S is for Shrunken Stone!

You know how it is . . . the neighbours get all the tribes together, six-summers running and build a bloody great henge-a-ma-bob down the road, and you think it would be nice to get Jeff the odd-job bloke to knock you up one between the parterre and the ha-ha? Cost is an issue - of course; you've been taxed the fuck-out-of to pay for the big-chief's one, so you go with a bit of a downsized 'replica'!

This was a charity-shop job earlier in the week, and I was trying to gauge the size of the thing from the very small box, and whether it was the same as the one I bought years ago, after another Blogger (who I'm afraid I've forgotten the name of) highlighted them on his Blog (The Works it was). I reckoned it couldn't be the same; in addition it was only 95p, so I figured it was worth a punt?

Once I'd shot the pictures for Friday's 'News, Views . . . ' I began to suspect it was the same, the puzzle-mat seemed the same and the stones also felt/looked familiar as they fell into place, especially the L-shaped ones in the outer circle, but once it was all in place I thought it looked too small to re-do the battle I'd done on the previous posting. Also I couldn't find the old one on the dongles!

Eventually I found it on the Airfix Dongle as I'd posted one image there (reproduced above as I still haven't found the original sample!), and it's odd, but clever . . .

. . . both sets are by the same maker/publisher; Running Press, and to the eye, the stones seem to be about the same size, but the puzzle-disc base is about 30% smaller, and the whole thing has been contracted - the inner circle are all closed up (you wouldn't get a chariot through the new gap!), while two big gaps in the outer circle have been done away with to pull the whole thing tighter.

But closer inspection reveals that the stone may be smaller too. I will dig the old one out and do a proper comparison at some point (soon'ish - I think I know where it is), and I suspect the stones will be the same 30-odd% reduced. It's hard to judge as these are in a very small box while the others were spread-out in two or three layers of blisters.

Looking at the stones they (or some) look similar but not all identical and it may be that pantographing, or a scaling down of a CAD .dwg for 3D printing was employed in the production of new masters? Their finished state, like the earlier set is poured, cold-cast, two-part epoxy 'polyresin'.

I think these are part of a range of novelty 'things' (toys, games, pastimes and executive trinkets) in little boxes, that you find in places like Waterston's in a dedicated rack-tree; we've seen a Dalek here, and [foam] paper-planes? While the other was a kiddies activity book, but between the two, I may be able to produce a better 'complete' example one day, as it wasn't in its current state when the Romans arrived!

Although for those finding this one only, there were lots of stone circles once, with none of them the size or scale of Stonehenge, so imagination is the only limit and it'll make a great focus-piece of scenery in war-gaming . . . the message of the original post elsewhere I think!

W is for The Works (rant alert at the end)

I know someone else Blogged the 'Henge' the other night but in my defence I've been covering The Works and the little treats they bring us for over a year or two now and the amount of stuff useful to figure collectors they have right now is worth a whole post in itself.

Apart from the items below and The Boys Book of Arthur Ward...sorry 'Airfix'...(it's the spine you know!), they also have plenty of the Clash of Heros figures I blogged the other day (I'm picking one up every time I pass and will give them a separate post when I have a few more). Also if you remember the Woodie key-ring figure from Toy Story I got in the Pound Shop the other day - well The Works have the whole set, along with several Disney princess/fairy types, some Winnie the Pooh characters and other Disney key-rings.

So to Stonehenge, it's small and mine had two part 6's (or part 9's? it's hard to tell as they are placed next to each other on the display and read 'each-other' upside-down...does that make any sense?!), you can see the second one jammed into the larger orifice top right, this - of course - may be why it's been remaindered in the first place!

But it's not TOO small, and buying two sets will enable you to fill in the printed blanks with the spares, or make a more ordered one contemporaneous with Caesar's march across the South of England. It's £1.99 for Christ's sake...get three! There are no instructions but you don't need them as the blanks are numbered on the little puzzle-base and the 'polystone' poly-stones are also numbered, just the problem of how to deal with the two number 6/9's!

They are in the kids book section and the box is surprisingly small...

July 2015  - I bough a second one a few days later and it had different stones for No.'s 6/9, the reason there's space around the one above, some packer had miss-placed a duplicate!

The Works are also clearing the Tron Legacy stuff, most of which is as cack as the film was reported to be - I read as many reviews as I can and aggregate the result to decide whether to see a film these days and the message on this one was don't bother if you are remotely fond of the original!

Most of the the toys are silly little micro-scale flying things which bare no resemblance to the film I knew and loved and there is a second range of 4 or 5" action figures, you can tell how much time I gave them as I don't know what size they were!

But...the 'Light -cycles' are about 54mm and one (Flynn's - the white one) is very reminiscent of the original film, so I have tracked down 3 of 4 and will get the other as soon as I see it. Of interest is the pricing...Fleet - affluent London commuter dormitory...£2.99, Newbury - Rural market town with local authority overspill from Reading and the unpaid gardeners of baronets...£1.99!

Above are two of the Light-cycles from Tron, below is the booklet from the Stonehenge boxed-set and a remaindered book by James May, his is down to £1.99 from £9.99 or a four-fifths reduction, Arthur Ward's was £6.99 from £19.99 or approximately two-thirds, from this unscientific evidence we can deduce that James' book is the cackier one, and having read them both I can concur...by a long shot.

This is one of two of his titles in The Works at the moment, can I suggest he sticks to whittering-on about cars instead of giveing Hornby/Scalextric/Airfix/Humbrol Ltd.Inc.Co.Corp.Int. another three hours of free advertising on the Licence-fee payer! Bloody BBC...

It seems that eventually everything comes to The Works...all you have to do is wait (they have Airfix Spitfire kits with paint as well at the moment!), with the Hemlock & Wendel (or whatever they are called - Wynndot & Bendall?) Olympic mascot key-rings currently announced at 7 quid each and the Works' Disney ones at about a pound I wouldn't mind betting they'll have the Jemmy & Kendal key-rings for the same price in 18 months time, buckets of'em!

Right - that's Disney, the Olypics, the BBC, our biggest native toy company and James May whinged about in one rant...a fine nights work me-thinks!