W is for ♪♪♫ We . . . Are . . . The Robots! ♪♫♪

Last year it was spacemen, the year before hedgehogs, other years have had a soldier theme, and bears are perennial, this year I've had some more success with hedgehogs, but also these fellahs all came in over the last ten days or so!

 

I found this chap in Home Sense (the TKMaxx furnishings offshoot) the other day, and thought "Well, if they haven't got any spacemen, you're coming home with me, mate", not intending for it to start anything in particular, but maybe feature in a post on mixed Crimbo Dec's.

 

But then the actual TKMaxx on the other side of the car-park had a few of these yesterday, so I thought "I'm sure I got one in TK the other day, but I'm also sure it wasn't pink?" and took a punt on it, pretty sure it was different, and it was! Well, the game was afoot, Watson! . . . 

 

. . . And I got this one, this afternoon in the big M&S down at the Meadows in Camberley, it seemed to be the only one left, but there were still two, in their pink display tree! He's got a helmet on, so clearly needs some special atmosphere! And with five or six shopping weeks to go, before the big day, I'll have my eyes peeled for additional bauble-bots!

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!

Y is for Yule Urchins!

Possibly my favourite animal if I had to choose one, and while there won't be a tree up for a fifth year, it hasn't stopped me looking for additions for the tree, and one of the themes became, not that many years ago, hedgehogs or hedgepigs, which used to be called urchins in medieval times, giving rise to sea-urchins, because they looked like land urchins!

 

This one came in a few weeks ago, found in Mark's & Spark's, it's a felt/wool body with metallic and sequinned 'spines' which aren't the most realistic, but give a good impression of a hedgehog anyway, and though rather large, he might have been the only one I found, so I grabbed him! He can go near the bottom of the tree, where the other bigger baubles end-up!

 

I then found two traditional glass ones in the same day (ostensively looking for a pair of shears!) in different garden centres, one from Gisela Graham, the other an outfit called Ascalon, and of which, one may be a duplicate (opposite sides of the tree when that happens, and facing the other way!), and then, most recently, about a week ago a layered felt one (who's also quite large) turned-up, branded to Kingfisher (owner of Screwfix), however, I think he came from The Range, but it might have been B&Q, although before the takeover announcement last week, so maybe they were already linked/working together?

 

Which gives us a line-up of four Hedgepigs, eagerly waiting their chance to shine on the tree, don't they all look happy! Childish, I know, but wasn't it the greatest Doctor of all time, Tom Baker, who said, upon being accused of being childish,  "I know, but what's the point of being a grown-up if you can't be childish from time to time"? And with a possible duplicate glassware one, and several similar nut-shell ones - Blog passim - about nine now, or three per 'turn'! Less than four weeks to Crimbo!

Hedgehogs are going extinct in the UK, and if you're looking for a charity cause this Christmas, please consider a Hedgehog charity - there are several - or your local Hedgehog sanctuary or rescue centre.

M is for Magnificent Men! Processed, Tim-mee et al.

Influenced by Scott's blog, tonight's title is a straight lift from his the other night and it was following the link on his that got me digging these out. These are slightly larger than 1:72 at around 1:65? The Hong Kong copies below are a bit smaller and fit well with 1:72.

A quick search on Google reveals that both these and a Spad were available in red, yellow or green, and probably other colours and aircraft types as well. On the left in each view we have a Fokker D-VII while on the right a Camel in French roundels.

Made at about the time the Tim-mee brand was being changed to Processed Plastics, both cards are PP, Montgomery, Illinois, however the Camel is marked Tim-mee Toys, Mont.Ill., while the Fokker is marked Processed Plastics, Aurora Ill. where they still produce toys to this day under the J.Lloyd umbrella, including the 'Tim Mee' vehicle range.

A Hong Kong copy of the Fokker, also marked 'Fokker D-VII' and possibly marketed by Giant in the US, here in Europe they would have been on more generic packaging.

An accurate copy but seemingly hand-done rather than pantographed, as the loss of size is greater than one might expect from pantographing.

My 'Flying Circus', the red one is marked JN4 Jenny as are the green one with missing tail-planes & pink wheels, and the solid nosed yellow one, the green one with a red propeller is marked DeHaviland DH-4 and the blue-nose is a Nieuport 17C.

Very much a side-bar to the main figure collection and only sought out because they have little pilots and gunners, I have some smaller ones (about 1:87 - Giant (?), 1:90 generic copies) which I'll post another day.

Finally, one can't really write on Great War string-bags without mentioning THAT circus, and its leader, The Red Barron - Von Richthofen - with his Fokker Dr.I Dreideker (shhhh....a copy of the Sopwith Tri-plane!), here closer to 1:60 and packaged for Marks & Spencer about 4 Christmases ago, probably someone like Carama/Hongwell produced it?

Closing from 9 o'clock is another Nieuport 17, this one still on its card from Jean Hoefler, while it's about the same size as the HK ones, the body is wider and the pilot is creeping toward 1:65'ish.