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Street Furniture w/Electronics & Umbrella (35647) 1:35 MiniArt via Creative Models Ltd The busy streets of most Middle East towns and cities are often dotted with furniture and people sitting there, drinking tea, smoking a Hookah, and generally watching the world bustle by. In Modern Middle East, most of that furniture is moulded plastic, which is lightweight, cheap and difficult to break, unless it’s been subject to frequent hot/cold cycles such as those of Britain, which makes them brittle and perfect “You’ve Been Framed” fodder. The people-watchers tend to be older men or women, but that’s not always the case, and they sit around either watching TV on a small portable set, drinking, smoking and even playing board games to ward off boredom if the streets go quiet. An almost constant feature during the day is bright sunlight, so patio umbrellas with heavily sun-bleached canopies are often seen providing splotches of colour amongst the hubbub. This set contains just the sort of gear you would find in the description above, and arrives in a small top-opening box with twelve small sprues in grey styrene, two more in white, a single clear part, and a double page folded instruction booklet with three different canopies printed on one page and some TV pictures that you can use. Four of the sprues contain a patio chair with back and arms, one on each one. There are also two patio tables with separate legs that take up two more sprues, four sprues making up the umbrella, metal limbs and the weighted base, into which the adjustable centre-pole slots. When the parasol is built and the glue dry, you can glue one of the paper canopies in place, or use them as a template to make one of your own from another material. A wooden coffee table with curved legs fills another sprue, and the final grey sprue has a portable TV, ghetto-blaster, a hookah and portable backgammon board with pieces crisply moulded into the board. The TV is made from a front and rear part, but it also has a clear lens that can be glued into the front after you have placed one of the eleven TV screen images from the instruction booklet. I have tested them in place, and they’re really quite convincing. The two remaining white sprues contain a plate, a tray, a selection of three jugs and teapots of different sizes, three tankards, and three cups with separate saucers. Conclusion A great set to help you depict a candid scene either in the Middle East or somewhere in the rest of the world really, thanks to the ubiquity of such simple furniture and the cheapness of plastic injection moulding. relegate the hookah to the spares box and you could be anywhere from the UK to Russia. Highly recommended. Review sample courtesy of