Little and Middle footwear

This week we're going back with an idea for a post that goes back a few years but is contempary too

Much of this is very much me, going back almost a decade in my exploration of what being an adult little means and how as one I'd present, the charcoal short trousers, the long just below the knees socks even the white shows although generally we didn't wear white back in infants.

I did wear shoes more like this once the leather mary jane type that breathed so well we dropped as you were a "big boy" although the one big issue was being laced might of appealed to traditionalist head teachers, this boy couldn't tie laces even if the refinement is obviously more Middle wear for things like parties and dancing apart from school.

This is more the kind of loafer's I wear made by the same company, very hard wearing in the seams and heels given I walk off balence wearing them down quickly but generally well made and very presentable with the distinct advantage  I can fasten the Velcro tm myself as often as needed.

Saves finding a grown up to fasten them up for me.

Where are we?

It is supposed to be hotting up this week so maybe you'll be out a bit but  if you're from some places in the UK where you may be going may be known or associated with may be different to what younger generations may recognize.

A generational difference for many of is is what is the North of the Island of Ireland, part of the British Isles was know to us as Ulster but today goes under the title Northern Ireland perhaps a good thing given the dual histories and traditions of communities there as it doesn't have Unionist (and Protestant) baggage.

Like a number of us who were educated in the late 1960's and 70's our "map" of Great Britain differs from that later generations being based more on the Traditional Counties, rather than local goverment regions of Wales, Scotland and Metropolitian areas of England, some of which haved changed again in the last quarter century.

Much of this map is where my mental map is at although for a map showing traditional counties, although Yorkshire folk will wonder what "South Yorkshire", a 1970's area centred around Sheffield is doing there when we all learned of the Three Ridings of Yorkshire, North, West and East.

London, our Capital always was an exception as The City slotted into Middlesex and from the seventeenth century grew outwards with rather adhoc governance that resulted in the establishment of a London County Council but that remained different to the traditional (ceremonial) counties and that of the Post Offices boundaries.

Can any one really say where "Greater London" really ends? Epsom, Staines, Chesham?

You can make good arguments for saying whole areas that may cross counties might be better served by local administration operating within it but the sense in which we have affilation and feel for our County Identities matters and "changing the map", removing signs, rewriting historical accounts with local government names today when at the time it wasn't misrepresents the past.

For me the County Boroughs of Walsall, Wolverhampton, West Bromwich and  nearby Urban Districts remain like Perton, Kinver and Wombourne in our glorious county of Staffordshire with its two massive conurbations at the top and bottom of it. Never part of Brum.

May memories

Well it is Wednesday here and I have a few things to get done as much as I'd like just play and get the viewmaster out, watching the Pink Panther and the Lion King.

May always had certain memories with me, later on when I was out of school, often I went away then as it was just at the start of the season but generally a fair bit cheaper  when it comes to accomodation but most facilities being open like heritage railways and zoos.

When I was in school it meant practising our Maypole dancing for public display which is an age old tradition certainly in England and I believe elsewhere within the United Kingdom.

 The dance is performed by pairs of boys and girls who stand alternately around the base of the pole, each holding the end of a ribbon. They weave in and around each other, boys going one way and girls going the other and the ribbons are woven together around the pole until they meet at the base.

While I was never brilliant at it, I did manage and enjoy this traditional dancing.

Bad memories and a disc

This week we go back a bit to the early days of the great rebellion against longs clad outside school wearing red with white side panel trim sports shorts with a one a half inch inseam around 1980/1 when we were getting the hang of leaving subtle hints for what records I wanted for Christmas and birthdays.

It also came around a period of more hifi awareness around getting decent crackle free sound from them so I had a brush to clean them with having been suitably chastised by my my older brother for leaving the Beach Boys 20 Golden Greats in chocolate stains at the age of 12.

Anyway come Christmas hint had worked as a copy of the current AC/DC album from July that year, Back In Black was in the christmas pile with the £3.99 price sticker on it.

This was the album issued after Bon Scott had died in February and Brian Robertson had taken on vocal duties and remains one of their finest with a few pictures of eternal schoolboy Angus Young on the inner sleeve who I wanted to resemble in class time.

Anyhow time went on, a copy of Denim And Leather, the Saxon album and a original 1967 3d cover version of Their Satanic Majesties Request on green Decca arrived as disaster struck.

Note I mentioned about keeping records clean and Dad had suggested using neat Surgical Spirit BP on a cloth so thinking he might have a point I duly cleaned them with it.

The first signs something was wrong was white thick paste covering the stylus after a couple tracks that never went and then any lined inners developed funny wavy lines that seemed to stick to the surface of the record.

One day borrowing my older brothers part tubed hifi, I decided to tape the AC/DC album which went well enough on his hand tweaked and tuned cassette deck.

A couple of days later all hell broke loose as seemly he'd gone to play a record and the stylus had become unglued from the holder on the cantilever necessitating replacement which wasn't cheap and this was because of the Surgical Spirit had melted the glue used at the factory to bond the stylus tip to it.

I did well to escape a sore behind but that now mean any records treated could no longer be played on anyone elses equipment and didn't play to well on mine as the gunk on my stylus needed cleaning every few tracks.

In time those records left because of those issues that had ironically started with the nobel idea of clean discs leaving cassette copies.

Recently I managed to get a near perfect copy of that AC/DC album that matches the very copy I had rather than a later repressing that sounded great and more importantly but all the emotional baggage associated with it to bed.

Getting set for Summer

Warm week and one that takes us though spring into summer so obviously we get the point Summer Specials traditionally would of been announced but DC Thomson have made announcements but it's been very low key this time.

Traditionally you'd of bought them from places like train stations - perhaps you remember going on your hols by train? - as much newsagents when you arrived at your destination and today if boys were more dressed as we recall they'd have the Smartphone out, checking connections.

The Pink Panther Show was a big thing with me - the spin off from the classic Pink Panther films with the hapless Inspector Clouseau - shown typically on saturday afternoons to the point of having plushies and calendars.

It was the same era as the beige Viewfinder I used to own was in heavy usage and recently I was able to find a three reel set for my new-old Viewfinder based upon the Pink Panther's cartoon adventures although it had to got from the United States so will take around a fortnight to come while I relive the adventures of the classic 1966 Batman with Adam West having got a set which while made in 1978, was just the original tv tie-in set from 1966 reprinted.

There will be a Part II on the other blog once we've run though a couple of planned entries.

Words

For once I'm actually a bit ahead of myself with a combination of both getting up a bit earlier and blitzing chores and generally being a bit more "on the ball" across the days.

I can remember some of the conversations around that kind of thing well cos while I'd never say I was perfect and did need some chastising, the thing that still rankles a bit with me is really the way in which there appeared to be double standards.

I may of left things in ways that of been untidy or in the way but say dad may of left heaps of things for over a month and nothing got said about that that or the time I was told to reduce my coats down to three from four cos did had nowhere to put all his - over ten - by mum.

He might of threatened grevious bodily harm to a cat after a bird but my protesting was a "you are under my roof and if you have any issues with my actions leave" matter.

It's that kind of thing really but women can be just as capable of it too - and some certainly have an issue with males full stop - but you can't avoid the need for adults to actually parent us and tragically we've seen instances where they've failed utterly in that allowing much suffering to others

Reliable, fair and supportitive adult authority is what boys need, ideally from men.

Is truth stranger than fiction

 This weeks crazy...

Most of are used to satire, we read publications such as Private Eye, we watch the likes of Have I Got News For You and radio shows often taking current affairs and putting a twist on them revealing a little more about the people at the centre of them than perhaps they would be confortable with.

It seems today though that some matters are in effect beyond satire as how they act, their actions are out of the everyday norms but seem to be entirely normal for them.

It's probably fair to say recent rants and statements on their own social media - a major world leader that has spare time to rant away and create their own A.i image creations - have caused much alarm, mirth even in recent months.

His depection in recent days as a christ like messiah in a major spat with The Pope, the leader of the world wide Roman Catholic church is just such an example that only a matter of  few years ago would of been unthinkable.

The State of the World

We are living in rather worrying times, some of the grown ups seem to have taken leave of their senses  and as I'll be away on a easter playaway day I'll leave this week with a well observed cartoon in the Calvin and Hobbes series I adore that tackles what to me seems to be the notion of "american exceptionism" head on.

That last frame is just marvellous for puncturing it.

No country is perfect, all have their good points and bad ones what matters is being free to live where suits you best.

And your word to describe is?

It's another week in what were told was spring but it sure doesn't feel like it, it is April too so white rabbits have been about and another sort of rabbit will be making its appearence at the weekend armed with enjoyable gifts.

Sitting watching Call My Bluff the other day, one of Geoffrey Robinson's shows at the time, the other being that post tea and news Ask The Family, remembering panellists, a good few sadly are no longer with us, just locked in our memories as ever my mind was at one point in time while attempting the work out  which explination of a word or phrase was True and what was Bluff.

I was just thinking what the answers might be if the word was "Adult Schoolboy"?

Peter Pan?

I could imagine a scene rather like this.

A collection of boys, allowed up by Matron or your house master to watch a late show in the era of rigid bed times enforced without fail watching the show as we did back then - grown ups thought shows like that were good for our brains - thinking "just what is "Adult Schoolboy?"

Thye'd never seen anything that met that description, perhaps they knew a kind older person who kept a similar sense of fun to them and, looking at each other said "Could we look like this when we've taken our O Levels and left school?"

I suspect for many of us possibly not - other things were on our horizons like A Levels,  college or shockingly at sixteen, work that was worlds away from that life we knew and loved - and yet today many of us do loving being mentally and in terms our presentation being just that.

I knew for all of that I felt at that age of still being very much a junior and preferring to dress more that way the idea I might freely elect to dress like that would of seemed - strange.

Indeed this morning I saw a post of Mumsnet where one had started a topic even suggesting that actual boys wearing grey short trousers was "off" and "had the wrong impression" although many I hasten to add did spell out the advantages and that even some boys would sooner wear them by choice all day long.

Just where that might come from who knows?

Yes we sometimes read of the person who gets into serious trouble with the law while looking more like that but bigger proportions do wear very much adult male attire and get into the same.

For us it may be "a thing" but I don't feel that deters actual boys from wearing them any more than the interest in say replica football strips or vintage sports shorts adults have puts them off wearing sports wear, perhaps dreaming of being the next celebrated striker or going out as the club mascot.

Perhaps we just loved being that us back then and kept it that way as best we could?

The importance of older men to boys

I was not too well recently so things will need to be a bit brief as I'm still recovering but thoughts did go back to my teens and how learning wasn't all rote learned academic stuff.

One advantage of having a fairly big family was you had a lot of people with all manner of experiences, some of which were not in your immediate family and when I was younger some of the major events of the last century such as World War Two and the changes in industrialization were still fresh, keenly remembered by those who'd live through them.

Your aunts and uncles plus grand parents talked to you about what they had experienced and some schools tapped into that idea by doing "oral history" where past generations spoke to groups of boys and girls about their life and times.

I feel it grounded me much better as a boy to know of what previous generations when through and to learn something of what boyhood was from those who'd had that life and learned valuable lessons from I badly needed to learn.

Men have a lot to offer us and people should care to help to place us with them where they feel they have a valuable role to play and we gain from what they learned about life, especially as a male.

The Library

Some things just stick with you.

They may be milestone events like learning to walk, your first bike and the joy of cycling around where you live under your very own steam or going to uni.

One for me was the introduction to the Library as my first school didn't have have on just tiny collection of mainly reference books often well out of date and no story books around the age five.

Finding the Doctor Suess books was a great gateway to the idea that a story could be wildly imaginative with creative use of language.

As time went on you progressed around the children's section towards more junior fiction as, as fortunate we wore to have stories read to us in school especially when we had a bigger new building with a proper library of its own.

For me my problems with the library really started when it came to the time staff expected me to use the adult section which when you have reading difficulties that affect comprehension and with developmental issues the themes of fiction didn't align with me and my life.

I really needed to be able to access the teen section and move across to the adult bit for more technical or factual works but that just wasn't made available in this district so over time my usage of it beyond the reference section or the ability to borrow music dropped off.

Maybe things will change one day.

Boyhood and Post Birthday thoughts

 

That was the week that was with some cards, choco and money which in so many ways felt more like that right down to reading the tv listings in the newspaper although I do get the Radio Times religiously for fuller listing and the radio as radio remains with me a big thing.

As a Adult Boy, that's hardly surprising really given I always listened to concerts, music shows, discussions and comedy programs and modern listings tend to ignore the many radio stations that are out there.

But this boyhood thing is worth of a bit of expression as it certainly isn't "pint sized man".

That for me gets very close to how it feels, still feels to me and why I'm not a man beyond chronological age.

I'll just play with toy cars on the carpet now....

Thoughts for a March Morning

We've entered Spring apparently although to be honest it feels colder to me than last week but school is officially back after ther half time which to be honest is where Chris really feels he belongs still although obviously you can't just turn up.

Sometimes you used to hear of people who had managed that a few years after they'd left where presumably they still look very similiar but with all the checks and that today really not gonna happen.

There's a whirl in the kitchen at the minute as I've got up, reading a few things, trying to avoid all that War stuff that's on the radio and tv news at the minute and put my clothes in the washer as while boys tended to have a reputation among girls for being "smelly", I don't like being smelly although I don't see anything wrong with getting a bit muck on me playing.

It was Mum's who tended to be all aghast when you came in with mud on socks, legs and hands but then really that was the best reason going ro put us in shorts and t shirts easier to keep us and them clean while keeping us fully occupied, well out of troubles way.

Dad was never so fussied about that, just never ever wake him up prematurely by putting the radio on when there's thunder and lightning and then hearing loud arcing from its loudspeaker.

You'd end up with burning bottom later on for it!

He's an enigma to be honest - why men seem, you know distant with emotions in bag screaming to get out but seldom do - at time riddled with contridictions and conflicted at times too which with things like a birthday around the corner you're kind of reminded of.

Actually most people say I'm more like Mum.

I don't know if he's got anything planned or even a card really, I mean last year he didn't do anything for it which is something Mum always did and he was there.

He never did anything like that on birthday morning although for all my thoughts around spanking I'd of had no issues with that kind, done with love and affection by him.

Structure and Emotions

Quite a few things happened across the week.

One thing connected with the Forum that can be hard going is when a post or two that are made do not fit what the thread is about.

We've had before things like a person putting a fictional account in a thread about actual real life experiences or mixing up subjects so when you click on a  thread to look at one thing the subject has totally changed.

We do have threads for related Images but we like to keep actual images such as photographs and drawings seperate from A.I. generated ones that have their own thread and all credited, published with authority of whoever owns the right(s) to that image.

Please try to keep things in the right thread.

The other main thing is our actual childhood pasts do connect to our present day realities, how we may see things as being perhaps feeling you were accused or punished for something unjustly or blamed by others which can cause trust issues.

You might feel "Everybody's always blaming me".

For some of us sibling relations are a huge problem because how they treated you such as getting you into trouble, stealing, telling lies all the time and not to put too fine a point on it emotional abuse in the home.

You may have tried desperately to be a good - never perfect - older brother but the way you were treat leaves issues to this day.

There are plus points to being very much a adult child not least when like for me it is developmentally what you are but it also means I have the same sorts of reactions as a child in certain situations leading to situations that can be trying.

I have been trying to sort through with one sibling these issues as painful as they are and to get them to open up to what was going on with them at the time.

We have got to the point where one is now prepared to allow me to be their next of kin after their partner which is improvement on how things were two years ago.

Mum approved return to LB?

Oh what a week of Drama we've had thankfully off forum but sadly closer to home where hometruths were spelt out but anyway and connected at one level to it is really more this post.

Everybody's childhood is different than each others and no doubt boyhood in the 1990's or 2000's was different than that of my own generation sandwiched between the late 1960's and 1970's which at times seems a foreign land today where red call boxes roamed the land as did boys on choppers and you'd all dash to back to see your favourite tv shows as there was no  video recorder never mind iPlayer back then.

See it or miss it, back then

Saturday mornings were Cartoon time not that we didn't have them in the weekdays such as those the BBC sandwiched between our programs and The News  for groan ups.

Cartoons might feature between two ot three hour shows depend on where you lived Tiswas for those of us in the Midlands from day one or SwapShop on BBC1 and between such programs too.

It didn't matter if they were a few years old, we enjoyed the Banana Splits, Josie and the Pussycats, Wacky Races and loads of Hanna-Barbara shows like the Flintstones.

Now it isn't so talked about but some Mothers really loved that stage in your life when you were their Little Boy keeping all sorts of reminders of those days, the things you made, badges you gained, even your  last surviving clothes before everyone said "You're a Big Boy now!" and she mentally took a tissue to her eye.

Just imagine if you will that situation as a fourteen or fifteen year old in a tearfully sentimental story how she loved those years she retrived those last grey school shorts and said "Let's see if they still fit" (subtext "Are you reall that much of a Big Boy?")

Most would be embarassed but I'd of had tears of joy for being allowed to be him at least when mum loved it.

In her last years she got to loved a short trouser dressed Little Boy me and on the anniversary of her death this all comes back.

Time to change!

We're somewhat rough (or ruff) after a draining day emotionally speaking where a couple of things came early but because of events couldn't be enjoyed that day, barely touch just unwrapped and put to oneside.

Something that did after several paracetamols came back to me was the period around 1979 through to 1985 when looking at the various promotional mini catalogues various stores put out to tie in with "Back To School" and Christmas was the amount of time I'd spend looking at things like what today we'd call replica football strip or especially the generic ones you'd have in schools PE kit.

Association Football or more collequally in the U.K. "Football" was something on the face of it wasn't really designed for a unco-ordinated wobbely footed me in an era where there were few "Disability Sports" and apart from not having any in regular schools even schools that were more for the disabled didn't cos nobody was leaving Teacher Training knowing about them.

Thus for most of my education if "Boys" had football on the timetable then wobbly ol' me had to take part when not on muddy grass which in some ways wasn't the best use of PE time for me but did learn me resilence.

I did get around that period the full outfit right down to the thicker long sleeve jerseys with ribbing on the cuffs and then normal short shorts unlike todays just above the knees sort, as it too me back a bit to that past and lent itself for summer wear.

What we're about

There's a few more aches and pains than I'd like this week as I'm trying to rest the affected areas of the body although I am around the forum should anyone do anything  they really shouldn't be and NO you're not getting away with anything while I recover!

This blog tends to follow a different projectory than the others although over the years we've been impacted by things like the impact of the Online Safety Act and shifting views of how Bloggers terms are supposed to work and that is it by design a BOYS CLUB.

Now what can be in a Boys Club will change over time, certainly when I was young it was limited and in some respects over restrictive but it's not for girls as it changes the whole feel of it in the way to allow boys in some Girl spots does too.

And that is okay as - and I know I have battled with what being a boy meant - we need that space to work on it as the old working defination "anything girls do, we don't" no longer works if indeed it ever did totally.

We have "action figures", they have dolls and everything around their dolls have changed they're no longer obsessed with being pretty and leaving everyth.ing to males and we're still stuggling the idea of a more caring sensitive male even if being able to provide and protect still matter and are sources of manly pride.

I like being the Boy I am, Don't you?

Blown away

The day after Monday night and Tuesday's storms so for most here school was still on although some struggled to walk and transport for those who attend "Disabled Schools" wasn't running as everybody including staff do travel large distances and trees and the like were down here.

I can remember experiences like that rather well although in hindsight one plus we had was there was no "E-learning" so unlike some today you wouldn't be expected to work from home on your Chromebook or Smartphone instead.

You had the day off instead to play with your toy soldiers or read comics instead which was far more fun and to be fair in some homes you might struggle to concentrate left on your own with all the domestic stuff going on around you.

Winter always brings back boyhood school memories for me and whatever the birthdate may say, you're back in that time and I love that.

Time to act?

While my head is a bit messed up with some triggering incident caused by stuff on one site we won't go deeply into, discussion is continuing on the topic of under sixteens and social media following a ban on it in Australia and talk of similar schemes elsewhere.

Part of the problem was the internet and especially the social media part were never really designed for young users who in the past might of had to got permission to publish a school magazine and the content would of been moderated prior to it being published could now put anything up with the companies only responding to reports if anyone raised concerns.

And that's too late if slurs, insults, dubious pictures and the like are being posted and traded around as then schools are having to deal with the fall out in school time beyond the issues around just how long younsgters are staring at relatively small screens.

Reports are coming from health professionals about the major rise in eyesight issues and premature, often highly inappropriate sexual behaviour by youngsters copying pr0n they've seen or challenges that are often highly dangerous, even life threatening.

Something has to change here as even as legal adults we can have issues around addiction as the algorithms just keep on finding more and more material to scroll though.

We are now talking serious around a social media ban - not a absolute ban on internet access although a good case can be made for the youngest only doing so under supervision and it is about time.

 

Sorted (for now)

Fortunately the strong winds, very limited snow of the weekend but much ice has recided although it did leave a certain amount delayed post was things were much worse to the south of us so some things were rather put on hold.

One thing in that was the whole project of dealing with last weeks computer issue as while leave in an age of many devices connected to our televisions, such as streaming kit, games consoles, maybe a computer for things like Microsoft Teams, your Blu-Ray player and so on the sockets on a good number of tv's are insufficient to leave things plugged in and bending round the back plugging and unplugging leads is both a faff and for some of us backaching.

Thus before I could do anything, I needed to look at ways of extending the number of HDMI sockets and looking around it seemed unlike the 90's world of Scarts we used for our VCR's and DVD players automatic swicthing just doesn't work very well at all.

In the end I opted for simple manual swicthing unit with the right number of inputs that uses relays powered from a device to do the witching which tend to be more reliable than cheap contact switches and a half meter lead to go to the tv to keep it neat.

Having plugged the HD satellite box and DVD Player back in, attention was then taken to the lead to the laptop because you don't want a lead that might act more like a fence between you, the tv (acting as a monitor) and it plus often you'll have things plugged into the computer such as cameras for photo editing or a cd/dvd drive for copying discs for things such as portable digital audio players or playing via an external digital to analogue converter to your stereo.

The act of copying such discs is very difficult on a Chromebook as it doesn't natively allow for run ning programs and the one Andriod app that can is a faff and half to use so that's a major use of this Windows laptop.

I went for three meter lead to allow for a more careful and potentially accident free installation and using the supplied cable ties you can just gently roll it up when not in use so it doesn't clutter the place up.

Never discount the potential for tripping over wires!

It is now all working able to plugged in and used in minutes for those things the Chromebook isn't so good even if that's so much better for just opening up, logging in  and getting on with stuff.

Cold black screen of death

Brr it was minus 7 degrees when I started this blog so I haven't been far in my grey short trousers, shirt and jersey  as with heavy snow it is rather difficult for me to get about when you're wobbly of foot.

Something rather unfortunate happened on the cool but nowhere near bitterly cold saturday night that has had some consequencies to some of my interests and very much with blogging which has also been impacted on by the weather.

That Windows 11 machine had a screen failure that replaced its good 1336 x768 colour screen for faint horizontal lines at the top and no image  which when you remember that even powering down usually requires you to use the mouse and screen is not remotely good.

I did the torchlight test and there's no faint image it's likely the LCD itself has failed but finding a spare HDMI cable and hooking that up to the tv shows  a steady correctly proportioned clear image and full interface.

While at some point a new machine would make more sense although you'd have to reinstall or replace programs  as I mainly use it for photo processing, ripping cds to lossless files for digital audio player and for ease with the downloader at Presto, a Music store that sells downloads as that pulls the files into a folder that ended up in the Music masterfolder of the computer.

While you can download via the browser on the Chromebook Plus, that gives you individual files that you have to round up to a master file you create and name it which is a bit more faff.

So I should be getting weather permitting a switch so I can leave cable plugged into it so I can continue to use it while not be pulling out the blu tay machines plug a lot of the time with the mauling that causes.