Christmas Day edition 2020

It's been a crazy year and that of course feeds into Christmas where I'll be with my folks this year although the difference between what the rest of my family say they're going to do and what in fact they do remains although I think one brother might just making a fleeting visit.

In terms of presents as it is time to open them I think we'll kick off with "The Big Un".

I've been slowly and with Covid affecting recording and manufacturing this year, slowly building up a collection of Super Audio cds, mainly classical.

My folks bought me this new recording on Sacd, of Beethoven's Piano concertos, all five plus bonus material which will supplement my classic 1960's stereo William Kempf versions with the Berlin Philharmonic on DG.

The Beano today isn't what it was growing up although to be fair the world of children today isn't although much of childhood remains the same so while back then I'd of had the Annual, today I have the Christmas special edition of the regular comic with the mixture of classic cartoon strips such as Dennis The Menace and newer ones that are more inclusive around sex, race and disability.

The Beano and Dandy were comics I had and more fittingly I did have this years installment in the "Classic" Beano and The Dandy themed compilations from that past they issue every year, this time looking at the work of Dudley D Watkins, one of D C Thomson's finest creators of comic book strips.

Finally as I sip my grape juice, eventually after a long delay the all time early classic Harry Nilsson Nilsson Schmilsson album issued in 1971 came out on a Super Audio cd edition with just a print run of 2,500 world wide in October.

This album, the title of which may escape you was a massive seller in that era and was the home of the #1 single Without You written by Pete Ham and Tom Evans of the Welsh group Badfinger.

Now that's what I call scrumptous!

Happy Christmas folks!

Christmas paws

 

We have a week to go which basically means from now on I take a break from Tumblr and pause this blog until Christmas day which does at least this year tie in with the publishing schedule.

In what's been a very different year than we may of expected, Christmas of sorts will be happening next Friday.

HAPPY CHRISTMAS FOLKS!

Christmas hope

Yes even on this blog in a crazy ol' year we are moving toward Christmas with many people having their decorations up with many reindeer, Santa's little helper, santa claus living in peoples gardens, well illuminated.

It seems people this year have invested an awful lot of hope in Christmas with having the year we have had so around the restrictions we have, we are celebrating and looking forward to a New Year with better times ahead as the year progresses on.

It was very much wet weather when that picture was taken but I liked that illuminated bush.

This week has seen some concrete signs of hope that follow on from what I wrote about last week.

Maggie Keenan of Coventry, Warwickshire became the first person in the world to have the fully tested Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine joined by a William Shakespeare  aged 90 and 83 respectively here in the Midlands who explained why they decided to as the mass vaccination program kicked off Tuesday.

The aim is to get around four million people vaccinated by the end of December and then continue on into the New Year which will massively reduce symptoms in the worst cases and enable over time normal life to continue.

It was as Maggie put about being able to visit, interact and hug her grand children and enabling a near normal life to resume.

That is the Hope we need, and what it is so many of us are looking for this Christmas as we look out past our reindeer, three wise men and presents.

The vaccination program begins

After last weeks post in a week where even the mamil's had the odd extra layer on as winter made a big entrance, we did have a bit of good news.

On Wednesday morning, so early it missed that day's morning newspapers, it was announced the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine had been approved under the emergency approval system for use in the UK, a world first.

The other vaccines are still at the approval evaluation stage although the outcomes are expected from the weekend onward but this doesn't just mean we can say we're the first to approve it.

Actually it has enabled us to be the first country in the West to begin the roll out of a mass vaccination program starting from next week starting with NHS workers as one issue with this particular vaccine is finding a safe effective way to deploy in smaller batches to enable easy provision more at the grass roots community level as it needs to be stored at over minus 70 degrees.

It just happens hospitals have freezers that work at that temperature with enough depth to take it so we're starting from there where the AstraZenaca/Oxford vaccine will work with just a regular freezer which is potentially much easier to take out to chemists and surgeries.

As the newspaper (and many others) alerts readers to is this is going to take quite a time as it will easily be the biggest mass vaccination program ever which will take months to work its way through near enough all of us.

It won't be just a month of vaccination and back to normal.

It is however extremely good news and cause for justified celebration in the battle for the only realistic way out of the many restrictions that while necessary we all have been struggling with.

Christmas is Saved!

It's not that far off Advent so thoughts had been very much around just what would Christmas in this topsy turvey year going to be like.

One thing it can include to the delight of boys and girls everywhere is a virtual Grotto where you can meet Mr. Claus safely on his sleigh, wave and talk to him about what you'd like for Christmas. 

Amazingly the leaders of all Four Nations within the UK didn't just get together for virtual mince pies but agreed a common set of agreed exemptions from each countries rules for five days starting December 23rd to enable people if they wish to meet up over Christmas.

Because you are being allowed to do this doesn't mean you should go overboard and have everyone over during that period - you should try to keep that contact as brief as is necessary and avoid having people sharing things you may dip into such as festive candy and savoury snacks - but does mean people can see children and people who aren't at the highest risk of catching anything who might of had little face to face contact with family can be reunited.

No, it's not everyday you get festive decorations from the Government  but this Bubble was nearly universally welcomed for allowing Christmas of sorts to happen and setting some rules as people would only of met up anyhow in less safe ways.

Christmas was saved but what about the Turkey?

Next Wednesday in England, we're out of our National Lockdown V 2.0 so amongst other things no matter what Tier we end up in where we live we can have our hair cut.

When this was written the decision of what areas went into which tiers had not been announced - I suspect it was made with Council leaders knowing - but under an embargo unto the Minister makes his announcement on Thursday.

This is a summary of what applies to each Tier from December 2nd.

To me it looks a bit more balanced with a good number of less risky things that people can do including non essential shops reopening and grassroots sports resuming but with stricter rules that are more targeted at things that pose the greatest risk increasing for areas with the highest levels of infection, stretched NHS capacity and so on.

Forced changes

 Last week was rather trying, more than bloggers new system is which can be when you just go to load an image and - pow! - your text just goes in a flash and for a connected reason -images.

Let's face it we may have images from sources that don't look right or perhaps as careful as you be with digital photography, it needs a bit of tweaking here, a cropping there and so on so we have various Photo processing suites on our desktop and laptop computers.

It's different with Chromebooks cos you can't install programs only use web based apps such as Pixlr which you upload the image to and download the tweaked version.

Ever since I had this Windows 10 laptop and finding my preferred photosuite just wouldn't work with it, I had used NCH's Photopad which did but while working on some stuff for a post, it suddenly stopped working.

Seemingly they wanted me to upgrade the program I'd paid for so I did with reluctance only to find while the program would load, it would not open the image I selected and after reporting this bug, they suggested I load a test version, a "Beta" which I did having had pay for license before that.

That which the moment I throw the towel in because while that did load and open up the image, the minute you went to save, it opened a save .jpg size dialogue box with with a slider with no means for saving the setting and escaping the program.

Indeed it wouldn't let me come out of Windows and switch off!

Now that's what I call defective!

I decided enough was enough and found a program that would work.

There was a discount on this program produced by the German company behind Ashampoo and I could download it for a trial period and see how it performed before paying for it which I thought was a good idea as relearning how do with different programs takes time.

So far in it seems to be working out fine for doing things beyond Microsoft's Photo application Edit mode.

A Cure for Covid?

This week we are looking a bit at current affairs hopefully free from negativity of political discourse that does nothing for me but looks at actual issues which is a reason this blog like exists from when in 2016 I reviewed having it.

It was announced on Monday Pfizer/BioNTech pharmaceutical teams had come up with a vaccine for Covid-19 which had no ill effects on the test subjects who had been infected with it and a 90% success at preventing it had been reported.

The new treatment goes into accelerated testing for formal approval by various health regulators around the  world before treatment programs are established.

Not unsurprisingly mainstream  reaction has been overwhelming positive because so many of us are being affected in our most basic elements of our everyday lives, being unable to share affection with close family, under major restrictions on transportation, how we and what we can shop and eat and so on.

Is their any of us who doesn't want this to end soon?

No I doubt it so that is why there is much discussion about how here in the UK, the NHS, the leading state medical provider can roll out a vaccination program starting with people in health sector, then care homes and residents before moving in scale of vulnerability downwards to the whole population.

This may involve a call to bring many retired but otherwise capable former health workers back in to do the inoculations both in hospitals and the doctors surgeries and if here may be a role for chemists (the UK catch all term for Drug Stores) as there is with delivering the Flu vaccination annually.

The bigger thing may be getting the biggest very cold storage facilities for the vaccine where they are needed as it likes a temperature of minus 85 Celsius. 

We are looking at something like at least 1,200,000 inoculations a week probably scaling upwards at over 1,200 centres to try get the highest level of inoculation possible although it must be stressed other similar vaccines are due to report readiness for deployment too by December time.

In the UK it is not compulsory to take nationally prescribed vaccinations, an area of controversy given the drop in Polio and MMR vaccinations in recent years and associated rises in childhood infection.

It was stressed no one would be made to be vaccinated against Covid-19 but in terms of effectiveness in being able to gradually drop the restrictions we all are tired of, it's essential nearly all of us do.

It is possible that those who do not may face potential restrictions where say working in very close proximity may come into play although no one has actually said this.

In what has been at times a very downbeat time, the possibility of being able to move out the restrictions we are presently in in the knowledge we are highly unlikely to catch Covid and by extension reduce it transmission potential has given hope to hundreds of millions world-wide.

I'd take an inoculation if offered.

Going back in the now

There's been so much noise in my Tumblr feed I struggled to filter it out with highly polarized political posts and that so I have been spending more time away from it, wrapped up walking through woodlands and that enjoying the company of birds, insects and mammals (and the odd Mamil crossing paths on two wheels).

As you may of gathered in England we are going back of sorts to staying mainly indoors to keep this Covid-19 under control and reduce the transmission rate that went a bit high last month so people where they can are being ask to work from home and to cut the number of contacts down to the bare minimum.

Schools, colleges and universities will be open for business and unlike last time most treatments will (in theory) be available from doctors and hospitals so it won't be as severe in some ways to what we had in March and April.

Another important difference is that the playgrounds and areas will be open with people requested not to play team games in them unlike last time so actually I can not only go through the park I can use the swings for instance which really matters for children.

It's hard enough to cope with this for adults and sometimes I think they ignore children's developmental and emotional needs in all this so being able to maintain routines that are fun, letting off steam matter hugely.

I'll be off now exploring nature, surround by leaves and acorns having fun in all this.

Trigun!

They will be no doubt plenty of spooky stuff happening this weekend with it being Halloween and that.

We'll have some candy in small bags for local children who do dress up to take with them to make it as safe as possible

Meanwhile it's been raining for much of this week up on the dvd/blu ray player today and probably for next week and a half is this Trigun which a former best friend raved over so I thought I'd a get a copy.

 
In essence Set in the distant future on a desert planet, the anime follows Vash The Stampede who has a $60,000,000,000 reward on his head for destroying numerous towns, although he is yet to end a human life. 

 I like it a lot

Fall 2020

 Well upwards and onwards, what?

Fall is all around at the moment if you haven't noticed so I've also been finding my scarves and gloves as it gets colder for going out on foot enjoying the countryside and seeing the odd person about too apart from his nutkins plus his mate who was spotted this week. 

For instance this scene is most probably seen by a number of people in this district but probably ignored just for being on the roadside near the estate in its full colour and if hadn't of been for the telegraph pole learning as most things here do you would of mistaken for being taken in a wood.

That's the thing. Great enjoyable scenes that can help refresh us in these trying times need not be far  away from us if we keep our eyes peeled wide open.

 

Preparations

I wouldn't blame her for being sat there, reading a book at the moment  because I've a number of my old books and comic annuals out and ready for whatever may transpire in the next few weeks cos I believe in being prepared.

I also like old fashioned simple wooden chairs like that too not least cos they do private more support and help with avoiding slouching which having a bad back doesn't help in the least when comes to things to sit in. 

Three piece suites just don't provide the sort of support I need really and the chairs on those are too wide and deep for me to feel that comfortable.

I've also been finding my scarves and gloves as it gets colder for going out on foot enjoying the countryside and seeing the odd person about too apart from his nutkins who was spotted this week.

Tuned in ready for the updates

 

I can remember my grand parents house that had a simple bakelite radio of this era late 1940's early 50's still being used several decades on one one of my many periodic weekend and and off school vacations often being on a times when announcements were likely to be made.

For a period at our first home we did have a similar set too of the universal AC/DC design with some practices that would fall short of modern safety standards like having a potentially live chassis if the (two pin) plug was insert the wrong way around.

This next few ways we are likely to see some major announcements in England being made regarding the Covid health emergency with a simplifying of the rules to three bands and the probability of restaurant and pub closures in the most affected areas with money being made available for those forced to closed and the prohibiting of staying overnight in anywhere outside your own home.

All of this no doubt will be worked on up to the last minute and as things are here two school fifth forms are shut down and another is just coming out of the same which suggests we could be in for a bumpy ride locally if this shows in the overall transmission rate.

I tend not to spend a lot of time following news streams and the like, preferring to listen to the reports that just have the basic information.

Survival for littles

 

It's been a topsy-turvy old week as in some ways as I remarked to the hairdresser you have a strong sense of deja vu to invoke the current phrase it all seems to be going in the wrong direction and even at the top their appears to be some confusion.

I may be subject to additional measures in a few weeks time as two councils feel being on the edge of areas with issues they need to clamp down on excessive social contact here and while nothing has been said, one usual social gathering I would suspect is off.

Still, look at it this way I can remain my little self in my dresses and shorts, reading books, playing with my plushies and for now continue to go to the park and just ride this all out more as a child just doing what I'm told.

I need not think that deeply around any of this not least as the scientists seem all over the place so cuddling my pet rabbit and a goodnight kiss is a much more comforting and that is all that matters to get though a day.

It's a lot better for my head to stay out of adult spaces altogether until this is all over

Blogger's new messed up interface

 

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it" is the poor grammar statement that comes to mind when looking changes in the interfaces  - the graphic user connection - we use to us popular internet sites or sometimes computer based programs.

Recently Google who own the longstanding blogging service known as Blogger have totally overhauled theirs with more of an eye toward mobile use which seems odd when you bear in mind most blogging is done on devices with a actual keyboard and a fair sized screen rather than a smartphone.

One criticism has been how it handled what can be hundreds of previous posts when it comes to being able to search and update information such as links which as anyone whose been blogging for a good while knows happens all to frequently.

In the past you could easy search from the  newest post in groups of twenty five or more  so you could look by date order but the new interface only gives you the option of loading additional groups in batches to the most current or searching by tags which is not very helpful.

Another is the line spacing which is double where sometimes you want to have text immediately below or to the side of an image which it no longer does.

Because it uses lots of different cloud based bits it is very fickle when it comes to loading up and sending back to your preview which increased by about one fifth the other day how long it took me to make a entry.

HTML isn't everyone's cup of tea but anyone who is heavily into design uses html templates and writes code that this doesn't properly support in what it calls HTML view thanks to auto indenting which should be disabled in html mode as it messes up the strings that make the code work properly.

I know sat there with your iPhone10 you wouldn't use it but desktop folk do and we're the bigger group in blogging rather than using things like Tumblr which are more mobile centric for short blogs.

I've used it sometimes to copy the whole page layout over if I needed to remake it and then tweak the new version rather than remaking the post by scratch all over again.

It even messed up my time zone settings so posts that are scheduled for specific days don't come out unless I refix all of that by hand.

It's still full of bugs but they've removed the old interface before fixing glaring issues and that's what has been frustrating many of us in the last few weeks.

A testing time

 

This week started with the end of the pills for my infection which all had to be taken in order following the new fangled email the surgery approach as it's harder thanks to Covid to get a face to face appointment first without going through everything first.

I've been out and about mainly in the sun to get some fresh air clearing up my system as I wasn't well and needed to take active steps to aid my recovery and sort a few things out for a charity collection at the start of next week ready for anything I may get at Christmas which certainly isn't being cancelled here even if like everything else in 2020 might well be different.

To say we're having a testing time  isn't just a play on words that my pennant for punnery is famed for but is an indication of a problem of not just getting tests to people where there has been unprecedented demand but also in the processing of such tests.

Most countries face similar challenges but because Covid shares some symptoms with such seasonal visitors as the Common Cold and Flu it is vital that within the health service, care homes, schools, colleges and universities are able to run them to separate out Covid which needs 10-14 days isolation from everyday colds that require less not just for clients, children and young people but also those who care for people and educators such as teachers.

While there is talk of extra facilities coming on stream in a months time we certainly do not wish to return to the point of postponing operations and shutting down whole schools because of severe staff shortages as people are in effect forced to isolate not knowing if they really have to due to not test results being available.

The Rule of Six as delivered by one

While last week I looked at this whole call to the return to the office to work this week it is less of a reversal but a restating in a less muddy more black and white* terms what despite the greater freedoms granted had not really changed in a way that has legal standing and thus can be actually enforced although whither or not the police want to is different matter.

 
Some people it seems to me can get to grips with understanding a situation, that because of its seriousness that people are to adhere to rules and apply them to their day to day lives and yet others just do not get it or worst still think it's some right wing political conspiracy to deny them their rights and that Covid ain't a thing. It is and it kills.

 
 There can be little denying that there has been a discernible rise in case of Covid notably amount 18 to 30 year olds which while not resulting in hospitalization nonetheless meant they had transmitted to others who could be more at risk examples might be multi generational households are shared student accommodation.

 
That is the logic behind the reduction to only allowing gatherings of up to six people regardless of age indoors or out maintaining social distancing from thirty although exemptions will exist for weddings, funerals, organized team sport, worship and work.

In Scotland under 12's are exempted from the "six" and there is pressure for England to do the same where seemingly most of the Cabinet wanted that  but the Health secretary Matt Hancock backed by the Chief Medical Officer got his way.

 
A fuller breakdown can be found on the BBC website and this will be enforced not just by police but official health enforcement teams in city areas.

 
My gut feeling is one of "about time too" as while the measures made sense, police were not even prepared in some instances to even open conversations about behaviour and request people altered it which doesn't need a specific legal power and we've all seen to many instances of breaking the spirit and often the letter of the rules putting public health -yours and mine - at risk.

Composed on the new Blogger Interface which I might just say is web intense slow cack-handed interface and doesn't have proper photo sizing settings. 

 
A dog's dinner is the polite version of how I'd rate it.

* This term for the benefit of snowflakes has nothing to do with race and so isn't racist even if some external race trainers say it is. It plays on the clear black type on white paper of a paper document so it stands out clearly not a racial put down. In 2020 you have to say this.

Return to our offices? No chance!

As I'm writing this faced with a big deluge of rain that meant going out after lunch just wasn't going to be happening a couple of days before publication one recurring story is around people who it has to be said were working in offices before all the Covid restrictions came in March.

Back then as you might well recall we were told to Stay Home and only to work if we can from home and a lot of people and organizations adapted to do just that from banks to people doing engineering drawings using phone and computer to work and keep in touch.

 As you can see in this picture of Canary Wharf in London taken during the rush hour, there's not many people actually in the offices coming of the transport networks to the business districts although the numbers vary from occupation to occupation.

In some respects the UK has been a bit behind the curve when it comes to working from home compared with other countries  such as Canada and the States but it appears Covid give it a mighty big jolt in little over five months.

It isn't that people aren't working although some are not such as those in hospitality and entertainment where health measures needed to control the virus effectively prevent them from working at all it's that actually business and workers have found this is working for them with potentially lower office costs and far less time commuting on overcrowded trains and buses.

You might think "What's the problem"?

This homeworking is effecting the viability of businesses within those business districts such as the sandwich bars, coffee houses and dry cleaners with their daily takings well down on normal and that has lead to some such as the C.B.I. to push for a return to working from offices.

Personally having been there and done it frankly if I could work from home just calling in to meet with my supervisor and a few colleagues and any face to face training a couple of days per month to be frank I just would because it's a waste of my time having spent two hours twenty on a good day travelling and sometimes longer otherwise.

Another set of issues is about social distance and its impact starting the shocking fact that at least a third of staff can't be socially distanced in offices even masked so some would have to be accommodated elsewhere.

Then there's public transportation where capacity is down to less than 40% of normal due to social distancing so capacity is impacted during the rush hour making it hard to get people in and having more people come in using private cars to get around that only adds to road congestion and pollution.

In Charles Dicken's day you had to work in an office as a clerk with oil light, quill and ink surrounded by people as there was no other way of sharing information and generally getting things done.

Those businesses in the business district came into being where they did to serve those needs but today it is just so unnecessary so we might as well accept it as indeed a number of big companies have and just move with the times.

That's why despite the rally cry of "go back to your offices" from the CBI and the Business Minister I rather suspect we're not. Time has moved on. 

Yes this blogger has Learning Disabilities

It's right to leave some space when looking at online self diagnosis tools as conditions do overlap not least ADHD, Autism and Dyslexia but to be honest so much of that rings true with me so apart from not having diagnosed Autism because it presents in less stereotypical ways and I'm damn good at masking there's an over 90% chance I'm ADHD.

Just taking the last frame I often have that working or blogging to the point in I effect I throw a dice with options and just do something now rather than remain stuck weighing things up to the point actually I've achieved...nothing.

There's something deeply ironically in learning more about your disabilities and managing them from younger people when you're an adult little but in my day there was official denial, mislabelling and prejudice and if they did accept something it was mask, mask, mask.

Just coming out and saying "My name Is Jo and I have learning disabilities" is darn relief.

Grade F edition

This time is one some of us remember well, the anxiety, sleepness nights followed by that visit to school or phoning in the preinternet era as you wait to see how the exam grades you took in the late Spring and Summer  actually turned out.

They matter beyond just personal satisfaction as they factor into getting into work, going into the Sixth or a Sixth Form College and for for some University.

If 2020 has been a year like no other, children in the Fifth and Sixth were unable to take those exams as school shut on March 20th so you might of thought schools, examination bodies and the Dept For Education would of used that time to sort out how you might make "compensatory" awards based on the quality of work, any "mock exams" and practicals taken before.

Evidently not and not just here in England in SNP run Scotland, Labour led Wales and the DUP/SF Northern Ireland we've had essentially the same problems around trying in some way to moderate something that did not and could not be moderated resulting in many upto 40% of grades being reduced by eye watering amounts followed on different timescales by each government.

The palpable anger in England resulted in extraordinary scenes such as these children from Codsall Community College in South Staffordshire protesting outside the Education Minister's constituency headquarters in Codsall, just across the road and with good reason.

As a socially liberal conservative I felt it wasn't just a non starter but wholly unfair to attempt to judge a child's work by past results in exams that were not taken that featured others.

It would one thing to look at samples of graded work to see schools were grading roughly the same way for statistical consistency but to use a system that even when trailed by the exam regulator last year was known to produce gross errors is morally wrong.

In England that was reversed by Mid Monday afternoon but that still leaves the question about universities who've closed admittance who had children with provisional offers rejected on the basis of the flawed modified results left to sort out the mess to gain the place their efforts and abilities deserve.

Stormy Staffs Edition

Phew, it's just like being in an oven as I type this, so much so I'll be on umpteenth glass of water just trying to stay hydrated.

Here in the UK, specifically England, we've had abnormally high temperatures brought in from across the Sahara in North Africa via France that even here in the usually temperate West Midlands region have gone to around 34 degrees Celsius  and only a little below 20 degrees overnight.

Those of course are the outdoor temperatures, what happens indoors matters just as much and being in a mainly brick built building that heat is effectively trapped in it which is good for winters but not very helpful with this.

 Pix Credit: BBC Weather Watcher Greg.

The other aspect to all this is we've had lots of thunder and lightning such as that shown in that picture of Stoke on Trent, a part of this, the North Staffordshire conurbation which was very dramatic on Tuesday night lasting from around 10pm through 3 am.

Apparently we were the epicentre of the it and with it came severe rain that caused issues on the Crewe-Derby line at Uttoxeter together with cross country services around Stafford and Rugeley in the south.

After all that typing, I'll take  a rest!

Now That's What I Call Music CD Part 3

I wasn't expecting to make this post until a few months at least but release schedules are a bit all over the place these days but anyway this came out on July 24th so in our series we'll do a review.

 This as originally released in November 1985 was the biggest selling Now! album to date going straight to number 1 on the UK albums chart - one factor in reviewing eligibility in 1989 that took affect from 1990 to screen out various artists compilations.

It was a stronger album than Now Five for having a number of major singles releases  such as Queen's One Vision and Simple Minds Alive and Kicking  as well as Arcadia's much talked about Election Day, that group being one of the two spin-offs from Duran Duran.

As this cd goes for unexplained reasons - probably licensing - the Bryan Adams Tina Tuner collaboration It's Only Love is missed off CD 1although it was on record one of the lp version buying that on release.

It's a not a big loss, it wasn't a chart topper but more a radio play pop hit song in honestly but its absence underscores a recurring issue in the cd reissues in this series where the albums don't fully resemble the lp and tape versions we the audience expect.

Perhaps the biggest mistake in the series to date sadly is on this one because Marillion's Lavender was specially remixed for single as the album version on Misplaced Childhood, a great album in my opinion is a more meandering pedestrian rendition.

That album version just doesn't really fit in the rest of the the songs on Now 6.

I can overlook a slightly longer album version for a singles edit done to make it snappier but that could only of been done by a person who did not compare and listen to both as if they just found a file marked Lavender and by Marillion and said ah that's it, next"!

For me the only "essential" up coming ones are Now 7 of which just over a handful made the No '86 cd in 1986 and Now 9 where a half and some of better half were left off a single cd in1987.

Travel reversals

In what has been an adventurous week perhaps the song that's been sticking in my head all week being hummed has been this 1977 offering by the Steve Miller Band which the single has minor lyric change to comply with then radio station policies on cuss words.

The songs kind of apt because that big issue of the week is foreign travel and specifically travel to Spain which hasn't been banned but people are being told they have to stay at home for fourteen days because of Covid outbreaks in  Madrid, Barcelona and around the "Costas" which are on the coast of the Catalonia area of Spain.

You may recall the outrage when fourteen day quarantines were suggest on travel due to this jolly norty Covid being World-Wide and easy to spread from country to country and how we made a bit of list of countries that we may be able to travel to.

Thing was, there always was this caveat that infection rates in those countries went up it would be reviewed which is just what has happened and the travel industry is howling with protests saying how people would lose jobs and businesses being lost.

No one can say it may not happen and nobody wants people to go through that but public health - our public health as Britons comes first - and if we start to have massive infections again then even more jobs and businesses will be lost never mind the impact on the health service and loss of lives which has not been inconsiderable so far.

While I have understanding for individuals own circumstances, we just have to accept such things will happen unless and until we have a vaccine ready to protect all of us.
 
All our lives matter.

Memories and relationships

Well we'd of been somewhere this week but that's not - couldn't really - be happening so my mind such as it is has been looking back at a few things one being an interesting of mine being flowers.

 This is a sunflower we have presently indoors taken on the Sony camera I got after February's adventure when the old one just died on me.

As you can see it does have surprisingly good resolving power even if the programmed exposure usually needs tweaking a little after the event.

I find sunflowers interesting.

This life perhaps unlike the expectation you may of things online is very much for real, I don't as close friend knows collect 'friends' like some may collect trading cards because being a friend actually means something and not just another set of people for sites and social media to collect information about and make money from.

 My camera comes into this too because it's a memory preserve which believe me when your memory is badly impacted as mine is by various things is a godsend and this was a picture I draw in a class taken by that friend in 2017 of a Monster that having given a presentation on, we were to undertake this task.

She struggles at times with things as indeed I do but she got it together pulling that class off so well.

Let's hope we can get together in the near future.

Masking Up

We're kind of moving to wearing "facial coverings" - better not use the "M" word - come July 24 although as ever there appears to be some confusion over where it is you should.

Let's simplify this: You won't be arrested or refused service IF you are wearing one so the number one place this applies is to visit a shop. Any shop.

Doesn't matter if it's Lidl, a sandwich bar or the jewellers and the entire point is to prevent you from spreading Covid which you may be carrying without realizing it from anyone else so when we all do it we're not potentially infecting each other.

It will help with virus infections such as flu and the common cold too which is why most people in South-east Asia just do it.

In England and Scotland you are doing this on the train, subway, tram and bus already because it's a condition of carriage presently - no mask, no travel, period.
Only car drivers and cyclists don't have to.

Places where you won't will be include places to eat or drink on the spot such cafés, pubs, and restaurants although there is no reason for your mask not to be one while lining up to be escorted to your table which may take minutes rather than seconds.

That's cos food and needs access to your mouth and even with crazy straw designs you still SHOULD NOT TOUCH your mask front while fitted so no you can't start feeding straws underneath of it.

It's highly likely the premises will have a sign saying the require it or it may be found on the shops Facebook or other website.  

Today's post was brought to you by the letter M and the number 1.

JUST DO IT!

The freshest cut

The week has been a damp one, this is being typed when it is too damp to be out, but much happened over the weekend such as a few more types of businesses being allowed to open such as Public Houses of which one of ours did for drinks.

They decided to leave meals a fortnight until they what demand is and if the lockdown doesn't return as this was the week before last the worst district in the West Midlands for Covid infections.

One other significant thing was the reopening of Barber's and Hairdressers from 6 AM Saturday as many places started on the dot as they had a large number of people to  see.

This meant after a very long wait the mess that was my hair could finally get trimmed and tidied up on Wednesday although the trinity of PPE, Social Distancing and Hand Sanitizer were all present and in our case everything was appointment only.

Conversation was side and back in line with Public Health England guidelines and obviously all equipment including chairs disinfected and hair swept away before the next person was done.

I'll swear I weigh less for having it sorted out at last!

R.I.P Olympus Cameras

On Thursday last June 25th, It was announced that Olympus would no longer make cameras and that the different divisions such as optics would be repurposed.

To me there was no sadder day previously than when in 2003, it was announced Minolta/Konica were sold to Sony and that brand with a large legacy would be no more.

Olympus made photographic history often getting to them before Nikon and Canon and today I'll touch on a couple of notable cameras of theirs and why they mattered. 

The Olympus OM1 in differing forms was one of longest running cameras in production from its introduction in 1972 until being phased out in 1987, beginning a whole new line of cameras.

Prior to its launch, system cameras that used separate lenses and had a single lens reflex system with a mirror so you could see the image focusing it before the picture was taken were very heavy being designed more for photo journalists.

It was a manual exposure only camera with just the suggested meter reading powered by a battery of if that failed you could continue to film so long as you had some means or figuring what the exposure 'should' be as you set that by hand.

Everything on this camera bar the metering is mechanical, made of cogs and metal, a feat of miniaturized engineering.

Other small systems lacked the full range of extras such as attachments for taking pictures from microscopes, lenses that covered every focal length you could want and even winders with film packs to take masses of film for industrial use without having to wind the film on by hand that Olympus offered.

It had everything a photographer wanted in a small, sleek design.

The OM1 was massively popular with explorers and travel writers because they now had a lightweight full system camera that could go more or less anywhere with them in jungles and up mountains not having to rely on pocket cameras with limited control when in confined spaces.

 This in its 1983 version is one I know and loved first hand because by this point, the camera's in the OM system had gained Aperture Priority auto exposure when for any given setting it set a suitable shutter speed, making quick picture taking easy, especially when it metered it at the moment of actually taking it rather than just before which when also matched to a specially designed shutter blind resulted in some of the most even automatic exposure systems ever.

This had also been carried over to the flash system that could take multiple in series flash guns for advanced work and had macro flash units to fit around lenses for extreme close ups evenly illuminated.

It added two wonderful things for serious photographers, an auto exposure lock so if you needed to get an exposure reading from one part of scene only to ensure it all came out well (as all reflected light systems can and do fail), you could hold it for up to 60 minutes and at the same time balance that Exposure Value in the camera to any combination of aperture and shutter speed.

It also had a extremely good up to eight position spot metering system which with the exposure lock enabled meant you had the means at hand to deal the trickiest of exposures getting perfectly exposed slides no matter what.

It was also blessed with a very easy to use set of controls on the top plate with everything you needed to hand so you for all that sophistication just get on with taking pictures and not hunting menus and hidden buttons.

That in its last form remained on sale until about 2002 and was wonderful.

Introduced in 1968 and only discontinued in the late 80's, this was a fully programmed compact camera fitted with an exceptional 40mm lens which was powered by solar power no less, taking some of the best pictures possible on such a small compact camera

The Olympus XA from around early 1980 was a unique compact camera that used a superimposed image that when aligned with the main one in the viewfinder allowed easy accurate manual focusing on mirrorless camera.

It was backed up with a Aperture Priority auto exposure system making it possible to use a bit of creativity in a small compact camera which again was fitted with a top quality lens, this time a 35mm moderate wide-angle.

This was a popular model for photographers who had a system camera but wanted something very good to literally put in their pocket and use anywhere.

It came with a detachable automatic exposure flash gun which could be used for "fill in flash", helping with outdoor portraits.

That is just four reasons why I miss Olympus as a owner of several bodies and numerous lenses.

Social Distancing:The new measure

If you never got to grips with metrication for some strange reason or other perhaps now you should.

 That measurement of length, The Metre, is going to figure in your everyday life from now on for the forseeable feature because it is becoming the new social distancing minimum in England from next month.

It's about three adult foot paces and a smidgen and it's there because the previous distance, two metres was becoming more of solution in search of a problem making it difficult to conduct everyday life while not providing that much extra protection because our sneeze droplets can go as far as six metres and frankly a face mask is a much better protection at preventing transmission which is why in England and Scotland you have to on public transport.

It allows more things to open up because not only did the built up infrastructure not work well two metre distancing with delays forming as people wait to get in, also it made it potentially unviable to reopen some where a metre plus a few measures to control transmission would work better. 

It may help with the mess which is trying to reopen schools for all five days a week.

It with masks and no dry hair cutting is allowing hairdressers and barbers to reopen from July 4th having booked my appointment already that would of struggled otherwise.

Just gotta relearn the distances after the last three months or so.

The Battle to have your Money accepted

One increasing trend as retailers adapt to and reopen in the Covid-19 environment has been to change payment systems typically replacing traditional cash for contactless debit or credit cards for small transactions.

These are typically small stores that sell items of low value which traditionally we'd of payed for by cash such as Bakers  like Chatwin's locally who sell marvellous bread and cakes and Greggs who famously sell sausage rolls following sector advice not accept cash in case the virus is on it.

That can be a problem for those who don't have bank accounts with cards or for shopping for others who may find it too difficult or are staying home because of extreme vulnerability to infection who even if they had a card should not be providing some one else their PIN number.

This might even had worked had such stores accepted regular credit or debit cards but these store are refusing to accept the UK's chip and pin system where a chip is read and you are prompted to enter a four digit PIN.

This is because they also fear transmission of the virus from your hands to others via the touch pads.

The contactless card currently with a £45 per transaction limit just requires being held and waved over a reader that then  beeps when the transaction is made.

The problem is some typically older customers were never given the option of having the contactless sort at the outset and others were refused because they would not be issued to those whose credit score fell below a set figure.

Thus in this much altered world we've added social exclusion from certain shopping for sections of society.

After a half an hour trying to get someone at their bank because bank staff are working from home, my elderly folks were elated to get a person issue them new cards which are contactless as they were increasingly struggling to shop because of this issue.

History is Dead

This week Black Lives Matters supporters launched a campaign to remove any statute or name that in their opinion is racist, benefited from or supported slavery, imperialist and a host of other isms.

First to go with this.

Toppled by the group, Edward Colston like many Bristolians was involved in the slave trade to which no one today would argue was morally right BUT his money made from what was a legal business people accepted then was used to found school, halls, hospitals as he was benefactor, improving the lives of Bristol's residents, making the city what it is today.
That was what he was given the statue for, not his business.

How does daubing in red paint, pulling it down, vandalizing it before drowning deal with the inequalities of Black and Asian Bristolian's today?

Under threat of removal and vandalized, Winston Churchill's statue because of his support of the Boer War.
He has always been a controversial person however without Churchill, this country would of been occupied by Nazi's who would of murdered blacks, asians, jews and anybody not a nazi like the protestors themselves.
Would of you of been living today had it not been for this admittedly flawed leader?
I would of been murdered as a learning disabled person by Nazi policy had they of taken this country over.

This man means a lot to millions, Robert Baden-Powell founded Scouting a international, non racist inclusive movement that has made a massive difference on five continents and of all races and nationalities.

Today he is being removed by Bournemouth and Poole Council because Black Lives Matters say his involvement as a member of the British Army in the Boer War and his preparedness to personally see the German Hitler Youth, which he rejected means they have him down to be toppled and thrown across the sea for being racist .

How many Black and Asian girls and boys have benefited from what he did making men and women who made a difference to their communities and their own lives?  
Millions but this doesn't matter to Black Lives Matter nor does it that the Scouting Association to talk about and support opposing racism, taking action if anyone tries it with the organization.

Shakespeare is synonymous with English literature and the theatre and yet his plays were written to appeal to an Elizabethan audience and patronage do have anti-semitic characterizations by such logic should pictures and statutes of him be removed?

Should Stratford upon Avon be classed as a town that makes its money out of racism?

No, because we know he wrote for what people thought at the time, that he did a lot and actually it provides us an opportunity to explore, expose the attitudes for what they are and it shows us how we've moved on as imperfect as society is.

Something else to consider: If your families have lived here for centuries, grew up with any and all of them seeing the flaws and the good people did taking a rounded view, how would you feel if all your past is being removed  even destroyed before your eyes by people, the majority of which only go back three or more generations without any reference to democracy or rule of law?

More to the point, try destroying the Egyptian Pyramids made on back of slavery or taking down the Great Wall of China because of the genocide of non Chinese Moslems and Buddhists in Tibet which they invaded in 1950 and see how they'd respond? Is it different and if so, why?