Ravensburger puzzles are always top quality and this was no exception.
Knowing little of London and having been there only once, doing this puzzle encouraged me to do some research about all those Trafalgar Square statues. Turns out that two of them are largely forgotten Generals (Napier and Havelock, if you must know) in India at the time of the British Empire — yes, that long ago! At the National Gallery end of the square stands King George IV. Oh, and the Invisible Man is on the fourth plinth. Did I mention Nelson? Well, Nelson’s there too. (Oops, ‘scuse temporary oversight.)
I also spotted a political demonstrator holding a sign saying ‘Free Tibet Now’, which got me thinking: Ravensburger sell their puzzles all over the world — including China. Do they, I wonder, delete the little fellow with the Tibet placard? It would, presumably, be easy enough to do, so I’m assuming that’s what happens. Maybe there should be another demonstrator inserted in his place, with a sign reading ‘Free the tiny puzzle protestor now!’ Could it be time to start a petition, do you think?
Danny Burn (or Byrne, if you prefer the spelling on his own website to that on the box lid of our centuries-old Waddingtons puzzle) is an excellent cartoonist. His work has appeared in numerous newspapers and he was accepted into the Royal Society of Portrait Painters in 2008.
Paul Lamond Games are still going strong after 25 years and we have just done one of their Spot the Difference puzzles. Each completed puzzle has 33 differences between itself and the picture on the box lid. I spotted the first twenty-odd differences and Shana spotted the rest, which is good, because, this being another of our ‘pre-owned’ purchases, the answer sheet was missing.
Oh, er, and Shana also finished most of the sky after I got all my clouds mixed up.
The 33 differences, for anyone else who is without the solution to this puzzle, are as follows: Continue reading →
Dick Bogie‘s humorous tour de force, ‘The Great British Seaside’, is in the tradition of the great British seaside postcard. Little donkeys try to give rides to oversized women, swimming costumes become mysteriously attached to the ends of fishing lines dangled by men on the end of the pier; and, inevitably, dogs run amok, scattering both sandcastles and sunbathers far and wide. There’s danger in the fairground, too, as the sign next to the ferris wheel boasts of its being ‘not the biggest, but the fastest’, and people are flung off into the path of ravenous seagulls and oncoming hang-gliders.
Only at a Dick Bogie seaside does it fail to rain all week, but then who needs slippery pavements? In a Dick Bogie cartoon life is dangerous enough already.
