T is for Two - Boxed Dinosaurs

Except that there are three boxes with seven animals so the 'T is for . . . ' trope doesn't really stack-up but you'll see what I mean! A big box from TXMaxx the other day, and two from 2017 and the now defunct Poundworld-Plus.

I also shot this shelfie in TKMaxx, about twice the size (of this morning's Poundland set) and five for a tenner they work out as less of a bargain, but still cheap and also reasonably sculpted and decorated, although a bit gapey-mouthed 'Chinasaur'! They're branded to NBC Apparel, which I think is also an in-house, phantom brand?

Top left to bottom right we seem to have; velociraptor, stegosaurus, tyrannosaurus rex, spinosaur and triceratops. That last one's a tad too babyish-looking!

We may have seen these, certainly we've seen other examples from the same multi-branded set of six models, and we saw some of the Poundworld-packed ones, but I don't know if I showed any from this sequence which I found in Picasa. Dated to the end of June (right) and beginning of July (left) 2017, so they may have been left out of other posts?

Triceratops and spiky-bastard-a-saur, they have been carried in two color-ways by at least four brands and in five or six packaging types(both sides of the pond) including pairs and trios, and would here (packaging has long gone) be branded to Toy Bank.

Other brands and known outlets are/were Henbrandt (singles in counter dispensers), Lollipop/LP (carded), Pounland/Funtastic (separately boxed) Out of the Blue (singles) all in the other - common -colour way, then TXMaxx (pairs and triples, brand-mark unknown) and these - both in the later paint-scheme.

F is for From Nutcrackers to Christmas Crackers

So there was I, on one of the hottest days of July, if not the whole summer, pulling twenty-four Christmas crackers with myself, as you do . . . n't! The final hours of Poundworld Plus brought with them a Brucey-Bonus for the novelty-tat arm of the collection!

I'd already had some smaller 'tree' ones, when these were reduced from 50p a box to 25p per box, which - if you recall the other posts at the time (June/July) - was further reduced at the till by whatever had been sent to the computer by head-office or the Official Receivers that morning - suffice to say I got silver back from my grubby quid!

Bog-standard fare - die-cut, stiff-card construction, simple CAD design in positive and negative silver/white colour-ways, six per pack gave me the aforementioned 24-crackers to deal with, and I wasn't waiting 'till now!

First disappointment was no Matchbox knock-off soldiers! Each box had one micro-plane, one hair tie, one 'tiddlywink' frog and one very thin, styrene ring, with two from a top, a spinner or a fake nail. Most of the things in the 'Image for illustration purposes only' picture are of better quality than those actually included but isn't that always the way!

The 'tree' crackers; I don't seem to have photographed the contents, if I find them in the increasing chaos of the 'bringing together' before Xmas I'll try to, but memory serves they were as crap as the bigger ones and relatively similar. Except they were only four per tray, and two of them - per set - had the [same] card-puzzle (like Kinder's) or bookmark, leaving me with only a few bits of polymer shite!

I didn't get the fortune-telling fish, the trumpet or the magic calculator! Both sets were imported by ITP, with the tree-crackers further known to have been manufactured by [PT] Cermai Makmur of Indonesia, so you might find these in KMart . . . now! It's all-right - I buy this shit so you don't have to!

T is for Two . . . Wheels Good . . .

Like Paratroopers and whatever the other thing was the other day . . . goes and checks the 'finished' folder . . . ; footballers (!), this has become another of those perennials, we return to from time to time, dinosaurs, insects and fish are all currently rising-up the queue as well, but today it's a return to two wheels; well, fourteen wheels or - if you want to be a total pedant fifty-seven wheels and at least three - visible - skids!

Roughly in the order they've come in or been shot since we last looked at them excluding a lead flat I think we looked-at separately . . .

Upon the demise of PoundworldPlus back in the summer, this was reduced to 50p with a further reduction at the till taking it to 43p or something! It was worth a punt for a small plastic motorcycle, of Kinder-egg quality? It needed squeezing together properly which I didn't notice until after the photo-shoot, branded to their ITP Imports and coming with a reasonable rendition of an executive type helicopter and a really crappy jeepney-thing which - if pink - would look like Barbie's beach-buggy!

I can't tell you what this cost as it was a present for my Brother on his Birthday! He's one of those people who has everything he wants, and if he really wants something else tends to go and get exactly what he wants himself, so he's very difficult to buy for, but he likes his motorcycles, so when I saw this . . . bingo! Noki are the same people who did the novelty egg-cup and toast-soldier sets, see Small Scale World passim.

I think this is the third time out for this chap, and the second involving contributions from Peter Evans, who recently sent me a very interesting set, with the unpainted black-plastic version. In the meantime I found another (slight colour variation) in the Storage lot, so shot all four together and they now have a new tub, all to themselves, although the black one is still in the bag awaiting next year's RTM.

CHiPs! From storage, from Kentoys, but not the Kenway Cycle Shop of 1950's London, but rather the 1990's Kentoys with a half-mile-long factory in Shatin, New Territories! Now into high-end, larger-scaled, die-casts, they started (as so many HK companies did) with cheaper plastics, these came with blistered sets or singly with larger trucks, in this specific case the 'Wheelers' fire-engine set. They were announced at 1:72 and - basically - would have been in competition with the similar New Ray and Supreme sets of that time; among others.

Is it a Harley Electra-Glide or a Honda Goldwing Aspencade? Now - there's a question for my Brother! Judging from the full-tank and headlight-fairing; I recon a Honda?

Old solid-lead motorcyclist (Postman?), I don't know if it's in Joplin and I haven't looked as I know it's not particularly rated (Adrian had it in his cheapie-tray at Sandown last), so probably a copy of anything similar-looking in the aforementioned tome, or more likely a home-cast which may have been made commercially available? The lead-guys dismiss this stuff (and melt it down!) like some in our polymer-branch of the hobby still dismiss HK stuff, but you know me; I'll post anything!

A bicycle, Cakeboards, resin, cake decoration, the resin pile is piling-up! Nice 54mm and a female subject which is never that common, so pleasantly unusual!

Mr. Berke sent a whole box of donations to the blog the other day with his uncommon generosity, and we will be looking at bits from it over the next few days, as some of it was very timely, but there was also this, Greenbrier/DTSC. I don't know if he and Mr Evans are in competition with their contributions, but this is an even larger scale than the candy-container bicycle we looked at in Rack Toy Month! Guy's; I don't know where to put them!

Thanks again to Brian, Peter and Adrian for some of the above!

L is for Look on the Bright Side - There's a Black Panther!

Definitely one from the I buy them so you don't have to department, but in their defence, we will be looking at a very similar set in a day or two, which make these look top-banana!

The tub, or is it a 'jar'? It's a cookie-jar isn't it! It was either £2.50 or three-quid I can't remember, PoundworldPlus, and like the Dino' set the other day, I ignored it for a while, but weakened as I knew RTM was coming-up and would be happy to show it - RTM sets its own rules, I just roll with it!

It says, well; Lewis Sales & Marketing of Swindon says "101 pieces" . . . count them; they're all there and I make it 97, including two stands of 'army man' barbed-wire! Also packing is so random, you get none of one colour, tons of another and a similar rule applies to poses/species! With only two camels and 11 animal types, you wonder if at least one may be absent.

One of each in close-up, they are all old sculpts, from all-over the place (Britains, Hong Kong, German Wundertüten premiums) and going back to the 1960's, but re-jigged into a set of similar, or 'uniform'  quality, pity that quality leaves a bit lot to be desired!

As well as a short-count there are some gash figures - upper of each animal in the photograph - to sort-out before you let the kids at them, both short-shot miss-moulds and shrinkage damage from early mould-release are present, but not in large numbers.

But - look on the bright side - there's a black panther. If you're lucky with both your animal and plastic-colour selections that is!

ITP is for Chinasaur Play Set

Although one of the last pieces to be Blogged from the now defunct PoundworldPlus, I actually bought them a while ago, I had been ignoring them for a while as they are real old-school crappy 'chinasaurs', but in the end I thought "Well, they are cheap, and a shelfie is awkward in this instance, so bugger it!" and grabbed a set, which was lucky as they then disappeared and didn't reappear during the fire-sale / stock clearance, and there was a little piece of luck hidden in the tub, we'll get on to in a minute.

The tub - as bought; A couple of the standard modern trees with soft vinyl pop-on foliage, there wasn't enough foliage for both boughs, so I chucked one, fully-leaved the other and sorted-it out from the dinosaurs before the photo-shoot, so we will have to look at it another day with other, similar trees! Yeah . . . that sounds like a thrilling post!

Meet the guys 'cos the gang's all here! They aren't that bad, but they are low-quality, low for today's output that is, they are better than half the dino-production of 1970's HK 'chinasaurs'! You may recognise the 'ceratopsian (front right) as having been the [reversed image] dino' staring in a recent 'Toys in the Media' advert!

They are that soft, foamy plastic I'm mentioned before and started tagging as foamed-vinyl, with the two-part construction and glued join-line you see quite a bit now with larger toy animals and dinosaurs.

There were two stegosauruses in every tub, indeed, the contents of every tub were the same, why there were two of one moulding is anyone's guess, my guess is that even with the two crappy trees the stipulated (by the client) container (for retail shelf-frontage) was looking empty, but still under target-cost, so they quickly ran a mould-tool again, gave the product a different paint finish to the existing ones - having fallen-out with whoever normally supplies them with those large blow-moulded rocks that usually join the 'filler' trees?

While is a fun musing, the one on the right is one-colour over tan, the one on the left is three, as all the others are two or three, I'd say that for whatever reason the yellow-orange one was a late addition as the budget stretched?

The others, I've already said more about them than the set deserves and I've still the next - important - bit to write, so that'll do for these - and I always hate the pterodactyls in dinosaur sets; they inevitably look stupid!

But, the little bit of luck; this was in the set - the sauropod wasn't glued properly, and revealed that what I've though is-, and tried to describe as- some 'fancy' new foamed polymer is actually just two 'hollow-cast' halves glued together with solvent.

It achieves the goals of allowing for more complicated poses (no 'undercuts') while reducing both material-cost and shipping-cost/weight, but I will have to remove the 'Plymr - Foamed PVC' tag from the tag-lists and replace it with 'Plymr - 2-Pt. Hollow' or something.

I'm guessing lots of kids have discovered this already through violence or chewing (!) but no-one seems to have clocked-it within the hobby and no one's corrected me, prior to my correcting myself - here! And I did use question-marks when I first started Blogging the material, so - Phew, that was close!

News, Views Etc . . . Pound's, -World, -Land and '+Plus!

Poundland

I'll start with Poundland, who after their often featuring in these News' posts in the past as they took-over 99p Stores and then suffered a hiccup or two of their own, have been pretty quiet recently, while Poundworld have been filling the column-inches with their own woes.

Last December (I know, I haven't done a decent 'News, Views . . .' since October - too much other, better stuff to publish . . . and some fun shite!) shares in Poundland plunged by 63% in a day following the sudden departure of Markus Jooste, CEO of Steinhoff amid news of financial irregularities. Christo Weise (head of Brait - the biggest shareholder) took over and the keel evened. PwC are investigating, so nothing to report there; huh?

More bad news - for the Poundland management - followed at the beginning of February when the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) pulled all the online adverts 'staring' the Elf on a Shelf' for gratuitous sexuality.

The elf was posed playing strip-poker with three dolls; naked in a sink with two dolls taking selfies (or were they elfies?); getting a little too-close to a donkey for most jurisdictions (I think it's legal in Alabama, and 'blind-eye' acceptable in some parts of Central Asia!); and errr . . . 'riding' a [Santa's] toothbrush. As I fucking hate the [recently imported, nothing to do with Christmas traditions] little shelf-elf fucker, this was - in my opinion - bloody good news!

In May the original founder (Steven Smith, he sold the store-chain in 2002) of Poundland's house came on the market for a cool £3.9-million pounds, apparently priced to sell because they wanted a quick sale! Best described as 'plantation-style' porn-palace pile in pink-brick, it was originally offered at £6.5-mil'!

Finally and taking-us neatly on to Poundworld; Mr smith announced earlier this month (July) that he was interested in buying some of the ailing Poundworld empire to try to save it.

₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪

Poundworld / Poundworld+Plus

Easier to do this one as a diary, I have been chatting to the guys in Poundworl+Plus here in Fleet as the whole thing unravelled, as there are few new jobs for lesser-skilled or younger job-seekers in a middle-class dormitory-town like this, and they were happy to get the positions when the store opened not that long ago. What they were being told by head-office varied greatly from either that which was in the press and what tended to be announced to the 'City', the day after they (the staff) had been told something else!

April 27th

It is announced that up to 1,500 jobs are at risk as Poundworld pursues a restructuring plan that could shut about a third of its stores. It is looking at a Company Voluntary Agreement (CVA) to enable rent-reduction and the closing of up to 100 unprofitable stores - so far, so Toys 'Я' Us! TPG capital (the owner) is reported ready to inject £40m into the business, they also being owners of the Prezzo restaurant chain - also seeking a CVA and closing sites!

June 7th

It is rumoured that Poundworld could collapse within days putting all 355 stores (and 5,300+ jobs) at risk. Between the April and June headlines TGP had trousered the £40m and put the chain up for sale, potential buyers Alteri Group were by the beginning of June having second thoughts - presumably having seen 'the books' - so far, so Toys 'Я' Us!

June 11th

Administrators appointed - so far, so Toys 'Я' Us!

June 19th

100+ redundancies are announced at head office - so far, so Toys 'Я' Us!

June 21st

Closing-down sale begins with consultants Hilco called in to organise clearance of stock, administrators Deloitte taking over from what's left of management  - so far, so Toys 'Я' Us!

June 22nd

Someone [unnamed by the 'i'] blames the Government for denying a rate-cut to Poundworld which would have unlocked £4.1m of funding (your/our 'tax-payers' money), from a fund of £3.4Bn earmarked for ailing companies, it relies on the rate cuts that should have come with the CVA - but was probably also reliant on the owner's forking-up of the £40m?

July 3rd

Original founder of Poundworld (Chris Edwards - 1974) blames the administrators for preventing his rescue bid of 180 stores. Creditors are fingered by Deloitte as being a 'priority' while Mr Edwards claims that with every day of fire sale the stores become harder to save as stock isn't being replenished, bankers Santander finally wake-up, too late!

July 10th

As mentioned above, rival founder of Poundland (Steven Smith - 1990) throws his hat in the ring; at this - late - stage, he's presumably looking for a bargain to offset against his cut-price house sale!

July 11th

Deloitte announce 25 branches will close on Sunday (15th), with the rest of the chain continuing to trade while a buyer is sought, despite all buyers pulling out, and neither Chris Edwards or Steven Smith apparently being considered? Clare Boardman of Deloitte explains that it would be nice to sell part of the business while banging-on about failing to sell the whole business! Number of stores is now being reported to be only 335 - typo there somewhere!

July 13th

Fleet store puts "Last 10 days" signage up, despite not being on initial published list.

July 14th

Announcement of another 80 stores to close, bringing total redundancies to 1,266; Deloitte 'still trying to find a buyer' but clearly not the two guys trying to buy it?

July 18th

Another 40 stores join the growing list - back to the Toys 'Я' Us model of doing things!

July 20th

Head office closes, warehouse operations cease (meaning all outstanding stock is in stores), and an unspecified number of extra store join the list. The Times reports all stores will close 'early next month'.

July 22nd

Fleet closed - so far, so Toys 'Я' Us!

Deloitte (one of the 'big four' global's) will get their money, Santander (Spanish) will get their money, TPG Capital (US) will be registered as creditors and probably get their money, redundancies will be marked-down by the level of collapse and the staff will only get some of their money! Suppliers and Landlords will have to fight for theirs!

That's Thatcherite-Raganomic free-market capitalism folks and you keep voting for it.

50,000 jobs lost in the last 12 months - on the high-street.

Toys 'Я' Us, Maplin, and Poundworld are the tip of an iceberg which TGP's restaurant chain Prezzo will join!

And Brweaksit won't help, it will make it easier for US companies to dump UK assets and harder for Spanish banks to save them! But then - if you still believe in Brwreaksit, now; you're a fuckwit.

S is for Shelfies

A quick round-up of shelfies I've taken over the last few months and not used in specific articles . . .

Currently in The Works, there seems to be only the three variations and the only variation is the figure, so to get all three you need £18, and will end-up with a lot of duplicate stuff, so a Shelfie seems to be the answer for future identification when they turn up loose.

The figures are around the 54mm mark, with two subscale tractors and animals in various sizes. The square 'tube' is quite long - you can see about a third in this shot - as there is a play-mat in the lower section.

Going, going . . . fire sale at Poundworld will end soon, these are - clearly - a bit 'pink and girly' but they are solids, around 80mm, and again, should they turn-up in mixed lots in a year or a few; label them ITP Imports!

Twins! Vacuous-looking twins at that!

I think I shot these in TKMaxx and I just like the fact that other brands are fighting back against the hegemony of Lego with cool licenses of their own, Brian B has sent me a fantastic Bending Unit which will go in the next Lego-likey post!

Wilco-branded (Wilkinson's - the real reason Woolworth's died), these are large, mixed scale PVC type animals, and again will help ID them in the future.

Back to the closing-down sale at Poundworld Plus here in town, these were reduced to 80p so I got the blue one . . . motorcycle! The vehicles are really 'cheap and nasty' and typically - for these days - no military option, but a motorcycle is not to be sniffed at; for less than a quid!

These are statuette crayons, with a pointed-bit hidden behind the battlements of the catchy packaging. With a King, Queen, princess, wizard and witch; that soldier's got a lot of guarding to do! But they're figural! NPW, who's novelties have featured here several times in the last few years; these were shot in TKMaxx.

These . . . TKMaxx . . . I just don't really get? It's apparently a glass drying mat, but with four semi-flat ballet-dancers. How are you supposed to dry the glasses? If you catch the dancer as you place the glass over it with wet hands you may drop the glass, what about shallow glasses? What about narrow champagne flues, or champagne bowls, why only room for four? Or do you place the glasses between the dancers, in which case; why have them? And even if that's the case there's only room for about six, and no mugs, the handles will get in the way - the whole concept is just daft!

A triumph of farty-art idea over practicality, hundreds of people were involved in designing, tooling, producing, packing, procuring and shipping this Caca!

It seems to me to be a sublime example of everything that's wrong with consumerism, as espoused by Thatcherite-Raganomics and the mantra of 'market forces' for the last 39 years. A totally impractical, ill thought-out, relatively unnecessary product, packaged to appeal to a certain type of 'lifestyle' cretin or brain-dead fashion-victim! People with bows behind their family pictures, matching his'n'hers anoraks and pink loo paper! The same people who've been buying waistcoats over the last two weeks.

The figures have fully-round skirts and plinths, but chunky block-flat bodies, they are silicon-rubber (I think), around 50mm (not counting the base) and could be fun; taken off the mats and displayed with the Britains, Gem and other dancers, but they represent our need to keep consuming until there's nothing left, it's not a good sign.

News, Views Etc . . . Stop Press!

These are currently 80p per set (that's 10p per figure, with a free tower!) in the fire sale that is Poundworld (and Poundworld-Plus's) final days or trading, get them before they're gone if they are a 'bit of you'; they're not really a bit of me, but 32 figures for two-pound-forty is not to be ignored!

I also got a small cheapish motorcycle for a forthcoming post! Because if the corporate structure behind Poundworld, it may only be a matter of time before Poundland goes the same way?

A is for A Tail of Six Dinosaurs

Tail - tale - dinosaurs . . . never-mind! Brain sent a bunch of dinosaur shelfies the other day without knowing I had just bought another from the range in Poundland Plus, nor why I had bought it, and it's led to my digging out a few other images for a post which - if nothing else - is instructive of how the toy industry works at the bottom end!

These are they (Mr. Berke's shelfies, that is!); three dollars . . .  is what; one-eighty? Something like that! And for that money you can't complain, nicely blister-packed with backing-cards and a decent level of decoration, my complaint - voiced before now - is the rather obvious joins where separate mouldings are fused-together to give the impression of, or allow for poses which would otherwise have proven difficult or impossible with only undercuts.

By the 'other' LP; Lollipop Toys (or Brooklyn Lollipops Import Corp. as they call themselves!), there are six in the whole line, and you may have recognised one or two of them, as they have popped-up on the Blog in the past.

This is the range in its entirety, the upper shot being from Henbrandt's old catalogue, the lower shot from the back of the Poundland one I bought and Blogged a year or two ago. You can see that both companies were (are?) getting the same colour schemes, which also those carried by Brian's shelfie herd.

But, I'd already bought my 2nd 'Dippy', this time from Poundworld Plus, and now in a different scheme (right) to the [common] previous scheme, as we saw with the Funtastic one on the left; Funtastic being what the industry calls a 'phantom-brand' of Poundland, I tend to call them made-up brands or imagibrands!

The new one is by Toy Bank another phantom-brand . . . of the same group! This time the sub-branding on the box is 'Little Fossil Toys', which has to be added to Green Gecko and Pirate Monkey in the ever spiraling-upward list of cross-referenced 'brandlettes'!

Packaging - clockwise from top left - for Lollipop, Henbrandt and Poundworld Plus, note however, that the counter display carton from Henbrant's catalogue is wearing the logo for Zhong Jie Toys, a company already supplying Poundland (or was it 99p Stores? . . . Aaaaarrrrrhhhhh!) with wild animal models!

Remember my paint-tray-guilt-stupid-Brit-thing purchase the other month? Well, it's from the same range, in the same (older?) scheme; Out of the Blue, probably a contractor rather than a phantom, and while I can't remember the counter display, I bet it was the same as the Henbrandt catalogue shot . . .

. . . and I'll bet there are other contracted and phantom brands out there carrying these six rather good, usually very cheap, foamed-PVC (or similar) dinosaur models, indeed, I think I mentioned TKMaxx having sets of three about two years ago, with different graphical packaging! In fact I thought I'd taken a shelfie, but I can't find it so I may not have!

More dino's - later today.

F is for Follow-up - Pirate Ship

Of course, I should have left the pirate ship 'till TLAPD, but I wanted to let people know it was out there in case they wanted it, as it happens there are still several in my local Poundworld Plus, so there was no panic!

However, in the meantime Peter Evan's I think had gone for the figures (which were quite good) and had a Toy Bank / Pirate Monkey ship (via ITP Imports) to donate to the blog, so we can have a proper look at it.

Figures added to the ship on the left, I was going to populate it with the Eastern figures we looked at last TLAPD, but they were a bugger to dig-out, and it was an equal bind to put them away, so I grabbed Washington's tricorned troops of treachery from Airfix for a quick crew.

As you can see they go very well with it, the wheel is hideously over scale though, as are the two deck-guns and the 'party shop' sails probably need work first! The masts are clip-in and can be turned through about 30°; 15° each way from facing front, to catch wind from either direction. The ornate decorations on the sails are removable vinyl stickers, but the stripes are stencil-sprayed and will need a scrubbing!

There is a little black cannon-barrel sticking out of the hull and when you press it various lights and sounds are effected, with the two big deck guns going mad and various different messages shouted over war-sounds! Two other - white - lights by the wheel and in the bow also light-up for extra oomph!

Detail shots, the rat-lines could be properly woven and attached to the rather truncated chain-plates/chains (that here look like small, paired-cannon!) rather than relying on the stiff and over-scale, clip-on, polyethylene ones, as supplied. I also turned the anchor up the other way, I just thought it looked better, and imagine it would now swing forward and away from the vessel when released.

The figurehead - which is a clip-on - reminds me of the 30mm chap with a goose under his arm from the old 1960's Faller (?) powered/working fountain!

The bowsprit (if that's what the front sail's called!) was not bedded-in properly and while taking it all apart and putting it back together; I shoved it home properly and removed the little spruelete (top right) hanging underneath it!

There are floor-wheels which have a cleaver gearing or a slip-clutch which allows for pull-cord power through pulling the toggle at the back of the ship, but will also tolerate grip-the-ship pull-back-and-go motive power without damaging the cord's mechanism . . . I tried! However; the wheels are quite shallow, so it's vinyl or wood 'oceans', but not carpets.

Although put together in the factory (or at the wholesalers), it has a large number of removable bits and for those thinking of a quick paint-conversion to something more realistic for small-scale war-gaming - the two cannon on the deck can be removed, the wires could then be sealed-off with insulation tape, or the power removed with battery extraction. If the rat-lines went as well, you'd have a very useful little 14-gun whatever . . . brig? Sloop? I think it's a brig as it has two masts, square-rigged? [He says! After a quick Google!] Perfect for 1:76/72nd scale figures. Makes you realise how huge vessels like the Victory were, 10-18 guns was normal!

Thanks as always to Peter. They're still out there if you want a couple! Poundworld-plus and probably larger Poundlands.

21-03-18 - A similarly boxed medieval set has turned-up in Russian [Cyrillic] Graphics, only a matter of time before it appears here?

N is for Nuts! Nutcrackers - Part Three; They're Everywhere!

I'm sure Brain Berke and I aren't the only ones to have noticed this slow, sentient takeover of global culture by the madly grinning but apparently 'nice' nutcrackers (Martians are nice . . . in the eyes of other Martians; as they render us down to a protein Vimto!), so; in order to protect humanity from further incursion, here's a quick guide to their clever disguises!

Certain tropes are adhered-to which can't be easily hidden, they follow a theme of pseudo-military dress, a pattern of sartorial elegance best described as privately-funded Yeoman Cavalry meet Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band in Biba's pirate-chandlery!

Boots are usually laced, the laces either straight or crossed, but buttons can be found and plain boots are seen. Smock-jackets are laced - again parallel or cross-stitched, while others have button-up dress jackets and either crossed-belts or parallel belts are sometimes seen being sported.

Headwear varies but is commonly military or regal, if regal; usually multi-pointed crowns, if military; busbies, bearskins, shakos and Polish-Lancers caps are all found, with or without peaks.

They hide themselves in numerous ways, Brian shot these in New York, I saw two similar sets in Basingrad (an easy target), but couldn't shelfie them, security was tight. Note however that while they wear different uniforms these evil-beevils are clones - the mustaches fool no-one observant!

Large tin-plate ones (5-foot) have been seen - also in Basingrad - drumming up support (it's an easy target), drums, other instruments, swords, muskets, fancy-staffs and ceremonial maces are favourite props of these invaders.

Larger figures (3/4 feet) have also infiltrated this New Jersey fruit market (have they no humanity), draped in rich, Prussian-blue velvet cloaks, playing with smaller infiltrators on puppet-strings, you see . . . you see how they inveigle their way into our culture with a mixture of charm and pushiness!

Don't mess with Skandi-Santa, he looks like he's about 'had' the human holidays, but you can laugh at his socks when he's not looking . . . but be careful, his eyes will follow you round the market!

I haven't escaped this invasion, forcing 2-quid (Poundworld Plus) from my still warm hands, this one has come home with me and there was nothing I could do to stop him. He has announced himself White Rod; Keeper of the Keys to the Lollipop Cupboard!

His mouth works, but is only big-enough for a pine-nut or sunflower-seed; clearly they have another agenda entirely, which has nothing to do with nuts and everything to do with world domination and the subjugation of the masses.

They've crept on to my wrapping paper! They. Are. Everywhere! Run . . .run for the hills!

These jumped-out of a cubby-hole in Debenhams, Basingrad (the bloody place is infested with them) and nearly got me, but I managed to shoot them and make for the escalator!

If this warning has come too late for you, and you have youngsters around over the holiday, this is an A4 dimensioned picture you can print-off for them to colour-in, it might buy you 20-minutes peace and quiet, but then again . . . it might not!