HB is for Horror Bargains!

And Home Bargains, where I went at the end of August, and found a few bits of interest to readers of the Blog, ticking two boxes here, edibles and white button toys,, and incidentally; I spent a couple of hours last night re-Tagging White Button, which now shares the Clockwork Tag, but Clockwork of the vintage, large or tin-plate variety won't have the White Button Tag, I also added Cable Drum as a Tag!

 

Hallow Scream . . . geddit! Well, once you have a few, you just have to keep getting them! A gangling ghost and a perambulating pumpkin, similar to the garden centre ones we saw last year, and with a growing selection of robots, marching troops and a couple of dinosaurs, not to mention a Grinch (also Home Bargains), it's a race to see who dominates what will become a dedicated tub!

 

I thought the 'BOO!' detracted from the overall character of the toy . . .

 

. . . so I removed it with a bit of hand-sanitiser mixed with de-icer!

 

I also picked up these chocolate eggs, and managed to remove the wraps carefully (another collection of mine is old sweet and confectionery wrappers!), and managed to take the outer liner home with them, so I can scan it for the eventual A-Z listing, which in this case is Mon Desir, the people who brought us the chubby, semi-deform Superhero gift-eggs, about ten/twelve years ago.

 

Pretty standard chocolate, not unpleasant, no white chocolate half, and a fun thing for a lunch box, or even the breakfast table - Halloween falls on Saturday this year doesn’t it?

 

Sadly the contents aren't Halloween related, being 'bog-standard' stuff we've seen before from other minor brands, with the bobbing 'chariot' and  jogging dog-team, both mirroring such items from Kinder's past, the frog a common capsule toy, and the 'space' pick-up truck is fun!

H is for Hyperspeed!

This is an odd one; basically, it's clearance of clearance, of clearance! I mentioned the other day (well, sometime in the last few months?), when we saw a figure lose, in one of the donation/plunder/mixed lots, that there was a post on these in the long queue, and there still is, but this isn't it!

 

This is a couple I didn't know I didn't have, and which I picked up in Home Bargains for £1.99, a couple of days ago! I'd been in there looking for something else, saw these and thought "Do I have all five?", so checked the other folder when I got home, realised I still needed two, forgot to go back the next day, but managed to get over on Thursday, and grabbed the two miscreants, which are now the subject of this post.

 

XL-02

 

XL-07

 

The five sets in the series, there are two larger vessels in other series, a huge vessel in a third, and some wave two stuff, which may not have got to the UK, along with a twin set, containing two of the above. 

 

Now, I never watched the movie, but, with the exception of the Zyclops pods (purple 'eggs'), each of the four 'fighters' are experimental aircraft piloted by different iterations of Buzz Lightyear, who is about four years older in each vessel! The premise of the movie, being Buzz's attempts to develop a fuel cell for 'Hyperspeed'!

 

So, this is the second experimental ship in a series, I don't know if [in the movie] it is armed, although there is a node on the underside, to attach the missile-firer from the larger/twin sets, so it can be (for play), and once the XL-15 enters the picture, conflict does occur with 'Zurg' (an alternate Buzz)

 

And this is one of those occasions where, if you've followed the story or are a fan, you know far more than me, but which also comes down to Disney tearing the arse out of a franchise, and tying themselves in knots, some of which remain unresolved to this day!

 

 

Aaaaannd, this is the seventh! Each time Buzz takes a test flight, four years go by (presumably until the XL-15, but I restate - I haven't watched the movie), back on the planet where his friends are, so by XL-14 (not modelled in either wave - there is a second) at least 56-years have gone by (?), so most of the original crew have died (?), or got old, and their children/grandchildren are running the show.

 

And because he's only a toy in the Toy Story movies, we can sort of assume (whatever Disney says), that all this is in his head anyway! So it's all a bit daft! However, I've been bumped, by this purchase, into bringing the other post to the fore, and will get more into it there, in a day or two.

 

Buzz Lightyear Hyperspeed Starships, in Home Bargains, now, today, for a couple of quid each. But, the fifteen-odd cards on the self, Monday, were four by Thursday, so they are selling fast.

F is for Feelin' Feline!

An obvious title, I'm surprised I haven't used before now! We actually had a roundup of cat stuff not that long ago, and while half the stuff in this post is recent, some of it was found elsewhere in the unused archive!

A largish resin lump I picked-up at a charity shop back in '22, made by Sheratt & Simpson, I guess it's from one of those overpriced series of such stuff in jeweller's windows? But it's a reasonable sculpt, and when £20-something becomes 50p or similar, I ponce . . . like a cat!

Boysy-boy eyeing it with a modicum of suspicion! I still miss him every day, his weight on the end of the bed, his little complaints when he thought he ought to have a treat! But I miss both his Mum's too, and that's the burden of getting to this age, dealing with more and more death, in one's life.

Large Japanese blow-mould, marked on the other side with a three-leaved clover mark, and Japan in ink, and moulded on the body.

This is a modern set from Shing Hing, the people who brought a four-nation 'army man' tub to Smyths a few years ago. There's a lack of imagination in the decoration, but otherwise they are reasonable sculpts for a rack-toy type thing.

Three from Schliech, we looked at five back in October and I think two are duplicates, but the Egyptian-looking one is a definite paint variant, and the long-haired Persian is a new addition.

They are no better as cat's, than they were as dog's, who buys this shit?

Shelfied in Home Bargains.

Oh . . . I do! I actually grabbed these at Waterloo yesterday, a series of mini-adventures I could have done without - Travellers closing Charing Cross, football hooligans, and cancelled trains - led to my browsing the 'boutiques' on the new mezzanine, and I thought these were particularly stupid! The cord already hangs over the side of the vessel, how is a cat's tail going to make any difference, or improve things, one iota?

I found they preferred to sniff the fumes of sloe gin!

What? It's Christmas! 

P is for Puffy Projectile Pen!

As the Actress said to the Bishop! Real life seems to be intervening again, but here's something I picked-up in Home Bargains a couple of days ago. As well as small pulp-rockets trending these days, pen and pencil tops are also enjoying a renaissance, with the big displays of such items, in The Works and some garden centres, and the many museums and 'end-destination, high-end, tourist leisure-facility' gift shops, where such things have always been the pocket-money staple!

 

So, combine the two tropes, with a soft-foam, spring-loaded, cartoon rocket on an teathered elastic string! Branded to TJM worldwide and Maxi Save down-under, it's a bit of fun and another Retro Rocket, which is not the same as a retrorocket!

T is for Two - Cosmic Correctors!

 Or: P is for Poor-old Pluto!

 

Picked these two up on Wednesday of this week, so both are fresh in the shops, and shops I regularly check for such stuff, to boot!

 

The second find is on the left, the Legami set of Solar System erasers, while about an hour earlier I'd grabbed the Scribble Pop Shop set in Home Bargains (the TKMaxx vehicle). Google's AI answer-bot tells us "Legami was founded in 2003 and has their headquarters in Bergamo, Northern Italy. They started by selling book straps to tie your books together for easier carrying, and now they have more than 4000 products across all sorts of stationery types.", which makes more sense than they're having appeared out of nowhere, as they otherwise seem to have - presence at both recent product fairs, and more items in the queue, from a garden centre!

 

Obviously, it was the Iwako-style mini-rocket ships which attracted me, not the . . . 

. . . astronaught in a nappy (diaper)! The Scribble Pop Shop; an in-house branding, also responsible for a pencil case and colouring set in the same space theme, is presumably ('obviously' once you know the history/timings) aimed at countering the Legami set, or riding its boot straps (book straps!). And they seem to have got their generic planet from whoever made Legami's Saturn? The Legami set was in Ryman's, but they are also in garden centres, venue gift-shops and Claire's I think? Poor old Pluto!

L is for Loose Ends

The last of the Christmas figurals, and it'll be back to more normal output, if equally occasional at the moment, but that's life! A mixed bunch and some of them from last year . . . 

 

Hobbycraft were clearly selling the end of the line we've seen over the last year or two, as they only had a few, back in November, and once they were gone, they weren't replaced, not even with a similar line? I managed to grab this deer family, as one day, a cake-decoration deer page is on the cards; there are loads and loads of them! Poured resin and about 40mm?

 

I also picked up this snowman, which reminded me that while we looked at the line two or three years ago, last year's post went to archive when I ran out of time, inclination or whatever else contributed to quite a lot going off to the long queue. It meant I could get this year's out as last year's is still in his [net] bag, along with the Santa' in a poly' bag.

 

The Mushrooms were from The Works, a bit of fun for a possible future project (fantasy secenry), and this year I saw them or similar assortments in several places including The Range and possibly either B&M or Home Bargains?

Can't remember where I saw this, but I think it might have been the aforementioned Home Bargains, along with The Nightmare Before Christmas, I saw a lot of Grinch 'Merch' as it's called these days - by a dying civilisation which insists on abbreviating everything - JLO, LOL!

 

I mentioned that I thought there might be a sequel to Nightmare in the offing when I started to see that everywhere, back in, sort of, Oct./Nov., but I think with both, it's just the inexorable commercialisation of Christmas, particularly by the toy and home-furnishing industries off the back of Holywood? But it was a very inexpensive white-button walker, which is a slowly-growing side-collection, in main-part thanks to robots and Halloween!

 

I think we did look at the Malteezer deer last year, this year's edibles included this Santa Clause from Marks & Spencer, which was illustrated as being like an Aero inside, but was actually the more solid and disappointing texture of a Wispa - which I've hated from the day they were launched!

I forgot to properly check out the edible cake decorations, this year, but managed to find this in Sainsbury's a day or two before the big day, we looked at all the ranges/brands a year or two ago, but this was a new colourway of one of the Santa's from Cake Decor.

 

While I think this lead flat is similar to the set we looked at a while ago, this one possibly coming from Chris or Adrain last year sometime (2023), and also held over, I brought it forward with the Hobbycraft images! I think a similar sculpt can be seen at the back of the upper set's image in this post, which, it turned-out, are Hafer, but this one has a different base and will be from another set, how many were there!

 

Finally, while the above are mostly in some sort of chronological order of when they acme in or were shot, (or make narrative sense to me!), this was an early purchase which them hung around, unshot, and uneaten until the other night, when I managed both! Hence, the fogging of the chocolate, I think?

A departure for Kinder I think, I don't remember seeing them before, but they may be a year or two old as a concept, the prizes are meant to be tree-hangers, and obviously it's a Christmas-specific thing, being a merry festive snowman!

H is for Happy Christmas!

Welp, that all got a bit frantic in the last three days, but at least we were given today off, to start the recovery (before the four-day onslaught which is getting the booze out for New Year's), unlike another company's drivers who seem to have been out, delivering, today! Anywhoo; I was getting back too late and too knackered to post anything, and now, here we are, the 'big day'! It's gotta' be the Nutcrackers!

 

Earlier in the Month, or even late November, I can't think that hard right now, Brian Berke indicated he'd not seen many, and wasn't that enamoured of what he had seen, and I rather agreed with him. This post, the 'nutcracker round up' became a regular rather by accident . . . they are figural, they appeared to be having a comeback (in the UK at least) a few years ago, several quirky aspects had turned-up at around the same time, as had the life-size quiz-trail in Fleet, and with Brian's help and the odd news clipping, we had a regular seasonal theme!

 

But, let's be honest, they are very German/Eastern European, by tradition, and have only been marketed worldwide, in vast quantities, in recent years, to take our money for things made cheaply in China! And, frankly, the gloss has come off them; for every interesting or quirky one, there are four shelf-meters of generic, formulaic wood/resin/fibreglass or plastic shite in every store, which stocks them, for most of November and December!

 

However, I guess they will continue to pop-up at this time of year, not least than because they are in the Tags, which might as well be added to occasionally! So, bowing to the inevitable, here's six images, for this year!

Brian sent this chap with the thought that he looked like he was wearing a 'Demob Suit', which (for loyal foreign readers) was the complete set of civilian clothing, the short-service and conscripted soldiers of our 'Citizen Army' were given, upon demobilisation, in the late 1940's, so they would have something smart ('ish) to attend job interviews (or the labour exchange), go home in, or meet landlords &etc!

 

I replied that he looked to me like an Italian card-shark! The sort you might find on a Mississippi paddle-steamer, calling himself a count, without any genealogical right to do so!

 

Brian also sent both the above as an example of the "nah-yeah-NAH!" end of the market! About 20-inches high, and looking like they are about to do a dance-number for Sister Sledge on Top of the Pops, they are really pretty hideous, still, I can see the wife of the President-elect populating the White House with them, if she doesn't join Putin's ex' in Kaliningrad! We haven't seen or heard much from her, have we!

 

I did add two to the stash, the one on the left is a more traditional wooden one, in the vaguely 'smallest' common size, if that makes sense? And I have a few now, so they may get to make a mantelpiece line-up in future years, while the other is [whispers - another naff gold one!] a smaller sized (roughly 70mm), poured-resin, tree decoration, who will go in the 'miscellaneous ceremonial' section of the stash.

 

I shelfied these in TKMaxx's little brother, Home Bargains, and they illustrate the way the money-men target everyone, on the far right we have a traditional red, blue and green set, to their left is a set which is more 'chintzy', even to looking a bit Highland, despite the lack of actual tartan patterns, while on the other end, we have a wood-look or 'gingerbread' style, and a 'Christmassy' red and white!

 

While this plaster one appeared the other day, as a lone survivor from Christmases past, in a couple of boxes of oddments which the staff put-out in The Range, as they were starting to clear-off this year's decorations, last weekend. This is the quirky-fun end of the oeuvre, and joins all the other Paint-Your-Own stuff, on that Tag!

 

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And, yeah, a Happy Christmas to all Loyal (and not-so-loyal) Readers, all contributors, commenters and the more hidden supporters (they know who they are!), I would, back in the day say 'May we never have a worse one', which would cause some to pause for a second while they worked it out, but the simple fact is they have been getting steadily worse since 2020, and in twelve days, all hell might break out! So, have the best Christmas you can, given your circumstances, and pay heed to those close to you, while they still are.

P is for Prehistoric Party Packs

Right, I'm two days behind, not that there's ever much of a plan here, but this should have posted later the same day as the previous post, with Dan Dare returning by now (hopefully tomorrow/later today), but I realised I hadn't shot the contents of one and had forgotten the origin of the other, so among other rushing around's in the last two days, I tried to track-down/tick-off those queries with little luck (I bought a duplicate of the one I have shot properly!), so I'll chuck the images I do have, here, first, and tie them together with a bit of blurb at the end!

The set with the blue ones, which I found second, was from/is from The Range, while the other set were from Home Bargains (the budget end of the TKMaxx empire), The Range still have them on display, the HB ones have disappeared, whether because they've taken them off for the Christmas season (the party bits seemed denuded) or because they've sold out (they are perfect Christmas stocking fayre) I don't know, but worth checking your local store/s, if you're taken by them.

 

The really noteworthy thing about them is that after years of the tired old Tim-Mee, MPC or Marx knock-off mini's which we have seen here before, that have been the staple of Hobbycraft and the party shops for years now, these are two sets of new, realistic, well sculpted and cut models, in the same bright colours and small sizes as those older ones.

And I use size because scale is a moot point at this size, and with the varying final size of the different species, these are all juveniles or babies in 1:76th, but artistic licence is allowed when you bring this stuff together!

The sealed set (Home Bargains) has eight different, slightly larger models, in a harder polyethylene, paired in four colours, while the other set, also four colours has only seven sculpts, which are more randomly packed (in both colours and pose numbers) as tens, of a modern, softish, PVC-replacement polymer.

B is for Blasting off Again!

My evilBay treat to myself this month was the other configuration of the Blast Off eraser set from TJM, for nine-quid-odd with postage on a Buy-It-Now. It was preferable to drive to Basingrad to see if the Home Bargains there had taken delivery of the other set (Fleet's branch of the TKMaxx subsidiary still has a stack of the set we looked at last time!), only to find they haven't, which would cost the same in petrol.

The two together, for those who need to know, the yellow is a good match, the red is pinker, and the green and blue are different shades, brighter and darker respectively. Pencils and box are identical.

 

The blasted additions, the rocket can lose the column of flame, to stand on its stumpy fins, and the two planets are the same moulding, which is also the one used for the 'rings' planet in the other set, as I suggested might be the case, last time, and that's them, box ticked!