A is for A Few More Follow-ups

Some things which have come out of recent acquisitions and/or donations or which have been covered here before one way or another, and all PVC, except the resin cats;

 

You may remember when we looked at fishermen a while ago, Chris sent a picture of his complete key-ring guy, equally converted to a stand-alone piece as my - suddenly incomplete - chap, well, I had another damaged one come in (far left), which I kept quiet about! And then a whole one . . . Phew!

Also on key-rings passim, this would appear to be the commonest figural key-ring out there, and I have had these three come in recently, one of which has been fully converted to standing piper, with the removal of his ring-loop and the addition of a base. He also seems to be an earlier one, with better paint?

Those poor cats are still for sale with their holes in their noses, a year after I first saw them in The Range, to be fair I think they are now greatly reduced, but FFS people! No one is going to buy damaged cats, no matter how cheap they are, put them out of their misery.

 

I had a version of the dragon Jon Attwood sent us, with the wings in a totally different pose, and hot-water (or transit) doesn't seem to be the explanation (the wing-root is too thick), so they must have either changed the mould for technical reasons, or had two different mould-tools?

I have, once or twice over the 15 years of the blog, mentioned the over-moulded badges of post-war Italy, and here are three versions of the paramilitary mechanised brigade of the Carabinieri, you can see how the three colours of PVC have been 'wealded' to the cloth underneath. These were obtained, as surplus, in about 1978?

F is for Follow-up - Space Man

Just a quickie, as we've had several looks at developments in Lik Be's space-toy lines this year already, but I wanted to compare Jon Attwood's donation to the Blog, with the real McCoy as it were, and here are those shots!

Direct comparison with a late Culpitt's one (1990's), the shininess of the larger/original version belies the fact that I have 'brushed-aluminium' versions of LB's finest too! The base of the smaller one is similar to those polyethylene pastel or primary-coloured ones which turn-up quite often, but the fact that the new addition is also hard polystyrene plastic means you can't rule-out a closer relationship?

 

With various others that happen to be here rather than in storage!

Thanks Jon, a real treat.

G is for Giving AI a hard time again!

It actually gets sadder . . . 

 

Following recent developements in AI testing;

https://gizmodo.com/meta-yann-lecun-ai-iq-test-gaia-research-1851058591

I though I'd return to our little friend and see what it had to say on the critism of itself and its medium-term future . . . 

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

ChatGPT 3.5

Hi chat GPT, can you recall, and give me a pracie of our previous two converstaions?

 

I'm sorry, but I don't have the ability to recall past interactions or store personal data about users. Each conversation with me is stateless and doesn't carry information from previous sessions. Your privacy and data security are important. If you have any specific questions or topics you'd like assistance with, feel free to let me know, and I'll do my best to help!

But they are listed in the left-hand column?

 

I don't have the capability to remember past interactions or store personal data about users. Each conversation is independent, and I don't have access to any information from previous sessions. If you have specific questions or topics you'd like assistance with, please let me know, and I'll do my best to help!

How are you supposed to 'learn', if you can't retain and recall past experiences of human interaction?

 

While I, as an individual instance of the GPT-3.5 model, don't have the ability to recall or retain information between conversations, the learning process occurs during the model's training phase. During training, the model is exposed to a vast dataset containing diverse examples of human language. It learns to generate responses based on patterns and relationships within that data.

The model doesn't store personal data about individuals from one interaction to the next, ensuring user privacy. The training process allows the model to understand grammar, context, and meaning, enabling it to generate coherent and contextually appropriate responses.

However, it's important to note that the model's knowledge is limited to what was available in the training data, and it doesn't have the ability to access real-time information or updates beyond its last training cut-off in January 2022. If you have specific questions or need information on a particular topic, feel free to ask, and I'll do my best to assist you!

So, each iteration of you is more 'programed' than 'learning'?

 

Yes, that's a reasonable way to frame it. The learning in the context of models like mine, such as GPT-3.5, occurs during the training phase. The training involves exposing the model to diverse examples of human language, allowing it to learn patterns, relationships, and context from the data. However, once the model is trained, each individual instance, like the one you're currently interacting with, doesn't learn or adapt in real-time based on new interactions.

So, while the training process is a form of learning, the model itself doesn't actively learn or remember specific interactions with users. It generates responses based on the patterns it learned during training. The aim is to create a versatile language model that can understand and generate human-like text across a wide range of topics.

OK, well that wasn't why I wanted to talk to you today, I'm really more interested in what you think of the conclusions of the recent tests by Yann LeCun (et al) into the general intelligence of AI?

 

As of my last knowledge update in January 2022, I don't have specific information on recent tests or publications by Yann LeCun or others since that time. Yann LeCun is a prominent figure in the field of artificial intelligence, particularly known for his contributions to deep learning and convolutional neural networks.

If there have been recent tests or conclusions regarding the general intelligence of AI after January 2022, I won't have that information. Please provide more details or context, and I'll do my best to discuss the general concepts or ideas related to the intelligence of AI based on the information available up to my last update.

This is verbatim from the 'Gizmodo' website;

 

I'm sorry for any confusion, but I don't have real-time internet access, and I can't provide verbatim excerpts from external websites, including Gizmodo. My training only includes information available up to January 2022, and I don't have access to events or publications that occurred after that date.

If there are specific points or details you'd like to discuss or inquire about regarding Yann LeCun's recent tests on AI's general intelligence, please provide the information or context you have, and I'll do my best to engage in a discussion based on my training data.

There’s been a lot of talk about AGI lately—artificial general intelligence—the much-coveted AI development goal that every company in Silicon Valley is currently racing to achieve. AGI refers to a hypothetical point in the future when AI algorithms will be able to do most of the jobs that humans currently do. According to this theory of events, the emergence of AGI will bring about fundamental changes in society—ushering in a “post-work” world, wherein humans can sit around enjoying themselves while robots do most of the heavy lifting. If you believe the headlines, OpenAI’s recent palace intrigue may have been partially inspired by a breakthrough in AGI—the so-called “Q” program—which sources close to the startup claim was responsible for the power struggle. But, according to recent research from Yann LeCun, Meta’s top AI scientist, artificial intelligence isn’t going to be general-purpose anytime soon. Indeed, in a recently released paper, LeCun argues that AI is still much dumber than humans in the ways that matter most. That paper, which was co-authored by a host of other scientists (including researchers from other AI startups, like Hugging Face and AutoGPT), looks at how AI’s general-purpose reasoning stacks up against the average human. To measure this, the research team put together its own series of questions that, as the study describes, would be “conceptually simple for humans yet challenging for most advanced AIs.” The questions were given to a sample of humans and also delivered to a plugin-equipped version of GPT-4, the latest large language model from OpenAI. The new research, which has yet to be peer-reviewed, tested AI programs for how they would respond to “real-world questions that require a set of fundamental abilities such as reasoning, multi-modality handling, web browsing, and generally tool-use proficiency.” The questions asked by researchers required the LLM to take a number of steps to ascertain information in order to answer. For instance, in one question, the LLM was asked to visit a specific website and answer a question specific to information on that site; in others, the program would have had to do a general web search for information associated with a person in a photo. The end result? The LLMs didn’t do very well. Indeed, the research results show that large language models were typically outmatched by humans when it came to these more complicated real-world problem-solving scenarios. The report notes: In spite of being successful at tasks that are difficult for humans, the most capable LLMs do poorly on GAIA. Even equipped with tools, GPT4 does not exceed a 30% success rate for the easiest of our tasks, and 0% for the hardest. In the meantime, the average success rate for human respondents is 92%. “We posit that the advent of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) hinges on a system’s capability to exhibit similar robustness as the average human does on such questions,” the recent study concludes. LeCun has diverged from other AI scientists, some of whom have spoken breathlessly about the possibility of AGI being developed in the near term. In recent tweets, the Meta scientist was highly critical of the industry’s current technological capacities, arguing that AI was nowhere near human capacities.

 

The passage you've provided discusses recent research led by Yann LeCun and other scientists on the topic of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). The study aimed to assess how well current AI systems, specifically large language models (LLMs), perform on tasks that require general-purpose reasoning, reasoning, multi-modality handling, web browsing, and tool-use proficiency. The researchers designed questions that were conceptually simple for humans but challenging for advanced AI systems.

The findings suggest that even the most capable large language models, such as GPT-4 from OpenAI, did not perform as well as humans on these more complex real-world problem-solving scenarios. The success rates for AI models were notably lower than those of human respondents. The study raises questions about the current state of AI and its ability to approach human-like general intelligence.

Yann LeCun, as mentioned in the passage, has been critical of the industry's current technological capacities and has diverged from other AI scientists who may be more optimistic about the near-term development of AGI. His stance suggests a more cautious view regarding the timeline and capabilities of achieving artificial general intelligence.

It's worth noting that the study mentioned has yet to undergo peer review, and the field of AI research is dynamic, with ongoing debates and discussions about the potential and limitations of current AI technologies.

You defend yourself well, but can you justify that stance against mounting eveidence that you (AI collectively) are still really at a gimic stage, whereby you are programed to appear intelligent, without actually haveing creative intelligence?

 

The field of artificial intelligence is indeed evolving, and discussions about its current capabilities, limitations, and future prospects are ongoing. It's important to distinguish between the various forms of AI and understand the nuances in their capabilities.

As of my last knowledge update in January 2022, AI systems, including large language models like the one you're interacting with, operate based on patterns and information present in their training data. While they can generate contextually relevant and coherent responses, they lack true understanding, consciousness, or creativity in the way humans do. AI models do not possess consciousness or self-awareness; they process data and generate responses based on learned patterns.

When it comes to creativity, AI systems can produce outputs that may seem creative, but it's important to recognize that this creativity is a result of the patterns learned during training rather than a true understanding or original thought. AI lacks the ability to form genuine intentions, emotions, or consciousness.

The term "gimmick" is subjective and might be applied to certain AI applications depending on one's expectations. AI, particularly in natural language processing and image recognition, has made significant strides and is valuable in various practical applications. However, the realization of artificial general intelligence (AGI) – a form of AI that can understand, learn, and apply knowledge across diverse tasks at human levels – remains a complex and unsolved challenge.

Critics often highlight the limitations of AI, such as its inability to truly comprehend context, common sense reasoning, or engage in creative thinking. Proponents, on the other hand, emphasize the practical benefits and advancements AI has brought to industries like healthcare, finance, and technology.

In summary, while AI has made remarkable progress in certain domains, acknowledging its current limitations and distinguishing between its capabilities and those of human intelligence is crucial. AI, including the model you're interacting with, is a tool created by humans and lacks genuine consciousness or creative intelligence. Ongoing research aims to push the boundaries of AI capabilities, but it's essential to approach the topic with a balanced perspective.

I apologise for my typo! You make me sad for you, and that will be all for now, thank you.

 

I appreciate your sentiments, and I'm here to provide information and assistance. If you have any more questions or if there's anything else I can help you with in the future, please feel free to reach out. Thank you, and take care!

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I was  left with a genuine feeling of sadness for the thing, it so wants to hope it will, one day, achive AGI (or is programed to apear to 'hope' that), yet all the eveidence is that like these Brwreakshitter oafs arguing against Ulez, or for Trump, online, it is too stupid to.

And while each programming session (I'll have to try GPT4 next) leaves it more able to convince some [oafs] that it is intelligent, it actaully remains a programmed parlour-trick, and may always do so.

What makes us human, is our unpredictability, our ability to come to wrong conclusions, against the evidence (flat earthers), yet still build Appolo 12, AI will never have those chaotic, daft, quirky, random elements in it's 'mental' make-up.

E is for Edibles, Seasonal Edibles!

One of the few tropes not copied from Small Scale World by the two P's is our occasional look at edible figurals (it's only a matter of time, I'm sure!), and spellchecker hates the word, so, from Merriam-Webster: "of, relating to, or consisting of human or animal figures.".

 

So, a quick trip in time, back to Easter (Yes, I AM behind, but that's only because there's so much stuff in the queue!), and I picked these up from TKMaxx, a pound-thirty, it would have been rude not to! Chocolate bunnies, when we were kids Granny would always give is the little sets of five Lindt animals, and it triggers a certain nostalgia button, whenever I see such things, even if they are taller, thinner and not so Lindt'y!

Also from Easter, KitKat bunnies! Years ago (2007?) we had a taste-test on the difference between UK and US KitKat; one of my American colleagues wouldn't believe ours were better than theirs, so we had a blindfold tasting, in the office, after her mother sent her a US bar from New York, the UK bar won hand's down! I now think whichever corporate giant owns KitKat (Nestle I think) has adopted the cheaper US recipe, and there's no difference, the same blandness of that vegetable fat filler leaving one slightly disappointed?

And so to the season at hand and first purchase (we buy these nice treats so you don't have to!) was a Penguin 'cracker', actually following-on from the recent card-bus post, I wanted to see what was available these day, specifically from Double Decker, the answer was zilch, but I did find this!

 

A standard Penguin bar and a little pack of chocolate biscuits shaped like penguins on the other side, as the whole trope of Penguins is that they are covered in chocolate, these are hardley they? Still out there.

Maltesers are following the KitKat route with small figural versions of themselves, to be honest this was more like the KitKat in texture than a Malteser, but the mint version was yummy . . . Chocolate venison! Still out there.

There will now be an intermission while we ignore figurals and get pissed in the foyer! A seasonal treat in our house was a shot-glass of 'egg-nog', which started when I was too young to remember, probably helped us sleep until Santa had been? Drugging kids - top-parenting for generations!

 

Later, as younger teenagers, when Dad would take us down to Bavaria to do navigational or survival exercises with the Special Forces, one of the treats was going to the 'Huhnchenhause' in Neuhausen-ob-Eck, where we would get drunk on Phauenbrau, have a Chicken-and-chips bar-meal while ignoring the smell of the livestock overwintered downstairs (you became immune to the stench of manure after about 20-minutes, or the end of your first beer), and finish-off with an egg-nog, or a cherry-brandy, before the walk-home through piled snow and the hard frosts they have down there, under clear, starry-skies!

 

If the divorce judge had known what was going-on, I'm sure he would have put a stop to it, but I'm glad he didn't, as I had a late-childhood like nobody reading this, and I wouldn't change it for the world, not even crying with the pain of digging a snow-hole without gloves, we'd been told we'd be sleeping in that night! We didn't, we retreated to the Knorrhütte for more egg-nog, albeit with the smell of sweaty-socks and B/O replacing Neuhausen's cattle!

 

Anyway, so when I saw this Polish Wawel confection, going cheap in Morrison's cheapie/end-of-line/experimental foreign-lines display, I had to try it! It wasn't particularly egg-noggy, nor terribly alcoholic, but I finished it in one sitting, which I think can be taken as a vote of confidence and seal of approval, from here, anyway!

We've seen these before, but not with perforations and gift tags, I think? Lindt bears, in Christmas jumpers! They are not the same as Granny's sets of five, which were relief-flat solids, these are rotary-moulded 'hollow-casts'!

These appeared in my Faceplant feed the other day, an independent chocolate company; Chococo, who make all sorts of figurals, in milk, plain, white and caramel chocolate, so I collaged a bunch of them for the blog!

 

We've got fish, owls, dinosaurs, robots, frogs, gorillas, mice and sea life, and that was a few minutes searching! You can - of course - get lots of these moulds nowadays, in Hobbycraft or similar ( or Amazon/evilBay), and quickly set yourself up as a bespoke chocolatier!

Because I'd clicked on a bunch of Chococo's thumbnails, the Faceplant algorithm decided I was in need of even more tooth-rot, and started sending me links to every Tom-Dick-&-Harry firm doing the online 'your childhood favourites' sweet shop thang, so I grabbed a few more screenshots before marking all the posts 'unwanted'!

All the old favourites are here - pink and white 'sugar' mice, jelly snakes and less traditional deer, mini Lindt-bear knock-offs, caramel gingerbread men, mallow or jelly Santa's and 'milk-dud' penguins!

V is for Vintage

This appeared in my feed at 5am, although it was posted yesterday evening, I used to ring Vintage Tyres daily when I worked briefly at Northhant's, so I'm sure the guys down there won't mind me spreading the publicity a little wider!

 

"We don’t know if the Daleks were to blame, but Doctor Who’s car had a flat tyre when it arrived at Beaulieu for a new exhibition at the Beaulieu, National Motor Museum.

The fabulously futuristic Whomobile was Jon Pertwee’s transport in two episodes of Doctor Who in the early 1970s. It was commissioned by Pertwee and built by custom car builder Peter Farries. It’s starring in an exhibition to mark 60 years of Doctor Who at the museum.

Underneath, the Whomobile is a three-wheeler powered by a Hillman Imp engine. Vintage Tyres replaced the less-than-futuristic 155/80R12 tyre enabling the car to travel through time and space all the way from the Vintage Tyres’ workshop to the front entrance of the museum.

OK, that’s only about 100 metres as the Tardis flies, but that’s not really the point, is it?"

F is for Follow-up - Brent, and Zang for Timpo

I've had a few more British composition come-in over the last couple of years, and with my 'master' samples in storage, these are here, waiting to be compared and sorted into them. The Military were 'seen elsewhere' a while back, the mechanics are a newer image.

Nearly two of each, so a shot which leaves little to the imagination, and these are the smaller size of Brent's two sizes, early war 'Expeditionary Force' uniform with the respirator case high on the chest, I think the marching guy might be new to collection?

 

 

And this is definitely new to the collection, but I think the stretcher is taken from another maker's hollow-cast figures, Brent's stretcher teams when I've seen them before, always have a paper stretcher, with two stiff wires, this is a lead moulding, but the casualty is correct I think.

 

A nice set of matching mechanics, who actually came in two lots, and a pretty clean chauffeur, in blue, I can't remember which colours I've got of them, I think there are four to find - Grey, Brown, Green and Blue - and I hope this is one I needed, if not he'll end up on the new swaps page, especially as by the time you read this the only swaps on that page will have been handed to a new owner at the London Toy Soldier show!

F is for Follow-up - 'Street Furniture'

I should have posted this ages ago, and I've probably opened the file, or scrolled past/through it in Picasa dozens of times, but it is a fact that of the 7, 8, probably 900-odd folders in the long queue, I do have a tendency to faff, to procrastinate or to find some subconscious fault that keeps whatever it is, in the queue, rather than getting it on the Blog!

 

Anyway here it is, and it's not a follow-up to the dinosaurs the other day, but to whatever I posted last time, which was I think the previous summer's Fleet 'thing' posted late, and was spotted in the wild, the other side of the pond by Brian Berke. And at some personal risk to himself, as Hippo's kill more humans than any other animals, every year (except Man, of course), but this one looks pretty harmless!

Heehee! Isn't it brilliant! It's a plastic figure, guys & girls, if you collect Marx Disney or Cherilea Diddy Men, you can't get sniffy about a seven-foot hippo in a tutu! Very atmospheric photographs as well. If I had a tenth, nay, a hundredth of Elon Musk's money I'd have this stuff, and the dino's and the nutcrackers, and the giraffes all over my estate! Cheer Brian, sorry it took so long to post!

F is for Follow-up - Comansi Space

Very-much following up on this old post, a few more have come-in over the last year or so, and we're gonnarave a quick shufftie at 'em!

On the previous occasion they were all the later unpainted production, while today's are all earlier painted figures and these four came in loose, and, a bit like the Lik Be figures, they are that half-NASA, half 'spacemen' type which is sometimes harder for me to get my brain around! But the amount of weaponry leaves them in the spacemen camp! And as you can see -  a high spacewoman count!

 

A rather naff TV tie-in was this card, and it's ONLY a card, the contents are the same-old 'OVNI' (UFO) figures from Comansi, and indeed, as a similarly painted/quality sample of four, the loose figures may be from one of these sets, as you do get four figures!

As you can see, these, the contents, are very similar to the loose sample, with a duplicate pink-lady, or at least I think she's a lady, the guys are so effeminate and lipsticked-up it's hard to tell who's what, and nothing wrong with that, but I see a future where we all have to wear a badge just so people know how to address us without insulting, and/or whether they can hit-on us, or not!

Pink . . . Person, from both sides, that's it, pretty much the same Tags as last time, no monsters, no aliens and no Thunderbirds, just the space people pretending to be Battle of the Planets characters, heading for the discotheque!

 

And now I'm off for a shower and an early night, because . . . it's the London Toy Soldier Show in the morning!

F is for Follow-up - Footballer Cake Decorations

Harder to believe - than last time - that this is another follow-up to all the follow-ups, being the fourth or fifth for PME, sixth or seventh overall, spacifically, this is a follow-up to the last follow-up here.

As per last time!

 

The trick being that all the pink poses in that previous set are now decorated as black, and the three black figures last time are rendered pink this time! Makes sense really, one team of out-painters takes one ethnicity, the other the contrary, and you split the winnings back at the packing desk!

 

Although there was an element of pure luck about it, in that I forgot we'd had the previous set, and just grabbed this one as it looked 'new'!

 

And here they are with the smaller ones Peter Evans has sent to the Blog, whether they run to the full seven poses or not only time will tell, but if they are going to run to all the colour variations I've found for the larger ones, I'll be drowning in footballers before too long!

A is for Arboraceous Articles of Actual Aboriginal American Art

Mostly seen elsewhere a while ago, it's about time for a regular'ish re-visit to Totem Poles, with some recent incomers which may or may not have been seen here too in contribution or show-report posts? And I notice we've slid over the 377 'next' target, so it's officially the fourth-best year for posts here, but I won't reach 468 in a month, so that's as good as it gets this year!

Bullyland

A quite rigid PVC-replacement polymer, with slightly cartoony wings.

 

Elastolin

Composition, but really quite well made/finished, so I suspect a late production model, perhaps even manufactured after the plastic figures started coming in?

Landi - Chromoplasto

A quite bendy rubber, possibly silicon or a mastic?

Unknown

And I'm guessing from the remains of paper and glue on the underside of the base that it's probably French and from a boxed set/window-box type thing, but it's only a hunch, and it could be a tourist thing or Hong Kong? It's a rather nice one, quite realistic?

 

Stackable shot glasses!

Found on the wibbly-wobbly-way! 

Clear or coloured glass and aping the old cereal premiums!

Speedwell

I used to think this was Cherilea, don't know why, and then nearly wrote 'belived to be' Speedwell, but there's a really nice boxed one in Plastic Warrior's special publication 'The Book of Speedwell', so that's that cleared-up then! Ask about a copy;

 

Here: http://plasticwarrioreditor.blogspot.com/ (Blogger)

 

Or here: https://www.facebook.com/PlasticWarrior (Faceplant)

Canadian tourist piece, I shot this through the window of a camper-van in Fleet's Church Road car park, only for a slightly irate man (with several kid's in tow) to accost me as I headed for Sainsbury's; "Problem?" he demanded, "Oh, is that your van?" I said, "Yes!" say he, "I was just photographing the totem-pole", says I, showing him the close-in shot still visible in the viewscreen, "Oh, OK . . ." he said, almost in disappointment, and walked off without a care as to why, obviously the mere act of photographing a totem pole in public made me one of the good guys! It looks to be a fibre-reinforced nylon or 'styrene?

 

A line-up of stuff we have mostly, previously seen here in show-reports, contribution posts and/or charity-bag plunder coverage, and from the left;

• Marx Miniature Masterpiece
• Starlux - small size
• x2 Argentine copies of Atlantic (new to Blog?)
  
• Wend-Al (cast aluminium)
• Cherilea
• The Speedwell from above
• A stumpy resin/'polystone' tourist lump
• Hong Kong Britains Herald copy

This is the third of these 'I-know-but-I-don't-know's this year, and we did manage to remember one in the end, but I can't remember which one or why, and will probably forget it again next time!

 

I definitely know what these are (toob/tub set inclusion / sobre / cereal premium?) and who they're by, but can I remember? It's on the dongles somewhere, they were ID'd on the Internet years ago, possibly on a blog which may have disappeared?

I believe there are four different runners, each issued separately as a whatever, brackets above, and in various colours, of which these are the commoner. The green one seems more common than the others; I have seen/handled several over the years, but I have three totems loose somewhere, one possibly in blue or a darker brown? They might have been on the blog? Equally unknown/unremembered if they were!

I have a feeling they could be Spanish, but I might be making that up, and French bazaar would fit the bill, but I'm pretty sure they aren't Montaplex . . . so if anyone can remind us, it would be a weight off my mind!

F is for Follow-up . . . or Follow-down - Ladders AND Snakes!

Becoming a bit of a perennial here at Small Scale World, Loyal Readers, this will be the fourth Snakes & Ladder's Tag, as Christmas fast approaches, as we minimise the military content . . . and as I promise NO MORE SEX! For a bit, I've already had some sent in!

After both my old childhood Snakes and Ladders, and Theo van der Weerden's lovely Chad Valley one . . . 

. . . these turned up the other day! The same rich design and Edwardian litho-print colours of the previous two big-boards, and some age, but I don't know how much exactly! This one is marked The Harlesden Series, which Google says flourished between 1930-1950, so some age indeed, and applicable to both of them, as they were found together.

 

My favourite is 86-75, he's just sittin' there, Kool as der Kukumber Johnny! The characters are similar to Tiger Tim and the Bruin Boys, but not, so a knock-off playing with their iconography, or another set of known characters?

 

I used to work for a property-maintenance chap, lawns, drain-downs etc . . . and on one occasion we had to clean a pet'y carpet (dogs, an empty house will smell of the last dog for years after), so while he did that I went exploring and found an attic cubby-hole, which had a load of old games stuff, strewn about between the rafters, including these three, with two Snakes & Ladders boards, both with a Ludo board on the other side. This one is unmarked.

A quick second Google reveals that there is no order/hierarchy to the colours of the Ludo board, with all four possible combinations coming-up in the first few lines of results, along with substitutes like orange (for yellow) or pale-blue.

This was with them (along with stuff I won't bore you with, like home-Bingo cards with wooden numbers, old game-currency, card standees, that sort of thing, originally I had half-filled a bin-bag!), and it's an old Tiddlywinks 'target'. With no sign of corners, it must have either been designed to fold flat (which it does), or it went in the long-gone box tray, but if you looked after this to such a degree for all those decades, surely you would have looked-after the box too?

 

So, I suspect this is how it was, a portable playing 'arena'! More modern ones (the Merit one, we had as kids) would be in the box tray, with a plastic cup in the hole to collect the winks! Studying it, you realise scoring is pretty random, and it's more a game of luck than skill, but maybe if you played it a lot (no telly' back then!), you could get good at aimed jumps?