MOONBASE CENTRAL

Saturday, 3 August 2019

MOON BOOTS

I snapped this pic in an antiques centre.

Its a pair of Moon Boots.

A footnote on the moon landings, they were part and parcel of the space craze that swept through everything including shoes in the Sixties and Seventies.

I never had a pair of these and don't recall any in the family.

More Eskimo than Armstrong I reckon these would have been great in winter never mind the moon.

Even the font screams space race. What is it?

Do you remember moon boots?

THE NIGHT MUST FALL ON THE LOST WEEKEND

Being a film nut is frustrating when your brain gets older and slower like mine. I used to be able to recall any name, any actor and any storyline. I am a collector of films of sorts I suppose, mentally and physically.

Some films have faded fron view but have haunted me nevertheless, sort of been at the back of my mind for decades even though I haven't seen them since way back.

There are two I can think of: Night Must Fall and The Lost Weekend.

Both of the films were in black and white I seem to remember and I will have seen them late at night at my family's home in the late Sixties or probably the early Seventies. Not sure if my Parents knew I was watching them! They may have gone to bed!

The Lost Weekend was about the trials of an alcoholic and as a film went to great lengths to show cinematicaly the effects of the addiction. Like a public service broadcast it bared all and no doubt scared all. I think the main actor was Ray Milland - he of the Man with the X-Ray Eyes - but I could be wrong. I could google everything but I'm trying to remember!

The scene that has lingered in my memory was magnificently shocking. I think it showed a mouse coming out of a hole high up on the addict's bedroom wall. It was when a large bat flew in that it became something else. The bat attacks the mouse and after some shrieking a trickle of blood runs down the wall. Needless to say these are meant to be hallucinations and I thought the photography was mesmerising. I do hope no animals were harmed in it though. Do you recall this film?

The other flick, Night Must Fall, was British I think. It concerned an old house, an old woman in a wheel chair and an axe murderer. Said axeman was played by Albert Finney. The scene I recall the most was when Albert stalked the old lady through the ground floor of her house and eventually rid her of her head. Naturally this is only suggested but it had a lasting impact on me, a memory accentuated by the following scene were Finney stores the head in a hat box on his wardrobe! Gothic menacing grue.

Do you recall this film?

Do you have any 'lost' films in your head?

Friday, 2 August 2019

COMANSI THUNDERBIRDS

I quite like these old cute plastic Thunderbirds vehicles from Spain made by Comansi as seen on Todocollecion.

The two free-standing antennae are neat too but the thing I like the most is the cake-cover canopy on the Thunderbird 5! Never seen that before.

Have you got any Comansi Thunderbirds toys?

THE WASPS ARE AMONG US

First flies. Now wasps!

We have a wasps' nest directly where the rain's leaking into the kitchen. The roofer and the pest controller are arriving in Thunderbird 2 later today.

I can't think of single toy I had based on wasps. Not even a rubber one from Chester Zoo! Did you have any?

I did get stung as a kid. I was in the garden playing. The only memory I have is of Arthur the Bread Man being first on the scene. He's just delivered our loaf, orange juice and vanilla slices. He beat my Mum to the garden anyway, holding his cap and money belt! No idea what he did. The sting was on my backside!

I've been stung many times since throughout my life, the last time just two years ago in Staithes. Now that was a killer. Being sat on a bench near a cliff edge didn't help the situation either. I had to remember to run away from the edge when it stung me! Boy did it hurt and its not even on the Schmidt Sting Scale!

Have you been stung by a wasp readers or maybe something else?