S is for Shelfies - Asda Supermarkets

I seem to have had quite a few shelfie sessions this year, we've seen a few, and there are still a couple in the queue, this was some shots I took back at the start of October in Asda, now free of Walmart, but facing a huge debt-constructed black-hole, which seem to have been created by the new-owners using the company as a piggy-bank!

 

I was seriously tempted by the guardsman, given the number of existing chaps in the 'novelty' sub-zone of the ceremonial stash, but thought four-quid was a bit steep for such a simple toy, and concluded that a picture would suffice!

Equally novelty, these are your bog-standard streachy animals, in some kind of gloop-in-a-bottle, as with all these shelfie shots, taken to help ID the stuff lose, in the future, although they are the sort of thing which will probably get several formats/outings? Here credited to Toymania.

I think these are new tubs, obviously, there are so many variants of the palm trees out there now, you never know if they've been bought in as make-weights, or if you're just looking at a new packaging of something seen before!

Reasonable sculpts, as I say, probably seen before, and not given the imaginative colourings of some modern dinosaur models, however, there's not many in the tub, and at the origianl £15, far too much? At the reduced £9 a bit better, but still pricey for what you get, there's a post coming on a wildlife set from another store chain, which at £9.99p will be worth a comparison with these.

Again, there's only six or seven animals, in a larger scale, and a lot of 'playability' detritus, but, to be fair, the size of the tub is deceptive in that these were smaller than the usual tubs.

H is for Hodgepodge Hash of Halloween Horrors

I'm hoping to get another post out before midnight tonight, and it should publish before the witching-hour in the US, as I get another five or six hours, after my shift, to facilitate the aim, but in case the UK readers miss it, before bed, here's a few other bits and bobs which have a seasonal element, and have mostly crossed my door in the last five or six weeks!

Remembering I found a set last year, when I saw these in B&M (Morrison's last year) I had to have them, and like last year's, they were lovely, in the same generic tutti-fruity sort of supposedly 'strawberry' way! Indeed, I would say they came from the same source, and I didn't see any others, not even in Morrison's?

 

I seem to recall these were Aldi, but they might have been Lidl? More edibles, best kind of seasonal stuff is edible stuff! Fondant-centred, [not very] monster mice, one a sort of truffle-cream with rice crispies, the other white-chocolate fondant, nom-nom-nomnivore! Obviously a shit-shot of the white one, but you can't re-shoot something, if you've eaten it!

 

Having grabbed two walkers, as the only thing worth buying in a garden centre last year, I felt I also had to grab these, while muttering darkly to myself about 'another side-collection', but you can blame that yellow Christmas stocking robot who survived for several decades in the attic! These are pull-overs, in that cold, clammy silicon type mega-soft, stretchy rubber, which a generic white-button body underneath, and while two are the same design under the paint, the other had no second version, and all three were equally distributed? Asda for the win!

 

I would add - having mentioned them - that the Garden Centres had very poor Halloween displays this year, and seemed to clear them quickly, like over a week ago, they are too desperate to get their Christmas 'markets' up and running!

I'd found these online, and don't know the maker/brand, but if I see them out and about, they will find home-room in that slowly growing 'walker' sub-collection, I actually found a bunch of the other white-button walker soldiers a while back, but forgot to shoot them before they went to storage, so there's a future post!

 

Finally, these came from Lidl about two weeks ago, ghost tea-lights! I think I might paint-in the eyes and mouths of the other two to match the white one, black paint for the orange one and white for the black candle?

Apologies for spelling but Mozilla ad-ons don't seem to be working properly tonight, and I have no spellchecker!

S is for Spooky, Shifty, Shelfies! Asda

While several of the supermarkets have had large (or 'larger') displays of Halloween stuff, and both Lidl and Aldi have carried their when-it's-gone-it's-gone stuff for a few weeks, the only one which was worth a photo-shoot, was Asda, and these are they! I was surprised by those stores which didn't carry any or much Halloween stuff; WHSmith, The Works, Waitrose and Dunelm to list a few.

 

We looked at these skeletal animals, and their incongruities last year, I seem to recall, but there were a bunch more this year, mostly more realistic, but the rendering of recognisable ears in 'bone' is the daft part, which also serves to remove some of the horror or 'disturbance' from them!

Tree hangers, or hangers for whatever you want to hang this stuff from!

I think these light-up, I can't remember!

Various skeletons, these were bigger than Action Man/GI Joe size I think, at about 14 inches? With various treatments of over-brushing, exhumed body's clothing, glow-in-the-dark plastic etc. . . were common to many stores.

Closer to 12-inch action figures, these seem to be the same or similar to those sent by Brian B, as shelfies, and presented as the same light-string, but with just the one visible in the window.

I don't know if there is a sequel in the pipeline, I know there is a new Beetlejuice in production, and both seemed to feature in several supermarket/large store displays, here it's the Nightmare Before Christmas which is providing the licence!

E is for Easter Bunnies - The Half-Sensible Bit!

Well, it was a bit of fun, and not as expensive as I thought it might be, some of them were only a quid or two, but I have got about 20-quids worth of chocolate rabbits to eat, just as I was sliming-down down that middle-age spread, having gone back to work, at something semi-physical!

 

But I didn't purchase every bunny I found, just a cross-section of the more normal ones, I regret the grinning Kinder Bunny, as it's really in the class I avoided, but I console myself with the fact that at least I know what it will taste like!

 

Aldi's had a plethora of Bunnies, including a colour variant of the one I obtained (left), which was the 'specially selected' hazelnut one, and a more colourful range of both upright and squatting milk-chocolate ones . . . maybe next year! The Aldi Rabbit also won several of the online taste-tests, so I'm saving it till last!

 

I seem to recall touching on the Rabbit Wars, a few years ago, when Lindt finally had to admit the basic shape predated their Rabbit by decades, allowing Aldi, Lidl and others to turn-on the taps which have led to today's choice. Since when there has been the Caterpillar Cake War, and regular flare-ups!

 

The Lindt, though, remains a nicely smooth 'European' chocolate, and comes in about six sizes, of which the larger ones tend to have more limited availability, and I only got the smallest three, having half a mind how the posts would develop!

 

I didn't see Lidl's Lindt clone, but they got too confident after the previous round of Rabbit Wars, and made one so similar (in packaging) they had to destroy tons of them a couple of years ago! But their upright did run to two colours, of which I took the blue, naturally, but pink was there!

 

Rejected uprights included the three licensed or 'product placed' Rabbits from Smarties, Milkybar and M&M's, all stupid looking, and while OK for kids, a further example of how a few corporations have literally turned us into consumer-sheep in a few decades, nasty!

 

And don't get me wrong, many years ago I asked for a Smarties egg, and still have the mug, it's one of my favourite mugs, but firstly, that was when A) an egg in a mug was as good as it got, and B) Smarties still tasted nice, and of chocolate, the last few times I've bought smarties I've regretted it, they're flowery-chalky pap now!

 

The three uprights I did end-up with included the Cadbury's Peter, because it was Peter, not because I like their chocolate, I don't! The Lidl Favorina and the Kinder, if I'd been thinking straighter, I'd have got the Thornton's and shot the Kinder, but given the amount of Kinder on the blog, and the fact there may be a toy worth a post in its belly, means it happened the way it happened!

 

Bare chocolate Rabbits were around, and while the Thornton's was expensive for what is now no more than another shelf-brand, I think most of their shops have gone now, just a few dozen franchise 'boutiques' mostly shared with other brands, like Ferrero (Kinder), while the Favorina (Lidl) was too daft-looking, another one for the kids!

 

While this one wasn't as big as its message gives the impression it was, to the casual observer, rejected for being daft-looking! I think I shot it in Aldi?

 

These three all seem to have used the same contractor, or the same commercially available 'off the shelf' mould-tool? From the left we have Tesco's, Morrisons' and Asda's, with only the wrapping being different, I will eat these in sequence, to see if the taste differs? Follow-up in twelve-months? Possibly!

 

The Tesco came in four different pastel wraps, I chose the green, while the Asda also came as a white-chocolate Bunny with a suitably pale artwork and polka-dots! Interestingly though, the online artwork for 'my' Asda Bunny shows a much darker-brown colourway, which may be last year's version, still being used for publicity shots?

 

Another upright and more animated, smaller, filled Rabbits from Nomo, these were in Morrison's, but I think I did see them elsewhere, and I was tempted by the upright, he would have improved the group-shot above, but my several experiences of gluten-free pies have not been good (the pastry is like cardboard), so I stopped myself, and will never know how good or bad they might have been!

 

I can't remember if I shot these in Morrison's or Sainsbury's, the latter, I think, but again too cartoony for me, and more eggy than Rabbity, so pretty much off the parameter list, before I saw them, but Belgian chocolate is never bad?

 

Speaking of Sainsbury's, theirs was by far the prettiest of the wrappings, with a rich greenish-gold that gave Lindt a run for their money, without aping the Swiss one so close as to risk a court-case, design was the closest too, but it wouldn't stand-up, having a bowed base, and needs to be propped!

A comparison with the Aldi and one of the similar trio, to compare with the previous shot.

 

If you go ordering Chocolate Bunnies online, you find lots of smaller, regional or bespoke brands offering similar fayre, of which I was rather taken by the semi-realistic wrap on this one from the Candy Store, but I wouldn't trust chocolate hollow-Rabbits or eggs ordered online to arrive in one piece! And with those ears it might be a Hare!

 

With the many types out there, the alternate wraps, and the regular changes in artwork, one hopes somebody, somewhere, is annotating them all, as I'm too busy with toy figures to disappear down a Chocolate Rabbit hole!

E is for Easter Bunnies - Breaking! Murder in Rabbit Town!

 

"They've killed Kenny!"

 

D is for Derivative Drivel!

We don't have many 'D's, do we, weird as there's plenty of words being with D, anyway, I was trying to find a synonym for Matter's Arising, which I know we had, not that long ago, and Derivative Drivel will do!

This arrived today from New York, I shot it upside down to hide all the personal stuff, but have since opened it and there's some good stuff coming to Small Scale World soon - many thanks to Brian Berke!

 

While I bought this from Peter Evans at the show on Saturday, and while I don't usually credit by name, when money changes hands (you could never remember everyone, and don't know half the people in the room!), Peter donates a lot to the Blog, and this was well below real value, so there will be a highlights post or two!

 

We looked at this rub-down set from Westair a few weeks ago, I think, but I forgot I'd shot it twice, and you can see the transfers in these shots, different to the old Lettraset or Patterson-Blick ones, but very much in the same vein.

This monstrosity was found when I cleared the weeds from the pond, I don't know why I was clearing the weeds from the pond when we have accepted an offer, and it's technically someone else's house, but there you go!

 

I would have cleaned it for the collection, but it was more than slightly-damaged and went in the bin! It's modern, a bead-soft or whatever they are called, so thrown over the fence from either side, by kids, or possibly stolen and then dropped by a Heron or one of the many Gulls on Fleet Pond?? It's not like I haven't had the water-lily out several times over the years!

I got these Fun Express zombies the other day, from an evilBay seller, we have looked at them before, but that sample was shite, although I may not have realised that time, how similar two of the sculpts are, or how much they differ individual-to-individual, due to shrinkage/heat (arms all over the place), so might have missed some that time, but here are all four poses in both colours, the snot-green is not glow-in-the-dark.

 

Peter also messaged me after the show-post to point out the guardsman I thought might be a Hong Kong copy of Crescent, is more likely to be a Hilco plastic-from-hollow-cast, which is sort of a better find, I checked him and the mark which I thought was one of those blobby Hong-over-Kong marks, is, in fact just a blob, so I bow to Peter's superior knowledge, and better eyes!

 

I found this on a hook in a small independent corner-shop somewhere in the Surry Hills the other night, when the thirst for a Rubicon fizzy-mango came over me, and as it may have been behind a six-hundred-quid card fraud I discovered tonight, I hope you enjoy it! Luckily I had the cash on me, as I'd just filled the tank, when my card was declined!

 

Credited to Asda supermarkets and claiming to be 8 snakes, it seems to be a bunch of previously-seen here, erasersaurs (10) and 2 of the original snakes, make of that what you will, but clearly I should have checked the label!