G is for the Game of Kings

And cack-handed, Aspergic, fuckwits! I've never really been any good at Chess, you'd think with a high IQ in the visio-spatial that I'd ace it, but I always end up with a brilliant plan in my head going forward about three moves, trouble being A) My opponent never makes the moves I was counting on them making for my master-plan to come-off, B) my master-plan usually involves my having incorrectly identified at least one of my players as belonging to my opponent or vise-versa, C) while I am trying to jig my master-plan to account for either my opponent's failure to follow it properly or the realisation that my lynch-pin castle is actually my opponent's queen, he/she nicks MY queen - which is really unfair as it means playing for a stalemate is off, and all I have to look forward to is a 'bit of a walk outside the tent chaps'!

However, I do love chess sets, especially when they are more figural in execution . . .

. . . like this one.

This is my Christmas present - which is why I've obscured the price! I grabbed it when I was told about it and someone else is wrapping it, but only after I'd shot the pictures necessary to show it to you!

This shot was taken where it sat on display in the little antiquity/craft place while I asked them to hold it for a couple of days while I rounded up some funding, and at first glance I thought I was probably buying an Indian chess set, aimed at modern tourists in the same terracotta we've seen here before, with 'Black' being Thai/Siamese or Burmese troops, White: Indian or Tibetan/Nepalese types?

The pack-animal Knights looked a bit odd, but who knows what they've got in the Himalayas or jungles of Burma which David Attenborough hasn't got round to showing us yet, huh? And you never look at something the first time you see it in the same way you do when you settle down at your desk for a second (proper) look; many a twinge of 'buyers-remorse' is down to a glance and incorrect conclusion.

The 'Thai/Burmese' side, or are they the Indians fighting a Chinese white-force? Well, it turns-out they are none of the above, they are in fact Amerindians! And speaking of Chess conventions - as I will in a minute down the page - this is the correct way to photograph a chess set - King to the left, Pawn to the right and if it's a more standard set like a Staunton, you'd add a Pawn or King from the other side at one end of the row.

As we'll see in a minute, once I'd got the set home and looked at it properly in was obvious that White are actually Conquistadores and these chaps . . . well? Probably Peruvian . . . or Columbian maybe? I think the pack animals rule out Mexico, while to the south of the Amazon-basin dress is different, with warmer, layered-clothing and felt or woolly-hats.

The thing is, I don't mind they're not from India (or that part of the world) as I have the figures we've previously looked at (a lovely set coming here soon!), but I have had no South American composition; now I have, so a bit of a bargain!

The clincher was the White set, which while looking Asian at first glance, especially against the other set, are actually, clearly Europeans of the Columbian invasion era. I'd mistaken Spanish helmets for Sikh turbans or Nepalese side-hats!

Both sets are presumable thumb-pressed into loose half-moulds, married-together and then turned-out to dry, possibly with a low-temperature firing to speed things along. [There is a page in preparation which explains why this type of clay is 'composition' rather than 'ceramic', but it's proved problematical, been re-written twice and was passed around the experts for proof-reading nearly a year ago to little effect!]

The figures have then been hand-painted, and glazed with a dip in what appears to be pigmented yacht-varnish . . . 'army-painter' before Armypainter!

There is a strong and obvious overtone of Christendom to White, reinforcing the history behind the two sides in this set, not the Bishops but both King and Queen being adorned with large crosses (I also missed in my initial perusal), with the Black side equally obviously being representative of pre-Colombian Amerindians.

White's Knights are henceforth to be known as 'My Little Surprised Pony', while Black's will be 'My Little Andean Not-a-pony', whether it's a lama, alpaca or other, similarly-configured woolly ruminant from that continent (there's several) is anyone's guess. You can also see how the two halves are squished-together and roughly flattened-off before being tipped-out of the moulds.

My use of Black and White has no racial undertones whatsoever, despite the ethnicity of the pieces, it is simply Chess convention to call the paler side 'White' and the darker side 'Black' in cases of polychrome sets - where you [occasionally] get those beautiful stained-ivory sets (ironically; from India!) in green and red, I believe the convention is always Red = black and Green = white, but - obviously - with African soapstone and carved-wood sets, black is black and the red/oxblood is white!

Note also, that while Black's Bishops and Pawns are different designs, the grotty-old euro-pirates get a scale-down OF the Bishop AS a Pawn! And everyone looks as surprised as White's Knights, except the Andean Not-a-pony's who look very sly and not less than a little evil!

Lined-up and ready to go, playing with polychrome sets is even more of a nightmare for me as it's too easy to misplace ones pieces, especially with this set where I'd be losing some Pawns mentally, out of the corner of my eye, as fast as I lost others physically to my opponent!

However another miss-assumption was the age of the set, I thought when I first saw them that they were modern; like yesterday, but studying the - minor - damage/ageing to the board I suspect it's more of a 1960/70's thing?

I shot the hell out of it because it'll be three months before I see it again! If there's one criticism of the set, it's that Black's castles are a cop-out - European outline,  medieval turret-towers; they could have been steeply-stepped pyramids, or something more colloquial, or at least recognisably Amerindian.

PS - A quick Google while uploading this post reveals they are quite common, definitely from Peru and while the designs differ, the theme remains the same - Inca vs. Spanish. There's one with a lovely red/orange board offset by 45º's as a diamond/lozenge and others have round boards or more ornate ones with feet - look for the photograph of a stall loaded with them!

C is for Character Historics

Which one feels ought to be F is for Figures Historiques or H is for Historical Figures or something, they've had several names and no names, a complicated history and according toPSR one of them is a bit of a mystery. In five minutes it will hopefully be less of a mystery, but more complicated!

A bit of background would be helpful . . . these two sets were among the first of the 'new' sets to appear, heralding the current renaissance we are still enjoying, indeed, it's more of a 'new normal' these days; watching the steady stream of new issues on Dave Kean's site, some makers taking a breather, others churning out sets, smaller companies disappearing as others tentatively issue their first set, but that is now, and these which were then . . .

. . . which was about 1997/98 . . . the Internet was something only 'some people' had, or that lucky people got to play with at work, eBay was garnering headlines but no one had heard of Google, Nokia - the most popular mobile 'phones - still had monochrome screens and a character limit of 140 on text messages . . . when first rumours and then fuzzy black-&-white (I seem to recall) images, finally; examples of unknown small-scale figures started to emanate from the newly (well, newish; ten years earlier) liberated East.

If one ignores the minor-makes, the history of plastic small scale had been pretty simple, Airfix dominated for 30 years, then Esci stepped-in to cover the 1980's with Revell (working with a couple of smaller, newer names) introducing their range at the tail-end of the '80's, while Atlantic had burned brightly in the middle of Airfix's dominance.

Looking at the picture today with dozens of makers large and small, all working on esoteric sets we never thought we'd see in plastic, it's hard to picture how hobby shops had only one or two brands on the shelves - for many years.

But as HäT, Italeri and then Zvezda began to expand the market, these little chaps started appearing, their first moments of newsworthiness used to be found on the HäT site, but I looked for them in Everything Toy Soldiers (ETS) the other day and couldn't find them, so they must have been notifications on long-gone forum threads?

But, it was about 1997/98 or thereabouts. I first obtained them from Peter Bergner's PB Toys at that time, from the Plastic Warrior show at Richmond, where he was carrying them in his own packaging with his own codes, but Peter only located/packed the first three sets to appear (the Samurai and first two ancient sets), which weren't the ones I'm covering here!

This is the problem set as far as PSR is concerned, but to me they are Kervella, and are stored as such. Yves Kervella was clearly the lynch-pin with the Eastern makers, and from the marking on the hub of the runner; "FRANCE 98", we can deduce that as well as importing the early output of the - still not really fully-understood - Eastern operators (some became the more professional operators; Strelets*R, Orion/Dark Dream and the later Mars) he was also commissioning figures or at least supplying master-sculpts/instrumental in the 'ideas' process.

As proof of how easy it is to lose even recent history if you don't keep good records, I obtained these on two occasions, once as the whole runner, but previously as four figures (the four lose on the right of the left shot), but I can't remember if I only had four because there were only four, or if I split them with someone like Paul at PW, which did happen with the later pirate set, I listed them as a four, and coming before the eight, so that must be how they came-in, I just can't remember why/if it had any significance!

I can't argue with PSR's designations vis-à-vis the identities of the separate sculpts, but equally would agree with them that several are open to interpretation and - as far as war gamers are concerned - paint and context will help make them pretty much anyone you need at the front! The saluting Nazi (PSR's 'Himmler') could be any German General of medium-build and stature - for instance, while Hitler isn't that clear and could be Himmler!

As given in the above link, but from the standard bearer - clockwise;

- SA Standard-Bearer

- Churchill

- Ernst Röhm

- Himmler

- Mussolini

- Auxiliary

- Hitler

- Rommel

But . . . Kervella - France!

Although, there's no denying that PSR's set is not one I've encountered yet, physically, and HYTTY  listed them both as single figures (mixed with the figures below), and a pair briefly; 001 - Hitler and Mussolini.

The 'Mussolini' is a suitably arrogant-looking, 'who ate all the pies' fat-bass'tud!

Another of the sets that crept-out of the cyber-space/ether of the early Internet was this one, which would go on to have several incarnations, with three makers/brands including rather pointless - risible even - 'limited editions'. Its line-up also changed from time to time, but as far as I can tell, the tool/runner was never altered and the full shot is still to be found occasionally.

Again while it came from the East, the hand of Yves Kervella is all over it, not least in the fact that while the bulk of the figures conform vaguely to Airfix's HO-OO moniker, the recognisably-French characters have had so much cow-muck put in their boots as kids they have pushed themselves to the top of the 25mm spectrum!

Top left to bottom right

- Charles de Gaulle¹

- Julius Caesar

- Attila the Hun

- Grant

- Lee

- Franco (PSR have him as a 'German Officer') *

- Cleopatra²
- Mystery Figure *
- Joan of Arc
- Napoleon

* - The latter asterisked figure is believed by some to be the victim of the former. With one or both being left out of several packagings of this set, it's never clear what was happening with the two sculpts or who they are.

I favour Franco for the former - he is an obvious mid-20th century character missing from these two sets which feature fascists quite heavily, while the kneeling figure was also included in latter, larger sets of the Samurais, so it may well be that was always what was intended, but that there was no room for him on the Samurai runner, which like the earlier set above, was arranged as a 'pin-wheel' layout.

¹ - Looks like he might have been based on a Cofalu 30mm policeman!

² - Based on an Atlantic Egyptian courtier?

Odemars issued the set as 102 S - Character Historics, and while the 'Franco' was supposed to be left out, you can clearly see I got one! This also illustrates the problem of spending all that time and effort on developing a mould for historical characters, how many identical Napoleons or De Gaulle's do you want, or need!

Pre-production samples were sent out (by Yves Kervella I think?) in a leery, fluorescent green polymer which is a bugger to photograph, I've shot with and without flash to try and get across the set as best I can!

HYTTY (wacky name - wacky company!) also gave us two of each, but managed to filter out the Franco sculpts a little more diligently than Odemars. Note there is nothing on the packaging to indicate a limited edition status and it's marked-up as set 1003♥ - Figures Historics.

Also, I would suggest the Cleopatra sculpt has - from the neck-up - far more in common with the famous bust of Nefertiti, not a Ptolemaic Pharaoh (as Cleopatra was) , but an Ancient Egyptian one, however as a whole-sculpt; would make a better Akhenaton, the excised, male, Sun King (celebrated by Philip Glass), husband of Nefertiti, and another ancient?

This might help? It's more likely to confuse! The trouble with someone else's tables is - only the author knows what he's doing! However, it's a screen-cap from a 7-page document which runs to 95 entries, listing the sets first as I encountered them in the late 1990's and then by maker which anyone who fancies a copy can have, just eMail me at:

maverickatlarge[at]hotmail[dot]com.

Several correspondents call all these early sets 'Russian', but as far as I know they are mostly or all Ukrainian in origin, with a clear French connection - but no Popeye!

Yes, if you're a Trumpundbrixit bully-boy in the Donbas militia with 'I Love Putin' tattooed on both forearms you probably call it Russia, but if you are a friend of freedom, peace, democracy or self-determination (true Russians have never been free; or known freedom) then it's Ukraine, I choose to use the PC cop-out 'the East'!

We then have this appearing on HYTTY boxed sets a few years into their short existence (HYTTY's; not the figures, they are still around), claiming it was first and limited to 500 sets? But a quick perusal of the previous screen-capcha reveals that HYTTY managed to issue L1, 001, 100 and 1001 to three sets, 001 twice, and while L1 was issued to this set, at one point and presumably meant 'Limited - 1'; it was also issued by two other brands, is still available and became the unlimited № 1003! And the later Greek cavalry box was a duel HYTTY-LW branding, LW and Odemars also working closely together.

Answering a question posed earlier in the editing process (and therefore; higher up the post!); there's a similarity between the Kervella-HYTTY-Odemars Cleopatra and the figure to 'her' right in this shot, but only in passing, and only around the front of the skirts/kilt/reed-knit sporran thing/area, otherwise there is no direct copying from any of the Atlantic figures, which otherwise match-up well - as 'Ancient' Egyptians, that is BC/BCE.

T is for Toro Toro Teixidor!

Shot this on Mercator's stand two three weekends ago, the sort of stand-alone item I'll never have the funds (or the room!) for, and while I collect the loose figures, I've yet to get any Teixido examples, so a bit of a treat to see this and photograph it (despite my opinion of bullfighting which I won't bore you with again!).

The set comes like this under a lift-off lid, whether there was any packing - maybe tissue - when new I don't know, there is one piece of string, but that seems structural and to be holding down the sandpaper ring (which you would have thought they'd glue-down?) to the base of the box.

The four corners are boxed-over and the whole is foil-laminated with red/white striped 'wrapping paper'. The semi-translucent stuff is book-binders mending/repair tape I think and the whole thing was sitting in the lid which I forgot to photograph!

The ring - though toy-like and scaled-down - has all the amenities of the real thing printed on the outer wall with various exits for the fighters, butchers and hangers-on, there's also a card inner wall to hide behind - when the thing you're slowly killing tries to kill you first - which is just a strip of card stapled at the ends to make a rigid hoop!

Foot types present in this set, there are more in the Teixido inventory and with the [re]moveable arms a couple of the figures can be made to hold the cloth/cape behind them making them look quite different.

A mounted figure missing his left arm and the bull; it would appear the bull is the donor for the Jecsan bull in my collection, but Teixido's has its head down with exhaustion and - like all originals - is a better sculpt.

Compare with the copies and other brands here, I think I called them all Comansi when I published, but I've got them all straight in my head now and by the time you read this I should have updated the old post to read more correctly! [Actually it wasn't as bad as I thought and comments dealt with what remained!]

Looking at the protection the horses carry raises the question of what damage do the horses suffer or how often are horses damaged or even killed/put-down? Maybe the barbarism isn't confined to the bulls and the odd Bullfighter?

A couple more shots of the 'whole'. Daniel Lepers recently reported in Plastic Warrior magazine 167 (back numbers/subscriptions available) that these are getting brittle now and collectors are having to be very careful handling them, I have to say these looked OK - but I wasn't about to test them!

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News, Views Etc . . . The Evil Empire

No, no; not Star Wars! This is about the market-leading, stealers of Hestair-Kiddycraft's good idea; the interlocking building brick, none other than Lego; who may not be market leaders for much longer?

Yada-yada-yada!

All these cuttings are from two publications, the 'i' Newspaper (surviving, and increasingly expensive, tabloid-rump of The Independent) and the Metro free-sheet.

And: have all been culled in the last three months.

There is more written about Lego in any given time-period in the British press (and I suspect elsewhere?) than is written about Hasbro, Hornby (Airfix, Corgi and Scalextric), Mattel, and Tomy -Takara . . . put together! This 'accidental' plethora of coverage is probably no accident!

Other, better systems exist!

Dr. Who from Character Options

While there is no evidence of collusion, other than the circumstantial evidence before our eyes in the first image, all that publicity - if paid-for as declared advertising - would be worth a fortune to some agency, and the fact is some of the other names have been having similar stories, without getting the same level of coverage.

Indeed, the board-room battles at Hornby Group this year (a UK-based company with several iconic names in its stable) were far more newsworthy than the Lego lay-offs, yet garnered no more than a few column-inches across the year - mostly confined to the 'i', while Lego's recent 'press' release got two pieces, in each paper.

All aboard the License please!

Lego - DC

And while these are the papers I take; I'm sure the picture is the same across the media.

Speaking of which, one of the stories with a more legitimate claim to column-inches was the TV series Lego Masters on Channel4 (second time I've mentioned them (C4) in a few days - I'll have to post against my own pro-bias next!), but I'm not sure it warranted the full-page, fully-illustrated, product-friendly fluff we actually got . . . "I'm a Legoista" wrote one journo-tosser; pass the sick-bucket!

Mega Blok's mini car; figure unknown

but probably the same maker's earlier efforts

Then we had to endure the excruciating pain of watching David Beckham spend three days building a castle you should be able to finish in a few hours . . . and I'll bet my shirt that was an on-line, global 'news' story, with social media live feeds, regular updates and sycophantic commenting, 'liking' and sharing to boot!

Then there was the 'good news' story of the little seven-year old who wrote to Lego asking for a job and got a day's 'work experience' at Legoland Windsor. Now - I don't know how many kids write to Lego every year asking for a job, or giving them 'ideas', but I bet if they were all given a day's work experience, Lego would become the largest employer of unpaid kids in the known universe, ever!

No; he was the lucky-one, drawn from the pile of hopefuls at random (or at 'photogenic' random!) by the press-office to provide a feel-good story the week [two days] before the redundancies were announced, it's not just hidden advertising - it's cynical, capitalist shit, generated by the Evil Empire, lapped-up by a supine media, that makes ME look like a happy-go-lucky, eternal optimist!

Lego 'technical' person.

Technically soulless!

Another way in which both papers (and the rest of the media?) treat Lego differently to other toy firms is in the fact that the letters sections often carry follow-up stuff, which you never see for the Hasbro or Hornby stories (when they occur); somehow Lego has a given for more column-inches than any other toy company!

There has been 'editorial' coverage of both Bricklive in Birmingham (over now, sorry but September went so fast I was expecting another week to get 'News, Views' out!) and the Hotel at Legoland Windsor, while a Serina Sandhu managed to write 19 column-inches in the 'i' about Ageism (!) which mentioned Lego more than four times!

Meanwhile over at the BBC World Service we had a 'reporter/foreign-correspondent' telling us her little-kid's non-Lego set (bought by [useless] husband - of course!) "Fell apart", naming the branded/licensed range so we'd know which brand she was talking about; well - I know the brand - it fits together just as well as Lego, indeed most of the clones are fine, while old Lego falls-apart just as easily as early clones.

Oh how the Legoland minifigure 'rules'

have been broken in recent years!

However it's not all bad-news and you won't have missed the big story - that sales are down, profits are falling, a second boardroom shake-up in less than twelve-months (Brit-out, Dane-in) was announced unexpectedly and 1,400 redundancies/not-to-be-replaced-wastage will occur in the global toy giant's staffing-levels (around 8% for the workforce)  in the near future.

We have seen in recent years companies which have become 'too big to fail'; European banks, US motor manufacturers and steel companies mostly; the odd airline (Boing last week!), but really, if you follow the tenets of Thatcherite-Raganomic, 'New-Blairist' free-market capital (that which we are all struggling under); they should be allowed to fail?

"Let the market decide" is the great cry from the establishment when people want to keep a school open, or save 'Woolie's' or BHS from disappearing, yet large corporation's run-off to government and explain (bitch, blub, threaten and cajole) that they must be bailed-out for the good of the economy!

Well, no! While I'm not suggesting Lego would seek a rescue package from the Danish Government, and it's not got to that point yet; still, Lego grew too big, too greedy, too litigious for a company with basically one product, a product they stole and which they saturated the market with, at prices well above their competitors

So if they go bust they should be left to disappear, to - hopefully - create space for a hundred new companies to have a go? That's free-market, entrepreneur-driven capitalism! Not a few behemoths kept-going beyond their years - and yes - I am also thinking of the recent Toysaurus storyline!

Kill'em-off, kill'em-all-off and lets go back to little toy-shops, back in those currently-empty retail-units littering our high-streets and malls, selling toys sourced from a hundred suppliers, from local craft sources, from catalogues with an internet portal and - why not - a local drone- delivery service!

Action-figs, not Minifigs

Mega Bloks do Marvel & Halo

Lego also featured in stories about super-heroes recently while the TfL (Transport for London) 'travel page' of Metro managed to push us Lego stationary like little multicoloured acid-tabs!

Another good news story is Mayka Tape (maykaworld.com) - designed in Cape Town, SA, by Anine Kirsten and Max Basler of Chrome Cherry Design Studios - an adhesive tape on a roll, with studs gauged to marry with the blocks of 'all leading brands' of building block. It's one of those 'Why didn't someone come-up with this 30-years ago and why didn't I think of it first' moments!

You can run the tape up walls, across work-surfaces, out the dog-flap into and around the garden, next-door and back (seek parental approval first!) obviously there will be distortion on corners or curved-surfaces, but just use single-stud bricks to anchor things, or cut for sharp-corners! There are base-plates with the same re-usable, low-tack adhesive in the range as well.

Zuru (the New Zealand company marketing Mayka) says there are already 30/40 Chinese factories producing knock-offs of the originally crowd-funded tape for the Christmas rush - thus it ever was! And you can bet some of them will be using that crumbly synthetic rubber being used for erasers at the moment, totally the wrong material for high-stress brick-clicking!

Clockwise from T/L; mad-dog Lego's called-in a vet!

Hagrid threatened by Mega Blocks rats!

Boom goes Lego and the Wizard's outta-here!

There are those who think I shouldn't 'do' politics, there's even one bloke out there who thinks I shouldn't do polictic (I don't know, some sort of nervous condition he thinks I develop when I eat Polenta?), but this stuff is our lives, and no man . . . or 'thing' is an island; one of the biggest threats to Liberal Democracy is 'fake news'.

The fact that so many Lego stories are being carried, whether or not you compare them to other stories about other toy makers, is either because someone is paying for all the stories (in which case it would be False Advertising - in law - without the 'advert' notifications) or because the journalists . . . aren't.

Journalism'ing, that is, and I fear it is a case of the latter with lazy journalists and lazy editors; sucking-up every story pushed-out by a consummate PR operation; whether based in Denmark or the UK.

"What's on the wire?"

"There's a Lego-PR thing just come in Boss - some puff-piece about a Dachshund who howls if you take his Lego away?"

"Yeah? Great - run with it, fluff it to six column-inches, add imagery - four-by-two - page 15, and use Septimus Fuckwit as a byline - everyone loves Lego!"

"For the headline Boss: Sausage-dog Serenade?"

"Err...no . . . try: Lonely Lapdog Laments Lost Lego"

"Oh good-one boss, you're the best!"

When you see such obvious 'fake news' you realise these awful Trumpundbreixt right-wing loons (as the Germans are calling them!) actually have a point, which legitimises their parochial, flag-waving, false nationalism and xenophobic desire to return to the golden-haloed uplands of 1950's rationing, small cars, long hours and the cane!

The media are responsible for what's happening with the West's crisis of confidence in liberal democracy, by dint of their A) giving-up on actual journalism and B) giving all sides an easy-ride under some misplaced PC belief in equal coverage which leaves someone like Farage (rhymes with C**t) being invited on to serious political magazine programs as often as people from the two/three main parties!

And yes; in a world where 'all publicity is good publicity', I am well away of the hypocritical incongruity of this post - so buy Cobi, buy Mega Bloks, try Mayka, buy those big sets for bugger-all money in Wilko's or the Works, or even Poundland, it's all just ripped-off Hestair-Kiddycraft interlocking building bricks!

Next time you see a Lego piece in your 'newspaper'; ask yourself if it's a legitimate news story, or just a page-filler because no celebrity-bimbo's had a nipple-slip in the previous 24 hours, neither of the Delavigne sisters left the house over the editorial print-period, no UKIP'er was caught doing a Nazi salute, no cow was rescued from flood-water, Boris kept his mouth shut for a day . . .

Tear-down the Lego wall, and demand better news!

News, Views Etc . . . News and Views!

I don't know what happened to September, I was sure we still had a week to go, by which I mean on Friday the 29th I was thinking it was about the 22nd or 23rd; someone stole a week from my life . . . bastard!

Also; on Friday last, we had pretty-much 'had' the conkers, and a few sweet chestnuts were starting to fall on the way into town, but it was still basically late-summer, today - 72 hours later - there's leaves everywhere and it's nearly Christmas! It would appear that at midnight on Saturday all the leaves remembered they hadn't paid rent for October and just took-off!

But is it Giant?

Nothing much toy-related here today, but there are new posts over on the small scale Hong Kong piracy Blog, each looking at one of the three little boxed sets from DFC/MTC which were issued back in the 1980's.

Barbie

Also a bit of news for those whose interest in toys extends to something broader than 50-60 millimetre soldiers; Channel4 here in the UK are showing Barbie: The Most Famous Doll in the World tomorrow night (Tuesday 3rd) at 9.15, it's staring Mary I-can't-save-the-high-street-after-all Portas, so it may well turn-out to be all of a Mattel-edited 'fluff and nonsense' screen-filler -  with little on Bild Lilly and nothing on Marx or the Lam/Seltzer Gina doll - but it promises to visit the Mattel factory, follow the design process, attend a Barbie convention and look at social issues here in the UK so should have something of interest, and it's nice to see toys on the telly for once!

3rd Best Month Ever

Because I lost a week somewhere (bastard!) the 'first/second week of October' thing was way out, and the Blog actually tipped the two-million hits sometime on the afternoon of the thirtieth! I was in the Library at about 3pm and it had 198-hits to go, so around 4 o'clock/teatime I reckon, if that was you (singular) thanks! While if you (plural) keep coming, I'll keep posting!

The funny thing is, it took nearly eight years to get the first million up, and just over a year to get the second but I think it will be less than 12-months to the third, from June's million-point to mid-December last year the total had only risen about 250,000, so the Blog's seen around 750,000-hits in 9 months! However as I know a similar Blog got their three-million up ages ago, I'm not getting ideas above my station!

I'd like to thank my family, because even though they're not involved, you always start by thanking them, I'd like to thank Miss Nash, Mrs Uprichard, Mrs Polity and Mike Richardson (my art teachers at various schools!) for letting me muck-about and 'express myself', I'd like to thank you, the viewing public for voting with your left-clicks - Ooops, I'm welling-up here, what would Gwyneth do now? - I'd like to thank everyone I've ever slept with, because when you see the futility of most human existence it's only the hope or possibility of more sex at some point in the future which keeps you going.

I'd like to thank Paul Morehead at Plastic Warrior for encouraging me out of private, lone-collecting (the natural state of most collectors) into more public participation, PTS, Plastic Warrior, Paul McKenna, Andy Harfield and Peter Bergner for the shows (in the order I first attended!), John Begg and Adrian Little for support, encouragement and opportunity, Trevor Rudkin for a ton of stuff over the years and everyone who's ever been named as a contributor to the Blog.

I'd like to thank Pope John Paul II [not], President the Dead Kennedy's, King Crimson, the Beatles and the Stones, the Monkeys (who were Monkees and arguably better than the Beatles), Francis Ford Coppola, Harry Harrison and The Stainless Steel Rat, Susan George, AC/DC and Deep Purple (in fact; all the colours - Black Sabbath, Blue Oyster Cult, Pink Floyd &etc), Dan Dare (the Eagle one), Judge Dredd (the 70's one), Flash Gordon (the silly one with Brian Blessed), the kid whose brother gave me all his Airfix blue ACW artillery in 1960-something, Donald Lehmkule, Brian Woodruffe, Tangerine Dream, Peardrax (in fact; all the fruit...yeah, even Bananarama), Mariella Frostrup, Punch, Private Eye, The Blues Brothers, Berlin, the smaller Channel Islands, Kenya, Enio Morriconi, the American Civil War, Asimov, Clarke, Huxley, the various Priests (authors; not effing clerics), The Hairdresser's Husband, Philip Glass, Vitalic - Poison Lips (Captain Flash Remix), Arms and Armour Press, Bellona, Almark, Ian Allen and MAP, Ramses II, Akhenaton, Brazil, Bowie (before he became a knob), Charlton Hesston (before he became a git), barrels (wooden), elephants, Autumn, gull's eggs, a galaxy long ago and far away, and another where no man had boldly gone to split-infinitives, Tribbles, Dimetrodon, Mohammad Ali, Janis Joplin, 1970's French Porn comedies, rock-pools, Clint Eastwood, Charlotte Rampling, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Jenny Agutter, Celtic knot-work, fossils, most trees (not spiky, bastard-bush ones in Africa, they probably stole my last bit of September too; the bastards), The Man with Two Brains, De Sade, Kafka, Orwell, Vonnegut (all the depressives - they tell it like it was, is and always bloody will be), Mouse, Kelley and psychedelia, the Beach Boys, Susan Sarandon, The Simpsons, rhubarb crumble, Futurama, apple crumble South Park, plum crumble, the Hooters - All You Zombies, and Donald & Keifer Sutherland. I'd like to thank Rutger Hauer in Heaven & Hell, pancakes with sugar & lemon, crepes with hot chocolate-sauce, Catch-22 (book or film), Christmas-tree baubles, Rommel, Michael Caine, Art Nouveau and the Arts & Craft movement, anyone called Napoleon but not called Bonaparte (there's a Solo one), Prisoner, Z-cars, The Goodies, The Year of Living Dangerously, Bernard Fall, Daleks, Lego (but only before about 1997), Forbidden Planet (the animated movie), Forbidden Planet (the shop, but only before about 1997), Jerry-cans, Rubber Jigglers, Ray Bradbury, Abseiling, the ceremonial uniforms of South American Dictatorships, Raglan Castle, Schlöss Neuschwanstein, jam doughnuts, Santiago Calatrava, Rodney Matthews, gooseberry-fool, JRR Hobbit-man, ration-pack Mars Bars (not high-street ones), Lord of War and Nick Cage, oatmeal blocks with greengage jam from a tube, the SR71 Blackbird, chocolate trifle, Stuttgart, Munich, Baden Württemberg, the Black Forest, the Bodensee, Weingarten, Steibis and the Donautal (basically; everything German, south of Kassel), Bob Marley, insects (except camel-spiders), daffodils, peanut-butter, The Wire (telly not cold-war), Silent Running, old 1950's Volvo's, Dad's Army, Hadrian's Wall, old 1970's Volvo's, skinny-dipping, cacti, (not at the same time), old 1960's...yeah - just 'Volvo's'. I'd like to thank the British for 1000 years of annoying the French, mapping pens, Burger King's cinnamon-apple slice (discontinued in '92; bastards), Trading Places, Action Man (not GI Joe), Hurricanes, Vulcan V-Bombers, Britten-Norman Trilanders (yellow ones), Tom & Jerry, aircraft carriers, MTB's, fog-horns, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, snow, snowmen, skiing, Massey Furguson, The Primrose Café at Eastleigh, M4 Heston Services Northbound, armoured cars, the South Downs Way, Led Zepplin, Pepperami, English canals, Welsh streams, stepping-stones, Irish coffee and Highland toffee. I'd like to thank Ford Transit vans, American military 6x6 trucks, shortbread, a Harley Davidson Sturgis in midnight-pumpkin, raspberry Ruffles, Lucky Bags, Tootie-Fruities (like Skittles but BETTER), chemistry-sets and microscopes, black socks with coloured toes, Neil Young, Land-Rovers, Austin Gypsies, Chelsea Bridge, plain-chocolate Bounties, the Bayeux Tapestry, big cats, little cats, kittens , cheetahs, aliens that look like kittens but eat your soul in your sleep, Kew Gardens, sloe gin, Advocatt, Advocart, Addvocat egg-nog, Guinness, Sauterne, canoeing, Manu Chao & Noir Desir  - Le Vent Nous Portera, Roger Dean,  special-fried rice, variegated-holly hedges, the GPMG and Chinooks (not at the same time), Mon Cherie in Charlottenberg, Leonard Cohan and the other one with the gravelly voice (Judas!), Azaleas, Eli Wallach, Sigourney Weaver, the Great Pyramids at Giza, Blade Runner, Big-O, Heavy Metal magazine, Asterix and Tintin, toadstools, Peter Rabbit, glow-in the dark stars on the ceiling, hedgehogs, roast lamb with all the trimmings, Nazareth - Morning Dew, the Morris Minor estate, Aphrodite's Child, Pooh-sticks, dandelions, Stonehenge, Tusker's larger, Phauenbrau, Easyrider T-shirts, Nutella, Marmite, Twister ice-lollies . . .

Best Month Ever - from the 17th!

 . . . but most of all - I'd like to thank the kind folks of the Penn State Toy Soldier Mafia, and in particular the jabbering-fuck; Paul Stadinger and his cock-wackin' monkey-lizard; Erwin Sell, because without their intervention last December and their various entertaining, misguided, lunatic intermissions since, the blog would only be sitting on around 1,450,000-hits today, so - thanks y'awll!

R is for Robot Follow-up

Having added that set of five eraser-robots from a charity shop the other day, I popped into WHSmith in Basingrad on Friday, and a year or so after I bought the pink-bot in a sale, I found they had three more at 50p each, one was damaged but the other two were fine, so the quid was parted-with

Here's the two new - rather frowny - miscreants, one arm's fallen-off but they are a bit loose anyway and there's nothing wrong with it, the one I left had the receiving-stud broken-off, two for a pound; you can't say no!

With apologies to Ray Winston - I know he's the Daddy really!

Droid Army - a round-up of robots, all previously Blogged here I think, bar the BraveStarr Galaxy Rangers robo-Wild West figures from Hing Fat et al - not sure about the silver PVC chap, have we had him? I've more of that type in storage so we'll return to them again; I'm sure. Droids come in all shapes and sizes!

Three pens and eight erasers; office-bots!