I found some nice stuff in what I call the 'second best case for 2009' - a good year that was!
Amongst the items were a couple of stretchy things which I like;
I don't do that much with them, although the next one I'll show is better,
but this one's got a funny face on it, and you can pull it downwards to make the eyes go long
and languid, and pull it out this way to make them go wider; and kids have tremendous fun.
I thought it could inflate as well, but I can't find anywhere to actually inflate it. You just
hang it from a little hook there, and it dangles down. It's almost big enough to skip with;
I don't know whether kids could do that; but it's certainly got a lovely feel to it. A slightly more
purposeful use for this stretchy stuff is this one here, which I thought was very clever use of it.
This is a kind of octopus, well it is an octopus because it's got eight legs, eight tentacles;
I'll see if I can get it up to camera and you can see it's funny little face.
So the point is that the legs stretch like that, or let's do a couple of them, stretching like that;
and when you set it spinning - it's one of these spinners - the centrifugal
force makes it spread out, so that's what's going to happen! There you go...
I'll just hold it there...
Right there we are... It's making a nice noise too, can you hear that whirring noise?
If I turn it sideways, you'll see it actually expanding; it's very faint and ghostly like,
but there's definitely an increase in size of the octopus. There we are...
and that very very faint ghosting green circle has expanded by at least three times the original,
due to the fact that each of those tentacles is stretching out, they're being pushed out by the
centrifugal force. So very nice use of stretchy material to make an expanding octopus! Well,
there we are. Here's something that was sent to me, made up I think by one of my friends; I can't
think who it was, but it's a lovely idea. It's just a whole series of those nice bulldog clips
that you use for holding paper. Let me get this up to camera and see if I can get it into focus...
It's very very cleverly interlinked, and obviously you can go on adding pieces to this, to make an
enormous piece, I think. The top bit I think will sort of spread and then pull out like that;
it does a bit of movement, but the idea is it's a static structure really, but you could make
a big one I suppose. And of course you can do it with much larger bulldog clips as well,
so but it's rather fun to have that scaled down to the smaller size, and gold was very
nice for a colour. So I'm pleased with that. Now Patrick Hughes, who I've known over many years,
sent me something that he was sent but didn't want to keep. It's a ruler, but this is very
nice lenticulation - look at this... Now, if I move it back and forward it's lenticular, there's
a man over there skipping... let's see there's another one bouncing the ball between two hands...
this is a hula hooper there, and then bouncing a ball on top of his
knee... and a scooter... and even someone doing the bongo drums...
oh, and a uni-cyclist, there we are, on a uni-cycle; so a very nice animation thing,
very well done, and I'm very pleased to have that from Patrick, because I think it's superb.
Here's something that we did for a few years in our shop; this is Bärenpresse, who make
wonderful cards that animate; but this is the most expensive one they made, and the most interesting
I think, because this has got a lot of action. It's a musical trio, and there's a dog underneath;
and watch what happens when I pull the tab - action everywhere! Look at that - his two hands
move, the bow moves, the guitarist strums, and the dog's tail wags back and forward furiously;
very nice! When I opened the card inside... perhaps I can show it to you, because it's got
the most wonderful intricate things happening - look at that! All those bits and pieces...
I can hardly hardly get to grips with it, but there's lots and lots of tabs there,
which are doing different things. If I move this back and forward you can see the action like that.
Wonderful! Wonderfully done! So a beautiful bit of artwork, and fun to see both sides actually.
Very nice, very pleased with that;
And I think that's the lot for for today; it's a very useful case that 2009 one, because I
think I've got enough for four or five films from the same case, things that I haven't seen
for a long time, and many of them have been overlooked, and that's what I like finding -
overlooked items which you won't have seen either as well so... more to come!