Y is for You Wait Ages for One and Several Come Along At Once!

Hot on the heels of the two sets we saw a month ago, and the pencil top/clinger pair shown here at Small Scale World over Christmas, comes a fourth space-related set of erasers in as many months! This one credited to an Ooly, and containing 12 erasers for four-quid, or 33.3r-p each! 

Galaxy Blast! In the style of Iwako, as the previous two were, with a 'puzzle' element, they are press-together segments of different coloured rubber. If the connecting studs are the same diameter, we could have fun with all three sets, and others we've seen in the past? A future post maybe!

 

Peep's; the guy on the left looks a bit like a space faring Wimpy The Moocher from Popeye, I don't know why! In the middle, a domestic fembot of some kind, maybe a waitress at a drive-in, and an Alien Panda?

 

Spaceships; A pair of Bezos phallus-rockets in the background, and a fourth (seen here recently) pulp-ship in the centre, with two generic fighters/atmosphere craft either side!

 

Two more planets, both with rings, a giant telescope to the left, and a dish-concentrated death-ray to the right, ready to go to Hoth! Add the planets in the Home Bargains 'Blast Off' sets we saw here in '23 & '24, and there are more than enough now, to arrange for one to be Pluto!

Y is for You'll Have to Google it!

Without a shadow of a doubt, the weirdest thing Brian Berke sent the Blog in his image packages last year was the following three items, which we'll look at before I explain, as once you've looked at them, you'll realise an explanation is the least you can expect!

 

 

Yes, those are people with domestic appliances for heads! They are the bad-guys. Yes, there are heads living in lavatories! They are the good guys! I think? And they don't live in the bowls, they are toilets - you'll have to Google it! In a nutshell, a race of the eponymous Skibidi Toilet people are engaged in a war, with Grand Theft Auto styling, against a race of appliance-headed people - the Multiverse!

 

This is the most extraordinary phenomena, for several reasons, firstly Skibidi Toilet, is a purely amateur, one-man, AI-assisted, CGI-generated cartoon series, made by one YouTube content creator from Georgia (the country) on his own PC, you'll have to Google it! Second, it's entirely an online, 'Gen-Alpha' fan-driven phenomena, which has exploded in a singular section of youth society.

 

But, thirdly, as far as I can tell (you'll have to google it), the guy (Alexey Gerasimov) responsible has only produced the material on YouTube, which suggests that these toys (you'll have to google them) are entirely unlicensed, hence the lack of branding beyond the title-graphics, nicked from YouTube.

 

And your Googling will rapidly reveal tons of these toys on Amazon, evilBay and Alibaba, among other platforms, so a factory, almost certainly in China is making an absolute fortune out of one guy's weird Gen-Alpha flex on YouTube . . . You'll have to Google it, but the whole Skibidi Toilet story is amazing, these Gen-Alpha's will not fight in Trump's, Netanyahu's or Putin's coming wars, they are as alien to us, as we are to the Romans.

 

You can see the figures are toy-soldier'y, in not being articulated 'action figures' and my own Googling suggests many of them have been issued, and I thank Brian for shooting them on his Italian holiday, and sending them to the Blog, where I've had a crash-course in what's really happening out there! Weird, but you'll have to Google it!

 

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I've just Googled them again, and in a few months, the picture has changed greatly, with many more figural products, including deforms, action figures and larger statuettes, when Brian sent the images (last June), these (roughly 60-mil I think) were pretty-much all there were, but many of them. Maybe some of the products are now licensed from the originator?

Y is for Yule Urchins!

Possibly my favourite animal if I had to choose one, and while there won't be a tree up for a fifth year, it hasn't stopped me looking for additions for the tree, and one of the themes became, not that many years ago, hedgehogs or hedgepigs, which used to be called urchins in medieval times, giving rise to sea-urchins, because they looked like land urchins!

 

This one came in a few weeks ago, found in Mark's & Spark's, it's a felt/wool body with metallic and sequinned 'spines' which aren't the most realistic, but give a good impression of a hedgehog anyway, and though rather large, he might have been the only one I found, so I grabbed him! He can go near the bottom of the tree, where the other bigger baubles end-up!

 

I then found two traditional glass ones in the same day (ostensively looking for a pair of shears!) in different garden centres, one from Gisela Graham, the other an outfit called Ascalon, and of which, one may be a duplicate (opposite sides of the tree when that happens, and facing the other way!), and then, most recently, about a week ago a layered felt one (who's also quite large) turned-up, branded to Kingfisher (owner of Screwfix), however, I think he came from The Range, but it might have been B&Q, although before the takeover announcement last week, so maybe they were already linked/working together?

 

Which gives us a line-up of four Hedgepigs, eagerly waiting their chance to shine on the tree, don't they all look happy! Childish, I know, but wasn't it the greatest Doctor of all time, Tom Baker, who said, upon being accused of being childish,  "I know, but what's the point of being a grown-up if you can't be childish from time to time"? And with a possible duplicate glassware one, and several similar nut-shell ones - Blog passim - about nine now, or three per 'turn'! Less than four weeks to Crimbo!

Hedgehogs are going extinct in the UK, and if you're looking for a charity cause this Christmas, please consider a Hedgehog charity - there are several - or your local Hedgehog sanctuary or rescue centre.

Y is for ♫♪♪♪ "You Spin Me Right Round, Injun', Right 'Round, Like a Ranch Raid, Right 'Round, 'Round-Round!" ♫♪♫

One of the best things I got at the recent (a month and a half ago already!) Plastic Warrior show in South West London was this spinning top, which Michael Mordant-Smith had found and saved for me, some of the riders had come loose, so I had to take it all apart and renovate it with a bit of glue and a duster, phases which I either forgot to photograph, or might have actually delated the photographs from!

Fully restored and put back together, there are no marks on it, not even in the hidden areas I could look at while it was all in pieces, but Google reveals similar tops by Chad Valley, Fuchs, LBZ/KSM (very similar handles and contents; trains, circus performers &etc), Schilling and RedBox, so there are a few out there!

 

Of course, the attraction was the little Native American Indians charging round the rancher's place a'whoopin' and a'yellin' their war cries, and a'firin' their ar'ers! Years of centrifugal charging had broken two off, at the horses fetlocks, and third came away as I was taking it apart, so once I'd matched them back with the hooves - still firmly glued to the tin-plate - I also gave the fourth a collar of glue on each ankle, to hopefully reinforce them through capillary-action?

 

Only the three poses, with a duplicate of the white one on the opposite side, they look a bit Comansi-like, but the horses are different, and I guess they would have been manufactured by some small, unsung, local plastics fabricator, commissioned to knock-up a small tool with the three poses and possibly, three horse cavities?

 

The first time I put it back together, I got the smaller gear-cog in the wrong place, and it wouldn't spin properly. As I had realised by that point, that I hadn't shot the earlier strip-down, or had lost the images, I took this shot of the parts, after glueing.

 

The lower dome and the spinning plate are tin, the two washers and the twisted-shaft, steel, everything else is in a polystyrene polymer.

Close-up of one of the riders after mending, the horse's feet are glued with dobs of PVA wood-glue, by the looks of it? Anyone recognise the origins of the horse or riders.

The central shaft goes through/is partially hidden by this rancher's hovel, with the shaft exiting the chimney! The main gear-wheel is under the raised plinth of the building.

 

Many thanks to Michael for saving this for me.

An hour later - Peter Evans has identified the horse pose as Dulcop along with two of the riders, the other (archer) being originally a Marx sculpt!

Y is for ♫♪♫♫ The Yanks Are Coming, The Yanks are Coming, the Drums Rum-Tumming Everywhere! ♫♪♪♪

Not the Confederates mind, the Yanks! "Over paid, over-sexed and over here!" went the saying in the early 1940's! And here we have some sailors on furlough from the Invasion Force gathering on the South Coast, who have decided to use the Summer Solstice for an impromptu barn-dance on Salisbury Plain!

Yes I know the shadows are all wrong thanks, and when I showed them elsewhere some fatuous little tick-turd (another of the men-with-two-names), said they were the wrong colour, well that's because they're phuqing toys, no, no; they're not even phuqing toys, they're phuqing novelty, phuqing cake decorations, you phuqing arse-bubble.

Possibly Wilton, but unmarked and of such poor finish/paint, you suspect they were probably issued by one of the lesser brands, such as Carousel or Gay-Gem, Unique or 'Stovers? having shot the above, I gave several away, so that shot can't be reproduced, or at least, not by me!

Y is for Yabba Dabba Doo!

Who knew, who knew it had double-B's, who even thought to think of knowing you might have to spell-check yaba-daba-do? But there you go, the World's favourite allegory of the 1950's,  middle-class, suburban, American 'nuclear-family'? Actually the world's ONLY allegory of the 1950's,  middle-class, suburban, American 'nuclear-family', but I'm not splitting hairs!

Imperial Toys, these are a hard polystyrene, and hugormous, as we will see in a mo'. A ridiculously sublime exemplar of everything weird about my life alongside the rest of humanity in the late 20th/early 2st centuries. It makes absolutely no sense, is full of plot holes, anachronisms and plain idiocy, yet, it is absolutely perfect, and I don't know many people who actively dislike its daftness!

 

Marked Hong Kong and possibly cake-decorations, these are smaller and polyethylene. Fred and Wilma Flinstone and their neighbours Barney and Betty Rubble, live life as many american families were, or aspired to in the late 1950's, even to having cars, pets and salery-jobs . . . in a rock quarry, of course!

 

These are vinyl, and unmarked, so maybe knock-offs, or more recent playset stuff? Clearly based on the next lot down, but I've loaded them as I shot them. What would they make of the world we've created since, and I mean the people who watched as well as the characters!

Polyethylene copies (probably from the same tools) of the old Marx Minature Masterpiece set, these will almost certainly be from Rado Industries / Ri-Toys, but were not offered to the likes of Marksmen. Both Rabbit Angstrom and Willy Loman were, in their own ways the epitomes of Fred Flintstone, they both lived in and afforded (with troubles) the newish houses in suburbia, which they confidently hoped their kids' would, too.

 

Eraser to the left, Marx original to the right, as a sizer. Now, their kids can't get on the property ladder, and the longevity so sought 60-years ago, is the new millstone round the necks of people who have to sell those houses to afford healthcare over the pond, or 'downsize' for the cost of living, here?

 

Newer stuff from the eminently forgettable 'live-action' remake, along with a Bullyland Dino the Dinosaur - Wilma's been cut-off her base. But elsewhere in Europe, where they understand liberal-socialism, or social-responsibility, things are a little better, CEO's do not earn the same ridiculous amounts they do in the English-speaking world, healthcare is now usually better than Britain's, wages are higher and disparity is lower, while their old and infirm are cared-for, looked after.

 

Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm, these are Imperial too. Done in a faux-vitrine style. All that promise, all that promise of a brave-new-world and a bright-tomorrow, built on the '"white heat of technology", and it's come to nothing for most, and the poverty index is climbing into the middle-class, even as we create more billionaires who've never done a day's hard work in their lives, either as aluminum-siding salesmen or rock-quarriers.

 

It's no coincidence that the Simpsons, knocked the Flintstones off their perch as the most financially successful and longest-running, network television, animated series ever, the gentle parody holding the hope of the former, replaced by the cynical, near-hopeless, satire of the latter.

Y is for Yucky!

On a couple of levels by the time you've read it, but these things happen! I saw these in The Works the other day and they were cheap . . . 'So you don't have to'! But it's a fun thing which I vaguely remember from my childhood, so not a new design, and commonly known as water-filled snakes.

There were only three left and the other two had four and five Dino's respectively, so I grabbed the one with eight! The first yucky thing is just that they are rather yucky-feeling, the second yucky thing is that Reddit was explaining the other day some men like to place their, ahem . . . 'gentleman' in the inner void and . . . err . . . experiment vigorously.

 

Now I can't imagine quite how the mechanics of all that work, as I managed to drop it about four times before I got it to the till, barely got it into the house, and dropped it on the kitchen floor several more times, before I stabbed it with my steely-knife! It literally leaps out of your hand, and gripping it more tightly only accelerates it away! But, Reddit said . . . !

 

Now I'd presume there's some chemicals in there, to stop rot/algae/discolouring &etc, but it didn't smell of bleach, so presumably something safe (kids, toys); surgical alcohol or home-brew cleaner/finning gel? Lucky for the onanists, I think, as accidents will happen! Ewue!

 

But, to the contents; I suspect these are the same sculpts/tools as those micro-erasers we looked at from several brands, both sides of the pond, with Brian Berke's help, a year or two ago, but in this case they are a shiny silicon-rubber, rather than the crumbly, eraser-rubber of the previous examples, but they are in storage with everything else at the moment, so I can't check fully.

Scaled with my thumb and a 'gape-mouth Chinasaur', you can see they are very small, but as hinted at above, probably the same size as the erasers, and within the eight I had four poses and four colours, there will likely be more, as we found more among the pencil rubbers?

And I bet you weren't expecting any of that on a Friday afternoon!

Y is for Yearly Yuletide Yield!

Well, I've picked the easiest bits out of a folder with tons of images in, before 'sending it back', a folder I've just been throwing stuff in for a couple of years or more now, but not really considering for posts. Hopefully next year I'll do a bunch of cake decoration posts instead of nativity posts.

I picked this up, as I have a tatty old empty one, and just wanted a good tub/pot (?) against future posts, I wasn't 100% convinced by the contents shown in the listing, and what turned up confirmed those suspicions; two Gem/Festival UK-manufactured polyethylene decorations and one hollow-styrene snowman from Hong Kong?

Which is not to say Supercook couldn't have bought bulk from more than one source, and 'mix & matched' into their product range, but having two un-matching material/construction snowmen, both with brooms, is a hard one to reconcile with how commerce works?

So, while I now have the nice clean container, I'll keep a eye on feebleBay for a more obviously original contents, indeed, I'll need to spot two or three before I can call it firmly, due to the ease with which the lid can be removed/usefulness of the container, against the likelihood of additions not being made to the contents by the householder/cook!

Supercook are still around, or were until quite recently; stores still have 'new' stock, and were carrying resin dinosaurs! To wit: a T-Rex and a rather dodgy-looking Triceratops along with a shallow-spiked 'Happy Birthday' label.

They've got cartoon faces, which could be painted out, but as they're going to stay in the packaging, they can stay looking a bit dim-witted! Keeping them sealed will also - hopefully - keep them from the inevitable chips or broken extremities which resin figurines tend to suffer from.

Back to the contents of the tub, and the Santa Clause - holding ball and teddy bear - was a new sculpt (to me), and joins these others who/which have come-in over the last year or so, all Gem/Festival and all seen before. Note the yellow one has lost it's skis, for which it has the lugs, but which weren't heat-sealed underneath the ski, hence the loss!

Another thing I've discovered over the  last couple of years is that George Musgrave experimented with different icing spikes or "picks" to hold the things onto the cakes before adopting the common flat base you just squidge into the icing before it sets!

A few other points of note, clockwise from top left; A variation of the Hong Kong copy of Gem's sledging Santa' is equipped with a stick-on sheet of 'snow' (left of pair), two snowmen who are primarily pencil-tops, but could also be used as cake decorations and a size variation of the smaller Hong Kong Father Christmas we've seen here before.

That's it, I'll try to do more cake decorations, this time next year, and we'll be back to more normal output from now. That is, with silent-gaps, while I get this house sold and move into a temporary (I hope!) rented flat I paid-for, in advance, in full, several weeks ago!

Y is for the Yanks Are Coming!

Via France!

C is for Citgo Old Crocks

Sticking with the Hong Kong and rack-toy angles, these are petrol premiums, and it's a US brand I think . . . which would make them gasoline premiums . . . but they are made in France which means they are technically 'Primes' with a silent 'e'!

Original opening text (as far as I got?) suggests this post nearly followed some Hong Kong shite? Anyway, we're back with Cle's production, and like the Huilor post the images are pretty self explanatory so light on the blurb again.

These are remarkably common in the UK for a US petrol (gasoline) premium, especially for a brand 'Citgo' (still going, now technically Venezuelan, but it’s all a bit shaky and the fucking Russians are in there somewhere - bothers me, doesn't apparently bother the PSTSM!) which never had UK outlets to my knowledge, certainly; the odd feebleBay purchase doesn't explain how often you see them here?

So I'm guessing it's ex-factory stock from France (despite the 'packed in the USA' message), never delivered to the client (overstock or cancelled order?) brought over - probably to the BP Fairs Sandown Park toy fair - by French dealers? Mine are all series two, series one were packaged more like oversized book-matches in a fold-over card. Also I am missing number seven of eight.

The missing Rolls Royce 1931 is bottom-right.

Two of the above cars were also in the Huilor post; the 1922 Hispano Suiza and 1926 Isotta Fraschini, I'm guessing the others would have been Huilor premiums as well, Cle pretty-much only did premiums for other parties.

Y is for Yes, Well, That Was a Bit of a Wash-Out!

Wait all year for ILAPD and get hammered by a cold! Let me explain; Pirate Day was not supposed to happen as it did, but that I managed three posts was probably a minor miracle, because by Tuesday I was having some bloody odd dreams while snoozing for the best part of two days!

On the Saturday (17th), we'd had the Sandown Park Toy Fair, at which Adrian (he's not here to defend himself!) gave me the cold he'd brought back from Portugal a day or two earlier, and it didn't hang around, it hit me like a bus on Sunday afternoon, and while I muddled-through on the 20-image 'intro' post, it took me all night!

I then slept 'till lunchtime, and managed to get the two quick ones out, hoping to work on the other two posts that afternoon/evening, but the body refused and I lost most of the rest of the week, while having a parallel mini-adventure with the car, and discovering HMRC are claiming to have lost more paperwork, despite my having the signature from the Post Office!

I had half a mind to do a NITLAPD (Not Talk like a Pirate . . . ) day to catch-up, but to be honest, they can wait, one of them's already been held-over for a year, another-year won't hurt! There's still plenty in the queue, including the stuff left from RTM, and other things mentioned in passing, about 20 'Seen Elsewhere' folders, several new 'H is for's, the rest of the old ones and all sorts of other stuff . . . I'm going to try and get the Sandown report out later this evening.

So, in the end I just had a lazy week! But, what I would say, is, whatever Adrian and I had, it's probably this Australian cold they've been on  about on the Radio, and it's OK, in that it's a head cold that clears-up quite quickly, but it's pretty debilitating the first few days, and it's fluey-enough to make your bones and muscles ache, so best avoided if you get some warning.

And . . . nice things to look forward to for next year! I suppose we need a picture here?

F is for Follow-up - Kinder and Hovercraft!

Y is for Young Guard - Historex No's 638 / 703

Except even I know they were no younger or older than the Old Guard or the Dutch Guard, recruiting from the same pool to replace the battle losses or bodies left frozen on the steppes of Russia. But only the pioneer gets 'the' hat!

The next post in this series (few days time) won't have a colour plate as it deals with the various vehicular elements of the artillery train, and you're probably supposed to know what colour they are from your Blandford or Almark guides!