A is for Astrobauble Again!

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No! It's Astrobauble! How cool is this . . . to cool for space-school, more right than the right stuff, more pearlescent that a pearl-muscles' inner lining, shinier than an ormer! It's a blow-moulded astronaut Christmas tree bauble, in the shape of an astronaut and it's yours for £1.50 if you get down to Asda!

I'm not normally a fan of plastic baubles pretending to be blown-glass, and he won't be going on the tree, but he was never going on the tree, plastic figures go in the plastic figure collection! Although he is very well done for a polymer lookie-likie! I'll take the hook-eye, crown-finial and stuff off and block the hole with one of those white-plastic particle-board hole-sealers, and Bingo! A stand alone, plastic astronaut, about 120mm in a rather leery space-suit!

We will have a few Christmas posts a bit earlier this year so that if the items tickle your fancy you can seek them out. I bought this about a week ago in Asda, Astrobaubles for a quid--fifty . . . bargain!

And if you think the above/preceding blurb rings a bell, it's because I cheated slightly, this is a re-issue of the Primark one from 2018! Which means - at £1.50 - the Asda one's avoided the inflation hitting everything else at the moment!

Then I picked this chap - on the left - up at Sandown Park on Saturday-last, it's a deep-sea diver, rather than a spaceman, and it is proper glass, so will probably go on the tree, but next year; this year's still a bit raw for celebrations on that level, especially as I'm emptying the house, not filling it with trees! More photo's in the relevant 'H is for . . . ' post soon.

Hugh's Handy Helpful Home Hobby Hints - Curtainsider!

H6-5! Best said in a West Country accent; Curr'un Cider! We're returning to the previous post with a simple fix for that rather leery truck we saw.

As it comes from PMS, stickered-up to within an inch of its life, and hardly the low-visibility or 'subdued' scheme you'd want on a military vehicle; with the sun on it, I fancy you could spot it from the International Space Station!

But they are all simple paper stickers and were mostly destined for the bin!

The removal revealed weirdness, moulded into one side as full cavities in a stencil style, the letters ABCOK, which is then fully mirror-reversed on the other side so you can see right through them both like the two ends of a tunnel?

Now does this mean ABC  OK, which might mean the vintage ABC is still extant as part of the modern Chinese toy industry (very unlikely)? Or is it poorly selected random letters because someone detailed someone else to select and cut some letters into the tools for some inexplicable reason? Or is it a more insidious hidden-behind-a-sticker thing, like the abbreviation for 'American Bastard Customer' or 'All Brit's Cocks'?

I doubt we'll ever know, if it was an Early Learning thing on un-stickered civilian versions of the toy it would be ABCDE or ABCXYZ or something wouldn't it? I suspect sample text on the CAD drawing which was accidentally transferred to the CAM tooling and reversed 100% for the other cavity! But there you are - spurious letters cut into the sides of the truck for no [apparent] reason!

I then cut new plain paper stickers from heavy parcel labels and coloured them in with a Sharpie! Simple, but effective, although the sides needed about four coats of Sharpie to lose all the pen-lines and hide the letters underneath. I used an old agate nail-buffer to smooth the sticker down especially round the edges and the four corners

Neatly converts a leery truck into a logistics curtainsider, although pretty fictional and we have to ignore the wheels for now! It's a sort of 5½-7½-ton rigid-bodied puddle-jumper (with a 'big-rig' cab!), around 1:48th/40mm compatible. And as you can see I left the 'sensible' stickers front and back for a bit of interest! And thanks again to Peter Evans of PW for the PMS Truck.

H is for How They Come In - November 2020

Right, now I have 26 posts in the 'H is for How . . . ' sector, and there were 25 until I turned this into two, so there may be 30 or more by the time we've worked through them all!

Also it's a year since I had to call the ambulance that would ultimately end in the loss of my Mother last January, and while I carried on blogging while she was 'only' unwell, it did tail off, to a complete hiatus in the new year, and one of the first things to go was the How They Come In posts.

Now life's all just the long slog of dealing with the estate (a nightmare for another day), it's time to clear these off the laptop, so, in the vague order they came in, that's what I'll be doing in the run-up to Christmas, alternating with other posts to 'mix it up'! And we're starting with this little lot that Peter Evans sent the Blog last November - shots taken on the 5th of that month, they may have got here a day or two earlier

Four modern rack toys and a loose bunch of bits, including the Culpitt's dove-ring we saw in a small poultry/birds follow-up a year ago. The loose figures are the rubbery Shing Hing (SH) we've seen before, they were (still are?) big-bucket stuff in big-store Smyths and are dominating evilBay-lots of this type at the moment!

These aren't in the main picture, so may have come from elsewhere (Charity shop!), but the photo was in sequence with Peter's stuff (taken half-an-hour later though?) and he's certainly sent similar to the blog in the past, so for now - they came with this lot! One or two maker's; sea life, they'll get sorted with all the others for a sea life overview at some point.

PMS blister-carded set; a few leery orange figures of poor quality, a weird gun which is everywhere on Alibaba at the moment and a truck with huge stickers which looks as if it's supposed to be advertising a fantastic movie or a two-player 'shoot-em-up' video game!

The artillery piece reappears in this set, nominally credited to an obvious phantom-brand (sticker, as an afterthought); Toys as Fun, and imported by Habib (UK) Ltd., from an unknown factory in Shantou City, the figures (two balanced 'armies' of randomly picked poses) also share poses with the previous set, but are different mouldings.

From the same source comes this farm set with the larger type of animal, although when I say 'farm' I'm following the packaging and ignoring the inclusion of a bison/wisent buffalo, and the palm-tree! I had actually found one of these in my local, independent, everything-cheap store a few weeks earlier, which I had de-bagged (Ooh missus!), so they are the photo-shot on the right, Peter's will remain a mint-bagged example.

Comparing the contents of the three sets; you can see that the figures (1-3) are very different in both size and finish, with the PMC's (1) much larger and yet cruder than the Habib/Fun set, who are finished to a higher quality. Likewise the farm palm (6) is larger, yet cruder that the also Habib/Fun 'combat' pair (5). A whole jungle (4) from a few rack-toys . . . you wouldn't get that from Airfix, Britains or Timpo bargain!

But the guns - from both sets  -are identical, suggesting the contents of both are bought-in 'mix-and-match' from more than one (or two) sources. While, from the construction method, the 'fire-brigade' helicopter also came from the gun-maker, and is a copy of slightly better ones we've seen before. The tank is what it is!

This, though, apart from the weirdly poor/odd wheels/tyres, is a bit of a zinger! I had seen them on feeBay and Ali' in various sets/configurations including singles from one of those multiple listings where wholesaled set-contents are broken down as a shopping-list, and I thought I'd got one, but didn’t find it when I put Peter's away, so may only have the one still.

But, wheels aside, it's good for Hong Kong/China shite! The forks would make it more of a Zundapp than a BMW, but in the heavy 750cc class, and it is perfect for taking the old Britains Deetail figures who; being pretty indestructible PVC; seem to survive their die-cast mounts in some numbers.

The other item was a large, infant's floor-toy of an insurgent's 'technical' pick-up truck with twin-cannon in the rear cargo-bed. It seems to have a hole in the cab-roof for an emergency beacon/light, so there may be construction, police or fire versions out there? Imported by Goodiez Ltd., another new tag for the tag list!

I really can't hold on to this larger, poorer stuff, so after photographing it (I take a dozen or so against future posts) it went off to charity in time for someone to get it for Christmas, and I thank Peter for sharing it with us first, along with everything else in this post.

*****     *****     *****     ******     *****

Added 20th Nov. 2021 - My version of the farm set turned out to be a blister-carded set rather than the header-carded bottle-bag set of Peter's donated one, contents were the same but under the added stickers was a clue to either a manufacturer, or another phantom-branding . . . 

. . . namely Wei Ni Da, who real or phantom are currently offering this on Egyptian Amazon! So wheels within wheels and another brand-mark for the tag list . . . as I asked on Moonbase the other a while ago, "Does it never end?"!

L is for Les Souverains de France . . .

 . . . no! No, no, no 'rulers' . . . Les Règle de Mesure de France! Bloody Google Translate! Tchz!

Well, what is it? It's hardly 'Toy Soldier', but it's not really 'Figural Stationary', it is a card flat, except it's wooden, there's nothing hand-made about it, it's laser-cut on a computer and laminated on a production line, but it's fun, and with most loyal readers having fresh memories of the weekend's remembrance services and activities, and those being - still - more centered in WWI than any other, it's apt.

Credited to Editions Valoire-Estel and futher crediting the Musée de l'Armée for the images (obviously taken from manikins in the French National Army Museum), it's a ruler! Six French troops and six foreigners is - I think - quite generous to the foreigners, if it was a British (or American) museum it would be twelve of the parent nation, wouldn't it? 

Probably my last Charity Shop purchase of last year, and for 50p it would have been daft to leave it. It makes you want to go and find your Mokarex WWI figures and get the paint out, for which this is the ideal painting guide to prop-up on the work-table! And you can see from the conveniently-attached 'scale' that they are an almost perfect 54mm!

News, Views Etc . . . Speedwell Special!

Big news from Barney at Herald Toys & Models, on sale items going live on his site tomorrow . . . 

" . . . . this week we have for sale a large collection of Speedwell Farmyard models for sale, including the original trade boxes that were the focal point of the farm article that I wrote for the PW Speedwell Special, a couple of years ago. These trade boxes enabled us to confirm models that we had long suspected as being by Speedwell and others that came to light as Speedwell. These trade boxes will be available to buy tomorrow and are possibly unique if not extremely rare . . . . "

 

Not from Barney's sales - an old SSW 'library shot'!

Also there's the 2nd Sandown Park toy fair since the lock-downs on Saturday, I've heard the first Exeter after the lock-downs was poor, but the 2nd was much better, so let's see how it shapes up at Sandown this weekend?

P is for Postscript on Plasticom and Their Polish Pals!

Return or follow-up wouldn't compute once I'd decided on an alliterative heading and 'Pandect' would have flummoxed most I fear! Anyway, Plasticom were first seen here a long time ago now, and we have re-visited them several times AND looked at Polish versions, so this is another view, with more Polish figures (courtesy of Chris Smith) and, and . . .

I took a lot of pictures, and Chris sent a fair few, so we're starting with line-ups of his new Polish takes on the Plasticom 'Soldabar' sugar-candy/lolly-handle WWII figures above and below from two different angles, and  - the middle - the current rainbow of polymer colours from my Plasticom sample.

Note also slight variations; offset holes, smaller base and deeper reinforcing round some of the holes, also the orange-red 'short-shot/miss-mould' at the back left.

Chris's Polish knock-off's compared with the Plasticom, these would appear - from below - to be from two makers, but I think they are all of the same origin and although we've looked at similar figures here from Konrad Lesiak, and Wojciech Gudaczewski recently covered them on a Faceplant group, the maker/s remain anonymous! Wojciech did say they were mostly produced around Warsaw though, and would be what have been described here before as Kioskowce - cheap 'tobacco kiosk' novelties.

The standing firer is quite an original pose, with a serious attempt to replicate the Plasticom base; a shallower rim to the lolly-socket giving him away, while the 8th Army officer is a straight lift from Airfix's set. We've seen the two Plasticom's before, they are a Crescent (firer) and Britains (officer) clone respectively.

These are Chris's Matchbox clones, to whom belongs the firing figure from the previous image, we have 8th Army and Afrika Korps. Polish troops fought with the Eighth Army, but in Italy when they had gone into long trousers I think (and there weren't many Highland Bren-gunners in the Polish formations!), but still the affinity is there, and it gets round making hated Russians?

While Airfix are plundered for more 8th Army poses and - unusually - Ghurkhas, with both these and the previous, the colours are very hard to photograph under any conditions, and more worryingly - in the case of the center four - made to look almost as edible as the candy-lolly they were holding!

I wasn't thinking when I did this collage, so we have Wild West above (US Cavalry) and WWII below! The bazooka-man is taken from the late Britains Hong Kong output while the advancing pair in the middle are Crescent again with another Britains (damaged) on the left. The cavalry which I didn't recognise last time were ID'd by someone a while back (Vichy?) as Jecsan I think, but it's a fleeting similarity, with the Plasticom's far more naturally stance'd.

Image on the left here is from Theo van der Weerden, with two of the Cofalu clones (one each beret and helmet) of French infantry, more Britains and another US cavalryman, while I have the same pair (lower right) of Frechies, with another, stabbing pose, in various colours - above.

My four together, we've seen this shot on the Khaki Infantry page, but for the sake of completeness it might as well be here too!

Chris kindly sent me three duplicates from his collection, and I will eventually use them in comparisons on the Airfix Blog, but for now, one of each; Ghurkha, 8th Army and DAK above, order reversed below.

And to the wild Wild West! Top left (they too, came from Theo) and bottom are the Platicom from Belgium. The other two shots are all Polish figures from Chris (oops, I've only just realised one of them is WWII British!). Note the higher collar on the two top-right, which may be another maker's work?

There seems to be a bit of mix-and-match with these, but I'm not so au fait with Wild West figures . . . Theo's red figure is taken from Britains Herald Hong Kong, the green chap from the same maker's Swoppet range, the high tube pair might be based on ex-Jean or Manurba poses, the two six-gun chaps (bottom left) Herald (similar) again? The standing riflemen are quite nice poses/sculpts, albeit a bit flat; like most the Polish figures.

All Plasticom and a mix of Britains and continental sculpts being lifted here, I think we've seen them all before, I recognise the four interesting poses but can't place them (French?), while the standing firing and kneeling archer are both Herald HK. The standing bowman looks a bit like Rambo!

Two Polish Indians, again courtesy of Mr. Smith, and clearly a new manufacture for the blue figure, who might be mistaken for 'just' a Kioskowce but that base is hollow and too large to not be for a lollypop to sit in! I don't recognise either pose and the green one is missing a hand.

This chap came in the other day and I thought I'd better add him here for the full overview! He's similar to the Herald Hong Kong one, but the legs are slightly different, I think.

Plasticom's scenics, with a Britains original to the far right, you can see the Plasticom tree is greatly simplified. I think we have Chris to thank for one or two of these as well, but some time-ago now!

The Plasticom 'Czech hedgehog' tank-trap, compared with the Britains Herald Hong Kong accessory, and it's an early marbled one on the left (matching the previously seen tree), with a later plain-brown one to the right.

You may have noticed that the ex-Matchbox advancing pose has what looks like a sign on his base, and I asked Chris about it, as a 'supplemental'! He studied it in depth and took tons of shots to try and get a few good ones (which was all 'a call above' for the blog) and sent me the best results. Stopping the shadow setting down 200% (that's the same figure in both shots) made it clear the 'HQ', 'Tobruk >>' or 'Achtung Minen' I had hoped for is not there!

Moreover, it's not that clearly a sign at all, and Chris wondered if it might actually be doing the job of what I call 'sprulettes', allowing material to pass beyond the products original cavity design, so the figure itself gets fully formed. Chris noted most of the other figures are more balanced with a leg either-side of the lollypop hole, while this was a one-sided sculpt, and it seems to me he might be spot-on? Although the bayonet has still short-shotted!

The last time I mentioned Plasticom online someone stated they were available in Germany from Trawigo, Bloomberg list Trawigo GmbH & Co KG (founded 1953) as an importer and wholesaler of confectionery & related products, not a manufacturer, so they didn't make them, they imported Plasticom's Soldabars, and repackaged them.

As I've mentioned them (Trawigo) now, I'll tag them and anyone searching in the future can come here and read > click here or on the Plasticom tag below this post or the tag down the right-hand side of the page for the - currently- seven other posts on these and the previous looks at Polish production/similar figures < !

And it gets them in the tag-list! Indeed, as we now know they got as far as Poland, and seem to turn-up most in mixed lots from France, Belgium, Holland and even the UK (occasionally), they must have had/carried several brand-marks, do you know your local one?

Many thanks to Chris Smith for help, images and figures, thanks to Theo for images, to Konrad for past images and help and acknowledging Wojciech's input, that's them, again, for now!

F is for Fishy Phishing for Fish!

Although most of the 'family archive' has gone to storage now, some months ago; the odd thing still turns up, and while most of it is not of any interest to the Blog, this fell out of other papers a couple of days ago, so small I didn't know if it would scan at all!

My father, I think in Borneo/Sarawak (pretty sure that's one of the Iban tracker's huts in the background), but he had all four Malaysia clasps (in order of award - Malaya, Brunei, Borneo and Malay Peninsula) on his GSM's, so it could be any of them, but from his age; taken long before I was born!

When we were kids he would get us by the fire and tell us his "war stories", among which his tale of grenade fishing seemed to be one of his favorites (misbehavior! The apple never falls far from the tree), and from the grin on his face here, I suspect that that is how he came by his 'catch'?

Also, re. the other day's Officer Recruitment adverts, he is wearing JG (jungle green)'s which led to the temperate OG's mentioned then, although by the time we were old enough to pay attention he referred to them all as OG's as they saw out their lives as gardening clothes! No equipment, so clearly a safe-area?

The picture as found, I was amazed it blew-up well enough to use here, as I never set-up my new scanner, just plugged it in and tried it and it started taking scans straight-away! But these modern machines are all more automated in their thinking (AI?) and seem to know to increase the pixel-rate exponentially when you present them with a postage stamp!

It may have been cut out of a bigger image (there's a sequence of Roger Woodiwiss giving first-aid and medical help to Ibans in their village, one of which is often found in the better books), or more likely, been reduced for use as a postcard, and then cut-down for a/Mum's purse's stamp-window thing?

Y is for You Can't Hold a Candle to Them!

Chris Smith sent me the most incredible link a while ago, and I was so amazed, I didn't even look at the price as I hit the buy-it-now (BIN) button! It wasn't terribly clear how many were whole or - indeed - how many were damaged, but then they still had an ocean to cross, so it was cross-fingers-and-see-what-turns-up time!

And this is what turned up, miraculously a good more than half, were passably 'complete', and I say "passably" as we shall see in a second or two, playwear has rendered a lot of them even more blobby than they were when minty fresh, which would have been pretty blobby, as they are basically made of crayon wax!

There are four simple poses of generic WWII/Early Cold War types, which, clockwise from the green pair are; Sentry with slung rifle on right shoulder, holding SMG across body, water-cooled Maxim/Browning MG and a bazooka/ATR. And the SMG (where discernible) is more Soviet Bloc than NATO, so really generic!

Colour variation would suggest they were actually made from wax crayons - one of the Crayola big 64-caryon sets maybe? Bottom left is the broken ones, but I've kept them for some of the colour variations!

Equally, how they came about is a mystery to me, but I'm assuming some kind of home-moulding kit? They came from the 'States which is home to the Mattel Thing Maker (1962?),  which had many mould- or accurately mold-sets (were they for fighting the monsters?), the Kenner Presto (1972?), the Mold-a-Rama coin-op's (1962 to the present day) and more recently the Toymax metal molder (which could take wax) among others (did Hasbro have one?), but the closest I could find was Emenee's Formex 7 sets with the Dyna-Cast which was another wax moulder, and they did do a military set, sadly with four larger scale figures?

Size comparisons; above with the early war, under-armed, cash-only thank you Mr. Churchill Flying Fortress (from Adrian Little), also in wax and below with an Airfix USAAF pilot, you can see the wax figures are a pretty perfect HO-gauge compatible 18mm.

Many thanks to Chris for finding them, and does anyone know where they came from, other than America, which I just told you! A brand; we're looking for a brand! They could even be something more commercial and pre-manufactured, or cast from home-casting metal war-gaming figure moulds?

Later - Correction on the numbers - counting the two images - at this late stage! - It's about 82 good ones to 100 broken, so just under half, some of which have been given away already!

Later still - might be Kenner's 'reusable plastic' Mold master set from 1963? Also found the Rapco - Plasticast and Gabriel - Monster Machine! but putting Kenner in the Tags . . . for now!

A teeny bit later . . . yeah! That's it- 1963 Kenner's Electric Mold Master toy maker No. 1410, now I've got to track down all the AFV's!

R is for Recruiting Rodneys!

A couple of scans from the Sunday Times supplementary magazine, dated 1960 and 1966 receptively. I don't know what it was like where you are (foreign readers), but from the 1960's and into the 1980's our 'Sunday supplements' were really very good magazines, with minimal advertising (against the glossies), interesting articles and usually very good imagery, and where there were adverts, they could be quite good to!

A pose which could have influenced both messrs Ron Cameron and Bill Farmer? Airfix British Commandos (SLR replaced with a Thomson SMG), Britains Super Deetail (tree-branch replaced with grenade!), couple of Matchbox figures . . . both sculptors would have seen this image many times, as these ad's would run, regularly, or for a year or two on-and-off, in several publications.

 

Also of note is the pre-DPM olive-greens ('OG's'), which replaced the WWII/National Service Battle Dress for a while, having first been used in the jungles of Malaya and Borneo I think? DPM was fully introduced around 1966. This may be the Canadian pattern jacket, but the uniform changes of the 1980's are a murky business with no real timeline . . . the Gloster's wore Battle Dress in Northern Ireland in 1970!

 

Yeah! You got that, Johnny Foreigner? The best in the world 'init! Heay, I can be as jingoistic as an arse-kissing lover of Farage (rhymes with c**t) if I want to! Just a bit of fun!

But joking apart; it was - I think it's fair to say - one of the best for some time, regularly winning inter-nation tank performance and gunnery competitions in Europe and Canada, giving the Israelis the ballistic turret outline of their Merkava and producing a barrel and fire-control system any-other nation who could, immediately tried to squeeze into their existing turrets, and while it was getting a bit long in the tooth against later marks of Leopard (and Iraqi T-72's made a mess of Iranian ones in the original 'Gulf War'), it was really only Challenger I and M1 Abrams which chased it into the history books?

Public Service Announcement - Fireworks

No, not the dead graphics software, and not as humorous as a couple of previous Public Service Announcements here, with an added gentle, yes, I think 'gentle rant' attached!

DeBrett's Peerage 1886

I love fireworks, don't ever think I don't, I have loved them all my life, and have let-off more than I care to remember, but as the planet burns and we quietly go extinct due to our own complacency in Capital's rape of that same planet, it is imperative we learn to ask (of every existing human 'thing' and every new innovation); "Just because we can, does it mean we should?"

Every firework heats up the planet just a little bit more, every sparkler, every wick/squib, every struck-match or flicked-lighter, every accompanying bonfire or BBQ. And anyone who's retained the lessons of the 'energy cycle' rules from their school days (E=MC² and all that!) knows that that heat remains where it is until it is turned into something else.

But then there is the pollution? The above graphic (which has been around for a few years and may-well have been rendered in Fireworks!) gives some idea of the damage coming from fireworks, and as we all learn to wheeze and cough from traffic pollution (way over published limits) at this damp, still, time of year, we don't need to be adding to that invisible cloud with even more toxic gasses and particles. Some UN figures put air-pollution as main culprit in 2-million* deaths a year.

* Sorry - 4.2-million deaths: https://www.who.int/health-topics/air-pollution

Another pollutant these days are all the plastic elements of modern fireworks, all the features and effects used to be achieved with card tubes, card and paper pistons, paper wraps and cotton, wool, hair or kapok wadding, and that was still the case, for most fireworks, only ten or twenty years ago.

But now it's all done with low-grade plastics (frangible polystyrenes and crumbly polyethylenes) which rain down, hundreds of yards from the firing point, or which get fired through/over the boundary into neighbouring properties where they join fast-food wrappers, shopping-bags, vehicle parts, old clothing, condoms and helium balloons in laying-down a new geology; the 'Anthropocene' sedimentary (or 'discardery') layer.

Pets and wildlife also suffer from our conceited desire to entertain ourselves with frivolous high-explosives - for many years I had a cat (Munchkin) who could handle 'Guy Fawkes', as the local yobbo's would always provide a week or two of build-up, so she'd get acclimatized, but midnight on the 31st December/1st of January always saw her piss the carpet and/or my lap and disappear under to wardrobe for a few hours in abject terror.

Now, I've been planning this post for a few years but never got round to doing it, partially because the timing's never right; if you do it in the summer everyone's forgotten by now, if you do it now, it's probably too late! So I'll try to repeat it regularly as we have to change the way we live, the way we organise our societies and the way we interact with everything else. If we don't we may be going extinct as soon as 2055?

But in the meantime, there are quiet alternatives which tend toward the 'traffic-light', 'golden rain' or 'silver fountain' type, which will still generate the heat/particulate/chemical pollution, but do - at least - minimise both noise and the distribution of crumbly, recycled/raw plastic widgets.

Some of the small 'family' packs will give a very pretty show with minimal 'collateral' damage and simplified woosh- or wheeish-rockets without crappy plastic-parts .

But remember, it's not just dogs, cats or damaged veterans that might suffer, all pets are in the firing line, hedgehogs are only now going to sleep for four months, birds (who lose enough sleep to street-lights as it is?) moths, bats . . . it's just not our right to disturb, frighten, injure or kill them and still call ourselves 'sapiens'.

https://scarfolk.blogspot.com/

And congratulations to Sainsbury's and Marks & Spencer who have started to get some momentum behind the inevitable phaseing-out of fireworks by not selling or stocking them this year. While Co-Op haven't been selling them for five years, Sainsbury's joining that stance in 2019. Tesco, Aldi and ASDA are offering low-noise ranges.