The Christmas edition

Well, now were officially in it, here's my Christmas edition for this year where as ever I ramble on about Christmas as it lived by me.

The first thing to say is Christmas for me is first and foremost a littles affair, practically a children's one starting with the great anticipation, the week before and building up on Christmas Eve where I sat with Mummy watching the Carols from King's concert on tv in one of my Pinafore Dresses before eating.

I was wake around Half past  Six Christmas Day with anticipation about which list of Santa's  I was one, hoping it wasn't the naughty one, getting washed and dressed  to comedown stairs (in our family you absolutely never come down stairs without being properly dressed, ever) and fix breakfast.

It wasn't long before the sacks were found and surprisingly I wasn't on the wrong list (with a bag of coal and a voucher redeemable for free smacks) so I started on opening them.
There were a number of Annuals, those perennials from my childhood where you got a softback book featuring cartoon strips from your favourite comics, extra features, quizzes  and games.

As the initiated know, I do read this comic a lot loving the adventures of Minnie The Minx, Dennis The Menace and the Bash Street Kids so here's this years annual.

A comic I used to love but has folded from weekly publishing was the Dandy with Korky the Cat and Desperate Dan of Cow Pie fame but they do specials such as this years annual so I was mighty glad to get that one.

This was a special compilation in the "Classic series" that came out for fans of the beano and dandy with reprints from WW2 where even with restrictions on paper quality and how frequently it could publish due to the paper shortage, comics played a part in keeping children's spirits up.

But the biggest surprise was yet to come.

Yes, my parents actually surpassed themselves and bought me this Grafix Build your own Teddy Bear kit that you stuff, sow the back and badge onto and fill out the Birth Certificate for!

I mean, you couldn't get so little with me me if you tried as this suitable for anyone over five bear you can carry around with you hugging after completion.

After going out for lunch, I got changed into my shorts coming down the stairs in the late afternoon watching tv for a bit before we had a light evening meal as I was feeling a bit full.

One of my brothers forget his present so he's due to come back with it sometime soon while the other one realized he forgot to give my my main present so money that'll go toward some more shirts as I go through my closet replacing  and updating clothes.

Christmas pause

Just a few more posts to go before the end of year and as I'm slowly getting there, here's something for all of you




































Wishing everybody a Happy Christmas and all the best for the New year.


Regards, Chris

New bedrooms for past lives

Reimaging the bedroom of a younger me had we not been stuck in the lino floor clad late sixties and early 70's in a Dinosaur themed setting because back then bedrooms were not really themed with prints, mobiles and even beds!

It's very practical with storage spaces for toy cars and action figures although I had a radio back then and there doesn't appear to be one at all.

Teenbeat XVII-the RED and BLUE edition

Where do I begin with this entry? What I'm reviewing has a very long past, which is why it's  here as a Teenbeat featurette as these two records were originally issued on lp record, cassette and  super clunky 8 Track cartridge way way back in May of 1973 when I was officially young.

While two compilations had been issued by the Beatles in the UK ("A Collection of Oldies but Goldies") and North America ("Hey Jude") there had not  been a career covering set issued officially so on the backs of a unofficial multi disc set issued a year before, two two record sets were issued that took in all the UK singles A sides plus highlights from their studio lps.

This was timely as by 1973 each former Beatle had their own solo following and indeed in Paul McCartney's instance a new and highly popular band called Wings so there was a lot of interest by fans of the same for something that clued them into the past as well as those fans from the 60's who wanted a nice tidy set to remember The Beatles by.

The front cover was an alternate take to that used on their UK Please Please Me lp cover and the front for the 1967-1970 one a remake from 1969 intend for the scrapped Get Back lp.

Below are the original UK cassette inlay cards showing the covers in colour

In the UK the cassette and eight track tape issues were "Double Play" meaning both lps were on the same tape.

These albums remained on catalogue in their original forms until September 1993 where the first cd versions were issued and then re-issued using the 2009 remasters in 2010 but for reason best known to Apple, a number of different versions were substituted for the cd and lp/cassette reissues in 1993.

Here's a short summary:
Stereo replaced by Mono-
Please Please Me
From Me To You

Fake stereo to Mono-
Love Me Do (album version)
She Loves You

Original 1965 stereo mixes to 1986 digitally remixed with echo(!) -
Yesterday
Ticket To Ride
Help
You've Got To Hide Your Love Away
Drive My Car
Norwegian Wood
Nowhere Man
In My Life
Michelle
Girl

US stereo mix for UK stereo -
Day Tripper
Faded in lp to cold start -
A Day In The Life

So you can see what we've had for twenty years wasn't what we originally had!
Fast forward to November 24th 2014 in the UK and Europe and these lps have been newly re-issued but from the actual analogue master tapes used for the originals except for the two fake stereo tracks that were rightly put into mono.

What that means is on vinyl we can have the mixes we used to have all over again and taking advantage of modern thinking about lp cutting more effort has been put in to keeping the low notes in for deep bass and more extended treble  as as a bit more of a gap between the loudest and softest sounds in each song and a good example of this is on From Me To You which in stereo has never sounded better.

As the 2012 stereo re-issue lps were digitally sourced for now at least it's the only new spot for much of the stereo material mastered they way it used to be and sounding that much better for it.

I bought both and have to say these reissues are superior to my UK originals in so many ways it's amazing and works well with the mono albums issued a few months back much the same way.

Issued in North America December 9th by Capitol.

Chilling LB Style Part II

Remember early last year where I talked about something in Chilling LB Little Style? The image and the likeness of the "Chris" a ten year boy, a part of the past life in boarding school and more? Why even it is desirable for me to remember where I'm really at.

There was even a bit of challenge around the whole notion of Schoolboy Dressing me something I never had happen in my childhood, tying in with taking me back to being that child, not unlike 6 through 12 years in school as in some schools a traditional shorts uniform is more usual although at least in this part of England you tend to see it more with the tens and under perhaps cos the older boys want to be seen as more sophisticated in long trousers, something I didn't see at my school until you were in your mid teens at least.  How times change,eh?

Things are going to radically different because I am going back to being being a Little Boy being put more or less full time into shorts to take me away from anything than being seen as a Little Boy by everyone and learning to embrace being it.

This is a part of the Treatment for being the forever ten year old me together with the resumption of the rules that applied in the past so in most respects I will no longer have adult status.

Seeing I'm being returned to a life more befitting of that ten year old boy, this is how advent is being marked here in very much Boys Own way.

Getting about

I've never cared much for 'longs' to be honest, not least from when it was my secondary school like many in that era had moved to 'longs only' even though just months before I'd been as happy as Larry in shorts in Juniors.

I did rebel and wear them outside of lessons and when away but when 'at home' my folks laboured under the assumption that all boys over 'leven and a half were "big boys" who wore jeans and corduroy trousers and loved it.

I have been out a few times with others who regress  but as they're LG and I'm obviously not a lot of the LG stuff is off for me although I'd love to go to something like a LB Scouts camp, exploring being boys under the stars,

Teenbeat XVI - Rumer

After the last few posts here's a return post in our Teenbeat series that does link a bit to the previous posts in that they are connected to past rituals if not likes from my actual childhood carried over to my LB present.

Now on to the featured artist, a Pakistan born Britisher going by the stage name of Rumer ('real' name Sarah Joyce) with her new lp entitled Into Colour released this month that features the much airplayed track Dangerous.
It's usually a dangerous task to define an artist by others, but it's fair to say her style is very much routed in the singer songwriter mode and has many things in common with the late Karen Carpenter, which as seasoned blog readers know was the stuff very much on my stereo back in the 70's when I was a child (one can hardly say growing up with a straight face!).

Much to some people's surprise in 2012 she released this album, Boy's Don't Cry which was a covers album drawing from the 70's although the lead off single P.F.Stone actually goes back to the 60's.
Initially some folk issued groans thinking she was jumping on the lucrative covers bandwagon but she makes every single song on it sound as if it was her own. 

 This was the album that started off her solo career, 2010's Seasons Of My Soul which as belatedly issued in the States the following year featuring the singles Slow and Aretha which were followed by an EP recorded with Burt Bacharach on download and very limited 7" vinyl.
She performed A House is not a Home, a  Burt Bacharach and Hal Davis song at the White House May 9th 2012 event honouring Burt.

Rumer's lp's feature different cover art from the corresponding cd and digital download editions usually designed by her and it is in that form  my collection of her recordings exists and is enjoyed.

Identity

 Some people write research papers, lecture and even publish lengthy books about things like Identity in all it's different forms and I purposely say forms because we're all different and from my point of view you can see it  as a Venn diagram  with it's overlapping elements.

For some people what can lead to an exploration of their own persona  can be a person they have a close nurturing relationship with in childhood or for some even into adulthood although for me it was more that I had that already but without the space to be me.

No doubt it horrified some people but I loved playing war games with other boys, planning campaigns that included killing and torturing toy soldiers, deciding who to help and who wasn't worth it. No boy ever wanted to be a sissy.
I felt a zillion times better for having a place to channel my boyish instincts through.
 Part of identity for me certainly includes an interest in ideas, people and what one could call the arts being brought up where we belonged to a book club, went to the theatre and thanks to the record club had from an early age records of favourite ballet and other classical music

That was one and funny enough I could say the minute I saw the cover that I had it when I was younger as the smaller ones were a special offer you got and many were 'gifted' my way.
Another one I bought used when I was around 13 from a Country Fair was this

That rather formal portrait is of the late conductor Herbert von Karajan and this record was from 1954 in a performance I'd never really forgotten being played on my stereo phonograph even though the record was mono and I was able to get a cd with this on it a short while back.

After seeing me play with other boys soldier dolls, my folks got me one of these with a load of accessories like a radio and search light although I tended to play war games Germans vs Allies  WW2 stuff - it was the substance of boys play time outside of footie - and some more peace keeping missions stuff.

I just loved it to pieces being rugged and very masculine.

One of the great things about this life is the extent to which you can rediscover play, feeling free to play more on the notion of what it is you'd rather be doing rather than restrictions by parents, play groups or schools that for some of us were issues at the time with them feeling uncomfortable for wanting to do masculine things.

For me it helps deal with certain more specific to me issues such as my learning disabilities that can and does make deal with adult responsibilities very frustrating when you struggle with the means because I can focus more around things I can do, enjoying them. And so being disabled too for me is also a big part of my identity (I'm not with one, I has one in my whole being) too having had it from birth.

So this identity thing is pretty important for us personally although I don't feel people should put up rigid barriers between themselves  based purely upon that, focusing more on what we have in common.

Boy On The Run

Gritty adventure stories from the likes of comics like Buddy were a massive thing with me, living life frame by frame through characters like this mysterious boy, learning about his past, talking to your mates about it.

I could never abide soppy girls stuff playing hard and rough with just boys.

The Wind Rises

It's Halloween  soon but apart from having a ghoulish time of it tonight I have a new anime to watch.

A little different than most because it is very much about Jiro a Japanese aeronautical designer who worked for Mitshibushi who was inspired by the Italian Caproni who because he'd been near sighted from a young age wasn't able to become a pilot joins the company in 1927.

He goes on to become one of the world's most innovative and accomplished airplane designers and in that respect this anime by Hayao Miyazaki is a tribute to him.

A secondary interest in this anime, unexpected and much appreciated by me watching it is the romance between Jiro and Nahoko who is ill with tuberculosis marrying her. 

Some of the scenes showing his love for her during periods where she was very ill are really moving.

The anime, chronicles much of his life time, the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923, the Great Depression and the entrance of Japan into war in 1937.


The film also explores the growing friendship between him and his colleague Honja.
While some have criticized this anime for being ambivalent on what Jiro designed, warplanes that were a important part of Japan's war machinery, the overall message is one of how war only brings down countries and anti war opinions are voiced.

Overall I thought this was a really good anime, a fitting tribute not just to Jiro but also to the director.

Lego

On Saturday, I started work on a Helicopter Lego kit I'd  had for a short while having bought it on discount from the local newsagent.

Unlike some of them, this did give you three options so I started with this one.

That's really the criticism many level at lego for the preoccupation with Themed kits because you only have a limited number of parts and can only make a few things at the most from them while the Lego box sets we had as Boys had more.

Moreover, the boxes encouraged you to use your imagination to make things although they may have suggestions whereas these kits don't.

I'd die for a new lego set.

Autumn 2014 recollections

Conkering or playing conkers is what we loved to do as boys in the school playground, in the street or around each others houses, seeing which one of us could have the hardest most durable conker.

No girl at my junior school ever played it but then they always did their own things and well that was fine by us cos it kept numbers managable and anyway we preferred playing with just boys.

We knew they'd never let us in their things so fair's fair.

Teenbeat XV - The Beatles in mono

The genius of this entry goes back three weeks ago to September 8th at least in the UK as  that was when a rather special set of vinyl lp records was issued in both individual and boxed set form with the box set featuring a big book with a history of the records , pictures of tape boxes and naturally enough, the artists themselves.

It is also a follow one to November 2012's music special that was timed to do with the stereo vinyl re-issues and how that slotted into my collection started in my earlier life.

The first thing to say is in this set there are 11 albums, the first 9 UK titles, the American compiled but later adopted in the UK Magical Mystery Tour and the new Triple Mono Masters compilation.

I opted to buy them individually as with a bit of searching I could get the whole set for much less than I anticipated and it's not every day you can get a set of brand new mono albums made directly from the tapes, the way they did in the 60's with not one jolt of digital processing involved.

An indication of the attention to detail in this set is the label above being a copy of the one used on the very first copies of the Please Please Me album from March 1963, the other UK original albums through Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club band have period Yellow and Black labels with the White Album (aka "The Beatles") and the new Mono Masters triple having dark green Granny Smith Apple designs.

This one being American in origin has a replica Capitol colourband rim design as original Capitol lps did back then. Originally the songs from the film were issued in the UK on two 7 inch singles in a book and the stereo lp was eventually issued in November 1976 for that territory.

The sleeve construction owning a few originals is the same although the way the glossy lamination is achieved is different.

The White Album has individual issue numbers stamped on the front to each copy and top opening slots for each record, the four pictures and poster just like the originals did.

I have just one of them left to arrive but overall these sound at least as good as in number of instances better than my originals such as of the UK Revolver or early 80's extremely limited edition mono issues (the so-called '81's) like my copy of With The Beatles while I've never owned the White Album and Magical Mystery Tour in their mono  forms.

It seems using the tapes directly and altering the sound slightly per track while making the lacquers used to make the records has given them a transparency that has never been on any previous lps and in comparison with the Beatles in mono cd box set  is lacking from that.

While not  much processing  to the tone was done on the cd box set, it's obvious some tidying up like editing and click removing  was done digitally when you compare the actual records to the cds but it doesn't undermine the value of the cd set for those who prefer that media.

Why mono? Because for much of 60's the final mix was done first to mono, the one speaker systems most people had taking a lot of care with the impact and critically with the Beatles they were present during that process.

In the UK All the singles from Love Me Do to Get Back were only released in mono so the original mixes were the mono ones although from 1970's many compilation albums featured only stereo mixes done later.

In so far as original studio albums go the stereo mixes were done later usually by engineers in a half hour or so with no input from the Beatles so these mono mixes were more what they wanted their fans to hear and there are a good number of significant differences  between them with Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club band sounding more finished, nay arresting as a listening experience compared to the stereo.

It's important to note the first two UK albums were not recorded with any aim of making a stereo record so much as using two tracks to fine tune the balance between vocals and instruments later on which why in 'stereo' you have that odd backing in one speaker, vocals on the other effect. 

The final album in this series, Mono Masters is a triple album that has those singles with flip sides and other tracks not originally  released in the UK on album form from the original single mix of Love Me Do to You Know My Name from the b side of the Let It Be via such singles as I Want To Hold Your Hand, I Feel Fine, Day Tripper, Hey Jude and the last UK mono single Get Back.

It also has the entire Long Tall Sally EP plus dedicated mixes made a projected EP of songs from the Yellow Submarine that were never issued given a separate lp side meaning if you don't need the stereo versions, the Yellow Submarine album isn't really needed as there were only two other songs that are on it by the Beatles and they were issued on previous albums anyway.

Like most people who bought it, I feel compared to the 7 inch singles the sound is that much fuller for having more vinyl space to accommodate the full range of loud and soft passages and low notes in this unique compilation. It also is more convenient too than flipping 45's every two and half to three minutes with the 6 sides covering fairly well defined eras in the group.

The records:
Please Please Me
With The Beatles *
A Hard Day's Night
Beatles For Sale
Help!
Rubber Soul
Revolver
Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band
Magical Mystery Tour
The Beatles (better know as the "White Album"**
Mono Masters.
*= Known to Canadians as Beatlemania with the beatles, the first album issued in North America.
** not issued in mono in Canada and the States, ever.

This set slots nicely into my collection replacing a number of copies whose sound I wasn't so happy with and enabled me to remove a couple of albums whose contents are now totally replicated in better sound, generally tidying matters up.

Boy bikes and me

It's not quite true to say I never had a bike but the reality was even with stabilizers, I could not stay up on it, landing instead on the pavement or asphalt  which wasn't good in an era where crash helmets were seldom worn.

This said I lived through and hung out with those boys that did encouraging them and helping them fix their bikes up after coming off or having a puncture to the tire.

They in turn encouraged me in what I could do rather than anyone insisting they had to do what I could lest it lead me to feeling left out and so I made may own way into our own all boys gang accepted on terms we all understood. Persistence, grit and guts.

Teanbeat XIIII - Steely Dan is Collected

The Jazz influenced sounds of Steely Dan, comprising of Donald Fagen and Walter Becker  with other assorted helpers have long been a favourite of mine but between a sad story of sticky analogue tapes saved to a digital format that itself had issues like a major corporation that lack a playback machine for it and the odd decision to bump up the low and high notes and squash the gap between loud and soft sounds on the current  editions tying to find decent sounding Steely Dan has been challenging shall we say.

This is a band who had a way with lyrics and arrangements  as evidenced on songs like Rikki Don't Lose That Number, Reeling In The Years, Aja and Do It Again and recently I found this triple cd compilation issued in the Netherlands by Universal that does sound rather good with a generous selection from their 1972-1980 albums including the song FM from the movie of the same name.

It'll do until some one can remaster the studio albums anew.

LB playtime?

Boys Play was always my thing and to be honest in the LB world it's an element within the notion of being LB schools that appeals more to me than the obsession over certain other elements like having whole past uniforms rather than uniforms based on what we would of had and the whish of c.p.

For me the whole point of such an experience is to be entirely within the mindset of that boy for me a ten year old Prep school boy not say doing his maths and english but also to have playtimes and bottles of mlk with a straw.

In other words it should feel like were are in that time and space all over again acting on the impulses of that ten year old in real time and less like we're playing him.

A day trip out for a Boy

I decided on Saturday September 6th to spend the day away and leaving our Town our driver decided to go via the Rail centre that is Crewe, the delights of the market town of Nantwich and the tranquil Bunbury near to the Shropshire Union Canal.

Enroute it looked rather dull especially over the Halkyn Mountains with a shower too but as you can see it was actually very sunny at this place. I think its overall feel is just that actually and it was heaving with people.

Got where this is yet? Okay it's Llandudno, North Wales about 15 miles from Colwyn Bay and as it happened just as I arrived boats were out taking people out to see the Great Orme and here is one with would be passengers.

That was taken before I went for a coffee, went to W H Smiths for my magazines  and visited a surviving HMV music store armed with a voucher and walking out with some cds that effectively cost me nothing.

There are many ways of getting around but the most intriguing is this road train that goes from East to West Shore with it's colourful livery. I wonder if it has a steam engine to power it?

Talking of power, we must of had some as Mummy and I won two prizes each on the bus raffle with a box of chocolate Fudge and a diary for me and wasn't it some co-incidence,eh?

A more conventional way is this special tourist bus. I just love the seaside, something that's a constant with me from my boyhood as we spent summers on the coast.

I had fish and chips for lunch out before strolling along the Promenade, just relaxing as you do between fighting the Seagulls off and running around in my shorts and ankle socks.

Mummy and I decided to visit some clothes and gift shops which was fun and then decided to go for tea and some cake in the afternoon where I had a really big slice of a lemon and cream cake which was delicious to tide me over until we returned a couple of hours later.

The Pretenders on cd

Recently I updated my Pretenders collection and thought I'd make a short entry about them.

Recently issued by pioneering label Mobile Fidelity Record, this album was originally released in January 1980 as Brass In Pocket stopped the chart.

It also contains the hits Stop Your Sobbing and Kid.

It was reissued in 2009 by Audio Fidelity on a gold plated cd but that missed off the phone rings on The Phone Call and sounded very loud and extremely level limit which thankfully this release isn't.

This album released Mid 1981 originally is the home of the singles Talk Of The Town, Message Of Love and I Go To Sleep.

It's always sounded a bit off but this edition issued in 2010 sounds as good as it can.

1983's Learning To Crawl was a transitional album as the original Pretenders line up changed but remains an enjoyable one.

It is the home of Back On The Chaingang, 2000 Miles, Middle Of The Road and Show Me,a  1984 US Single.

The first three are super audio cds that have a layer that ensures they play on any regular player too.

1986's Get Close issued in the cd era  featured the singles Don't Get Me Wrong and Hymn To Her and I got this to replace my cassette version.

Packed came out in 1990 and I recently bought the cd version as the record accidently got clawed by my cat in early 1991.

New Tom Petty and Rush re-issues

This week I'm looking at a brand new album on lp record just like it was when i was in my teens and a couple of cd re-issues.

Those who follow the album charts can't helped to notice Tom Petty recently topped it in the States with Hypnotic Eye that came out late July but it wasn't until last week I got my copy because it is the 140 gram German lp pressing simply cos it sounds a bit better (and has more dynamics) than the cd version plus came with a free download code for 24bit (48K) High Definition lossless digital audio and regular slightly more compressed Mp3. 

Favourites from this altogether really good comeback album are Burnt Out Town which with American Dream Plan B  and Power Drunk are good examples of Tom Petty drawing from current affairs to write spirited songs about the World we live in.

Going back in time there was one artist who in 1979 made quite an impression on me  called Rickie Lee Jones and indeed she did have a top twenty hit with Chuck 'E's In Love and this her debut album was stunning.

Last year Mobile Fidelity Sound Labs issued this as bot a high quality regular 33 rpm lp and also as a special two lp version cut at 45 rpm which is increasingly popular as it allows for cleaner sound and better bass,

It comes in a box - the one bit I could do without preferring a gatefold sleeve - with a booklet with all the album art and foam to keep the thing still in transit.

This sounded amazing with lots of very fine detail and low end slam.

* updated 2024 This is mindblowing on the Concorde Blue plus the new phono stage.

As some of you are aware, I do buy specialty reissues that offer better sound than the originals and one that recently landed my was this, the late 1989 Presto album by ace Canadian rockers, Rush that I bought when it first came out. 

I felt around the time they issued Hold Your Fire! in 1987, they were losing their way, sounding too close to bland 'Stadium  Rock' for a band who impressed me from a very early age with more complex lyrics and musicianship but This had what was missing - 'bite' in the lyrics.

It also helped some of the songs used childhood settings such as playing Rock,Paper,Scissors in Hand Over Fist and examining self deception and vanity through play in War Paint  to make their points clearly.

This copy sounded warmer and less brittle than the original.

Earlier in the year, this rather more longer Progressive rock inspired opus from 1978 was re-issued that not only completed the space fantasy story of Cygnus X1 started in 1977's A Farewell To Kings album, give us a parable on forced equality in the form of The Trees but gives us La Ville Stranglato a marathon over 9 minute totally amazing work out just showing how accomplished at playing their instruments the band really are.

Both these discs are super audio compact discs  (sacd)  designed to give better sound on suitable players that also  have a regular cd player for the rest of us.

Rocket!

Trains were a big thing in boyhood with me and this is practically boy folk law, a replica of Stephenson's Rocket locomotive photographed in The Great Hall of the National Railway Museum, York in 2014.

Little boys and their Big Trains

Standing before the Great Hall of Steam Engines, a little boy pays homage to power of steam, the achievements of men in their glistening condition.

Every older boy and man knows this boy will return time and time again throughout his life to visit and ride on the trains as being captivated at an early age, be forms a bond with sight, sounds and smells of steam trains.

It was what happened to a four year old me.

Summer 2014 anime update

I do watch animes sometimes streaming, other times through value dvd box sets and this is an update on my current watches.

I'm slowly getting through the last 14 episodes of Fairy Tail as the series progresses  ending one arc and beginning another. 

Also I have finished watching  Is the order a rabbit? which centres around the adventures of Cocoa Hoto as she's moved to a new town and inevitably a new school where we find she has moved in with Chino Kafu at her families Rabbit House cafe where she takes a job to pay for her accommodation. Cocoa soon meets Rize who is also a waitress at the cafe and having had a military father, shows the same strongly disciplined approach although not to the exclusion of having a cutesy feminine side.

The show also stars Tippy, an Angora rabbit who sits atop of Chino's head when  not around Cocoa and we met Chiya whose family also runs a rabbit cafe.

The show can be caught on Crunchyroll as also for North Americans can the much anticipated redux of Sailor Moon known as Sailor Moon Crystal (UK and Europe need to go to Sailor Moon Crystal to watch that due to a licensing restriction).

Late teen fashion

This kind of look is one I tended to follow in my late teens and early twenties, with baseball jackets and Chinos although I tended to wear the more fleecy track pants with them in the work plave and that.

I thought I was the Cats Ass!

Junior playtimes

Playing games that involved being blindfolded and treated as a Prisoner of war were things we enjoyed, nay I enjoyed as one to whom was dragged away for 'questioning' and one doing that because it was just a game.

Nobody picked on anyone within the game as we were playing it to the rules we'd all agreed and in any event I was as much a a boy who liked very physical games and as capable of showing aggression as an other boy.

It was what we loved.