h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Have you ever come across Play Doh? That, like plasticine, comes in various colours and you can use it for modelling. I think it's softer than plasticine.

For some reason, which I now forget, I once made some purple Play Doh for my son when he was little. We ended up with purple Play Doh everywhere!

You have done much better with Plasticine. I like your Gromit and Feathers McGraw.

Yes, I have come across Play-Doh - I like the smell of that much better It is indeed softer to model with, but it dries out quite easily so the small amount I did get didn't last half as long as the grey blob of plasticine

Interesting that it is possible to make play dough A1134073 - I never tried that, though.

Glad you like my efforts - it is very pleasing when things turn out as imagined

I remember Play Doh. I also remember Papier mache, which I used to make dinosaurs and other creatures. I remember the mint abstract that I put into the flour and water paste, which made the results sort of weird .

If I remember correctly Play Doh smelled horrible - I couldn't stand it, so never used it but Plasticine I did. Me, my brother and cousins used to make figures then throw darts at them; Japanese soldiers in the jungle with Errol Flynn (my brother sketched his face on the Plasticine, in Indian ink). We also set up a Battle of the Bulge scene in our back yard. I made a German tank out of cardboard and cotton reels for the wheels, cut up lolly sticks for the tracks and a doweling rod for the cannon.

I further remember that we also made Plasticine knights. Cousin Richard, known as Itch, made a Norman soldier with a triangular shield made of wood which was so big, you couldn't see his figure let alone hit it with a dart. Perversely my cousin Mike shouted out 'Everyone get Will's shield' so we all threw darts at the youngest cousin's Plasticine man (When we played Germans and Americans, his figure got hit with a fatal dart and he said it was only a flesh wound, so I threw my next dart and it went through his man's eye. All hell then broke loose as he started stamping all over the Plasticine men...he was never a good loser).

Mike also made a robot, with a clear cellophane panel, behind which was a load of beetroot juice for blood. He was very creative and for one Halloween, made a three foot papier mache mummy, to carry round the streets. It was wrapped in bandages, had ping-pong eyes and a hole in its side, containing a dead spider. He now earns his living as a miniature paintings, artist. My brother is a talented sculptor, my youngest cousin plays blues guitar very well, I write (so I'm a failure, so what?) and Richard is the least talented of us all but earns his living as a male nurse as he was the compassionate one.

This as you can imagine was more than I meant to mention but memories brought up in old codgers is hard to suppress