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!

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!

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.

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!

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!

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!

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!