W is for Wroxham Miniature Worlds

This was going to be part of a twin posting/comparison with the 'museum' at Mountfitchet, but things took a darker turn at that establishment, and for now I'll stuff it inconveniently under the carpet, and instead you can enjoy this as a stand-alone!

 

The shots Chris Smith took on a visit to the Wroxham Miniature Worlds attraction up in Norfolk, just NE of Norwich . . . 

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"From the outside the building looks like an industrial unit with entrance via a propped open fire door escape, I knew entry price was £13.95, did think about not going in... But took the plunge.

Very well laid out displays, some massive model railway scenic setups. Not my thing but couldn't help but be impressed by the standard of work involved in creating them, 100's of plastic buildings and 1000's of small figures included. All the trains controlled by a central PC program.

A number of working flight and driving simulator PC games from the 80/90's set up to try. I was useless at these back then so passed on trying."

"Good Scalextric track and display. Pelham Puppets, another massive collection on display. Huge vintage Star Wars action figure collection, figures, vehicles and boxes"

 

"Only other plastic figures I spotted were four Britains RNLI boats and crew in with some other, larger model ships."

"The Lesney/Matchbox bus was amazing, the sheer amount of vehicles was staggering. They do need to improve the lighting in this and the head height is an issue if you're over 5' 9" having to stoop on both levels."

 

 

 

"A small display of more general toys of interest were Magic Roundabout Figures, Sooty & Friends cereal premiums and a strange space bike with no rider, approx 1/32 scale that I'm sure would know the maker." [MPC Fireball XL5]

 

"Massive Lego display, from vintage Lego city to more recent lines of  Star Wars, Pirates of the Caribbean, Harry Potter etc."

 

"Knitting! Not my thing, but impressed with the level of detail and work involved."

 

[Excellent use of a mirror-back display cabinet, to visually double the size of the diorama]

 

"Airfix models, poor display, obviously not loved. Poor quality build and a bit battered now. Were a few Airfix painted 1/32 figures and 1/72, but at ground level and hard to see.

 

One of my favourites was a collection of penny arcade machines all in working order, old pennies available via a change machine a £1 for ten, which I enjoyed spending. 

 

Overall, I'd recommend it to anyone if you're in the area on holiday or in Norfolk visiting/working. Personably disappointed by the lack of plastic figures."

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To which I'll add my tuppenny's worth, firstly thanks to Chris for sending all this to the Blog, and secondly, it appears to be a much better curated and displayed than others I have seen, the Airfix 54mm case, not withstanding!

B is for Building a Bibliography

While we're ticking through the Tente stuff, it would seem to be a good time to look at the construction corner of the library, one of the weaker wings as it happens, and while I believe there is a good book on the Spanish Tente and Exin Castillos, both owned by Exin Lines at one point, I don't have it yet, so mine are mostly the on the Kiddycraft thief from Bilund, Denmark!

 

This was the big boxed set by Dorling Kingdersley, published about fifteen years ago, but available remaindered for a fraction of the original cost for several years after, both volumes have been updated and enlarged in the last few years, with whatever WHSmith are now calling themselves (it's like watching a Diplodocus slowly dieing) currently selling the new, expanded figure-book for a tenner, while the history was republished a few years ago.

 

More personal books, about private projects or themes, two by Warren Elsmore, who has several more titles under his belt, the other also on architectural themes, Lego are now producing kits on the subject of these urban 'town house' types, a case of life imitating art!

 

Classic Sets, rebuilt!

 

Predating the boxed set, and also a DK tome, it too glosses over the theft of the design in the first place, but reveals a tractor model, so similar to the famous Airfix 'Fergie', you wonder who was copying who (the famous Aurora Spitfire controversy, and the Bergan-Beton mounted line), but realise the big-guys were all pretty ruthless and lacking in a level of morality, or ethics, which probably sent the smaller guys to the wall.

 

Latest member of the construction toy section, this is a more interesting work on the relationship/s, actual or imagined (by the authors) between construction toys, and their place in the 20th Century, as compared to the actions of the architects themselves, and has chapters on lesser makes, such as Minibrix, Lincoln Logs,  Bayko, or Triang's Arkitex, and the wackier examples like PlayPlax.

B is for Bibliography - 2 of 2

A continuation of the previous post;

 

I think I picked this up at the Plastic Warrior show, back in the Spring, but 2024! Several Blogs I follow have mentioned it, I think some have play-tested the rules, I may never even read it, but feel I should buy war gaming books in the same way I buy card-game books, so they are there, in the library, 'just in case'. So long as there's a contents page and/or an index, you can always find something if you need to!

 

Both the 'Discovering' series, and Shire Albums are a useful source of information, and blissfully succinct! Obviously they become rather irrelevant once fuller or more worthy tomes are published, but as primers, they are just the ticket.

 

Book collecting is a mild periphery interest of mine, plastics have always had a place, and earlier works benefit from details lost to modern research/websites, particularly some of the early trade-names of plastics, and I addressed to better points of board-game books in the previous post. 

 

This was free on World Book day, although 'free' is a moot point when there's a minimum purchase involved, and I don't think I met the threshold, so paid a nominal amount for it! A box-ticker, it adds nothing to the oeuvre, but joins the other dozen or so works on Lego.

 

Again, box-ticking really, how many times can you teach people the techniques published in things like The Eagle, which we looked at here, and which was issued more than half a century ago? Also, it was not cheap, but I saw it, I felt it needed to go in the library, which has a modelling section, as it has sections on Wargaming, Flags & Heraldry, Chess &etc.

 

Also, new materials and tools come along all the time, and a book like this, although promoting one company's products, often has a useful appendix or two, or maybe a glossary, so in the pile it went!

 

Two more Discovering pamphlets, I tend to get a few every time I visit the second-hand bookshop over in Alton, in part to support one of the few decent second-hand bookshops left in this part of the world, and also because there were so many issued, there's always another to find!

 

I love maps, have done ever since I was a kid making them with friends, in the woods near Bramshill, while the wagon one will join the three I already have on farm & military hoarse-drawn equipment and horse-furniture.

 

I usually only buy doll or doll's house books when I see them cheap, it's not my field, so I'm only getting them for completeness, for anything they may have on another side of toy manufacturers (more the doll books, than the house books), and again; glossaries, indexes and appendices.

 

The book which influenced and indirectly led to the first in this post, and something which - by it's absence - had been an obvious gap in the library, so, box ticked! The Wikipedia page is interesting, and without being able to check, I think this is the '77 reprint.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Wars

 

Bear books are a bit like doll books, but this ex-library copy was cheap as chips in a charity shop, so an easy decision, and it's actually quite an interesting read on the histories/stories of several specific bears, I was also surprised to see some of the prices AbeBooks (with none on Amazon) ask for it, but it has a following;

 

https://holeousia.com/time-passes-listen/folk-worth-talking-about/aloysius/ 

 

This was given to me by John Begg, and it is a very odd thing, it's a kids' history/primer on Matchbox cars and 'modern' die-casting, by a famous children's author/illustrator of travel books in the 1950's and '60's. A sort of early advertorial, but quite entertaining nevertheless, and with several other works on Matchbox in the library, will fill a gap I didn't know was there!

 

Adrian had a small pile of these at the last Sandown, so the latest addition to the pile, and a nice, light read, well illustrated and a part of that sudden shower of books and websites about 20-years ago on all things medieval and toy, both soldiers and castles, I have one or two of the books I think, with one to find (the big book on castles), and remember the websites, which have disappeared now, with the passing of the authors. Sadly, nothing lives forever.

S is for Sluban

Along with the Chinese Pantasy we saw the other day, another Lego-likey with a notable presence in the Toy Fair at Kensington Olympia, was this outfit, Sluban, indeed they had a bigger stand and a glossy catalogue, with a varied range, some being Cobi-like military subjects, some more obviously seeking tourist destination traffic. 

 

Sluban is another Chinese brand, with the European opperation based in the Netherlands. Second shot's a bit fuzzy!

 

Not a lot I can add, Google will reveal to you, the same data it would allow me to parrot. It's compatible with Lego, looks - aesthetically - more like Cobi and is something I won't be collecting personally, having off-loaded half my modest collection of Lego on friend's kids over the last decade or so, the other half to Timpo-Dave but I might hang on to any figures or accessories that come my way in the future, as I also have to my Lego and Megabloks figures!

Note the flowering plants, on the bottom left shelves, Lego are now doing flowers too, not the first time it's followed where it's rivals lead!

 

European website;

https://sluban.nl/en

T is for Toys in the Media, Part the . . . God Knows!

A trio of Hestair Kiddybrick related adverts from the archive tonight, call it a Lazy Post with a bit of a tangential rant, and realise things will get better here again, shortly!

Advert for Intel, now rapidly being eclipsed by nvidia, they were the market leader for a couple of decades! And an actual Lego tie-in, so presumably the Evil Empire paid some of the marketing campaign fees?

 

One of the few Building Societies to survive the Capitalists' demutualisation frenzy which ruined not just British, but global banking back in the 1990's (made a small number, of mostly white men, very rich!), the YBS are still going, their blocks are artistic renders, I think?

 

A&L demutualised in '97 and finally packed their bags in 2011 (about the same time mine, Halifax, began is slow decline to now, a mere brand of Lloyds!), this might be a GCI image, the bloke and ball probably are artworks, of some kind, but while the blocks are based on Duplo, or Megabloks 'biggies', if it is a photograph (this trio is from the 2000's), they are probably cheap own-brand generics from Toy R Us or Mothercare? Both of whom have also disappeared!

 

It's funny, since around 1979/80, it's been one, long, fire-sale, an absolute bonanza for a few public-school educated money-men and asset strippers, which has left a Chinese car dealership on the old A30 into Hook, which I noticed tonight, a couple of miles from the huge billboard for Ranil Jayawardena (local Tory candidate, who has decided the corporate colours for the Tories round here will be green and purple!), why do we even let this state-subsidised shit into the country?

 

I mean, I like to think I'm a liberal, but I also have a sense of justice and fair play, which some might claim is overdeveloped, I blame the Asperger's, but it leaves me quite intolerant of our Government's tolerance, which boarders on incompetent complacency. And how can fair play or justice be 'overdeveloped', it either is, or it isn't?

Yet these despots; China, Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, North Korea, &etc; they just don't play fair, even when they can't stand each-other, they will side together, get a few African kleptocrats and a couple of Central American nutters on-board and cause no end of trouble for the whole world, with a power-bloc that blocks any attempt to make the world a better place.

But the cars will be perfectly reliable, reasonably outfitted, with all the mod-cons and gizmos, and cheap, why would you pay three-times as much for a Volvo in a 'cost-of-living' crisis, created by those same landlord/landowning/speculative hedge-fund bwankers, who will now be importing these cars, using the money they don't seem to pay much tax on!

B is for Bounty-Hunter Brickmen

I'm not a great fan of Lego (the corporation, as you might have noticed), and don't buy it like I used to, having given most of it away to friend's kid's, who have all graduated from University now! One of my mates bought all the big 100+quid jobs, and became a fully-fledged AFOOL; Adolescent Fan Of Old Lego . . . I think, something like that?!!

 

But I archive the ephemeral Lego stuff I encounter, and look out for sets with a decent figure-count, nearer the budget end of the brand, not that it actually HAS a budget-end any more, but you know what I mean!

So when I saw that there were four Kardashians (or whatever they're called) in this set, which was on a post-Christmas clearance price in Sainsbury's, I grabbed one, and took a few shots which have been in Picasa for two years! The Disney logo just doesn't look right there, does it?

 

The three bags of bits and an instruction manual, which is so simple, they appear to be expecting people with learning-difficulties to be helping two-year-old's trying to violate the 6+ or 5-99 rules!

 

These are two of the - previously mentioned here at Small Scale World - bricks which came AFTER the equivalent Megabloks design, even as Lego was chasing Mega through the worldwide courts! Have you seen their Daleks? Next to the lovely Character Options one's, they are shit! And that's a very English 'shit' with the emphasis on that last 't'.

 

Contents of the bags, are quite confusing with the figures unequally split between the two main bags, while some bits in the same bags are smaller than the helmet details which get a bag to themselves! And because they use the same holes you can only have a peak or a periscope thingy, but not both?

I forgot to photograph the assembled model!

T is for Toys In The Media - Part the somethingth . . .

 

I was reminded in the early hours of this morning, of the words of Jamie Delson, owner and CEO of The Toy Soldier Company, when he was interviewed by the New Yorker magazine back in May 1992 . . .

 

. . . which has me contemplating, as we've visited them about four times now! Above is one of the pairs the modern Culpitt carried, still available from a few sellers online, they were previously sold by various other brands, sometimes as a six (although only five poses remain), and have clearly been around for several decades! Are you a starving man in the desert, readers, do you know one?

This was illustrating an 'advertorial' puff-piece on watches in The Sunday Times, back in October 2002, and shows what are probably the Toyway reissues of the Lone Star Guard's Band, under the Timpo label.

This was a common ad' back in the . . . 1990's-early 2000's? Advertising an ISA producd for Egg (now the Yorkshire Building Society), and is obviously artwork, but drawing heavily on the Subbuteo footballers designed by Charle Stadden.

Launched on August 5, 2011, the Juno probe to the Jovian system has three crew! Origianlly designed to be crashed into Jupiter at the end of the mission (to protect the integrity of the moons we are hoping to visit in the future), its mission has now been extended (for a second time) until late 2025, so these three are still very-much up there, or out there! I don't know where the cutting came from?

 

Galileo found Jupiter, the other two are more obvious!