There’s a whole range of anti-toys and anti-plush out there. Toys that upset and provoke. Art and design went head-on and produced this explosion of products. Stuff like Vortigern’s Machine, like the Gloomy Bear, like Uglydolls. It’s called Urban Vinyl or Street Plush. And now there’s a new term to stick in your dictionaries. Squash-plush.

It all started in Tokyo’s Harajuku area. A few designers were experimenting with quirky toys and then along came Michael Lau. He kick-started the whole Urban Vinyl thing. In 1997 he customised a bunch of GI Joe dolls. The trend then spread to the US and Europe. And now there’s a whole group of psychos designing urban vinyl and plush toys.

In the urban vinyl corner, there’s KAWS in the US, with his skull n’ crossbones motifs. Touma with his Hellhounds. There’s James Jarvis in the UK, www.james.jarvis He does all those ‘ironic’ figures like chavs with puffa jackets and Vortigern’s Machine. Another guy in the same vein is Pete Fowler, www.petefowler.com. I love all his vinyl stuff, like the Woodland Series he did with the dumpy jogger and the spliffed-out Festival Ranger. There’s Mori Chak and his Gloomy Bear, http://www.gloomybear.com. (Insert related products 4 (gloomy bear) photo here) A hunched over bear that looks like he’s in some serious need of seratonin. There’s Frank Cho’s Liberty Meadow’s trading figures. His smoking chimp is a good one. Nathan Jurevicius designs some acid-inspired characters, like the steroid-pumped Heenie resting on his wheel, the quirky Naal blowing bubbles out of his pipe, http://www.scarygirl.com. It’s weird. And that’s why I like it.

In the street plush corner, there’s the Uglydolls. You’ve probably seen them. They’re everywhere with their gap-toothed grins, and their vacant, squiffy eyes. There’s Pocket Ninja from Shawnimals. There’s Sigikid’s Borsen Hoch, a goofy, grey rabbit.

And now onto the scene limps the roadkill squash-plush stuff. Since I started out, I’ve been nosing around places like Playlounge, in Soho and Magma in Clerkenwell. They’re real purveyors of the peculiar. And I’ve been collecting things like Sigikid’s stuff, the Ugly Dolls, and Montana Fatcaps. I’ve also been snaffling through magazines like Juxtaposed and Clutter. They’re good for getting a heads up on the toy business. I could wang on forever about this stuff, but I’ve run out of