The End of Year review

One might as well start by saying that I had a number of compact discs for Christmas amongst other things that I've just opened and to which in time I'll write a comprehensive review of here.
As well I finally have central heating back on which is a blessed relief from having to sleep in multiple layers and woolen hats just like you would if you were outdoor camping in Winter rather than being at home indoors!
The year excluding what is the core of the other blog saw me spending quite a bit of regressed time with others which as explained last year is so important for my own well-being.
There were a number of major political events and sadly terrorism offences too across the year from The 2017 General Election fight on the backdrop of Brexit which itself was big story, the fluid political situation in Catalonia, the removal of President Mugabe of Zimbabwe and the election of a new leader of South Africa's leading political party both of which have the potential to change many millions of lives in Southern Africa for the better.
There was of course the inauguration of "The Donald" in the States whose twittering was at least as big enough an issue as his political actions and his playground spats with Kim Jong-un of North Korea over missile tests over South Korea and Japan complete with name calling.
Closer to home we had the terrorism incidents in London and Manchester that cost lives, indeed young lives in my area.
These events were talked about on what has become the revitalized That Boarding School Girl blog with improved visual presentation with the restoration of some original sized images on older posts being a journal of Middle writing from her Dorm to an audience that would discuss such things.
We also looked at music marking the deaths of such luminaries as George Michael and Tom Petty and looked at classical music more which ties in with my little side oddly enough looking at composers and great recordings  as I expanded upon the collection I started in the early days of the compact disc,being the format of nearly all of that music in my collection.
This has included an number of multi-disc value packs that offer great performances from the past in space saving boxes ideal for dipping into at leisure on my acquired Marantz super audio cd player. Discussing recordings on a site's thread has helped this process.
We also completed for now the Project X series looking at putting together a small inexpensive stereo system for a small room.
Finally we also did read some books which because of my dyslexia and also developmental disabilities are more vocabulary stretching upper tween books some being shared with the other blog cos that's the elephant in the room we addressed last year of which one gave it's name to this blogs title.
I'd like to thank the Fur Affinity Fursons (and persons), the Angelic ones and the Boneyard Crew for being around.

Pre Christmas edition

Around this time of year I take a break as some of my oldest followers may recall for a few days from blogging, social media  and commentating on various sites cos in truth all of that is only possible from spare time and I'm busy dealing with face to face encounters and family events over Christmas which do take priority.
Christmas for me is a time of that child-like magic.

***HAPPY CHRISTMAS FOLKS!***

R.I.P London Midland

This week the rail franchise "London Midland" finally ceased operations being replaced by West Midlands Trains on December 10th, a combination of part local authority group here in the Midlands and part private sector.

London Midland started operations in 2007 and was one the biggest operators here so not surprisingly I travelled on them quiet a bit not least to littles camp passing through Wolverhampton, Staffordshire where you can see a Class 170 parked on platform one.

One place you certainly would see many of their services is at the Virgin owned Crewe rail station one of the biggest and busiest stations in the UK and is my local main station as the stations in Greater Stoke-on-Trent have a much more limited set of connections.
Here therefore you'll see a Class 350/3 on one of the twelve operational platforms as I have numerous times.
London Midland had a rather so-so reputation from the start but I would have to say outside of one overcrowding incident on a early evening Ex Birmingham service to Liverpool, I always found them punctual and the conductors exemplary, being gendered correctly.
Farewell then London Midland, a part of my life, and welcome aboard West Midland Trains.

Domestic political reflections

As I've been reflecting on other events elsewhere and dealing with some ahem 'drama' this week I though I'd set out some reflections around contemporary current affairs that have been grabbing the headlines across this year.

I think I'll begin by saying my thoughts around the use of intelligence and resourcing in tackling terrorism expressed in the aftermath of the Arianda Grande concert in May that had an impact on people in this local authority area seem to be been born out in the report into the incident. While there is talk of more police officers being deployed, it seems little real change in resourcing the surveillance side with the need to cherry pick who to closely follow  being finely balance hasn't been tackled.

The Irish Question or as my History teacher put it the 'English Question' is never far beneath the surface from the 'colonization' by Scots, the start of calls for 'Home Rule' during the Victorian era  through the Easter Rising and bloody Civil War, 'The Troubles' in Northern Ireland and the 1995 'Peace Process'.

Feeling, symbolism and fear in Irish Politics counts for as half as much to either side  in Northern Ireland, itself the neutral name given to what I grew up as 'Ulster' so the issue of the co-alignment of Irish, United Kingdom and European Union boundaries was always going to be an issue in the UK's departing the EU.

"Two's company, three's a crowd" is an expression that lends itself  how that border causes issues for and between each because prior to joining  the the Common Market in 1973, the UK approach was one of special deals for the Irish Republic ("Eire") to take account of the close ties between the peoples of the British Isles notwithstanding political differences.

One of big things of the UK's leaving is the questions of the Single Market and the Customs Union because the UK and Irish Republic do trade and share some facilities such as hospitals, universities so border communities are rightly concerned about such matters.

On the other hand the customs side, taxation, declarations and  so on  they are very much EU wide matters and so ensuring checks are made in the event of the UK being completely matter in terms of lost revenue and common standards matter to them as much as to border communities the shared trade continues.

This was the idea behind in effect placing the boundary on the Isle of Ireland to eliminate the need to have manned boarder posts and associated paperwork.

The problem area with it is two-fold, one being it may solve the issue of trade with the Island of Ireland but places one in the North Sea between Northern Ireland and Great Britain  which counts for a higher proportion of trade between themselves than the Republic and the UK.

The second is what scuppered this weeks attempt to move on the the whole Brexit negotiations to trade, which is from a Unionist Northern Irish point of view you're not treating  the whole UK the same way and they felt it was the start of an erosion of their British Identity.

To those pro Brexit voters the terms of staying in the Single Market and Customs union - no regular ability to control migration levels year on year from the EU, the ability to set ones own tax rates and negotiation fully independently ones own trade agreements free from the EU after leaving - would be heavily compromised by acceptance across the whole of the UK. They hold effectively it nullifies the very reason they wished to leave.
It remains to be seen if there really is a solution that meets everyone's needs to this question before we are able to get around to talking about trading relations before the year is out. 

Classical update II

Today's entry may be the last of this series this side of the new year where I look at old but new to me additions to my classical music collection

Bach was mentioned in late September 2008 on That Boarding School Girl during the period I established a modest selection of his more important compositions and replacing one cd whose conducting lead the playing  seeming more suited to F1 than sedate chamber music!
I am very fond of the Cello as an instrument and so had been looking at getting a recording of his Six Cello Suites when I spotted this which originally came out as three lps and cds in 1985 and to which this is the latest edition with two very well filled cds taking in all three discs worth which came out in 2015.
Maisky's performances have real character holding your attention.
It is interesting to note that would set you back around GBP £40 new in 1985/6 and I managed to get this two cd edition for exactly GBP £4.16 new including delivery!

There was a point in the late 1980's when I had on lp Rachmaninov's most popular Third Piano Concerto but in the intervening period that had left my collection so I had been thinking about picking up a set of his symphonies and piano concertos when I spotted this 'like new'  for GBP £9.99 which works out £1.99 per disc which takes Lorin Maazel's well regarded and performed 1980's account of the symphonies and the 70's Thomas Vásáry's account of piano concertos recorded with the London Symphony Orchestra  conducted by Yuri Ahronovitch across five discs.
He was the last leading Romantic classical composer of the Twentieth century, born in Russia of a military family moving after the October Revolution of 1917 to Switzerland and by W.W.2 to the U.S.A.
Like most two cd versions one of symphonies is split between the discs - here it is symphony No. 1 but the piano concertos are not.
For me this is ideal as a starter set as all the recording have been freshly mastered for the best possible sound and comes with background notes all in a small box.

Past links:
Bach

Reflections on the death of David Cassidy

It was announced Wednesday, the child actor and singer, David Cassidy died from complications following hospitalization late last weekend

He played the role of Keith Partridge  a teen boy of the touring headed by their Mother who was played by Shirley Jones in the must see tv series of the early 1970's that we all watched and talked about as juniors back then. Indeed I had to go visit friends as we weren't allowed at home to watch commercial tv in order to see the show on the pretext it was a play date.

The series was massive in North America and given its construct being but a few years on from The Monkees, the series gave birth to hit 45's and albums which are still adored by many of our generation as terrific pop songs.

David left the show pursuing a career in popular music having a good number of hit 45's and albums of which this, Daydreamer from the Dreams Are Nuthin' More Than Wishes album was a favourite of mine from 1973

Like a number of artists of this era following a change in music tastes he took time out before resuming in 1985 with the  Romance album  issued by Arista and resuming concert tours. It was sad he had to give up performing in 2014 due to dementia.
David was a part of our lives as kids back then the adorable boy next door who could sing and act whose life we followed in Jackie magazine and elsewhere.
Let's be glad for what he gave us and for the opportunities he was able to take advantage of furthering his craft.
Rest in peace, David.

That Boarding School Girl Updates

Hello. I first put in an appearance here in 2015 telling you about updates on this  blog and while it isn't as dramatic as it was back then, I can tell you this blogs owner has been working her socks off upgrading the layouts and pictures of many posts because this blog is kind of old.
As well the 'Littles Blog' just turned 800 posts so that had a big tidying up too!

When it first started in 2006 before I was born, it looked very much like this just gaining the Topic Index although for the first four years the template colour was dark blue with the text in orange and we had that lovely banner but the link coding for that got messed up so soon it had to be changed.

There I am first time around!
We had to change the top bit but otherwise it was the same keeping that manga bit at the blog footer. If you look closely you can see how the area for the text with pictures has improved then to now which was one reason some older entries needed changing cos the pictures on some were really tiny and others were blurred.
Of course now That Boarding School Girl who loves me has changed the title cos it better suits her and what this blog always was meant to be, so now with these improvements you'll have the best old entries you ever could get!