Oh to be a child...

tattoo, originally uploaded by Ampersand Duck.

Check out the cool tat on Bumblebee's back. He got it in a showbag years ago, and I found it under a pile of papers when I was trying to clean up my deep litter style office today.

In retrospect I should have put it on his front, because he can't really see how cool it looks apart from the photos I took. But it does look better on his back. It's a lovely, smooth, child-skin back, and the bird is gorgeously glossy (at least until it starts cracking and flaking off!). It should impress his friends tomorrow at school. It impresses me.

He's playing with some of our Mighty Max Collection. He and I have been collecting Mighty Max toys for ages. They are the most imaginatively designed toys I've ever seen, and if you can find them with the miniature figurines intact they are hours of ghoulish fun. They are spin-off toys for an awful, awful American cartoon that only lasted one season, and the toys are waaay better than the original concept. We find a lot on ebay, but there's always something lurking at the local trash'n'treasure market.

Bumblebee and I had an exhibition at the art school about 18 months ago, in the library showcase. It features fun collections inbetween serious student shows, and we put everything up, with proper labels. It looked terrific. In fact, I might hunt out a few photos from that time and add them here:

Mighty Max Skullmaster box. You can see the real thing in the picture above. They have comic strips on the box to show you the sort of action Max is getting into!


"Mighty Max Squishes Fly." The titles of the toys are always descriptors, not names.


This is Mighty Max himself. He's about 2 cm tall, and his feet make a particular shape. This is so that everytime you see a double footprint in the toy, Max can fit into it. The fun is looking for the footprints.


This is a Lava Monster, and everything about him can be a vehicle or a weapon or a hiding place or a secret laboratory. See the two other figure at the front? MM tries to be educational as well -- Max time-travels with a Viking Warrior (Norman) and a weird little yoda-like figure called Virgil. They meet baddies in places like ancient Egypt and the jungles of the Amazon. We're making up a story where they meet Dr Who.


"Dragon Island", with it's own bomb-carrying dragon (go figure), a life-raft and various hideaways. you can aso see it in the first photo with Bumblebee.


Finally, Bumblebee in his best granny-knitted jumper, in the winter of 2004, checking out his first ever public exhibition.