News, Views Etc . . . Forthcoming Events - Saturday 19th-Friday 25th October 2019

Lazy post this week, I've been busy with the four Hong Kong/China ID posts and other things have slid a bit, so it's a tad brief.

Brwreakshit's got interesting, but I really don't care, I mean I do care, but I don't care-care if you know what I mean, the sheeple deserve everything coming their way . . . the planets dying and not enough people are doing enough to save it - an American said once of democracy that it was something the people deserved to be fed in spade-full's, and that's certainly what's happening in Turkey, Britain and the US at the moment!

Toy Fairs

Saturday 19th October 2019

Bexhill-on-Sea - SRP Toy Fairs

St. Barnabas Parish Church, Cantelupe Road, Bexhill-on-Sea, East Sussex, TN40 1JG

Web. - http://srptoyfairs1.co.uk/

eMail - srptoys1@hotmail.co.uk

Mob. - 07739 998 012 (Paula or Gerry)

10:00 - 14:00hrs

Admission charge unknown

Oswestry - Chris Dyer Fairs

The Pavillion, Owestry Showgrownd, Park Hall, Oswestry, Shropshire, SY11 4AS

Web. - www.chrisdyerfairs.co.uk

Tel. - 01643 702 757

Mob. - 07966 694 579

10:30 - 15:00hrs

Admission £2

Sunday 20th October 2019

Cirencester - Retro Ronnie

Bingham Hall, King Street, Cirencester, Glousecstershire, GL7 1JT

Web - www.retroronnie.com

Mob. I - 07708 385 061

Mob. II - 07900 266 427

10:00-hrs 'till finish

Admission unknown, early bird (from 08:00hrs)

Refreshments

Haltwhistle - Jim Corr Fairs - Toy, Train & Sci-Fi Fair

Haltwhistle Leisure Centre, Greencroft, Haltwhistle, Northumberland, NE49 9DP

eMail - jim_corr73@hotmail.co.uk

Mob. - 07504 035 955

10:00 - 15:00hrs

Admission £3, children/senior citizens £2, 'Early Bird' £5

Plymouth - Events Frontier - 'Devcon' Sci-fi and Comics Convention

Plymouth Guildhall, Guildhall Square, Plymouth, Devon, PL1 2AA

Web. - www.eventsfrontier.com

eMail - eventsfrontier@hotmail.com

Mob. - 07508 548 938

Hours unknown

Admission fee unknown

Tewkesbury - Tony Oaks Toy Fairs

Tewkesbury School, Ashurst Road, Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire, GL20 8DF

Internet presence unknown

Tel. - 01270 652 773

Mob. - 07825 631 323

10:30 - 14:00hrs

Admission £2, free parking

New Date - New Venue

Wirral - Barry Stockton Fairs - Merseyside Hobbies & Model Railway Show

Hulme Hall, Port Sunlight, Wirral, CH62 5DH
Web. - http://barrystocktonfairs.co.uk/
Tel. - 01513 343 362
10:30 - 15:30
Admission - Adult £4.50p, Children £1

Worthing  - SRP Toyfairs

Charmandean Centre, Forest Road, Worthing, West Sussex, BN14 9HS

Web. - http://srptoyfairs1.co.uk/

eMail: srptoys1@hotmail.co.uk

Tel. - 07739 998 012 (Paula or Gerry)

10:00 - 14:00hrs

Admission charge unknown

Auctions

Thursday 24th

Stockton-on-Tees - Vectis Auctions

Fleck Way, Thornaby, Stockton-on-Tees, TS17 9JZ

Web. - www.vectis.co.uk

eMail - admin@vectis.co.uk

Tel. - 01642 750 616

Dolls, Teddy Bears, soft toys &etc...

Other Events

Thursday 17th (yesterday) - Sunday 20th October 2019

Leicester - Brick Live - Outer Space Trail

Various Venues

Web. - visitleicester.info

Lego space-themed models around the city

Thursday 17th October 2019 (yesterday) - Sunday 23rd February 2020

South Shields - The Word - Amazing Space

The Word, Market Place, South Shields, Tyne & Wear

Web. - theworduk.org

Wear a spacesuit, 'trek and 'wars costumes, life of an astronaut etc...

Overseas Events (I lied!)

Saturday 19th October 2019

Friedberg (Germany) - Kevin Henser - Toy Soldier Show

Stadthalle, Friedberg, Germany

Tel. - ++06247 904 616

Houten (Netherlands) - NAMAC - General Toy Fair

Euretco Exposition Centre, Houten, Netherlands

Tel . - ++0165 537 054

Saturday 19th & Sunday 20th October 2019

Genk (Belgium) - Dipro BVBA - Die-Cast Fair

Limburghal, Genk, Belgium

Tel. - ++03 325 638

's-Hertogenbosch (Netherlands) - NWvBemmel - Doll & Teddy Bear Show

Brabanthallen, Den Bosch, Netherlands

Tel. - ++0578 628 767

Sunday 20th October 2019

Haguenau (France) - Toy Fair

Halle aux Houblons, Haguenau 67, France

Tel. - ++0388 734 904

Hohensyburg (Germany) - Leokadia Wolfers - Doll & Teddy Bear Show

Spielbank, Hohensyburg, Germany

Tel. - ++01785 335 668

Limpertsberg (Luxembourg) - LMC - 30th International Toy Fair

Halle Victor Hugo, Avenue Victor Hugo, 60 Limpertsberg, Luxembourg

Web. - www.modellclub.lu

Tel. - ++00352 481 688

09.30-15.00hrs

Solingen (Germany) - Jürgen Hörner - Toy Fair

Theater-Und-Konzerthaus, Solingen, Germany

Tel. - ++0210 351 133

H is for How They Come In

Bit of a dino'week this week! These were earlier in the week and consists of three triple-A's at the back-right, two older HK types on the left (one over-stamped 'China') and two nicer modern chinasaurs - front right.

The same shop gave-up five bags of Airfix Nappies (two 'French Line' and one each of the other three), and yes, it's a shocking photo, but I know my life will never be long enough to justify the time spent taking a better one! About a third were straight to recycling, the rest will be checked against the collection and then probably go back to charity, the bags were 50p each so, as it's all for charity; it works!

Then later in the week another dose of dinomedicine with 1 from the 50p pile (spotty Dimetrodon) with six @ 20p each (below) and four from another shop for three-quid. None of them marked and the Dimetrodon and five of the others being the classic 'gaping mouth' chinasaurs!

Toy News

Not toys at all; but Links of London, the jewellers who produced those approximately HO-OO-compatible, precious-metal Noah, farm and zoo sets we looked at here afew years ago, have gone into administration which is sad - if you are among the few who could actually afford to collect them!

Other News

Last week's bug (which was a bug, not a beetle), was a Western [America] Conifer Seed Bug, and although invading Europe since the 1990's (after becoming the not so Western by spreading East!), it has also been spotted in the UK once or twice since 2007, including a whole cluster one year, but I suspect mine came in with the current storms . . . anyway we have a Scot's Pine at the bottom of the garden; hopefully it found it and can over-winter in a hollow and fly off to Kent to look for a mate in the Spring! They have also got to Japan, so clearly one of the 'Super Species' looking to benefit from climate-change and human activity? It won't save them from the final round of extinctions though!

Mushrooms this week; some relative of the ink-cap growing out of the old Silver Birch, a similar colony a couple of feet away has already melted to a sort of sooty fingerprint, I'll try to shoot the aftermath of this one for next week, but I thought it looked like a gnome village, of which there is one, in the queue.

N is for Nature and Gnome's Stools!

Mixing the 'small scales' here with little animals, small plants and small plastic plants, it's a sort of 'News, Views - Bits & Bobs' with a ragged thread running through it!

I shot these over a few days at the cusp of the months just gone and just arrived, I'm sure they are Ink Caps (Coprinus), but which one (there are a dozen or more) is not so clear, my bible for such things (Philips - of course!) doesn't have a perfect match, these (in the pictures) being a bit small for the 'standard' Shaggy Ink Cap (Lawyer's Wig), but a bit big for the Coprinus Lagopus they otherwise more closely resembled.

The detritus left in the third shots is what you can make the ink out of and which gives them their common-name, except you should harvest it before it gets to the state shown here!

Apropos the Wade / Not-Quite-But-Probably-Irish-Factory-Wade Leprechauns we saw the other day, Peter Evans sent me this a couple of days later and I was saving it for the actual 'News Views' but thought this was an ideal way to mix toys and naturalism!

Those of you with a good eye will have realised - immediately upon seeing the above - that what I wrote the other day was a load of cobblers, he wasn't carving a boat OR a crib . . . he's a shoemaker!

He's plastic and not sitting on an Ink Cap, but rather a Fly Agaric, or at least a hand-painter's idea of a Fly Agaric! And there are shade's of Fontanini in the Carrara'esque sample of Connemara marble beneath the Fly Agaric!

A distant relative (by time rather than blood) used to breed Connemara Greys for the London taxi trade and is known in the family for his pronouncement in the 1900's that petrol engines were noisy and smelly and would never take-off! He (and the taxi trade) lost his horses to the hell of Flanders and as the Western Allies grabbed large chunks of the former Ottoman Empire with its cheap oil (throwing electric vehicles on the scrap-heap for three generations), he chose to retire

Sadly although not distant by blood; he's far enough away for me to be unable to apply for Irish Citizenship - so I'm pinning my hopes on the Tories wreaking Bwreakxit!

Shades of Tintin!

This is meant to be a Fly Agaric too, it's a Hong Kong (branded to a 'KT') plastic cake-decoration version of a Japanese cast-lead miniature garden ornament, the lead versions themselves replacing the even earlier ceramic/pumice ones. It's posed in an apple I rescued from three Hornets . . .

26th September 2017

. . . these three Hornets! Note the nervous beating a retreat . . . twice! I'd chopped a few of the rotten apples up with the mower and they were emanating a cider-smell from the top of the compost-bin!

24th September 2013

They get so drunk on apples at this time of year they can't fly! This chap (probably a barren chap'ess!) fell of the woodpile several times before I started filming and went on to make several more attempts, getting caught in the spider's web again too!

Like human drunks struggling to make their legs walk in a straight-line, it just couldn't get its wings to work properly, buzzing furiously, it was going nowhere, flight-wise!

Yet More Fungi!

This has been a very good autumn for Fungi and mushrooms, we had some very nice edible ones form the graveyard the other day which I put in a lamb-stew, and survived to tell the tale! I can't stop photographing them, as the are both very photogenic and - unlike the moths and butterflies - stand around patiently waiting for you to frame the shot!

The one bottom-right has a teeny-little one just coming-up in front of it!

The two on the left are surly poisonous, the one top-right is probably edible.

Shrooms - Friday gone

I think top left is an edible Puff-ball. Love the way a little slice of the one top right just went on strike and refused to climb as high as the rest of the umbella!

Bottom left is obviously very tasty to some insect, while the ones on the right look just like False-stone/Pebble cacti!

Mowed yesterday!

The lawn is the lawn, and the woods are the woods and never the twain shall meet! So after a quick PR shoot, they went!