TTAday

For a great start to the week, and the middle of this month, here are the latest issues of TTA Press' magazines, just received in today's post...

Interzone #254 includes my 'Laser Fodder' column of DVD & blu-ray reviews, and this is the line-up: 

After The Dark (5/10)
The Zero Theorem (7/10)
The Double (7/10)
Divergent (5/10)
Last Days On Mars (6/10)
The Changes (5/10)
The Boy From Space (5/10)
Mindscape (5/10)
Transcendence (6/10)

    KippleZone: also received
Ashens And The Quest For The GameChild
RPG - Real Playing Game
HK: Forbidden Superhero 

Sister mag Black Static #42 covers horror stuff and has my 'Blood Spectrum' coverage of movie & TV reviews:

The Raid 2 (6/10)
Bound (8/10)
Faust (5/10)
Lizzie Borden Took An Axe (5/10)
A New York Winter's Tale (4/10)
Killers (5/10)
Painless (6/10)
Blue Ruin (5/10)
Wolf Creek 2 (5/10)
From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series (6/10)
Penny Dreadful (8/10)

    The Werner Herzog collection
Aguirre, Wrath Of God (6/10)
The Enigma Of Kaspar Hauser (5/10) 
Nosferatu, The Vampyre (9/10)
Fitzcarraldo (8/10)
Cobra Verde (7/10)
Burden Of Dreams (4/10)

    Negativextra: also received
Miss Violence 
Elsewhere
The Battery
The Unleashed
Cheap Thrills
Wasteland
Almost Human
The Cabin
The Quiet Ones
Varsity Blood
The Captive
The Mirror
Attack On Titan
Werewolf Rising

Harriers

For a (slight) change, instead of another post about collecting diecast model helicopters, here’s the latest on my growing collection of Harrier jump-jets. 

My favourite airplane since childhood, I remember reading magazine articles about the original Hawker Siddeley aircraft, way back in the early 1970s. At the time, it seemed to me this was a sci-fi innovation, an S/VTOL jet fighter that could fly like something from one of Gerry Anderson’s genre TV shows.

The first seven planes I bought are in various scales. The all-blue version is a BAe Sea Harrier FRS mk.1 (circa 1982), an inexpensive but highly detailed Amercom model at 1:72 scale. My set of three Matchbox editions have (left to right) US Marines, RAF, and Royal Navy markings/ colours, but - of course - these are big-wheeled toys and not especially accurate models of the aircraft.

The silver-coloured Harrier II is another RAF variant, and the model is produced by Del Prado at approx 1:100 scale. The plane tagged as ‘NASA 719’ (on its tail-fin) is a Harrier AV-8C, one of two such aircraft used for testing and training purposes at the Ames Research Centre. This model was made in 2005 by Corgi, approx 1:100 scale, as part of their ‘100 years of flight’ range. There’s also a 1:72 scale edition of this, but (at £40 boxed!) I simply can’t afford to buy one. 

Finally, I have a large version of the AV-8 Harrier (built by McDonald Douglas for the USMC) at 1:40 scale. This model is 14 inches from nose to tail, with a wingspan of nine inches. Bought unboxed/ second-hand, the model has clearly had a bit of shelf wear, but it’s only been on display, not played with, so its condition is still very good. 

There are no manufacturer’s details on the model, but I found out that it’s made by Toy Zone, as part of their Air Power range - military replica series.