PUT ME THROUGH TO THE TOY DEPARTMENT!

This toy caught my eye on the 'Bay so I saved the pic.

From 1972 by Tech Toys of Cincinnati and made in HK its a telegraph key toy.

Its what I'd call a telephone exchange I think. I'd have loved this as a kid. I can see a battery included too so there's current passing through to create the buzzing.

Did you have anything like this as a kid?

Who would you be put through to?

SCOPING FOR IDEAS

I spotted this kids' magazine in WH Smiths and thought, hmmm, that give me an idea for my next home made toy.

That plastic telescope is just too good to pass up on even for £4.99.

Moonbase Junior, our Grandson, got the magazine and the plastic dinosaurs.

Grandad got the dolly mixtures.

PLUTO SAD PLUTO

My Grandson Moonbase Junior loves the planets in our system.

He's learnt all their names and what they look like. This has been helped along by songs on You Tube and at nursery.

Sadly the main song misses out Pluto. I know its been demoted to tea boy but it deserves to be in the song for old times' sake.

Fortunately his Mum has painted a mural of the solar system on his bedroom wall and it includes .... Pluto. Yay!

So Junior will grow up with Pluto like I did nearly 60 years ago! 

Did you Pluto?

MY LATEST SCRATCH SPACEX TOY: THE SALVAGE CRAFT

Its been a strange week since coming home.

I've badly burned my thigh with red hot tomato soup and finished my latest plastic model SpaceX toy.

The Salvage Craft.

Here's the original Tri-ang card illustration.

Here's my scratch toy.

This was a relatively quick scratch job compared to some of the others I've done this summer.

It's illustrated on the Triang SpaceX backing card towing the Nuclear Freighter. I haven't made one of those this time but I did knock up a tow bar. You can see it here 'towing' a real Nova Rocket to the Moonbase Scrappers.

Here's the Salvage Craft with its scratch pal the LAMA and a real NOVA 1 toy.

Fortunately I bought a bag of half plastic beads years ago for a never-produced Task Force blog exclusive but one of them made a great little cockpit blister on the Salvage Craft.

The hardest bit was shaping the yellow plastic body, which I messed up on the two back curves. They're not equal!

I raided our lego box for the blue side struts, which light up nicely when illuminated.

These final shots are overlit but I left them in.

Hope you like my kitchen Salvage Craft!

It's my second go as well. I made a clay model 10 years ago as blogged at the time, along with a painted 'Matchbox' Nuclear Freighter

https://projectswordtoys.blogspot.com/2009/04/sword-dream-factory-salvage-craft-and.html

FOCUS ON NIGHTLIFE

I love taking photos showing London city centre at night. Generally speaking my favourites usually involve short time exposures to capture the lighting detail.

Here's one for Bond fans like me, the S.I.S. building.

Scotland Yard

Parliament Bridge Street during rush hour.

The London Eye

The River Thames

Houses of Parliament during refurbishments

The Cenotaph at early evening 

Westminster Bridge

Horse Guards Parade

DOCTOR WHO MAGAZINE - SPECIAL ISSUE - TARGET BOOKS BY TONY K

Just to give you and any interested readers the heads-up, Woodsy!

I was browsing through the magazine shelves at WHSmith, looking for something to quietly pass the time on our summer break. 

I was pleasantly surprised to stumbles across Doctor Who Magazine.

Not something I'd usually be drawn to these days, but this was a Special Edition focusing on Target Books.

Remember them? They were prolific publishers of numerous Doctor Who paperbacks (and hardbacks) during the seventies and early eighties.

Looking at the price I hesitated, but after a quick flick through the pages I could see that the contents justified the £6.99.

It's packed cover to cover with evocative illustrations, well researched information and imagery. 

The magazine explores a myriad of familiar and forgotten themes for seventies kids who time travelled with the BBC, and hunted bookshelves for additional adventures in time and space.

I think it's an essential asset for the Doctor Who fan, and an entertaining and informative insight for anyone else, like myself, who enjoyed those old Target paperbacks. 

 A nice piece to file away for the future.

Tony K

THE BAOC FIREFLASH

Reader Ralph Morton sent in this new photograph of his gorgeous BAOC Fireflash statuette he's having made by craftsmen in the Philippines.
(Thats BAOC, not BOAC!)

A WEE DRIVE 6: LOOSE ENDS

Just some final oddments from our Scottish driving tour before I sign off this photo album.

I saw this moss-festooned gravestone with its inverted dove in the graveyard of Grace Darling, the famous maritime heroine.

I've often wondered what happened to Candy and Andy, those strange dolls used by Gerry Anderson's Century 21 pictured here eating ice-cream!

Well they may well be here in this shop window in Braemar dressed in their best highland tartans!

What do you think?

How about some centuries old graffiti?

This was part of a bunch of scribbles scrawled into the walls of Braemar castle.

The guide told us they were made by soldiers in the 1700's stationed in the castle and bored stiff.

Here's a shot of our final accommodation, over the border in England. This fine old huge and isolated Northumbrian farmhouse was a real gem, brimming with ancient and eerie charm. Straight out of a ghost story! The full cooked breakfast was to die for!

and finally, as a footnote to our summer tour in Scotland, a big country reminiscent of the splendour and beauty of Tolkien's Middle Earth, messing about with my phone I snapped a negative image that reminded me of an old LP I used to have, Bo Hansson's Lord of the Rings!

Have you heard this old LP readers?