The great in out shake it all about European Union referendum campaign has gone into full swing following the British Premier, David Cameron's meeting with EU leaders and the announcement a 'deal' had been reached.
The one thing many who do not have strongly entrenched positions have pointed to is there seems to be a lack of qualified independently compiled statistics looking at areas such as what the total contribution to the EU budget the UK is, How much the UK gets back, How much trade is directly with the EU and how much we trade with it (How does that compare to the Rest of the World?) How the immigration and migration levels between the UK and EU compare and so on.
These are both the things people who are uncommitted need to help them arrive at their own thoughts on leaving or staying in and also the means those with more established principled stances check the arguments put forward do actually stack up as politicians like salesmen are prone to exaggerate at the very least their claims.
A job for ONS and the LSE perhaps?
One thing a good number of people in my neighbourhood have remarked upon is the quietness of the sidewalk during the local school half-term break this year with seldom a child been seen out of doors in the park, on the sidewalk nor the local stores on their own.
This is particularly noticeable around of the Senior School age group and a number of parents put it to me that there children preferred to play games and socialize online even when they only be a few blocks away to physically venturing out to perform some shared activity together.
I just can't help but wonder how this is likely to effect how as grown ups they will relate to one another in the work place and the wider community, never mind any effects on their health.
While I'm very busy getting ready to be with friends this week I'm reminded it's 44 years since we met Ziggy Stardust so here's a picture from that era
The lead off single Star Man, was one of the first I heard that made no concessions to singing in a traditional show business style that was so typical of Bowie's refusal to follow trends but rather set them.
Continuing in a way with the theme of 'Old Friends', I've been busy transferring some favourite compilation cds ready to a micro sd card for my music player as in 2016 as for most of last year, I seldom use my MiniDisc equipment and discs going back to the late 90's as technically it's not so much equalled, which I didn't expect but in respects surpasses for sound quality.
The overwhelming majority of those MiniDiscs are duplicated on Micro SD cards, taking up considerably less room while adding album art when played.
This was one, not entirely accurately titled but a great resumé of British hits from the early to mid 1970's that came out in 1993 on cd that sounds rather good.
Talking old friends, this was one:
Coming out in 1985 when much of my listening not least portable listening was based on cassettes, I bought what was then the new Compilation by the Champagne, Illinois band REO Speedwagon on pre-recorded tape.
In 1988, two years on from buying a cd player and in that time buying a good number of cds for it, I was looking for a compilation by them and so bought a brand new one, that apart from obviously sounding a bit better than good regular tape, had a couple of new songs on, such as Here With Me and as a compilation it pretty much stacks up even now.
But I still missed my original one for a reason namely it missed of Wherever You're Going (it's alright), a new chart single from 1985 which isn't easy to find in digital forms, so after making do with a so-so download of the song, I bought for near pence a used excellent condition cd of it and copied that song in much better quality using my own copying program.
