Trying to get by in this world.

It's a strange thing in some ways that I officially measure up as severely disabled and did spend part of my childhood in a wheelchair you are more likely to see me on on my feet.

It would certainly be easier in some respects to be in a wheelchair like when at littles camp for sports and dancing which I struggle with on my feet and where at school I did disability sports and wheelchair dancing and that would aid what I bring to such events.

The problem area is that is something else you need to get on to a train where disability assistance both has to be booked in advance and is not that reliable when  it comes to getting you on and off the train and through barriers.

You'd need to allow for them in room layouts, turning circles and passageways. wherever I was staying.

So being on my feet admittedly  is more a matter of willing oneself, challenging restrictions to try and get the most out of life dealing with a disabling environment than anything else rather than what may perhaps be apart of the most appropriate way of getting about with my disabilities.

Sometimes being multi-modal when it comes to getting yourself about makes more sense.

The Beano at 85

This week marks the 85th anniversary of the launch of the Beano, an iconic comic that in many respects is the last old school comic standing of the classics many of us had as children.

Today there are newer more "inclusive" characters and Teacher is now a supportive sort rather than a fearsome disciplinian but let's be honest here, that comic is intended for today's children and the world they inhabit which is in various ways different to what we experienced as we read the Beano at age nine or whatever age you were back then where the World of Dennis The Menace, Minnie and Roger The Dodger we read was like our home and school life.

In that way todays readers and us have the same connection with the comic which results in those sales to young readers that has kept it in weekly publication unlike the Dandy which we lost in late 2012.

To tie in with this a new edition of the Beantown Guide is being published setting out all the places and faces of the modern Beano for young fans.

School's Out edition

 Yes in  this district school is indeed out, blazers take a break and for some the last trip from the dorm takes place today until Autumn Term commences in September so I'll be away for a few days after next Friday, not sure about the soaking up the sun bit but certainly a break.

A break is something to be honest I badly need with every that's happened this year.

Thoughts do go back about to my earliest days at school and some of the things I had then that stayed with me across official childhood.

This was one I don't think I was the original first owner of, most likely to have been my older brother but passed down as he was getting around the age of transition to high school was on the card so he had other things like science books and what today we'd call part works that built into a encyclopedia.

Published in 1968 and like most yearbooks for the next year, this was one I read cover to cover often when I was unwell while in time I got the then current books from the seventies.

 

Although I have a feeling I had seen this before I certainly had not any recollection of having it here in forty odd years so recently I was able to pick up the 1968 yearbook published in 1967 when is when the start of the now deemed classic line up of John Noakes with Valerie Singleton got together to be joined the next year by Peter Purves that last to around 1972.

Most copies suffer from damaged spines as the bindings were not very good which when coupled by many super eager reads soon break off, further exposing the binding to wear and tear.

Fortunately this copy had a repair done to it which appeared to have done the trick.

Now 12" 80's: 1980 and 1981

Those people at Now What You Call Music must be getting busy as after resuming the Now Yearbook series with the 1992 volume and  regiving us Now15 they've decided to start a new 80's series.

Compilations of 12" mixes aren't exactly new and Now have given us three 80's sets in the recent past but what makes this series of value is that each set has the hit 12" mixes of one year which as with the Yearbook series I find helps get you into a year and its memories better than a random all 80's set.

Thus this fits well with your Now Yearbooks for giving you the longer more extended side of the hits of the year and in this sets case adds such unforgettable hits as D.I.S.C.O by Ottowan in it's extended for that the 1980 Yearbook left off, the delectable Taste Of Bitter Love by Gladys Knight & The Pips, Blondie's pounding Call Me and the S.O.S. band's Take Your Time (and do it right) among many others.

Overall musically speaking this draws mainly from soul, funk and disco which remained big in this year at least in the UK but brings in those early New Wave synthesizer sounds from the likes of OMD and Spandau Ballet.

 

1981 was one of the best years for pop music in the UK mixing, soul, funk, synth pop  and reggae and that is well represented in the 1981 set from the delights of Japan's Quiet Life, the mixture of new wave and rap in Wordy Rappinghood by the Talking Heads  spin off Tom Tom Club, Ottowan's Hands Up showing that in the UK at least disc wasn't dead, quality soul from the Jones Girls with Nights Over Egypt and Physical by Olivia Newton-John.

 

My only criticism is they've reverted to a folded card sleeve with panels packaging with no write up  where this would of been better served up in the Yearbook style with a short write up on each song with pictures but overall these are a great set and series to collect if like me you did buy those 12" singles back in the day.

Uncovered edition

 I was away last weekend and arrived as the great garden works were about to unfold with the arrival of the "large" skip in the afternoon after a nightmarish journey involving a good half an hour delay and super rapid platform alterations just minutes before the train was due out and indeed had been on time.

Much progress is being made uncovering the garden from its overgrown state at the side, like you can now see grass and a pathway plus strewn about stuff has gone from by it and the sheds.

Further exploration of the house is uncovering things such as scarcely read books, old school photographs of Nativity Plays, old newspaper and the like.

It's no secret I read comics on this blog as much as we keep the other bits of my life elsewhere shall we say but in with all of this stuff was inexplicably the September 13 2014 issue of The Beano which reading Wednesday afternoon has lots of connection to the children's culture of the 2010's even if some of the more recent changes such as more ethnically and disability inclusive added characters were not to be seen nor the Spotty becoming Scotty name changes.

That wasn't something children seemed really into back then and I suspect adult involvement drove it although I agree the overall idea of bringing broader representation of more diverse society from that of 1950's Britain never mind that of the 1970's and 80's.

Adults can argue over it -and they do- but the world children are growing up in is different and so needs to be one they themselves recognize as much as is this is fiction.

Resting

Not feeling too brilliant to be honest as I pack my things ready to be away this weekend even as the arrangements have been a bit all over the place but hopefully it'll all be worth it.

I did play a few records I had recently and the Abba Voyage album of 2021 which I had for Christmas that year as it's cooler now which helps as upstairs where the main vinyl set is gets rather warm quickly which was pretty much how things were the last week and a bit ago when it was around 30 degrees c.

I struggled with that heat, running warm and having a highish blood pressure so I'm glad that's all over.

Restoring the gardens

The week starts moving towards another hot spell this weekend which happens to be why this is being typed when it is but this week I'm talking a bit about gardens and no I'm no expert on layouts, plants - never would of moved beyond getting a badge in Brownies for identifying flowers and that but my home is a semi-detached (and that hyphen matters!) which means your house is joined to just one other and typically both of you have gardens.

Very much the typical suburbia idyll many of us aspire to in this country in the far northern suburbs of this City Region and in times gone by such rituals as mowing the lawn, planted cultivated flowers and potting ones plants were what we did.

It's also fair to say we've got a much bigger plot than most here being on a corner too.

In the last few years as Mom got more infirm before this coep/covid related business kept her in bed, she did much of planting, planning and oversight while Dad did the more muscle based stuff like trimming, lawn mowing and the like.

We'd employed a neighbour to whom notes of the realm worked well to do odd jobs and up to around September and October last year he was working on various things we either never got around to or she couldn't do and dad was too busy progressively doing more that she used to around the home.

Inevitably over Christmas and up to Mom's death, the garden was neglected a bit as there wasn't the time to do anything and in any event hardly time to either plan anything as caring became increasingly the sole focus of everyone's activity.

We are picking up on what was left starting with some garden features bought in the last two years that never come out of their boxes and are now installed complete with a bird feeder.

The hedges a little overgrown have been trimmed together with the bushes while plans are being made to tackle the area that leads up to and around one of two sheds to tidy and trim the vegetation that has taken over and maybe put in some planters for easy maintenance plants to make the area enjoyable again as you approach via a gated wall.

Progress is being made catching up with things.