About Me
- Hugh Walter
- No Fixed Abode, Home Counties, United Kingdom
- I’m a 60-year-old Aspergic gardening CAD-Monkey. Sardonic, cynical and with the political leanings of a social reformer, I’m also a toy and model figure collector, particularly interested in the history of plastics and plastic toys. Other interests are history, current affairs, modern art, and architecture, gardening and natural history. I love plain chocolate, fireworks and trees, but I don’t hug them, I do hug kittens. I hate ignorance, when it can be avoided, so I hate the 'educational' establishment and pity the millions they’ve failed with teaching-to-test and rote 'learning' and I hate the short-sighted stupidity of the entire ruling/industrial elite, with their planet destroying fascism and added “buy-one-get-one-free”. Likewise, I also have no time for fools and little time for the false crap we're all supposed to pretend we haven't noticed, or the games we're supposed to play. I will 'bite the hand that feeds', to remind it why it feeds.
Tuesday, March 19, 2024
J is for Jumps, More Jumps
We've had a brief look at some of the Britains stuff, and better looks at the other two main producers of show jumping equipment in 1:32, but if you, or a younger relative are looking to make a full arena circuit there is a need for 10-15 actual jumps, even 16 or more, and they all need to look different, as part of the test of the horse, it to visually stun or confuse it!
Except that you usually have a similarity/continuity in look, with both jumps in a double, or all three of a triple. Luckily there are a few others out there, to extend the base from which to build a course map;
Monday, March 18, 2024
Sunday, March 17, 2024
M is for Mes Matelots de la Marine!
The 30mm figures, they have been mucked about with, there should probably be a standard-bearer, and the four pure-white ones are almost certainly additions, they haven't the ultraviolet (or paper/card acid?) yellowing of what were probably the originals.
Saturday, March 16, 2024
S is for Seen Elsewhere - Lone Star's Swivel Animals
I've never seen the donkey or the foal, and while I've seen the pig, I don't have one, although I do have a very similar, 30-odd year's younger one from Kinder (also on the blog somewhere?) which is almost as good, but with a slightly cartoony face?
Now, guessing here, but I suspect the pig only came in pink, while white, brown and black plastic versions of the other four may have been produced, with airbrushed black, white or red-oxide highlights? In addition to the spot-painted pink and black detailing of hooves, eyes, nostrils, a halter &etc.
T is for Two - Rack-Toy Dino'cards
I had occasion to stop at one of the few independent convenience-stores/corner shops the other evening (Lower Bourne, Farnham/Aldershot hinterlands - dodgy part of the world!), with the intention of grabbing a fizzy drink, and I came away with two BJ's . . . ooh'err missus!
S is for Selley Manufacturing Company 'Finishing Touches'
Another one I don't know enough about to more than present the archive imagery, which will form the basis of the eventual A-Z blog entry, but for now, and because I mentioned it in association with Weston's as 'coming soon' in a comment the other week, they can follow the Weston figures in this sequence!
Friday, March 15, 2024
B is for Blasting off Again!
My evilBay treat to myself this month was the other configuration of the Blast Off eraser set from TJM, for nine-quid-odd with postage on a Buy-It-Now. It was preferable to drive to Basingrad to see if the Home Bargains there had taken delivery of the other set (Fleet's branch of the TKMaxx subsidiary still has a stack of the set we looked at last time!), only to find they haven't, which would cost the same in petrol.
P is for Potted Plant Problems and Phuqing Phungus Phlies
Yet, it was a slow process, and I was still killing lots of flies by hand, every day (f'ousands of 'em since December Sah! F'ousands!), so after a return to Google I spent £4.50 on this at B&Q, chemical warfare had come to the flat!
Ladies and Gentlemen, two months later, and it hadn't killed a single fly, the plant was looking as it does in the first shot, and I was clearly losing the war . . . against phuqing flies! Indeed, the only use I will ever get from it is as a possible rocket-engine on a scratch-build!
The apparently non-toxic (and non-attractive to Fungus Gnats) liquid went down the drain, revealing seven glass beads? The magic ingredient in this complete rip-off of a fake solution (in both senses of the word) is the remains of some shot-blasting, sunk in snot? Somebody should go to jail for this scam!
I then took the pot back to the old house, took it down to the bottom of the garden, and dug-out the remains of the plants with a desert-fork, carefully, as the greenery is very snappy. And with two bits of root (Holmes, Rhizomes?) and three plants, drowned them while I was at work, to kill any hidden larvae or eggs.
This was all last week, and I re-potted last Thursday-night, after washing the pot (and crocks) with bleach, and drying thoroughly, before the remains of the plant drowned as well as the larvae/eggs, and after pay-day last weekend, I went back for the surface treatment, a crushed pumice, which I applied as above, about a centimetre deep (that's about half a banana stalk for our N. American readers), on Saturday last.
- Don't buy the liquid traps, they are just another capitalist rip-off.
- Do buy the sticky-traps (there were four in the pack, about a fiver), the second is now on the window, just in case!
- Understand the sticky-pads won't cure the problem, but they'll hold it in check for a few weeks while you work-up the will for the serious bit of faffing!
- The pumice would make ideal model-railway ballast, and there's a
lifetimes supply in one 9-quid bag, ten times cheaper than modeller's
scatter, and probably the same stuff?
Over the next few days I killed another four flies, which were probably lone operators who'd meandered to other parts of the flat, and came back looking for a feed, or somewhere to lay their eggs, but since last Monday or Tuesday, it has been fly free!
H is for Here's Something a Little Different!
Thursday, March 14, 2024
D is for Damn Shelfies!
N is for Nursery Rymes!
Whatsisname Grundy,
Born on a Monday,
Christened on a Tuesday,
Married on a Wednesday,
Took ill on a Thursday,
Grew worse on Friday,
Died on Saturday,
Still believing Stevens International (US importer/jobber) and Sunjade (wholesaler/shipper) were the names behind the output of Supreme - SP Toys, poor chap! How does such ignorance persevere in a hobby where the facts are known? Is it that a certain type feels they can only shout at the world for its unfairness, by being idiots within their own 'community'?
Buried on Sunday,
That was the end,
of Whatsisname Grundy
T is for Two - Freebies!
P is for Petroleum
On one level this is just a nostalgia hit for people of a certain age, and not a young one, as this is from a mid-1970's colour supplement (I forgot to note which one/when), and the mid 1970's were, now, fifty years ago!