About Me

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No Fixed Abode, Home Counties, United Kingdom
I’m a 62-year-old Aspergic gardening CAD-Monkey. Sardonic, cynical and with the political leanings of a social reformer, I’m also a toy and model figure collector, particularly interested in the history of plastics and plastic toys. Other interests are history, current affairs, modern art, and architecture, gardening and natural history. I love plain chocolate, fireworks and trees, but I don’t hug them, I do hug kittens. I hate ignorance, when it can be avoided, so I hate the 'educational' establishment and pity the millions they’ve failed with teaching-to-test and rote 'learning' and I hate the short-sighted stupidity of the entire ruling/industrial elite, with their planet destroying fascism and added “buy-one-get-one-free”. Likewise, I also have no time for fools and little time for the false crap we're all supposed to pretend we haven't noticed, or the games we're supposed to play. I will 'bite the hand that feeds', to remind it why it feeds.
Showing posts with label Novelty. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Novelty. Show all posts

Saturday, October 31, 2026

H is for Horror of Horrors!

On a trip to an art supply store, our roving reporter in New York found this lurking on a shelf; the scariest Halloween mask ever, it's named DEATH DEALER and dates from 2020, he thought it would make a good face for a Guy, come November the 5th!
 
Clearly dating from the period whence came the pooping Donald key-ring, and bog-brush Donald, which we've seen here passim, and the world will be a better place when all trace of the buffoon has been wiped from it's collective memory, something which may take centuries!
 
Issued by Rubie's Costume Co, both sides of the North American boarder, and possible jumping off point for Trump and Hegseth's next war; the acquisition of the 51st State! Don't worry Canada, we owe you one, and we'll be there.
 
Now, I've posted my views of the orange loon before, here, but I'm also vaguely active on Quora, a strange website, half useful answers to serious questions, half completely rabid garbage, which makes the discourse on Faceplant or Ex-Twitts  look sane, and I have slowly been honing and tweaking my summery of the current President, in answer to the various MAGAts and Anglophobes who pop-up there with their trolling questions, such as this recent one from someone calling himself 
, who claims to be autistic and to read a lot of philosophy!
 
 
To which this was my answer, and it remains my current firmly held belief;

"No.

"When a clown moves into the White House, he doesn't become Presidential. The White House becomes a circus."

Trump is no Churchill, Roosevelt, or Truman, he isn’t even a Clinton or Obama. He's a cunt. The draft-dodging felon is the worst US President of all time (a field with several contenders already), and he is the least statesmanlike leader of the ‘Free West’ ever. He is uneducated and suffers from significant intellectual limitations; he lacks wisdom, is ‘unread', incurious and a dim-witted fool. He is classless, charmless, and uncool. He is an untrustworthy, insincere, inveterate serial-liar, a fraud and fraudulent, so he lacks credibility. He is a sex-pest and sex-offender. He has no compassion, no wit, no warmth, no subtlety, no sensitivity, no self-awareness, no humility, no honour and no grace. He’s an embezzler, a bad-payer, master grifter, a bully and a bore. He appears to be a Moscow shill, and yet is afraid of China, so is also a coward, indeed, 'The' back-pedalling TACO coward. He is rude, abusive, and insults his friends and allies as if they were his enemies, throwing tantrums like a five-year-old. He eats shit; this makes him a fucking fat cunt, and he’s ugly, with his beady eyes, teeny mouth, weeny teeth, and tiny hands, topped-off with that weird pubic-wig, often caught in the wind, praying for its own end. He is a racist bigot, homophobic, misogynistic, pathological, socio-psychopathic and a megalomaniac. Guilty of violating campaign finance laws, he regularly practices perjury, obstruction of justice, contempt of court, bribery, malicious and vexatious litigation and malfeasance. He is a self-absorbed, self-serving, self-obsessed, self-aggrandising, selfish, conceited, malignant narcissist. He's foul-mouthed, and he talks too much yet fails to address the topic/subject/problem, wandering off on unfettered flights of surreal fantasy - out loud, on camera! If he gives you a gift, expect a bill, and a knife in the other hand. Because he IS dangerous, he has disgraced America, sullied its word, turned away its friends, destroyed its standing on the world stage, and damaged trust in its institutions. Fuck Donald J. Trump, the orange-painted Trumplethinskin turd and despicable human being, 'Diaper Don', a panty-shitting, pulsating pustule of a monster in a Trumpanzee meat-suit."


The current decision of the White House to move closer to Putin, is despicable, and it's decision to push Ukraine (and all of Europe, by extension) out into the cold is shocking, and a betrayal of every sacrifice of Americans in World War Two.

And so, it is incumbent on all fair minded, democratic Americans, to count on absolutely nothing and drag their arses to the polling booths on Tuesday, to end this surreal, Kafkaesque madness.
 
2nd Nov, I learned two more today - Butterscotch Shittler and Pumpkin Spice Pedo!

Tuesday, October 27, 2026

HB is for Horror Bargains!

And Home Bargains, where I went at the end of August, and found a few bits of interest to readers of the Blog, ticking two boxes here, edibles and white button toys,, and incidentally; I spent a couple of hours last night re-Tagging White Button, which now shares the Clockwork Tag, but Clockwork of the vintage, large or tin-plate variety won't have the White Button Tag, I also added Cable Drum as a Tag!
 
Hallow Scream . . . geddit! Well, once you have a few, you just have to keep getting them! A gangling ghost and a perambulating pumpkin, similar to the garden centre ones we saw last year, and with a growing selection of robots, marching troops and a couple of dinosaurs, not to mention a Grinch (also Home Bargains), it's a race to see who dominates what will become a dedicated tub!
 
I thought the 'BOO!' detracted from the overall character of the toy . . .
 
. . . so I removed it with a bit of hand-sanitiser mixed with de-icer!
 
I also picked up these chocolate eggs, and managed to remove the wraps carefully (another collection of mine is old sweet and confectionery wrappers!), and managed to take the outer liner home with them, so I can scan it for the eventual A-Z listing, which in this case is Mon Desir, the people who brought us the chubby, semi-deform Superhero gift-eggs, about ten/twelve years ago.
 
Pretty standard chocolate, not unpleasant, no white chocolate half, and a fun thing for a lunch box, or even the breakfast table - Halloween falls on Saturday this year doesn’t it?
 
Sadly the contents aren't Halloween related, being 'bog-standard' stuff we've seen before from other minor brands, with the bobbing 'chariot' and  jogging dog-team, both mirroring such items from Kinder's past, the frog a common capsule toy, and the 'space' pick-up truck is fun!

Monday, October 26, 2026

R is for Recent Stuff - Follow-ups 1

A few shots I've been taking as I try to sort this years plunder into the ever diminishing space at the end of my storage unit!
 
These are the 60mm Crescent Mohicans (oooh, spellchecker really doesn't like that!) I bought a while ago, four of six and I need the standing firer replaced with a better one, so fast forward to the pair I bought at the Plastic Warrior show in June, and . . .
 
. . . and I'm still short one! The archer with bow, but funnily enough I think I may have one or two of them in with the standard Crescent 60mm Indian sample, as I'm pretty sure one or two have come in with cheapo' lots, and I just put them in the tub 'with the others'! Time will tell, but we're getting there!
 
The Cherilea swoppets who have come in over the last 36-odd months, these are not the master collection, but in terms of the 1st and interim versions, probably excede the 'deep-storage' sample, but in the case of the final version, only a part figure, against a much better sample, seen here, a fair few years ago!
 
I think we've seen all these now, so time for a comparison line-up, I thought the chap on the left might be Husky/Corgi Junior but he's not, so possibly Galoob or New Ray drive-though ice-cream kiosk operative? Then the Corgi standard ice cream seller, then the giant, might-be-Lucky piracy we saw the other day. Then the Corgi streetlamp repair man, then another 'styrene scale up, from Hong Kong! PVC-PVC-PS-PE-PS
 
Interim line -up of French Marine's Fear! Missing a couple of key-rings I think, from the always-been-in-some-sort-of-storage zone, and the composition one we saw here years ago, but not bad, and mostly from Chris Smith, I bet! Still, the absentees will allow for a more definitive Welsh Ladies shot, another day!
 


The sublime (Tudor Rose) and the ridiculous, a hideous pile of Hong Kong tat, which I ended-up with because someone gave it to me, I think? Hong Kong did churn out some fuggugly stuff! I think it's marked JC on the base, but I don't really care, it's naff, kitsch shite, but . . . figures!
 
Finally I said I though the Airfix 1:35th Quickbuild 'Lego' Sherman was closer to 1:32nd, and here I've shot it next to the CTS/BMC one I got at last years PW show, and you can see it's a lot smaller. The difference being OK for a garden war game, but is seriously going to piss-off a purist!

Friday, September 11, 2026

A is for Autumn Assortment - Gift Fair

Peter Evans, roving reporter in London, roved to Birmingham for the Autumn Gift fair, which I had hoped to attend, but Space, Time and Nathaniel waits for no man, and it wasn't going to happen, still, we do have these from Peter;
 
Possibly a bit big for war gaming, but in the garden the rules can change, they're only counters, when all's said and done! No figures though!
Variation on a theme, I don't think we've seen the packaging before, but we have seen the figures now, the ones with 'vignette' bases.
 
Kawong is a new name, so a new Tag! The stuff looks similar to the New Ray stuff (next shot), so fans of modern farm equipemnt can have a field day . . . field? Geddit? I'll get me coat . . . 
 
Just mentioned.
 
Dinosaurs, it seems you get a window-visible realistic dinosaur, and a dig-for-it skeleton, to match whichever Dino' is in the specific bag?
 
I think we've seen these before, but you can't have too many images of things!
All the above look to be from Padgett Brothers (A-to-Z) 
 
Definitely seen these before, I think several times, Tobar, House of Marbles and others, but we like a bit of paratrooper action here at Small Scale World!
 
Gotta get me one of these, preferably a Hugh? You don't always find a Hugh in these pre-personalised sets, but any company which does Anna and Annabelle, Ben and Benjamin, must surely do a Hugh? Also, note one of each colour are supplied with a blank lable (top of display), so you can write what you like - "Kiss my shiny metal arse"!
 

A Japanese merchandise store had a full range of Gashapon, including those which can be presented as Christmas baubles for placing on a tree (lower shot), although Peter noted "unfortunately, no Samurai". And many thanks to Peter for sending these over to the Blog.

A is for Autumn Assortment - Local

A few shelfies which were meant for Rack Toy Month, but missed it, as I had other stuff to post and ran out of month! And it's off to B&M for the first two, shot in June and July respectively, so availability may be dodgy now, they have quite a quick turnover on some stuff.
 
Somewhere between 25 and 54mm compatible, but I thought they’d be of interest to some, maybe for garden war-gaming, or as 'Market Garden' OP's! Shot at the end of June, this year.
 
A month later and I left these on the shelves, they were twelve-quid plus, for not a lot, and most of it slime or plaster? The skeletons will appear in mixed lots over time, and if they were in the 'dig' eggs, what was in the slime . . . four instantly rejectable novelty lumps of something?
 
These next four were shot the other week, in two garden centres and all should still be out there? These look like they come from the same factory as those glasslike resin Kodama we saw a few years ago;
 
https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2024/02/l-is-for-lets-ave-some-more.html
 
And, while 'mere' mini rubber ducks, a definite sub-branch of collecting!
 
In the same garden centre I saw these figural lip-balm tops, sadly the shot didn't take, but I failed to realise at the time! Again, not something I'm going to fill my pockets with, but nevertheless, they may well turn-up in mixed lots of figures in the years to come?
 
Legami are becoming  a regular here, and these seem to me to be a complete waste of human endeavour and resource. They 'protect' a couple of centimetres of a much longer cable, so protect nothing, and if fitted as shown, will only pull on the connection between USB and device?
 
Also Legami, and while I think we've seen several Sloths or Pandas as shelfies or actual collection entrants, I don't know if Koalas have featured yet? Both the last two were shot in Haskins near Alice Holt, not sure about the other two . . . possibly a Squires garden centre?
 
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PS - My reading list hasn't updated for at least 72-hours, and my link-list on the visible Blog, hasn't updated for over 24-hours, so you may have posted really interesting stuff, but I haven't a clue, something which has been getting worse for a few weeks now?! And with problems uploading images, recognised on the forums (reduce the size of the edit window, and drag-&-drop), it's clear Google is tinkering in the background, not in a nice way, and telling us fuck-all about it!

Wednesday, September 9, 2026

H is for ♪♪♫♫ Handsup! Baby; Handsup . . . ♪♫♪♪

Sometimes a plan comes together when you didn't even know you needed a plan! It's a T-is-for-Two really, but the title was sitting there staring me in the old fizzog! I've mentioned before that prior to the doors opening at Sandown Park, there is a bit of a boot-sale scrummage on the steps of the terraces in the main stand, and sometimes I get an item or two, sometimes I don't, on Saturday just gone (forgot to do a reminder, sorry), I got a little wooden tank, and a feckin robot!

The coolest robot I've seen for a long time! Bit of a plinth on him, but that's because he's a collapsing thumb-push toy, where you push the plunger and slacken his hidden cord 'skeleton', causing him to decline & fall, all over the place, only to spring back up when you release the pressure.
 
Next to him on the disco floor, is an Azrak-Hamway (AHI) parachute toy of Superman, which was a nice find, later in the morning, but I have a carded Planet of the Apes one, from the same series, so a loose Superhero with tatty cape, isn't getting me as excited as it might? But the robot!
 
Later the same day -Batman! See comments, he's got a strange chest logo as well, which I meant to mention.
 
An hour later . . . apparently he's 'Wonderman', a knock-off of the AHI Batman, probably from South America!
 
It's a bit dirty, and I will give it a clean, so when we next have one of our semi-regular overviews of the Ajax-Archer-Cherile/Hilco-'Answer Robot', we'll look at it again, because the same DNA runs strong in this one, Luke!
 
Mark is an 'MT' or 'TM', which could be Japan's Masudaya (Modern Toys), they did carry quite a bit of HK plastic at one point, although they tended to place their logo in a diamond cartouche, running landscape, or it might be Tai Ming (most likely in this case), but their M was squashed, with the outer lines angled outward (^^), so it could just as easily be a third maker?

Sunday, August 30, 2026

F is for Follow-up - Jumping Aliens

I think the last time we looked at these, I both mused they were different to previous ones, vis-a-vis colour schemes, and that I'd found more on Amazon (and left them there!). But, without postage, and at pocket money prices, I picked these up earlier in the week, and while they're not strictly rack-toys, they are in the cheap, novelty bracket!
 

To be honest, I can't remember where I got them, but I think it might have been the party section of Asda, Sainsbury's or Tesco? There are certain differences, and while full size, not the smaller ones from Hobbycraft, we saw last time, the blue 'Cyclops' has smaller horns than previous versions, and the purple chap has changed his hair-do!
 
But they're going to go so well with the vintage jumpers taken from the LB poses (yes, I saw, it's like clockwork, but both logo's were quite clean, and clearly showed a B, so the stupidity emanating from that corner is now pretty awesome!), in a shelf display, one day! Fun Hub, by RMS.

Monday, August 24, 2026

H is for Huggables!

A new name on the import/jobber horizon, but Huggables' website claims they've 30-years experience, so they must have been around under another name, or just been passing generics through to end users, anonymously, and like A-to-Z(Padgett Brothers), and others, are still, also carrying some stock in the original branding. These were shot at the Gift Fair last year, at Birmingham's NEC, and it's mostly run-of-the-mill stuff.
 


The first two shots show models similar to the set of six which have made so many appearances here over the years,under at least six brand-marks and seven or eight packagings, while the third shot seems to show another iteration of that set of six poses! All credited to Chinese brand Jinfenglong (JFL).
 
These are bi-branded Huggables on a sticker and Weinida on the card-art, with that artwork suggesting wild animals, and sea life as well as these dinosaurs being available, somewhere!
 
Some from the previous shots, with a larger set of single animals (right, close ups below), hugeormous insects and reptiles, and smaller dinosaurs in blisters and carded bottle-bags.
 

Those larger models, Lexiang Toys (LX), these are well beyond the pocket-money bracket, think dentist visit treats, distractions for Rover 'going to live on the farm' or half-term shut'em ups!
 

'Zhongjeming'
 

Fantasy dragons and mythological/heraldic beasts in several sizes, and, in the case of the last set, two packing variants, the small blisters, and the last lot having a non-Huggables brand, but it seems to have been obliterated at the printing stage?
 


Many companies are carrying these, which probably come from a central source, and you can find them in petrol stations and corner shops the length and breadth of the land! 3D-printed from a colour-change, metallic polymer, any problem is likely to prove to be the polymer - so far, most 3D printing polymers I've encountered seem to be frangible (and probably short lived) plastics?
 
Novelty animals.
 
Again, the hint of a dinosaur line/bag.
 
Poor shot, sorry, brand-mark might be IPC or IPL?
 



These last four (Jisam Toys - who's going to tell them!?) are either the same as, or aping sets which are detailed in the long queue, but I'll try to get them upgraded and posted before the end of the month. All the above seven shots, are showing more traditional farm and zoo stuff, and in various configurations/sizes.
 
These shiny, semi-metallic, printed on the crinkly plastic 'header card' bags, are common, in various scales, and we’ve seen toy soldiers in them, novelty parachute toys, and etcetera, but never with a firm brand, so they may be a collective/co-op, of smaller Chinese producers, and are usually carrying stuff at the cheaper end of production, material and/or price points.
 





Likewise (cheapness), these carry-case sets, which were hard to photograph, as far as contents are concerned, but were monochromatic, polyethylene types, or one-colour-spray over PVC, with the usual accessories of farm fence sections, and generic plants/shrubs.
 

Novelty key-rings.
 


 
Novelty squishies are a more modern thing, a fine soft, memory foam, possibly a tech' coming across from the bedding sector, and here we have astronauts and a bunch of those dunny-bunny-bear things, with their whacky artwork.
 
A complete irony really, that 'art toys', which were a big thing back in the 2010's when this Blog started, and which could be 50-100+ of your currency units ($-£-Euro), and which would often, quickly resell on evilBay or at auction for many times that, are now being churned out by novelty manufacturers for 50p or a pound!
 
More of the generics in their shiny not-card cards! A half decent T54/55, if you need a Cold War unit in a hurry and have a can of matt-green, sand or brown aerosol to-hand! And a rather dodgy thing, which is a Panzer IV turret, on the same Soviet chassis!
 
Way outside the remit of the Blog (Yile Toys), but figural, so I shot it!


I can't now remember if these were resin, or more of that lightweight 3D-printer stuff (PLA or PETG), but they are big, ornamental and the sort of thing someone like TKMaxx might get in, not as 'clearance', but as shelf-filler, at Christmas! And, look . . . we seem to have the source of our diminutive, enthusiastically signalling NASA'stronaut, as seen a few posts ago, in two smaller iterations!
 
Also, by accident, as I wasn’t trying to shoot them, the equally shiny and metallic, flying foil to the tanks, both would seem to be pull-back-and-go novelty carpet toys. So that's an overview of Huggables, nothing urgent or exciting, and the sticky, stretchy window-walkers (previous post) weren't in the line-up, 18-months ago, so seem to have hit the market since.