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.