Thoughts on St. Georges

 

Today is St. Georges day which anyone connected with things like GirlGuiding knows is pretty important to the point you'd do things to mark it as the spirit of St. George in facing down the dragon is really what we need to achieve being the best us we can.

Before all this covid stuff kicked off Girl Guides would march and do activities to mark it such as making Owls apart from the all year round stuff like working for awards, earning badges and heck, having an adventure that they normally do.

Wouldn't you sooner be having an adventure, learning new skills and having fun with friends? I sure would!

I like going for hikes and that and while coming back the other day I noticed the daffodils were still out here so I took a picture softening the background a little. 

Today I've been tidying up some of my many classical music cds, making sure that discs just by one composer are all together and the box sets are filed by either composer if that's what the theme is or the conductor or soloist such as a pianist or violinist.

Of course those which have works by various composers are harder to file away unless there is a clear cut major work on them but generally the effort is worth it.

Twin Titans

This week is different in that within the space of two days the deaths were announced of two famous figure that I knew well and that is where this blog, usually the slightly more mature one is going this week.

Prince Philip's death of itself did not surprise me because although he had until a few months ago really good health for someone in their nineties, the picture of him leaving the hospital just a short while ago chilled me to the bone.

He looked to me gravely ill probably at the point of which the hospital could do no more so it was better for him to be 'at home' and get affairs in order with other family members not least our Queen, Elizabeth II.

Prince Philip to me was very much the father figure of the nation, a man who set the example of being of use to The Queen in connection with her role as Head of State, a man of necessity had to step back from what would of been an illustrious career in the Royal Navy to do his duty and, lord knows he did.

He always had an interest in technology and science believing in humanities ability to solve the issues of the day rationally through research supporting scientific bodies, even being involved in design directly.

He recognized the post industrial world required scientific minds, capable of logical thought before politicians caught up with the changing world.

He believed strongly in the potential of youth, a potential he felt was neglected supporting movements such as Girlguiding and the Scout Association  and with the aid of his former head teacher created out nothing the program, the Duke of Edinbugh Awards that taught fresh skills, offered new and challenging opportunities that would promote personal growth for 14-25 year olds.

He championed Environmental concerns before many did, speaking out against the loss of habitats and species, playing a big part in the World Wide Fund for Nature and not as just a patron and giver of short speeches at annual meetings but directly in international meetings for them.

That hands on style run deep through him. If he was involved that was because he was committed and would put 100% into it.

He kept links with and supported our armed services, visiting them around the world and through associations devoted to the will-being of them understand only too well as a WW2 veteran himself  just what sacrifices they make for us.

He also played a role in supporting the Royal Family, being involved with the children, helping as best he could the adult children resolve issues that came up having gone through upheavals as a child himself.

For all his at times gruff and very much masculine nature he was very sensitive caring for them all as exasperating as it might be.

For that having met him, I miss him hugely.

Dame Shirley Williams (third from left) was a different kind of influence.

The product of a middle class catholic family, hers was in standing up for women's roles in politics at a time where few ventured there, becoming a Member of Parliament when few parties including Britain's Labour Party wanted women candidates (nor did the Trades Unions) and becoming a shadow minister.

When Labour in the mess that was 1974 in the UK, just won the General Election (and there was two that year!) by four votes she became a Cabinet Minister for Prices and Incomes and in 1976 was promoted to Minister for Education and Science, a role she was well placed with her experiences and education to play.

When her party was out of office by the very late 1970's and was going through a crazy period of wanting to nationalize and take control of any substantial business, have state control of investment and five year plans, remove the nuclear deterrent, declaring many areas as nuclear free zones oblivious to the fact radiation doesn't respect signs.

If that wasn't enough some took to personally abusing members who spoke out against it and she confronted them at their conference.

Not for the first time in her life had she shown she had the 'bottle' to take on that which was just wrong reminding them that fascism can come from the political left as much as the right and with three others split from the party to fight for sensible centre left policies that many labour voters supported (and still do).

She became a Lord and took the role seriously, holding the Government of the day to account  which is essential in a parliamentary democracy.

She inspired me to go into politics for a period, breaking the mould.

Now That's What I Call Music CD Part 4

The last time we visited the topic of the re-issue on cd of the early 'classic' now albums of the 80's was August 7th when we had Now 6 which was rather out of sync seasonally to when that originally came out.

We are now at the point in the series where some of the tracks did have a cd release in 1986 as by that point cd sales had picked up with heavy promotion, it was becoming possible to buy a separate cd player for about £200 or less and purchasers of all in one systems often had the option of getting a heavily discounted matching player so they could upgrade and add cd replay too.

The price of the discs themselves though was an issue to youngsters and casual pop fans so while fans bought releases by that years top acts on cd such as the Pet Shop Boys, Queen, Madonna and Genesis in big numbers, the kind of person who handed over £7.99 for that season's NOW or HITS compilation wouldn't of paid £22 for the cd version.

Now 7 was issued in the Summer of 1986 so some of that years early hits ended up on the HITS lp/tape around the spring and was strictly lp and tape only with the quirky last minute addition of Queen's A Kind of Magic that necessitated the hasty white hype sticker as this wasn't listed on the jacket.

This album originally had 33 tracks on it but when you look at the rear of the cd you'll soon spot there was only 30.

Now 7 does strangely omit three songs, On My Own by Patti LaBelle and Michael McDonald and (Bang Zoom) Let's Go Go by The Real Roxanne with Hitman Howie Tee plus the unmissable Absolute Beginners by David Bowie from the film of the same name.

Just why that should be is anyone's guess as Absolutely Beginners made the millennium series NOW 1986 as well as Bowie's own Best of 1980-87 in 1998.

During that transitional period we were  fortunate that seven of the original 33 tracks did come out on the compilation cd NOW '86 issued November 1986 much advertised at the time in Q Magazine, What Cd and LM (anyone remember that five issue wonder???) with 8 from Now 8 which had a single 18 track cd issue.

The seven songs that are:

A Kind of Magic 4'23

Absolute Beginners 5'36

West End Girls 3'55

Lessons In Love 4'00

On My Own 4'41

Let's Go All The Way 3'57

I've emboldened two of missing tracks so if you own this early cd you need to hang on to (or for some of you buy) this cd which charted at #65 as a cd only release to put a couple of omissions right.

As well they used the album version of Nu Shooz's I Can't Wait rather than the common single version normally used and there appears little reason to use an edit of Billy Ocean's When The Going Gets Tough, The Tough Get Going which they did.

While it is good a cd version exists, the three missing tracks and some version issues does take the shine of it

By November of 1986, it was plain cd was here to stay so the Now team issued the NOW '86 round up of hits but because of concerns around the price point only compiled a single cd version of NOW 8 with just 17 tracks with some of the others on NOW '86. 

The Autumn and early Winter had a wide variety of charting singles and some worthy entries fell off the cd wagon so having a cd version of an album where 25 of the 32 tracks had a cd issue at the time is a must.

The Wizard is a track missed for being the "new" Top of the Pops theme of the mid to late 80's and was part of the original Now 8 on record and tape versions now reinstated as was Big Country's One Great Thing from their album The Seer.

On this version there are a few differences in the versions but compared to previous issues in this series more attempt has been made to get it something like right,

The following songs differ from the original 1986 double LP:

Genesis – In Too Deep (Album version used instead of 7″ mix which was on Now 8 LP and CD)

Grace Jones – I’m Not Perfect (But I’m Perfect For You) (Album version used instead of 7″ mix which was on Now 8 LP and CD)

Janet Jackson – What Have You Done For Me Lately? (LP Edit from Design Of Decade used instead of 7″ mix which was on Now 8 LP)

Peter Gabriel & Kate Bush – Don’t Give Up (The version included here is 5:57 which is shorter than both the LP and 12″ mixes but longer than the 5:41 7″ mix that was on Now 8 LP and CD).

On the whole I would say this was one of the best of the series and we'll see how NOW 9 turns out.

The easter weekend edition

 This year we're doing things different.

It's almost Bunny Time as it is Easter which like many of our traditions does go back to pagan times even if the 'shell' is wrapped around the Easter Story and message in the Bible with it's message of enduring hope for the world following the resurrection.

For some of you no doubt it's the chocolate you go for as much as I do both and with a few restrictions things like Easter Egg Hunts are happening and Brownies/Guides are taking part in easter themed activities too which is relief given how much girls have been impacted mentally by this pandemic.

Have fun this easter and make a difference in the world today!

A diversion and fingers crossed

 It's been a queer ol' week.

He's had enough but the others have a better idea like have a party and watch something fun on tv instead.

There's been a few events that would of been marked in more normal times by such scenes this week but that wasn't possible but the stuff that was possible at least kept a balance off the impending Vaccine War between the European Union and the UK that might see our contracted vaccines confiscated and restrictions on the export of vaccines held there although many of ingredients, processes and personnel come from around the world.

This is both stupid and very dangerous, the World needs vaccines to reduce global transmission plus provide protection should people get covid and to make them it requires co-operation and this risks starting a global tit for tat battle as countries place more restrictions on ingredients and complete vaccine batches deciding to keep them for themselves.

The real issue is how to increase vaccine production and some contracts are more tighter on quantities, time scales and backed by money up front including not inconsiderable levels of investment compared to others.

One hopes it gets sorted out in a responsible way.

The other side of blogging

 

One the one hand this hasn't been a bad week keeping up with getting my tumblrs active, the blogs updated and finding time to be little me relaxing listening to some of those recordings I had for my Birthday.

Spring has sprung with the daffodils coming up on the green eventually even if it seemed odd that those in peoples gardens came out first, the birds are about and yesterday I saw a baby squirrel playing in the woods. 

Sometimes it can seem as if sharing this life may cut into having this life with lots of things going on but while it takes some doing usually I don't mind if it helps clue some people into to this life and break down a few misconceptions.

Yesterday though rather late into the evening I found this message:

"Hi I noticed you have dd1g posts. My blog doesn’t allow dd1g blogs to interact. Have a nice day though <3".

Well first things first, this person only posted ten times in April 2020 and not since so that's like nearly eleven months ago

The other thing is my Tumblr blog is NOT a ddlg blog, I never knowingly reblog anything from adult only kink tumblrs of any kind nor post anything myself that is.

Of course in the early days before minor friendly non sexual age regression was a thing on tumblr it was possible that you *may* of reblogged something from one even if the post itself wasn't.

Ever since being in nonsexual age regression communities from mid 2016 I've always checked and removed anything that might of come from such a source but when other people may spell "ddlg" in full with no deliberate use of say a 1 for an l (L), when saying on a post not to interact with a blogs that are, checking does produce false positives.

That is actually what happened and this user then blocked me 

Basically they blocked me for no good reason and you don't know where they may take it.

The Dumbed down blogger layout

 This week as I felt like doing something only to find you can no longer.

See back in 2010 they launched a new template designer which had a wysiwyg interface which enabled you to fine tune any Blogger template, changing background colours, text sizes of any elements such as links or pages and their fonts and for the page module the width of the bar so you could have a really attractive and neatly put together blog all edited on your computer with no need to use HTML editing or CSS sheets to customize it.

When they redid the interface to enter your post on to it appears someone at Google decided to dumb down the layout changes to just Text width, Right hand side margin, text size, colour and that was about it.

No doubt this was done to fit in with the idea that people want to make stand alone blogs on a smartphone to the point any customization was removed for the rest of us.

No longer could you set the text size and font of the headings, individual elements and so on.

This means I can't change the text size I originally set for pages, the colour of the current  or the length of tab bar to one that might suit any new pages I may wish to add.

To me Blogger really has lost what it had over Wordpress, a excellent layout designer negating any need to install templates and twiddle using codes to make a highly impressive blog and for what?