Of all the toys in the catalogue, this is the one we can guarantee they’ll never bring back. The kid’s-plaything equivalent of a CFC-coolant fridge or leaded-petrol engine, the Mercury Maze was so-called because it contained a measured blob of everyone’s favourite poisonous liquid metal. ... more>>>

There can’t be many executive toys that were thought up by TV continuity announcers. Whither Paul “first on Four” Coia’s eight-ball decision maker, for example? Or Colin “Granadaland” Weston’s magnetic art sculptures? They don’t exist, of course, and quite rightly so because the notion of someone designing a desk-bound plaything whilst cueing up some witty introduction spiel for that night’s episode of Z Cars is, frankly, ridiculous. ... more>>>

The Queen owns one of these, you know. Bought at the British Industries Fair in 1954, she was reported to have dubbed it “amusing”. Presumably she couldn’t wait to set it off walking down the Grand Staircase at Buckingham Palace. Rumour has it that when, in 1982, Michael Fagin broke into the Queen’s bedroom and unburdened all his mental problems on her, she kept him occupied by delivering a physics lecture on compression wave principles illustrated with a Slinky. ... more>>>