Accountability and the Middle

Our lives as Middles have this running through them surrounded as we are around our clothes, our cute stuffies as part of everyday domestic life which takes me a very important area of Middles life and that is accountability.

Accountability as a concept is simply that as Middles we are expected to be held to account for those things that we are responsible for, such as our learning, our house-hold chores, the things we agree to do for others and our attitudes and behaviour as they affect us and those in our lives.

This sense of place thing does seem to matter  so actually putting us back in boyhood clothing and rules makes some sense.

This is because, whatever as individuals we have difficulty with, we are capable of exercising some that within the Adult world we interact with. We need  and are expected to meet some basic standards to be with you such as being truthful, reliable and so on.

As middles, we need our parent-like figures to support, guide and discipline us when we mess up, letting ourselves and others down and to learn to expect ourselves to be held to account as a matter of course rather than excused from it, that some of us including me have been in the past.

Having to accept swift, strict  punishment  is something some may baulk at but it is a need of ours to help us make the best of ourselves.

It’s a important learning we should not be excused if we are to grow up to be as mature as we can within our limits.

Improved optics

 

You might recall on one of the blogs me going on in 2020 about getting a DSLR as I had grown up using a film based Minolta set up and was missing the creativity when I needed to use digital compact camera for blog posts as you could wait days before getting film and a set of scans back to use.

That camera, the Nikon D3500 had served me well but I was never totally happy with the supplied "kit" lens a 18-55mm that while okay had no focus scale indication and I felt did lack something when it came to contrast compared with the used telephoto that was more expensive I bought to complete the basic outfit.

I decided then recently to to get a replacement for the 18-55mm and this was it, made using better quality optics and while covering slightly less at the wide angle end (the 18-55mm covered what a film 28mm would while this is just under 34mm) it does go to moderate telephoto which saves a bit of lens changing for day trips.

You can disable the auto focus which you do sometimes need to  easily on the lens while it does benefit from having image stablization which hlep with hand holding in low light or, as with me,having the odd tremor in my hands.

It was bought used coming complete with with a lens hood for keeping reflections from the sun's rays under control a set of filters, full instructions and all the original packaging.

This is noticably  sharper, focuses a tadge faster and has much better contrast  requiring less correction in my photo program to get images to look right.

Hi Resolution audio revisited

Looking around, spotting the odd old Digital Audio Player seemed to be missing in action I was more concerned that the cards had content I didn't appear to have back ups for a whole batch of them that were downloads rather than copies "ripped" from my own extensive cd collection.

There was a buzz around 2015 around the idea of better than cd quality sound that would be played either at home over music players, possibly connected via servers to a Network or on Portable Digital Audio Players from SD card memory cards bypassing the issues that bedeviled attempts at popularizing higher quality physical formats such as DVD-Audio and the Super Audio cd as you needed no new hardwear as most digital audio gear can play them whereas the cd player can only play cds and to get the benefits a sacd has to be played on a dedicated player.

Any way a few of these Hi Res downloads were found on a external hard drive but in the meantime one site I had used no longer did downloads so there was no chance of redownloading but an accidental poke in my Profile details at a site I usually buy classical cds from I had bought many of them but because they didn't show up in the normal purchase history only via Downloads that doesn't have a clear seperate menu.

Having installed on a Windows machine the download manager for the site I've now re-established a folder with them and set that machine to play out using a USB-C to Coaxial digital adaptor to a spare input on the Rega digital to analogue convertor in their native resolutions.

While streaming is more popular with many classical HD downloads you get a PDF booklet that tells you about the recording and performers so while stream can be useful to get the feel of a particular work or performance, for everyday enjoyment the cd or especially a high resolution file can be more enjoyable.

Certainly after some ten years from when a number of these were paid for Tasmin Little performing The Lark Ascending in 24 bit 96hhz resolution sounds amazing.

The day after lessons

The good thing about boarding school is after school lessons are over, then you'd a ready assembled group for games and all manner of activities plus facilities you may not of had at home.

We played Table Tennis not that with my co-ordination I was good at it or squash, we played board games that didn't get too argumentative or might go to the theatre or cinema as a group with staff to keep an eye on us.

We did have a video recorder which wasn't something we had until I left school so we could see shows you otherwise might of missed in an age without iPlayer or school might hire a video for us to watch but it was always a shared thing.

The only thing that might be personal was your radio or tape recorder that was in the dorm but you needed to keep the volume down a bit if you didn't want a unexpected knock on the door.

After all these years it is that shared experience, the names of those you spent that time with that come back to you.

Who are we?

Bit of a different post this week.

Before all this identity politics business kicked life was pretty simple that we all belonged to four corners of the UK and so we would for thing just about our part show our English, Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish flags with pride.

Collectively we've never been big on flags and saluting them outside of military or ceremonial contexts while for things around the whole United Kingdom, we'd show the Union Flag and generally it wasn't one or the other.

Recently there have been many flags been put up, often the Cross of St. George so some say is it that we've changed that relationship or is it more around politics?

While no one can  deny the Cross of St, George has been used by Nationalists and by some for racially intolerate purposes perhaps when people feel identity is under question and some have issues referring to native identities while other groups are encourage to share theirs, shouldn't we all be free to show our pride for whatever part of the UK we are from and for bring British regardless of race, religion or country of birth?

Past winter dress

Just been outside with the temperatures around 9 degrees c (sorry don't do Imperial) and like noticed the coolness which really brought me around to dealing with the colder part of the year which for some us especially in infants and juniors meant thick wollen socks and duffle coats.

Mine's hanging up, ready to go when needed!

There was though something else.

Being in a more liberal environment, you could just wear a sweater in a design that the knitting pattern might of said "for Girls" if you liked it and the colour scheme was okay like dark pinks, pinky blue or torquoise.

You could wear tights, plain tights mind under shorts or the dreaded long trousers that were ofter colder than decent shorts and long woollen socks and mum did buy me the odd pair for winter so a look like that wasn't uncommon although needless to say back then it was a bit "out there"

Today it's not unknown for boys and men to were thick "nude" tights when playing football in the winter without any issues but back then it was unthinkable!

So much fuss about a few scraps of material,eh?

September and the return to normal

So it is September and we know what that means, the rituals well ingrained in us as you feel the sun on you but not being as warm as it was in early August.

Checking over all your school wear for any wear tear, growth spurts that rended items too tight or indecently short, missing buttons on shirts, ties that appeared to lose the will to live and short trousers that show signs of wear in the seat.

Then the trip to the uniform shop especially if everything but your own skin has to be approved and branded or for more liberal establishments the local discount schoolwear shop and market store sellers of basics like Banner shirts and a shoe shop for footwear to survive seven hours on your feet all day, five days a week.

Having had a free and easy time of it all for six weeks you struggle to fixed periods of rigid academic study if you hadn't found chunks of last terms work seems to have gone very much astray, lost in memory holes.

Mind you, if I was him I'd of had those short trousers take up a bit as they must catch the knee even if you kept the turn up and I have got my original 70's tastic short lengh grey ones out and on today as the lcoal children all go back this morning.