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.

Thursday, March 7, 2019

S is for Scourge of the French!

It's one of those lovely facts which you think may be an urban myth but which turn out to be - at least in part - absolute fact! When Welsh ladies turned a whole invading French army into little defeat-eating, runaway surrender-monkeys! Indeed one unarmed lady of the 'Valleys' - 'Jemima the Great' - forced the surrender of several (a dozen or so), heavily armed invaders - all by herself!

1797; Battle of Fishguard; Brass Bell; Cheese Eating Surrender Monkeys; Colonel William Tate; French Invasion; Jemima Fawr; Jemima Nicholas; Jemima the Great; Llanwnda; Novelty Figurines; Pitchfork; PVC Key Chain; PVC Key Ring; PVC Key-Fob; Resin Statuette; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; St Mary’s Church; Tourist Keepsake; Tourist Mascot; Tourist Novelty; Tourist Souvenier; Tourist Trinket; Traditional Welsh Costume; Welsh Harpist; Welsh Ladies; Welsh Lady Bell; Welsh Lady Key-ring; Welsh National Dress; Women’s Traditional Costume;
Recent acquisitions either side of an older key-ring from storage, the resin one on the left is quite well done, with a subtle facial paint in a porcelain doll style and probably pretty contemporary if not actually still on sale back in 'The Valleys'!

The bell is only there because it was cheap, I won't be building a collection of them; there are thousands! My Granny (Walter) had a collection of them on her Mousy-Thompson sideboard, fifteen or so, which she used to buy one per year on their annual holiday to Blackpool (I guess they took day trips over the border!) and when we were kids we would ring them all and line them up by tone, next morning they would all be back where they started - poor Granny!

Anyway I don't know what happened to them when she passed away, so I thought I should have one for sentimental reasons and when I saw one in a charity shop for 50p, it had my name on it.

1797; Battle of Fishguard; Brass Bell; Cheese Eating Surrender Monkeys; Colonel William Tate; French Invasion; Jemima Fawr; Jemima Nicholas; Jemima the Great; Llanwnda; Novelty Figurines; Pitchfork; PVC Key Chain; PVC Key Ring; PVC Key-Fob; Resin Statuette; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; St Mary’s Church; Tourist Keepsake; Tourist Mascot; Tourist Novelty; Tourist Souvenier; Tourist Trinket; Traditional Welsh Costume; Welsh Harpist; Welsh Ladies; Welsh Lady Bell; Welsh Lady Key-ring; Welsh National Dress; Women’s Traditional Costume;
The key-ring is a Hong Kong sourced, and marked, piece of PVC Vinyl-rubber for the tourist kiosk/gift-shop trade of the 1970's and is a not too shabby 54mm sculpt. I need to give her a pitchfork and a dozen half-starved, sea-sick, revolutionary French, for her to frog-march down to the town square . . . pun? What pun!

We've looked at another Welsh lady here in the past and I meant to add the Charbens one to this post, but forgot to, so we can look at her another day!

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