How I wanted one. When I had a son of my own, I thought my time had come. When he was four, I got him one for Christmas. In the run up to the big day, he saw one advertised and said "look dad - there's the thing that you want!". It was a sad, lonely journey taking it back to Toys'r'us.

...on the school run. One of the other dads has one, who incidentally is Zulu.

Needless to say, he is the coolest dad imaginable.

The mystical combination of strong lager and eBay means that I have collected a lot of the things that I wanted but couldn't afford with pocket money as a lad. Lots of flashy ESCI model tank kits, Westone guitars and BOSS pedals, ABU fishing rods and reels, Uniroyal Keenfisher waders, Takamine acoustics and plenty more bits and bobs.

I have a Herman Miller Eames lounge chair and ottoman. And a Stokke Gravity. Both things I lusted after as a young man.

I had two pinball machines in my front room for a couple of years. A Whirlwind and a Twilight Zone.

These both had to go.

Because I grew up and got married and stuff.

And Mrs L won't let me have the thing I still want most.

I want a drum kit. I'm probably a shitty drummer. I don't care. I want the chance to prove it.

I also want a load of analogue synths.

And a D-type Jag.

And Fiona Bruce.

All too expensive, though. And Mrs L woul probably veto the last one as well.

I had a Chopper when I was a youngster. I failed the Cycling Proficiency Test,and the police officer overseeing the the test said that the bike was the reason why.Too unstable or something. I can also remember that anything other than a moderately steep hill required me to get off and push.Stupendous weight (the bike,not me)and the 3-speed Sturmey Archer hub saw to that.

when I was a kid was only for rich kids - I still want one 40 years later!

You could have had a go!

(The car that is)

but I bought one this year.

I'm really not a car person, but I would dearly love one of these.

So I got one. And how quickly the novelty wore off.

Now, I just long for a quiet life. It's all I ask. Plus, a nice no-pressure job would be good too.

For a me, a ZX Spectrum, purely as it was the only 80s home computer that hosted the best games of a generation - Jetpac, Atic Atac, Manic Miner - a ludological litany of crystalline gaming brilliance. And I wanted me a piece of this - all my pals had one which meant that getting hold of games would be no problemo. Still, times were hard and lean in our house, but in the run up to Xmas 83 I was asked what I wanted for Crimbo. "A Speccy please!"

I told my mam where to go to get one, how much it would be and acted all counter-intuitivelike so as they would be no slip-ups in its acquisition. On Criggy Morning down I bound the stairs to find the solitary present, rightsized parcel and everything, and I opened it up.

It was a fucking Oric 1.

An almost Faustian scenario. Now, if I've had some temper tantrum along the lines of 'where's me Speccy?', I'd have gotten a truly epic battering so I just gave a muted 'ta' and tentatively put the question later on in the day, 'so didn't Smiths have any Speccys?', to which ma answered 'they did, but the salesperson said this is a better machine and that this has a proper keyboard'.

Anyone who remembers the Oric will recall that its keys were the size of Tictacs with an acre of space between them, meaning it was possible to stab the keyboard with a digit and not hit any bloody key whatsover. No games either. Clearly someone at Smiths saw the slowly moving pile of Orics in the backroom and decided we need to offload these to some mouthbreathing braindonors at the earliest oppo.

Other than for doing some coding in BASIC for school (in Oric Basic no less, '4 Preset Sounds!' of ZAP/SHOOT/EXPLODE/PING which all the sounded the same and made the white noise generator sound like it was on the fritz), it hardly got used. Mmmggnnnnahhh!

they were indeed the height of cool. When I were a lad in the 70's on our estate there was a hill with a path leading down to a playground, so to impress the girls, I'd go to the top of the hill and zoom down on the chopper into the park at "a hundred miles an hour" or so I thought, and do either a wheelie or speedway style skid.

Problem was with the Chopper that the gears used to slip a lot causing many a bashed shin bone as the pedals whacked back at you. One day as I spied a rather charming bunch of young ladies playing tag with my sister in the park I decided to go full throttle down the hill, I peddled furiously, lifting myself from my seat to get an extra Evel Knievel boost. The pedal slipped, I fell forward onto the bar, gonads crushed on the gearstick legs sticking out to avoid the spinning pedals. I did manage to steer myself away from the roundabout but crashed into a brick wall where I rather pathetically dropped to the ground surrounded by a worried sister and decidely unimpressed girls and assorted classmates and pals.

I can't have children and to this day I believe that bloody Chopper was the reason..!!

Right now I really want a good Kenwood mixer and all the bits. My mum's had a Kenwood for about 40 years and it's still going strong.

Other things are a cold smoker for the garden. That'd be great. And a nice Wusthof carving knife and cleaver to match my existing set. Oh, and a new kitchen because mine's shite.

And after that, a "Grifter"? Is that what the junior Chopper was called? Or even a Telecaster...

The junior Chopper was surely the Tomahawk? The Chipper was a bit smaller again. Matryoshka style, I think there was one even smaller than that called the Budgie.

I remember a very cool five-gear Chopper that I always pined for. (I had a dodgy old one that came out of an ad in The Ilford Recorder.)

Weren't Grifters the proto BMX jobbies that Raleigh put out after the Commando?

...and a Cadillac.

Although not at the same time. The Chopper was the first edition with the unstable design ( but much more fun than the 'safer' second version ). You could have any colour you liked- as long as it was yellow, green or orange. Mine was orange.
The Caddy was an old Fleetwood Brougham from the mid-Seventies which I bought on a whim and drove around until it eventually ran out of gas. That took about four miles.

The tall, nervous-looking blonde who gets on my train and proceeds to stare into space as if she's being held at gunpoint (I'm *reasonably* sure it's not my fault she looks like that...). Despite the thousand-yard stare, she's real purdy.

Oh... and all the Jimmy Campbell, 23rd Turn Off and Rocking Horse recordings. That would also be nice.

I'd like the free time that I had (and under appreciated) when in my twenties.

See, I'm not greedy - I didn't say the free time I had (and under appreciated) in my teens.

When I was in a low paid job for many years I used to stand next to the World Cinema section of the Virgin Megastore in Newcastle and covet the grey boxes of the Artificial Eye videos. They were always about £18 each and well beyond what I could afford.

I have a better job now and could buy some of them on DVD but it's not the same. I want the videos that I couldn't afford. I have about 25 that I've bought in various charity shops and boot sales over the years and they look great sitting on the shelf together. They have set me back less than £10 for the lot of them. Each time I find one and pay my 30p or whatever for it I think of those afternoons coveting stuff I'd never have and wander home with the bluebird on my shoulder.

Car Chassis set with a Flat Four Boxer Engine - never got it despite it being written in big letters on 3 years of Christmas & Birthday Lists.

I did have sets 854 (Go Kart), 850 (Fork Lift) & 8845 (Dune Buggy), but never the "Holy Grail of Plastic Brick Engineering"

Always wanted this. I was given the same scale Hawker Hurricane one christmas and had a great time putting it together. Although in the later stages I got a bit bored and it ended up a splodgy, gluey mess.

I'm sure I'd make a more considered job of the Spit.

I'm quite tempted to go and get one now.

Just to dick about with. I am not a musician.

1952 Vincent Series C Black Lightning – $160,000 o.n.o

a bit more affordable
A 1971 Triumph Tiger custom

But they look Cool as.It's all about the engines,never bettered and they are a thing of Beauty. British bikes were the best,end of.

Trojan Bubble Car

Oh how I'd love one of those, put some hefty subs in it and go a-cruisin' listening to Burial at full volume. Mmmmm.

Lovely 60s nymphette an optional extra.

Does anyone remember the Moulton bike from the late 60s ?

(IIRC it had 14" wheels - it was the uncool rival to the Chopper)

(Cant post a photo - sorry)

was the Millenium Falcon. I had an X wing instead which was great but...

Now I want an Aston Martin DB9 (or a Series 3 Land Rover which is probably more affordable)

a Super Nintendo. Then I wanted a Playstation. Then an Xbox. I finally got a PS3, but by that point I wasn't too bothered!

In the mid 1970s, my dad bought a new family car. It was a Volkswagen "Jeans" Beetle, which was bright yellow and had seats upholstered with denim.

There nine of us in the family - and this new car replaced the much-more-practical-but-expensive-to-run VW Camper van. My dad felt silly driving the camper van to work - so he bought this.

http://www.jeansbeetles.com/

It was quite a groovy car to have - but at the time, open laughter from strangers greeted it, sometimes - especially when multiple kids piled out of the back. The denim was quite good (it didn't get as hot in summer) but the lack of space was, eventually, the reason why it had to go.

Looking back now, I would really like that car again because, design-wise, it rocks.

So clever - just open a drawer and put the crocks in. 6 Sets in each drawer - so instant half or full load. Apparently out of patent now so stand by for cheaper copies.

I always wanted a quality hi-fi and have a better one than I ever thought I would. I have a couple of nice cycles which give me more enjoyment than I could have imagined. My final ticked box is a leica m6. I would like a really nice car (porsche 911, audi r8), a bigger house, huddersfield to win the league and a few more quid in the bank.

My pals and I used to count the days until we would sport one of these each (with fake red pocket hankie included)

http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?q=crombie&hl=en&gbv=2&biw=1280&bih=848&tb...

Instead we spent most of our time grubbing around in tatty hand-me-down Harringtons from older borthers. Never did get the Crombie *sniff*

excruciating, American-clothing-based pun, that I will never repeat, I might say, ah 'you 'ave a Crombie that fits'.