Tales from the cold

Phew Aren't you glad last week is all over with from the snow to the minus four temperatures overnight that saw me in bed socks ?

We're slowly updating the electric oil filled radiators on temperature and time controls as the gas boiler is not working and it's scarcely worth doing much with all the talk of shunting you on Heat Pumps and old systems being written off.

I did have a few cds to entertain myself with and actually I found a bundle stashed by the cd player upstairs as I tend to be downstairs more since Mum's death and that's where the main hifi set up is so I give them a quick clean with IPA as markes and airborn stuff soon settle on them and stored them down here.

The Beatles discs came, two are with Mr. S. Claus late of the North Pole as they're for Crimbo and the other three are in the main collection that has The Beatles in Mono set of 10 mono lp's from 2014, I put the cats on cheaper food to pay for and a mixture of 1970's, 80's UK stereo editions and a couple of the 2012 stereo remasters where I thought they had something to offer.

There is a small portion of American discs of that handfull of titles I do like for their different selections often adding singles which the UK albums as a rule did not but having sorted the collection out in the 2000's, I can't see it changing much.

These new mono version do sound great and there is something for hearing the early recordings with the sound coming in just one direction rather than being at the extreme left and right.

Back when officially I was a boy, rather than someone who has not left being one, I did have things aranged that with the tube (Brit Eng: Valved) monoblock pair of power amplifiers and pre-amp I coud actually switch off one side and direct anything in mono to just one loudspeaker at the far end of the room for a more authentic single point sound.

These day's you're lucky if a preamp or intergrated amplifer even has a mono button to reduce the impact of any slight wear or crackles on older mono records.

Winter is here

Winter is almost upon us, the Annuals are out in the shops for those of us that recieving them at Christmas is boyhood ritual we've kept with for all our lives, the Christmas Trees will be arriving in our town and village squares with illuminations and guess what happened?

Photo credit W-T-O at UR Forum/A.I. 

It snowed late Monday night here - believe earlier in the East Midlands - and kept up Tuesday morning as I was out attending the bins given our collection day this year is Wednesday as I decided it was sensible to move them earlier ready for kerbside collection.

I couldn't resist gathering the snow from the top of the bin a good one and half to to two inches up and throwning snowballs as the children were getting ready to walk to school in their thick coats and wellies.

Yes, this weather brings out the eternal boy in short trousers doing boyish things!

I also trimmed the size of the cds a bit as some new compilations came and I ordered up some special wallets that hold all the cd book and rears plus the disc taking up much less space from Slim Disc in Telford, Shropshire.

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Reminders

Strange things do happen like for instance last week I recieved a stuff A5 envelope from D C Thomson, the publisher of the Beano which turned out to be the 68 page Christmas special which is odd as I had only a fortnight before a pack of this years Annual and the very same special.

That comes as part of the Beano Fan Club a collection of goodies delivered to your door with a membership pack and welcome letter.

Mine was close to renewal so I got a reminder email with a link but there's no one shot renewal only a recurring subscription via a direct debit so Ijusr bought another year.

We'll see if we get a whole new membership or not!

The 1979 rebellion

Somehow after this weekend I feel about talking about one of the more important years in all of this life after playing games and that and really it was around the time I started getting back to being me.

The year had began as Rat Trap started it's climb down the charts, the pounding Y.M.C.A. was right at the top and I had on paper at least advanced two years on from formally being a teenager and music was a massive interest of mine to the point that record was a Birthday Present earlier in 1979.

The thing around that teenage period was that peoples idea of what you "really" were started to change, they tended to see you as less of that boy, being more serious, engaged with your O level studies at school, the many nudges around girls and careers to the point you felt you were pushed down one route.

But in lots of other ways things were similar like you read comics rather than life style or current affairs magazines, the very same ones you had when you were seen as that boy and you watched children's tv mostly.

As it was I was still being spanked (not that I minded, wordy lectures just confused the hell out of me so a sore bottom worked better at getting the point over) very much a child so it was a bit confusing really.

"It'll never happen" - I just love that Toots playing with her dolls or Teacher selling off his canes (as some of us ahem "know" ours didn't sell them off....) but there's a frame missing from that  and it should feature Dennis with a caption saying "He'll never get over ten" which would of been very apt for me.

Beyond the world of dressing you like a mini Dad and pushing you into men's spots really I just hated that whole thing because simply nine times out of ten I didn't feel teenaged at all - hardly having a teenaged life as such - just pushed into tight clammy denim jeans when not at school and as punk was in its ascendency 1979 was the year this battle came to its head so by the Summer hols I demanded (gosh!) shorts in public going around outdoor markets as the previous year I did still have a couple of pairs from two year before that fitted and I had had a growth spurt since then.

While I didn't gain what really wanted - tailored short trousers aka "School Shorts" - I did win having bought for me short sports shorts and an understanding that unless we were going anywhere that needed formal attire, I was to be dressed in shorts.

I looked like that one and half or two inch seems even!

That to me when the slow start towards extended boyhood just respecting the existance of legal age and any conseqences and I started then to look into getting new formal short trousers as the formal school days edged out.