Today I am going to share a couple of things from my boyhood that against the odds of parents giving away cos you're "too old to have it" somehow survived it to now.
I loved the wombles at the time, really I did having pictures, records and having watched the Tv series and here's my Great Uncle Bulgaria which is a late 1990's version as I think I lost the original like you do.
Also I found a C70 battleship made by Lesney of England in 1976 which is in very good shape with just a few marks on the underside. I wasn't really into war related toys much so I think someone bought it me (kind of forget who just now) so I took care of it putting it on a shelf when it wasn't played with.
I gave it a bit of a dust before taking this picture
Around the mid to late 1980's I did wear quite a bit of sports wear such as trackpants with baseball jackets while outshopping hanging out in sports shops like JD Sports and Hayden's in Hanley.
Well back then I was into Puma being a cat and the black non-shell track pants in particular cos they were easy to team up and dead comfortable.
I have an Adidas tracksuit which is handy especially if I'm on my hols but seeing my last separate pair of track pants were a bit worn from knee bending setting up my Minolta photography gear on the ground, I bought these Adidas Phoenix ones that arrived today.
They're grey in colour with white triple stripes down the legs which will key into t shirts I usually wear with tailored shorts or footie shorts because I really really want to Integrate my clothes rather than having separate piles depending on what I'm doing and things like the weather.
They tie fastening which is elasticated too which of you a curved spine like mine makes for a much neater fit.
I also ditched some t shirts that didn't really mix with the rest of my stuff be it casual or school wear and bought some white and orange plain ones and at the same time bought a new red school sweatshirt.
Whatever women and many feminists say, we boys are very different to girls and no matter how much you try to suppress it it'll come out so the fact he's totally captivated by the model sailing boat really ought not to surprise you.
At least his mother was of generation that even if was outside their own experiences she would engage with talking about his ship and taking him to place he wants to go respect this was natural, following his interests rather than trying to impose female norms on him.
Real gender equality begins when we recognize his needs are different to his sisters and both are met appropriately for each gender.
Well before Christmas I mentioned they'd be a hiatus in the Teenbeat articles and now that's over we're back.
This like most of them is connected to my past in as much as this artist Chaka Khan as part of the soundtrack of my life as I grew up (don't laugh!) with her sounds being on the radio as well as the emergent MuchMusic and MTV television networks.
Born Yvette Marie Stevens in Chicago, Ill. in the late 60's she took the name Chaka from the Yoruba word for 'fire' and following the break up of her marriage to an Indian bass player kept the Khan surname as part of her stage name.
Unlike most of her generation, her singing career didn't start via Gospel singing in the Church but more from her listening to Jazz and in 1972 she joined what became Rufus, a R&B band (when R&B had rhythm and blues) who signed to ABC Records recording seven albums as their lead singer.
By 1978 however the lead wanted to a solo career and so signed to Warner Bros working with producer and arranger Arif Mardin creating five albums together.
That is where she entered my life though the radio play given to her '45 "I'm Every Woman" where that voice and Arifs arrangements hooked me although ther 1981 album with "I Know You I Live You" passed the casual R&B fan.
By 1984 she was back getting column inches with the funk and electro influenced "I Feel For You" complete with turntable scratching helped by popularity of the previous years "Ain't Nobody" a product of the last contractual release with Rufus followed by the "This Is My Night" and "Eye To Eye" in 1985 which remain favourites of mine from that era.
What makes this compilation "The Essential Chaka Khan" attractive is it overs the whole 1978-1996 period completely so we get to hear tracks like her version of "End Of A Love Affair" (a Billy Holiday number) from the 1988 C.K. album, "Love You All My Lifetime" from 1992's The Woman I Am as well as tracks from her final Warners album Epiphany so providing a great oversight into her vocal abilities as well as a few raretities.
The sound quality is very good on this disc and as this is a budget double on Music Club Deluxe (UK) is inexpensive making a good introduction to her catalogue.
The year 2011 was a big one for me and this blog because I came to embrace more and more of what being LB really meant because the thing for me always was it was always on not being something you might do for a few hours, possible with other people meeting some place.
It's also how it is your responses to many things are essentially that of a boy, which no amount of added sophistication within your life changes so the extent to which I may know about current affairs makes me no more an adult than a comprehensive knowledge of gamin makes a fourteen year old on and when i was fourteen I knew about current affairs but at least then I was treated as that fourteen year old albeit one who was mentally ten.
What this year has shown is the extent to which I need within the limits of working, I need to switch back meeting my boy needs and break off from adulthood enjoying the freedom within boyhood to be me.
That to me isn't just about the material interests of this LB but also about getting outdoors, making adventures where the adult side is pushed back to enable the LB side to go forward enjoying the day the way that I did back then.
