Jamie123 Posted September 13, 2016 Report Posted September 13, 2016 (edited) Do you remember "Spangles"? The correct answer of course is: "Yes I do, but so what?" Well aside from being a watchword for lazy nostalgia (along with Space Hoppers, "Super Flight Deck" and the Six Million Dollar Man), it seems the "gypsy woman" put silver ones in her eyes! Why? History does not record. (I think it must have been rather painful and sticky.) Something else for the "frighteningly weird" file? Seriously though, I used to buy the fizzy ones and put them inside my Lego space ships for the crew's supplies. More than Spangles though I miss the old Victory V's which had chloroform in them. I used to drool over them. I'd eat a whole packet of them at one sitting. They still do sell Victory V's in some chemist shops, but "sans ether" they're not the same. One thing I don't miss though is plastic pencils. (I'm not talking about mechanical pencils here: I mean those pencils which look like they're made from wood, but it's actually plastic and it bends and twists in your hands and feels horrible.) I would go to the stationary shop at college and ask for "a wooden pencil". The guy would give me a plastic one. I'd say "No, I want a wooden one". He's say "That is a wooden one." I'd say "No it isn't, it's plastic". He'd say "It looks like wood to me." I'd say "Well it's not."...Etc...etc. If you heated up a plastic pencil you could tie it in a knot. The lead was flexible too. I don't know how they did that - maybe it was graphite powder mixed with some sort of binder. It didn't "grip" the paper like a wooden/graphite pencil would: it would slide oilily (is that a word?) across it making a bit of a smear - nothing like the crisp line you'd get with a proper pencil. As for toys, there's nothing that will ever beat the old, original "Mouse Trap". The one that had an actual metal spring to make the "helping hand" tip the thingumajig and make the bowling ball fall into the bathtub. The cheaper version you could get in the 1990s might have worked OK, but it was never the same. (And what was the deal with collecting those cheese pieces? Anyone would think the joy of building a true Rube Goldberg Machine wasn't enough!) But...if only....if only we had back then the battery-powered helicopters and aeroplanes kids of today enjoyed. We tried so hard to make free-flying battery-powered models, but the batteries were always too heavy. Some kids went in for something called RTP (short for "round the pole" - a kind of aviational version of Scalextric) but I always thought that was rather naff. (Not that Scalextric wasn't a wonderful toy - even though you did spend more time tinkering with it to make it work than actually playing it. Which reminds me I must get a set for my daughter some Christmas soon!) Edited September 13, 2016 by Jamie123 Quote
anatess2 Posted September 13, 2016 Report Posted September 13, 2016 I saw Spangles on the title and I thought you meant this: Quote
Jamie123 Posted September 13, 2016 Author Report Posted September 13, 2016 6 minutes ago, anatess2 said: I saw Spangles on the title and I thought you meant this: Hmmm....spangle jewellery? What happens when they all melt into sticky goo? Quote
anatess2 Posted September 13, 2016 Report Posted September 13, 2016 (edited) 11 minutes ago, Jamie123 said: Hmmm....spangle jewellery? What happens when they all melt into sticky goo? Our spangles don't melt easily dude... bangles could - lots of them are made of thin plastic. To be honest... I've never heard of spangles candy. If asked what candy was my favorite as a kid I'd probably say bazooka - with the comics wrapper. hah hah. But bazooka is a gum, not really candy. Edited September 13, 2016 by anatess2 Quote
Jamie123 Posted September 13, 2016 Author Report Posted September 13, 2016 2 hours ago, anatess2 said: To be honest... I've never heard of spangles candy. If asked what candy was my favorite as a kid I'd probably say bazooka - with the comics wrapper. hah hah. But bazooka is a gum, not really candy. I used to like the comics in Bazooka bubble gum too. I remember one time my brother and bought a load of Bazooka, and found out afterwards that the comics were in German. We had hours of fun trying to work out from the pictures what the German words meant! Blackmarch and anatess2 2 Quote
anatess2 Posted September 13, 2016 Report Posted September 13, 2016 20 minutes ago, Jamie123 said: I used to like the comics in Bazooka bubble gum too. I remember one time my brother and bought a load of Bazooka, and found out afterwards that the comics were in German. We had hours of fun trying to work out from the pictures what the German words meant! Another awesome use of the comics wrapper is to make into bangles! It looks much cooler than the juicy fruit wrapper bangles! Jamie123 1 Quote
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