2;- a POGO stick with non-brand name goalkeepers gloves…

and;- 3

… around 30 assorted He-Man actfigs (which as it turns out were bought from an adin the local paper for £25 “for a quick sale”) guess what my fave was?

Thats right the ‘keeper gloves, erm i mean the actfigs there were a lot of doubles in the group but they became my “gang” whom helped me to destroy my arch enemy “safe-combination-backpack -he-man” as this bugger was preowned he was unopenable but i made it my actfigs and myselfs mission to crack him assunder, we tried this by means of me dropping various things on “S.C.B.P.H.M” ’s backpack (which i later found out you could put CAPS in! Alas, my luitenant (the eye poppin’ Egon actfig from Ghostbusters) and i were frankly gutted, recruitment was in order so i harassed my sister into taking me back to the afore mentioned toy shop to get reinforcements (im starting to think this happened over several years rather than months as i previously thought) now a wonderful thing happened, i feigned paralitic fear (still due to the same virtual reality station) until made my sister bought me several “street fighter 2″ 6′ GI JOE actfigs, my cousin had RYU and KEN so i thought fuck it and got M.BISON and SAGAT so i could tiger uppercut his tits off, which is possibly my first nod to satan… ever.

I aslo cried ’til i got transport (some kind of missile firing, half-track, COBRA decal replaced cash-in vehicle) this evil-spewing extravaganza plainly wasnt enough to satisfy my troop replacement urges so i continued to sift through the GI.JOE wall (thats right, wall) until i came across an australian gent with a huge moustache/sideburn combo and a bandolier of hand grenades, standard GI JOE’NESS i hear you say, but what made him stand out was the massive “IM FREE IF YOU SPEND MORE THAN £15 ON GI.JOE PRODUCTS” sticker, he looked rubbish but free is free and the renamed half-track was apparently £400 on its own. The toy shop manager told us (sagat, m.bison, my sister and me) that the particular offer mentioned on “murphys” packaging was no longer running, but as you’re 8 and look like your gonna whine all day and your sister is 22 and female, that “on this occasion i can let you have the actfig* for free) i grinned, my sister grinned, we all went home. It turns out i’d picked the rubbish M.BISON in the turquoise outfit so he was demoted to “GRUNT WITH HAT” immediately, and SAGAT (although he has gnarly scars and an eye patch) was also to demoted because he was wearing shorts and had no shoes, even though i knew his name he became known simply as “MAAAAAAAAAATE” and was only ever refered to by name if he was dead/dying/falling off something/getting beat down by my cousins ken or driving the M.A.S.K motorbike into a wall.
Murphy became the boss of all my actfigs after a brief head to head with the “JEAN LUC-PICARD actfig i got the following summer, (i put them both in my VISIONARIES X-RAY-Y-WING THING and murphy came out on top, (i think it was the grenades that did it)

*he actually said “army men**”

**possibly imagined as thats what id say as “actfig” is crapo

Between us, murphy and me eventually got C.B.P.H.M’s B.P open, of course there was nothing in it, murphy and i have since had “creative differences” and i used an industrial staple gun to nail him to my subbuteo board, it made his wrists snap,i was 14, i really, really wish i hadn’t, but ive now based my sideburns/moustache combo on his in honour of a fallen comrade…i sold out to puberty angst and you paid the price murphy, you will always be the boss of my men!

(if anyone knows the actfig i speak and would like to send me an ebay page please do so as i now have a son of my own and i think it would be kinda cool if i whipped murphy’s son out on my kids 8th xmas and forced him to accept his leadership over his puny “super atriculated spider-man” don’t get me wrong, he’s alright,its just that murphys better.

jimmyomens@hotmail.com