kensington game?

I recall flicking through my Sister's old stack of LP's years ago and coming across what I initially thought was another album.

It wasn't.

It was a game called Kensington.

My two Nephews must have got it in the Seventies and shoved it in with the records as it was the same shape and size.

No idea what the game was like.

Anyone remember the game Kensington?

the toy factory 1972

This is fun. A British Pathe silent film about toy making in 1972. There's some familiar faces like the plush Rupert. 

Quite a few toy trains at the start too.

The dolls' arms mould at the end is fascinating.

Have ypou any interesting footage of toy making or repair?

jr21 toys crash tender on standby tonight!

 

pics: Ferryman

ox sparkle

a standard fireworks bommy night

Listen for the tune the last few seconds.

Its what I think of on Bommy night!

[can't find a copy of the proper old Standard Fireworks TV ad anywhere! You?]

a whisper of Christmas

When the fireworks fizzle out this evening and Bonfire Night has gone up in smoke for another year all the minor winter people's festivals will be over and the next stop will be Christmas.

Just seven or eight weeks to go the main event glisters on the horizon like a sapphire.

Often when I think of my childhood my mind homes in on Christmas. It was the defining moment of the year, every year. The Sixties and my parents made me who I am for sure but Christmas was the  battery that switched me on.

I was never religious nor am I now but the month of December knocked all the other festivals into a cocked hat. There's just something, a warm whisper that starts in Advent building like a coal fire until the morning of the 25th when it's full power is felt at the cold cap of the year.

This year will be special as it will be our Grandson's first Christmas. After 41 days in hospital he's home now.

Like me he was born too early and in winter and so will be a tiny bundle for his debut, which he won't remember but should still sense the cozy glow of the fairy lights on the tree flickering through the dark. A baby in his Moses basket seems to me to be the very essence of the hopeful season.

And so, with our compass set to North we turn our faces to the cold and look towards the Christmas yet to come, a bundle of dreams and revelations slowly but surely being gift-wrapped at the Pole by hands far gentler than our own.

What do you wish for this Christmas readers?

THE SYMMETRY OF SPACE

Sometimes I see similarities where there aren't any I'm sure. 

I seem to want patterns!

Take these illustrations. For some reason the spacemen remind me of each other.

I think it's the space walking and weapons and tools like those in this by Kelly Freas.

.

But it's something about the style, a more chunky cartoony style like this Kelly Freas X - Plus soldier.

In my book of Board Games by Desi Scarpone there is a vintage game called Space Angel with a similar cartoony space stye. 

Space Angel is not something that I know but I have a feeling it was an animated series. Does anyone know it?

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.