fun at the marston house with luke and indy

I was thinking about my big Bro's old Aurora Adams Family House today. It was a fantastic kit, so fantastic I got myself a Polar Lights re-issue in the 1990's.

Thinking about that house made me think of other similar 'haunted' houses, not necessarily kits but from the big screen, specifically Bates' Motel and the Marston House in Salem's Lot.

Always one for a bit of fun I decided to have a go at sketching them before I looked at them online. They are sooo similar in my mind it was hard to even start!

This is my feeble attempt. Its really hard just from memory. They look the same in my addled brain! Have a go yourself before you click on mine and ONLY then check what they really look like online.

There is a musical version of this. Well, its a musical conundrum really and one you can get friends and family to have a go at.

What you have to do is hum the following theme tunes one after another:

Star Wars - Indiana Jones - Superman [70's Reeves version]

Again, have a go before you check. Its harder than it sounds!

major miss mason mystery miss 3

Who is this space lady?

THE DARK SHADOWS ON MY TABLE

My collection of old Dark Shadows and Gothic Romance paperback novels.

Do you collect books readers?

We slept under rayon covers

Having trouble with my quilt at the the moment.

The arrival of spring and warmer nights is always a problem in the sleeping arena as I need a heavy quilt. Trouble is heavy quilts tend to be too hot so I end up with two thinner ones!

It wasn't this complex when I was a wee nipper in the Sixties. Quilts didn't exist in our house. Maybe nowhere in the UK? In those days the key idea was layers.

And boy were there layers.

First up was the sheet, usually white and made of something halfway natural like cotton. Next came the blankets and that's were concepts like skin-freindly went out the window. They were usually made of yak hair or maybe yeti fur, something that lived above the tree line.

Sixties blankets were intolerable, itched like itching never would again and were always a sickly grey or thin soup brown hue. They were clearly Tudor but we still bought them in BHS or Marks and Sparks. Probably the medieval bedding department. Monks were sent there for sackcloth!

It didn't end there. Topping the sandwiched blankets was the least natural, the most heinous, the entirely alien bedspread. Mine was imported under armed Gammorheann guard from the planet Rayon in the Crimplene system.

There was more static in those covers than a mammoth's backside. One false move could light the whole bed up. Lethal to the touch as well, bedcovers had frilly edges like sea anemones. If these brushed against you you were dead, writhing in a world of nylon pain and yak hair hell.

To add insult to injury the whole layer cake was tucked in so tight that getting in bed was like opening King Tut's tomb. Sliding down Gave you the bends so the first job was to kick the corners out from berween the mattress and the bed, otherwise cooking wOulu begin within seconds.

The one good thing about these covers was that the different layers could be booted off in the event of overheating.

However, the sheet could never be chucked, God forbid, as this was the only protection against The Wolf Man, Dracula, Frankenstein and all the other monsters living in the wardrobe! How those nasties never saw me peeking through that tiny hole I'll never know!

What were your kid bed clothes like readers?

imai miniature project sword models

Beautiful Japanese miniatures including three Project SWORD vehicles.

Courtesy of Japanese blogger Godzitoraman.

http://blog.livedoor.jp/godzitoraman/archives/cat_31750.html

My art of sword book is still available as normal!

There's a second hand copy on of my book The Art of SWORD for sale on Ebay for £75. This is three times the normal price.

I just want to make it clear that it is not me selling this book.

If you would like a copy of my book brand new at the normal price range* then simply click here to be taken direct to my publishers, Blurb:

http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/invited/3430201/5828b2ca1aa7cc1a31dadf865fa6911c25ccd29c

* prices do vary depending on the type of paper and cover you want.

how to search for japan's nichimo moon ranger

To search for the Nichimo Moon Ranger then you can use these Japanese characters in Google images.

ニチモ 「パイオニア

The lost continent

The Lost Continent was an old hammer horror from 1968 I saw on the UK horror channel this weekend.

I've never seen it before and enjoyed it a lot.

OK, by today's standards the special effects are all too rubbery and the monsters look like casts-offs from Robot Wars but it was a fair effort back then.

Essentially it's about a group of ship's passengers and crew stranded in a sort of prehistoric - medieval sea world. Think of Micheal Crichton having a bad dream about conquistadors and squids and you're nearly there.

There are many things to interest a film nerd like me in Continent.

There are solid actors in there like Eric Porter but there are also unusual ones.

One of the these is Hildegard Knef, whom Missus Moonbase has informed me was a big deal as a European singer back in the Sixties. Knef recorded songs in her native German and in English in a rich Nico-esque voice.

Acting and lots of singing are the trades of another actor in the film, a young Darryl Read. This lad has one of those TV faces you swear you've seen a million times growing up in the sixties but I can't think where.

Googling him revealed that he was a hard working musician on the fringes of stardom most of his life. He was also in a proto punk band called Crushed Butler, who, despite me never having heard of them I can appreciate the important role they and many other bands played in the build up to British punk rock in the mid to late Seventies, a role similar to that of The New York Dolls and The Stooges et al in the development of American punk and New Wave.

Having read quite a bit about Darryl Read he's the perfect candidate for a bio-pic in my opinion.

The Lost Continent also contains what you might call Victorian technology. Whether its steampunk I don't know but I'm referring to the inflatable shoulder balloons that are used to walk across the man-eating sea weed. It reminded me of Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea in that sense.

Overall it falls into that group of films concerned with marooned ships, lost worlds and hostile inhabitants. Films like Warlords of Atlantis, Mysterious Island and a slew of Time Forgot flicks starring the late lamented Doug McClure.

Have you seen Lost Continent and can you think of other films like it readers?