So, as I wasn't helping anyone this time, I had the luxury of a lie-in, and a more gentle mosey up on the train, not knowing there was a winter fixture at Sandown Park, meaning the train was well-equipped with early-drinking rowdies, until Esher, when more people seemed to get off the train, than it could have possibly held!
Fortunately, a few hours later, we raced back through Esher at some speed, the mostly now skint punters, a mere blur either side of the train, their 'How am I going to pay for Christmas now?' faces illuminated a pallid-yellow by the carriage's own lighting.
I didn't stay long at the show, missed Paul, although I saw him a couple of isles over at one point, but managed to catch-up with everyone else, and purchase a bag of bits! I then forgot to go to the Pub, and managed to get involved in a mini-adventure, or 'experience', back in the city centre, but, toys first;
Two
Cherilea spacemen, I have a decent sample of these now, especially with the three based ones I added the other day, but I know that when I Blogged them (not that long ago) it was a cobbling together of archive, show-shots and my own samples, to get the story clear, so my own sample was small and probably still has gaps, so I tend to grab them when I see them, and these earlier, pod-feet ones are rather nice.
Between them is an early Kinder toy, in which the capsule itself is used, with pre-formed slots to receive the bits inside, and a sticker-sheet to produce a small R2D2 type 'astromech' droid / robot, with articulated arms.
More of the native-dress figures, in semi-flat polystyrene, the weight of evidence veers toward India, but a commenter at the time of last seeing thought Sri Lanka, so still technically a question mark, and we have several new paint schemes, and a new pose, so worth keeping-on buying them, when I see them.
There's evidence on a couple of them, of having been glued to cards, maybe in window-boxes?
More
Kinder toys, the barbarian needs a weapon, the Indian needs some hair (both in the spares bags, I think) and a mini, cement-truck.
A third
Kellogg's Frosties Campbell land-speed racer (on the right), to join the pair I found in February, along with a duplicate, which may be a useful swap for the missing fourth vehicle, in the course of time?
Seeing red! Another of the Pomeroy-designed game-playing pieces, a rather nice sub-scale
Swoppet clone from Hong Kong and a piece of Bisque from a Christmas cake, or even a Birthday cake, I think it's a clown which is more generic, isn't it?
Another game playing piece, a small rubber dog, probably contemporary and off a kid's magazine, the third item is a
WWF trophy, an accessory from a larger action figure set, but the two figures making-up the trophy-sculpture are almost perfect HO-gauge compatible. The final figure is a priest, possibly for wedding-cakes?
Rack-toy Submarine.
A handful of French production, there's a possibility that the last one is Polish, but he's hard plastic, so the feeling if more likely French. The
Mokarex chap next to him is from the paired French regional-dress figure set, the small one is an integral-base (
Kinder?) version of the usually separate base premiums, and the first figure has been paint-stripped - like
Starlux, but not?
Matt Thier did tell me the origin of the lead lady being beheaded (Mary? French?), but I forgot it in all the conversations with everyone, the paper boy is an old
Bergen-Beton figure in hard 'styrene, the mint-green chap is from a kit (
Monogram,
Pyro,
Revell?) and the little corporal is a brass tourist trinket, from France.
Nice, probably French stand of fir-trees, with a bit of damage to the tallest one.
On my way back to Waterloo, I dropped off at Leicester Square, to check the bookshops in Charing Cross Road, and look for something for someone else (which has been another mini-adventure). While I was there I found a 'German Market' in the centre of the square, it was pretty shit . . . no German stalls selling hand-made wooden toys or blown-glass ornaments like the one in Berlin, the Bratty' stand was run by Asians and there was a stall from the 'Great Cornish Pasty Co.,', or something equally non-German, so all a bit naff really, and incredibly crowded.
Put on by a global entertainment corporate called 'Underbelly', it might be more bearable later at night, but I doubt it, as you'd just be adding the inevitable drink and drugs to the mix!
Walking back out and up to Shaftesbury Avenue to visit Forbidden Planet (which also depresses me these days!), I narrowly avoided being hit by a horse pulling a sulky! Closely followed by several more, which started parking on the pavements, willy-nilly, as pedestrians dived everywhere, so I dived up the Avenue, and bought a few books!
When I returned, about 20-minutes later, to head off up to the tube station at the big Tottenham Court-Oxford Street's crossroads, it became clear there were now nearly a hundred Traveller carts, wagons and racers of all types, and about 20 double-decked buses, going nowhere, who had advised their passengers to alight, the whole of Charing Cross Road, now a pedestrianised sardine-tin!
It turned out this was an annual thing, lost in the mists of time - all the travellers from Kent, Essex and North London, gather somewhere, and rally down to Central London, park wherever they manage to end-up, and while the younger ones look after the horses and pose for photographs with tourists, the oldster's all go off to Harrods, to spend what cash they've made, legitimately, in lawful enterprise - of course!
Poor Harrods was my thought, I was dressed better than most of them, and I wouldn't have got into Harrods! Non-branded jeans! But tradition, is tradition, and makes us, Britain, what we are, so I was rather glad to have been part of the whole chaos for a few minutes, to have seen it, I've never seen it before, and am unlikely to, again!
Apparently last year's 'event' was marred by an 'incident' involving the 'younger element' so there was a heavy police presence, and I was very disappointed by the Traveller's vehicles - a few had the old paint-schemes, but most were plain, and almost all welded steel, even the old-looking spoked wheels, were flat steel and welded-tube, while one of the sulkies had what appeared to be a pair of mag-alloys off a 1986 Ford Granada, with low-profiles!
