Some thirty years ago, our SKY Satellite Package included a a channel called Country Music Television.
You can learn a lot from Country Music. It is after all as Harlan Howard (?) said “three chords and the truth”.
One of the things I learned from a song by Billy Dean is that the difference between men and boys is the “size of their shoes and the price of their toys”. The promoting video showed men owning or looking at expensive toys such as Ferraris and Porsches and Harley Davison motor cycles.
The implication is that men do not really mature and are always childish. And that women are much more sensible and level headed than their menfolk.

Just ten minutes ago I asked my wife if she had any hobbies. This is something I should probably have asked on our first date in the Skandia in 1981.
She said she has no time for hobbies.
As a husband, I have always thought of myself as an equal opportunity employer and I always assumed that cooking, ironing, up a ladder cleaning the gutters, child minding and driving me around to take photographs of post offices were hobbies.
Turns out they are not.

Of course this is all a little tongue in cheek.
Women do have hobbies.
But organised hobbies…coin collecting, stamp collecting, football programmes, die cast Corgi and Matchbox vehicles, Subuteo and of course collecting plastic toy soldiers (my chosen vice) are largely male preserves.
Indeed when I wear my Star Trek uniform (red of course), it is mostly guys at the Fairs.
As being forgiven is easier than getting permission, I have had to come clean about some of the money I have paid for 1960s Manchester United autographs and programmes.

Slugger O’Toole has often made the point that women are under represented on this forum. Some would say that Blogging and Politics is a cold place for women. But I might make the point that Blogging is actually a hobby….no more no less (we are hardly professionals) and women are far too sensible to be involved in this nonsense.
I have asked my wife if she would like to blog and/or comment on Slugger O’Toole. You really don’t need to know the answer…but it was negative.

To be almost serious…Hobbies are a good thing. They sustained me in the 1970s. And in 2026, when Mental Health is a major issue, it is good that people can relax and do whatever they/we do.
The whole Men’s Shed movement for example.

As I have often said, I am not anti-social. But I am profoundly unsocial.
And herein lies a contradiction.
Hobbyists like me can be doing our thing in glorious isolation. And others are members of clubs and societies. I am a minimalist…in any hobby we do “need” some contact.

The problem is that when we have a hobby, we buy into a kinda group-think. If we like to ride horses we are going to have a lot of contact with people who hunt foxes etc.
And if we have a hobby that is militaristic in any way, we will meet some really strange people…even more strange than I am.

Of course plastic toy soldiers (54mm) is low level stuff. But consider the guys who collect memorabalia from the Second World War. The worse the cause, the more collectable. German uniform of course but also more personal items …paybooks, letters photographs…looted from bodies or prisoners and stolen or exchanged for cigarettes and candy from civilians in the ruins of Berlin. Shameful.

And of course people like to dress up. And the more controversial the cause or regiment, the more inadequate men like to pose in uniforms.

There is a kinda “group think” about Toy Soldiers. It is assumed that we buy into a set of values. It is inevitable that some collectors are ex-servicemen and equally the case that many like me are wannabee warriors.

In London in the 1980s and 1990s my accent could be problematic. The key is just do not say anything or if I do say something, do not say anything meaningful.

I never really engaged with fellow collectors. Of course Time moves on. I do not suppose that in 2026, my accent is a problem.

But I do no join groups in real life or online. There are a load of Toy Soldier groups and model making groups and some amazing displays and dioramas. And most profiles are fairly neutral but a disproportionate number in this hobby are politically to the right and some are far right …MAGA and Reform types.

Should it matter?

Well tonight I saw a diorama. Urban setting and the figures were police officers and the slogan “Support Law Enforcement” and a crude reference to Renee Nicole Good by ICE agent in Minneapolis.

Not so childish