Julie Stevens 1936-2024

I have just discovered that the English actress and singer Julie Stevens (1936-2024) died a few days ago. She played Venus Smith in six episodes of The Avengers, season two.

Her character was a night club singer, and she sang in each episode. Venus Smith was one of two alternative leads, before the series settled on Mrs Catherine Gale as John Steed's regular partner.

Her other TV work was mainly on children's programmes, such as Play School. She was also in the film Carry On Cleo (1964).

Obituary:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Efd0wO-ALEw

Wikipedia page:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julie_Stevens_(English_actress)

Very sad to hear this news. There cannot be many left now from the original version of The Avengers.

Paul Adams from New Zealand

STANDBY BY FOR EGG-TION!

This weekend my big sister and her family came over for a Xmas get together and as both mine and her birthday are near Xmas, we exchanged birthday gifts as well as presents for the big day. Knowing how impatient I am and still a big kid at heart, she insisted I open my birthday present while she was there. Inside was a set of three Thunderbirds egg cups, complete with International Rescue hat cozies!

To make it even more special, Carol had hand painted three wooden eggs with the likenesses of Scott, Virgil and John too! (Alan and Gordon were on a mission elsewhere apparently).

Shes knows that I have always been a Thunderbirds fan, but behind the idea of the painted eggs was another story.

When I was a boy and my sister was in senior school, she made a Thunderbirds puppet - a bit like the Pelham ones, with a tennis ball as Scott's head. He was strung and dressed in a hand made cloth uniform and looked amazing. When she brought him home, I made an immediate beeline for him, but given the weeks of careful preparation and fragility of the puppet, I was only allowed to admire him from afar.

Since then Scott Tracy has been a running joke between us and finding these lovely egg cups and cozies must have brought the old Scott puppet back for her, just as it did for me seeing the neat little hats! Its eggs for breakfast for me tomorrow!
 

THE IRON TREE IS UP

 With the Grandkids not coming to Moonbase this Christmas we've opted for low- key decorating in just a few household spots. No fuss and no need to get everything down from the attic this year!

The iron tree is really just an garden standee adorned with baubles from an Xmas box we brought back from my Wife's late parents' German home this Autumn, together with a couple of necklaces to fill out the middle!

The kitchen sill scene is courtesy of more German heirlooms.

I love this little singer. I cant decide if he's belting out a carol or trying to blow the candle out!

German nutcrackers, from the box, ready for some cracking or knacken [ker-nacken] as they say over there.

This cute pot Nazarene family had to come out.

as did this beautiful wooden nativity.

Unusually some of the old baubles are metal like this golden ball.

Finally, a shot of my morning's boiled eggs guarded by a quaint little pixie!

I may set out the crib we brought back, a family piece one hundred years old now.

Your pictures of decorations and trees welcomed readers! Just email me.

BOOK SHELF NEIGHBOURS

 

Googling for vintage plastic novelty toys, I was really chuffed to see my 2019 book Toy Bunnies on Plastic Scooters next to Jean Rossi's Plastic Novelties and Toys of the 40's 50's and 60's.

Coincidentally, I've got Jean's fabulous American Schiffer book from 2002 next to my own own on the bookshelf!

Jean's was very much the inspiration for my own, although hers focuses on American plastic, whereas as my own is concerned with Hong Kong and specifically JR21 toys [many photographs by our very own Wotan Bill I might add!]

Alas, my self-published hardbacked effort is prohibitively priced on Blurb - you have to wait for their special offers before any mortal can afford a copy, unlike Jean's softback which is modestly priced on Amazon [click on the links above].

Despite Blurb's shortcomings I'm planning a second volume to the 2019 book, which itself took 10 years to research. I've already put 5 years into the second one, so it's not too far off I hope! Wotan Bill has already taken a lot of the photo's.

Watch this space.

HAS KRAMPUS TAKEN CHRISTMAS?

'Tis the season so I've begun to watch Christmas films.

The start was the terrific Tales from the Crypt, with its iconic festive opener And All Through the House. 

I followed this last night with two more, both from the US and both modern: Red One and A Christmas Horror Story.

Red One is totally brand new; made just this year but already being streamed. My Missus says its been panned by critics but I have to admit I enjoyed it! A yuletide guilty pleasure, like Arnie's Jingle All The Way, I would probably watch it again, as I like Dwayne The Rock Johnson.

Red One is essentially a live-action play on The Night Before Christmas without the songs; a bogeyman, in this case a winter witch, taking over the North Pole HQ for her own nefarious plans. The Rock is Santa's bodyguard and chief fixer, who eventually teams up with Cap himself, Chris Evans, a good-for-nothing mercenary, who, yep, is ultimately made good by the power of the Christmas message. Krampus gets a look-in too, as is the way these days - I think he's more popular than Santa! - , with a horned manster looking a lot like Kelsey Grammer's Beast from the X-Men. Red One refers to the sleigh, like FAB1 does in Thunderbirds. If you watch it, uncouple your brains, switch on the tree lights and eat a mince pie or two.

A Christmas Horror Story from 2015 is a festive staple of mine now, added to a short but meaningful list of films I love to watch in December. Now ten years old but still relatively modern, its a sort of Amicus portmanteau for the Noughties, with enough Yuletidery stuffed in there to make your Chris tingle. There is something captivating about Bill Shatner's DJ, the film's radio stationed narrator, as he describes the growing carnage down at the Mall, whilst slowly getting merry with his huge carton of egg nog.

There are four tales told in A Christmas Horror Story; three are great, one not so.

The best is the eternal battle between Santa and Krampus, a piece containing a fabulous dukeroo between these two demi-gods scrapping for power over Christmas. 

Another tale is about a changeling from a forest and is really well made. Yet another concerns the bright new American film star of the season, Krampus, that ubiquitous Bavarian gargoyle and his supreme displeasure with a toxic family of liars and thieves on an outing to see a rich aunt, the Krampus being the same actor who plays him in the Santa segment, a sort of muscular hissing minotaur painted white and reminiscent of the similar beast in the old Unnameable films if you know what I mean. 

The tales, unlike those wonderful Amicus flicks, are all shown piece-meal, and the last for me to mention is about students investigating last year's Christmas murder in a high school basement. Personally its the least satisfying, possibly, because there are no adults in it! [maybe Henry Winkler is, I forget!]

Have you seen either of these movies?

Anyways, until tonight's festal films, that's all folks!

Ed's 2024 Christmas Tree and Train Display

Woodsy,

Every year I try to do something a bit different with the holiday layouts. This year I wanted two things:

- I wanted a Hogwarts Express

- I wanted to try and use some of my larger buildings, just to see how they would fit on the small 4'x6' table I have

The Hogwarts Express turned out to be a fail. I bought Lionel's cheapest, bottom of the line, battery operated set and it just wasn't suitable for what I had in mind. 

While the engine and cars were able to ride on 3-rail O-gauge track their bodies were more compatible with the smaller S-scale trains. Also, Lionel's cheapest version is also not an accurate copy of the real Hogwarts Express. 

The toy is an A1/A3 class 2-6-2 with 4-wheel tender while the real one is a Hall class 4-6-0 Pacific with 6-wheel tender. Lionel makes a good O-gauge electric version of the Hogwarts Express but at ca$400 for the set, I had to pass it up this year.

Instead, I opted for my trusted Lionel LionChief Polar Express. I have the early LionChief version with black roofed cars (vs. the simulated snow-covered roofs of later versions). Also, the fireman figure in the early version sets is missing his l-o-n-g red beard as seen in the movie. 

Later versions of the set corrected this error. I also acquired the last car Lionel made for this particular series. The boxed set included an engine, tender, and three cars plus Lionel offered four separate sale cars making for a 7-car consist. I was missing the diner car - aka the hot cholate car - and now I have it.

The larger sized buildings worked great and look just fine with the O-gauge train. I was going to add a couple of German Schreiber Bogen large playhouses (cardstock kits) but never got around to assembling them. 

The left side of the layout is a happy mixture of North Pole, Polar Express, Grinch and other figures and accessories as well as the large buildings.

 The right side of the layout is a forest. It could probably use some figures to make it more of an enchanted forest but for now I'm okay with it. 

Quite frankly guys, The Cave has so many Christmas decorations I could turn the entire living room into a Christmas train display!

In past years I used poly fiber batting as snow ground cover. As nice as that stuff looks as 'snow', it's next to impossible to get small figures, tress, and accessories to stand up on it. This year I covered the board with a plain white tablecloth - works just fine!

From The North Pole Vegas Annex

Ed

Enjoy!

UNSCRAMBLING THE MARSH BUG

 If you like the Project SWORD Scramble Bug then take a look at the origin of the tyres in Popular Mechanics way back in the American south in the 1930's.

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=vtoDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA529&dq=%22marsh+buggy%22+popular+mechanics&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwismdyurt78AhVKRUEAHZEqB-sQ6AF6BAgDEAI#v=onepage&q=%22marsh%20buggy%22%20popular%20mechanics&f=false

For more on this click on the labels at the base of the post.

THE LEGACY

 We have been staying in a hotel called The Legacy.

The name immediately brings to mind that 1978 schlocker, of the same name, starring occasional actor but forever frontman of The Who, one Roger Daltrey.

Daltrey's most famous part in the film is the tracheotomy using a kitchen knife and a biro. I think he'd swallowed a chicken bone. Needless to say, he doesn't survive the operation on the dining room floor, making the number of relatives left at the film's will reading one fewer.

The central protagonists in The Legacy are a young couple on a motorbike, one moustachioed Sam Elliott and actress Katherine Ross, an on-screen couple who later married in real life!

I enjoy these old deathbed movies, where the family is summoned to hear the will. Dementia 13 is another stranger one and a slightly different take is Frogs, where the family gathers for Patriarch Ray Milland's birthday in the bayou. Its ribbeting!

Have you seen any of these readers?