News, Views Etc . . . Month's Round-up

Nerve Centre - Stomm und Zajazz!

I thought I'd share this image of Tuttle's (or is it Buttle's?) desk-top in Central Planning here at Small Scale World, you can see how he has used the latest in dynamic-portal, on-line, digital, smart-tech, file-sharing to produce a multi-layered, computer-aided, interactive, predictive/responsive spreadsheet, making is easy for the other staff to place and manage future-posts between the 21st and 31st, he even managed to provide separate data-layers for the three recent comparison shots and a graphical-interface extension, carrying-forward to the 4th of November! I only employ the very best technicians here!

Halloween

Flat Metal

Nursery Rhyme/Halloween themed modern, commercially-painted, whitemetal flats from Scully & Scully's window display in New York, image courtesy of Brian Berke, and we will return to this company in a while.

Plastic Waste

Already touched on in one of the 'countdown' posts; the environmental charity Hubbub issued a report estimating that last year's Halloween sent 7-million costumes to the rubbish bin. This year it's estimated 150-million people worldwide will spend £510m-quid on these costumes, volumes of which will have been trashed by the 6th November. (Stop Press - the figures given out on R4 last night (25th) were worse)

Now I don't know if you've studied the vast racks of these things (which have mushroomed in the last few years) in supermarkets and discount stores, but they're not a bit shite, they're 100% shit. It has to stop, or we will destroy the planet. If you have to celebrate death, at least re-use costumes, share costumes around a circle of friends each year, or make costumes from recyclable stuff you would otherwise throw-out.

Ask what your grandparents' did, not what a mile-long plastics factory in Guangdong can do for you!

Stamps

This is the third 'News Views...' in a row with a substantial section on stamps, but they are collectables, have been featuring toys recently and additionally do come within the whole feebleBay/postal aspect of the hobby.

Stanley Gibbons

Losses at Stanley Gibbons have worsened ('widened' in the language of the traders really responsible for most of our problems!) an £8.8m trading-loss being posted, an £18m revenue drop and loan-repayment defaults also being announced.

Harrington & Byrne

However, adverts like this - from a rival I've never heard of - which has been running for several months now, in several papers; may have something to do with SG's problems? Having been a stamp collector in my youth, I remember how surprisingly numerous Victorian stamps actually are (few designs, long period of issue, per stamp), and it seems to me that with three 'penny-reds' and three ha'penny greens in the 14, it's probably not actually worth twenty-nine of your smackeroonies!

Star Wars Stamps

The next set from Royal Fail is a set of Star Wars stamps, given the last few sets, it's clear that the privatised company is not issuing needed stamps, nor even particularly worthy celebrations, but rather stamps which will generate the most revenue and therefore - in the future - be of little value to collectors, a phenomena most 'commemoratives' since the 1980's are guilty of!

Stamp artist

Peter Mason got the i's page-three treatment on the 16th but the piece didn't make clear that he only uses definitives, inflation producing so many postal charge changes since the 3½p (olive?) of my childhood, and each change requiring all new colours, for the postal system to recognise instantly that there are now hundreds of colours in his 'palette'!

Paddington Bear

Everywhere

There's a new movie coming out for Christmas! The last one was brilliant, superb animation and CGI techniques with the humour of the books writ-large and little 'Hollywood'isation'

New York

Apropos a previous mention of Mr. Bear here on the Blog, Brian Berke sent this picture of his wife's original Paddington with all his tags, and a few additional ones - 'cabin baggage' . . . how very dare they!

Duchy of Cambridge

Paddington Bear - approved by royalty . . . apparently - some lush bird from Lunden Taaan wiv 'er bloke and 'is bro dancin' wiv Mistah Bear init!

Hayday Films . . .

. . . are trying to get out of a distributions contract with the Weinstein Company for obvious reasons, I suspect the Weinstein Co. won't be around long enough to defend the action, or even care!

Thomas the Wank Engine

Some pox-jockey of an arsewit called Jia Tolentino (is that her Star Wars name?**) has ripped into our favourite little blue tank-engine Thomas on the New Yorker's website [no; I'm not posting a link - it's clearly the digital equivalent of arsewipe] making out that the stories are some sort of fascist polemic/allegory for Empire Building and slavery! Coming from an American Publication; that's a bit fucking rich! "Authoritarian rule through disinformation" on the Island of Sodor . . . I kid you not; this Kia-ora Tarrentino woman would be better employed investigating her President's philosophies - I humbly suggest!

Off the Rails - Hornby Chug-on

Hornby Hobbies (or are they Hornby Group these days? Notes elsewhere!) have issued another profits warning, lost another - interim - chairman and announced a new plan . . .sorry 'strategy', which will involve '...maximising the value of our brands including Scalextric and Airfix...' (call me a big-head; but that's probably something they ought to have been doing all along?), this will include less discounting of existing stock.

Now, as far as Airfix is concerned; they have already cancelled all the potential WWI money spinners, put several other projects on hold and slowed the release of new stuff, now they seem to be saying the website offers will also go? Doesn't leave much for the fan-base!

I wonder if the new chairman is the chap/shareholder who started the bloodletting back whenever (last year sometime?) and had so far been kept at arm's length, but I've not got the other cuttings in front of me, however there has been such good coverage (with more on the Internet for those who want to follow-up in depth) that I will at some point do a fuller report on all the machinations . . . perhaps when the dust's settled a bit!

Hobby Show

You can only report on hobby shows beforehand if you are told about them beforehand, and sadly a lot of reportage is 'after the event'.

This is a case in point; The Annual Exhibition for Model Railways, Creative Arts and Play (I'm sure it was more catchy in German!), held in Leipzig which ended on 1st October but was only reported on 30th September (i Weekend). Now we used to have the annual Model Engineer Exhibition (MEE) at Earls Court after Christmas, but it's so long since I saw any publicity for it I couldn't tell you if it's still going? I'll check!

Our hobby - in all its branches - is very poor at Internet penetration, except the big retailers with their mountains of polymer shite and their fifteen versions of the same board game, and all their lookie-likey bollocks.

Toys in the Media

Sainsbury's

Bit of a cheat as toy sale ads are common as muck, and don't really qualify for 'Toys in the Media' but this one is a more 'designer' graphic with a minimalist artiness to it - so I shot it.

Halifax

This one's not much better, but Scrabble is a board-game, so I thought it qualified for inclusion with its pile of recognisable tiles!

Toys R Us

The Toysaurus here in the UK is now struggling to get stock from some of it's suppliers in time for Christmas, as they have been "spooked" by the news from across the pond. Firms including Worlds Apart (I know) and Tutti Bambini (I've never heard of!) had stopped resup's while they tried to find out what was going to happen to the UK stores, but all parties are hoping to have everything running normally again in the next week or so.

Meanwhile - Character Options (better than Lego figures!) are worried about the longer-term fall-out of the TrU bankruptcy on the whole industry and report that effects are already being felt by them - seriously; now might be the time to open an independent, The Toysaurus is dying, Hornby and Lego are desperate for sales, so must be looking for new outlets, new customer models . . . maybe we will see a rebirth of local hobby or toy shops?

The 'They don't come much bigger than this' Department

This was the scene at the launch of Hamley's Christmas campaign, if Mummy & Daddy are very rich, you too can have a life-size menagerie! Hamley's predict Lego, Hatchimals, Barbie and Nerf Guns as the big sellers . . . does this mean fidget-spinners have already gone the same way as loom-bands? I bloody hope-so!

Merlin

The parent of Legoland here in the UK (along with Alton Towers, Pepper Pig Parks, Madame Tussauds et al.) posted worse figures than expected in previous 'News, Views...' with the blame being put firmly on terrorism (by both Merlin and the wider media) and somehow managing to ignore a larger number of Theme Park accidents and deaths here and elsewhere in the last 12/18 months! Not necessarily Merlin's I hasten to add, but that won't prevent the general public putting 2 and 2 together and getting five, they're like that; poor, frightened, stupid little sheeple.

Again?

The coastguard called out a Lifeboat to rescue Spiderman from the ocean, after a helium balloon was mistaken for a parachutist in difficulties. When superheroes need recuing it's time to get rid of them, surly!

Now I get sick of seeing the remains of helium balloons in the woods, in fields, hung-up on fences . . . and the bloody things must be singlehandedly laying down the anthropocene-layer, worldwide! This shit's got to be banned eventually; the law of unintended consequences dictates that just because we can - doesn't mean we should.

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** Mine's Core Novawar - A wanderer from Ampliquen!