Airfix and Heller Models

Airfix Models readily obtainable at ArtXpress or Jeffreys Bay Artsupplies

Airfix is a UK manufacturer of plastic model aircraft and other kits. In Britain, the name Airfix is synonymous with the recreation, a plastic model of this type is often simply referred to as “an airfix” even if made by another manufacturer. Nowadays the Airfix sort is a subsidiary of Humbrol Ltd which was a company that produced paints and glues for scale models.

Airfix was founded in 1939 by a Hungarian businessman called Nicholas Kove, initially manufacturing rubber inflatable toys. The mark name Airfix was selected to be the first alphabetically in any toy catalogue. Due to the war the company didn’t start to grow until 1949, when it was commissioned to develop a model of the Ferguson tractor. The model was initially moulded in cellulose acetate plastic and hand assembled for parcelling to Ferguson sales representatives. To increase sales and lower productions costs, the model was sold in kit contract by F.W.Woolworth’s retail stores.

A few years later in 1954, Woolworth buyer Jim Russon suggested to Airfix that they supply a model kit of Sir Francis Drake’s Golden Hind, then being sold in North America as a ’truck-in-a-bottle’. The kit would be made in the more stable polystyrene plastic. In order to meet Woolworth’s retail charge of 2/-, Airfix changed the packaging from a cardboard box to a plastic bag with a paper header which also included the instructions. It was a prodigious success and led the company to produce new kit designs. The first aircraft kit was released in 1955, a model of the Supermarine Spitfire Mk.V, in 1/72 gradation. This was a scaled down copy of the Aurora 1/48 Supermarine Spitfire. Kove initially refused to believe the issue would sell and threatened to charge the cost of the tooling to the designers. This kit went on to become the single biggest selling aircraft kit ever made.

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Le Diner De Cons ( movie review)

Rating: 5 stars

Le Diner De Cons is certainly one of the worst, most hilarious French comedies. Whether you want to be entertained or you’re feeling on the low, Francis Veber’s videotape will make you laugh from the beginning to the end.

Pierre Brochant, ( brilliantly interpreted by Thierry L’Hermite), who works as an collector in Paris, has one of the weirdest hobbies you could find: during his sparetime, he and his snobbish friends organize dinners during which a bunch of chosen barmy people expose their passions. Of course, the chosen “idiots” have no idea about what is going on. At the end of the dinner, the majesty of the morons gets ” crowned” by Brochant and his friends.

This is how Francois Pignon ( remarkably played by Jacques Villeret), an accountant of the resources ministry enters into Pierre Brochant’s life. He is the perfect ” king of the morons to be”, at least in Pierre Brochant’s eyes. His passions for matchstick models is imagined to entertain Pierre and his rich friends at an organized dinner, along with a whole bunch of other ” idiots”. But things don’t labour out as expected…and Francois Pignon is causing more chaos than expected.

Enjoy the freshness of the comedy, the original play of actors such as Francis Huster and Daniel Prevost, the touch of human drama with Alexandra Vandernoot and Catherine Frot, snicker out loud at Francois Pignon’s stupidity.

Don’t rely on the English translation ( it is full of mistakes), rather bag the comedy’s funny French spirit. My advice: watch the movie in French, you won’t deplore it!

Copyright© by Isabelle Esling
All Rights Reserved

Source: The Eminem Blog

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Matchstick models News

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