B&H is for Bauble Bears and Hairy Hangers!

Yeeeeessss, I do seem to be compensating for another treeless Christmas, with a spending spree on baubles against future traditional Christmases! We've met the bears before here, but I seem to have added five without really noticing!

This was in The Range, and is a flocked blow-mould

 

 

While I regret purchasing this one now, a garden centre standard from Gisela Graham, it's in a baby's romper-suit, and is a bit schmaltzy? But it was the first one I found this year, although second to be shot, and now it's met the others I guess it'll have to stay?

This was Homebase, but actually glass, not the plastic they've been using for the last few years, now going bust, some of the stores have been taken up by the above-mentioned 'Range, but not all of them. He ticks two boxes on the tree themes front, being both a bear and a soldier!

 

Charity shop rescue bear! I vaguely remember these being piled-high in somewhere like Clintons Cards a few years ago, and are clearly now being cast-off in favour of whatever 'this year's' fashion is. It has stitches all over and patches and stuff, and I think there were lines of cards and stationary attached to the licence? I don't know if it had a title, but has Me to You on the foot, which may be the franchise? . . . quick Google; Ah yes! Tatty Teddies!

 

Finally, another faux-distressed or 'aged' bear, but this one brand-new from Morrisions supermarkets, in that 'old' fur which first appeared about twelve years ago with grey-rabbits, one Easter, if I recall correctly?

 

A group-photo', there were about 24 last time I did the tree, and a couple more have been added in the last few years, so I think it's probably over 30 now, or ten-plus per turn. Having the mild ADHD which comes of being on the spectrum, I'm very strict, and will sort them into three piles, small-medium-large, resin-flocked-blow mould-glass, grey-brown-polar white etc, and then they go on the tree smaller ones near the top, larger ones down the bottom, equally spaced, like ursine snow!

S is for Shelfies - Morrison's

Morrison's supermarkets have taken a leaf out of the 'George at Asda' type business model, and invented the in-house Nutmeg branding for what is collectively, or sometimes rather euphemistically called 'homewares', and among them are the inevitable Poundland-type tat, of which a few are always figural, and I shot these back in April;

The world is groaning under the weight of this stuff, but, if it's figural, I have a sense of duty to annotate it when I encounter it! And, let's be honest, the picture has been the same in toys since the first Tramp Steamer arrived from Hong Kong filled with cheap polymer knock-offs, 70-odd years ago!

It's pored resin, which is pretty stable, so on one level will last forever, whether at the bottom of the ocean or in land-fill, without doing much obvious harm (except possibly confusing future alien archaeologists), but the trouble is, it chips easily, and those chips end-up being ground under-foot into micro polymers which will end up in the environment and/or the food chain.

It's no longer a question of if or when you get micro-polymers in your body, but how much is there already, and the family cats, dogs, local squirrels etc . . . Butterflies were down so much this year an emergency has been declared.

Mini pot-Gnomes, about 90/100mm maybe, they have those weird rods in them which I haven't managed to identify the material of, they may be a coated steel or something more exciting/exotic like a reinforced carbon-fibre?

 

I rather liked this, the mouse is a bit big for role-play, but if you fantasy wargame in 54mm (and some do), this could have a use somewhere in the background! That's it, a few bits I saw out and about, a while ago now!

E is for Easter Bunnies - The Half-Sensible Bit!

Well, it was a bit of fun, and not as expensive as I thought it might be, some of them were only a quid or two, but I have got about 20-quids worth of chocolate rabbits to eat, just as I was sliming-down down that middle-age spread, having gone back to work, at something semi-physical!

 

But I didn't purchase every bunny I found, just a cross-section of the more normal ones, I regret the grinning Kinder Bunny, as it's really in the class I avoided, but I console myself with the fact that at least I know what it will taste like!

 

Aldi's had a plethora of Bunnies, including a colour variant of the one I obtained (left), which was the 'specially selected' hazelnut one, and a more colourful range of both upright and squatting milk-chocolate ones . . . maybe next year! The Aldi Rabbit also won several of the online taste-tests, so I'm saving it till last!

 

I seem to recall touching on the Rabbit Wars, a few years ago, when Lindt finally had to admit the basic shape predated their Rabbit by decades, allowing Aldi, Lidl and others to turn-on the taps which have led to today's choice. Since when there has been the Caterpillar Cake War, and regular flare-ups!

 

The Lindt, though, remains a nicely smooth 'European' chocolate, and comes in about six sizes, of which the larger ones tend to have more limited availability, and I only got the smallest three, having half a mind how the posts would develop!

 

I didn't see Lidl's Lindt clone, but they got too confident after the previous round of Rabbit Wars, and made one so similar (in packaging) they had to destroy tons of them a couple of years ago! But their upright did run to two colours, of which I took the blue, naturally, but pink was there!

 

Rejected uprights included the three licensed or 'product placed' Rabbits from Smarties, Milkybar and M&M's, all stupid looking, and while OK for kids, a further example of how a few corporations have literally turned us into consumer-sheep in a few decades, nasty!

 

And don't get me wrong, many years ago I asked for a Smarties egg, and still have the mug, it's one of my favourite mugs, but firstly, that was when A) an egg in a mug was as good as it got, and B) Smarties still tasted nice, and of chocolate, the last few times I've bought smarties I've regretted it, they're flowery-chalky pap now!

 

The three uprights I did end-up with included the Cadbury's Peter, because it was Peter, not because I like their chocolate, I don't! The Lidl Favorina and the Kinder, if I'd been thinking straighter, I'd have got the Thornton's and shot the Kinder, but given the amount of Kinder on the blog, and the fact there may be a toy worth a post in its belly, means it happened the way it happened!

 

Bare chocolate Rabbits were around, and while the Thornton's was expensive for what is now no more than another shelf-brand, I think most of their shops have gone now, just a few dozen franchise 'boutiques' mostly shared with other brands, like Ferrero (Kinder), while the Favorina (Lidl) was too daft-looking, another one for the kids!

 

While this one wasn't as big as its message gives the impression it was, to the casual observer, rejected for being daft-looking! I think I shot it in Aldi?

 

These three all seem to have used the same contractor, or the same commercially available 'off the shelf' mould-tool? From the left we have Tesco's, Morrisons' and Asda's, with only the wrapping being different, I will eat these in sequence, to see if the taste differs? Follow-up in twelve-months? Possibly!

 

The Tesco came in four different pastel wraps, I chose the green, while the Asda also came as a white-chocolate Bunny with a suitably pale artwork and polka-dots! Interestingly though, the online artwork for 'my' Asda Bunny shows a much darker-brown colourway, which may be last year's version, still being used for publicity shots?

 

Another upright and more animated, smaller, filled Rabbits from Nomo, these were in Morrison's, but I think I did see them elsewhere, and I was tempted by the upright, he would have improved the group-shot above, but my several experiences of gluten-free pies have not been good (the pastry is like cardboard), so I stopped myself, and will never know how good or bad they might have been!

 

I can't remember if I shot these in Morrison's or Sainsbury's, the latter, I think, but again too cartoony for me, and more eggy than Rabbity, so pretty much off the parameter list, before I saw them, but Belgian chocolate is never bad?

 

Speaking of Sainsbury's, theirs was by far the prettiest of the wrappings, with a rich greenish-gold that gave Lindt a run for their money, without aping the Swiss one so close as to risk a court-case, design was the closest too, but it wouldn't stand-up, having a bowed base, and needs to be propped!

A comparison with the Aldi and one of the similar trio, to compare with the previous shot.

 

If you go ordering Chocolate Bunnies online, you find lots of smaller, regional or bespoke brands offering similar fayre, of which I was rather taken by the semi-realistic wrap on this one from the Candy Store, but I wouldn't trust chocolate hollow-Rabbits or eggs ordered online to arrive in one piece! And with those ears it might be a Hare!

 

With the many types out there, the alternate wraps, and the regular changes in artwork, one hopes somebody, somewhere, is annotating them all, as I'm too busy with toy figures to disappear down a Chocolate Rabbit hole!

E is for Easter Bunnies - Breaking! Murder in Rabbit Town!

 

"They've killed Kenny!"

 

E is still for Easter Bunnies

 

 

Uncle Brian's back from Morrison's 

and the eldest has six-weeks off from Uni'!

C is for Crafty Sugar!

It's been a funny old day, my Northern friends are all posting pictures of 2-to-3-inches of lovely, fluffy snow on their Faceplant feeds, we've just had a shed-load of rain! So, plans to hoe the weeds on the drive have been replaced by a Picasa-clearing session! In fact I've done more to sort out the desk-top, but some other folders have been found/sorted.

 

As a result of the latter, this is stuff from several folders, and the above are, I believe Dr. Oetker (pronounced "errt'ker"?) edible cake decorations, although being made of a commercial royal-icing designed to produce figurines, I wouldn't suggest trying to eat them, if you value your teeth, they are rock-hard, indeed, probably harder than many rock types!

 

They were purchased (probably in Sainsbury's) and photographed back in 2020, and then lost and forgotten about in the sadness of that season, languishing in a folder I'd buried, only to resurface in today's shenanigans!

These were purchased and photographed in the last month or two, definitely from Sainsbury's, and look identical, but are not Dr. Oetker, being styled House of Cake, and because I didn't know when shooting the first lot, I would need the logo, I didn't shoot it, just memorising Dr. Oetker before they went-off to storage (they will last as long as chalkware, with the same care and lack of damp!), so while I 'believe', I can't say definitively?

 

Older ones.

 

Suffice to say that they are the same, except for the likely different card insert, and Dr. Oetker don't list them on their site any more, so the new brand-mark may mean both were bought-in from somewhere else?

 

Morrison's (and Waitrose/John Lewis) are both stocking these, under the Cake Décor branding, a nice set of three sugar craft figurals, with a very similar Santa, but a rocking snowman, along with a rather surprised penguin.

 

And Asda are carrying this pair, obviously from the same source, but branded in-house, and while the Santa is the same sculpt, they have gone with a companion Rudolf, although it should be Rudolfina, as male Reindeer lose their antlers after the Autumn rutting, the females retain theirs through the winter, so Santa's team should really be girls!

The three Santa Clauses together, the Asda one has a better red than the washed-out pink of the Morrisons' one, but I suspect that is down to batch? While the Sainsbury's one, which I'm pretty sure used to be Dr. Oetker has the better packaging, for a product which although as hard as rock, is as likely to chip as slate!

Tesco haven't had anything like this (a few 'button' relief-flats), on several visits to the big one in Aldershot, nor a shelf-gap or label for any, while Aldi and Lidl wouldn't stock something so specific and minority interest?

E is for Edibles, Seasonal Edibles!

One of the few tropes not copied from Small Scale World by the two P's is our occasional look at edible figurals (it's only a matter of time, I'm sure!), and spellchecker hates the word, so, from Merriam-Webster: "of, relating to, or consisting of human or animal figures.".

 

So, a quick trip in time, back to Easter (Yes, I AM behind, but that's only because there's so much stuff in the queue!), and I picked these up from TKMaxx, a pound-thirty, it would have been rude not to! Chocolate bunnies, when we were kids Granny would always give is the little sets of five Lindt animals, and it triggers a certain nostalgia button, whenever I see such things, even if they are taller, thinner and not so Lindt'y!

Also from Easter, KitKat bunnies! Years ago (2007?) we had a taste-test on the difference between UK and US KitKat; one of my American colleagues wouldn't believe ours were better than theirs, so we had a blindfold tasting, in the office, after her mother sent her a US bar from New York, the UK bar won hand's down! I now think whichever corporate giant owns KitKat (Nestle I think) has adopted the cheaper US recipe, and there's no difference, the same blandness of that vegetable fat filler leaving one slightly disappointed?

And so to the season at hand and first purchase (we buy these nice treats so you don't have to!) was a Penguin 'cracker', actually following-on from the recent card-bus post, I wanted to see what was available these day, specifically from Double Decker, the answer was zilch, but I did find this!

 

A standard Penguin bar and a little pack of chocolate biscuits shaped like penguins on the other side, as the whole trope of Penguins is that they are covered in chocolate, these are hardley they? Still out there.

Maltesers are following the KitKat route with small figural versions of themselves, to be honest this was more like the KitKat in texture than a Malteser, but the mint version was yummy . . . Chocolate venison! Still out there.

There will now be an intermission while we ignore figurals and get pissed in the foyer! A seasonal treat in our house was a shot-glass of 'egg-nog', which started when I was too young to remember, probably helped us sleep until Santa had been? Drugging kids - top-parenting for generations!

 

Later, as younger teenagers, when Dad would take us down to Bavaria to do navigational or survival exercises with the Special Forces, one of the treats was going to the 'Huhnchenhause' in Neuhausen-ob-Eck, where we would get drunk on Phauenbrau, have a Chicken-and-chips bar-meal while ignoring the smell of the livestock overwintered downstairs (you became immune to the stench of manure after about 20-minutes, or the end of your first beer), and finish-off with an egg-nog, or a cherry-brandy, before the walk-home through piled snow and the hard frosts they have down there, under clear, starry-skies!

 

If the divorce judge had known what was going-on, I'm sure he would have put a stop to it, but I'm glad he didn't, as I had a late-childhood like nobody reading this, and I wouldn't change it for the world, not even crying with the pain of digging a snow-hole without gloves, we'd been told we'd be sleeping in that night! We didn't, we retreated to the Knorrhütte for more egg-nog, albeit with the smell of sweaty-socks and B/O replacing Neuhausen's cattle!

 

Anyway, so when I saw this Polish Wawel confection, going cheap in Morrison's cheapie/end-of-line/experimental foreign-lines display, I had to try it! It wasn't particularly egg-noggy, nor terribly alcoholic, but I finished it in one sitting, which I think can be taken as a vote of confidence and seal of approval, from here, anyway!

We've seen these before, but not with perforations and gift tags, I think? Lindt bears, in Christmas jumpers! They are not the same as Granny's sets of five, which were relief-flat solids, these are rotary-moulded 'hollow-casts'!

These appeared in my Faceplant feed the other day, an independent chocolate company; Chococo, who make all sorts of figurals, in milk, plain, white and caramel chocolate, so I collaged a bunch of them for the blog!

 

We've got fish, owls, dinosaurs, robots, frogs, gorillas, mice and sea life, and that was a few minutes searching! You can - of course - get lots of these moulds nowadays, in Hobbycraft or similar ( or Amazon/evilBay), and quickly set yourself up as a bespoke chocolatier!

Because I'd clicked on a bunch of Chococo's thumbnails, the Faceplant algorithm decided I was in need of even more tooth-rot, and started sending me links to every Tom-Dick-&-Harry firm doing the online 'your childhood favourites' sweet shop thang, so I grabbed a few more screenshots before marking all the posts 'unwanted'!

All the old favourites are here - pink and white 'sugar' mice, jelly snakes and less traditional deer, mini Lindt-bear knock-offs, caramel gingerbread men, mallow or jelly Santa's and 'milk-dud' penguins!

I is for Invertebrate Skeletons? It's Impossible!

The story 'de jour' this year, has been the growing realisation on Faceplant, and other [anti-]social media sites, that a lot of the skeletons on offer in the piles of polymer crap, being flogged off the back of what is supposed to be a thoughtful day of genuflection, for our own mortality and the memories of those who have gone before us, are actually completely bonkers, and I mean kecks-on-your-head and pencils-up-your-nose, shell-shocked bonkers! Not least because some pertain to be the internal skeletons of animals with exoskeletons, and others - the skeletons of things which normally have neither!

 

In my defence, I had already begun, over a month ago to shoot them in situ, when a post on 'The Darker Side of Science' alerted me to the bigger picture and the fact that I was not the only one, if not actually late to the party!

Shot first but seen third, this was in the big Farnborough Asda, under their George label, and as I had by this point seen the two below, had an idea for a short post, ergo: the shelfie was executed, and here's a spider skeleton, of course!

 

The one I'd seen first, Sainsbury's had these out quite early in September, so I'd walked past them dozens of times hoping the display might magic itself some bags of 'army-men' skeletons, zombies or the like, no such luck of course, but the ridiculous spider skeleton was tempting, at only three quid, but a bit big? Two-quid cheaper than Asda, it appears to be the same moulding!

 

And Morrisons also had these out before October I think, however they then ran-out after I'd stated collecting the shelfies and I found myself going back several times looking for the restocking, which, but the time it came, had led to me discovering their yellow-ticket scheme is better than Sainsbury's, with the result my freezer box is full of strawberries and raspberries at 29p a punnet! It's a larger design than the other two.

Amanda Bussell has come up with a  lovely psychological hack for accepting all these weird and wonderful creatures into your house, life, or wargames army! Just imagine they are the crazed output of a mad 'Dr. Moreau' type scientist! And yes, that is the skeleton of a boneless mollusk!

 

István Xpali found this larger, articulated spider 'skeleton' in his native Hungary, at 7000 Forints (about £15) it's at the expensive end of the cryptozoological spectrum!

 

The octopus again, all jelly in real life, and another large, articulated spider, from the price I'm guessing it's a lawn ornament around two or three feet long? It's also a particularly evil looking thing with all those dead eyes!

 

Meanwhile, Nicole Marie found this, err . . . it has to be said doesn't it? I have to write this shit down . . . a pumpkin skeleton!!!! In Jo-Ann Fabrics, an Ohio-based haberdasher's chain in the United States. It's a PUMPKIN . . . SKELETON! And there are smaller ones on the shelf below!

Suddenly this lobster, shot by a Toni Delany looks fecking sane and normal! Another internal skeleton for a creature better-known for its exoskeleton, almost easier to take than most of the others, because we know them to be large, hard'ish things?

 

And finishing this section of found stuff, is another huge outdoor display spider, this one about five-foot across, and owned by Dani Dennan. There is a good video on YouTube which looks at many of them here, and Clint's Reptiles (also on YouTube) does a yearly round-up of the whackier new-entrants to the genre, I was going to post another link, but most of his stuff is 'normal' so you're better off doing a search for "Halloween Invertebrate Skeletons".

Meanwhile, I hade made a purchase myself, not much safer ground, being equally, or more of a fantastical beast, but having grabbed the snake in Poundland or wherever it was, a few years ago, I couldn't resist another reptile!

Posed here with an unknown figure I think may be an interim-period Supreme, maybe? It was a fiver in Morrison's and with the snake, directs my Games Workshop army project - rather on hold, but a long-term gaol - toward a reptile mounted army, you can probably fit three or four old-school GW riders between the two sets of hips/shoulders!

Back to Asda for something else and saw these, which appeared quite late (last week) and were about Action Man/G I Joe size, which suggests a gag which could scar a child for life, coming down to breakfast and finding that the horrid little shelf-elf ate your doll in the night, and just left the bones still in the clothes!

 

While I was taking all the other shelfies I shot this rather fine, life-size rat, in Morrison's and you can see giant bats behind, with the same flimsy thread of elastic they had fifty years ago, when they tended to be joke-shop rack-toys over here, and Halloween was something other people did!