Christmas Day Edition

This year Christmas is a little near normal even if it was a close run thing just a fortnight ago so so long as we take care we're having one this time that does including seeing a few people.

I'm a adult little boy so Christmas is always Smol, very much like it was as a child  cos in the end I'm still more like that.

The Beano has been a staple of my life from original boyhood, still reading it today but I prefer to read older annuals such as this which no doubt I had and promptly got tossed away a few years later, while having the current Christmas 68 page special for the comic as it is today.

The Dandy is no longer published as a weekly comic as much as I'd love to see a monthly or bi monthly edition published so we make do with a Summer Special and this, 2022's annual with many of the characters from the past in new adventures.

Korky the Cat and Winker Watson co-present the Dandytown Winter sports competition which is featured besides regular cartoons by Corporal Clegg, Keyhole Kate and Desperate Dan.

From the sixtieth anniversary of the Beano and Dandy, D C Thomson have produced a number of specials and themed annual compilations from the vaults showcasing cartoonists and characters and this is their latest looking at art and craft based classic cartoon strips from the past.

That Korky strip which I think was in a annual originally is a lovely touch.

Rupert is an institution and this is a mixture of reprints from past annuals and new stories for twenty twenty two.

Four Swedes and no broccoli reunited this year for a last album  very much in the style of their 80's albums with no concessions to current trends and this was the lp version I had for Christmas for my collection. I quite like it.

Interestingly there was a pre-recorded cassette version issued too!

Main present this year was a Hornby OO gauge British Rail Class 3F "Jinty" 0-6-0 Tank locomotive to go on the layout which was used by in great boxed condition

That mirrors one of the first Christmas presents I had which was a plastic trainset with locomotive coaches 

I had some money to spend when I next get away and some replacement polo shirts.

Christmas break edition.

This weekend hasn't been a bad one even if it was overcast as I'm still counting down Christmas.

Both this weeks Beano and Phoenix are here with Christmas Editions with the phoenix doing a reversed two editions in one format, both aiming to keep readers amused over the period.

Unlike the Beano it has no Annual but a number of compilations of comic strip series over the years.

With a street date of December 17th (Friday), this is a Christmas themed edition with poster and an extra 16 page special as the next edition will be out for New Years Eve

Ah yes 1974, I remember it very well singing along to Juke Box Jive and Lonely This Christmas and actually I do have a copy of that years Christmas Beano, leading off with Dennis The Menace being around the age of Dennis at the time with Grampa and Little Plum who probably would offend today's sensitivities to Inuit's/first nation people I can read in tandem with this years

We will be pausing until just after Christmas here so the last order of business is wish you all a very Happy Christmas and all the best for 2022 however it pans out.

The one before pause

We're still on the countdown to the last sleep before Christmas here although I have not felt too good this week apart from having my Covid Booster Rocket launch at the local doctors surgery.

I have actually finished this years Christmas Beano special edition which has quizzes, bits to colour and draw plus fun stickers apart from reading the regular edition plus the other comics I get.

This is one most people under forty would not know but for a number of years in the nineteen seventies it was one that was bought for me and the year before this edition, the comic moved out of the early 1940's colonial mode with a few questionable characters to the modern world.

Being in nineteen seventy the price is in the pre-decimal currency we used then, six "old" pence as that didn't change until mid February nineteen seventy-one 

Carolling otherwise known as carol singing was something we did back then and we learned them for the school Carol Concert apart from practising for the School Christmas play which was usually Nativity based back then as we could have the Christmas story in school at Christmas with no fuss.

Indeed people wouldn't of expected anything else! 

The Christmas tree is up and the lights indoors and out are all out here.

Snap in memories

It's a cool but snow free day today unlike last Monday where I struggled to get about and needed to keep rather warm for much of the time and we have a community Christmas Tree up and illuminated.

The last bits of restoration of the tape player have been doing with spraying contact cleaner in the switches and volume control to fix a few crackles that had developed in over thirty years of life on the road.

Funnily enough my head has been back to December 1979 this week which was the year I moved from the typically inexpensive brands of cassettes stocked by small shops and supermarkets to premium ones as I was using my then ITT Studio 73 portable stereo recorder and borrowing Dad's National Panasonic home cassette deck he'd acquired a year and a bit before.

At the time I was copying albums onto tape for playing at school, not having a Walkman type battery powered player and I had been using TDK D a normal ferric tape of very good quality for the money one of which was used to record the Abba concert at Wembley Stadium broadcast by the BBC that christmas.

That year I got a copy of the Beatles Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album and my younger brother had Whatever You Want by Status Quo and I wanted a copy of that with the two singles, the title track and Living On An Island.

It was Boxing Day morning that we trundled off in our car to do some shopping and apart from calling in on W H Smiths for a few albums laden with Xmas money and vouchers, it was when I bought a twin pack of these high quality Type II tapes to record a few on.

At the time they had a good range of tapes in stock but not quite as wide as Boots the Chemists by people such as BASF, Maxell and Scotch.

Without getting super technical originally type II tapes used chrome dioxide tape and required special settings in your recorder which my portable had as did dad's home deck but Japanese tape manufacturers had developed an alternative that was as good and the TDK SA was the most popular one.

They were more expensive but brought better higher frequencies and lower noise than regular types.

That was what I recorded that Status Quo album on to adding a year later the follow up studio album and strangely enough that tape still exists and plays very well.

Advent week edition

Weekend wasn't much given for being outdoors with plenty of snowfall late Saturday and Sunday so I stayed in keeping warm and enjoying some music.

That would of been most enjoyable and indeed up to early last week very doable with plenty of dry leaves to run and dance around, I mean I even had some landing in front of my very eyes.

The past can be a different world and one way was actually that comic was produced by the supermarket chain Tesco which would be unthinkable today but back then comic readership was high and it was seen as a means of getting the family to use them by offering us the children something unique.

Going into the present, Advent which runs Sunday, 28 Nov 2021 to Friday, 24 Dec 2021 and marking it were a big thing then and that remains but in more modern form as with MY and it is actually for me, Paw Patrol advent calendar, to find the days as you count them off having a chocolate.

Going around again...

This week we are looking at those oddities of the vinyl world, 33 rpm 7 inch extended play records from artist I grew up listening to.

The sensational Alvin Stardust was one of number of performers who had been around in the sixties but reinvented himself to become a top male singles artist in 1973/4 of which on this EP that manages to get six tracks on  it.

It does miss out his #1 hit Jealous Mind from 1974 but this disc issued in 1983 is very handy for having most of his early hits.

Gary Glitter is one personality who because of offences committed doesn't get played on the radio any more but was absolutely massive so you do need to consider his records when looking at this era and it is the case I bought and still own a number of them as they were played at Junior School and are lodged in my memory with those time. 

This is a very valuable set as it has nearly all is 1972-1974 hits of which two were massive #1 hits all gathered together .

As the back sleeve testifies to they were made available on cassette which was popular as well as 7 inch records.

The Three Degrees were one of the biggest of those Philadelphia soul music acts who performed at Jollies near where I live a number of times.

This misses the Philadelphia International hits such as Year of Decision and When Will I See You Again for the more funk/disco influenced late 1970's period when they recorded for Arista records with such big hits as The Runner and Woman In Love.

Pickwick records Scoop33 label wasn't the only one doing these EP's, CBS Records in Europe did too under the Greatest Original Hits series and that included a jolly useful round up of Abba's 1980 and 1981 hit singles with a shorter edit 4:30 of Lay All Your Love On Me.

That track you might recall was only issued as a 12" single in the UK although an edit was issued as a 7" 45 in the states.

That too was issued on cassette.

One set of differences between each series cassette issues were the Scoop33's used regular ferric tape and had each side of the tape corresponding to the record version with splits where as CBS used genuine Chromedioxide tape for higher quality and elected to play for full contents on both sides.

I find these 7 inch EP's just fascinating  for being a way of giving people a selection of hits for pocket money prices.

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Recovering week

This week has been somewhat challenging for not being well over a good number of days necessitating much bedrest  and tablets and I am still running at reduced capacity so unlike him as much as I feel like climbing the pipes that won't be happening.

I did manage to get beyond the bedroom on Thursday to mark Armistice Day, standing out in my Green Jersey and Grey Shorts to pause and reflect on the losses of two World Wars a number of the veterans of the latter who were a part of my life growing up as a boy, helping to steer me toward right conduct and attitude.

I could hear in the distance the Bugle calls from a couple of miles away where it was being marked at the Cenotaph.

I did read my comics in small doses as seeing the likes of Billy Whizz and Mega Robo Bros helps keep my spirits up when I'm poorly as does seeing DangerMouse and Blue Peter on tv.

It won't be long before it'll be time to start on this years Christmas Beano Special Edition, 68 pages of fun!

Adventures in restoration

If you read this blog, or especially the other you will know a bit about not just the history of blogging but also of my history with using social media from those heady days of Two Thousand and Five to what had bought me to Tumblr via ASB.

You will also know that that period was critical for a variety of reasons along my voyage of self discovery, overthrowing past attempts by others to write the narrative of me and my life as much as the realization that age regression wasn't quite all that applied to me and the discovery of age dysphoria as real thing I'd suffered from was at another site in the last year and a bit.

You'd also know many of those posts then, the people whose accounts played a part in that whole voyage were lost over time due to issues at Tumblr losing one account after a mere three hundred posts and losing last year two batches of accounts one due to a age regression community misreading of one and the other in suspicious circumstances.

You may also of noticed a few days ago a new Tab on here and the other account marked TSB and wondered what that was about.

That tab links to something that is a work in progress namely a partial restoration sometimes with minor changes of some of those entire posts from the original TSB account, a few from the mark I TSB two from October and November twenty eighteen and a few from the original age regression blog that went.

Obviously there is no way I could place them in chronological order nor back date them so they have been grouped within batches around themes such as presentation, boyhood interests and what they had to say about me, events in my life and so on.

There have been added some new posts in the same manner and some reblogs from very safe for work places that go with those originals.

Part of the reason for that is the less than good back ups I found cut out around April twenty nineteen and things were still happening, lord knows I've come on a lot in just over three and a bit years.

It isn't a replacement for those Tumblrs that were last set up so much as new home for older posts and follow ups  which is why it has the title TSB 1+1 and well be more LB centred than what remains of the ASB scene at tumblr but non community.

Jamie Johnson is Back!

Today, most likely I'll be taking a rest having been away for early forty-eight hours with much travelling which does tend to take a lot out of me so this has been written in advance.

After concluding in July of 2020 with Jamie injured in the road accident struggling with his physical and mental recovery, getting into electronic football gaming to the point you could say he was addicted, not following through with his physiotherapy, he needs to decided if the virtual game is for him or if he can come back.

Meanwhile Dillion who has a impulsive side left us having starting to come to terms with his gayness although this caused serious tensions between his homophobic and sexist father, him and his mother although things were patched up.

Yay! And it’s hardly a slow start as we pick up finding out how Boggy and Jamie are coping after last series complications like Jamie’s injury and the addiction to e-soccer and Boggy's mental health issues that flared up.

Liam, Dillion’s annoying brother shows his sexist and probably misogynist views about girls playing footy even turning away one from the combined under and over 14 trails.

Casting my mind back to series five and Dillion’s coming out as gay the influence of his father’s homophobic attitudes were showing and I suspect this ultimately comes from the same space as he was anything but supportive of his brother.

There had been much discussion about when Jamie Johnson was to return to CBBC as this next series has been planned but no doubt Covid affected filming although there is evidence that a series seven has been at least part filmed.

Last Monday at five pm the show returned and I for one am glad as it was a show I loved for both the set piece football and the storylines.

The Bangles

We are exiting this month for another as we march on towards winter and so we're taking a look at artist whose music was bought mainly on cd first time around, a part of the guitar pop revival of the mid nineteen eighties.

I bought the 1985 Different Light album on the new fangled cd format after weighing up that compared to buying the tape version and having bought the first two singles from it which remains in my collection in its original Japanese pressed edition with smooth sided case.

Banglesmania grew to the point "new" material was needed so Going Down To Liverpool as issued as a single which garnered attention for a reissue of the more rootsy All Over The Place album which I originally bought on tape and then replaced in the early nineties by the compact disc version.

The last original album was Everything from October 1988 with its hits In Your Room and Eternal Flame.

Greatest Hits was a "contractual obligations" album, they owed Columbia records an album as per their contract which featured a number of remixes.

At the time in 1990, I was rather divided over it because it only offered three songs two unreleased from the All Over The Place sessions that were new but by 1997 MiniDisc had entered my life to the point a portable player was on the cards so a slot in compilation held an appeal.

That cd is not actually a cd but a rare Super Audio cd issued in 2003 that only plays on super audio cd players and I recently acquired a copy where again being the only Bangles album on that format remastered by Joe Palmaccio who died a few days ago straight from the analogue tapes.

It does sound very good with additional depth on many tracks.

The old house

This week we are taking a bit of step back with an entry that belongs very much in the earliest days and that begins with my family living in a Post War local authority house after moving out of the core City area where my Father and by extension my Grandad and Grand Mother lived.

This place was situated in one of the green lungs between the main totally built up area and what I'd call the burnt bits of toast that just hang on the core with small green pockets between which was a substantial house with big long gardens, a play area in the front but only two biggish bedrooms.

A fair chunk of things had happened since that move such as giving birth to by older brother, myself and a younger one so with one being at an age he'd be going to secondary school we really needed a place to live with three bedrooms.

As the system was then, a few enquiries and work by a local Councillor resulted in us being moved up the list for a transfer to a brand new property that was in an adjacent piece of the "burnt toast" but in same school district that had been built within a new mainly private development.

This was it but getting on for fifty years later as we moved in nineteen seventy and there front gardens were at that time communal with no fences between, just between the smaller rear garden compared to what we had, a pathway around the backs and a garage block we rented for the Austin 1800 at the side.

It was quite modern in that it featured electric underfloor heating with adjustable vents at the time a porch at the front, a small cloakroom and a downstairs toilet in additional to the bathroom which had one upstairs.

Life at No. 33 was different, for one thing I had to learn to find my way to school by myself, vividly recalling answering questions about explaining the route to by Mr. Smith my beloved Headmaster as there would not be any mile and a quarter supervised walk or a lift with the farmer nearby in his big Landrover.

Another thing was that I got the main say in the bedroom that housed me and my younger brother as Big Brother had his own now and so I had a record player, tape recorder and radio all in their together with a shelf that housed my Blue Peter, Skippy, Beano and Pink Panther annuals and that weeks comics such as obviously the Beano and Sparky being a bit young at first for the likes of Tiger and Roy of the Rovers.

Unusually compared to my peers I did have my own tv, a 405 line only Decca that daddy had got second hand from a friend in the TV trade cheaply which was black and white as was the Bush dual standard 405 line set with screw on 625 line UHF converter fitted which also had a FM radio which was in the front room.

The UHF needed an outdoor antenna as reception was poor with ridges blocking closer signals while simple brass rod dipoles sufficed for VHF reception but that UHF was a must because at that time younger children's programming on the BBC was only on BBC2 and that was only on UHF and one of the shows I watched was Fingerbobs.

Fingerbobs was a finger puppet show presented by Rick James who was born in Ontario, Canada and featured the lead character Fingermouse who was a hand puppet.

Sadly he died on October 7th this year.

The other big one was Play School which had many presenters over the years and here's a couple of presenters and a few characters such as Humpty Dumpty, Teddy and Jemima.

There were famously round, square and rectangular windows one of which would be picked and that would lead to a short piece.

Given my issues around migraines then that extra toilet came in handy given how soon they came on and for being in bigger place we had playmates we could meet up with outside school although at that time we were lacking a proper playground.

Generally I would say in hindsight I was happier there for having my own space and with the rent being taken care we didn't have much to be concerned about.

Classical Music on sacd 22- Beethoven and the Violin Part II

 It has been a bit of while since we last did one of these, around August time if my memory is right  where we look at one or more recordings because building a collection of classical music is something that takes time and has its own challenges.

One challenge tends to be couplings of works where it may not occupy most of a disc where some labels may record another work by the same composer as a fill up, others may add works in similar style by another.

The other is rarer but is relevant to this weeks entry where a label commences a series of recordings by an artist and composer but it gets delayed or sadly as it was with one series recordings by Holst it was began with one conductor but sadly they die part way through so another needs to be found.

We had looked in May at two discs by this duo with Frank P Zimmerman on violin and Martin Helmchen but Covid rather messed up the recording industry with restrictions on performing indoors and varying restrictions on international travel.

Eventually in August 2020 they were able to get together to record this second and last set of Beethoven's concertos at the Siemens Villa, Berlin, Germany for stereo and multichannel sound which includes the well known Ninth opus 47 "Kreutzer" Sonata so called as it was dedicated to violin virtuoso Rodolphe Kreutzer and published by Simrock in Bonn which is often coupled with the Fifth for those who don't collected the whole series.

This disc by Bis technically and artistically is a great achievement  and well worth the long wait for.

Previous entry: Beethoven and the violin

The world of School Audio Visual

This particular post has been about three years in the making so while I was in bed late last week armed with a pencil as using a computer isn't a good idea with a severe migraine I made some notes.

The period I went to Infant and Junior school was interesting as much in society and the sciences was beginning to change.

For instance the actual school building we had itself was Victorian and rather small designed in a period where for one thing education was only up to the age of twelve and that boys from eight upwards went to separate school so it only had five classrooms some of which were small.

Various changes such resetting to the age limit to eleven plus, becoming totally co-ed and a rapid expansion of the area lead to it becoming outmoded but it took a long time a hard struggle with the education department for a new purpose built school to be built by 1974.

That was the backdrop of my education and into which the increased use of external teaching resources came in from study packs and the introduction of radio and television education programs for schools which were either incorporated into a teacher own lesson plan or in case of music and movement the teacher acted more of as your local conductor of the radio lesson.

This rather austere looking thing was the original schools radio which was a self contained unit comprising of a long, medium and critically vhf waveband radio unit with amplifier with a small speaker and a socket for an external one.

It used Tubes (Brit Eng - valves) and even the tuning indicator on the far top right was one designed so two green sections touch if it was correctly tuned in.

It was designed to be transportable which may seem a joke in todays world of small very lightweight electronics but it was it was then and had a detachable carrying handle so it could be taken classroom to classroom as needed.

We also had a television which was rented as like the radio that too was tubed and in general they tended to be less reliable producing much heat in small space so if anything went wrong the people we rented it from would send a replacement out.

This thing was a Baird twenty five inch if I remember right set with a VHF tuner and a rotary UHF one although reception was problematic here needing an external UHF antenna.

It was all housed in wooden cabinet with folding doors on a stand with wheels which our long suffering teachers had to wheel into the classrooms with narrow gangways as that thing was darn heavy to move by any other way and then plug the antenna in.

While today we have streaming on things such as the BBC iPlayer and Bytesize, this was an era where sound recording was being used in many schools to store a program that then could be played at a more suitable time.

Without getting technical, given the era most schools had open reel recorders with spools of tape which if they were like mine were Tandberg series 15 mono machines with a built in amplifier and speaker but the increasingly popular compact cassette was creeping in so we had a few of them cos they were smaller and easier to handle with the tapes being just snap in and play.

Video recording was popular only really going in the two thousands in schools using big cassettes of tape and special recorders which had a built in timer so they could be set to record programs and then taken to a classroom.

We did not have a video recorder as they were only just becoming popular as I left for boarding school but then it was the Philips N1400/1500 series that were used before VHS took over in the very late 1970's which is what we got in high school although we still had the Philips for a period too.

There was a replacement for schools radios although by the mid nineteen seventies many schools used radio recorders which were very much portable and had cassette recorders.

These were made by Coombe of Worcester which was big with a large loud speaker and had presets which we had in the dorms at boarding school.

Having been out this morning the feel of autumn air I experienced in school in that era came flooding back to me.

Pajama redux

Bit of overcast threatening to rain kind of a weekend when I started work on this blog having sorted out a Tumblr and dealing with bits and bobs from Ebay today.

We've mentioned pajamas on here would of been June of last year and I think around August 2018 on the other blog when I was starting to move out of circle that ultimately didn't work out well for me and more towards ALB/ASB looking back what I had and how that might work as a smol adult boy.

Time flies as I've grown downwards getting more confident in myself to the point one pair while being okay in an emergency have started to develop issues with the elastic and so it mad sense to get another pair.

A bit of this probably belongs in another conversation but just as I was getting out of boys Pj's and more towards "mens" things were starting to change.

One area was the trend towards short or long armed tops and short pajamas brought on by more people having central heating so warmer at night and with kids the move towards characters on pajamas that I missed out upon.

Can something that wasn't in your original childhood be included now?

Well one thing is I'm using a computer and the internet both of which weren't in homes back then and so as a third trend of loungewear stuff you can wear as pajamas but lounge around in during the day has led to more separate tops and bottoms rather than whole sets being offered.

I bought this Next pajama top with an bear print on which is boyishly cute and fleecy, not 100 miles removed from the sort of thing I'd of worn then.

It's really supposed to be christmasy but that side is fairly low key so it's fine for all year.

I get from the M&S own range these navy and green check bottoms which again are fleecy with a traditional pull and tie cord for getting a perfect fit as I don't like super close fitting clothes

These are fine for cooler late autumn and winter nights or as we were never allowed to just sitting around first thing watching tv or typing before venturing beyond the front door.

A totality of identity

This week I've been a bit busy working on a tumblr part of the restoring operation which I knew was going to take time apart from posting at a few sites which really got me thinking about really more around self image and knowing yourself.

I mean there's plenty of people who will sell you how they want you feel and so let's just nail it.

I love flowers, something I learned as a young boy from my Grandad who for a modest suburban terrace made his garden into relaxing world of roses and other flowers and plants that I played in when not helping him out.

I also love plushies, teddy bears and the like and they even have a bench to sit on, enjoying the view when I'm not playing with them.

I may have physical limitations apart from developmental issues but I spend time out of doors being physical, I challenge myself to work past limitations to get the most out of the opportunities available, helping out to the best of my abilities.

My physicality is a core part of my masculinity.

Reading is difficult for me, so much of what I read is for those around nine to thirteen plus but I do enjoy reading, making the effort to find books I can enjoy reading and read comics too for their humour.

For me to read isn't to be 'soft'. Anyone lacking gumption wouldn't attempt to read with my difficulties for pleasure but I do.

Any attempt at looking at my early life shows clearly I love the rough and tough of being with boys, playing war games, Cowboys and Indians with cap guns, playing footie even with wobbly feet with the others.

I had cap guns, tons of Action Man stuff which I played battles with sometimes on my own on other occasions with friends, capturing and "shooting" the enemy that I'd play with the minute I was home or day schooling finished. I was as stereo-typically boyish as any.

It wasn't always easy, sometimes people try pushing ideas on you and there was a period where really what I was going through was age dysphoria having strong negative issues between how I felt I was still that boy and how people were trying to push into an older form that just was not me.

All of these things were always a part of the boy I was in much the same way that others may of had the odd less common interest all ultimately wrapped in masculine coating which is an intrinsic part of me.

The work around understanding why I remain young and in revisiting my early years over the years coincided with looking at the outward expression from battles to escape longs to the acceptance of being still that young boy as a permanent thing.

For me the acceptance of being forever a child ties into being forever a school boy, looking every inch as he was, at one with being masculine and today that is all that I am, confident in my whole sense of identity.

Simon and Garfunkel on Monday

This week as I continue to recover from this thing that has left me feeling quite ill this last week, we're looking back at some recordings, some I've had for a bit and some more recent.

The music of Simon and Garfunkel really should need no introduction, for being both the leading exponents of Folk Rock, exquisite  vocal harmonies and been seen at the time as the minstrels of the "Counter Culture".

My collection currently is all on compact disc although I grew up with the "TC8 Stereo" eight track cartridge of 1972's Greatest Hits.

All acts start somewhere and they were no different in being more straight ahead folk with more of a Everly's feel but in tracks like He Was My Brother referencing the "Freedom Drives" to register black voters in the Southern United States and the original recording of The Sounds of Silence they were clearly not into being non challenging, being more with Joan Baez and Bob Dylan in addressing concerns lyrically.

In many other respects it's 1964 folk, more an eye into what was to come next as Dylan Electrified his sound and splitting folk into the traditionalists and the other other camp who were pitching at buyers of pop and rock discs.

I did pick up a box set that comprises of the Legacy reissues of Parsley, Sage & Rosemary, The Sounds Of Silence together with Bookends that do sound really good although they all are the remixes, good remixes I'd add unlike some that do take in the electric folk rock Sounds of Silence which defined an era and Bookends, a mix of singles and tracks that look at what it means human in an era when the "Generation Gap" got bigger and society got more confrontational in that era of Vietnam, the civil rights issues and equality for females.

Way way back in 2010 Audio Fidelity put out a "24 Kt gold" edition of "Parsley, Sage Rosemary and Thyme" that was canned for claiming to be "from the original mastertapes" but showing clear signs of being from the same analogue tape to digital  transfer as the regular edition.

Thankfully Mofi issued on October 22nd 2018 the real deal, a super audio cd with a layer that plays on all cd players too from a "safety copy" that has the original stereo mix rather than the remixes done in the 1990's by Bob Irwin.

This edition has an unbelievable presence in the vocals, so much so you do get the feel you are in the studio with them as they perform Scarborough Fair, Homeward Bound (not on original UK copies as we had an earlier version on the Sounds of Silence lp), Patterns and For Emily, Wherever I May Find Her

I own the 1994 Sony 'Mastersound' issue of Bridge Over Troubled Water, an epic swan-song of an album with the likes of The Boxer, Cecilia, The Only Living Boy in New York and that epic title track which is wonderful sounding  taken from the real analogue masters.

The insert folds out into a giant poster of the album cover and on the reverse explains the history of the tapes, much used so the odd bit of wear can be heard but for all that the sound is astonishing.

Restoration post

Hello there!

Things a getting a bit more back to normal around here with the One thousand and Five Hundredth post being made on the restored Tumblr which is getting some traction too carefully resourcing some of the reblogged posts to keep things as child friendly as we can with my aim that nothing will be over PG 13 and ideally below that  better reflecting what is actually appropriate for me, never mind any others.

It hasn't been easy with some posts that had to go when I looked more into what those people were about so like this weekend I have been adding new posts in between the post count milestones, just adding the odd explanatory note if say a original post was very much topical.

I hope to have it all redone by October time so I can delete the original version but given my own health issues I'm taking this very much as it comes.

The one outstanding issue with the Canon camera I mentioned on the other blog on Friday has been sorted and isn't an uncommon thing on used digital cameras and that is they use a separate often button cell to retain the day, date and time.

In this camera's instance it was a CR 1220 3 volt lithium cell that had lost capacity and needed to be replaced as all else on the camera checked out fine, focussing well and writing to the Sandisk 32Gb SD card properly.

It's now working well so we're ready to have a good alterative to the Nikon D3500 capable of handling anything I need it to where changing lenses would be a issue.

Given the noises coming from Microsoft regarding Windows 11 at some future point I'll need to consider a replacement for copying music digitally and advanced photo processing as they need machine based operating systems to run and at least one isn't available in Linux so it will be a between say a Apple Mini Mac 13inch or a Windows 11 laptop.

A somethings extra post

Today is August Bank Holiday here in England so I will most likely be out for a part of the day taking in the sun in a orange t shirt and my Blue short 90's style "dolfin" running/p.e shorts looking pretty much as I did then which wasn't far removed from how I was in my teens.

The nineties were in this country the decade that brought multichannel television in for the masses and with it a plethora of children's channels of various sorts.

You need to remember that for the years before while networks such as the BBC and ITV did have children's programs they had to vie for time slots on BBC 1, 2 and the regional ITV affiliate ATV/Central here in the Midlands.

In the BBC's instance too there was a strong bias toward inhouse British centred programming for the understandable aim of having programs that reflect British culture, values and our form of English so not only were we restricted to weekend mornings and mid afternoons during the week, we didn't see many series either.

Cartoon Network coming in the early 1990's initially on Satellite was a godsend because it mixed re-runs of Warner Bros Loony Tunes and the Flintstones with new content all day every day that coincided with my increased inclination to watch the kind of tv I loved as a boy and was increasingly living more this life out cutting back on the excesses of adult life that weren't working for me.

As with Nicklodeon's rugrats they were a gateway into re-examining the past as much as having a more child-like life even if then I was balancing it with working.

It was a period that was to move me forward into the past.

Classical Music on sacd 21 - Beethoven and his opera

We last touched this series in May so we're probably overdue an entry here.

Proms season returned late July after last years were very much affected by Covid-19 to the point of not just performers socially distancing but even with no actual audience present which wasn't really the coming together to enjoy the music we so love.

Thursday August 19th saw a performance of many operatic arias and overtures some of which I was familiar with such as Bizet's Carmen and others less so.

One I have more recently getting familiar with is Beethoven's Fidelio which compositionally is flawed - a chunk of spoken dialogue that's dry being one  but has some great 'songs'.

Just in time I bought this recent recording that plays in regular stereo cd and in stereo or multichannel super audio cd for better sound which was a lot better engineered than a performace I tried first that helped appreciate it.