Monday, 09:31 pm, 06 January 2003

Hobbies

I read non-fiction and history quite extensively, but I haven't maintained any traditional hobbies. Earlier in 2002, I began building a Spitfire. As a child, I was fascinated with RC planes although I could never hope to afford one. The hobby is very expensive and having completed the Spitfire from my own plans, I was confronted with additional costs to turn the balsa and paint into a fully fledged projectile. I have promised myself to do this in summer. Running after a plane or trying to fish the components of a plane out of a tree in the middle of winter, doesn't seem like something I would be willing to do. I am actually quite nervous about making my creation airborne.

In a more digressive move, I have returned to a childhood hobby of collecting and painting miniatures. A hobby that I could barely afford as a child. As a child, the lead miniatures were very expensive. I could not afford them new and would buy them second hand. The expense was increased because most miniatures were manufactured in the UK and the conversion between the UK and Australia was 1:3. Every miniature was three times more expensive in Australia.

But now being in the UK, I looked into all the companies that made miniatures with the view that any I bought would give me something other than the Nervana Project to work on and also be something I could pass on. My miniatures from Australia had been all-but lost or given away. Bar one which I have with me, in the open draw just under my monitor. He is a Warhammer 40k, Imperial Guard. The folly I fielded in Australia when I was about 13 were Squats or Space Dwarfs. They were an easy army to field because people sold them off relatively rapidly. For mowing lawns and painting houses, I was able to have a small force. I think I gave all of them away when my mother moved to Malaysia. They don't make Space Dwarfs any more. Just Imperial Guard, of the miniatures I had. So I have bought some Imperial Guard and when I have enough for a small force, I will paint them.

In Australia, wargaming was associated with sweaty dysfunctional men from 14 to mid-30s. They typically were antisocial, passive aggressive types who worked for the public service. My closest friend of my childhood was an avid collector of miniatures, in particular the Warhammer games. When he was about 20, having publicised the epic film, Shine, he took a job with Games Workshop - the makers of the Warhammer games. This was a somewhat surreal experience. Games Workshop is a very strange company. From the outset, what they sell doesn't really fit any category of consumable. They are a publicly listed company in the UK and their trade is lead figures - miniatures.

Games Workshop

In order to sell these lead figures they create a futuristic fantasy world and a medieval fantasy world where their armies battle. You would think that computer games would kill this kind of market, but their sales are stronger now than ever before. There has been an interest in fantasy toy soldiers - for want of a better description - for the past twenty years and there are tens of companies in the UK who produce miniatures. Games Workshop appears to be larger than all the others combined.

Games Workshop makes a quality produce which would sell in its own right without any additional hoopla. They have numerous stores through the UK, Europe, the US and Australia. My friend's experience was working through one of these stores. The Games Workshop stores have a very tight formula. You walk into a store in the UK or Australia and they will be exactly the same. The same sales technique. The same heavy selling. The same experience. For me, I associate this experience with my friend. I would go and visit him in the store on a Friday evening and we would close the store and go out afterwards. I would meet him in the store on a weekly basic for six months - I guess. Then he moved to Sydney to work in a store there. I think the consumerist, sales-oriented component of his job totally overwhelmed him. It was no longer about the hobby, it was about sales targets.

As an adult, who appears in his late 20s, early 30s, when I enter a Games Workshop store, the manager will be the only person who approaches me. He will say good day to me and ask me if I am looking for something in particular. He will then either personally assist me or pass me to a sales associate who will walk me through what I am looking for. It happens like clockwork. Typically they will pass me what I want within 30 seconds of me entering the store. I will be out of the store within two minutes. There is very little browse time.

I have realised that I am not the ideal consumer for their stores and they want me out ASAP. In contrast, because they start targeting the hobby to 12-14 year old boys, they prefer an atmosphere conducive to them. Younger buyers are interested in buying lots of different kinds of miniatures which they can try to cobble together into some kind of army. Older buyers want to create a defined army.

Childhood as memories of things that don't exist

For me, collecting miniatures is about something from my childhood. Living as I do, remotely, very little contact with family. No sense of community or social group, these kind of memories of my childhood - what my childhood never was, but something close - these things are important. Similarly, I don't feel that my childhood ever really existed. It is not about returning to Australia or doing anything to find the place I grew up again. Because everything has changed. Canberra now, is a place I will not see for a number of years. The areas I grew up in have already been re-developed. Buildings pulled down. The old reality doesn't reside there any more.

In 1999, I went to find the house my father rented in LA. It had been pulled down. Just behind Rhino Records on Westwood Blvd. No longer there. Whilst my mother's house still stands, my friends have moved on, the places I used to spend time have been totally redeveloped. The memories are just that - they are no longer a place.