'free speech' telling us a whole genre of blog can't be political!

Paul - it's like we're all now living in WTFland! Flooding today across Britain, trains in chaos, why? because Thatcher and everybody after her have cut, cut, cut and no one has lifted leaves so all the drains are blocked!

Used to be an army of semi-retired old dudes and plenty of work for village idiots going round with their trollys picking up leaves, practiacally daily, now the money-wonks have a world where you wait 'till they've all dropped and send a machine round at the end of the fall to collect the worst!

And another thing....rantrantrantrant...ad nauseum, ad infinitum!

H

Hugh Walter said...

And Will - thanks for the kind words!

H

stefano44 said...

Great blog, took me back years!

stefano44 said...

Great blog, took me back years!

Hugh Walter said...

Cheers Stefano!

Yours is a nice occupier of spare-time too, but no toys!

H