Lost & Never Found Again: Badges And Plastic Babies

I had a pair of Sparks badges, Kimono My House-era, that I bought on Ebay when I first got into Sparks. (Yes, I was a latecomer). I loved them dearly and wore them on my green winter jacket. A few winters ago, I went on a trip to Amsterdam with my friend Zoe. When we got off the train from Schilpol to Amsterdam Centraal, there was naturally a huge group of people, and even as we were on the platform, I realized that I had lost my Ron badge, but it was too late. There was not going to be any searching around on the ground with such a massive hubbub. I like to think a Dutch Sparks fan found it and they lived happily ever after.

This is a story from a much more un-PC time in Britain. . . When I was young, maybe somewhere between the ages of about seven and nine, I collected these little plastic baby figurines that you could get from my local department store. They were about an inch and a half long and they had flimsy fluorescent nappies (translation: diapers). The white ones were ten a penny. Most of the ones that they sold were white babies. The brown ones were a little bit rarer, and infinitely cuter. If you collected a certain number of babies, I can’t remember if it was all white babies, or all brown babies, or perhaps even a combination of the two, you could get a black baby. Those were the most coveted. I only ever had one black baby. I loved it and I remember bringing it to Florida when going to visit my grandparents one year. I was convinced that I had lost it there, but we searched and searched, and the precious black baby was never found. In retrospect, it may have never made it past the plane. But every time I go back to visit, I retain a glimmer of hope that I will find my little black baby.
—Alex Arnott