F is for Follow-up - Large Scale Cake Decoration Golfer

Rack Toy Month seems to be creeping-in a few days early here, but given Covid-19 has rendered the whole year with a veneer normally associated with that quiet-news period during the summer 'hols' (albeit with a week's worth of proper news every day, all of it viral!), I guess a few extra days won't hurt!

Picked this PME cake decoration up in Hobbycraft Farnborough the other day, we have looked at it before, both in a break-down/review and in the golfer posts more recently; but here's a new colour-way!

Not only is it a new colour scheme, but I then saw yet another on feebleBay the other day, so I will keep an eye on that hook-board, and we'll look at him again when they get the next batch/colour variant!

T is for The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men

It's also for trees, terrible timekeeping and troublesome assistant!

This was supposed to be, or to be specifically accurate; was originally intended to be - the third post on the golf day we had a week or two ago, but, I thought, it would be better used for National Tree Week, once I had become aware of NTW, given it's about the trees with this particular set.

Obviously, plans went awry last week and I never got all the tree stuff out, so it might as well have been used on Good Walk Spoiled Day instead, but, hey-ho, there are no rules to this Blogging malarkey, unless you're my critics in which case apparently there's a whole bunch of rule books but nobody's got round to sending me copies! Anywhoos - here's Carpet Golf from Turner Research, late!

Did I say troublesome assistant? Straight into the packaging like a rat up a drainpipe!

Box was shite, but I didn't get it for the box (which was in the kindling bucket for fire starting minutes after this shot) and a poor box means a cheaper deal! We'll get on the the trees and figures in a minute, but I also kept the two bunkers and the water feature; they may come in useful at some point in the future?

I did measure the figures, but I've forgotten what it was and put them away! I think it was about 110mm - judging from the fingers below! The figures have a lever action which enables them to putt, chip or whack large expanded-polystyrene balls about the place with gay abandon!

I've also kept the green-flag (which is red!) and it will join a plethora of other, larger, wood, metal and plastic flags & standards in a tub somewhere.

Working the leaver to show how simple it is - both the golfer and the mechanism . . . tada! They are manufactured from a very dense PVC which I came to wishI hadn't separated for the 'how' shot when trying to get them to go back together again; but they went in the end with a bit of brute force!

There were only two clubs in the box, there should be six, but - again- I wasn't buying it for the golf!

I was buying it for the bloody trees weren’t I!

Over a decade ago, when I worked for JB, we had a couple of these come through the stock, and since then I'd had it on the 'long list', and from time to time would check it on evilBay; in the end I got one. It's not rare and if you're careful you can pick one up for reasonable money, not for the 'pre-executive toy' executive-toy elements, but for the trees!

Britains style trees, (marked Japan interestingly), but in autumnal colours, which, when placed with a couple of Britains copper-beeches, can make a believable autumn scene, clearly Japanese acers; they can be your very-own Westonbirt! The bases are Britains as far as it goes, but the tree trunks are more original.

As it happens; I think I'm missing an orange sprig, the box suggests using both colours for each tree, and going by the obvious studs (anyone who's made-up these types of tree will know extra fronds can be placed on twigs/branches not directly intended for them!) the two trees are supposed to take eight and six sprigs respectively, which could be 7 & 7 colour wise? But I'll be looking out for a yellow one!

This also comes in the set, also 'Japan', it seems to be complete but could have used a couple-more spreads of greenery? Also clearly channeling Britains, not only in the base-shape, but in the fact that the side branches both follow the Britains 'system' and seem to be copied from the Britains Cedar, despite the main trunk being more original?

However, the similarities are explained . . .

. . . by the fact that an original Britains Cedar was available to someone at Turner during the design phase! I dare say they had more than one Britains tree to so peruse?

G is for Golfwinks

Like tiddlywinks but spoiled! No! This is actually quite a fun variation of the old tiddlywinks game, because instead of just aiming for a cup, you have to navigate a course which has many configurations, changed after each round, to, presumably 18?

From Waddington's (was there a Parker version on the other side of the pond?), this was a charity shop purchase about six-months ago, most of it has long gone to recyling, but the stuff in the bag was retained along with the two long flocked 'greens' which you will recognise as having since become common photo-props here at Small Scale World!

The fences are marked Britains and were obviously bought-in (they also supplied their cyclist to several board games including a number in France/Italy), The players are the most basic version of screen-printed flat 'token', but are figural so will go in the collection (well; 'have gone in....'), the tiddlywinks also have a tub and there is a tub of miscellaneous flags somewhere!

I'll also keep the 'rough', it's fun and stores flat in an envelope! It consists of several die-cut cards which can be slotted together with each other in various ways to make a tiddlywinks-capturing coppice.

This all went the way of all flesh, the underside of the 'hole' has some patent information for anyone who visits the National Archive in Kew (why can't they put them online like the Americans - easy to look up US patents, you just Google them!)*, the fawn item is a 'bunker' the blue - obviously - a water feature.

* Call me a political cynic, but the answer is; 40 years of Tory monetising of society and the State! Things we paid for the collation-of, through general taxation or registration fees, have to be paid for again if we want to 'remind' ourselves what we bought with the first lot of cash!

Vote Lib Dem or SNP in the forthcoming election to shake some of the rotten fruit out of the tree, or vote Tory/Brwreakshit for a semi-fascist, very austere future as the 53rd State, vote Labour if you're undecided or confused, so are they!

G is for 'A Good Walk, Spoiled'

I've had quite a bit of interaction with golf, golf clubs and golfers over the years; as a chauffeur I carried golfers around, while living in the sticks I did a bit of work at a golf-club and many years ago I planted a lot of the trees at Southwood Golf Club (now a nature reserve - hooray!) and can report than in my experience and from my observations, they - golf, golf-clubs and golfers -  live up to the worst of their stereotypes, without any effort! However; plastic figures . . . is plastic figures . . .

. . . and with the exception of Marx they are all basically cake decorations, and of course they would be; wouldn't they? What other group of adults would regularly want a child's cake, and one re-affirming the 'legitimacy' of their 'pastime', on their birthday? Presumably with pringle-patterned icing!

The first three are current or current'ish, seen in the larger craft-stores and branded to Wilton's or Anniversary House, then we have the Marx, a rarity only in not having broken yet! The other two are or were both Culpitt's, one from Gemodels, the other a Hong Kong/China replacement who may well have also been issued under other brands.

There appear to be three (or at least three) different sculpts of the Gem golfer, numbered above; the numbers have no significance re. chronology. A taller version (1) and shorter versions with thin legs (2) and thicker limbs (3). From the similarities between the yellow-jersey 1 & 2 sculpts, they are probably cavity differences on a small'ish mould tool.

A few paint variations of the recent one, I don't think it's still current, but you may manage to find it in the older catering shops, but most of them have closed in the last ten-years, so lucky if you do find one.

Seen here at Small Scale World before but re-shot for completeness; the Corgi golfer & caddy vignette, issued as accessories with a die-cast toy car, the trolley also in die-cast (frame and clubs)  with a polyethylene whale's (marine mammals Mr President!) penis and polyvinyl figures in a dense, stable polymer.

I shot these in a cake-decorators which was closing, these are the current offerings from Cakeboards, although some of them had another branding on them I think, we've seen a few of the others here already and there are more examples and shelfies 'in the bag'! They are poured PU-resin with inset wire-club shafts, in the same way weapons and extremities were stiffened in composition figures 100-years ago!

"Golf is a good walk spoiled."

Popularly attributed to Mark Twain, but it was first used in 1948. Twain died in 1910

Golfers; spoiling good walks, worldwide, daily, since at least 1948!