TITM is for Toys in the Media - The Rest . . . For Now!

These are all the other things in a folder it'll be nice to see the back off for a bit, as they've been sitting around in Picasa for about three years now! Vaguely in order of their being deposited in the folder, with something a little different at the end!

Full page spread in The Metro or 'i', probably CGI'd Russian nesting dolls advertising a give-back to the LGBTQI+ community by Paddy Power . . . every time Russia scoured a goal, money went to Putin's hated gays! The funny thing is, I susspect Putin's an every-way predatory deviant . . . but the witnesses are probably all in the ground, except his poor ex-wife who's in internal exile in Kaliningrad!

And it's nice to see that while I was earning my own opprobrium from 'over there' for questioning some of the 'eastern' production, its promotion, price and where - exactly - the money was going, other - more mainstream - sources were also realising Russia was not a friend - of anybody.

Oh, I'll have plenty more to say on the subject, don't you worry . . . unless you're in the Penn-State Toy Soldier mafia, in which case you may well worry? I'll name you because you put your names to your insensitive comments, lacking all self-awareness, or awareness of the greater world picture, you nasty little, right-wing, selfish, brain-dead shitheads.

Taken before I'd got my new scanner, and sadly out of focus, but you can see it's Kenco using some cheapo, substitute vinyl-rubber, rack-toy Chinnamals to advertise their excellent granulated goodness! Yeah-nah-yeah, I used to take Kenco, before I realised Douwe Egbert's gave me an unending supply of self-seal storage jars!

I like this one, on one level it's a pretty non-descript advert for something your subconscious will ignore the instant you realise it's not for you, but on another level it's using a toy frog to trigger the large-print tagline, while the toy bus reinforces both the toy/key-ring motive, and that it's about two drivers, one having more useful insurance coverage than the other - get on the back of your better insured friend, or get the bus!

I think this and the previous were taken from copies of The Economist?

This is more of a joke-ad', I can't remember where from, but something like The New Yorker, circa 1960's, maybe something more mainstream like Mad Magazine? It is however; still 'toys in the media' and came via Brain Heiler's Facebook group I think?

Two from my Facebook feed, following the same trope of using a model house to sell on-line Estate Agency (Real Estate) services. The two buildings are quite different so may have separate origins, and I wonder if they might be houses for gerbils or other small pets, or maybe money-banks strategically posed to hide the coin slots?

Touristy/novelty pound/dollar-store stuff, though, I think? However - from the size of the hands - very useful for war-gaming in 54/60mm scales. Both could pass for Western Europe or New England and both are pretty simple, timeless designs.

Back to an old trope here, previously seen on a couple of book covers and a health thing; the model-kit runner. Here employed as street-furniture outside the Japanese HQ of Shizuoka Models, incorporating a post box, there are similar constructions around the plant's wider site, some in blue.

Real-steam steam-rollers (probably Mamod - the current Model 1312 [short version] looks almost the same) being used to sell the luxurious smoothness of Cormar carpets! Bry-Nylon was that terrible stuff which snagged you fingernails, skinned your knees and gave you shocks if you had the wrong footwear . . . and the shit which gathered in the little ravines between the fluffy-islands!! Published circa-1970; a magazine advert for awfully-awful, bloody-awful carpets.

Not a movie still, not a fan's CGI, not a 'toy in the media', and while Paddington has been seen here before now; not actually Paddington, not even a bear . . . this is a dog! A toy-dog if you like, a Pomeranian to be precise (no piccolo :-( ), who gets dressed-up as Paddington by his owner! You can't make this shit up, but he (she?) makes a very good Paddington!

TITM is for Toys in the Media - Soldiers

Being a round-up of toy soldiers in advertising and the wider world which I've been stuffing in the Toys in the Media folder for a while now, both modern stuff and some vintage bits.

This is a book I found on Amazon looking for something else, I rarely read novels (other than sci-fi) so it didn't interest me particularly, not that that doesn't . . . what I mean is; it's here for the cover not the contents which may be very good, but I don't care/didn't bother to find out! Modern 'army-man' pose, sinisterly blured, off-centre and allowing the shadow to do all the talking - good stuff!

Someone in Eastern Europe (?) is commando-bombing street signs with army-men, purpose unknown (road-sign sentries?), but it must be fun looking for them if you know it's going-on in your locale!

Another book cover, this one seems to show old Stadden designs for . . . Tradition? Old Guard? Probably from the 85mm or 120mm ranges? These have been painted, but silver, chromium-plated or polished pewter versions of many pieces exist. Again; the book and its contents are of no consequence to me.

This lady has a credit attached to 'Indigo' which means little, I think she was found on Twisted Sifter or Dangerous Minds, or off the back of a link from one of them? Modern Airfix copy (Afrika Korps officer/Rommel figure) parachute-toy converted to an earring! Although "converted" is a bit highfalutin' for cutting the strings and adding a wire-loop!

A well known (in its day) advertising campaign for White Horse Whiskey included this image, in various crops, which ran in the early 1970's in the Sunday newspaper colour-supplement magazines and on street hoardings I think.

I assume the figures will be something common (and relatively cheap) such as Minifigs (Miniature Figurines) but could be home-cast or something earlier like Alberken, while the farmhouse looks like, but isn't the Airfix 'Waterloo Farmhouse', I thought it was, but close-ups reveal enough differences to rule out the plastic kit. The descriptions and sketches of the time are many and enough to build similar farmhouses!

This is an icing plaque from crafter Yvette Mayorga and is all icing, but in a frame, not on a cake! Not sure if it's an army-man or a cowboy, but again a modern Hong Kong/China figure has been skillfully modelled.

The first series of Blackadder (The Black Adder) was the least celebrated, yet set-up all the tropes for the future works and is probably my favourite after the trenches of the last full-run. In one episode Richard IV (Brian Blessed) is war gaming 'diplomacy' with one of his lieutenants, using large (Papier-mâché, plaster?) figures on the floor, I took a few stills last time I watched it.

Then I thought where are The Avengers stills I took, only to remember I posted them ages ago!

TITM is for Toys in the Media - Preiserlike Persons

I've been saving these up for a while now, and had so many they'll need breaking down into separate posts, and this one deals with the popular trope of using model railway figures to help sell us stuff. We've seen plenty of artists using these figures to great effect, but here it's all about promoting other things, although some are simply illustrating articles with a view to gabbing our attention with an eye-catching image.

IFLScience (formerly 'I fucking Love Science' . . . the conformist cowards!) start us with their group of people hanging around illustrating the header for a hot-linked article on Faceplant about a psychological disorder involving seeing little people who aren't there.

Me? I see idiots, everywhere, selfish, stupid, climate-change denying, nationalistic idiots but I don't believe I'm imagining them as part of a delusional condition, I just see selfish, stupid, climate-change denying, nationalistic idiots everywhere!

IFLScience is behind the upper image here too, while The Conversation also carried it, so not only is it clearly a stock image, it's one of the ones which comes-up first in search results for such things! Neither credits the agency/library, so I don't know who's behind it.

Both stories deal with ageing AND the negative benefits of doing so, one more generally, the other specific to those who have had a severe dose of Covid-18 (SARS-Cov2), or who are suffering from Long-Covid.

A British policeman surveys a keyboard, I imagine a story about computer crime or on-line fraud? I didn't take a note on this one and there not much of a clue in the title, also; the figure seems to have a squared-off base, so not sure of the origin of this one, but about 1:72nd scale?

The uniform is somewhat archaic now, officers on the beat haven't dressed like this since the 1980's, but I believe it remains their academy/parade/disciplinary appointment uniform, and is the one still popularised in tourist trinkets and post-cards, while some strategically placed officers in tourist hot-spots may dress like this to feed the need of the tourists to see a 'British Bobby' on the beat!

Very skinny looking, I think the image has been pulled on the North/South axis? The note with this one (which we may have seen before in a past 'News, Views Etc'?) says "Organisational Structures and Resourcing Hero Image" which I'm sure has you riveted to the point of searching for what must be a world-changing article! I'll move swiftly on . . . (whispers . . . I must have read it to have found it!)

Another common trope with these (we have seen several here in the past) is money and/or financial articles, some have the figures, some have small change, the ones we're most interested in have both!

Upper shot seems to be showing Euros and Euro-cents and was from an article entitled "As part of the Unequal Democracies project", the lower image has pounds and pence Stirling, and is an Ian Johnston shot for Shutterstock, used here for research purposes

This was an article on weight-loss drugs, I don't tend to read such money-grubbing/emotional garbage, so it must have been an add' in my feed? The purple ones might be the Wonka Works Blueberry Pie meal-in-a-pill-deal!

This one's a bit sad! I think he may be Merit, although Preiser did do some chunky sculpts in the 1970's, all those track-gang and construction worker sets were heavier sculpting? Anyway, I suspect one of the artists who set these out in the environment (we've seen a few here already and there's more to come) didn't look after his and it got painted over. Indeed the paint may be partly the cause of the heaviness?

Because a freshly painted wall is to graffiti artists what a fresh dog-shit is to flies, it's since attracted a half-dozen or so re-paintings (original caption says seven layers), in a  rather bland pink (inner-city pub?) and will soon be no more than a blob or pimple on the wall!

News, Views Etc . . . Catch-up!

Obviously the garden has not the same appeal this week as it had last week! Nice to see TJF's little friend making friends with the rest of the gang over the weekend, should have paid more attention to me two year's ago, would have saved a lot of damage, but hey-ho, some people prefer their train-wreaks in slow motion, witness Brwreakshit!

London Toy Fair Reports 2019  - Bandai
Next London Toy Fair post was sent to those who know best!

http://projectswordtoys.blogspot.com/2019/02/bandais-thunderbirds-are-go-at-london.html

Outrage
The Daily Wail getting hysterical . . . again! What would they have made of Yorkville's Importhaus! The Mirror joined-in because nobody does outrage like the Tabloids! Still, unaffordable publicity for PSR - Go Dave!

Toy Soldiers in Art
Al-Dowayan

RIP
Another collector has shuffled-off to the great toy-box while we were distracted.

News, Views Etc . . . Forthcoming Events

So in the end I had six days in the garden as today (Thursday)'s rain never really materialised!

Last weekend there was a dwarf daffodil out, the tail-end of the pale purple & white crocuses in the lawn and a single imperial purple one in a bed, along with next door's Mirabelle just coming into blossom . . .

. . . now the pink cherry-plum has joined the Mirabelle (which means they will both be pollinated and we might get fruit - if all the pigeons die first!), loads of daff's including most of the dwarves and some full-size, dozens of white, cream and yellow crocuses, one of the quinces is in blossom and the weeping cherry is about to explode.

But, it doesn't bode well for the future - the mild winter has killed the last bit of the witch-hazel, most of which was killed by last year's mild winter! While fuckwits like the Trumpton bang-on about Global Warming like it's a comedy sketch, the scientists talk of 'Climate Change', and as I hit 55 (any day now); I'm old enough to know climate change for myself, when I see it!

Not only was this the third, fourth, fifth (?) mild winter in a row, but after the summer's heat wave, the ground is bone dry. As very few people are doing anything meaningful about it, and governments even less, the message remains; buy old toys - while you still can!

Public area in Basingrad on the 22nd

I'll be at BP's Sandown Park on Saturday; the last one before Brwreakshit and I already know a couple of 'Euro-dealers' who won't be there . . . May's show will be the bigger test though.

                         ..........ᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥ◈◇◆◊☼◊◆◇◈ᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥ..........

Toy Fairs

Saturday 2nd March 2019

Plymouth - Events Frontier - 'Devcon 19' Sci-fi and Comics Convention

Plymouth Guildhall, Guildhall Square, Plymouth, Devon, PL1 2BJ

Web. - www.eventsfrontier.com

eMail - eventsfrontier@hotmail.com

Mob. - 07508 548 938

Admission - "From £6"

Hours unknown

Sandown Park - Barry Potter / BP Fairs

Exhibition Centre, Sandown Park Racecourse, Esher, Surrey, KT10 9AJ

Web. - www.bpfairs.com

Tel. - 01604 846 688

Mob. - 07966 527 177

10:30 - 15:00hrs

Admission - Adults £6.50p, seniors £6, children £2, early bird (from 08.00hrs) £10.00

Tons of free parking

                         ..........ᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥ◈◇◆◊☼◊◆◇◈ᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥ..........

Sunday 3rd March 2019

Eastleigh - Steven Clements Fairs

Barton Peveril Sixth Form Collage, Chestnut Avenue, Eastleigh, Hampshire, SO50 5ZA

eMail: clementfairs@aol.com

Tel. - 01380 725 322

Mob. - 07958 101 891

10:00 - 14:00hrs

Falkirk, Scotland - McLaren Models

Tel. - 01324 624 102

(All other details here)

Haydock Park - Barry Stockton Fairs

The Exhibition Centre, Haydock Park Racecourse, WA12 0HQ

Web. - http://barrystocktonfairs.co.uk/
Tel. - 01513 343 362
10:30 - 14:30hrs
Admission - Adult £2, Children £0.50p

Kidderminster - Tony Oaks Toy Fairs

Guilt Edge Leisure Centre, Zortech Avenue, Kidderminster, Worcestershire, DY11 7DY

Internet presence unknown

Tel. - 01270 652 773

Mob. - 07825 631 323

10:30 - 14:00hrs

Admission £1.50p

Free parking

Needham Market - Stowmarket Railway Club (club event)

Needham Market Community Centre, Shool Street, Needham Market, Sulfolk, IP6 8BB

Web. - www.stowrailclub.org.uk

Tel. - 01449 672 698

10:30 - 15:00hrs

Admission - £1.50p, accompanied children free

Wheelchair access, free parking, refreshments

York - J&J Webb - 'York Racecourse'

The Knavesmire Stand, York Racecourse, York, Yorkshire, YO23 1EX

Web. - www.j-jwebbtoyfairs.com

eMail - jandjfairs@virginmedia.com

Tel. - 01522 880 383

10:00 - 14:30hrs

Admission £2.50p, seniors £2, 1st child £1.50p

                         ..........ᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥ◈◇◆◊☼◊◆◇◈ᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥ..........

Wednesday 6th March 2019

Hertford - Joe Lock Fairs (Evening Fair)

Richard Hale School, Hale Road, Hertford, Hertfordshire, SG13 8EN

Internet presence unknown

Mob. - 07866 641 215

19:00-21:00hrs

Admission £1

                         ..........ᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥ◈◇◆◊☼◊◆◇◈ᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥ..........

Auctions

Wednesday 6th March/Thursday 7th March 2019

Stockton-on-Tees - Vectis Auctions (2-day sale)

Fleck Way, Thornaby, Stockton-on-Tees, TS17 9JZ

Web. - www.vectis.co.uk

eMail - admin@vectis.co.uk

01642 750 616

Military & Civilian Figures, Equipment and Accessories

More info./imagery will probably be added to this section in the week.

Wednesday 6th -

"The Military & Civilian Figures, Equipment & Accessories sale to be held on the 6th of March features The Philip Dean Collection, 525 lots of pre and post war figures and sets, including Britains, Charben, John Hill & Co, Pixyland Kew, Timpo and many others. Series include Wedding party, Circus, Farm, Village, Railway Station, Garden, Sports and Space plus many more.  Further items in this sale include 79 lots of post war CBG Mignot ranges, including Napoleonic, Ancients, WW1 and 18th/19th and 20th Century Ranges."

Thursday 7th -

"Day 2 of the Military, Civilian Figures, Equipment & Accessories sale starts with Modern and Contemporary Issues from Britains, King and Country, Figarti, Thomas Gunn and more. There are 19 Lots of Grenada Studios, Lead Army, Aeroart studios and similar in the Connoisseur Miniatures From Russia; plus Britains Motorcycle Series and Civilian Issues from Benbros, Timpo and Britains Racing Colours; and Plastic Issues including Connoisseur Selection. The sale continues with Britains - Boxed & Unboxed Military Issues, Un-boxed - Special Editions & Paris Office, Militaria including medals, uniform and clothing, and Toy Soldier & Military Books and original Airfix Archive artwork."

                         ..........ᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥ◈◇◆◊☼◊◆◇◈ᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥ..........

Friday 8th March 2019

Taunton - Greenside Taylor Hunt (GTH)

The Octogon Saleroom, 113a East Reach, Taunton, Devon, TA1 3HL

Web. - www.gth.net

eMail - antiques.saleroom@gth.net

Tel. - 01823 332 525

                         ..........ᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥ◈◇◆◊☼◊◆◇◈ᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥ..........

If you are an event promoter/show curator/auctioneer and you want your toy, model, collectable or popular-/youth-culture type sale/exhibition/event listed here -  FOR FREE  - or linked to; please eMail me -

maverickatlarge[at]hotmail[dot]com

- stating the date/s of the event, address of event, contact details, opening/viewing times, admission pricing and any other relevant facts/details or features - parking, travel notes, disability access, availability of refreshments, event subject matter &etc.

And please mention any flyer-art or poster-/leaflet-scans but send by separate eMail, in case they go to the 'junk' folder, from where they can be recovered and marked safe, but only if I know they're there!

                         ..........ᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥ◈◇◆◊☼◊◆◇◈ᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥ..........

H is for How They Come In

They just keep coming-in! The last seven day's charity-shop purchases, nothing exiting; less than a fiver for the lot, but you've gotta' love the Central European (Bulgarian?) bottle-stopper couple!

                         ..........ᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥ◈◇◆◊☼◊◆◇◈ᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥ..........

Toys in the Media

It's a well-known construction toy system (Hestair-Kiddycraft's bricks!) tied-in to the half-term movie for these Add's from DFS furniture warehouses!

                         ..........ᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥ◈◇◆◊☼◊◆◇◈ᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥ..........

New Publication

Dodgy photograph but out there now if you're also a fan of old comics!

                         ..........ᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥ◈◇◆◊☼◊◆◇◈ᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥ..........