I saw this on an old sale online.
Its a pretty neat long yellow multi-wheeled plastic vehicle.
But, boy, its also got globed tyres, a crane, two driver areas and it looks like its a single piece.
Anyone recognise this bad boy?
Saturday, 27 June 2020
STILL CRAZES AFTER ALL THESE YEARS
With my furlough continuing I think I'm getting a taste of what retirement might be like and how I'll fill my time.
Since being a kid I've happily filled my time with 'stuff' to do. My own 'hobbies'. My older brother nicknamed this stuff I did as 'projects', so I'll stick with that.
Looking back these projects have probably been part of much bigger crazes of mine and gave me the crucial outlet I needed to indulge my creative side. Nowadays I suppose another word for crazes would be passions. I have no practical skills like DIY or car maintenance but I do tinker where I can. I've no passion for them though, which can be a pain.
When it comes to what I was and am passionate about it's odd because I can remember all my crazes and many of my projects but I can't remember sitting down to eat with my parents as a kid for example. How strange is memory!
Kickstarted by the being a kid in the Sixties generally and a natural sense of wonder, in chronological order I'd say these were my crazes coming right up to the present day:
1. Monsters, horror and Space - this craze lasted throughout my life and is still going strong! Comics, toys, films, everything!
2. Football - very brief childhood flirtation with footy, buying Shoot comic and collecting badges
3. Cars - die-casts and plastic like Hot Wheels, Superfast, Whizzwheels, King Size and plastic
4. Pop - centred largely around David Bowie, Elton John, Slade and Top of the Pops
5. Rock - centred on Budgie, Lou Reed, Rush, Deep Purple, PFM and Old Grey Whistle Test
6. Martial Arts - eastern philosophy, Kung Fu, Judo, Karate, weapons and Inside Kung Fu magazine
7. Music - writing songs - melodies and lyrics - formed two rock bands as a teenager
8. Birds - and wildlife/ flowers - centred on a living at the Ouse Washes Reserve for a year
9. Poetry - I began writing aged 12 and got really into poetry and poets aged about 26 for a few years
10. Toy collecting and selling - began with an old SPV in a junk shop - powered by Model Mart mag.
11. Writing - throughout my innings; poems, songs, short stories and my two current blogs.
Weaving though all of these was a desire to make something, whether it be my own monster puppet show when I was a kid, my own pop scrap books, creating chinese Kung Fu weapons, painting, drawing birds and wildlife, designing my own toy selling letterheads and so on. Drawing, writing and making things have been a constant since I was a kid and have often been the outlet for all my passions, hobbies and crazes.
As a kid I was excited about ongoing projects at home that I could hardly wait to finish school and carry on. I remember about age 12 and a Japanese scroll I was writing on a long piece of wallpaper, I could barely contain my joy at the prospect of carrying on with it and burst through our house door after school straight up to my room where it was waiting for me!
I'm like that now to be honest. Pure excitement when a project is happening like the junk Thunderbirds models I made this Lockdown and a box and boat I've restored last week. The trouble I have is the downside. The gaps in between, which I can find difficult and miserable. I've had to get used to these adult ups and downs, which I didn't have as a kid. It was one big up.
Have you had any crazes in your life readers?
Since being a kid I've happily filled my time with 'stuff' to do. My own 'hobbies'. My older brother nicknamed this stuff I did as 'projects', so I'll stick with that.
Looking back these projects have probably been part of much bigger crazes of mine and gave me the crucial outlet I needed to indulge my creative side. Nowadays I suppose another word for crazes would be passions. I have no practical skills like DIY or car maintenance but I do tinker where I can. I've no passion for them though, which can be a pain.
When it comes to what I was and am passionate about it's odd because I can remember all my crazes and many of my projects but I can't remember sitting down to eat with my parents as a kid for example. How strange is memory!
Kickstarted by the being a kid in the Sixties generally and a natural sense of wonder, in chronological order I'd say these were my crazes coming right up to the present day:
1. Monsters, horror and Space - this craze lasted throughout my life and is still going strong! Comics, toys, films, everything!
2. Football - very brief childhood flirtation with footy, buying Shoot comic and collecting badges
3. Cars - die-casts and plastic like Hot Wheels, Superfast, Whizzwheels, King Size and plastic
4. Pop - centred largely around David Bowie, Elton John, Slade and Top of the Pops
5. Rock - centred on Budgie, Lou Reed, Rush, Deep Purple, PFM and Old Grey Whistle Test
6. Martial Arts - eastern philosophy, Kung Fu, Judo, Karate, weapons and Inside Kung Fu magazine
7. Music - writing songs - melodies and lyrics - formed two rock bands as a teenager
8. Birds - and wildlife/ flowers - centred on a living at the Ouse Washes Reserve for a year
9. Poetry - I began writing aged 12 and got really into poetry and poets aged about 26 for a few years
10. Toy collecting and selling - began with an old SPV in a junk shop - powered by Model Mart mag.
11. Writing - throughout my innings; poems, songs, short stories and my two current blogs.
Weaving though all of these was a desire to make something, whether it be my own monster puppet show when I was a kid, my own pop scrap books, creating chinese Kung Fu weapons, painting, drawing birds and wildlife, designing my own toy selling letterheads and so on. Drawing, writing and making things have been a constant since I was a kid and have often been the outlet for all my passions, hobbies and crazes.
As a kid I was excited about ongoing projects at home that I could hardly wait to finish school and carry on. I remember about age 12 and a Japanese scroll I was writing on a long piece of wallpaper, I could barely contain my joy at the prospect of carrying on with it and burst through our house door after school straight up to my room where it was waiting for me!
I'm like that now to be honest. Pure excitement when a project is happening like the junk Thunderbirds models I made this Lockdown and a box and boat I've restored last week. The trouble I have is the downside. The gaps in between, which I can find difficult and miserable. I've had to get used to these adult ups and downs, which I didn't have as a kid. It was one big up.
Have you had any crazes in your life readers?
M O O N T R A F F I C T W O
Clifford and Roxy backing cards on Worthpoint.
You got one?
and the Roxy triple set there too!
Yes, it does say Golden Astronaut on it! naughty naughty!
Friday, 26 June 2020
CENTURY 21: THE DUTCH MONKEES
The Monkees were a Century 21 licence in the UK as copyrighted in the UK Annual. You can see the licence bottom left.
Reader Bernard Dunne has kindly sent me these excellent pictures of his Dutch edition of the Monkees Annual called Goed Gek Met De Monkees or Pretty Crazy With The Monkees
Reader Bernard Dunne has kindly sent me these excellent pictures of his Dutch edition of the Monkees Annual called Goed Gek Met De Monkees or Pretty Crazy With The Monkees
Bernard informed me that it didn't mention a copyright for Century 21. Also where the 'advert' for Lady Penelope comic appears in the Britiish edition, an issue of 'TV2000' is advertised [see above].
Over the normal (C) SCREEN GEMS 'Enn Uitgave Van TV2000' is printed, translating as 'An Edition of TV2000'. TV2000 was a dutch comic full of strips reprinted from TV21 and Lady Penelope.
It would be interesting to know the licensing relationship between TV2000 and Century 21.
Have you a Monkees annual?
IN A RIGHT LATHER
I've always liked soap.
As a kid its ability to create ice-cream using a sponge in the bath was enough to get me hooked. I realised that if you let the bar slip out of your hand that was that. Chances of finding it under the thick carpet of Matey bubblebath were nill. Even Billy Blastoff Scuba couldn't get it back!
My fave soap as a kid was Imperial Leather bu Cussons I think. You can still get it and it hasn't changed at all. Even the little wedge-ended box is still the same. The bar had a pleasant custardy tinge and it smelt fab. I appreciated the shard edges, which allowed a firm grip whilst making bird's dream topping at bath-time.
I only recently worked out that the gold label that is mysteriously stuck in the middle of the bar is actually a stand. Yes, as the bar dissolves the label continues to stick out and hold the bar up off the wet sink surface and keeping it dry! How cool is that! Cusson's Tech!
Another soap in my folk's household was Pears. Shaped like a big sweet it had a sort of strong cinnamony, herby smell. Very distinct and classy I suppose. It was marketed as almost Victorian or olde-worlde. Ye olde bar of soap type of thing with a tin bath a glowing fire. Its round edges made it hard to grip and the smell was too much after a while!
There were other soap brands around: Knight's Castile, which was for Knights in their castle baths [presumably once they'd taken their armour off], Lifebuoy for Olympic swimmers, Shield for Avengers, Camay for Greek Goddesses along with Lux and Wright's Coal Tar Soap for anyone who could stand the thought of rubbing coal tar allover. I seemed to recall that it reeked too!
there were some funky soaps too that my older Sister had. Biba springs to mind. Maybe even Yardley. They had floral psychedelic boxes for the hippy in you.
Two other soap types have popped into my head too: massive bars of kitchen soap for giants like huge green bricks - God knows how you held them - and that icon of the medallion man decade, soap on a rope. Cars, space capsules, animals - they all got roped into having a shower with hirsute catalogue models and my older brothers too! the rope eventually took on the appearance of nuclear waste. Yuk!
I have a very wispy memory of soap in a can too but it's so far back that the bubble's won't form. Silly soap maybe?
Anyways, my soap of choice these days - seeing as I'm washing my mitts every half hour - is Nivea simply because its smells nice.
Do you have soapy memories?
As a kid its ability to create ice-cream using a sponge in the bath was enough to get me hooked. I realised that if you let the bar slip out of your hand that was that. Chances of finding it under the thick carpet of Matey bubblebath were nill. Even Billy Blastoff Scuba couldn't get it back!
My fave soap as a kid was Imperial Leather bu Cussons I think. You can still get it and it hasn't changed at all. Even the little wedge-ended box is still the same. The bar had a pleasant custardy tinge and it smelt fab. I appreciated the shard edges, which allowed a firm grip whilst making bird's dream topping at bath-time.
I only recently worked out that the gold label that is mysteriously stuck in the middle of the bar is actually a stand. Yes, as the bar dissolves the label continues to stick out and hold the bar up off the wet sink surface and keeping it dry! How cool is that! Cusson's Tech!
Another soap in my folk's household was Pears. Shaped like a big sweet it had a sort of strong cinnamony, herby smell. Very distinct and classy I suppose. It was marketed as almost Victorian or olde-worlde. Ye olde bar of soap type of thing with a tin bath a glowing fire. Its round edges made it hard to grip and the smell was too much after a while!
There were other soap brands around: Knight's Castile, which was for Knights in their castle baths [presumably once they'd taken their armour off], Lifebuoy for Olympic swimmers, Shield for Avengers, Camay for Greek Goddesses along with Lux and Wright's Coal Tar Soap for anyone who could stand the thought of rubbing coal tar allover. I seemed to recall that it reeked too!
there were some funky soaps too that my older Sister had. Biba springs to mind. Maybe even Yardley. They had floral psychedelic boxes for the hippy in you.
Two other soap types have popped into my head too: massive bars of kitchen soap for giants like huge green bricks - God knows how you held them - and that icon of the medallion man decade, soap on a rope. Cars, space capsules, animals - they all got roped into having a shower with hirsute catalogue models and my older brothers too! the rope eventually took on the appearance of nuclear waste. Yuk!
I have a very wispy memory of soap in a can too but it's so far back that the bubble's won't form. Silly soap maybe?
Anyways, my soap of choice these days - seeing as I'm washing my mitts every half hour - is Nivea simply because its smells nice.
Do you have soapy memories?
U.S.S EXPLORER
This isn't a spacecraft model design I know but I love the box art!
The Star Probe kit by Lindberg. This is the Spanish version.
Anyone recognise it?
Thursday, 25 June 2020
THE NAME IS WRISTWATCH...ZEON WRISTWATCH!
I found this
old Zeon James Bond 007 digital watch
during a loft clear out the other day.
I put a new
battery in and was greeted by a melodic digital rendition of the James Bond
theme.
Not bad for
something that could possibly be nearly forty years old and probably cost less
than two quid when I originally bought it during Sir Roger Moore’s tenure as
the super spy.
I can’t
remember precisely when I got it, but it appears to have come out to coincide
with the 1981 release of ‘For Your Eyes
Only’.
Along with
others, Zeon released quite a
selection of different James Bond 007 related digital watches. My example seemed
to have been released in two slightly different versions of watch face. Apart
from mine, one was red with a drawing of Bond above the digital dial. Both
shared the same the packaging featuring a drawing of Roger Moore in classic
Bond pose.
It appears
the same watch went on to feature on similar packaging with Timothy Dalton as
Bond coinciding with the release of ‘The
Living Daylights’.
A selection of other cheap James bond watches. One has an illuminated dail, the other is a wrist radio. The Zeon ‘talking’ digital Bond watch from
2000 featured a selection of animated images on its screen.
I can’t say
I know too much about Zeon, but after
very little research I found that it’s a British company, and the U.K.’s largest
importer and distributer of timepieces.
They have
done other TV and film related budget range watches, including a Thunderbirds one. However, it’s the
cheap range of Bond watches that interest me, as I love the nostalgic tacky
look of this low cost piece of Bond memorabilia. I love the packaging on this version.
'For Your Eyes Only'...Quintessentially kitsch!
When it
comes to Bond timepieces, I can’t see myself being in the position to afford a
new Omega Seamaster 007 Edition anytime soon, or even a second hand Rolex
Submariner. Both would easily set you
back several thousand pounds.
An old tacky
007 Digital Zeon which plays the Bond
theme better reflects my more moderate circumstances, although to be fair I did see one just like it go for sixty quid the other
day on eBay, so maybe not so cheap nowadays.
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