Things I'm doing this wet day

It's not the best of weather today as I am sat here typing this weeks blog having just stolen a few only moderate showers moments to go out for a bit of permitted exercise before firing up the machine.

What she has to say is something I readily identify with preferring at times like thirty minutes ago to put thick pair of grey shorts on to go out in as you do need pockets at times and deep ones at that that rather than the sort that won't been take a handkerchief or your front door key.

What is it with fashion designers who work on girls and women's wear who seem to ignore such things? 

Between the wet spells I've been re-doing a few things for my music players and this one was one I got a copy of as the last time I had this was April 1988 which is an awful long time but it rounds up the Boston M.A. J Geils Bands output for EMI America from 1978 through 1982 which included Centerfold, a world-wide hit.

While I had the lp record version of Lights Out by the J.Geils Band lead singer Peter Wolf for a long time this only had a limited cd release and I had spent ages trying to track down this title and was able to get the US issue of it which included the hits Lights Out, I Need You Tonight and the fun space song Mars Needs Women.

Chillin' Friday

 Brr It's another cold week here, yew can feel it in your face if not your hands too if you haven't any gloves on with the streets still icy not unsurprisingly given it had been minus three degrees yesterday. 

That put a few restrictions around where I could go as the pavements were slippery with chunks of ice the size of pebbles as well as sections worthy of the accolade "skating rink" but I did dress for the weather and get out, seeing birds and squirrels apart from going on my swing a bit for fresh air and exercise apart from reading the odd comic or two.

That helped keep my mind less anxious not just with all this Covid stuff but the disgraceful scenes at The Capitol on Wednesday which rightly received world-wide censure from people of all political views who respect democracy and the rule of law.

Twelve Months on That Boarding School Girl 2020 edition

One reason this blog continues to exist is the need to have a space for more middle or even grown up things at times having deliberated at times the need to keep it going with having the littles one.

We normally publish a kind of review but as I have said before this year has been in such a state of flux it's been no sooner than I had a planned and at least partially written blog ready then it's been all change so it's different than the planned one.

The year had began on the face it fairly normally with a music review and a piece on Brexit although we were getting noises of an infection in China in the news and some talk of it taking hold on continental Europe by February.

By little more than a month we all saw what will in future be seen as an historical announcement on Tv that informed us that things were going to be very different thanks to Covid which while being found in China we'd assumed was likely to stay around there but that wasn't to be.

That was going on as unexpectedly I was returned for a couple of weeks to the world around which my old job revolved and while doing a little investigating on foot the  best route to get there and having done that a bit of shopping in the City centre I was taken quite ill within a couple of hours for a few weeks with symptoms' that in hindsight did match Covid.

I wrote across the year about the need to draw from the lessons of our pasts as we all struggled with coping with restrictions which varied sometimes quite rapidly with fluctuating emotions and how the virus affected the things we wanted to mark such as VE day and so on.

It continues to be a struggle as I write this as Staffordshire with Stoke On Trent and the Black Country being in Tier 4 restrictions as of yesterday with non essential shops such as hairdressers and clothes stores shut.

That said there is cause for hope as at long last the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine that is less fussy about how it stored, being able to use a standard fridge has been approved for use with plans starting January 4th next week to really ramp up mass vaccination as the only way out of restrictions is to immunize people even if some infection control measure will be needed for a period such as mask wearing and social distancing.

School returns for most English primaries will be as planned from next week but because of concerns around older children and staff at English high schools, most will be returning from January 18th with exceptions for exam year group children and vulnerable children all with testing.

Online schooling just did not deliver for a significant number so realistically schools need to kept open as far as possible apart from the welfare issues of children unable to have contact with peers.

We marked on January 31st the signing of the act that would have the United Kingdom leave the European Union regardless of any agreement being reached or not.

That time is up, a agreement on trade and goods has been made voted and signed on Wednesday, not perfect by any means but one that removes tariffs, makes trade as easy as can be expected while restoring our nation's soveignity to the satisfaction of both the EU and ourselves.

Brexit can be seen as like marmite as an issue but the will of the people not least the the feeling resetting the entire post war settlement was needed here in the Midlands needed to prevail as much as some of you disagreed with it strongly.

That argument is over with, things changed this morning and everyone needs to work towards making our future that still includes being a part of Europe with travel, trade and other relations but on terms we have decided and not belonging to an economic and political institution that believed in ever closer union work.

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.