TEDDY BOY

t’s funny how things change given a few years isn’t it? It doesn’t seem so long ago that collecting stuff wasn’t considered all that cool, be it stamps, comics, magazines… or those cards that they used to give away in bubble-gum packets and boxes of tea bags…actually those were so long ago we’re positive that no one aside from a few of the grey-haired crew remembers, even though those actually bordered on passable collectable credibility. On the whole though, having a pile of pre-war coins or heaps of diecast toys was reserved for nerdy trainspotting types with a steam locomotive fetish and a compulsion for wearing anoraks. Accumulating old stuff and hoarding it in dark corners was the preserve of the past, not really what the current demographic of Generation Z or Generation Alpha… or whatever the new trendy young things are calling themselves nowadays were into. If it didn’t come down the information super highway three seconds ago it’s history, and history is old news and so yesterday. But if there’s one thing that the lords of the new church of the Internet have taught us it’s that it’s all about perception, everything can be cool if you sell it the right way… substitute weird and dorky for quirky, kitschy or kooky and the next step is eccentric… before you know it you’re in the land of eclectic, rubbing shoulders with hipsters and “influencers” soaking up social media respectability. A case in point, the weird nutter at the end of the avenue with half a dozen rusting heaps partially obscured by ripped to shreds tarps is now a “collector”, a connoisseur of automobiles with a YouTube channel and an Instagram account… only seems like