H is for Housekeeping

Probably had that title before, but I think a few duplicates have slipped through over the years now!

 

♪♫♪♪♫ It was forty years ago, today . . . ♪♫♪♪♫ * We were confined to barracks and light duties, due to reports coming out of the - then - Soviet Republic of Ukraine (Ukrainian SSR), about some shenanigans in a place called Chernobyl. As it happened the radio-active plume spent several days curling round to the South East, South, and then West of Berlin and dumping its shite on other people, we got it around the 4th May, by which time we'd all stopped taking precautions, and got a full dose of whatever was on offer . . . low levels of caesium I think? I mention it only because there's lots about it in the media at the moment, and I keep thinking "I know, I was there!", when I wasn't, really! And, we was robbed . . . if it had been strontium, we all would have become super-soldiers, huh?

 

*No we didn't, nobody knew anything about it until the evening of the 28th, when the Soviets deigned to admit what was going on! So we probably got our frowny, concerned pep-talks around the 29th!

 

We have family in Penrith and their sheep were still being tested and rejected years later. They didn't get a major blast, but the plume did hit in early May, and hung around for a bit, so I guess, rather like the rainstorms which occasionally flash-flood Aldershot or Guildford when they meet the Hog's Back and decide not to slip over, the plume hit the hills there and deposited a lot of caesium on the grass?

 

It's why I'm not a fan of nuclear power. Wind, solar and wave, yep, bring it on, but nuclear . . . Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, Fukushima, Windscale . . . when it goes wrong, it's serious, it costs billions, and it affects millions, for several generations, and that's without the growing problem of what to do with the waste.

 

I was quite busy yesterday, I added some follow-up stuff to the parachute page;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/p/blog-page_14.html 

 

And I'll be adding a couple more sections in the next few days, I added a second recent lot of content to the HO-OO Romans page on the Airfix blog;

 

https://airfixfigs.blogspot.com/2010/06/1967-ancientimperial-romans-s31-hooo.html 

 

I also added a lot more to the WWII Japanese page, and blurbed it up, I'd rather forgotten how many of the posts over there still need text, and the Japanese was one of them!

 

https://airfixfigs.blogspot.com/2010/06/1964-wwii-japanese-infantry-s18-hooo.html

 

And I'm not going to escape with a text-only post am I? So here's some 'seen elsewhere' stuff, involving mixed lots - proper eye candy!

 

This was a bag of bits Peter Evan thrust at me at a London show in Camden I think, they may have got a subsequent breakdown post nearer the time (2023), but there's fun stuff to spot.

 

I seem to recall this was an evilBay lot (2022) which I won, but which Chris Smith had brought to my attention, as it had a couple of the German premium bandsmen (bottom right) and some small scale copies of the Manurba Wild West swivel-waist figures, also done as premiums or wundertüten, in solid form?

 

These were the February 2023 purchases, and some is still in the queue (the Buzz Lightyear movie stuff and the Fortnite keyrings), some has been blogged (dinosaurs and jig-puzzles), and some went straight-on to storage, however, Peter just included the farm animal set in his latest donation, so I should get that up soon, or maybe RTM, it's not that far away now. It's the one with the cows head on, the others were amphibians, dinosaurs and wild animals.

 

This was my 2021 attempt at an arty set-up! The book is the family recipe book and seems to date back to the 1840's or thereabouts? We've seen most of the figures in individual, donation or show-report posts, but yeah . . . It's all about the composition, innit!

 

While this was my attempt at 'concrete poetry', while at Kingston University back in '93/94, I was quite pleased with it, it has a certain rhythm or metre, and refers to its own shape, which is the main point of the exercise, or it was how it was given to us, as an over-the-weekend exersise!
 

And finally, how fucking cool is this? And it's approximately 1:32;

 

Garden war gaming never looked so good!

"Godamn, I love the smell of solenoids in the morning!"

E is for Eye Candy - Blue Box French Resistance

As far as I know, Blue Box never gave these a title or name, so we don't know if they were resistance, revolutionaries, militia or for that matter, even French! But they are pretty unique, and having never been produced in the 50mm, a bit of a grail for some small-scale collectors, despite being a tad big at 28/30mm.

 

I'm really only using this as an excuse for a News, Views . . . as I have finally started updating the Parachute page, with shooting-sets added a few months ago, Imperial Poopa-Troopa's and similar cartoonish ones, a few weeks later, the Trojan Red Devil and others tonight, and a subsection of the Airfix clones. I've also added a lot of images throughout, and tweaked a few things, but there are still about nine-sections to do! And I think I need to spell-check it properly!

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/p/blog-page_14.html

U is for Update - Parachute Toy Page

I suspect BT has failed completely (or blocked me, without informing me, for being a complaining git), so this and the previous won't get up 'till Monday, but it will - at least - be in time for RTM, with the other stuff which should have published over the weekend being filtered into the normal output!

As you can see I got on in-time, but the six posts which were supposed to publish Sat-Sun., have been held so that's rather it for RTM, now, but there's always more to come here!

All these are contributions from (alphabetically) Brain Berke, Chris Smith. Peter Evans and Theo van der Weerden, and while the rest have gone on the other page, the section for 'poopatroopers' hasn't been edited or uploaded yet, so it can go here!

These are from Imperial, via Brian Berke over 'The Pond' and while they (Imperial) were responsible for the original Poopa-Troopers, these are slightly different, however, they are not the clones we've seen in BJ, Jaru and Kandy Toys colours in the last few years, they are if anything closer to the Imperial originals.

Also they are only a small part of a larger set of summer garden/beach stuff, although that bat could be used to get some height on the sky divers!

These four on the other hand have published to update the relevant sections of the Parachute figures page. That's got novelty paratroopers up before the end of RTM, and we'll be on to other things as the Autumn gets a grip, looks like we're in for a hard'ish Winter!

News, Views Etc . . . Parachutist Page

The next portion has gone up, it's gone atthe bottom of the page as it's mostly new-production, and I might put all the more novelty stuff down the bottom.

Except - of course - they are all 'novelties' on that page!

News, views Etc . . . Paratrooper Page - Airfix Derivatives

I've added the Airfix rip-offs to the Paratrooper page, I got an attack of verbal diarrhea after the last, additional image, but it's all grist to the mill, and may have some useful ideas for newer collectors?

News, Views Etc . . . Paratrooper Page

The third part has been held-over as I ended-up with a load of stuff to add to the second part, which was uploaded the other day, so I've just added to that as an early update.

Kicked-off by some images from Brian, I added a few screen-caps of current offers and shots from the recent Toy Fair 2020 in London.

News, Views Etc . . . More Paratroopers

The next lot of parachute toys have gone up on the new page, being the ones . . .

. . . I think of as civi' sky-divers, or more-so than some of the other commoner designs!

News, Views Etc . . . New Page! Parachute Toys & Novelties

As the pressure - and material - for the firefighter page is building-up, I'm 'encouraged' by circumstance to clear the parachute-deck, so the first post in the quick-build of that page, over the next few weeks/months, has gone live here, or above.

The idea is to build the basic page in eight or nine chunks in the near future, each chunk going at the top of the page, pushing the already-published stuff one block down the page each time, so today's post is the newest stuff, design wise, and the oldest will end-up near the top, but actually novelties will probably go first . . . I'll see how it pans-out!