When you go down to the woods today...

You're sure of a big surprise... probably full of kids on stolen motorcycles. Sorry, just the cynic in me coming out. I was delighted to read a lovely article on the BBC News Online magazine this morning while relaxing from my treadmill, about Teddy bears and as I am want to do now and then, I thought this would be a good memory tester.

Man: "I have a terrible memory."
Woman: "Have you?
Man: "Have I what?"

My own Teddy was a Rupert the Bear lookalike that I can remember and frankly it didn't last too long past my early years through constant chewing and generally falling to bits. I can't even remember its name. Awww. I did have an old biscuit box of Lego and some plastic letters and numbers that you put on a board. I remember swallowing a red plastic number '2' and asking my mother, bizarrely, whether or not I would get a hole in the heart! I must have been three or four. I also had a flat plastic hat, like a sailor's hat with a white top. If I recall right, it was part of a bus conductors set. My grandmother had an old paraffin heater, one of those tall thin ones with a flat top and one day I put my hat on top of the heater (unguarded of course) and the thing melted away into a black gooey mess - my heart broke.

I collected bus tickets then, the bus being our only form of transport if you didn't take the train. Used tickets of course that people discarded on the floor, different colours that the conductor used to clip in his or her machine to show that you had paid the right fare. You can find them in museums still. Our bus company was the East Yorkshire Motor Services (EYMS) which still runs today. The buses then were a mix of Royal blue and cream and the buses had a rounded roof and open platform on the back. Today, the buses are a nunty rust coloured red.

I did use to build little stage sets out of cardboard boxes, paint the walls like it had wallpapers, build bits of furniture out of card and perform plays with toy figures, usually soldiers - to no one in particular with made up stories. We really stepped up a lot when I was bought my first Action Man which I could dress up in various kits with all the accoutrements. Every time you bought some kit or a figure, you could collect stars on the packs and after you collected so many, you could send off for a figure for free. I ended up with an army of four!

Fun times when I could disappear into the depths of the large Victorian house we lived in and started with more complex projects with toys like building Airfix aeroplanes: Spitfires, Hurricanes, Lancaster bombers and then hung them from my bedroom ceiling with thin almost imperceptible fishing line held by drawing pins and I imagined them flying into battle.

Being the weekend, I thought it would be good to have another list (or two).

Five things a woman should not say to a man during sex

"Do you know the ceiling needs painting?"
"It's just a rash."
"Maybe if we water it, it will grow."
"It's a good thing you're rich."
"On second thoughts, let's turn the lights out."

Five things a man shouldn't say to a woman during sex

"What's for tea tomorrow?"
"Oh by the way, the cat got run over this afternoon."
"Did I ever tell you that Aunt Agatha died in this bed?"
"I've just thought of the answer to 3 down, I'll be back in a tick."
"Is that it? Can I go now?"

Chat soon

Ta ra.

"Lego is NOT for Posting in the Video Recorder Dear!"

At least there is some success in the UK economy with the toy-maker Lego reporting a 51% rise in UK sales today on BBC News. This has great memories for me because as a young child I had a biscuit box full of Lego pieces.

I can remember saving my pocket money for weeks and going to Barker's Toy Shop in Cottingham to buy a tiny box of red bricks 'eight dots' long. The long bricks gave stability! I played incessantly with Lego and I bought my kids loads of Lego when they were young, but the product had naturally changed over the years. Little figures are now available and all sorts of extras and add ons with moving pieces and flashing lights, themes such as pirates and witches. I remember a thrill at getting bricks that had wheels on which meant I could build cars!

Does anyone remember the boy's toy Johnny Seven? It was a multi-purpose gun type weapon which fired spring loaded plastic bullets and grenades and let me tell you my Action Men figures got a real raw deal being constantly bombarded the long length of our Victorian hallway. Me at one end protected by piles of coats and my action figures with their impotent plastic guns surrounded by a cardboard fort at the other end.

I loved books and drawing. As an only child living in a three storey Victorian house, I also enjoyed exploring although there was one room, as a child frightened me. The door was in the middle of a wall on the stairway between the first and top floor. What I didn't know was that it was the water tank room, but of course no-one ever told me and it was always locked with a key in the lock. What or who was being kept prisoner in there? I always ran past it, never dwelling anywhere near it.

Well today, our kids have their imagination stretched to the full by the variety of entertainment and intelligent toys and computer based stuff which they can interact with - perhaps parents have been able to abrogate a little of their responsibility to interact with their kids as they get older. Who knows.

"Anyone who can hate children and dogs can't be all that bad,"
WC Fields

Chat soon

Ta-ra