C is for Cat-cophony!

S is for Stray Cat Strut, J is for Jazz Cats, F is for Feline Groovy, T is for Tuneful Topcats . . . I may as well get them all up here as I'll never get another chance . . . M is for Musical Moggies, Meowsical . . . P is for Panda's Pussies Play Pop, S is for Scatting-cats and Skiffling-kitty's . . . there should be more cat bands, clearly; there are the titles' for them.

Rag-time Rag-dolls . . . Symphonic Siamese's . . . and [for the intellectuals;] Boogie-woogie Bastets! Tin-pan Tabbies? Cum'on; I'm sure you can do better!

I can't now remember where these came from, or 'came-in', possibly a charity shop, but years ago, or in an odd job-lot of small scale (they are 35/40mm) from someone I named the other day, but I won't name him again, as the vision of Stadinger physically 'digging out' another single figure to 'drop' the same name again, is too much!

There are some serious issues of insecurity writ there; an inadequacy which is behind this war of his. I thought he sat in my dust, copying me, because he had no ideas, but it turns out he's trying to prove something to . . . himself? That he's as good as me? That he knows some of the same people as I do? That he's got the odd figure I have?

Understand this;- I thank people because they have helped or contributed to the Blog or my collecting is some way, I've done it since the start of the blog, and will continue to do so, Stadinger never thanks his contributors, he name-checks them, but rarely thanks them! To be fair though; as they all appear to be moulded from the same lumpen clay as him, they don't seem too bothered!

The idea that he felt so threatened - by my thanking someone - the other day, that he had to dig-out a random figure to generate a reason to name them (not thank them, just 'name-drop'!) suggests that while he calls me 'sad' and Erwin keeps trying to question my sanity, the one in need of therapy is TJF, the pathetic one is TJF?

And why would you name-check a purchase? You thank people who have helped with freebies, or information, or shelfies, and you should try to thank if you've been deliberately let-have something on the cheap? But name-checking every purchase you've ever made is impossible, and if you've paid; it's 'yours', so suddenly naming someone, out of the blue, the day after I happened to thank them for something, looks very odd? Like posting dinosaur shelfies - later the same day!

It's fascinating -  from two-thousand-and-something-odd miles away - to watch Stad's mind working, to hear those cogs grinding together; "Oh no! Hughie's mentioned so-and-so/shown such-and-such, I'd better mention them/show it too!" He's clearly as insecure (and paranoid?) as a gay spy in the Politburo! Poor love! With no ideas and not much to show, but then he's a dealer not a collector! Me? I'm just a patronising bastard, but still; he wanted it, this 'war' of his!

And another thing . . . while I'm in the mood; he's tried the baby-talk 'Hughie' thing for the last few months, but my best mate in Canada who starred in the remake of Lost in Space (as a body-double - I taught her how to hold a gun!) calls me Hughie, an ex-lover called me Hughwish (not quite Hugh?!), another (in Berlin) called me Huey (...Lewis and the News - she was German and you know what Obelix has to say about them!), an old school friend calls me Hughzzle and my Rottweiler-owning Chopped-triumph riding biker mate calls me Hughston, everyone else knows me as H or Maverick, shortened to the mildly annoying Mav', but it means TJF's going to have to get a little more inventive to upset me on that one, but it's fun to watch him try!

The above was written earlier in the week, then today (Thurs. 23rd) I see he's also dug-out a single large, US-made road worker, presumably to 'balance' the Buddy L I used as a scale the other day! Yet he hasn't balanced the four, new to hobby, Hong Kong logo, empirical ID's I was doing when I chucked in the Buddy L, it's really too funny! Childish and seeped in pathos, but still funny.

But . . . onwards and upwards; these are also fun!

Almost certainly from Good Soldiers, not that they are soldiers! The panda-bear is taken from the Dinky one, I don't know where the cats came from, early plastic novelties of some kind, Japanese maybe, Good Soldiers tend to use vintage plastic figures to make their masters, but they might have copied some old hollow-cast, or composition (doughcraft or chalkware?) novelties?

Spot the deliberate mistake - countries with colonies of penguins will tell you they tend to cull cats, because cats like penguin-eggs, cats like small penguins, cats like injured penguins cats like slow penguins! What the f*** is a penguin doing in a cat-band? The bear's safe'ish; he's a vegetarian, although one recently mauled its keeper!

The Dinky donor was the Mr Bearanda (geddit? Bear and Panda . . . or Bear-man-panda?) from Dinky's Andy and Candy licensed-toy; Stripy the Mini, and we see them here for the second-time I think, but contextually; and a new image! No pantograph will have been employed and because the rubber mould-making compound used to take the negatives shrinks slightly as it sets, the copy ends-up being actually slightly larger.

I suspect the three plastic figures are the work of Charles Stadden, and probably about as esoteric as he got! I particularly like the sculpt of little Candy who's a puppet in the show, and she looks like a puppet, in fact she looks like a long-haired, zombie Chucky, but then she did in the show too!