The Home Secretary had a brilliant idea
almost immediately; we wouldn't match EU regulations after all. Jaguar/Land-Rover announced lay-offs,
one of the biggest banking groups stated it would send half its team to the
Paris office and the Pound fell . . . some more, the Home Sec' then did a U-turn
and said maybe we'd follow some rules after-all and the Pound rallied . . . a
bit!
Meanwhile, the PM (our very-own
impossible-haired, almost-orange loon) told some African leaders we'd take more of
their people, now we've fucked-off all the Europeans, and stopped the 'Easties'
coming here to work . . . after all, we still need nurses and plumbers, and
apparently the building-sector is about to run-out of ground workers (what they
used to call labourers!)
Now, loyal readers; I don't know about you,
whether Brwreakshiteer or more inclined to my position, but I recon people who
voted Brwreakshit in the first place, and then voted for more Tories are less
likely to tolerate more Nigerians or Ghanaians than they are to welcome Poles
or Hungarians . . . we are talking about our own racist underclass here!
So good-old Boris is building-up a whole heap of trouble for himself, methinks!
Meanwhile over in Davos, the end of the world
was rubber-stamped by Trump, then they all went off to Israel to commemorate
the holocaust while ignoring the Rohingya and Uighur and the endless killings
of Amerindian ecologists and activists - they got the protector of the Monarch
butterflies this week, god-damn their fascist eyes.
And with Lincoln Brower already gone at the other 'end' of the migration . . .
. . . that's the Monarch heading the way of the Dodo, thanks Trump!
Still . . . there's a mountain of old toys
still to be found!
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Toy Fairs
Saturday 25th January 2020
Bristol
(North) - Chris Dyer Fairs
BAWA Health & Leisure Centre, 589 Southmead Road, Filton, Bristol,
BS34 7RG
Web. - www.chrisdyerfairs.co.uk
Tel. - 01643 702 757
Mob. - 07966 694 579
Web. - www.chrisdyerfairs.co.uk
Tel. - 01643 702 757
Mob. - 07966 694 579
10:30 -
15:00
Admission
£2.00
Windsor - Maidenhead Static Model
Club - 51st International Toy & Train Fair
Windsor Leisure Centre, Clewer mead,
Stovell Road, Windsor, berkshire, SL4 5JB
Web. - wwwwindsortoyfair.co.uk
Mob. - 07825 564 960
10:30 - 15:00hrs
Admission £3, concessions £2.50p, early
bird (from 09:00hrs) £7, last hour free.
Refreshments
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Sunday 26th January 2020
Ashington - David Parsons - Toy
& Train Collectors Fair
Ashington Community Centre, Foster Lane,
Ashington, West Sussex, RH20 3PG
Web. - www.modelcarmart.co.uk
eMail - modelcarmart@gmail.com
Tel. - 01424 846 676 (Pete)
Mob. - 07742 609 865 (David)
10:00 - 14:00hrs
Adults £1.50, concessions £1
Great
Bentley - R
& G Toy Fairs
Village Hall, Plough Road, Great Bentley,
Essex, CO7 8LD
Tel. - 01206 251 351 (Gary)
Tel. - 01255 473 509 (Richard)
10:00 - 14:00hrs
Admission £2.00, under 16's free
Free parking, refreshments
Haydock
Park - Barry Stockton Fairs
The
Exhibition Centre, Haydock Park Racecourse, WA12 0HQ
Web. - http://barrystocktonfairs.co.uk/
Tel. - 01513 343 362
10:30 - 14:30hrs
Admission - Adult £2, Children £0.50p
Tel. - 01513 343 362
10:30 - 14:30hrs
Admission - Adult £2, Children £0.50p
Lincoln - J&J Fairs (John
& Julie Webb)
The Exhibition Centre, Lincolnshire
Showground, Lincoln, Lincolnshire, LN2 2NA
Web. - www.j-jwebbtoyfairs.com
eMail - jandjfairs@virginmedia.com
Tel. - 01522 880 383
10:00 - 14:30hrs Approximately
Admission £2.50p, seniors £2, 1st child
£1.50p
Shepton
Mallet - Bulldog
Fairs
Royal Bath & West Showground, BA4 6QN
Web. - www.bulldogfairs.com
eMail - bulldogfairs@aol.com
Tel. - 01373 452 857
Mob. - 07917 125 641
10:30 - 14:30hrs
Adults £4, under 16's free if accompanied,
early-bird (from 08:30hrs) £10
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Auctions
Sunday 25 January 2020
Elstree - Excalibur
Auctions (day 2 of a 2-day auction, day 1: yesterday)
The Village
Hotel, Elstree, Hertfordshire, WD6 3SB (venue)
Chiltern
Business Centre, Woodside Road, Amersham, Buckinghamshire, HP6 6AA (office)
Web. - www.excaliburauctions.com
eMail - enquiries@excaliburauctions.com
Tel. - 02036
330 913
Free Tea or
Coffee
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Tuesday-- 28th-Friday 31st January 2020
Stockton-on-Tees - Vectis Auctions (4-day
sale)
Fleck Way, Thornaby, Stockton-on-Tees, TS17
9JZ
Web. - www.vectis.co.uk
eMail - admin@vectis.co.uk
Tel. - 01642 750 616
Sales commence at 10:30hrs
Tue. - Dolls, bears, soft toys &etc.
Wed. - TV and movie memorabilia, licensed & related
toys' sale
Thurs. - Specialist Matchbox die-cast sale
Fri. - Specialist Matchbox Models of Yesteryear
(MoY) die-cast sale
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Other Events
Saturday 25th-Sunday 26th January 2020
Leeds
- Royal Armouries - Fantasy Heroes
Royal Armouries, Leeds Dock, Leeds
Web. - www.royalarmouries.org
Activities/Characters
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Overseas Events
Wednewday 29th January - Sunday 2nd February
2020
Nuremburg
(Germany) - Spielwarenmesse eG - Toy Fair '70 Years'
Nuremburg Exhibition Centre, Nuremburg,
Germany
web. - www.spielwarenmesse.de
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If you are
an event promoter/show curator/auctioneer and you want your toy, model,
collectable, military, historical or popular-/youth-culture type
sale/exhibition/event listed here - FOR FREE - or linked to; please eMail me -
maverickatlarge[at]hotmail[dot]com
- stating
the date/s of the event, address of event, contact details, opening/viewing
times, admission pricing and any other relevant facts/details or features -
parking, travel notes, disability access, availability of refreshments, event
subject matter &etc. And a link; if the event or your organisation has a
web-page.
And please
mention any flyer-art or poster-/leaflet-scans but send by separate eMail, in
case they go to the 'junk' folder,
from where they can be recovered and marked safe, but only if I know they're
there!
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Stadswatch - A Song!
♫♯♪♪♫ . . .
I
was forty-posts, he was nine
January
running out of time
A
dealer, not collector be
He
thought he'd have a pop at me
Bang
bang. He shot me down
Bang
bang. I hit the ground (or;
fell-to-floor-with-laughing-and-x-all-else)
Bang
bang. That awful hound
Bang
bang. My 'rival'* shot me down . . .
The
facts, he claimed; those posts of mine
Were
dragging out six months of time
He
wrote for laughs and then to say
He'd
post his own, as sooner as a day!
Bang
bang. He'd shot the ground
Bang
bang. I knocked him down
Bang
bang. The truthful sound
Bang
bang. My 'rival'* is a clown!
The
fact to tell is hard to bear
Bereavement
was the background there
The
Blog-posts had been put on hold
Their
'News' not really needing to be told
Bang
bang. His foot He'd shot
Bang
bang. A marksmen not!
Bang
bang. The public sight
Bang
bang. My 'rival's* not too bright!
. .
. ♫♥♪♪
*His word; not mine, I have no rivals, I'm too-busy
doing my own 'thing', which is pretty much the same thing I started doing back
in December '08, but a little better and more industrious - output's up but
profit's still zero!
As
highlighted earlier in the week, the irrepressible fuck-that-jabbers, one Paul
Stadinger had a pop at those who drag out show reports? Really? Yes; really!
Let me explain something, well, a few things actually; to the dunderheaded,
blowhard-gobshite.
Over
here (where I make the rules), show reports, toy fair reports and the like are
a low priority, they tend to get average or below average traffic on the day,
and very little subsequent traffic, although the company specific reviews do
get the same sort of traffic as other tagged posts in their 'class' or genre -
over time. Not that the Blog is about traffic per se, but unpopular
post-subjects are - obviously - a consideration.
Consequently,
the main report (for say, or in this instance - the London Toy Fair) gets dropped-in
where there is a gap in the days (or weeks) immediately/soon'ish after the
event, the other reports and reviews are used as filler through the year, being
as how they don't contain much of import . . . I mean how many of you really care how many new lions Schleich have this year, or what new colours Papo's stegosaurus
has been given? Exactly!
Added
to which . . . it's new production! It's not going anywhere for a while and
will be findable on store shelves, in dealers lists or on the dreaded evilBay,
whenever I post it - and/or for a year or two. It will have corporate coverage,
influencer coverage, industry or trade-organisation coverage . . . if you're
that interested in it - as an individual - you will find it yourself - the
YouTube video's of box-opening, the
press-releases, the Amazon listings
- it's just not a priority!
Last
year, specifically, I took three months (or nearly?) off, to await the passing
of my father; this meant few of the reports appearing in the first half of the
year and indeed . . .
. .
. I still have enough material for about ten posts, there also remain a couple
of folders from 2018 I think, but I'll just cannibalise the imagery in/for
other posts! I have tons of Sandown stuff going back several years, probably
40-posts worth and an unused PW show-report from 2017 or 2018; I've already
started putting those images in other folders . . . it's all ephemeral, IT
DOESN'T MATTER!
Which
raises another point - when the idiots started their picky-little war against
me, I had maybe 40 folders in the Picasa 'queue', I now have over 600; I have
more than I need for several years of the kind of mediocre, grey pap we get
from shitestuff, and the company reviews are just another part of that
editorial archive, more grist for the mill.
TJF
invests far too much importance in such posts, he over-values what he does and
seems to believe he should have exclusive access to certain tropes, genres,
subjects or areas of the hobby, this all points to a man with serious issues of
self-importance vying with some kind of inferiority-complex?
Neither
the world nor the hobby will stop-dead if I post rare British composition
tomorrow, or Henbrandt's
latest novelty alien-imports or some unknown capsule toys, but I try to mix-it
up, following the Reithian principles - inform, entertain or educate!
What
I do know, is that that if I posted two shaved lesbians covered in custard,
pissing on each other tomorrow, it would certainly be the PSTSM who would get
the most excited, first! Although Donald Trump would probably eMail me for a
copy - I promise they wouldn't be Russians Mr President!
If
my output was as piss-poor as stadsshitedotcom, I'd be in a better position to
use-up what little I might have (in that situation), but it's not and I'm a
collector not a dealer, with plenty to post so I move and juggle stuff about so
as to not get too stale, end-of.
The
man's an idiot, and should improve his own Blog before casting aspersions on
other people's; showing us stuff which - in his own words; 'was posted on Facebook two days ago' or
which; 'was put on their [the
company's own] website last weekend'; or which a Russian dealer has been selling
on Yandex for the last three weeks (or
three months!) is NOT news, nor is it 'discoveries', it's just customer
announcements (I hope they pay him, they charge enough for the stuff!) because he
has nothing else!
But
don't misunderstand me, there's nothing wrong with endless Russian customer
announcements, and I'd far rather he stuck to Russian customer announcements
than sat in my dust following my posts with a single figure, which only go to
prove that he can sit in my dust confirming what I've just said with a single
figure!
♫♯♪ Bang bang. The old dog's no new tricks! ♫♫♪
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Toy News
RSPCA
The funniest story this week was the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty
to Animal's annual report, including some of their 'comedy' call-outs,
among which was attending to a 'Caged tiger' which turned out to be one of
those highly realistic life-sized stuffed tigers, who was keeping several
rabbits company in their pen!
Other cries for help were;
·
An owl stuck on a roof - a statue
·
A snake on a wheelie-bin - rubber toy
·
A salamander on a flat's balcony - stuffed toy,
with labels
·
A stuck snake - an elephant hawk-moth
caterpillar!
A real one as seen on the Blog passim
Basingstoke canal 29th August 2014
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Toy Fair 2020 - Kensington Olympia
The major trend/s this year can be summed
up as 'woke' environmentalism, with more wood on show, more
recyclable/disposable or bio-degradable polymers/materials, and at least four
charities in evidence, including our friends from North London; The Toy Project. One company actually
issued their press-kit on a cardboard data-stick/flash-drive dongle! Mattel were also talking-up
'sustainability'.
Clementoni had infant scooters made from 100% recycled plastic, cuddly
stuffed-toys from Keel included teddy
bears, a whale (it's not a country Mr. President) and an orang-utan (orange man
- Mr. President!) made out of old plastic-bottles (as fleeces have been since
the 1980's!) while an early-learning series of book/toy combo's (Mark Makers) included a rainbow who gender
identifies as a boy and wants to be called Archie . . .
Heay, it's called toleration, and if you
don't, if instead, you let them come for the Gays, or the 'Blacks' or the Jews,
or your disabled neighbour, they will eventually come for you, even if you
voted for them . . . even if - as Leon Trotsky, Robespierre or Erwin Rommel
discovered - you're wearing their uniform.
Another obvious trend was large scale,
realistic animals, with two or three rivals to the Schleich/Papo combine showing and with ranges as large as the two
dominant market-leaders, but retailing considerably cheaper; even HGL (Grossman)
had some high-quality stuff which will be at real budget prices. I also shot
more Terra by Battat and spoke to one
of the nephews of the designer. Funny thing - I realised the B&S tubs I shelfied the other day
were rebadged Terra product!
Catalogues were problematic with several
companies telling everyone to go online, Hornby
Hobbies only printed one this year; the Bassett
Lowke Steampunk 'launch' leaflet, all the rest (Airfix, Corgi, Hornby, Scalextric) are on-line only, while Schleich's was just a horrible design,
that is of little use to either a Blogger or a fan/collector.
Revell had some nice, new AFV's with more of the Matchbox 1:76th tools (magically rendered 1:72nd with an
art-workers pen) in the catalogue than for a long time, and some lovely new
tooling, but no figures at all, not even the 6" ceremonial range which had
been growing the last two years, Airfix
had bugger-all on display, and I haven't checked the [on-line only!] catalogue
yet, but suspect there's going to be not much there either!
After the construction-toy posts the other
day you may be interested to here I saw another brand at the show with 'Meccano' Dalek, K-9 and TARDIS models on
display! The same company also makes military vehicle and aircraft kits branded
to the Imperial War Museum for their
gift-shops.
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Toy And Game Innovation Awards (Tagie's)
Having mentioned the Holocaust once
already, you may be interested to know that at the recent awards ceremony -
held in Chicago (nearer to Allentown than Fleet; maybe he's dragging the news
out for six months to show he can be as tardy as me; he copies everything else
I do!), Illinois, the winner of the lifetime achievement award was Ivan
Moscovich, who survived the concentration camps of Nazi Germany to invent toys in
America for the next 70-years . . . probably the best work; if you can get it!
Mattel won the big award with a radio-controlled DC Comics' Batmobile,
which is also a TransformerTM . . . very Warhol's 'pop
eating-itself'!
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Ackerman International Trading &
Re:Creation
Ackerman
International were wound-up in December (Christmas
Eve - crap present for any remaining staff), the rack-toy importer's
outstanding orders were partly picked-up by Padgett
Bros. (A-Z), leading to a temporary shortage of wooden toys in Hong Kong apparently
(no, I can't imagine either, but I got it from the horse's mouth!).
Strangely, you-know-who, recently covered Ackerman (or 'Ankermann' as they called
them before being corrected) but neglected to tell us of the bankruptcy? They
(for it was a team-effort error) failed
to credit the kind fellow who corrected them, but that might have something to
do with the helpful-chap's corrective-comment having got past the toasty-boast or ask-me-yet software and including
the esoteric term "fuckwitted-fuckwits"
in the text?
Re:Creation have also filed for bankruptcy after two separate attempts to sell
the company - as a going-concern - fell-through in the autumn, KPMG are
handling the wind-down.
Going back to Toy Fair 2020 for a moment . . . Battlefront Games (Gale Force
9) weren't there this year? I'll have a dig; see if there's a problem? They
may just be sticking to the big games-conventions or even war-gaming events
like Salute?
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H is for How They Come In
Locally it was quite a quiet week with - in
the order of acquisition - a novelty wooden guardsman almost certainly from Fiesta Crafts . . . more on whom latter,
then three of four Teletubbies, the
green one probably being eaten by the large black cat! He's interesting in that
while I thought he must be poured-resin, he seems to be a solid lump of
polystyrene or a similar hard plastic.
To make up the numbers I ordered the
2nd-hand Dover book on Friday and it
arrived this week, the figures are between 54 and 60mm but due to the thinner
bases could be used - as designed - with the former 1:32nd's, or after packing
with card; the latter US scale of 1:30th.
Toy Fair 2020 then gave-up a pile of stuff,
which is unusual; normally you may get a novelty dongle (Jumbo Toys last year!) or a single free smaple of something small,
even two (last year Battlefront gave
us all a PzKfw IV on the runner, if you remember), but this year I left with a
bag of Haribo chews (gone before the
photo-shoot!), a wooden pen with a wood & string knight (the aforementioned
Fiesta Crafts) and a Schleich blind-bag 'mini' which should
be an Eldrador troll thing but which
turned-out to be a Daisy Duck!
Clearly shifting back-stock!
There were the usual bunch of press-kit
flash-drives, a card toy sample from Build
Your Own, a Games Workshop
starter magazine with figure, two inclusion-toys of dinosaurs; one ball, one
egg (Fumfings from Keycraft), a gold mouse (seems to be
hidden in the shot, but we'll return to him in the company-post - Mojo), some wacky-water Gelli Play stuff in a sachet (think dyed
wallpaper-paste and save a lot of money while amusing the grand-kids!) and a
green 'Army Man' eraser from House of
Marbles.
I always drop-in on the big Party store at Clapham Junction on the
way home from the Toy Fair, and while I was cutting it fine this year, managed to
spend six-pounds something on five smaller Amscan
paratroops, two larger (one generic, one Play
Write) and six on a DGI card
along with four Henbrant insects and
a capsule toy (novelty turtle).
Then this afternoon (Thursday) I picked-up
this dinky little bone china trinket, I think it's best described as a
toothpick-holder, but similar things in the past would be for matches; modern
matches aren't long enough. It was made by a Phildale of England, and probably quite recently? So in the end;
the week was another pearler for Blog-post stock!
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And Finally . . .
If it's empty, I'll fit!
(new collar for Crimbo!)
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