Edwin and Angelina the newts.

The author collected a pair of newts from a neighbouring pond.

'They fondled each other, waltzed round their glass home, played hide-and-seek among the pebbles, and became so tame, they would eat any day from their keeper's hand. Alas! a day came when that keeper had to leave home for a short time ; in other words, the aquarium must be left to the tender mercies of a housemaid more zealous than wise. So when I returned, there was much to hear, though rather less than usual to see, for Edwin had disappeared altogether, and Angelina had laid a golden egg, which the foolish housemaid swept away by mistake!'




'No wonder the poor thing pined for the loss of husband and child ; indeed, she died at last, I thought, of a broken heart, and was immortalised in spirits of wine, with a suitable epitaph written on the label outside an old scent-bottle.'

*Images and text from:
S.M. Crawley Boevey, Chapter II, 'My Aquariums', Sunday Reading for the Young, Wells Gardner, Darton & Co, 1892

Koala Shoes

As a kid growing up in the 1980s I collected stickers. For a while anything with a sticker would make it into my sticker book (which I still have) including the labels from fabric softener, shampoo and assorted fresh produce. On each visit to my local shoe shop I got at least one Koala Shoes sticker. I only ever stuck the ones I had doubles of. The rest I collected loose and there are a lot of them. Here are scans of the most adorably dated ones. I'm not sure if they still exist as a brand.


These ones predate my own collection and were bought second hand at some point. However the one on the lower left was much later, maybe early 1990s?


Celebrating Australia's win of the America's Cup. He's so cute! I drew koalas like this for a while, with those eyes. Willy, Australia's mascot from the LA Olympics in 1984 looked a lot like this.


So 1980s :)


In the late 80s they changed from the circle, tabbed shape to squares.

It's rather ironic that most of the koalas - and this goes for the rest of the series as well - aren't wearing shoes!