when did you start to drink coffee?

As a Sixties kid I drank pop.

Fizzy pop. 

There were tons of different kinds: Tizer, Dandelion and Burdock, Lemonade to name just three of my burpy faves [what were yours?]

At some point in my life I began to drink tea and coffee.

Its hard to believe, they eventually took over from pop!

I can't imagine I drank coffee as a kid. 

I know I drank hot sweet tea, cocoa, horlicks, Bournvita and occasionally bovril beef tea.

So when did coffee creep in? I've no idea! Milky coffee seems to ring a bell as a possible starting point as my old Mum loved the stuff with a Garibaldi biscuit.

When did you start to drink coffee readers?

What do you drink now?

mystery lp moon crawler

This gallery of spaceships was on an online sales site called Time Passages Nostalgia.

The gold crawler body with monitor piloted by a the yellow astronaut interested me.

Its clearly inspired by the LP moon crawler miniature and its missing its wheels.

But what is it from? Anyone know?

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Further Mystery

Is the gold crawler the same as the blue crawler in this old boxed Multiple set previously seen on the blog?

Any one got it?

SpaceX Star Zinger

This is the Starbood of the Japanese Star Zinger toy line.

I know nothing about Star Zinger but Starbood reminds me a lot of our friend the SpaceX T-5 Tractor shown below courtesy of Bill B [Terrain Tiger in the US].

They're even the same colour!

The black and white advert below is even more similar!

It even has similar wheels!

Lets not forget either that there is a version of the T-5 Tractor from Mexico with canons on top too seen on Ebay a few years back.

Then again the Starbood also has a look of the Imai Thunderbird 7 about it, that's the Project SWORD Beetle to you and me!

What do you think readers?

Anyone collect Star Zinger?

Terror on the High Seas

In finest Blue Peter fashion, heres one I prepared earlier! An old shot of the Battlewagon and Task Force facing off against Martian invaders!

Topper Toys Again

Aside from the wonderful Rocket Base, Topper made a couple of other outstanding playsets, such as the Armoured Battalion and Task Force, which accompanied the huge USS Battlewagon. Heres a taster before the actual toys arrive later this week..

....and no, I STILL haven't got a Johnny Seven!

batman 1989: he's in the trees

I love the Batman movie from 1989.

In many ways it started my collecting bug.

One of my fave scenes is where the batmobile zooms through the dark woods, leaves fluttering in its wake.

We can see it courtesy of You Tube.

Aptly wintery for January!

The movie scene always reminded me of the dark Knight's midnight ride shown on the rear cover of the Batman Story Book Annual from 1966.

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Do you have a fave Batman movie scene readers?

the blog's first topper rockets post revisited

Before the Topper Rocket train drives off for the night I thought I'd re-blog a post I did using some Topper Rocket base toys way back in 2009, their first appearance on Moonbase Central when it was just 8 months old.

That Bronco fire truck in the third photo looks cool and I'd forgotten I had that for a while before I sold it on Ebay. Sadly I don't have a normal photo of it anymore.  It looks very Gerry Anderson!

No idea what that green cannon robot was in the penultimate shot. You?

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Inspired by Mike (Burrows)* amazing Spacex dioramas I've been messing about with a few space toys and my camera. The somewhat unspectacular results can be seen above.

1. Penance battles with Spacex
2. Penance inverted colours
3. Bronco Fire Tender colour inverted
4. Topper Rocket Base USA truck and Spacex colour inverted
5. Topper Rocket Base USA Truck and Spacex
6. Megarig Rocket Transporter and Topper Rocket
7. Megarig Moon Ranger and Robot
8. Megarig Scramble Bug and Topper people

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*this was before Mike was known as Scoop and was an author on the blog in his own right!

Addendum:

Inverted the colours on the Bronco fire truck pic and voila! here's what it really looked like!

anyone had one?

saturday night mini sci-fi quiz

Here's a mini brain teaser for readers before they go out on the raz and Brian snowed in in Jersey!

Just ONE answer PER reader please so we share the love.

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1. A dystopia where citizens live on nothing more than green wafers.
2. A Stephen King world where time is eaten by critters [minus The].
3. The cat whose collar meant 'worlds' to one great big 'bug'.
4. Fighting hybrids of orcs and men bred by Saruman.
5. Saying Klaatu Barada Nikto led to it staying put.
6. Film in which one 'Eddie' would like to get his claws into one 'Karen' [minus The]

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As a double-check the initial letters of the 6 answers

spell the town where Tracy Island was located!

Go do it!