mischief night

Tonight in Yorkshire its Mischief Night or Mizzy Night. Its the night before Bonfire Night and another  'festival' that has grown in popularity among the young.

Unlike Halloween, which still has sweets and candy at its darkling heart, Mischief Night has no such honeyed intentions. It is purely malevolent and a pain in the backside.

The main form of mischief is what's known as egging i.e. throwing eggs against houses' windows. Less kind souls upgrade the ammo to stones and even bricks.

Yes it's like The Purge light tonight but luckily not everyone is in the eggers' sights.

The fact that youths are doing this reminds me of more pagan times when the Lord of Misrule orchestrated the trouncing of the adult world for a day. There is even a whiff of something much older too, the wild abandon of Saturnalia perhaps.

Even the movies have picked up on it. In the Crow Fun Boy and the gang causes mayhem on Devil's Night and there is even a film entitled Mischief Night set in Leeds up the road from 2006.

I would be interested to know if you have this unpleasant 'tradition' in your neck of the woods.

Strange words

From time to time I post words that I'm unsure of and usually readers more astute than I can help out. Well here goes again with a few more from the worlds of TV, the USA, comics, books and toys.

Gulch
Ashcan
Quarto
Folio edition
Stoop
Panhandle
Double down
Birther
Goucho
Grits
Chicken of the sea
Chow
Rosko
Java
Tootsie Roll
Plasmid
Coffin box

the toy fixing air force of america

Just watched this amazing British Pathe footage of the US Air Force based in the UK fixing toys for kids way back in the Fifties. Apart from the BBC presenter's ridiculously plummy voice the whole things a delight. 

These service men could fix anything by the looks of it! There's even a paint spraying booth!

Who could we get to repair our old toys these days like this?

geek salad with grouch potatoe

Michael Buble is on the TV. He's in the UK and blasting out the classics. His stage presence reminds me of those uber-cool singers I grew up with like Frank Sinatra and Andy Williams.

My late Mum and Dad would have recognised the role of Buble, a crooner soothing our minds in an otherwise crazy world. It was just the same in the Sixties. In many ways he's a clever remake.

Of course back then, unlike now, I personally wasn't bothered about the mad world around me. I was only interested in the fabric of my childhood: my family, my mates, my toys, my music and fashion and my TV.

Great questions did vex me though: how did Action Man get his scar? could I eat jelly every day? would every episode of Scooby Doo end with the line 'those pesky kids'? were pancakes the greatest foodstuff ever invented?

But the greatest question of all, above every other, was whether Emma Peel would go out with me?

Emma never did show any interest so that question was answered. Nowadays I have new questions. In a world which continues to remake our generation's entire pop culture for a new digital generation I find myself perplexed by this modern plagiarism.

In a rather grumpy mood I ponder whether cosplay isn't simply fancy dress, whether upcycling isn't the same as customising or whether future-proofing isn't the same as just being careful?

Grump over. It's an age thing.

HOVER MOON BASE SETS RE-UNITED

A chance browse through the fab Alphadrome site solved a mystery I posed 2 years ago about a Hover Moon Base set.

The mystery Moon Base set is actually pictured on Alphadrome. 

It's the bottom one of this pair and called Space Adventure! It features a strange vehicle with a green ball in it.

This makes it three now the number of Moon Base sets I know of and can identify. These are:

The two above - Space Glider and Space Adventure

and the one below - 

Space Tank

[the name can't be seen on the picture below but it can be here]

One set is still missing though.

It would feature the blue moon rover car pictured below courtesy of Bill. 

From the names of the other sets I would expect it to be called 

Space Car or Space something. 

Anyone know?

All of the above were also released individually on blister cards and we have featured them several times here, although I can't be sure that the blue moon rover did as I've never seen that either.

The toys may also have been sold loose and unpackaged too.

Anyone own any of these now or back then?

starry starry night

Last night here in Northern England it was cloud free with a hard frost on the wing. It was also one of the most starry nights I have ever seen.

There were thousands of stars in the night sky and for the very first time I clearly saw Orion's belt. Missus Moonbase, with her better eyesight, could see Orion's nebula below it too!

Beautiful.

Did you enjoy the stars?

Ok saucer mystery

This spaceship D8-2 by OK Toys I've seen online appears to have a similar undercarriage to the JR21 New Flying Saucer. 

Come to think of it the top looks similar too.

Anyone got both of them to check maybe?

imagine: john lennon letter hidden in a record!

I was amazed last week to hear on the news and in the papers that someone had found a letter by John Lennon in a Beatles LP he bought - at a car bool sale I think!

The letter was a signed draft of the one he sent to the Queen giving back his MBE! Talk about memorabilia!

The chances of finding anything interesting inside an album sleeve except the record and maybe a lyrics sheet or poster are so small its untrue. I know from my own experience. I have stacks of LP's and all is as it should be inside them.

It can happen though. I remember a workmate telling me his brother had found a letter inside a book on Everest. The letter was by Scott of the Antarctic no less! 

So when I myself found this old book on Everest with some papers inside last year in a charity shop in Llanfairfechan my heart did begin to pound! Alas, no letters from Scott this time but several excuse notes forged by a schoolboy in the Fifties so he could bunk off PE! Just my luck but I do like them all the same. Social history!

Have you found anything interesting hidden inside something else readers?