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.

Tuesday, December 19, 2017

News, Views Etc...Plastic Warrior No.169

The issue has been out for a week or so, and if you don't subscribe you may just have time to get a copy before the holiday season, but get your skates on - the PW links are below the main body of the review.

This quarter's delights include . . .

Articles
* Andreas Dittman kicking-off the issue with a look at boxed sets of Dom Plastik landsknechts, which is very useful - helped me ID a halberd, now I just need the figure to hold it!
* Part 2 of Cherilea's plastic animals by Barney Brown finds us studying the larger animals and people
* PL Cuna covers the recent issue of Portuguese and Spanish General Staff from Chintoys
* Echoing recent posts here, Peter Watson inspects an HTI (Halsall) rack-toy set of knights and compares them to their diminutive donors
* A lovely Gulliver set of Brazilian Revolutionary figures, recently offered through an auction-house, is shown in an editorial
* Gerald Edwards returns to Kellogg's and Crescent with an update on medieval cereal premiums
* For Airfix aficionados there is a fascinating piece of previously unknown information on pp21 . . . no . . . subscribe!
* The second part of Adrian Norman's Scalextric articles deals with the 'long box' figure sets in the original painted ethylene series'.
* Alwyn Brice's Elastolin at 40 (part 7 9) is similar to parts one to six eight, only . . . a bit different - Huns now.
* Another editorial piece builds on contributions to illuminate the relationship between Lido and Selcol through the knights (one of whom - in my collection - is currently in possession of my Dom halberd!)
* Peter Evans closes the issue by comparing horse-flesh sandbags and Christopher Columbus; if that sounds more than a little cryptic, you still need to subscribe!

Regulars
* This issue's 'Converters Corner' has Brain Carrick creating a 'forlorn hope' from Marksmen British Grenadiers (ex-Marx) for enlisting in the Seven Year's War, while Claude Hart supplies a nice vignette/diorama of Replicant's smuggler's being apprehended by revenue troopers!

* 'What's New' covers recent releases from:

·         Engineer Basevitch - 70 years of the Soviet Army (actually all late WWII/early Cold War poses, but presumably part of a series)
·         Mars - Ex Lintek Napoleonic figures, ARVN (South Vietnam) forces
·         TSSD - Roman testudo vignette
·         Chintoys - ACW Staff for Union and Confederates
·         Expeditionary Force - French Napoleonic Fusiliers and Grenadiers

·         all available from Steve Weston (Weston Toy Soldiers) now

* There is no room left for 'What The !&*$?' this quarter!

Editorial Bits
* 'NEWS and VIEWS and other stuff ' has news of . . .

·         Games Workshop facing a lawsuit, and not for small potatoes
·         The ongoing Toy 'R Us bankruptcy
·         The availability of the last of the late Geoffrey Ambridge's Lone Star Books
·         Toy logo key-rings
·         And a brief obituary for John Clarke*

* 'Readers Letters' is particularly busy this issue with . . .

·         A report on ACOTS 30th annual shindig down-under from James O'Connell
·         Musings on the figures in the Dulux adverts on TV from Norman Nevard
·         More on left-handed figures from Les White
·         Erik Keggings reports on Retro-branded figures which look like a new source of the Poundland/99p Stores 30mm stuff)
·         David Buchanan asks about Britains Trojan moulds
·         Acedo moulding and other re-issues are provided by yours-truly as a follow-up to PW's passim.
·         A Robinson Crusoe from Kinder is provided by way of another follow-up, Daniel Lepers the contributor; also asks about Cherilea horses.
·         Peter Evans recounts an interesting memory of Timpo, concerning the (apparently: ever less rare!) prone type-3 cavalrymen
·         Bob Baker requests Barzo articles
·         Paul Stadinger reports on Barzo news

* Feedback on previous issues 'What The !&*$?', includes contributions from Peter Cole, Daniel Lepers, Jean-Marc de Vion, Erwin Sell, Paul Stadinger and O. Adamsberry; between them identifying Speedwell, JSF, PZG and Heimo's Travels of Gulliver set.

Plus all the usual small-ads
Front Cover (and recipe) will need pun'ishment directed at one P. Evans
Back Cover - An interesting Timpo catalogue scan with Lindberg tie-in

Remember also; for subscription details or to 're-up', for contributions, letters or queries, Plastic Warrior is now on-line through various platforms:

And they are on Paypal.

* Saddened greatly by the news of John's passing he was a lovely man, he carried the enthusiasm of three, incredibly intelligent and friendly despite treading a rocky road, and his loss is proof of the old adage that 'the best go first'.

We once had a minor disagreement about the contents of certain Monopoly sets (some of us are living right on the edge!), a couple of weeks later he sent me a letter through our mutual friend John Begg (because he didn't have my address and John had been party to the chat), apologising for being slightly wrong, and this wasn't a three-line whip, this was a full, handwritten, page of prose, explaining how he had gone about proving the facts, a REAL letter in the age of the email missives -  like wot peepel rote in the oldun daes!

Truly a charming man; we're the poorer for his passing.

There is a cryptic hint at John's diorama's having been shot by the PW editor so hopefully they will be forthcoming in future issues of Plastic Warrior?

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