Summer Hols

There's really little point looking for me this week in all the usual places as I'm not there as this warm week I am away in the Lake District on ones hols of sorts.

Hols in the past tended to be pretty much family affairs, even the odd time with grand parents when I'd wear leisure shorts as short as and the same sort of cut as these most of the time.

You might say length was't really a thing with me but breathability and feeling the fresh air all around me!

They will be games like rounders, makes, treasure hunts and that, more like a summer camp for children and I'll be dressed as theboy I am which works a treat.

I'll have my comics with me, the way it always used to be to share with others.

Have fun this week and I'll be back next week....

Weird stories by weirder people

 

The most extraordinary of searches produces a result that makes little sense, even beggars belief in its scattergun approach exploring something they didn't understand feeling it was "ikky" and yet in so many ways they could not be more wrong,

Indeed they could of got the definative answer if you take them at their own words.

A search around littles lead to a ten page MumsNet story in a AIBUsection, that being the net mummies abbreviation for Am I Being Unreasonable that talks about how recently (Post was Early Dec 2023) they had discovered somebody they had known well for a long time was:

Called themselves a "Little"

Attended a get together with like minded  where

Did arts and crafts

Played childrens games, did jigsaws

Dressed as a child

Were read stories as a group in a storytime

Person who read it thought was part of a kink event

In response to a question said "Were not aware they had any contact with children"

They now feel disgusted by that person, believe they sexualizing childhood and refuse to have anything to do with them.

The way they described the event the person attended seemed to be on the face of it extremely familiar incuding how it was stressed it was non sexual.

Well I'll be damned if I can think of anyone old enough to be on MumsNet I know or knew well but a few basic things come into all this.

There was no evidence on the post of however it was of anything sexual or kink related beyond the term Little and Littles which is used by parents too.

All the unearthing digging deep didn't connect that person to what they saw plus different people do different things and everything was lawful.

Some littles may have sex but given that's in their own bedrooms that's no different than any kind of sex really.

Sex is a fine thing for those old enough (in law)  if they wish just don't push it on people, involve minors or do it in public spaces.

The individual if they really knew the person quite well could of talked to them about their interests but elected not to prefering to soil by association their reputation

You generally won't find anyone in kink who considers connecting actual kids to kink or directly involving them - it's a sure fire way to get booted from that scene,

The more disturbing aspect of this post was just how misguided and extreme their feelings were on what at the end of the day is re-enactment,role play or age regression that caused and causes no harm to minors at all.

With that I will be at a meet next week!

Blow them and their twisted little minds!!!!

Wait in the study!

 Well apart from the little matter of England losing the Euros which is a shame something else happened on Sunday here.

The replacement cassette machine for the faulty one arrived well packaged in a big thankfully not that heavy box thanks to Royal Mail.

Connected around this is the vexted question of what to record onto as the high street is very different than even the start of this century nevermind cassette's heyday of the 80's up to the mid 90's when there were shops that sold blank tapes and quite a variety of different ones available.

A common idea - I'd call it a romance - is the notion of putting an album on a period tape as if you had it back then but this notion has its risks and issues.

That is tape I recall from 1971/2 and the first shoe box cassette record I had then and budget tapes back then were noisy and limited in fidelity and indeed even the big brands of the day such as Philips, TDK and EMI were a good way removed from what they achieved by 1978/9.

Thus using a 1971 tape to put your James Taylor and Carly Simon albums on really wouldn't sound good as even when new they weren't good and tapes are subject to varying levels of deterioration.

As it was the new machine dual capstan mechanism objected to the stiffness of a otherwise well look after TDK SA tape from 1977 and chewed it out!

And that's really the thing, the "knock it on the head" moment about that period tape business, it's not practical.

You can find still a good amount of tape from the early 80's to around the turn of century which provided it hasn't been in damp shed or o.ven like loft still is pretty good that I have a good amount in stock of.

But what about actual new, still being made tape?

Well actually some is being made completly from scratch, not using big "pancakes" of new old stock tape in the United States and in France.

Recording The Masters make studio quality open reel tape for studios that still record on tape and a sideline of that has been making brand new cassette blanks based on old BASF LN formulations and they can be recommended as while not cheap it will work perfectly and do sound better than post 2000 budget tape such as Maxell UR (the 90's UR wasn't bad) and chinese made brands you see on Ebay and Amazon.

They will play on anything.

Initially only made in C60 lengths last a half hour per side, they have commenced making C90's , the length we often used for either putting two records on or making our our compilations in the last 18 months or so.

The idea of making or remaking your favourite tapes and enjoying playing them is great but when old tapes may be in a poor state (and not that great even new) I feel it's best to use newer if not new tapes whither or not you have a reconditioned and serviced machine like me or one of the new Teac decks.

450th post with a few faults

Well that election is over with with decisive, clear victory even if it was the most flattest set of campaigns I can recall with only Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davies stunts livening things up.

At least in this country we can get votes counted by the next day coupled with any transition of power from one government to another smoothly.

It's an interesting week as in drips and drabs bits arrive to install a new cassette deck in the spare room system as the original is having a ton of issues with the leaf switches which are all interlinked sending differing voltages to a controller to do things like select play or record and select the noise reduction.

Some things don't come on when pressed and sometimes selecting play puts it into record.

As well, I'm going to look at my Sony TC-D5M portable as the dc input for its seperate power unit seems to have an intermittant power connection.

We're marking what is around the 450th post on this blog this week from those heady days eight years ago when this rambling thoughts blog where if I wanted to journal feelings and emotions that didn't always tie up with the other blogs with their own narrower themes.

This also sometimes acts as an overflow too when there's more than what would neatly fit into the others on our weekly post cycle.

That '74 feeling again

 

The more or less four yearly competition to see who makes the most rashes promises to run the government is in its final stages although a common response is to "stick it to the man" as people are fed up people promising what they don't (and maybe) can't deliver and not really answering the question when it comes how they they will pay for things.

Dad was saying he thought it might be as close as it was in 1974.

Crumbs! I remember the chaotic period only too well.

There were better memories of then though as a original ten year old and that was of watching a series of five minute cartoons by the Wombles who became a pop group and environmental champions too.

This very limited record came the other week.

It's basically a Greatest Hits album with all your favourite singles in there chronological order of release as issued on CBS Records over here with the Wellington solo track, and exclusive US single and the version of The Wombling Song used in the film Wombling Free in 1977.

That means such classics as Super Womble, Wombling Merry Christmas and Remember You're a Womble are gathered up with a essay and picture on the inner sleeve to be played and enjoyed the way we did back then.

Listening to that was pretty enjoyable as we seem to be going through another colder damp spell.