P is for Penalty Shoot Out

It's funny, but 2018 has turned out to be the year of the footballer on Small Scale World, I don't think we even had the tag before January? But quite by chance they've kept coming, even after the deliberately queued mini-season in Jan'!

I picked this up today (Wednesday) as one of those odd things some charity shops carry from time to time; a corporate donation of over stock, end-of-line clearance or canceled-order stuff and £3.99 is near the retail price I'd imagine, I'd seen them a few days earlier, and they still have a few?

Desktop Distractions from Paladone Products it's been numbered PP3481, 707804 and - most recently - 134774, so has clearly 'done the rounds' of the retail world before ending-up in SCOPE (the mental health charity previously called MIND) the last numbering being added as a sticker over the previous codes and on the goal's stand?

Goal-keeper is hand-operated from a long stick which locates in his back so he would need a base (or a lump of Blue Tac - other proprietary blobs of squidginess are available) to be added to any cabinet/displayed collection! Sculpting is lacking in the facial features department, disappointing given the size, but it's a football game rather than a 'figure toy'?

The striker is a variation of the old rack toy one . . . one of which I think we saw here not that long ago, I seem to remember getting one the other month and shooting it? Try the Football tag!

Anyway, press his head and either a toothed rod running down inside his body activating a hidden cogged arc of plastic at the top of his thigh, or - as in this case - a simple off-set hinge/rod, similarly hidden, causes the foot to fly forward and kick the ball, a spring-return 'resetting' the figure for another go.

With a stretch you can play it with yourself! My 'berserker' needs to find some victims who are actually going to quake at his toothpick of a bayonet; recently he's been going-up against some much bigger opposition!

70mm and interestingly the packaging states it's manufactured from PET (Poly-ethyl[ene]-terephthalate) a polyester with similar properties to polypropylene, ie; it will take the punishment likely delivered from excited little handipuds trying to score goals - yer' typical executive in other words! I'll list it under PP to save having another tag; it's about type/properties and is only a guide!

Ghosts in the machine!

N is for Nomm-Nomm-Nommnivore and No Toy Soldiers

None, Nix, Nada, Non, Nien, Niet, No! No-no-no-no-no, NO! All the toy soldiers worth looking at today are in Twickenham; didn't you know? Better get yer' skates on; the doors open in an hour-and-a-half!

But you want something to look at first huh?

How cool is this? This is too cool for Panzerschule! When I mentioned Paladone-Noki the other day (giant Guardsman sponge/Roman arse-wipe thing) it put me in mind of another modern Novelty company; 50-Fifty, who had a cast metal bottle-opener in the shape of Tim Mee's crawling GI.

Now this 'putting to  mind' happened as I was perambulating through the teeming metropolis that is Fleet High Street, so I thought "Ooh,  the hardware store was where I got that other 50-fifty thing" so I popped into Robert Dyas and asked if they had the bottle opener - they didn't - they'd had a pirate one!

But then on the way back out of 'The Glass Menagerie' (as the main shopping centre is referred to round these parts) I popped over the road into the British Heart Foundation's [charity/thrift-] shop and they had this tank!

Bargain! It is actually Paladone - so some kind of synergic happenstance there - and must have come before the Guardsman egg-cup - which they are currently advertising - for it to have had time to get old'ish looking (and a bit sticky - eeuw!).

Although Two things: 1) looking at the size and shape of the cup; I think it may be better for poached eggs, and 2) E-1 while possibly meaning Egg-one, could also be seen as Ei, or egg in German . . . so what I think we are looking at here; ladies and gentlemen, yet to be seen in Jane's Defence Weekly, are the first snaffled shots from behind the kitchen curtain of that rare beast, the Par-boil Panzer!

It comes with a soldier-maker - for dipping! I assume it's the same mould as has been reused in red-plastic for the current Guardsman?

B is is for Big Buggers

Yes, you are right; we a in a phase of lazy-posts! This is due to technical issues with Hotmail-call-me-Outlook which is currently being addressed by Gmail! In the meantime I'm just throwing stuff up here in the hope it sticks!

A random sample of larger or 'over-scale' figures in a variety of formats and from various sources; left (4-inches) to right (8-inches):

• Poured-resin Egyptian god, from a charity shop, I bought six about twelve years ago and then found dozens of other sculpts on evilBay - possibly a part-work thing? But equally likely to be just tourist tat.
• Large Fireman, he looks vaguely French or German, but the helmet is wrong for both (given the era he was likely made in) so I suspect a Japanese tin-plate or Hong Kong plastic toy with their take on a British fireman?
• The HK blow-moulded GI we looked at last year.
• Russian blow-mould (actually I think 'rotational moulding' he's far more substantial) also been seen here recently, he's the larger of the sizes they issued these in.
• Hong Kong polystyrene statuette of a larger Greco-Roman marble original, mirroring and possibly a direct copy of Fontanini
• Carrara-marble sample with the aforementioned Fontanini's 'Rocco' or Regency lady atop it, polyethylene with colour-washes.
• Branded to Noki (www.nokiware.com) and imported by Paladone (www.paladone.com), this guardsman washing-up sponge is - lets face it - in design parameters; no more than a Roman arse-wipe! Like the fireman he's two halves of polystyrene moulding heat-welded together. Both the website Addresses seem to have been amalgamated. and there's disco-divas and a lovely egg-set with guardsman toast-cutter still on their books.