CAR BOOT DIARY: STARBLAZER, MANTA FORCE AND TV21

Well, it's been another eazy Sunday morning here at Moonbase Central. The girls have gone to Appleby Fair and the dog and me are lazily looking through this morning's car boot booty, which I have to say, despite some red-herrings, is a fine haul. I thought the plastic ray gun was from the obscure Gerry Anderson STARCRUISER Mission Control Set by Thomas Salter but alas its not. Its actually STARBLAZER, which has its own fanbase and website! The Decimal Board Game, bought in a hurry at the end, wasn't the Century 21 Decimal Dominoes set I thought it was, as featured in Chris King's collection on the Eagle Transporter Forum. But its complete and in great shape - someone obviously never decimalised! The two small plastic action figures I can't identify but I like them. Adventure People?

I also picked up 3 Manta Force boxed vehicles for Ebay, which were a sod to get to the car, together with a staple for my collection, a nice boxed spy pistol, plus some 70's/80's Star Wars toys leaflets and a couple of old games and cars.

By far the best catch of the day was the Century 21 books lot. Toy Tony, the best dealer at the boot sale, had really dropped on the week before when he bought about 100 Annuals and Comics for £20 at the local Hospital fleamarket, in amongst, which, were loads of Century 21 Annuals, which he's now selling to his own regulars like me and making a handsome profit to boot! I took the opportunity to leaf through most of his C21 Annuals, probably for the first time since I was a kid in the 60's. It became clear that the Project SWORD format and style had been tried many times before in the Thunderbirds and Captain Scarlet Annuals - the classic 2-page cutaways and the day-glo-colour strips focusing on one fabulous machine or other. I was amazed! A Eureka moment! It made me realise how easy it must have been for PROJECT SWORD to have been created in what was obviously a seething hotbed of art and futurism over at Century and TV21. Spoilt for choice, I settled on a TV21 Summer Special and a TV21 Annual to bring home and fondle. Non- Anderson books got a look in too with a Space Adventure annual by Atlas and a Golden Token Space Patrol book.

If I sell a few bits on Ebay I'll be back again next week!

Whilst tapping this bloglet out I watched an AMAZING repeated 30 minute Channel 5 TV show called MEAN MACHINES about amphibious vehicles like the ARKTOS. Brilliant! There's more to come - Space Transporters 10th June 7.30pm, Loggers 13th June 10.30am and Trucks 17th June, 7.30pm. Wow!