H is for Housekeeping

Probably had that title before, but I think a few duplicates have slipped through over the years now!

 

♪♫♪♪♫ It was forty years ago, today . . . ♪♫♪♪♫ * We were confined to barracks and light duties, due to reports coming out of the - then - Soviet Republic of Ukraine (Ukrainian SSR), about some shenanigans in a place called Chernobyl. As it happened the radio-active plume spent several days curling round to the South East, South, and then West of Berlin and dumping its shite on other people, we got it around the 4th May, by which time we'd all stopped taking precautions, and got a full dose of whatever was on offer . . . low levels of caesium I think? I mention it only because there's lots about it in the media at the moment, and I keep thinking "I know, I was there!", when I wasn't, really! And, we was robbed . . . if it had been strontium, we all would have become super-soldiers, huh?

 

*No we didn't, nobody knew anything about it until the evening of the 28th, when the Soviets deigned to admit what was going on! So we probably got our frowny, concerned pep-talks around the 29th!

 

We have family in Penrith and their sheep were still being tested and rejected years later. They didn't get a major blast, but the plume did hit in early May, and hung around for a bit, so I guess, rather like the rainstorms which occasionally flash-flood Aldershot or Guildford when they meet the Hog's Back and decide not to slip over, the plume hit the hills there and deposited a lot of caesium on the grass?

 

It's why I'm not a fan of nuclear power. Wind, solar and wave, yep, bring it on, but nuclear . . . Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, Fukushima, Windscale . . . when it goes wrong, it's serious, it costs billions, and it affects millions, for several generations, and that's without the growing problem of what to do with the waste.

 

I was quite busy yesterday, I added some follow-up stuff to the parachute page;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/p/blog-page_14.html 

 

And I'll be adding a couple more sections in the next few days, I added a second recent lot of content to the HO-OO Romans page on the Airfix blog;

 

https://airfixfigs.blogspot.com/2010/06/1967-ancientimperial-romans-s31-hooo.html 

 

I also added a lot more to the WWII Japanese page, and blurbed it up, I'd rather forgotten how many of the posts over there still need text, and the Japanese was one of them!

 

https://airfixfigs.blogspot.com/2010/06/1964-wwii-japanese-infantry-s18-hooo.html

 

And I'm not going to escape with a text-only post am I? So here's some 'seen elsewhere' stuff, involving mixed lots - proper eye candy!

 

This was a bag of bits Peter Evan thrust at me at a London show in Camden I think, they may have got a subsequent breakdown post nearer the time (2023), but there's fun stuff to spot.

 

I seem to recall this was an evilBay lot (2022) which I won, but which Chris Smith had brought to my attention, as it had a couple of the German premium bandsmen (bottom right) and some small scale copies of the Manurba Wild West swivel-waist figures, also done as premiums or wundertüten, in solid form?

 

These were the February 2023 purchases, and some is still in the queue (the Buzz Lightyear movie stuff and the Fortnite keyrings), some has been blogged (dinosaurs and jig-puzzles), and some went straight-on to storage, however, Peter just included the farm animal set in his latest donation, so I should get that up soon, or maybe RTM, it's not that far away now. It's the one with the cows head on, the others were amphibians, dinosaurs and wild animals.

 

This was my 2021 attempt at an arty set-up! The book is the family recipe book and seems to date back to the 1840's or thereabouts? We've seen most of the figures in individual, donation or show-report posts, but yeah . . . It's all about the composition, innit!

 

While this was my attempt at 'concrete poetry', while at Kingston University back in '93/94, I was quite pleased with it, it has a certain rhythm or metre, and refers to its own shape, which is the main point of the exercise, or it was how it was given to us, as an over-the-weekend exersise!
 

And finally, how fucking cool is this? And it's approximately 1:32;

 

Garden war gaming never looked so good!

"Godamn, I love the smell of solenoids in the morning!"

H is for Happy Easter . . .

  . . . although I'm not sure what's supposed to be so 'happy' about the crucifixion of a human being? 

 

There's a number of reason why I haven't posted recently, and I'm not going to list them all here, but really, what is there to be happy about? America is being run by a potty-mouthed, narcissistic, inveterate, constant liar and megalomaniac, who seems, along with his friends Putin and Netanyahu, to be determined to destroy the world economy, the world order and international rule of law, maintained since 1945, sometimes at great cost, for what? So he can rename everything after himself?

 

Starmer, along with the King, are proving to be a pair of gutless fuckwits, and while they seem to be starting to stand-up for themselves, Europe hasn't preformed much better. Easter has become another money-fest with most supermarkets only closed today, and otherwise observing none of the Bank Holidays, and with an October storm in March, the weather is clearly as fucked as a Messiah with nails through his hands and feet.

 

Sighs . . . anyways, here's some Easter stuff, both new and from the archive, with a better post later today.

 

Scanned in '22, I don't know if these where from then, or earlier, it was a major scanning session with several hundred bits of ephemera scanned, most of which is still in the long queue! But, card flats, to join the card-flat zone! I don't know if the names change from box/batch to box/batch, and they are obviously renditions of the Lindt chocolate bunnies, from the back of a Lindt egg box.

 

One of my fondest memories of Easter was hunting the Lindt foil-wrapped, mini-eggs; in the garden if the weather was nice; in the house if Christ's tears prevented outdoor activities.

 

Mum would buy them from the big glass jar in Richard's newsagents in Hartley Wintney, and she would have the staff ensure there were equal quantities of each colour (maybe she just ate the spares?!), which I remember as two shades of gold, a pastel green and blue, a heliotrope-purple, a mauve, and a red which was closer to pinkish-crimson/maroon.

 

Anyway, there was a big divvy-up at the end, between my brother and I, and if the two piles weren't balanced, we'd have to go off again and find the missing ones! I don't think you can even get them any more, it's all unwrapped, licence-related eggs, in plastic bags now, and getting very expensive in the last few years, for a number of reasons, not the least being the chocolate-loving, 8-billion souls.

 

Somehow missed when I did the chocolate bunny season back in '24, this was the Kinder effort, I thought it might have a 'maxi' egg, but it's a bog-standard sized capsule, with what appears to be a lamb in a blanket, but it's not 100% clear, and the toy's 'aint what they used to be!

 

Staying with the edible theme, I actually ate these weeks ago! Branded to World of Sweets, I think they were in B&M, but I honestly can't remember, they might have been in The Range? Anyway, they were a sort of generic tutti-fruity flavour, and are 'Spring', not Easter, is that Trump's hated 'woke', or just canny marketing, from money-grubbing, middle-class executives, no better than Trump himself?

 

Some actual Toys! These WERE in The Range, a couple of weeks ago, and remind me of an old Christmas stocking gift we got one year, which were egg-shaped vehicles, with fat 'racing slick' tyres, like the Marx fire engine we saw here, but as animals, so, more like the Pelican marker pens we saw here, given that one was a grey mouse and the other a pink rabbit, if memory serves? I occasionally look for them on eBay, but haven't found them yet!

 

These are a selection of sort of monster/alien types, using the same craft foam you can buy in sheets, applied to basic blown-plastic eggs, Not sure what the plastic type is, but it seems very thin, so some ethylene hybrid probably?

 

And, as I said at the top, something better, which you might have anticipated, latter today! Bah! Humbug!

H is for Hippopotami

Strangely, the second most visited post ever, on the blog, with over 7000 direct hits, is the lazy-post on Rhinoceri I shot the same day I shot the first of these images, and while I suspect bots have more to do with that record traffic than humans, it is true that the Model Animal collecting fraternity is much healthier and more numerous than the Toy Soldier brotherhood, so the odd animal post doesn't hurt!

 

No order or specific narrative, just a bunch of Hippopotamuses, with a few notes, another lazy post! I was, at the time (2020) combining the attic stuff with the storage stuff, which I had dug-out of the garage, looking for something else! And it went something like this;

 

Probably the storage lot, but could be from the attic?

 

Probably the attic lot, but could be from storage!

 

Combined; I then remembered there were some Britians ones in a box of Britains farm and zoo somewhere . . .

 

Which also gave-up another Charbens and a late blue-polymer Timpo, requiring a slight reorganisation, with the China-vinyl types to the left, Britains copies (Blue Box, Redbox and Holly etc.), scaled down, next, with two Charbens, a small cracker type 'ivorene' and three more origianl Hong Kong's in front, down the middle, then the common Hong Kong, in four or five sizes (Arco, New Maries, RAE, etc.), with Britains and Timpo to the right.

 

At some point this little chap arrived, 'China'; I think, he has stuff on his belly, but I didn't note it at the time! Not Safari, K&M/WR, Schleich or Papo, as far as I can tell, but seemingly quite up-market? Yowies maybe . . . also in the queue, several posts!

 

A few were elsewhere, like the two brandings of big-blue eraser, Tiger Stores and Royle Kids, several more China/HK types to the right, the brownish-gray one seems to be a version of the Toy Major sculpt, while the other two are older HK 'ethylene's. The silver one, who's hollow, and a paired Hippo/Elephant to the left, complete that additions-shot!

 

That pair raise an interesting point, as they clearly go together; same plastic type and colour, same paint, but are marked differently, which is something you need to look out for with all sorting/attributing of Hong Kong stuff, the stamps used are two, one 'MADE IN' and the other 'HONG KONG', with the engineer stamping them above/below each other on the Hippo's belly, but in a vague line along the Elephant's spine.

 

These were also in storage, and while the Topps were in the 'minor makes' zone, they have since been added to with a few more, there are 24 in the set; Baby Animals, the other bag is from the unknown zone, and were kept together, as their marks are wholly inverted! The Foal and Camel being Tai Sang (Blue Box/Redbox) knock-offs.

 

The one in the bag, seeming to be the donor for the cruder, flat inside-legged hollowed-out copy in silver, from the unknowns, not that he/she/it's particularly 'known' either, it isn't!

 

Seen before in a plunder or donation post? I think this one's Marx, but probably from an animal transport or circus truck of some kind, and maybe from back in the tin-plate vehicle days, although the animal is actually two polystyrene halves, glued together.

 

These were taken from the old fridge before it went to storage, on the left poured-resin, on the right routed wood and both magnetic decorative items.

 

A dark grey Britians baby and a pair of Hong Kong jobbies, taken in 2022, they may have been in one of the big donations from Jon Attwood, so many thanks to him.

 

That's it for this casual stroll, there are lots of named ones in with their other animals, and all the mini tub/tube/toob and pocket-money stuff is elsewhere, the vinyl minis, and the small-scale, flats and novelties are all missing, while a few more have probably come in over the last 3½ years, but hopefully, there will be a Hippopotamus page one day, with all of them!

H is for Hairy Horrors!

When I was a kid, Trolls were a simple thing to get your head round, they were slightly larger, toad-skinned goblins who lived under bridges and ate slow, or dim witted goats.

 

Then Tolkien arrived in teenage'hood, with trolls the size of land-tanks who breathed fire, while the Nottingham Mafia and Garry Gygax's D&D monster handbooks, along with dozens of whitemetal manufacturers split Trolls twenty ways, and suddenly they could be large, small, relatively harmless, existentially dangerous to the planet, green, brown, orange or yellow, or anything between!

 

These trolls, the 'Scandi trolls', fill the slightly larger, relatively harmless, goblin niche, I think, but clearly this lot are strangers to the barber's chair!

 

The final tranche of Brian Berke's Icelandic shelfies and he thought the chap with the shield reminded him of Eccles from The Telegoons, while I thought those (red background) reminded me of Michel Bentine's Potty Time, characters which was a sort of second spin-off from The Goons!

 

Many thanks to Brian for all these, they've been a lot of fun!

H is for Haskins Circus Baubles

I thought I'd posted these a week or three ago - I hadn't! A very themed collection of Circus baubles, to be found at the Haskins garden centre, between Farnham and Borden, not my thing, simply because there's too many themes and items already, but if I was just setting out on life's journey and had a tree to fill with memories, or a theme, I would be tempted!

 

They are mostly Gisela Graham so can be found elsewhere, both Redfields and Longacre had a few, but only Haskins seems to have A) ordered the whole line and B) ordered similar stuff from other sources and hung them all together.

 

A rather poor shot, or hurried-shot, I took of a hedgehog I left on the hook. I didn't like the landscaped base, it's basically a shelf-ornament converted into a tree-ornament, which is a bit naff on at least two levels, so it stayed where it was - there's definitely a 'personal' snobbery to ornament selecting!

H is for Holy Self-Signed Toy, Batman!

I bought this at Sandown Park, I won't tell you what it cost, but suffice to say it wasn't cheap as chips, and I was initially a little disappointed by it, suspecting a mug had been seen coming, a little buyer's remorse crept in, but, like last night's cartoon, that's something which often accompanies the post show sort-out!

 

Holy boxed battle-taxi, Batman!

First, it was sold to me as AHI (Azrak Hamway International) when it's not, it's the later Australian reissue from Len Hunter Trading, and dating from 1989 (AHI carried this in 1977), and that it was signed, which I quickly convinced myself was a bit dodgy? However, having seen the prices of a few unsigned ones, and enough samples of Adam West's signature to be slightly more convinced by its sloppiness, I'm much happier about the purchase now!

 

 Holy facsimile figurines, Batman!

 

The main body of the Batmobile is all-plastic, so it ticks one box, and has two figures, of The Batman and pesky Robin, The Boy Wonder, so it ticks another box there, and is clearly a scaled-up copy of the Corgi die-cast, where that was 1:43rd, this is closer to 1:35th/32nd scale.

 

Holy Batbath brum-brum, Batman!

 

The boat is the same, and while I initially though they were blow-moulds; so many of the bootlegs and knock-off's have been, it is actually a couple of lumps of polystyrene, the frangibility of which means they are far worse survivors, than the original Corgi die-casts.

 

Holy crime-fighting combination, Batman! 

 

I think the figures can be used in the Batboat, but the seats are closer together, so maybe only one at a time? I noticed, before purchase, the blister had been off at one point, and not replaced brilliantly, so there's an option to remove it again, in the future, photograph the combination in close-up, re-set the Batboat in it's trailer properly, and try resetting the blister a little better?

 

Does the fact that the autograph is 'To Robin' from Adam West, give it a little extra caché? And, as I said to the seller, with all its faults or potential faults, when was I going to see another one? Holy philosophical fuckwittery, Batman!