21st Century Schizoid Man

So many times since ive been collecting toys as an adult (and I use that term loosely), have I had flashbacks to the heady days of childhood. Not just pleasant memories and a wave of nostalgia, but a literal zap of de ja vous as the sight of something new elicits that rare and wonderful moment of magic that I knew as a kid. Today, toys are a far cry from the sometimes delicate, always simple constructions of the past. Modern concepts of toymaking leave nothing to the imagination and toys are expected to move and make sounds and represent real life exactly. As a kid, driving a dinky SPV around the carpet and doing all the voices for the characters as well as the vrrroooomm engine sounds was all part of the fun, and dropping the front wheels of the vehicle to blast enemies with the little red and white rocket was the best feeling in the world for an 8 year old.
Its almost impossible to get that rare buzz these days from finding a new or a vintage toy, because my mind is conditioned in a different way, expectations are much higher and in some way I could say that after nearly a half century, I have 'seen it all'. But every now and again, Its fun to get that little window on the past and unlock a tiny door in the recesses of memory which allows a fractional glimpse into that childlike excitement. I picked up the the toys in the photo on ebay recently, Multimac space toys. They are modern, modular, construction toys with a small friction base and a load of garishly coloured bits. Ostensibly, they are direct products of the massmarket factories in Hong Kong, cheap disposable tat designed to keep a kid happy for an hour, before half the bits get lost and the rest ends up mixed in with the Lego. But something about the layout of the wheels, the bright colours and the spare use of chrome on the tractor treads, reminded me just for an instant of the regular trips every saturday morning to Woolworths, to browse the racks of Spacex toys and to pick out which two I would be lucky enough to add to my collection that day... and that is a rare and wonderful thing.