Being...you

In a week where the people behind Manchester Pride were in voluntary insolvency citing costs of putting on the events, meeting modern expectations I feel it is worth saying maybe it's best to support your local pride such as those we had in Stafford and Stoke here in Staffordshire and Sandbach and Congleton in nearby Cheshire and maybe get involved doing something for it like running a store or performing.

 There is life beyond your day at Pride though, for your own mental well being we need to find ways however difficult your own circumstances to be ourselves be they about our gender expression or how our sexuality presents itself.

Even if you do dress more in line with your gender, constraints around works dress policy or the increased trend to leggings, jeans and women's trousers may cut across what feels right for you.

You may be more dressy, like your heels so having spaces and being prepared where you can to stand out from the crowd rather than just fitting in is so much better,  

 

 

That might well be a personal manifesto.

Peace in our time?

 The big world events are still not settled to the point you can easily pick one topic and be fairly sure there will not be major reverse in this crazy modern world nothing is like that  - leaders don't appear to be in control of events.

It is good that hostages, prisoners and detainees have been released in Gaza and Israel  but the 20 point plan is woefully lacking detail and yet President Trump of the Disunited States of America believes he has secure the biggest peace  in that part of the world in over 3,000 years which is absolute moonshine.

For one thing most of these steps haven't even made the most rudimentary steps on the path to implementation and for another some things such as the role (if any) of Hamas in any future Gaza authority hasn't been decided and if not just what happens with them. Do turkeys vote for Christmas?

That's before we consider any question of a Palestinian state, what its borders should be given the territories that were occupied in 1967 and 1973 following Arab declarations of war  and substantial settlements that may well be illegal under International Law but nonetheless are there that will complicate any attempt to incorporate them. And then such a state would need to have an agreement NOT to wage war with Israel for them to even accept it given the bloody history since 1948 where any neighbouring Arab state has been used a springboard for attacks and invasions.

That would need a major political seachange in the Arab Worlds mindset to give up the notion of seeing Israel's creation as being the occupation of Arab lands to be fought back and major more on economic and political growth of the entire region to improve the lot of all including those Palestinians who needed to move.  And god knows they deserve a better feature.

Not feeling great edition

The groan up world is going though one of its "We'll have the latest updates every ten minutes "sessions so while as I sit here on Thursday typing away, everything's up in the air regarding what I'd be talking about and given the people involved you certainly don't count on anything until it's happened.

That's hard enough going even when I am well which to be blunt I haven't been all week being generally out of it mentally and Physically ill with covid which is no fun at all so it's all been playing Taylor's albums this week and trying to stay cheerful.

I've also been looking a bit at my camera stuff since I bought it around 2020, what my needs are and to what extent is it meeting them as for everyday point and shoot stuff the Sony compact with its one very wide ranging zoom lens meets most needs, just lacking some of creative control and a proper Macro facility for life size close ups.

Strangely enough my Macro lens for it seems to have gone missing in action and I really don't know why as every other lens and its charger are present and correct.

Might need replacing potentially at some point.

The future of Higher Quality sound and me

 

Sailor Moon was an early special interest of mine, righting wrongs having her own unique quirks which as I sit reflecting on events in the last few days playing some HD downloads back I did find of classical music mainly from 2014-17 considering the future of that.

HD (High definition) is about getting great quality to that of regular cds to reveal more of the music making and venue but in an age that is more focused upon convenience, in the 2000's the iPod with its hundreds of poor quality lossy 128kb files or today with streaming, eating your data allowance on your smartphone when you have no right to expect anything to be there, it didn't become a everyday thing beyond musicians and hifi fans.

Part was and today remains it takes over £800 to get a super audio cd player and then only a few handfuls of discs are issued per year which was why I spent money improving on the regular cd reproduction even though I have a Super audio cd player in  the hifi.

HD Downloads were easier in that you selected them from the store and most digital audio players of the portable sort would just play them - the players could be had for around £100 upwards but much of that marked has moved from playing downloads to streaming music.

It's a pity as while as with anything based upon digital files you need to keep them backed up, they leave your mobiles data allowance untouched and as you own them, there's no question of a performance becoming unavailable in the way sometimes labels and artists pull things on the likes of Spotify.

As the number of  super audio discs Chandos puts out has dropped in the last two years not helped by there being only a handful of plants world wide that can make them, I can see a return to more HD downloads not least where I may have "classic" performances on cd or even record