Looey and Winslow at Wollongong Doll Show

Moonbasers,

Australian Visual Artist Rachel Caballero has had an exhibition of Doll sculptures on, at the Wollongong Art Gallery.

For the final day's event, she organised a doll show open to the public. Anyone could bring their doll in and compete in one of three categories.

This seemed like a grand day out for my Winslow Churcher puppet prototype, who will never walk the stage, so I converted him to a full display doll.

First up I added a lot more dacron body padding to give him a better body shape.

I have a new 3D printed body shell in the works and it means I'll have to re-tailor all his outfits too -groan!

His jacket buttons had previously been held in place with Blu Tac, so they received some attention. His jacket was sewn shut as best I could, then his cigar, hat and head were permanently glued in suitable positions.

Finally we all bundled into my car for the 240km round trip from the Blue Mountains to coastal Wollongong and back.

We had a great time and Winslow entered the "Best Dressed" category.

How did the World's greatest Wartime Statesman, complete with Tommy gun fare against Regency Nobility and other more conventional doll subjects?

...let's just say "Close, but no cigar"!

Looey,

Oz Base

Emitter Recepter

 I'm guessing this is a Japanese toy altho the box is French.

It looks super cool, a helmet with mic and a walkie talkie.

Now which kid wouldn't have wanted that? 

Is the brand Fairmate?

The Outer Limits of my Wallet

 A trip to Featherstone Re-value netted me a few odds 'n' sods today.

Two cheap Lesneys, a small novelty record player and an Outer Limits annual I've not seen before.  You?

There were two vintage Outer Limits cards as well, nicely housed in plastic wallets, priced £12 and £15. Ouch!

I nearly bought this old pulp mag for the startling cover alone but I passed. £4 would have stretched my wallet too much.

Those creatures don't have heads! 

A Fridge Too Far

 Im so impressed with my Granddaughters new toys by Mini Brands.

It's a range of mini plastic cakes and meals you create like these noodles.

Her top toy though by far has to be the brand's plastic Smeg-like fridge. At about 10 inches tall, it's fab!

Perfect for Barbies, it even lights up! 

I reckon my old Action Man might grab one of those cakes, before Ken does! 

Double Dutch

 At North Cave Sunday indoor market this weekend gone the Missus swung a deal on some old rubbery novelty key rings.

At £3 each and clearly languishing untouched on the stall, the seller begrudgingly accepted a tenner for the whole dusty bushel. 

Double the amount of keyrings I thought there was, I guessed they were like Disneykins at first. Having researched them, I was wrong. 

What I have are vintage Dutch premiums. Some are cartoon related and some perhaps fruit jam fairytale giveaways.

Very charismatic characters all but rather grubby too.

Hopefully, when I've cleaned them all they'll look something like this lovely fresh carded set I saw online.

Have you ever come across these?

°

And here are mine all cleaned up and metal rings added to those without. The yellow card echoing the above is a bit of fun. 

Lolly Gobble Choc Bomb Anyone?

I saw these badges online and thought yes! I remember the top three, Brrr Blobs, Lolly Gobble Choc Bomb and Freak Out.

If memory serves, these were all ice cream lollies.

Tonibell sounds like cheese.

But what on earth was/is a Walls Kerb Driller? 

The Train in Spain

 A while back I came across this cool Combat Man train set with Action Man style branding.

I was struck how great it looked in its box and no doubt attractive to kids in the toy shop.

Well I found a similarly handsome boxed set on Todocollecion so I saved the pics.

The Spanish Tren Nocturno.

I love the wet night box art! 

I was surprised the trains weren't black like they are on the cover.

Have you any interesting boxed sets like these? 

Oh MAN! From Alfred E. Neumann to Jack Carter: from Merthyr to Geordieland via Barton Upon Humber

 Bear with me!

I'm a big fan of LP cover artist, the American Rick Griffin.

Rick, among many fine things, did an amazing wet fish album cover in his gloriously unique style, the name of which or the group I'd sadly forgotten. 

Recently my friend fancied a MAN fest, an afternoon of listening to MAN, the old welsh rockers from Merthyr Tydfil.

Whilst researching for it I saw the fish!

 It's one of MAN's albums, called Slow Motion, a wet fish good enough to hang on a wall, but one that got into hot water with MAD magazine and the illicit use of Alfred E. Neumann's likeness and the famous MAD font!

An intermittent member of the MAN band was Malcolm Morley.

Malcolm Morley had originally founded a rock group called Help Yourself.

Help Yourself also had one Richard Treece playing for them.

Turns out that Richard Treece's Dad, Henry Treece, was a teacher at Barton Upon Humber Grammar School.

Attending that school was pupil Ted Lewis.

Encouraged by Henry, Ted grew up be a writer of novels.

He kicked off Brit-Noir with Jack's Return Home. 

This was then made into arguably the greatest British film of all time, Get Carter.

Starring Michael Caine, Get Carter's gritty gangster action takes place in England's North East (as it does in the book), with the famous vengeful climax grimly set on a lonely industry-strewn beach in County Durham.

So, there you have it!

Alfred E. Neuman to Get Carter via Barton Upon Humber, where me and the Missus have just been!

Voila!