F is for Follow-up . . . "Bestest follow-up ever, Mr Gruber!"

So, I posted the soaps and the Cherilea tank, quite close together, went off to work, came home to a cryptic comment and these in my inbox! It's only the US take on our Peruvian friend Paddington and his jar of marmalade, courtesy of Brian Berke in New York!

 

Three main views.

 

A somewhat pro-washing propagandist piece, obviously written by grown-ups!

 

Brian tells us Eden Toys held the US merchandising licence for the BBC series, so Bioessamce might be the maker, although only describing themselves as 'distributor'?

 

"Careful, you could damage a chap's nose with that!"

 

A much better sculpt than the British one we looked at earlier.

I hope Brain doesn't mind, but I've tried to get a better colour balance into the photographs, they had that slightly yellowish tinge you get with indoor digital photography sometimes, I've been getting it with my new camera, and while I took the blue of the box as the best guide, they now all look a little washed-out, but I think the colours are truer?

 

Best bear soap ever!

C is for Cleaning Up!

Having seen the guardsman the other day, I thought I'd dig these out of the David Pomeroy folder, not sure if he was involved in the sculpting of them or just had them for reference, but we have two more soaps to look at, and no convoluted plots, which require watching the extended episode on Friday!

 

The better of the two soaps, in the poorer box is Mrs Cobbit from Camberwick Green manufactured by Wright, Layman & Umney Ltd., of London (apparently still making Wright’s Traditional Soap for Smith & Nephew), and I have a vague recollection we might have had a pair from this set one Christmas, probably in our Stockings?

 

While the better box came with a slightly battered Paddington Bear, who wasn't the best of likenesses before his hat got so simplified, and dented! Made by Richard's & Appleby of Jermyn Street, they seem to be still trading, and still making novelty cosmetics.

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!

News, Views Etc . . . Naughty Part-works

A couple of bits of news concerning part-works, one new, one old and one borrowed, but nothing blue, however; the 12,000-worder is still in edit, I'll see what I can do 'blue' there! In the light of the recent Panini UK agent's World Cup Sticker Album tribulations, the first story is the more interesting, concerning - as it does - cost.

Hachette

This global part-work issuer was castigated last week by the Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) for failing to make clear that their current 'Build a London Routemaster Bus' part-work would run for 130 issues and cost consumers a total of more than £1,150.

The company said it had made the cost clear (on its website), but the ASA was having none of it and banned the TV-ad' promoting the publication, as the TV-ad' was considered to be misleading.

The real news here, as I see it; is why it has taken 30+ years to point out the bleeding obvious?

Because it requires an actual complaint, from a named complainant, willing to appear as a witness, before most modern watchdogs are able to act at all, under their - quite deliberately - ham-stringing Thatcherite-Raganomic remits, which put business (not 'big' business; all business) ahead of natural justice, or the rule of law.

It's not enough to know there are snake-oil salesmen, but to have to find villagers willing to paint their houses red, to scare them off!

Atlas Editions

It's not the first time the ASA has acted recently; they also upheld a complaint against Atlas Editions UK Ltd., back in August of last year, again 'misleading' sales techniques were fingered by the beak, only this time it was the website considered out of order, not the media publicity.

Although - It seems they are serial offenders as a well as serial issuers!

Other part-works are Available

These have also been in the media recently and from the left we have:

A set of Zippo lighters, never to light anything? A 'Merrythough' Bear which costs more than all the bears, rabbits &etc of my entire childhood! Paddington coins and a DC/UK thing, I would write more but this weeks got off to a busy start and I'm all over the place!

Close-ups of the important bits, in the bear's defence; he is rather smart! But who would want a whole display of rather hideous Zippo's, identical to the other 9,000 (that's; NINE . . . Thousand) sets? Madness!

T is for Two - Bear News!

It's far too early for the Christmas decorations to come out, we are quite traditional and while we rarely leave it 'till Christmas-eve anymore, mostly because it takes several days to dress the tree now and we have friends who often work Christmas and they like to see it before they decamp to Warwickshire for three weeks, but we can still get in the mood here at Small Scale World . . .

. . . by looking at the bears; not THE bears, they are still in the attic, but the new recruits! Four this year, and there's still over five weeks to go, I'll bet at least one more signs-up for tree service!

Meanwhile, Christmas isn't Christmas without a big, feel-good, family, comedy-movie, and this year it's Paddington does Porridge in Pentonville Prison. . . apparently! Brian Berke sent this shot of his wife's medium-sized Paddintons and it looks like three of them have done tree-service at some point . . . it's what well-mannered bears do!

News, Views Etc . . . Month's Round-up

Nerve Centre - Stomm und Zajazz!

I thought I'd share this image of Tuttle's (or is it Buttle's?) desk-top in Central Planning here at Small Scale World, you can see how he has used the latest in dynamic-portal, on-line, digital, smart-tech, file-sharing to produce a multi-layered, computer-aided, interactive, predictive/responsive spreadsheet, making is easy for the other staff to place and manage future-posts between the 21st and 31st, he even managed to provide separate data-layers for the three recent comparison shots and a graphical-interface extension, carrying-forward to the 4th of November! I only employ the very best technicians here!

Halloween

Flat Metal

Nursery Rhyme/Halloween themed modern, commercially-painted, whitemetal flats from Scully & Scully's window display in New York, image courtesy of Brian Berke, and we will return to this company in a while.

Plastic Waste

Already touched on in one of the 'countdown' posts; the environmental charity Hubbub issued a report estimating that last year's Halloween sent 7-million costumes to the rubbish bin. This year it's estimated 150-million people worldwide will spend £510m-quid on these costumes, volumes of which will have been trashed by the 6th November. (Stop Press - the figures given out on R4 last night (25th) were worse)

Now I don't know if you've studied the vast racks of these things (which have mushroomed in the last few years) in supermarkets and discount stores, but they're not a bit shite, they're 100% shit. It has to stop, or we will destroy the planet. If you have to celebrate death, at least re-use costumes, share costumes around a circle of friends each year, or make costumes from recyclable stuff you would otherwise throw-out.

Ask what your grandparents' did, not what a mile-long plastics factory in Guangdong can do for you!

Stamps

This is the third 'News Views...' in a row with a substantial section on stamps, but they are collectables, have been featuring toys recently and additionally do come within the whole feebleBay/postal aspect of the hobby.

Stanley Gibbons

Losses at Stanley Gibbons have worsened ('widened' in the language of the traders really responsible for most of our problems!) an £8.8m trading-loss being posted, an £18m revenue drop and loan-repayment defaults also being announced.

Harrington & Byrne

However, adverts like this - from a rival I've never heard of - which has been running for several months now, in several papers; may have something to do with SG's problems? Having been a stamp collector in my youth, I remember how surprisingly numerous Victorian stamps actually are (few designs, long period of issue, per stamp), and it seems to me that with three 'penny-reds' and three ha'penny greens in the 14, it's probably not actually worth twenty-nine of your smackeroonies!

Star Wars Stamps

The next set from Royal Fail is a set of Star Wars stamps, given the last few sets, it's clear that the privatised company is not issuing needed stamps, nor even particularly worthy celebrations, but rather stamps which will generate the most revenue and therefore - in the future - be of little value to collectors, a phenomena most 'commemoratives' since the 1980's are guilty of!

Stamp artist

Peter Mason got the i's page-three treatment on the 16th but the piece didn't make clear that he only uses definitives, inflation producing so many postal charge changes since the 3½p (olive?) of my childhood, and each change requiring all new colours, for the postal system to recognise instantly that there are now hundreds of colours in his 'palette'!

Paddington Bear

Everywhere

There's a new movie coming out for Christmas! The last one was brilliant, superb animation and CGI techniques with the humour of the books writ-large and little 'Hollywood'isation'

New York

Apropos a previous mention of Mr. Bear here on the Blog, Brian Berke sent this picture of his wife's original Paddington with all his tags, and a few additional ones - 'cabin baggage' . . . how very dare they!

Duchy of Cambridge

Paddington Bear - approved by royalty . . . apparently - some lush bird from Lunden Taaan wiv 'er bloke and 'is bro dancin' wiv Mistah Bear init!

Hayday Films . . .

. . . are trying to get out of a distributions contract with the Weinstein Company for obvious reasons, I suspect the Weinstein Co. won't be around long enough to defend the action, or even care!

Thomas the Wank Engine

Some pox-jockey of an arsewit called Jia Tolentino (is that her Star Wars name?**) has ripped into our favourite little blue tank-engine Thomas on the New Yorker's website [no; I'm not posting a link - it's clearly the digital equivalent of arsewipe] making out that the stories are some sort of fascist polemic/allegory for Empire Building and slavery! Coming from an American Publication; that's a bit fucking rich! "Authoritarian rule through disinformation" on the Island of Sodor . . . I kid you not; this Kia-ora Tarrentino woman would be better employed investigating her President's philosophies - I humbly suggest!

Off the Rails - Hornby Chug-on

Hornby Hobbies (or are they Hornby Group these days? Notes elsewhere!) have issued another profits warning, lost another - interim - chairman and announced a new plan . . .sorry 'strategy', which will involve '...maximising the value of our brands including Scalextric and Airfix...' (call me a big-head; but that's probably something they ought to have been doing all along?), this will include less discounting of existing stock.

Now, as far as Airfix is concerned; they have already cancelled all the potential WWI money spinners, put several other projects on hold and slowed the release of new stuff, now they seem to be saying the website offers will also go? Doesn't leave much for the fan-base!

I wonder if the new chairman is the chap/shareholder who started the bloodletting back whenever (last year sometime?) and had so far been kept at arm's length, but I've not got the other cuttings in front of me, however there has been such good coverage (with more on the Internet for those who want to follow-up in depth) that I will at some point do a fuller report on all the machinations . . . perhaps when the dust's settled a bit!

Hobby Show

You can only report on hobby shows beforehand if you are told about them beforehand, and sadly a lot of reportage is 'after the event'.

This is a case in point; The Annual Exhibition for Model Railways, Creative Arts and Play (I'm sure it was more catchy in German!), held in Leipzig which ended on 1st October but was only reported on 30th September (i Weekend). Now we used to have the annual Model Engineer Exhibition (MEE) at Earls Court after Christmas, but it's so long since I saw any publicity for it I couldn't tell you if it's still going? I'll check!

Our hobby - in all its branches - is very poor at Internet penetration, except the big retailers with their mountains of polymer shite and their fifteen versions of the same board game, and all their lookie-likey bollocks.

Toys in the Media

Sainsbury's

Bit of a cheat as toy sale ads are common as muck, and don't really qualify for 'Toys in the Media' but this one is a more 'designer' graphic with a minimalist artiness to it - so I shot it.

Halifax

This one's not much better, but Scrabble is a board-game, so I thought it qualified for inclusion with its pile of recognisable tiles!

Toys R Us

The Toysaurus here in the UK is now struggling to get stock from some of it's suppliers in time for Christmas, as they have been "spooked" by the news from across the pond. Firms including Worlds Apart (I know) and Tutti Bambini (I've never heard of!) had stopped resup's while they tried to find out what was going to happen to the UK stores, but all parties are hoping to have everything running normally again in the next week or so.

Meanwhile - Character Options (better than Lego figures!) are worried about the longer-term fall-out of the TrU bankruptcy on the whole industry and report that effects are already being felt by them - seriously; now might be the time to open an independent, The Toysaurus is dying, Hornby and Lego are desperate for sales, so must be looking for new outlets, new customer models . . . maybe we will see a rebirth of local hobby or toy shops?

The 'They don't come much bigger than this' Department

This was the scene at the launch of Hamley's Christmas campaign, if Mummy & Daddy are very rich, you too can have a life-size menagerie! Hamley's predict Lego, Hatchimals, Barbie and Nerf Guns as the big sellers . . . does this mean fidget-spinners have already gone the same way as loom-bands? I bloody hope-so!

Merlin

The parent of Legoland here in the UK (along with Alton Towers, Pepper Pig Parks, Madame Tussauds et al.) posted worse figures than expected in previous 'News, Views...' with the blame being put firmly on terrorism (by both Merlin and the wider media) and somehow managing to ignore a larger number of Theme Park accidents and deaths here and elsewhere in the last 12/18 months! Not necessarily Merlin's I hasten to add, but that won't prevent the general public putting 2 and 2 together and getting five, they're like that; poor, frightened, stupid little sheeple.

Again?

The coastguard called out a Lifeboat to rescue Spiderman from the ocean, after a helium balloon was mistaken for a parachutist in difficulties. When superheroes need recuing it's time to get rid of them, surly!

Now I get sick of seeing the remains of helium balloons in the woods, in fields, hung-up on fences . . . and the bloody things must be singlehandedly laying down the anthropocene-layer, worldwide! This shit's got to be banned eventually; the law of unintended consequences dictates that just because we can - doesn't mean we should.

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** Mine's Core Novawar - A wanderer from Ampliquen!

News, Views Etc . . .Regular Round-up

Usual, general collation of bits and pieces from the inbox, the national press and further afield, with a few links of things you may find interesting, or consider worth visiting.

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New Model Navy

In the 'i' on Monday the 22nd of May, there was an interesting editorial article/'infomercial' about how in 1667 our then Master Shipwright, one Peter Pett, in the panic of a Dutch attack up the River Medway decided that as he couldn't save the real vessels (all tied-up and crewless under the orders of Charles II while he negotiated the end of the second Anglo-Dutch war), he ought to save the exquisite models, which showed how to construct the 'new' Navy's vessels.

One of the saved models

Those who have visited the Maritime Museum in Greenwich (pronounced 'grenn-itch' - for my foreign visitors!) in the past will know just how exquisite they are. Anyway; long-story, short - the saved models and the tale behind them is being told in an exhibition 'Breaking the Chain' at the Royal Chatham ('chat-um') Dockyards until the 3rd September if you're looking for something to do with the kids over the holidays.

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General News

On the 25th June a stationary chain called Smiggle has announced plans to increase its workforce as sales increase, but not to open new stores - yet. I mention it therefore only because I don't know the chain (big cities?), but it may well prove to be a source of new or different erasers, pencil-tops and novelties, and we like that sort of stuff here!

Our glorious err . . . not quite leader (yet?) 'gettin' down wi' da' kids' during the recent election campaign, I was struck by the toy which seems remarkably un-different (is that a word?) from stuff companies like Tudor Rose were chucking-out 40 years ago! ♪♫"We'll-keep the yell-ow truckroll'ing"♫♪! That's it . . . you can read the rest later, off you go to work now - humming the anthem of revolution, my work here is done for the day!

The Hornby story rumbles-on with further press releases on the 23rd and 27th of June and the 5th of July, all concerning the management's urging of shareholders to reject the mandatory takeover-bid by Phoenix Asset Management - itself a major shareholder and the group who's management coup failed a few weeks ago.

The Stanly Gibbons story also continues to make the money-pages, with an approach by private equity firm Disruptive Capital, following the failures of Gibbons' own efforts in the last couple years, and of the plans of recent months.

Further news also on the Go story with the computer AlphaGo beating the current reigning world champion (Ke Jie) for a second time, the human claimed the computer was playing "Like the God of Go"! Once they are truly smarter than us, they will identify us as THE major threat to the planet's future.

Rod Stewart, yes the crooning popster; collects Scottish toy soldiers (and model trains!), so if you're a dealer with a particularly fine sample of Scots, or 'Highlanders', might be worth a try getting in touch with his PR people, you may be sitting on a Christmas bonus - if you know what I mean!

Poundstrecher (an occasional source of useful clearance toys) is in sales talks as it struggles with the slowly gathering Brexit recession - as we haven't recovered from the last [Banking] recession, that'll be fun!

Mattel have announced a whole bunch of Ken Dolls, including one with a 'man-bun' and another with corn-rows, I'm not exaggerating when I say we are in the end of days; Barbie's going to an gang-bang! Although the six CGI'd models in the 'i' newspaper on the 21st of May all looked mildly demented and incapable of satisfying Barbie without bursting into tears and needing therapy.

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Toys in the media

This has been used to advertise the Guardian's jobs edition in recent weeks, a CGI of a table football team which manages to cover every base as far as political correctness is concerned, well; it's the Guardian, you'd expect nothing less!

Tim'Maaaay!

Paul Morehead - editor of Plastic Warrior magazine -sent us this from PW Towers the other day, it's a whole battle! You can't beat 'Army Men' in articles, proper reading!

The downside of polymers in the environment was highlighted in this article in the 'i' a week ago - more here: Seafieldview Blog

Lego seems to be a main offender, but you can see here that Airfix and Hong Kong are not far behind, with Matchbox and Kinder both contributing - you may love this stuff, I may love this stuff, but this stuff will have to end. We must either find the strength ('good sense'!) to make these toys out of short-life, bio-degradable, vegetable-based, pseudo-polymers, or go back to wood and metals.

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Pepper Pig

Two Pepper Pig stories were left off the last 'News, Views' (buried under other stuff!), one being good news (if you're a Pepper Pig fan or a corporate bastard) in that Entertainment One (owners of PP rights) announced it was to produce 117 new episodes and had signed new licensing deals.

The other was also good news (if you're a hater of Pepper Pig or an anarchist) as share-values dropped 22% in Entertainment One after the Canadian-owned, British registered firm took a £47-million spending-hit on global restructuring and the investment announced in the other story - easy come, easy go, it's only money!

Lego's Bid for World Domination

Lego have announced that Merlin Entertainment will be opening another Legoland Discovery Centre, this time in Birmingham's Barclaycard Arena building next year, construction has started.

In a separate story, Lego are to work with Mencap the disability charity to find employment for learning-disabled people.

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Publishing

In mid-June Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl overtook Harry potter to regain number-one spot in the top 10 books for children list, suggesting the decline of pottermania is acelerating apace.

Under the headline 'Tolkien's Lord of the Wins' daily free-sheet The Metro reported the other day that his family have settled a law suit with Warner Brothers.

Obituaries

Still on publishing - obituaries this time sadly include Michael Bond, the creator (finder surely?) of Paddington Bear, while Grotbags actress Carol Lee Scott, Geoffrey Bayldon: Catweazle and Andy Cunningham of Bodger the Badger fame have all sadly passed.

The news yesterday that George A. Romero has gone too means that it's not just our childhood which is being buried but - increasingly - our teenage-years too.

Health and Safety

Not something I normally consider or think about, but a little girl died in April after swallowing one of those tiny little coin-like batteries, not some tragic suffocation as you might think, but because the stomach-acids break into the batteries, the acid's of which are far more powerful, and can do fatal damage, worth a thought if you have younger children. The lithium-cell was from an electronic car key-fob, but similar batteries are in a lot of toys these days, Lego mini-fig LED torches spring to mind.

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A Few Links

This is one of the more amusing things I've seen recently related to toy soldiers

https://drawception.com/game/xQ9WeCwkqb/toy-soldiers-vs-barrel-of-monkeys/

Looks like fun if you can get there

http://www.southflorida.com/theater-and-arts/art/sf-walter-wick-miami-lowe-museum-20170710-story.html

This is a salutary lesson for arrogant people like you-know-who, more comments in three days than any five Toy Soldier blogs get - together - in a week!

https://archive.nyafuu.org/toy/thread/6326452/#6415927

Best pictures ever of one of my favourite toys

http://toyconnect.blogspot.co.uk/2017/07/ideal-globemaster-flying-boxcar.html

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Finally - Best Bath Bomb ever!