E is for Eye Candy - Sort Of!

I think we've seen this before, in passing, but I took it apart and cleaned it of a lifetime's kitchen grime, a while ago and seem to have taken far too many photographs, which need to be out of Picasa and on the Wibbly Wobbly Way!

 

 

Obviously you need a kettle with the right kind/diameter of spout, and when the water starts to boil, the inner sliding component moves and the bird starts whistling! Before modern automatic cut-offs (which work the same way - pressure, try getting one to work if you haven't closed the lid properly, it'll boil dry!), this was an ingenious solution, to a minor problem!

U is for Unknown Salesman's Samples

A bit of a find here, and not mine, Adrian found them, and thinking I'd like them, saved them for the blog, and posterity! There's no clue as to their origins, and the message on the slips of paper pasted into the inner edge of the boxes (suggesting they were placed rather as the shots below, upright in a cabinet of some kind), which reads "Specimen contents as used if boxed to retail at 5/6d" [five shillings and six pence].

 

The mix of metal and plastic novelty 'prizes' places this very much in the 1950's, as do, strangely, the hats, rather squidged into one of the boxes, which are about three times the size of the hats I've known all my life, but which I remember from old TV shows (think 'Love thy neighbour,' Hancock, the soaps), where people often had the taller ones? Hard to unfold now, but they all have crude 'jewels' made from silver-foil, diamond (parallelogram) offcuts glued to them, which I also remember.

 

Both boxes have similar contents, indeed, very similar to the Old World Series we looked at years ago, with wooden whistles, steel wire-puzzles, paper logic puzzles and the novelties, which include stand-alone flats, broach-badges, the inevitable thimble (Christmas was almost a disappointment, if somebody didn't get an impractical, plastic thimble!), and rings. Many thanks to Adrian for grabbing these.

N is for Nuts!

While sorting out the house over the last few years, various things came to light which had long been forgotten, among which was this childhood stash of paperback-format bound volumes of Peanuts cartoons by Charles M. Schulz.

 

And then I found another one!

 

We were early fans of Snoopy and Co., and it was always Snoopy, it was Adults who thought of Charlie Brown first, because he represented the trails, tribulations and failures of adulthood, Snoopy was just a funny dog who thought he was a WWI fighter pilot and talked to yellow chicks, who coded back in scratch marks!

 

My brother and I had a shared bedroom until I was sixteen, and when we were little, there were loads of snoopy posters on the walls, similar to these book covers, a single image and some pithy aphorism about not liking Mondays (a decade before the Boomtown Rats), or something. Except they weren't actually glossy coated posters, they were matted wrapping paper!

 

I can't remember where we got them, but I guess it was WHSmith, in Fleet, or maybe Webb's, in Hartley Wintney, folded-over their wooden bars, you'd keep an eye out for a new colour, as like the book-covers they were single-colour sheets with a black-on-white snoopy, the paper an off-white, and about the same paper grade of brown parcel-paper, which they were near. I guess the idea was you used a whole sheet on a big-box gift, and the unwrapper got a cartoon! And, or course, they were much cheaper than the posters from the wire racks!

 

I seem to recall, Coronet, the publishers, also supplied a fair-few of my sci-fi novels a few years later! 

 

I also found these! Because we spent all our holidays running about on Hazeley Heath, climbing trees, shooting at each other with airguns (nope, we've still both got two working eyes!), from the tree-house or similar shenanigans, we tended to wreak havoc on our trousers (jeans or cords), and Mum would cover the holes (knees or bums!) with these patches, to give them a little more life. There were others, some more 'hippy' and I found a bunch of them too, they'll be a future post!

A is for ♪♫♪♪♫ All-in-All, Theyyyyy're All Just Bricks in the Wall ♪♫♪♪♫

Definitely ticking the 'other collectables' Tag, these are a fun novelty which seem to have been with us forever, or at least the mid-1970's, when I got my first, but, being a magpie, I now have four! Fake sponge bricks!

 

The collection,

"More than two of anything . . . "!

 

My original Christmas stocking brick, one of the 'practical' gifts which were always included; novelty soap, toothbrushes, combs, wiggly straws, things which, however-much fun they were, were also meant to be used daily! It's a soft bath-sponge material.

 

This was my second, it's a harsher foamed polyethylene, still a batheable foam, but more like garden-game balls, or pet-toys, and was given away at corporate newspaper events, or even with a daily-paper? I can't remember the promotion now, but I dare say, given it's The Sun, that they were for throwing at 'Lefty' politicians, or foreigners?

 

Once I had two, the track was inevitable, and over a few years I picked up two of these, more modern brick design, and made of recycled foam-rubber granules, much heavier, and not so good for washing!

 

In the US, they remain a strong, current phenomena, with corporate logo's to the fore, I think they are for throwing at referees' in disgust at their decisions, although I've never seen a clowud of them hitting the pitch, so I guess, once you've paid money for one, your desire to retain your investment in bricks & mortar, mean you hang on to it and just shake it threateningly toward the Man In Black?

 

While this is Art! A design by Alexander May, for a concrete-block sponge!

 

There was a trend for mattresses made out of the same heavy, granulated-foam, of my third brick, but often in greys or neutral colours, and they were a favourite of early fly-tipping when they started to break up, and you'd see this stuff in the rubbish pile, odd-shaped lumps, which looked exactly like concrete!

 

A very commercial one here, from Milton Bradley (MB Games - that's almost like LB for Lik Be!), and hitching a ride on the trend . . . nay, 'craze' for all things Karate, back in the 1970's - "Ah, Soh, Grasshopper!".
 

Contemporary one, available, new on the Internet as I write, this is expanded-polystyrene, and looks to be pre-coloured, so a few chips or a knocked corner would only add to its aura of realism!

 

Also current, but a bit naff, and more of a face-cloth? There's a sponge-foam core, but it's covered in a printed-pattern fabric 'pillow', sewn-flush, and over-printed with crude holes, I'd leave this on the self, as the point of the collection is that they look vaguely like bricks, and this doesn't! Although, I guess it does, if you don't display the 'holes'!

P is for Public Presentation of Pure Nostalgia

I can't remember why I was in the Fleet Library back in April, probably looking for someone, but I happened to see what was in the 'Christmas Toy Display' cabinets, and found this. I also noticed Fleet and Crookham Historical Society, seem to have been renamed Fleet and Croockham Local History Group?

 

 [They've loaded back to front again, and I can't be arsed to switch them all round, it's only NTS imagery, and it leaves the chocolate wrappers down the bottom, near the Internet image of similar stuff, so it's sort of sorted itself out]

 

Definitely remember the Monarch seed packets!

 

It's funny how many of them I recognise, I'm only sixty-one, but a good half my life is 'ancient history' to almost everyone under thirty! Rudolf Hess, I met him twice, in my duties, yet, he's history, proper history to every single person born after about 1985, and many born in the years immediately before.

 

This went through Facebook the other day, it's frightening how many have gone, and how bland the choice actually is these days, I tried to buy a Topic the other day, and couldn't find one, Googled them, and they've gone! Just like that, partly my fault for not buying enough, "Use them or lose them", under Capitalism, the customer's never been right!

D is for Duracell Durabeam

Another in the occasional series of nostalgic posts, and a funny one as I found the add' while scanning other stuff from the colour supplements going to recycling, when clearing the house out, back in '22, and doing so while sitting on the end of my bed nearest the scanner, with the actual torch, still working (not switched-on!), on the mantle-shelf behind, less than an arms reach away!

I don't remember many adverts for torches when I was a kid, this would have been from 1982, or thereabouts, I can't remember the date now, but there's chapter and verse on them, here. I do vaguely remember their being a larger one, but this little one was the classic, most UK homes in the 1980's had one tucked away somewhere!

 

The iconic black/yellow-highlighted design launched a thousand copycats and a - continuing - generation of like-designed Duracell's, with several of these being so-branded, the rubber one lying on the left, obviously, but a couple of the others, too, I think, they've gone off to storage with everything else! I think the one with a grey seal is none-Duracell, and the squared-end one is an Eveready?

 

And, believe me, this is about a third of the torches I've ended-up with, having now, the accrued torches of two lifetimes, my late Mother's and mine! All torches used to become temperamental, either because the tensioned copper or brass conductor plate/s at the switch, or between batteries would lose their springiness and not make good connections, or because acid-damage, from an old, dead-battery would kill the conductivity altogether!

I think my Durabeam (centre) was a Christmas stocking present, and one of the last crimbo-stockings I ever got, probably that 1982 xmas? And it still works, with quite a decent light, it has facilitated many Blog Posts, finding stuff in the attic!

 

Now, I have two pen torches, both LED, both still only two AA-batteries (same as the Durabeam), one a mini Maglite (about 2.5 inches long) which I keep in my driver's bag to find door numbers from the comfort of my cab, the other a cheapo' lookie-likie which I keep in the car, mostly to help fill my vape, or change its battery in dark lay-byes! And either of them produce a better light than all the above would, if used together!

Oh, and Energiser are a bunch of phuqing wankers! My own personal opinion, of course!

P is for Pure Nostalgia!

MFP - Music For Pleasure, a British 'K-Tel', There's lots about both on Wikipedia, so I won't bore you with it, but it's interesting. We loved this, played it all the time! I don't know how it ended-up at our house, possibly Woman's Hour on Radio4 had something to do with it? All instrumentals, some originally having lyrics, and all pop-hits in the early 1970's.

I thought Telstar was on here as well, but I can't see it listed, so there may have been another 'Moog' album! We were quite late to pop/rock, living our early lives mostly outdoors, or, if it was wet (and it was 2024-style wet for years when we were kids!) it was Lego, the wooden fort or Action Man, with the odd dodgy foray into the chemistry sets - which invariably involved setting our work-table on fire . . . Methylated spirts, it's almost magic!

Anyway, as a result this was pretty-much what we got until we were old enough to buy our own, which for me was Blondie's Heart of Glass as a first single, followed by No Mean City by Nazareth as my first album, quickly joined by two space themed orchestral works off the back of Star Wars, then several more Nazareth albums and three from Tangerine Dream, I'm sure the Moog led me to Tangerine Dream, but it wasn't until the advent of Trance-Techno, that the sound I wanted to accompany mile-long starships, failing in C-beams off the Shoulders of Orion, finally arrived. 

 

Obviously by then Jean-Michel Jarre, Vangelis, Peter Gabriel, Mike Oldfield and Aphrodite's Child had joined the soundtrack, but that's for another day. However, I can't leave you with an album still, so make what you will of this! I'm not sure what I make of it, I'm pretty sure no one does, but the 1970's were a different planet! Watch the backgrounds, especially the Hooded Swan at the start!

I get sad watching this stuff, not because I'm some populist, flag-shagging, Trumpundbrexit Boris-hugger wanting to go back to some sunlit upland of chocolate rationing and beating your wife with impunity, but because we had such high-hopes then, for a magic, happy, space-age future, and what we've got is closer to the grey dystopia of Metropolis.

And I guess that's the point of nostalgia, it's got some poignancy attached to it, it's not necessarily a happy thing?

M is for Micro Toy Box

I know one or two other people have covered these either on Blogger or elsewhere, and, to a certain extent, that is the nature of covering new or current production, but that doesn't mean they don't need to go here, if only as a box-ticker!

I only became aware of these when they were on clearance at Aldi, about a year-and-a-half ago, and bought these three, at about a fiver each, as they all had at least one figure! And I had intended to leave it there; a fun sample.

 

This is the Rock'Em Sock'Em Robot (originally a Marx toy, but for many years owned by Mattel), reduced to about 25mm! The green one being a 'common' item in the set, the red adversary was also available as a 'rare', and I think I did end-up with one, but we'll get on to that!

 

Under the card you get four more 'blind' toys, each actually in a blind bag, so no cheating, but a mountain of waste on a dying planet? I'm guessing the line didn't do that well, as in some jurisdictions, window sets of 10, 15 or 20 items were issued, where most (6,10 or 14) were unpacked and visible, with only a few (4, 5 or 6) 'blinded' behind a graphics card.

 

The three top/visible items in that first purchase. about a dozen of the items in the first series were figural, and most had a balance or 'oppo', but I guess the original idea was not to get them out and add them to your Airfix soldiers, but keep them as minis!

One of the weirder aspects of the Aldi ones was that the insert card contained instructions on how to reverse the card so you could use the tubs as a unitary display system; a stack of little clear cabinets!

This being on the outside of the insert. But, "Hold on?" I hear the brighter of you asking, there's a side missing anyway, why would you need to turn in, to hide the artwork? But then you'd be displaying the instructions for the display faff, on the two wings, so you'd need to fold them out of the way too, and . . . and . . . it really doesn't make much sense? Not only that, but I think the point was that the blank side was supposed to have a sticker on it, hence 'turn' and 'reverse'?

 

In the event, they put stickers on all four sides, not only that but A) on the inside faces of the tub, and B) the type of paper stickers which will be a bugger to remove without a lot of effort, mess and the intervention of a solvent? The whole thing was a nonsensical daftness which clearly hadn't been thought through, or executed properly, by anyone in design, marketing or the art department?

 

The blind bags themselves give no clue as to the contents.

 

As it happened, they were then - in the run-up to Christmas '22 - further reduced to something like £2.50, to clear the stillage for the next bargain, and sorting through them to remove those which had been raided, I bought the lot! As a result, I had a fair few duplicates, not least these Hot Wheel cars (also a Mattel brand), so I 'unboxed' some!

 

Which revealed also, another odd aspect of the 'stacking' instructions - three different box designs which didn't stack between designs, and with no lids, didn't really stack at all, with or without reversed card inserts, or removed stickers??? Actually 'stacking' like empty yogurt-pots - inside each-other!

Barbies, board-games, bears and other recognisable brands of our childhood were included in the series, and this is the contents of another tub. The board-games and other - originally closed-box - toys were represented by simple stickers around small polymer tiles.

 

A couple of the tubs went on the scanner, with dubious results in the 'success' field!

Contents of another tub, stacking hoops from Little Tikes (now MGA Entertainment), a bucket & spade, a Barrel of Monkeys (Lakeside-Milton Bradley-Hasbro), a rocking horse and an early Nerf gun. The monkeys are no more than about 8mm at the longest line.

 

The full line of the first series, I think, in the end, I managed to get everything except a Magic 8-Ball, but I ended up with a lot of tat, and while I meant to take more shots of the mini toys, they ended-up going to storage, and will have to wait for another day, but there's plenty on the Internet for those whose 'research' consists of hoovering up other peoples efforts.

 

And while I was relieved to get one or two Skeletors for my dozen-or-so He-Men, I was gutted when friend of the Blog, Tom Clague, posted his trio (with Teela) on Faceplant and alerted me to a second series!

And - of course - now I have to get the 'army men', who look to be marginally larger than the monkeys!

This second series, like the Horrible History figures from Worlds Apart, seem to have gone straight to a few dealers, suggesting that you need to know where the good trade-auctions are, if you want to get this stuff as a year-round earner, in your evilBay or Etsy shop! And with another Nerf and a Pepper Pig, some more modern brands are in there.

 

Branded to Super Impulse USA, but, with both Hasbro and Mattel to the fore as representations, licensing must have been a nightmare!