Omnibot’s Robot Root-Out: The Time Professor Heinz Wolff appeared in Loaded Magazine

Back in 2015 I uploaded a post entitled Page 3 Escapes Extermination? in which I speculated if The Sun newspaper had in fact dropped it's page 3 feature after 44 years (it had) and I briefly touched on the subject of "lads' mags" and general 'lad culture' which seemed to be at its height when I was an art student during the mid to late 1990's during this 'movement' there was one magazine that seemed to rule over them all, Loaded a men's lifestyle magazine first launched in 1994. Back in the day the magazine saw monthly sales of 457,318 and won PPA Magazine Of The Year in both 1995 and 1996 and was seen as the leading force of lad culture. Just for the record I've never regarded myself as 'one of the lads', I have no interest in football, I didn't drink lager- preferring cocktails. Never had a hangover but I was partial to an end of the night kebab and my 'clubbing' days were brief, effectively ending when I graduated from college. I rarely visited pubs, and if I did it was either a meeting point or they had a quiz that night and I certainly never used the term, “bird”. Never the less I would (occasionally) read Loaded and it certainly seems to be one of the many (albeit small) fragments that made up a time in my life called 'my art college days' a time made up of student grants, New Labour, Spice Girls, Play Station and Alcopops! Truthfully a lot, if not most of Loaded's content was lost on me, However, in what seemed prominently full page adverts for trainers, watches and aftershave and interviews with sports personalities, I did find amusement in its articles either devoted to amusing place names and signs submitted by its readers (we no longer had BBC's That's Life at this point) and porn lookalikes (photos from pornography that seemingly featured famous people) and not forgetting Now You're Stalking a collection of readers chance taken photographs with random 'celebs' which had me harking back to the days of Look-In magazine. But let's be honest here, as amusing as they were it was the ladies that featured within that was the main appeal here. They weren't naked so it wasn't pornography and so the magazine could be read on the train but the models didn't exactly wear long baggy jumpers either.

Anyway, moving on... as the countdown to the year 2000 drew ever closer the magazine seemed more like an auctioneers catalogue for wife seeking footballers (to me) and so my interest waned somewhat and with me now being a monthly reader of Bizarre magazine my limited student funds could not stretch to both publications.

The magazine's success continued without my casual support, but it would seem that the magazine's circulation had started to decline around the same time as the drop in my clubbing and late night kebab consumption. But it did hang in there, and for some time despite the changes in attitude and continued attacks from various feminist campaigners and groups sparking such moves as the one carried out by the Co-operative chain in 2013 who declared that they would only sell magazines such as Loaded if they were sealed in a plastic "modesty bag" prompting then Loaded editor James Wallis to describe the move by the Co-Op as “A very real threat to the free press and freedom of speech in the UK”, while the campaign group Lose the Lads’ Mags (who also advocated a boycott of Tesco for the same reason) accused the Co-op of not going far enough and called for the banning of the magazines from supermarkets altogether! It certainly seemed as if its' days were slowly coming to an end despite yielding to the modesty bags, dropping its photographs of partially dressed women from its covers and introducing its first female editor in 2014.
In 2015 the magazine reported a steep decline in sales mostly attributed to the decline of a specific form of 'lad culture' and the easy availability of nudity and pornography on the Internet and so (along with fellow lads mags FHM, Maxim, Nuts and Zoo) they announced that they would cease publication (the very same year Page 3 ended ) only to be relaunched as an online publication a few months later dropping the scantily-clad girl image in favour of breaking entertainment news stories and having, “strong, punchy news lines” while seeking to, “update the original edginess of the original 1990s editorial voice offering a sharp wit in amongst the informative tone of stories, whether it be on human interest news stories or entertainment news and reviews” putting itself forward as a “halfway house between the disposable clickbait of some sites and the more pretentious, unrealistically aspirational lifestyle choices of others”, far removed from its days of winning a VIP ticket to Wembley by sending in that photo of yourself with Paul Chuckle in the pub...

Anyway, I went off on somewhat on a tangent there! My loyal robotic assistant Omnibot while digging through my vast collection of items I have accumulated over the years (which he then lists on our eBay shop to raise funds for projects) found this! A single issue of Loaded magazine from May 1997 which not only features former page 3 , FHM, Playboy, Escort, Mayfair, Men Only, Men's World, Razzle and Whitehouse model whom would then go on to feature on Blur's Country House music video and become a television host for the Men and Motors channel- Joanne Guest 'Jo Guest' but also Professor Heinz Siegfried Wolff BSc. FIEE. FIBES FRCP (hon) FRSA!

Many of you will recall that Heinz was the world's first bio-engineer, director of the Division of Biological Engineering at the National Institute for Medical Research and Clinical Research Centre of the Medical Research Council. He founded the Institute of Bio-engineering at Brunel University for over 30 years naming only a few of his accomplishments but perhaps he was better known to us in Britain as the face of The Great Egg Race, but he was also a friend and helped/supported a few of my projects over the years. I would meet Heinz twelve years after reading this article which recounts the time “the scientist met the showgirl” in which they discussed all manner of things from aliens to cave paintings. I thought I would upload it on here for your viewing pleasure. Enjoy!

LIFESTYLE AND AMBITIONS 

Joanne: Do you just sit at home and invent things or do you ever just have sex and beer?

Heinz: [smiles]: On the whole, I never stop working, but that doesn't mean I don't enjoy myself. Drinking beer doesn't happen to be one of my hobbies, watching telly I quite like. Most of the things I do at work I enjoy sufficiently enough to carry them on home. Do you enjoy your work?

Joanne: Well, if it's like this sort of job all I do is get dolled up and drink beer, and I do that in my spare time as well.

Heinz: Yes but is it your ultimate ambition? When I used to be on television for what, about 30 years, I was on most weeks and had a a few series, and so a generation grew up with me and my face. And then it suddenly stopped in 1986 and I wasn't on any more. And I found it very, very hard to suddenly abandoned by the media. I would have thought this would be the same with a model, when people don't want to take your photograph any more.

Joanne: I know that's gonna happen. But with the money I've made I would want to be just as well appropriated but maybe in a business form rather than physical one.

Heinz: So what you are saying is that you want to make your pile and then you can choose? I wonder, what was it like when you were 15? How did your future look then?

Joanne: I wanted to be a hairdresser. I went to college for a year and then didn't want to be one after that. What about you?

Heinz: I don't think I ever had any doubts since I was a conscious human being that I would have to do something with science and engineering. I always had engineering in my blood, I was always making things. I knew it so well that I took a biological degree at university because I felt I knew engineering. Later on I went back to it and invented a new discipline called bio- engineering, when I was 23 or 24.

Joanne: Chemistry was my favourite subject at school.

Heinz: Oh really?

Joanne: Yes. Well not the amount you love it but I did understand it. This was at GCSE level, mind you. I had a chemistry set and messed around with the test tubes. I bet you didn't bother reading from the text books in your chemistry class, you probably did your own thing.

Heinz: Well yes, this is true.

BEAUTY

Heinz: If I may ask, and this away from chemistry, when did you realise that you were prettier than most?

Joanne: It wasn't at school, I was really quiet then. I think it was when the boys started fancying me, I thought there must be something right with me. Then I got offered work as a model.

Heinz: I used the word pretty in perhaps a way which is socially incorrect, one is not supposed to distinguish people by their looks. I have never consciously seen you before, but if you are asking me whether I'm interested in good looking girls and fashions then I would have to say yes. I am in fact extremely visual and I have no inhibitions about telling women or girls that I like the look of them. I mean, what is your job Joanne?

Joanne: Well, I would class it more glamour than fashion.

Heinz: For me, when looking at a well dressed, beautiful woman, for this to give me real pleasure, without giving any sexual overtones to it, it's like looking at a good meal, something which is well done, it;s the well done-ness of it which gives the pleasure.

Joanne: What about an undressed beautiful woman?

Heinz: Erm, haha, well... haha... huruumpph.

Joanne: Like in The Sun.

Heinz: I am aware of the Sun. They printed my obituary three years ago, which caused me a certain amount of embarrassment. In Sun language, it was perfectly correct. It would have been even better had I not had to take extreme measures to convince the world that I wasn't actually dead.

ALIENS & SPIRITUALITY

Joanne: I've got something else I want to ask you. Is there such a thing as aliens and other stuff like that?

Heinz: Well what do you think?

Joanne: Well I rely on people like you to tell me. 

Heinz: Now that's a cop out.

Joanne: Well alright, I believe in a spiritual world. I don't believe this is all there can be. But when you start thinking about the unknown and nothing's been proven, then it becomes belief. Like whether God created the Earth or whether there were dinosaurs.

Heinz: Well, God could have created the dinosaurs as well.

Joanne: But all the timing's wrong isn't it?

Heinz: But that's only if you believe what the Bible says. But then scientists are always asked, 'how is it possible for scientist to believe in God?' but the answer is simple. Somebody must have made the rules. Straight from the big bang to now, the rules were made up.

Joanne:What about aliens?

Heinz: Well my standard answer for this, because I lecture about this, life elsewhere itself may be dead common. (They drink their tea out of saucers then? - ed) Unambitious life like bacteria and amoeba. When you come to intelligent life like you and I. It's probably much, much rarer. I'll ask you this, imagine you open a newspaper tomorrow morning, a newspaper you trust, you open page three...

Joanne: And it's me.

Heinz: Oh OK, a proper newspaper. And it says for the last three years people have been receiving signals from space which proves without any doubt that there's a civilisation which is at least as intelligent as we are. Now how would this effect you?

Joanne: Well, er, I wouldn't immediately believe that they were aliens. Id believe more that it was coming from a spiritual world. And that's another debatable problem, whether there is a spiritual world. We've picked up vibrations that could be ghosts or could be radio waves coming from a cab.

DRINK & DRUGS 

Joanne: Do you ever get drunk?

Heinz: If I drink lots of alcohol the only thing which happens is that my upper lip goes stiff. It doesn't uninhibit me because I don't actually need uninhibiting. But the main thing is that I don't think alcohol tastes very nice. Out of a choice between apple juice and beer I would choose apple juice.

Joanne: But if I took you for a drink you would have some alcohol. So which would you have?

Heinz: Well, so not to upset you I would choose champagne or a glass of whit whine.

Joanne: I love beer too much. If I drink too much my legs just go.

Heinz: You see, I don't like to loose control. I couldn't do that. I only end up with indigestion with alcohol. I seem to be able to drink quantities of it that other aren't able to cope with. I have often been to parties where I have been responsible for everybody else going home.

Joanne: You should give your brain cells a rest for a little while. Have you ever tried any drugs from experimenting? Because I've only ever had a spliff and I didn't like it.

Heinz: No, never. I haven't even smoked too much either. I've no hang up about pills though. I've taken sleeping pills for the last 30 or 40 years.

Joanne: But they just make you unconscious don't they?

Heinz: No, no, I sleep well and wake up as fresh as a daisy. If I don't take them, I'm tired the next day.

Joanne: I've smoked a joint, I've not done any of the pills, Es, acid or whatever. Joints didn't work with the alcohol. I tried it once and it just didn't mix. It's just that my body starts shaking and muscles start twitching. I felt ill and I just didn't like it.

Heinz: So you don't like loosing control?

Joanne: No.

BIONIC MEN AND BRAS

Heinz: There's something that not a lot of people know about me but I'm actually bionic. I have a large lump of electronics in my chest. Because I was dead about three years ago, not for very long, but I was resuscitated and ever since then I've got a defibrillator in my chest. So if my heart misbehaves it gives me a huge electric shock to get it started again. Rather like hitting a television set.

Joanne: So is there anything you can't do?

Heinz: I don't know. It's never gone off yet.

Joanne: Do you peep when you go through customs?

Heinz: Well, they allow me to walk around.

Joanne: I had to go through the law courts one time after there was a story that Wonderbras make their detectors go off. Mine didn't go off though.

Heinz: Curiously enough, the metal which is used in Wonderbras we do quite a lot of work with for medical purposes. You see some bras have their support made of something called 'Shape Memory Alloy'. And this has an interesting property which enables it to memorise shapes. Is this interesting?

Joanne: Oh yes I'm interested in bras. 

Heinz: Well, I have no views on bras.

INSIGNIFICANCE

Loaded: Would you say both your jobs are important to life?

Joanne: [to Heinz] Mine's probably less important than yours. You're doing things for children, for the future. I'm just doing things for the moment.

Heinz: It isn't an open or shut question. If people open your magazine, or the kinds of things you do, and they're grants a moment of pleasure or happiness, I wouldn't have said that's an insignificant contribution to human existence. [All laugh, then Heinz to Loaded] That's an endorsement for you.

Loaded: What would you have been if you hadn't been a professor?

Heinz: I became a professor quite late in life, because I would quite have likes to have worked in an advertising agency.

Loaded: What would you have done Jo?

Joanne: Well, I tried my modelling while I was at college doing hotel management so it would have been ideal to have gone into that. If it hadn't worked out in the summer and I wasn't getting anywhere, I would probably have gone back to hotel management. In the first year I was cleaning the toilet and changing the beds and I thought 'I want to be a manager', but I would have been – I know.

FASHION & STYLE

Loaded [To Heinz]: As regards to fashion, does fashion bother you at all? I mean you've always gone for the dicky bow...

Heinz: You mean my own personal fashion? Or men's fashion?

Loaded: Do you take an interest in it or does your wife...?

Heinz: Yes, well my wife, I've been married for 43 years ad never did a moment, an occasion, pass without saying that I couldn't have done without my wife's support. And she's looked after me very well. She on the whole buys my clothes. I'm a stock size so it's not difficult. Men my age wear suits or they wear corduroy and sports jackets.

Loaded: How many bow ties have you got?

Heinz: About 100 I should think.

Loaded: 100?

Heinz: Yes, but they wear out you see, because my beard goes from above the top edge and I throw them away after a time.

Loaded: Do you have a lucky one?

Heinz: I suppose in the morning I go and say 'Well what sort of tie should I wear today/'

Loaded: Does it reflect you?

Heinz: Up to a point it reflects my mood. I suppose, also the colour of my shirt.

Joanne: Mine match my knickers, ha ha. To be honest I wear the underwear for work. I don't usually wear any the rest of the time.

Heinz: I don't believe you.

Joanne: No I don't, cos I think I might need it again for work the next day and I have to wash it again. I don't usually wear any.

HEROES

Loaded: Who do you most admire in life? We'll start with you Jo, you were saying Kathy Lloyd.

Joanne: Yes, I really like Kathy actually.

Loaded [To Heinz] Kathy Lloyd is another glamour model, she's a few years older. She's one of the most famous glamour models we've had in Britain.

Joanne: I don't think it's hard when you admire the work somebody's done and you meet them and become their friend. It's like... you share things...

Loaded [To Heinz] What about you?

Heinz: Obviously I met thousands of people in a year and there are great scientists I've met that I admire- particularly when they come to a lecture of mine. I was very chuffed when an 83- year-old molecular biologist, a man who's won the Nobel prize, a fellow of the Royal Society, came to one of my lectures.

Joanne: I think you admire people for different reasons. I admire Madonna for her boldness and her ability to express herself. I admire David Seaman for saving goals and for being the gentleman that he is. I admire Mother Theresa. You admire different people for different reasons. I admire Kathy for keeping with it all the time.

LOVE AND ROMANCE

Loaded [To Heinz]: The other thing I was going to ask was about love and when you first met your wife, what wooing was involved then?

Heinz: Remember this was 40 years ago things were a lot more sedate in those days.

Loaded: There was lots more wooing I'd imagine as well.

Heinz: Yes, oh yes. My wife and I met...

Loaded: What attracted you to her?

Heinz: That she was a beautiful woman. In those days, nurse's uniforms were exceedingly flattering...

Joanne: They still are today!

Heinz: With a bow under the chin and a starched caps and those lovely cloaks which were red on the inside and blue on the outside. That I suppose drew my attention in the first instance. We went out together and in a good old- fashioned way got to love one another. It all happened in Wales, at this particular hospital in Wales where she was working. Courting habits then were quite different. Loaded: Do you remember where you were for the first kiss?

Heinz: Yes, I remember. I could take you to the spot. It was in a town called Caernarfon, and there's a park. I think we'd been to a dance hall or a restaurant and that day in the park I plucked up the courage for the first time.

Joanne: It sounds so much more romantic. I mean, it wouldn't even be a kiss now, it'd be a snog and a one night stand. It's so unromantic.  

PUBLIC ENGAGEMENTS

Loaded: What are the next jobs that you're doing? The reason I ask is that Joanne's got an interesting job to do this week. Tell us what it is.

Joanne: I'm speaking at the Oxford Union...

Loaded [To Heinz]: Have you got any advice fr her?

Joanne: scary.

Heinz: What is the motion? What are you speaking about?

Joanne: They've invited me to speak about myself...

Heinz: I see, so it's not a debate.

Joanne: I imagine the ladies there are going to make it quite difficult... they'll all go 'model' and...

Loaded: It's the subject of Jo's life.

Heinz: That's right. Because what normally happens at Oxford Union is that there a motion that 'This house deplores beautiful women getting more money than ugly women' or something like that- you could have been speaking on that. It's very unusual I would have thought, I mean it's quite an honour to be doing it.

Joanne: That's why I'm doing it. I'm excited but I'm really nervous because I've got to do a 15 minute speech and then question and answers after that because I'm on there for an hour.

Heinz: Really! Have you made up your mind what you're going to say?

Joanne: I don't want to cover all the answers to their questions in the first 15 minutes, so it's just 'Hello, thank you for inviting me' and do the history of the pin-up, which is something like 'The pin-up has been around since man began...'

Heinz: Yes, I suppose pornographic pictures are a form of pin-up. I think the pin-up is really a product of the First World War. I think before that because of the effect religion on population, it would have been very naughty.

Joanne: Cavemen, they had naked drawings of women on their walls...

Heinz: They were probably not pin-ups. They were for fertility.

DESERT ISLAND PANTS

Loaded: The last question I was going to ask and then you can escape back to your laboratory- is if the pair of you were stuck on a desert island- it's a hypothetical question- and you've got meals and all that, who would do what to survive?

Heinz: To whom are you putting this question?

Loaded: To both of you, you've got to fend for yourself, you've got to survive...

Heinz: I would kid myself that because, I've read books about it I would probably be better at making myself a flint axe or finding a sharp edged sea-shell or something like that than Joanne would.

Joanne: If I was going on a bat or a plane I'd have a pair of white knickers in me bag case. I'd tie them to the top of a stick and wave it. Just sit there and wave me knickers!

Loaded: Thank you both.

Story by Pete Stanton and story photos by Derek Ridgers

© Arfon Jones 2020. All images are copyrighted throughout the world. 

Omnibot’s Robot Root-Out: Big D ‘Babe Boards’

“...Deep under Arfon’s studio lies an extensive collection of random artefacts thirty years in the making. His robotic assistant Omnibot has been assigned the mammoth task of excavating the collection. What will Omnibot uncover today...!”

A New Year and Omnibot’s found a new haul! We thought the first Robot Root Out of 2020 was to be about Snoots, a series of 80 cards produced by Continental Candy in 1989-I loved these! Each Snoot card featured a different character design and was divided into three categories Snoots Nose Kids, Snoots Nosimals and Snoots Nosy Bodies. A short bio of each character depicted was written on the back of the card but the main ‘feature’ of these things is that each one has a small nose shaped hole in the middle of the card for children to push their own noses through and complete the image! Great fun! However I have been unable to find locate further information about them, who devised them? The artist responsible for the designs and so on SO we have decided to shelve them until such details become available (if you can help shed some further light on them e-mail me at arfon@arfon.net) so instead we are devoted this post to another card related collection that I have.
But first (as is often the case with these things) a back story... Growing up, I was part of what could be considered a large family, with numerous grandparents, aunts and uncles spread all over the county and so weddings, wedding anniversaries, christenings and birthday seemed a fairly regular outing  and these would (more often)  take place at various strategically placed /convenient hotels,  restaurants  and family friendly pubs. These family occasions could be tedious if there wasn’t a play area (back in those days a swing or climbing frame) our parents would give us what change they had to either go play an arcade machine or buy a Coke or packet of crisps, whatever it took to keep us quiet. The later, seemed the most regular however and the late adolescent me had a particular penchant for Smiths Bacon Flavored Fries (still do) as it seemed I could only get them at these establishments I would always scan the wall behind the barkeep to see if they stocked them (still do) but this particular occasion they only sold nuts... and that was when pre-teen Arfon discovered Big D peanuts, or more specifically the way Big D peanuts promoted their products. The Big D peanut girl!

Having first been introduced to the UK in 1967, Big D (Dallas) would have been just another peanut company supplying their products to the pubs of Great Britain had it not been for the ingenious idea of introducing the ‘babe board’ in 1975 a cardboard display that contained 24 packets of 50g packs of nuts which could be hung on the wall behind the bar, but (and this is the clever bit) each time a pack would be bought more of the Big D girl’s photo on the card itself would be revealed- a very clever idea!  Never depicting actual nudity, former computer operator, South End girl turned model Beverley Pilkington was the first Big D girl having previously appeared on Page 3 and numerous Top of the Pops album covers (more on them some day) “Big D Bev" was the.... face of the brand also featured on the company’s promotional items including playing cards and calendars such as the 1979 one ‘Sporting Nuts’ which had her posing with various sports stars of the time. But it was the ‘Beverly Cards’ themselves that proved to be the real hit with the public, making a star out of Beverly and assuring great success for the company until the campaign was eventually dropped during the seemingly more politically aware times of the late 80’s.  

 The company claimed in 2003 that they had been losing £500,000 a year since the campaign had been dropped and when they reintroduced it with Page 3/ ‘lads mag’ model Ruth Higham in 2003 they saw sales rise by 35% securing the future of the company, which employed “about 140 workers” as you can imagine the re introduction of the Babe Board was met with criticism in which Rob Wooley, of Trigon Foods defended, claiming it was not offensive, declaring "There's a bit of cleavage but no nudity - it's just a bit of cheeky fun." It seemed that many a model aspired for the title of Big D peanut girl as reported in a Wigan Today in an article published in 2010 reporting on one such hopeful, Louise Royal, one of the five finalists whom had beaten “hundreds of wannabes across the country” in a contest in 'lads mag' Zoo hoping to replace the then board babe and Daily Star Sunday babe Malene Espensen and secure a four year contract with Big D.   “Middlesex marvel” Page 3 Rosie Jones was crowned Big D Babe having  successfully completed a series of ‘Babe Hunt’ challenges including “proving she could pour the perfect pint” now the face of the brand also posing for Big D’s calendars with her third “and steamiest! “ calendar released in 2013 donating 10% of profits from all sales to Balls to Cancer – a male cancer awareness and research charity.

Now fully embraced by 'lad culture' and following on from their 2012 ‘finger footie’ campaign the babe board campaign was given a 21st century spin in 2013 allowing pub goers (via a “branded beer map”) the chance to play interactive pub games online and upload a photo of themselves with Rosie (whom had been voted fourth in FHM’s twenty sexiest women that year) to their social media pages. But like all good things, this was short lived, as the D peanut girl went the same way of the Page 3 and Lads Mags becoming extinct in 2016 with the company distancing itself from the 'girly' image and using simple colored backing cards indicating the flavor of the nuts be it Salted, Dry Roasted, Crunchy BBQ , Crunchy Chili, Honey Roast, Birds Eye Chili, Mixed Nuts & Raisins or Natural nut products and mixes... Was it inevitable? I guess it was. Is it shame?  I think so, as I regard it to be a very clever sales gimmick. But whatever your thoughts you will find these original cards in our eBay shop - money raised from our eBay auctions help fund all my creative endeavors and the YouTube channel.  Any questions you might have get in touch, Omnibot is only too happy to oblige!

I will add Big D haven’t purged their Facebook page as they have with their official website, so if you dig deep enough you will find an unlimited source of images devoted to their campaigns since its reintroduction and a occasional fond look back over the Big D Bev days.

© Arfon Jones 2020. All images are copyrighted throughout the world.

Tenth Anniversary Recap: 1) Omnibot,Your Plastic Pal Who's Fun to Be With!

This will be the tenth anniversary of starting this very blog and we are just 30 posts shy of reaching the 400^th mark so in the run up to that tenth anniversary 400^th post milestone I thought I would recap some of the popular posts of the past 10 years. 

When things had become rather hectic for me in the studio I enlisted some help and that help was Omnibot! Having always wanted a robotic sidekick Omnibot (full name Omnibot 5402 RX also known as the “state of the FUN robot”) he did not disappoint. Although he had been in my employ since February that year (after some minor repairs), I devoted a blog post to him on the 5^th of September 2018 mentioning how he carries and retrieves objects, answers the phone, sends faxes, brings refreshments and leaves birthday greetings for friends on social media along with the mammoth task of excavating and cataloging my extensive collection of collectibles and memorabilia for our Omnibot’s Robot Root-Out series before listing them on eBay to raise funds for projects and of course not forgetting playing back archival cassette tapes for the YouTube channel! 

Omnibot gathering my Honey Monster merchandise collection 

As for future updates, not much to tell really he’s still archiving my collection and listing on eBay (time of writing this he is rounding up my collection of Honey Monster merchandise as requested by Kid (right) along with my collection of Snoots cards) but following on from our staff outing to Hooters last December we hope to see him out and about more, so keep an eye out for that.  On a personal level, I have derived great pleasure from this ‘seemingly’ forgotten robot range and always relish discovering more about them, for instance- did you know that Omnibot once appeared in the Beano? 

On May 16^th, 1987 in issue number 2339 Omnibot did just that, appearing with Dennis the Menace in this strip that coincided with the comic’s Tomy competition! Although the cover promotes a "free competition", with Omnibot as first prize (and R.A.T.S. action figures or a Knitting Machine as runners up prizes) the contest would not officially launch until the following issue. In the story drawn by legendary Beano artist David Sutherland we find Dennis, jealously watching Walter the Softy with his robot (planting flowers) wishing he had enough brains to build an Anti-Softy robot when he receives a phone call from the Beano editor- Sure enough, the editor wants Dennis to test out the new Omnibot robot! Dennis makes full use of Omnobot’s remote microphone system having him declare “Out of my way Softy!” before knocking Walter’s robot into the fish pond and loudly blaring a cassette of Dennis and the Dinmakers! We also learn that not even Gnasher’s sharp teeth can make a dent to Omnibot’s outer casing before Dennis’s father intervenes, snatching the remote from Dennis and getting Omnibot to fetch him a glass of milk. The strip was nothing more than a promotional tool for the competition but still a lot of fun never the less!

My sincere thanks to Gavin Williams for bringing this to my attention. 

© Arfon Jones 2019. All images are copyrighted throughout the world.

Omnibot’s Robot Root-Out: Rap Rat The Video Board Game

“...Deep under Arfon’s studio lies an extensive collection of random artefacts thirty years in the making. His robotic assistant Omnibot has been assigned the mammoth task of excavating the collection. What will Omnibot uncover today...!”

Omnibot found another curio for our eBay shop, this time it’s from 1992... Back in the early 90’s an Australian company, Couple 'A Cowboys (originally a television production company established in 1983 by Phillip Tanner and Brett Clements) was making waves in the board games market (a market that had previously struggled to compete with the highly lucrative video gaming market) with their new interactive VHS board game Nightmare (known as Atmosfear here in the UK). The board game incorporated the home VHS player, a host on screen would ‘interact’ with the players cracking jokes and throwing insults!  When it was released in Australia in 1991 it was an instant hit, selling one hundred thousand units in its first year alone (five times more than Trivial Pursuit). Backed by a heavy television and cinema marketing campaign and promotional Dance Parties the game broke all records for board games and by the mid 1990’s it was the most successful advanced board game in history and with the international acclaim it gained it became Australia’s biggest entertainment export since Crocodile Dundee! (I covered this game in more detail in a previous post, find the link here) Although the follow up games were doing equally well, Couple 'A Cowboys tried out another line, aimed at a younger audience...  

Rap Rat on screen despite the VHS not actually being in the VCR....  

For many years we visited the Royal Welsh Agricultural Show as a family and for many of those years I frequented the acres of stalls they had there. I would spend hours weaving through various marquees and promotional stalls, each one with representatives pushing their products and I was always happy to take whatever free sample, promotional sticker, hat or Logobug they had. One time I was approached by a woman who asked if I wanted to play, “a game?” thinking nothing of it (simpler times!) I asked “What sort of game?” “It’s called Rap Rat!” she said, “it’s a new game and we are looking for 4 players to play it” she pointed to the stall she represented and I moved closer to it. It was a very unassuming marquee with a table and a game set up for 4 players in the middle but on both sides of the tent were TV sets playing footage of a puppet rat with a Max Headroom like stutter, already familiar with the Atmosfear game and the whole VHS game format I was intrigued, I took an interest in the video and game’s packaging as they tried to round up another 3 players to play this game for two to six kids who “just want to have FUN!” we were promised a “RAT-tastic” time and plenty of “RAT ‘n’ Roll” with its illustrated game board, coloured dice, 6 “cheese” playing pieces and 4 cheese jigsaw pieces oh and the all important 60-minute VHS cassette (written, directed  and produced by Couple 'A Cowboys) containing 3 X 15 minute games (which increase in difficulty) staring the one, and only Rap Rat...  A latex 'Rappin’ Rodent Puppet (that for many years I thought was voiced by Enn Reitel but in fact voice credit is given to Paul 'pj' Johnstone and Doug Willimas) “with a lot to say!”. The object of the game is essentially a race against time, collect all 8 pieces of a puzzle and fit them together in the frame before Rap Rat eats all the cheese on the TV screen. I played the game and I recall it being fun, but I left feeling a little underwhelmed and I remember walking away with a voucher that granted me money off the purchase of the game thinking how much better it had been if I had actually ‘met’ Rap Rat himself or even got a free sticker or something... 

"Got an ‘A’ in attitude and lots of Rattitude!"

I don’t think the game did as well as Atmosfear as very little information exists about it online (apart from Creepypasta videos about rap Rat himself) it is certainly a very, unashamedly “Totally Radical” 90’s product, but if you remember it the first time round or just want to check it out for the first time, check out our eBay store and get this very one- money raised from our eBay auctions help fund all my creative endeavors, any questions get in touch Omnibot is only too happy to oblige!

© Arfon Jones 2019. All images are copyrighted throughout the world.

Omnibot’s Robot Root-Out: Garbage Pail Kids

“...Deep under Arfon’s studio lies an extensive collection of random artefacts thirty years in the making. His robotic assistant Omnibot has been assigned the mammoth task of excavating the collection. What will Omnibot uncover today...!”

While I’ve been promoting my new Glow- In the Dark Monster StickerClub Omnibot has been doing his bit to raise funds for the studio and discovered another curio from the  80’s...Garbage Pail Kids! There cards/stickers are probably the earliest things I can remember obsessively collecting they were disgusting and my mother didn’t approve of them so naturally I had to have them!  You might even say they en-Grossed me... First produced by the trading card company Topps in 1985 based on an idea by cartoonist Art Spiegelman these cards served as a parody of the phenomenally successful Cabbage Patch Kids dolls that to say were all the rage would be an understatement! For those of you that weren’t there at the time and unaware of Garbage Pail Kids they were essentially cards that featured Cabbage Patch dolls either deformed, as monsters or just being anarchic, smoking, vomiting and picking noses (but in humorous ways and beautifully painted!) As kids we would share them among ourselves and comment on how disgusting they were- each one had a different name (condemning any unfortunate child that happen to share the same name as one of the cards to having to live with that nickname) they even had ‘humorous’ licenses and certificates you could give your friends on the back!

RECONSTRUCTION 

One such day I noticed some older kids hanging around some garages we had near us, because I had numerous run-ins with these bullies in the past and had no intention of encountering them again I picked up the pace, ignoring their name calling. Thankfully they didn’t pursue, this was because they were preoccupied by another kid my age that had a pile of Garbage Pail Kids on him and these older kids were looking through them. I bought my cards and made my way home worried that those kids were still there and as I reached the garages I was delighted to find that the bullies (and kid) were nowhere in sight. It is at this point I learned that even at the age of 7 I had some understanding of the mind of a bully! Following a hunch, knowing that these lads were effectively ‘gits’ I peered through a crack in the garage door and sure enough on the floor within was a pile of Garbage Pail Kids all over the floor! The bullies had taken the kid’s cards and thrown them into this garage! It was at this point that I looked for a branch and proceeded to pull as many of the cards back towards me, collecting quite a haul! Now I’m not sure if this made me a child physiologist or a petty opportunistic thief (you decide!) but I was very pleased with myself, I had amassed the entire run of the Garbage Pail Kids cards by using my head and for the first time ever I actually benefited from bulling (actually the more I think about it this was all wrong wasn’t it?!) but anyway moving swiftly on I would spend hours looking through my collection committing them to memory (more so if they were the ones my mother thought were disguising!)

34 year old bubblegum...

The cards, Art Spiegelman along with fellow cartoonist Mark Newgarden worked together as the editors and art directors on the cards with artist John Pound producing the art itself. 15 individual series of cards were produced through to 1988 even producing various other spin off products such as sweets, badges and poster books. There was even a live-action movie based on some of the characters (often considered to be one of the worst films ever made... not by me!) and an unaired animated TV series – however the card series lost its momentum somewhat when they yielded to a lawsuit with Coleco, the makers of Cabbage Patch Kids who sued for trademark infringement.  Now no longer looking like the original cards, kids lost interest and the series ended (Trying it one more time in 1992, this time going after the Norfin Trolls craze and creating the short lived Trash Can Trolls series) it seemed like the cards were just a distant memory until 2003,when  Topps reintroduced Garbage Pail Kids with all-new artwork in their ‘All-New Series’ and they have been producing new cards to this day- but those original first three series will always have a special place in my heart, I am confident that they played a big part in making me the well rounded monster obsessed, gross toy collector and artistic individual you see today!

Did you collect them? Can you remember your favorites? ‘Got any swaps? If you sold yours and want to start collecting them again check out our eBay page and pick up a few! By buying from our eBay shop you are supporting my work! If you have any questions get in touch and Omnibot will endeavor to help you!

©Arfon Jones 2019. All images are copyrighted throughout the world.

The Fourth arfon.net Christmas staff party

December is here again and the annual tradition of the office Christmas party has been and gone and a good time was had by all! “But wait a minute here, this guy is self employed isn’t he?” you say; well you must be new to arfon.net!  Four years ago I asked why should the traditional ‘office do’ only be available to workforces higher than a one?  So back in 2015 I decided to do something about it and organised the first ever (I think) lone workforce arfon.net Christmas staff party!  With no minibuses to chase up, no quarrels, bickering or ill feeling between employees the plan was flawless and provided  some much needed festive cheer and this year’s was no exception!  But, there was one slight difference to this year’s party, oh yes! Those of you that are regular to this site will no doubt be aware that arfon.net’s work force has increased by 1 this year in the guise of my new robot sidekick Omnibot 5402 RX! Omnibot has been here in the studio since February proving himself to be an essential member of the team answering the phone, bringing refreshments, leaving birthday greetings on social media and of course not forgetting excavating my vast collection of collectibles and offering them up for auction to help finance projects and artistic endeavors in our new feature Omnibot’s Robot Root- Out.

Those of you that follow this site closely will also know that Hooters of Nottingham has hosted each Crimbo shindig since the first. “Delightfully tacky, yet unrefined” and located at the Hicking Building on London Road this is the only Hooters in the only UK and they always provide great food and service. We (along with Mrs Jones, my +1) were shown to our booth by a Hooters girl dressed as a snow woman who seemed taken by Omnibot! Having made the inevitable “pulled a cracker there” joke we did just that! My cracker contained 3 golf tees, a joke (“What do you get when you cross a snowman and a vampire? Frostbite!”) And the essential paper hat (blue) which I wore as did Omnibot (red) as you can see in this obligatory selfie (first picture- I’m the one on the right) oh, Omnibot’s cracker contained a plastic stencil and his joke was “What’s bad tempered and goes with custard? Apple Grumble”( apparently he had heard that one before)Mrs Jones had the same joke and gift the paper hat was blue.   

After the Secret Santa gift exchange (I got a Mr. Rogers Funko Pop figure and he got a rather snazzy NASA sticker) our  Christmas lunch arrived the boneless Hooter’s chicken wings with Cajun sauce for me and half rack ribs for Mrs Jones and Omnibot had the curly fries and it was delicious and highly recommended. Like all good things the party came to an end and as we made our way out Omnibot insisted that he have his photo taken with the Hooters girls! This photo will now be pinned to our arfon.net Christmas staff party bulletin board! Big thank you as ever to everyone at Hooters of Nottingham for playing an integral part in our little tradition, the warm welcome and great food and for helping make this staff party a Holly Jolly one! Merry Christmas!

Previous Parties

The First arfon.net Christmas staff party

The Second arfon.net Christmas staff party

The Third arfon.net Christmas staff party

© Arfon Jones 2018. All images are copyrighted throughout the world.

Omnibot’s Robot Root-Out: Arfon meets Big Daddy

“...Deep under Arfon’s studio lays an extensive collection of random artefacts thirty years in the making. His robotic assistant Omnibot has been assigned the mammoth task of excavating the collection. What will Omnibot uncover today...!”

Omnibot discovered some great curios one of which is from 1987 when I was 8 years old and my father took us as a family to the Arfon Leisure Centre in Caernarfon, North Wales to see Big Daddy wrestle. I wasn’t a wrestling fan myself but I would watch ITV's World of Sport wrestling coverage (it broke the monotonous gap between No 73 and the A-Team on a Saturday) but being a ‘casual’ wrestling fan aside I was a child of the 80’s and so naturally knew whom Shirley Crabtree, Jr. AKA Big Daddy was. Standing 6ft 2 inches and weighing in at 26 stone (according the 1984 Big Daddy Annual) and armed with the biggest chest in Britain measuring 64 inches (according to the Guinness Book of Records) he was a regular face and name on television.
I remember being ushered into a dark, loud room filled with people. I could see the ring but only when the spectators remained in their seats (I eventually stood on a pool table in the corner) as we watched Big Daddy ‘fight’ equally famous Giant Haystacks (Martin Austin Ruane 1946 –1998), and to be perfectly honest I remember being somewhat underwhelmed by the event then my mother took me into the corridor. As I asked what we were doing there when a massive hand landed on the top of my head! I looked up to see who this hand, which seemed bigger than my entire head belonged to I saw a giant smiling down at me it was Big Daddy! He made his way down the narrow corridor and took a seat behind a small table at the end of it, on the table were three photos and my mother instructed me to pick one and I picked this one of him holding a pig and the big man then signed it. It’s a distant memory, vague in parts but that was the time I met Big Daddy.  

Not long after that he delivered his famous ‘Daddy Splash’ to Mal "King Kong" Kirk who sadly died shortly after and although an inquest maintained that Kirk had a serious heart condition which could have proved fatal at any given time Big Daddy still blamed himself and so went into semi retirement from wrestling as the UK turned its attention to the world of American wrestling on Sky Tv. Although people’s opinions seem divided on his actual contribution to British wrestling he was without a doubt a part of British life for a time because if he wasn’t popping up as a guest on something he would be in Buster or adverts promoting Daddies sauces. His very name would be used by others as a way to determine the size of something. I will always have this memory of him. Who ‘Orsen’ the star pig was I have no idea, let me know in the comments if you do!

Omnibot also found this!
Following Big Daddy's death, some of his effects were put up for auction at Sotheby's on the 10^th of July 1998 and one of those items was this very singlet, his name sown on (by his wife) we are now offering this magnificent piece of British Sporting memorabilia up for sale on the eBay page, follow this link to find out more and own a piece of history!
Proceeds help to fund my work.     

Dedicated to Shirley Crabtree, Jr ‘Big Daddy’ (14 November 1930 – 2 December 1997)
© Arfon Jones 2018. All images are copyrighted throughout the world.

Arfon’s Studio: Meet my new assistant - Omnibot!

Things have been rather hectic here in the new-look studio, so much so that I enlisted some help and I’d say that an introduction is long overdue! Please meet my new assistant…. Omnibot!

You might be asking, “Arfon why a 30 year old robot?” well, firstly don’t be so rude! Secondly I will remind you of the 2010 Equality Act prohibits discrimination against an employees' age and thirdly this little guy was once part of the high end of TOMY’s home entertainment robot line back in 1984 and heralded as a “state of the FUN robot” ok he doesn't understands the binary language of moisture vaporators or speak Bocce, but he is both fully programmable and he has a built in memory along with a digital clock, alarm, cassette player and the ability to record/ playback and convey messages not to mention carry and retrieve objects! Now when you combine all that with his sleek futuristic design there can be no doubt that Omnibot 5402 RX is everything an artist on the go needs from a state-of-the-art-assistant! 

When he first came to me back in February he needed a little TLC and minor repairs to his battery connectors and seeing as the Omnibot Service Department at TOMY UK in Surrey had long closed its doors I took it upon myself to perform those much needed repairs on him and I am happy to report that he is now in full working order and we hope to add some new and exciting upgrades in the foreseeable future! As I said he has been in the studio since February and proved himself to be a very useful PA, some of the more astute of you may have already spotted him in the background, answering the phone, sending faxes, bringing me refreshments or leaving birthday greetings for friends on social media, but rest assured once those previously mentioned upgrades have been added Omnibot 5402 RX’s role will increase further! But until then please say hello to my new robotic sidekick!

Omnibot 5402 RX helping me out with one of my paintings

Omnibot helping out during the 24 hour Shark-A-Thon

Tiki Night at the studio!

Movie Night!

Omnibot feeding Darwin 

Omnibot tells a joke!

Omnibot sings!

© Arfon Jones 2018. All images are copyrighted throughout the world.