MOONBASE CENTRAL

Monday, 27 December 2021

Christmas Cowboys

One of the smaller gifts I received this year is a vintage 1972 Britains Mini Set. Britains introduced these odd sets in the mid seventies to a mixed response and closed production of them after about three years.

They are self contained dioramas, with figures, scenery and backdrop on the box. The flaw in the company plan was the scale, as all the figures were a good half inch smaller than the standard soldier at 1:42 instead of the standard 1:32.

The figures clip onto the base and can be separated into individual stands. This set of two beleaguered cowboys has an indian sneaking up on them from behind a mesa. The indian figure comes with a paper adhesive headress, which I have decided not to apply, as the set was completely mib.

I had the Civil War set as a kid and my favourites the divers and shark and frogmen and octopus.

I've also found a loose German field gun since too. I wonder if the line had continued, would they have included some astronaut figures and a crater?

AND SO THIS IS XMAS: HOW WAS YOURS?

How was your Christmas readers? Warm? Cool? Snug? A few of you celebrating or a cast of thousands? Did you get anything from Santa?

Is Xmas over?

🎅

Sunday, 26 December 2021

BOXING DAY ON THE ENTERPRISE

Happy Christmas Spock.

That's illogical Doctor McCoy.

What's logic got to do with it!

Calm down Bones, its Boxing Day.

I need to run some tests Jim.

Tests? Our only job today is to warm up the leftover Tribble joint and beam down Santa, he's late for the Klingon Christmas Office party.

[Intercom] Scotty here Cap'n.

Yes, Scotty?

Warming up those Christmas leftovers .... they're tough as old boots .... we hav'nee got the power!

Damn! That's the trouble with Tribbles!

Over and out.

Bones, you still got that Deliveroo number?

Saturday, 25 December 2021

TALES FROM THE CHRISTMAS CRYPT

This afternoon after we prepared this evening's big continental Christmas meal for an elderly guest and ourselves we put our feet up. the Missus watched Judge Judy - doesn't matter that its Xmas Day! - and I managed to watch my fave tale in the anthology horror Tales from the Crypt from 1972. Fortunately its on You Tube.

The story is the first one starring Joan Collins as a murderous wife at Christmas. She bumps off her hubby for the insurance but fails to notice that her young daughter has let in a Santa-suited homicidal maniac recently escaped from the asylum!

Its a classic EC tale where the perpetrator always gets what's coming to them.

A similarly sobering segment is the Valentine's Card, in which the aging binman Grimsdyke - one Peter Cushing - is forced to take his own life by the mean, callous and terribly snobbish neighbour. Alas, said neighbour gets his come-uppance in the grisly finale, which was probably quite shocking in 1972.

Old horror anthologies like Crypt were and are simply fantastic viewing and I could watch them all day. Have you got a fave anthology or segment?

EXPLORER III

Ever since finding an Explorer 12 book in the early 90's I've admired this range of small plastic space toys.

Here's an Explorer III Super Land Vehicle in a window box I saw on auction. Wotan would know better but I think this is a precursor to Explorer 12.

Have you anything like this readers?

I bet some lucky kids got it one Christmas in the mid 80's.

THE MEZZOTINT

After a very emotional evening on Christmas Eve consoling a friend I opened a bottle of sherry and settled down to watch the eagerly-awaited and new Ghost Story for Christmas, The Mezzotint.

Made by the MR James' superfan Mark Gatiss, who studied not too far from Moonbase at Bretton College, the Mezzotint was just half an hour but I enjoyed every minute. Characteristic of James' bent for haranguing indulgent scholars with all things creepy the Mezzotint didn't disappoint. Despite being sporadic, Gatiss has done a fine job continuing this noble tradition of televising a few of James' fantastic ghost stories at Christmas and I've enjoyed them all over the last ten years, jewels in the late night Christmas Eve programming crown across a hundred channels littered with dross.

By way of a masterclass in bringing James to the screen, Mezzotint was followed a little later by the likely prototype for the BBC Ghost Stories at Christmas series, Whistle and I'll Come to You directed by Jonathan Miller. Starring Shakespearian stalwart Michael Horden as a self-absorbed Professor holidaying in a guest house, the monochrome TV play was and is hugely impactive and the first time I saw it the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end! Hordern is simply brilliant as the mumbling don and along with the lonely Norfolk coastline the play creates an almost hypnotic und totally uncanny atmosphere. There is no music and there is no need for any. It must have been scary as hell back in 1968 when there were just three UK TV channels and many people still had coal fires burning in their parlours ideal for creating a room of flickering shadows as the sherry took its toll.

Did you and do you watch Ghost Stories for Christmas?