R is for Rack-Toy Gliders

Quick apology to Mr. B - our support in New York; he sent a set of the Superhero gliders we looked at last time to the blog for closer inspection, but I've misplaced them in the attic somewhere so they aren't here. What we do have are some more of the 'traditional' or bog-standard, pocket-money ones in envelopes and a 'pack of three'!

These are in the local pop-up discount store, and you get three colourful jets, two with vaguely Asian or Asian-reminiscent markings (South Vietnam (orange) and China/North Korea/North Vietnam (blue) ?), the other even more generic in yellow and all three the same die-cut design. Red Deer - it's the fourth or fifth item from them, found by Peter Evans or myself in the last couple of years, so some importer's nom de jour!

I shelfied these awhile ago, but they still have them and I may purchase one (for the life-changing amount of a whole quid!) for next time, as when I was putting everything away in the garage a year ago I found the storage lot and - as I mused before - there is a four-prop Lancaster! . . .  and several older promotional/advertising freebies/giveaways in balsa, so another post due on these in a year or so  . . . got to top-up the tag occasionally!

I was so intrigued by the FW Trainer on the pack-back listings last-time, when I saw them together somewhere, I bought both to compare, as with the others (about five brandings now, these are Rex - London (Rex - International)) the printing as been allowed to deteriorate with age and the change in material they are printed on - they used to be balsa but have been expanded-polystyrene sheet for a couple of decades, or more now.

You can see where the original German crossed have been Photoshop'ped out (although that probably happened before 'Photoshop' ever existed) which is odd as it's the swastika that has the cultural-association problems attached; not the cross?

The 'A-4' looks like a Focke Wolf, I fear the 'TA 152H' trainer (an Eocke Wolf!) is using the same dies as the Japanese Zero!

Red is for Arrows

This was part of a whole bunch of Red Arrow merchandise cleared through Cancer research charity shops, earlier this year and may represent a series of tragedies, steaming from the original crash on the A27 which has recently finished going through the legal process. I shot lots of images on two occasions fitting the wings the other way the second time!

Pieces and packaging

If the first tragedy was the crash, the second was the new rules almost immediately brought-in which as good as prevented any kind of inland air-display where urban areas are within the flight path; something we've seen here, with Farnborough severely curtailed, and the Red Arrows reduced to a single-pass, slow-speed fly-by, in formation behind a transport-giant last year.

Put together

Obviously that lack of public presence will have had a knock-on effect on the sales from the gift stalls' set-up at the shows, in turn affecting the revenue-stream to the RAF Benevolent Fund and/or the RAF Association, the third tragedy.

The Army Benevolent Fund having suffered a similar reduction in stature and public-familiarity as first the big Army Show in Rushmore and then the Earl's Court's Tattoo (and similar regional events) were scaled back and eventually scrapped by Tory cuts through the 1980's and 1990's.

Detail shots and 'Flying Wing'

(it didn't fly - it's a diver!)

The upshot on one level is a ton of stuff to be cleared via-donation to charity, the other is more need is ex-servicemen, and less ability by the established srvice charities to meet that need, leading to all sorts of private charities springing up in their stead; Help for Heroes, Helping Heroes, etc . . .

Of which some are perfectly legitimate and worthy, but others are run by Right-wing or far-Right organisations whose main aim is not raising money, but raising their own profiles and publicising their own agenda. While the landscape of many charities with similar names or aims, gives succour to out-and-out fraudsters, collecting for themselves - The fourth tragedy!

Wing the other-way up . . . correct?

This (above list of tragedies) is not to be wondered at, it's the ultimate goal of everything the Tory grandees (also behind Brwreakshit) have been working toward for the last 40-years, and one shouldn't be surprised.

Not that I'm saying the rural wealthy and urban elite have deliberately organised an air-crash with nefarious aims - that would be conspiracy-theories' gone mad! But, that it has helped reduce the fabric of society and quality of life of the nation, is exactly the sort of convenient, coincident synergy, those pretentions, preening old-Etonian prick's feed on, nay; thrive-on!

The Red Arrows, unable to perform as they used too and no longer raising funds for charity will face the axe that 'did for' Gemini, the Black Diamonds, the Blades, the Blue Chips, the Macawas, the Poachers, and the Red Pelicans . . . that saw-off the Naval Gun Teams, the REME Jeep Race and the White Helmets.

T is for Toy Fair 2019 Reports - J Perkins (JP)

JP may well be known to you from your work desk or table where they may be present as bottles or tins of glue, paint or solvent of one type or another, and while I wouldn't expect real-flying model aficionados to be following the blog, they would know them for their fuels, lubricants or coatings, however they currently have a small range of traditional 'novelty' gliders.

As it's over a year since we last looked at these here and less than 660-days to Christmas, time we looked at them again, and we'll start with another report from the January Toy Fair . . . it's been a funny year!

Ohhh! Pretty Lady, what happened to you?

Forty-years of Thatcherite-Raganomic, bigoted, middle-England, parochial, reactionary, Tory-policy, that's what, and what they did to you they're now doing to the whole country! Although we can't escape from the fact you were only ever a planet-destroying, Anglo-French vanity-project for the very rich, so maybe museums are the best place for you?

It's a Concord glider, in laser-cut, coated-balsa wood, too cool for aviation-school! In the background an even more traditional - undecorated, plain balsa - glider, but with the added gimmick of adjustable wing positions to provide what I believe they call 'variable flight-profiles'!

Two more; there aren't many 'Icons of the Air' you can collect the whole fleet-of, but Concord is definitely one, with a few rub-down letters and a bit of Tipex you could make the whole BA-fleet!

Meanwhile, in the background you can see two more Icons of the Air, namely Spitfires and Hurricanes from WWII.

My favourite, I know the Spitfire was prettier, faster, more manoeuvrable . . . yada, yada, yada, but this did the bulk of the work and could take more punishment, it's the 'British Bulldog' to the Spit's greyhound!

The other one! I don't know if you've realised from the camera-shots, but these are much bigger than the pocket-money, enveloped, expanded polystyrene ones we were looking at in the main last time, this is around 1:48th, even 1:32nd maybe? I suspect that both fighter-plane models are based on Battle of Britain Memorial flight airframes?

Q is for Question Time - Supreme?

J is for Just a quickie! I wondered if this chap might be Supreme, he has some things in common with the big PVC pirates and skeleton crew, but the base is different . . .

. . . being more of the slightly Deetail-like bases on the knights they supplied to Strawberry Group, Tiger and Toy Major back in the 1990's?

Construction-worker, around 54mm, and manufactured in that same dense PVC of the pirates? We covered the small scale Supreme (and other) civil stuff ages ago but as far as I know no one has ascribed any large-scale civil-stuff to Supreme yet? Marked 'Made in China' with a figure 2, this is also a bit Supreme'y!

F is for Follow-up - Pioneer or Pioneer-like

It's always the way isn't it; in putting away some of the stuff I'd been keeping out for the last-week/weekend's posts I found stuff I'd needed for one  of those posts! Easier to read this in context with the previous post so click-here!

Turned out I already had five, so clearly a set of three issued with small (or large) window boxed sets of the sort Pioneer, Realtoy, Smart and Supreme are all known for? The fact that one looks airport'ey strengthens the evidence for Pioneer in my opinion, but it is still circumstantial!

Round up of all the military, this shot (or one similar) would have been in the previous post but I mislaid the four seen previously! Of course, while putting-away they turned-out to be exactly where I'd not looked twice, while saying to myself "No; you definitely wouldn't have put them there"!

Again evidence is a bit thin, but from that available so far, it looks like four poses in two sizes (some copied by Realtoy?), with me looking for three to complete pose sets, eleven to complete colour sets?

These also turned up, and while made in the same polymer as the sandy/tan soldier, have the weird stepped-base of the green-camo' version, so can be considered potential Pioneer for the time being along with the rest.

You may recognise the kneeling policeman with M16 from a Rack-Toy Month, emergency-set figures' post a couple of years ago, when we looked at two or three versions of the pose; one of which was a relatively modern Ja-Ru-marked one.

This chap seems a tad bigger, and better etched, so while he may or may not be the original, if he isn't; he's closer than some of the others. And I think there are further versions in the TBS lots - I'll try to make a mental note to go through those boxes (emergency personnel and road-workers) - on the Blog - next RTM; only 10-months away!

News, Views Etc . . . Stuff!

Yesterday was a wash-out and I'm not sure if I'll get anything up here today, either for today or tomorrow, as I'm technically somewhere-else doing something else! In the meantime here's an NVEtc... from Barney and know I have eight posts ready and six in editing!

"This week we have for sale a good collection of Robin Hood related figures by Cherilea, Lone Star and Speedwell, some of which are in outstanding condition and include a couple of more unusual colour schemes"

S is for Some of Them Are . . . and . . . Some of Them Aren't?

The products of the Pioneer Toys Manufactory Limited works, that is, from the former Crown Colony of Hong Kong, now in China and founded in 1992.

Some of these I've suspected for some time, some are now confirmed and the rest may or may not be, but as the output of Supreme-SP gets nailed down, Soma's is usually marked and Smart seem to have concentrated on smaller scale figures, we are running out of cheapie, rack-toy die-cast, PVC-figure accessory origins and; as we'll see, the patterns point to Pioneer as the likely source for most of this stuff?

We have looked at a few Pioneer bits over the last few years, I've dropped the odd mention into posts and they've had some tag's, albeit with the odd caveat or question-mark. But working on the other three this week; I thought I'd pull what I had together, go Googling and see where I was, and the answer is this post.

Unlike the other three (the two Kwongs' and Star), this lot are definitely still going, and the above is from the website which is a bit basic, but they are very-much contract manufacturers, so the site is more B2B than trying to pander to your or my desire for high-resolution imagery - Hing Fat's website suffers the same fault.

I picked these two shots as the one has relevance to the question marks further down the page, while other confirms the next lot!

Now, I know we've seen one of them five times in the last six years, or is it six times in the last eight years, I've given-up counting . . . but here's the rest of them!

There would seem to be at least three generations of these, plus the unpainted set (one of which is below); the lower lot with bare arms and white overalls, the upper lot in yellow with gauntlet gloves (unified by the dumper-driver, who remains unchanged) and the current/web-site set who seem to be better painted with an additional, separate, base-colour.

The above is all fine, confirmed through the web-site, now it starts to get a bit fuzzy, but I'm pretty confident time will tell most of these are Pioneer, but for now the possibility they may not all be, has to be retained.

The Buddy L is just for comparison, he's also . . . also PVC vinyl-rubber! Of the two sets of air-side crew, the lower lots are the most likely to be Pioneer while the upper three are a bit dodgier, being a much-softer, silicon-rubber.

Note also how the odd digger matches the lower set in base style, material colour (and density) and the jacket colour - which is closer then the photographs suggest. There are also parallels with the three-sets' gillets/body-warmers.

Both sets of ground-crew have been shown here before as question-marks, and I assumed the lower set were aircraft-carrier crew, which they may have been, but I suspect they were also in airport sets.

The set of four poses currently on the website, are much nicer figures, but clearly they (Pioneer) have had generations, and they tend to improve in China as they degrade in the UK (think Britains; herald→swoppets→deetail→hong kong shite), so that's to be expected, also there is (like Supreme) a tendency to different scales (see below), while I haven't said Pioneer definitely made/make any of these?

Their 'thing' is die-cast vehicles at the pocket-money end of the market, so Pioneer may be buying the accessory stuff in from other contract-manufacturers lower down the feed-chain, a point we'll get into more in a minute.

We have seen - on the blog, marked-Pioneer vehicles being sold by The Works, the same vehicles were in the same post (link) tied to Poundland (Funtastic), 99p Stores (PMS) and others including generics and several phantom-brands on Alibaba, since when we have encountered them in HTI and Flying Tiger packaging . . . and here's another one, Greek importer Zita Toys.

Obviously the vehicle range has improved since this, what, mid-1990's (?) set was put together, note that the helicopter is from similar generic Thomas the Tank Engine sets, where he wears a face! The jeeps however survive in some sets, I think, including the large one I shelfied in Smyths under the Streetmachine logo a year or so ago.

Note also the two building relief-frontages, taken straight from Supreme (but slightly different) or by Supreme (?), the two clearly spent the 1990's fighting for the same market; the older firm is also still going and also supplying lots of brands/customers. However the figures are the interesting thing here.

Erwin informed the Vichy a few years ago in his normal lecturing, hectoring fashion ('attack dog mentality' one of his 'friends' called it the other day!) that the left hand figure was . . .  well, I can't remember who he ascribed them to (with no empirical evidence whatsoever) and I think I corrected them at the time with '...probably Pioneer but not what he said!' His trouble is he makes it up as he goes along.

I knew they were Pioneer through the Die-casts, but hadn't made the connection with . . .

. . . the smaller trio (bottom left), which have also appeared here before; under a question-mark post, or two. The significance of this is that the larger figures have bases which match the softer ground-crew figures above, the smaller figures have bases which match the smaller ground-crew and the road-workers after a fashion, but are unpainted - like the blue road-worker.

Hopefully, if your logic circuits are firing (I schedule these for 9.30 to catch you fresh in the mornings you know!), you can see how it's all coming together!??? The upper shot is another one I'd forgotten I had with a colour-variation of the Zita Toys set (probably HTI over here? Woolworth's or Chad Valley before the former's demise; an early Smyths set?)'s figures.

Now, I've mentioned Soma, Smart and Supreme as being contenders for anything here which isn't Pioneer, but there is still a hornet in the wood-pile; the figure bottom right (it's a reminder shot we've seen before) is from the group that might be Realtoy (namely; Realtoy-Daron-Sky Marks) and which I've been told is Galoob, but over which ascription I've muted some doubt.

Galoob have produced (or had produced for them in Hong Kong/China) lots of PVC and PVC-like stuff over the years, with different bases or no bases in dense, medium and soft materials, and the 'Realtoy' figures (a harder-polymer than most of the above, or above mentioned) share posing with Micromachines' late 'armymen' series, which is a separate can of worms, but they both have to be contenders too, and Realtoy have at least one road-worker who looks like a Pioneer one!

My own feeling - or I wouldn't be publishing the post - is that most or all of the above (whether bought-in or internally-manufactured) originate with Pioneer, and have come to the market (which is our hobby) via die-cast play sets of the sort seen above or in previous posts, which may have been retailed under - globally - dozens of brands, brandings, brand-marks or phantom brands, and that they occupy a similar/the same niche as Realtoy (whoever they were/are), Smart and Supreme.

I've said before - in passing - they will be responsible for some of the many vinyl astronauts from 25-50mm out there . . . which aren't marked K&M! And I have several sets unopened somewhere which will lead to a series of posts on them all, but some of them may prove to be Realtoy, as the packs are similar to the Daron/Sky Marks sets . . . in fact I think one (with a die-cast missile) may carry the same Toy Galaxy logo as the Airfix Australian copies I posted on that blog the other day! It's wheels within wheels when researching Hong Kong toy production.

Those Police, Medics and Firefighters HTI included in their Teamsters sets - possibly Pioneer for the older - full painted - ones, probably for last Christmas's part-painted shelfies - Teamsters are re-badged Streetmachines? Likewise; the little vinyl HTI pirates?

As a die-caster Pioneer are current, it's the ID'ing of ephemeral figures from their early days which is the exercise here, the new airport figures will start appearing in mixed-lots any-day now, if they haven't already for some of you, and we need never see the road workers again, but probably will - when I get a complete spade or road-drill! Or more blue, unpainted ones, or different coloured ones, or new poses, or a need to do comparisons . . .

Thanks to everyone who's ever saved me odds and sods (I know some of the road workers came from Peter Evans) and Paul Morehead for the stuff in the first image.

S is for Star

I've always called these S-for-Star because I have about six Star's in the archive and I didn't know which one was responsible for the figures we're about to look at, and neither of the companies I thought might be in the frame (a Taiwanese Star which left Hong Kong around 1954 when the civil-war ended and Chiang-Kai-Shek's supporters retreated to Formosa, and a modern Star with three factories in mainland China) have subsequently proved to be this one!

'This one' being the Star Plastic Toys Manufactures Limited. As this is the third of these posts in a row you will be getting two things about Hong Kong toy makers; they either have several titles/brands/brand marks (Tai Sang / Blue-Box / Red Box et al) or a really long title, or both! As well as premises in Hong Kong, they had a showroom/office in The Toy Building in New York (200 Fifth Av.) back in the day and they also used Staristic, SPToy and Startoy.

We collectors know them for their crude knock-off copies of Britains Swoppet 'Modern' khaki infantry, which they sold with the logo (and no other markings - hence my S-for-Star - top), or branded to/for various customers (here the German-European Dickie group - middle, another's called Alme - 'Arizona' ACW sets) or as unmarked generics, which could be the little trays or loose in header-carded bottle-bags (bottom).

On the left is my generic with its atmospheric artwork . . . A US GI, advertising Germans with SLR's and '58 pattern webbing! On the right an old feebleBay image of two Wild West sets, also generics - note the Lone Star copy swoppet bases, they did (later?) use the rounded ones, but so do several further-generation copyists, generally Star provide a better pose range and a slightly higher quality figure sculpting/finish.

Back to the 'Germans' and we're going tan on the fifty-eight (is that a Q-Anon code woooohhhh!). They basically copied all the Britains Swoppet body sections AND the upper torso of the Herald khaki infantry officer, and then stuck the bodies on any-old legs.

There are only the two helmets, possibly copied from Minimodels (German helmet) and - obviously - Britains (the piss pot), and quite a few colour combinations exist between body and webbing/PLCE colours.

Upper torsos and webbing are a soft, stretchy PVC, the rest of the components are in a bog-standard 'Airfix' or soapy polyethylene.

Although all the figures in my first set (Star marked) have the Britains SLR (FN Fal.) copy, one of the new sets has a copy of the Timpo Guardsman 'At Ease' pose's weapon, with a base-locating spigot, on a couple of the figures; this may be a Timpo original as it's very good, but the set was mint, with no sign of the figures having been removed from the card (not easy without damaging or dimpling the card), but perhaps Dickie also handled Timpo imports and filled empty hands with Timpo spares? I think it's just a good copy - I'll see if others turn-up!

Artwork; Blue Box's Patton Tanks attack a Churchill, pity we didn't get a decent rack-toy of that machine! While a Pz.Kfw V, Panther is about to get it in the side from a T36½! Not an SLR is sight!

A couple of other figurals from Star, the driver of the fork-lift truck is quite common in various forms, the original was M.A.C (Mobile Action Command) figures from Lesney/Matchbox, but marketed by Star as Action Jack (? I think?) and copied - poorly - by Montaplex in Spain as Montaman in Kiosk Sopresas (surprise bags).

And I don't remember a plain black sheepdog in the recent posts on the subject here, so that's another one to find!

News, Views Etc . . . Forthcoming Events - Saturday 19th-Friday 25th October 2019

Lazy post this week, I've been busy with the four Hong Kong/China ID posts and other things have slid a bit, so it's a tad brief.

Brwreakshit's got interesting, but I really don't care, I mean I do care, but I don't care-care if you know what I mean, the sheeple deserve everything coming their way . . . the planets dying and not enough people are doing enough to save it - an American said once of democracy that it was something the people deserved to be fed in spade-full's, and that's certainly what's happening in Turkey, Britain and the US at the moment!

Toy Fairs

Saturday 19th October 2019

Bexhill-on-Sea - SRP Toy Fairs

St. Barnabas Parish Church, Cantelupe Road, Bexhill-on-Sea, East Sussex, TN40 1JG

Web. - http://srptoyfairs1.co.uk/

eMail - srptoys1@hotmail.co.uk

Mob. - 07739 998 012 (Paula or Gerry)

10:00 - 14:00hrs

Admission charge unknown

Oswestry - Chris Dyer Fairs

The Pavillion, Owestry Showgrownd, Park Hall, Oswestry, Shropshire, SY11 4AS

Web. - www.chrisdyerfairs.co.uk

Tel. - 01643 702 757

Mob. - 07966 694 579

10:30 - 15:00hrs

Admission £2

Sunday 20th October 2019

Cirencester - Retro Ronnie

Bingham Hall, King Street, Cirencester, Glousecstershire, GL7 1JT

Web - www.retroronnie.com

Mob. I - 07708 385 061

Mob. II - 07900 266 427

10:00-hrs 'till finish

Admission unknown, early bird (from 08:00hrs)

Refreshments

Haltwhistle - Jim Corr Fairs - Toy, Train & Sci-Fi Fair

Haltwhistle Leisure Centre, Greencroft, Haltwhistle, Northumberland, NE49 9DP

eMail - jim_corr73@hotmail.co.uk

Mob. - 07504 035 955

10:00 - 15:00hrs

Admission £3, children/senior citizens £2, 'Early Bird' £5

Plymouth - Events Frontier - 'Devcon' Sci-fi and Comics Convention

Plymouth Guildhall, Guildhall Square, Plymouth, Devon, PL1 2AA

Web. - www.eventsfrontier.com

eMail - eventsfrontier@hotmail.com

Mob. - 07508 548 938

Hours unknown

Admission fee unknown

Tewkesbury - Tony Oaks Toy Fairs

Tewkesbury School, Ashurst Road, Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire, GL20 8DF

Internet presence unknown

Tel. - 01270 652 773

Mob. - 07825 631 323

10:30 - 14:00hrs

Admission £2, free parking

New Date - New Venue

Wirral - Barry Stockton Fairs - Merseyside Hobbies & Model Railway Show

Hulme Hall, Port Sunlight, Wirral, CH62 5DH
Web. - http://barrystocktonfairs.co.uk/
Tel. - 01513 343 362
10:30 - 15:30
Admission - Adult £4.50p, Children £1

Worthing  - SRP Toyfairs

Charmandean Centre, Forest Road, Worthing, West Sussex, BN14 9HS

Web. - http://srptoyfairs1.co.uk/

eMail: srptoys1@hotmail.co.uk

Tel. - 07739 998 012 (Paula or Gerry)

10:00 - 14:00hrs

Admission charge unknown

Auctions

Thursday 24th

Stockton-on-Tees - Vectis Auctions

Fleck Way, Thornaby, Stockton-on-Tees, TS17 9JZ

Web. - www.vectis.co.uk

eMail - admin@vectis.co.uk

Tel. - 01642 750 616

Dolls, Teddy Bears, soft toys &etc...

Other Events

Thursday 17th (yesterday) - Sunday 20th October 2019

Leicester - Brick Live - Outer Space Trail

Various Venues

Web. - visitleicester.info

Lego space-themed models around the city

Thursday 17th October 2019 (yesterday) - Sunday 23rd February 2020

South Shields - The Word - Amazing Space

The Word, Market Place, South Shields, Tyne & Wear

Web. - theworduk.org

Wear a spacesuit, 'trek and 'wars costumes, life of an astronaut etc...

Overseas Events (I lied!)

Saturday 19th October 2019

Friedberg (Germany) - Kevin Henser - Toy Soldier Show

Stadthalle, Friedberg, Germany

Tel. - ++06247 904 616

Houten (Netherlands) - NAMAC - General Toy Fair

Euretco Exposition Centre, Houten, Netherlands

Tel . - ++0165 537 054

Saturday 19th & Sunday 20th October 2019

Genk (Belgium) - Dipro BVBA - Die-Cast Fair

Limburghal, Genk, Belgium

Tel. - ++03 325 638

's-Hertogenbosch (Netherlands) - NWvBemmel - Doll & Teddy Bear Show

Brabanthallen, Den Bosch, Netherlands

Tel. - ++0578 628 767

Sunday 20th October 2019

Haguenau (France) - Toy Fair

Halle aux Houblons, Haguenau 67, France

Tel. - ++0388 734 904

Hohensyburg (Germany) - Leokadia Wolfers - Doll & Teddy Bear Show

Spielbank, Hohensyburg, Germany

Tel. - ++01785 335 668

Limpertsberg (Luxembourg) - LMC - 30th International Toy Fair

Halle Victor Hugo, Avenue Victor Hugo, 60 Limpertsberg, Luxembourg

Web. - www.modellclub.lu

Tel. - ++00352 481 688

09.30-15.00hrs

Solingen (Germany) - Jürgen Hörner - Toy Fair

Theater-Und-Konzerthaus, Solingen, Germany

Tel. - ++0210 351 133

H is for How They Come In

Bit of a dino'week this week! These were earlier in the week and consists of three triple-A's at the back-right, two older HK types on the left (one over-stamped 'China') and two nicer modern chinasaurs - front right.

The same shop gave-up five bags of Airfix Nappies (two 'French Line' and one each of the other three), and yes, it's a shocking photo, but I know my life will never be long enough to justify the time spent taking a better one! About a third were straight to recycling, the rest will be checked against the collection and then probably go back to charity, the bags were 50p each so, as it's all for charity; it works!

Then later in the week another dose of dinomedicine with 1 from the 50p pile (spotty Dimetrodon) with six @ 20p each (below) and four from another shop for three-quid. None of them marked and the Dimetrodon and five of the others being the classic 'gaping mouth' chinasaurs!

Toy News

Not toys at all; but Links of London, the jewellers who produced those approximately HO-OO-compatible, precious-metal Noah, farm and zoo sets we looked at here afew years ago, have gone into administration which is sad - if you are among the few who could actually afford to collect them!

Other News

Last week's bug (which was a bug, not a beetle), was a Western [America] Conifer Seed Bug, and although invading Europe since the 1990's (after becoming the not so Western by spreading East!), it has also been spotted in the UK once or twice since 2007, including a whole cluster one year, but I suspect mine came in with the current storms . . . anyway we have a Scot's Pine at the bottom of the garden; hopefully it found it and can over-winter in a hollow and fly off to Kent to look for a mate in the Spring! They have also got to Japan, so clearly one of the 'Super Species' looking to benefit from climate-change and human activity? It won't save them from the final round of extinctions though!

Mushrooms this week; some relative of the ink-cap growing out of the old Silver Birch, a similar colony a couple of feet away has already melted to a sort of sooty fingerprint, I'll try to shoot the aftermath of this one for next week, but I thought it looked like a gnome village, of which there is one, in the queue.