MOONBASE CENTRAL

Tuesday, 8 December 2020

Xmas Light Entertainment

With christmas on the way, I was reminded of something I bought a few years ago, which is especially pertinent this time of year. As a kid, part of christmas mornings fun was the stocking at the end of the bed, which was always filled with the usual traditional items; a tangerine, some nuts, a silver coin, sweets and a load of little toys. One toy which always appeared was a pocket torch, usually a Pifco or Ever Ready one.

A few years ago I was amazed to see an online auction for a counter box of such torches, but even better, it had the Ever Ready Rocket torch from the mid sixties. Some of the torches had been lost or sold, but at least half the box was full of these wonderully nostalgic toys.

Each one had a plastic sleeve from an original Ever Ready battery and an instruction sheet tucked inside.

The mechanism is a simple press button arrangement to bring the battery in contact with the bulb, giving a clear bright light.

I can clearly recall these being sold on the counter of a Bike and Toy shop on Mill Street, Dingle in Liverpool around 1968, what a shame I can't revisit those great times!

originally published December 2016

EDAI GRIP UFO STRAKERS CAR

Hey Woodsy

Happy 2020...I hope all is as well as it can be during the slow apocalypse.

I recently came across the extremely hard-to-find Eidai Straker's

key-wind car. No packaging, but hard to track down in any shape or

form.

Corey Le Chat

USA

Woodsy asks: Anyone else got one or something similar?

THE INVADERS: DAM OF DEATH HARDBACK

Hi Woodsy

Some time ago you ran a photograph showing the cover art for a book based on The Invaders TV series. This was Alien Missile Threat (1967). I do not have this book, but I do have another Invaders title by the same publisher, which I have just unearthed.

This is The Invaders: Dam of Death (1967), from the Whitman Publishing Company (part of the Western Publishing Company), of Racine, Wisconsin, USA. The author is Jack Pearl, with illustrations by Robert L. Jenney - they are credited only on the title page, not on the cover.

The book does not have a dust jacket, the illustration is on cover itself. In this case a colour photo cover is used, showing David Vincent (Roy Thinnes), and a flying saucer. Just below the title are the words 'Authorized Edition', and in the lower left corner 'Created by Larry Cohen'. The number 1545 appears on the back cover. The spine has The Invaders, Dam of Death, Pearl, the Whitman name, and Authorized TV Edition.

The front and rear end papers are the same, and are black, white, and green. There are a number of full page illustrations throughout the book, all printed in green. The title page says ' Authorized edition based on the popular television series'. The next page says © 1967 QM Productions, which was Quinn Martin.

There are 12 chapters, and 212 pages, and two pages listing other books that were available, a mix of classic tales and Television Favorites. Note that I have kept the US spellings, as they appear in the book.

Yours Sincerely,

Paul Adams from New Zealand

Blakes 7 Federation Detonator from Junk!

Hi,

A quick scratchbuild from scraps in my shed.

This is a replica of the detonator to a radiation bomb that the Federation install on the planet Albion in the season 2 episode Countdown.

Avon and a mercenary who hates him work to try to defuse it.

3...2.....1,

Kevin

Monday, 7 December 2020

When Worlds Collide

Ever feel like you could do a better job ? Feel like you could run the world ? Master the universe itself ? Well, here's your chance! Build an entire planetary system and play with the laws of physics and gravitation. This great sandbox site allows you to create a planetary body and then see how it interacts with other objects. Build a binary system, create a trinary! Pelt a planet with asteroids, send a trojan through your system and see how its path is affected by the nearby bodies. Its a deceptively simple process, but strangely satisfying and quite hypnotic. Simply point and click to create a planet and flick another planet towards it to see how the gravitational forces interact. Simple, but great fun and quite educational too.

https://lab.nstmf.org/gravity