david_scrivener

Spoof shipping weather forecast satirising the UKIP councillor who blames recent rain/floods on g-y marriage: http://soundcloud.com/nicholas-pegg/ukip-shipping-forecast

Did anyone here watch the Dave Gorman 'Life is Goodish' show on Tuesday? Don't worry if you missed it, it is on the Dave channel, so will be repeated many, many times. It included a prank he did bleaching a t-shirt with an image of 'Jesus' (actually Noel Edmonds), which he 'reported' as a 'miracle' The people at 'Christian Post' clearly fell for it: http://www.christianpost.com/news/jesus-fabric-softner-stain-photo-94369/ Its worth reading the comments under the article.

On a thread about the blonde kids found with Roma families in Greece and Ireland on another forum I'm a member of, someone has posted, "They're not going to kidnap ginger kids, what with the exorbitant cost of sun screen and impending global warming."

I now have some photos: First, the JoHillCo greenhouse. photos to show opening ends (not doors as such), and with JoHillCo lead milkmaid, and Britains lead greenhouse. As you can see, the JoHillCo greenhouse is way under sized for standard scale figures, more suitable for train or possibly Dinky Car layouts, but hey, it was only a toy, and is still a valuable collectable. Now, the 3 buildings. 1) A pub with several bits missing (I also have a better one, with sign - 'The Village Inn'), but as was so cheap I had it. It is O guage/Dinky car scale, about 1:42. 2)A chicken coop. This is very over scale for 1:32 figures, and would display best with those (giant) composition chooks made by Elastolin. This coop is unmarked, but I have another almost identical one stamped 'CETANDCO' - C.E. Turnbull - who was mainly a wholesaler. I don't know if he had any manufacturing facilities, but probably at least had a packaging set up as he sold lead figures by Britains and others (I think also Pixyland/Kew) in his own boxed sets. 3) A sheep/goat house & run? Initially I thought it was a pig sty, but have now changed my mind. As I said initially, all this lot, plus Britains plastic Birch Tree and pig for £15.

I only have an old fashioned film camera, so will do pictures, but they'll be some time.

I went to the general antiques fair at the B&W Showground here at Shepton Mallet today. One of the outside stands, mostly furniture and a lot of galvanised buckets & similar items, which had a couple of old suitcases of toys. One was all toy cars & similar, the other more of a mixture. In it I found 3 old wooden farm/village buildings, Britains plastic young birch tree and Britains plastic pig (plastic version of the old lead pig) and, the real find, a lead JoHillCo greenhouse, in very good condition apart from one roof strut gone. "How much for the lot?" I asked the man (who by his accent could have been Portugese, Spanish or from somewhere in south-east Europe). "£15 the lot". I managed to keep calm as I paid him and bagged them up, as the greenhouse usually changes hands for £100 to £120. Result! I showed it to a few of the regular toy dealers there I know well - and they were all really jealous. From other stands I bought: Britains lead cow feeding in the rare ochre (Jersey?) colour, which I think was only sold in 2nd grade boxed sets ('Sunshine Toys' or 'Rainbow Toys') circa 1950. £5 Timpo/Zang RAF pilot in composition, circa 1947. £2 3 more farm buildings, all pig stys, one marked 'ARCO Toys' underneath. £25 the lot. A few plastic figures @ 50p each, including a Gemodels Red Indian and an unusual plastic copy of the old lead Britains baby elephant.

Following the casting of Peter Capaldi as the new Doctor Who, an actor best known for his role as the foul mouthed spin doctor in "In the thick of it", someone has done the obvious thing, and combined the two on youtube: Warning for those of a sensitive disposition, there is rather a lot of swearing in this.

There has been one of the regular three day (Fri, Sat, Sun) antique fairs on this weekend at the B&W Showground here at Shepton Mallet. I went Friday (costs more to get in on this supposed 'trade day', but Friday tickets good for all 3 days), and back again for another look today. Almost all my buys from one general dealer, who had a box of good condition soldiers etc., most Britains lead 2nd grade 'cheapo' range. He wanted to sell them as one lot for £100, but I didn't want them all, and didn't want to part with that much cash. I eventually persuaded him to part with what I wanted, in 2 batches - total expenditure £45. These figures were: 3 x mounted French officer. I discovered Friday evening that this is considered rarer than their much nicer top grade mounted French officers. 3 x French foot soldiers (black coat, red trousers) 3 x British RN sailors 2 x RN nurse (another rare item, which doesn't seem to have appeared in any Britains catalogues, although is known to collectors) 5 x Foot Guards in firing positions, which I really wanted as I already had the empty box for them. and (not Britains 2nd grade) a Taylor & Barrett postman, which according to Norman Joplin's big blue book is worth £50+ alone. OK, so sometimes going to general antiques fairs can be a waste of time, but the real bargains are to found there, from general dealers who don't know what they're selling. No one can be an expert in all types of antiques/collectables. I posted this here, rather than in the latest buys thread, because none of it was farm.

An empty box for the circa 1960 Britains/Herald polar skier (so quite a small empty box) sold on eBay today for £68.66p 7 bids, 6 bidders, start price £4.99p I would have quite liked it because I have one of the skiers, but don't think I would have gone above about £12 for the box.

A lot of us could end up as a candidate for one of those TV documentaries about compulsive hoarders if we just let our collections grow and grow, so its good to take an occasional pause to reflect on what we want our 'core collection' to be, and sell off some stuff which doesn't really fit any more. In my case, it is the wooden buildings which take up most storage space. There are a lot more I know exist I'd like to have in my collection, and need to sell some others off as I already have some nice items I haven't found a suitable place to store (such as my Binbak riding school).

On various websites, Google 'Charles Ramsey Dead Giveaway' for musical remixes of his interview after helping to release the kidnapped women at Cleveland, Ohio. I've also seen that the McDonalds Corp. have told him, "We'll be in touch." Looks like Mr Ramsey has a new career in front of him, starting with McDonalds adverts, then perhaps in TV/movies/comedy.

For gentle but effective cleaning of really dirty models, metal or plastic, I find 'Silver Foam' good stuff. Buy a tub at your local jewellery or shop selling trophies/cups etc.

Just bought on eBay, lead toy figure lot, but not farm, so posting here. It was a lot of 9 figures, and the really rare one in it (not identified by the seller, who obviously didn't know) was an 18th century Scottish army officer made by W.Y.Carman. For those of you with a copy of Norman Joplin's big yellow book, its on page 62, extreme left of the 3rd row of the photo. All Carman figures are highly collectable, and generally go for about £30 each. I didn't pay much less than that for the lot (including P&P), but hey, I got 8 other figures too. Another interesting figure in the lot is a Britains WW2 Blitz stretcher bearer in gas suit & mask, 2nd grade paint (which i think is rarer than the same item in 1st grade paint).

Not in the vehicles and agricultural machinery, but there was in the figures, although this decline had been already been happening for a long time under Britains family management, since the 1970s. .

Call me a grumpy old man if you like, but as far as I'm concerned Britains Ltd ceased to exist in 1984, when the Britains family sold it.