stocking filler toys lost in action 1969

As Christmas slowly fades and the New Year's realities take hold its fun to day, Old Christmas Day or Twelfth Night, to recall those very minor toys we got as kids.

When I say minor toys I mean those gifts that weren't the main event. They weren't even the support act. They were often stocking fillers and ended up under the sofa.

The Slinky would fit into this category. Often available in lots of smaller shops, the metal toy that could walk downstairs, would be added to the Christmas pile or stuffed into the stocking with a coil of alloy sticking out saying 'play with me play with me'. Once Major Matt Mason or Project SWORD had been played with the Slinky was indeed sent on its debut mission down the stairwell.

Slime was another filler. You know the stuff. Its been around for years. A sort of alien goo that lived in a plastic tub. You could pour it on things like Action Man or Sindy or shove your fingers into the tub to make farty sounds and blame your Grandma! Slime felt quite wonderful and disgusting at the same time. Cold. Wet. Flatulance in a canister.

Chinese Metal Puzzles always came in a small red cardboard box. I think there released by Spears. They were basically steel rings and triangles that could be clipped together and then unclipped if you could. They were puzzles after all. These often ended up stuffed down the side of the settee only to surface during the summer with a coating of crumbs.

These are just three I remember. I'm sure you can remember more readers.

MICRO MOVIE DALEKS

I love these micro size Invasion Earth Daleks released by Product Enterprise in 2006. While I do like both the sixties Dr Who  films, Daleks Invasion Earth :2150 AD is my favourite.

I liked the Earth setting, even though it was very much 1966, rather than the implied furturistic time.
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As youngster watching the film at my local Odeon, it's gritty locations were just like the bits of  wasteland  my mates and I used to play on. I didn't concern myself with the idea that the Dalek invasion just seemed to concentrate it's resources on taking over parts of the south of England with just three Daleks leading the campaign.

The Red Dalek was in command of the Dalek Flying Saucer, wiping out resistance and capturing prisoners.. The sight of the  Dalek Saucer flying over London really impressed me as a kid. 

The Gold Dalek was in overall command.  

The Black Dalek was traditionally in charge, however in the film the Black Dalek oversees  the Bedfordshire mining operation.

It's a pity the films didn't fare well at the box office as I'd have liked to have seen the proposed third film, based on the TV Doctor Who story, The Chase, which featured The Mechanoids.

did you have a clock in your bedroom as a kid in the sixties?

I'm unsure now if I did.

I seem to vaguely recall a travel clock. You know, they folded up into themselves like a clam. It might have been a mucky brown mock leather with golden metal trim.

I had a bedside cupboard so it would have been on there.

Being a travel clock it will have required winding at the back. What a pain that will have been and no doubt I always forgot!

Then again, did kids really need to know the time at home> My Mum would have got me up for school I'm pretty sure.

If only we could go back and film it all for the future!

Did you have a clock in your childhood bedroom readers?

mystery rocks and minerals vintage book

I had a book as a kid about minerals and rocks in the Sixties.

I adored that geology book and I imagine its a vintage collectable now.

For the life of me I can't recall the proper name or publisher. Probably Collins or Hamlyn.

The book was pocket sized.

Ring any bells readers?

SUPERSIZE TAG THUNDERBIRD 1 FROM VIVID

The iRMG site is reporting that Vivid are releasing a Supersize Thunderbird 1 this year, or at least showing off a prototype which is apparently 35 cm long. I hope it's true, considering the fun I've had with the Supersize Thunderbird 2&4, and the massive Thunderbird 3 - watch this space, eh! 

the ghosts of christmas past: bethnel green museum of childhood

This is one of several short videos I made of the displays of toys from Christmasses past at the the Museum of Childhood in Bethnal Green, London.

See anything you recognise?

Here's another:

A CLOSE ENCOUNTER WITH A BATMOBILE

Continuing on the theme of the sixties Batmobile here's a few photos I took of a replica one that was briefly on display a couple of years ago at Perch Rock in  New Brighton, Merseyside.

Even though it's a replica, it's still impressive.

'Turbines to power..'

I wonder if anyone will notice if I take her for a drive

the fauna of prometheus

The alien fauna of the brilliant movie Prometheus has been bugging me. 

I don't think there's any flora so I'll stick to the critters.

The alien fauna is as follows as far as I saw:

1. Engineers
2. Engineers Earth gloop
3. Black vase gloop
4. Writhing ground worms
5. Hammerhead snake thing
6. Xenomorphs

This is my take on how these guys connect together to form some kind of chain, a xeno-system perhaps:

The Engineers have fabricated a type of life-giving gloop, with which they bio-form a young Earth. This same fluid is stockpiled in huge vase vaults in planets scattered across the Universe.

Some fluid leaks out of these vases onto the ground over time giving rise to worms writhing in the stuff. These worms grow into Hammerhead snake aliens.

These hammerheads, on entering the human body, are one way in which a Human can be morphed into a Xenomorph alien. 

Direct ingestion of the black vase gloop can also give rise to humanoid Xenomorphs, the apex of the chain.

This is just my own take on the unnatural history of Ridley Scott's Prometheus.

What do you think?