I knew Kevin's new Triceratops in the desert diorama [below] reminded me of something in my past. Its this magazine cover on Tomart's Action Figure Digest: Toy Fair 97 depicting a storm trooper riding a don't know what on the desert planet of Tatooine I imagine.
I used to love Action Figure Digest and bought a copy whenever I could. Tomart did a great job keeping us up to date with new toy action figure lines as well as describing vintage toys too.
One particular special issue was one of the first toy magazines I ever got in the 90's. I'll have to dig it out. I know its got a Ming the Merciless Defenders of the Earth serpent toy on the cover.
Did you get Tomart's Action Figure Digest mag? Is it still going?
The coffee is hot and the sun is shining on the first of July.
But something's missing.
Nothing has slapped on the door mat. Nothing has flopped through the letterbox.
I've nothing to read!
It'd odd. My childhood was filled with comics and magazines and the best way of getting them was a subscription from the local 'paper shop' and delivered by a paper boy. I loved how our old address was scribbled in the top corner in pencil, 24 Powis ...
I got a few TV21's this way [respect to anyone who got them all through the door!] but the big mat hitter for me was Look-In.
I got stacks of them through the door as a kid and adored the thing. On The Buses, the free gifts, the lot. My favourite was Kung Fu as it tapped into the oriental craze sweeping through the West and right through my bedroom!
Getting your favourite comic through the door was a joy and perhaps a rare joy these days. I'm not sure if its possible to get comics and magazines from the paper shop now and delivered by a paper boy. Is it?
I did enjoy that weekly buzz once more in the Nineties when I subscribed to Model and Collectors Mart and I have to say it was equally as thrilling. I adored that mag as much as Look-In and consumed every word on the steamy bus to work!
But all good things seem to come to an end and Model Mart's sales dropped and it sadly faded away. My pile of magazines was huge and by 2003 when we moved house I had to recycle most of them keeping a few choice ones to follow me into the future.
I have thought about another subscription but nothing leaps out. It could be an age thing with me now. The modern 2000 AD perhaps [is it any good?] or maybe the revamped Warren Creepy of old called Creeps?
Maybe I'm just being an old curmudgeon but perhaps the golden age of kids' adventure comics has gone and subscriptions have faded like the contrails of Thunderbird 2. I've not heard a single modern kid ever mention a subscription comic or magazine to me. If they do talk about them its always superhero stuff, which they got from a city centre comic shop.
Is 2000 AD the last UK gasp for a genre that filled our lungs with the air of excitement and outer space when we were kids in the Sixties and Seventies - and maybe even the Eighties and Nineties?
Its weird what we thought we knew about chocolate as kids.
All sorts of myths and legends abounded, legends like kids getting drunk from eating three bars of Old Jamaica or that the milk left over from a bowl of coco pops actually tasted better than Nesquik!
To kick off what I can actually recall I'll start with Flake, the crumbliest chocolate in the world. It was almost impossible to eat it all as being so crumbly it mostly fell onto your hand or arm and melted instantly.
The myth in the boys' playground was that only gorgeous girls ate flakes and that if you bought one for your 'bird' she would be made instantly 'fit' using the parlance of the day.
Rumours abounded about the exotic location used in the TV ads for Bounty bars. It was Blackpool. It was Heysham Head. It was definitely Carnforth Sands. It was actually a beach called Vai on the beautiful Greek Island of Crete, a fun fact I only found out as an adult when I visited and Vai continues to be bountiful as here on TV in 2011:
Revels were another chocolate morsel oft the nub of boyish pranks as they were more often than not referred to as rabbit droppings. The original chocolate covered peanut, Treets, never suffered such indignities as they were so damn good.
Yorkie is another bar misunderstood by most. A vigorous TV campaign depicting the chunky chocolate being scoffed by a truck driver has forever linked the brand to wagons and lumberjack shirts. It is true that a large mouth with strong chompers is needed to sever one of the huge pieces off the block but Yorkie isn't only the preserve of hungry truckers. A hammer and chisel will do the job just as well for anyone!
Probably the most myths surround that War God in a wrapper, the King that is the Mars Bar. Its well-known by every kid that a Mars a day helped you work, rest and play so it was Doctors' Orders really!
For some reason the Mars Bar made people do things with it. It must have been its relative plainness that induced a pioneering spirit in Mars users. It was in effect abused.
In Scotland most famously the humble Mars Bar was often deep fried in batter, although I have never experienced this northern treat. Have you?
In the comedy movie Caddyshack a Mars type-bar was seen 'floating' in a Golf Club swimming pool, much to the disgust of the swimmers. Upon being found in the drained basin and eaten wet by caretaker Bill Murray the Golf Club Chairwoman promptly feints in one the funniest scenes I've ever seen on film. I have to admit though that the bar in question may not have been an actual Mars as they may not be found in the US. It may have been something like Oh Henry, Butterfinger or maybe something nutty! It is in fact a Babe Ruth having watched the clip again!
Easily the most controversial of all Mars abuses, stretching the 'play' bit to a whole new level, was that portrayed in the steamy Last Tango in Paris, where Marlon Brando redefined eating chocolate but I will leave it at that as this is a family blog. I shall end with the undisputed bad sheep of bars, the goblin king of half-eaten blocks that can only be Cooking Chocolate. With no well-known brands springing to mind, cooking chocolate ignored branding being the very epitome of yukky non-chocolateness. Cooking chocolate was fine in cakes and cookies but if you were starving for the sweet stuff in January when all the selection boxes were empty and nothing else was in the cupboard it was no joke. Cooking chocolate may have sated your hunger at first but after a second row it became clear that this wasn't Dairy Milk in a cheap wrapper. It was all those crumbs of Flake you dropped on the floor, scooped up in a dustpan, mixed with baby talc and re-melted to form second hand slabs of milk dust! Yuk! What do you recall about chocolate? Which brands abound in your country? Are there any myths?
When I say sandals I mean those shoes where the front end was heavily pierced with air holes topped with a large gap and a strap usually buckled.
Born from a need for less sweaty feet in Summer sandals became the unfortunate trademarks of 1. Nerds 2. Mummy's boys 3. Alter boys 4. little boys and 5. Dads. It was a peculiarly male phenomenon.
In that grooviest of decades I was both a little boy, a Mummy's boy and somewhat nerdy I think. Sandals were nailed on!
Even worse were the long knee socks we had to wear with them creating a look so ridiculed that it persists today as the 'socks and sandals' combo popular with older Dads and mocked by fashionistas everywhere. Only string vests generate more cultural vitriol.
There was one style of sandal that managed to evade all this mocking though, the plastic Jelly. I myself enjoyed the sharp clack of Jellies on our lino floors and appreciated their ability to easily go from one terrain to another such as kitchen to garden. They were the ATV'of sandals and could even withstand 1. the paddling pool 2. the swimming pool 3. the sea and 4. the bath [we didn't have a shower in the Sixties].
When I got older and interested in film I was always astounded that the oft-maligned sandal even had its own sub-genre of action film, sword and sandals. However these particular shoes were more usually the basic straps and lashings associated with the bronzed warriors of Ancient Greece, a far cry from the blue, brushed suede baskets from Clerks we had to endure as kids!
Here's an old piccy from my Butlins family album showing a whole assortment of sandalry worn by my Sixties clan. From left to right: Mum - stylish sandals 2. Big Brother - socks and plimsolls 3. Uncle Gordon - socks and sandals 4. Uncle Gordon's son - socks and sandals 5. Me [ showing off the Tudor Rose boat] - socks and jellies and 6. Auntie Terry - stylish sandals.
Talking about white bread made me remember the bread my late Mum used to eat in the Sixties and Seventies.
It was called Nimble and it was as light as Action Man's undies.
It didn't really feel like bread on account of it not really having any dough in it. It was mostly chalk and talc I think and then mixed with cobwebs!
Bringing butter anywhere near a slice of Nimble was enough to make the bread disintegrate on the spot. It was as if it was programmed to self-destruct near fat of any kind, the ultimate diet slice. A better name would have been Crumble!
My Mum swore by it and it was a classic diet food. It even came in an unusual bag or wrapper but for the life of me I can't picture it.
I do remember the TV ad for Nimble though. It involved a young slip of a girl in a stripey skirt floating nimbly in a hot air balloon high above fluffy white clouds, presumably Cumulo Nimbles.
The floating was accompanied by a theme song along the lines of She Flies Like a Bird in the Sky- y-y-y, Now I Know I can't Let Maggie go!
Too late, Maggie's gone! She's dieted that much on Nimble she's floated away!
Amazingly through the time machine that is You Tube we can still enjoy the low-fat content of Nimble's classic ad:
Do you remember Nimble or another diet bread in your neck of the woods?
When I wuz a nipper I drank a glass of cold milk when I got home from school.
This was accompanied by a jam butty: thick white bread, butter and lashings of Hartleys strawberry jam lovingly prepared by my old Mum.
Throwing my school tie onto a coat hook I then, complete with milk tash and jammy nose, climbed the staircase to my bedroom full of all my fave stuff.
Nowadays I seem to need coffee in some form when I get home, usually a ready-made sachet of frothy cappucino from Aldi.
What I have with it varies though.
Today I scoffed a Hanuta, a small square wafer sandwich of hard nutella and hazelnuts, which are truly delicious.
Tomorrow I have already promised myself a piece of toast [sadly brown bread], buttered and smeared with peanut butter and topped with jam. Its an after-school pizza!
I must admit though a traditional white-bread jam butty would still do the trick if I could smuggle some pale sliced Warburtons into Moonbase!
What snack do you like in an afternoon and what did you scoff as a kid after Skool?
