Looking ahead and that

The countdown is ticking away as we move out of this month with a coolish fade out unlike last year where we were at sixes and sevens about what we could even do as we approached the festive season.

Things are as most on this account know a bit on the Smolish side so as far as I am aware we will be having a Advent calendar this year to mark our way towards Christmas of a fairly traditional chocolate treat behind the date kind.

Equally while there won't be as many cards written as in the recent past, I have ordered up some cards to get written for family and that as unlike last year, touch wood, we will be able to mix a bit this year although obviously people need to be a bit careful, have their inoculations and ideally try to get some ventilation going if indoors.

One just hopes there isn't a mad dash for everything or an outbreak of Turkey hoarding by people who get into a panic and make things worse for everyone.

I was a bit disappointed that package of three cds continued one with the wrong disc in it, one with booklet out of case and another with an obvious scratch you could feel with your nails that I doubt would play correctly.

Why you should sell what could be called human scratching posts as in "very good condition" beats me as for that matter how you get them in that state in the first place.

Space Junk

There's a lot of noise this week around a whole array of grown up topics that would drive me to distraction and some so I'm just concentrating on one today.

A growing concern today is the debris that has accumulated in over fifty years of man's exploration of space from 1961and it's impact not just on earth but also other structures in space such as the International Space Station which was built in 1998 and has both Russian and American sections. 

The ISS provides a platform to conduct scientific research, with power, data, cooling, and crew available to support experiments. Small uncrewed spacecraft can also provide platforms for experiments, especially those involving zero gravity and exposure to space, but space stations offer a long-term environment where studies can be performed potentially for decades, combined with ready access by research people.

On Monday it was announced that Russia had blown up a former spy satellite at a period of acute tensions across Europe and this had resulted in huge levels of space debris which had the potential to cause serious possibly life threatening damage to the Space Station and it's multinational crew.

It had to take emergency action and put things on hold for just over day before anyone could work on the outside.

This prompted a angry protest by many in the scientific community that whatever blowing this former satellite was supposed to had been about, their actions had been reckless in the extreme.

Russian says it wasn't much to worry about but even tiny pieces can cause huge damage in space.

Personally I feel the international community are right to call Russia out over this.

Voyage

This week we'll take a bit of a break and look at something that's very connected to the past that many people had been waiting ages for.

For a variety of reasons, some being personal with band members gone through divorce the Swedish super group ABBA decided to call it a day in 1982 following the release of The First Ten Years, a double compilation album that had some new recordings on it such as Under Attack although a studio album was attempted but aborted.

ABBA were rather like the Beatles were in their heyday a group who had a broad range of fans and whose music could cover schlager to rock via folk music so they were in many ways everyone's band who realized recording in English rather than their native Swedish was a gateway to world-wide acceptance.

Initially as we got through the eighties that universality of appeal lead to a bit of a backlash with people seeing their music as "cheesy" pop but the appearance of Abba-esque, a four track EP of covers by the English synth duo Erasure in brought their music back into the public consciousness which was matched with the compilations ABBA Gold and More Abba Gold plus a the four cd set Thank You For The Music in 1994, the first time their music had been given that deluxe series treatment beyond a limited Readers Digest set in 1981. 

Roll on to 2021 and a new album that had started life as an attempt to produce a couple of new songs for a virtual reality tour that featured 3D avatars of the band emerged.

There are a variety of variants issued of the album numbering 33 all told. That cover is from the tri-fold "Softpack" version I own while the regular cd has a slightly different one. 

Just a Notion, the single from it issued October 22nd  has a start point of being a uncompleted 1978 tune that had new instrumental backing on it where it was originally included as a demo on that 1994 box set while I still Have Faith In You plus Don't Shut me Down came from 2018 originally intended for a BBC/NBC tv special that was cancelled.

In recording the album the band kept to the original synthesizers and mixing consoles of the early 1980's to keep the original sound while purposely being out of tune with 2021's trends so no duets with people such as the rapper Stormzy or multi artist collaborations.

It is and feels several plays later just like a modern Arrival album just evergreen timeless Abba that the odd quirky turn of phrase with its mixture of thoughtful ballads and more uptempo songs.

It also only plays for a modest 37 minutes and 11 seconds which is just long enough matching the norm of albums of the late 1970's and 80's to enjoy with a side change for those who bought the lp version and cassette versions.

I love it.

Spooky bangs!

 Yes it is Friday sandwiched between one event that is very much an American import  and another that is very British in is origins.

In Britain certainly during the 1970's and 80's you marked All Saints Day with parties that involved things more liking bobbing an apple or in Scotland Guising rather than Halloween and Trick or Treat of which there were a good number on Sunday night here going from door to door.

It's almost become a new old-fashioned custom to those brought up in the nineties that is passed down to their own children who enjoy it and even I enjoy carving pumpkins which was one of the things we were doing last weekend.

Bonfire night was always the big thing for us marking at one level preventing the House of Commons being blown up and on the other a family spectacle with bonfire, a guy and loads of fireworks and believe me I'll feel them here this weekend never mind hear them so it's a good idea to bring the dogs in.

The child-like side of me just loves it.

Have fun this weekend. 

Rambling before we're off

It's the preflight check before the LG ghoulish party with bangs Tomorrow  here making sure I do have everything I need cos with missing last years with you know what  it doesn't take a lot for me to forget something essential.

That means less time to do other stuff while I remember to take the food out to defrost this evening so it'll be all ready for tomorrow early evening and leaving notes regarding delayed orders coming.

You can almost guarantee it if you plan your orders to come before some major incident occurs and they get delayed and obviously I miss Lil Jennies Halloween story time which is to feature Peanuts which would be on Sunday as I'm making my way toward the rail replacement bus.

Bye for now!

Less heat, more column inches

It's a very wet and windy day as I type this to the point I even heard *something* move in the loft space above me this morning which is a bit disconcerting.

One of the things there's been much talk about in the last few days as part of the build up to COP26 climate change conference in Glasgow, Scotland is heat pumps.

The thing is the Heat Pump promotion bearing in mind the UK's climate and relatively poorly insulated homes many of which are over thirty years old simple will not work effectively because the output is lower overall so you need to trap that in the property.

The other issue is any hot water is also lower in temperature typically 40 degrees compared to around 60 in a gas or electric heated boiler which is insufficient for a shower or bath on cold day being lukewarm and makes serious bacterial infections such as Legionnaire's disease more likely as it don't kill the bugs off.

Toss in the need to rip the floorboards up to fit much wider pipes, put in bigger radiators that give out less heat and lose a big chink of your garden to sink the Heat Exchange unit with trench into and I can't see it happening.

It's a bit like Caroline Lucas the Green Party M.P. said "making tea in a broken teapot"

Tuning out and maybe solving problems

 

I think to be up in the sky hitching a ride on the Moon isn't a bad place to be as at least the stars are still transmitting radio waves unlike the 3 Mobile network which as I type this is down aka not working for it's millions of users on top of the continuing supply and energy crisis were going through.

The only kind of silver lining to this week is the EU appear prepared to make some major concessions around how the conundrum that is how the avoidance of borders across the Island of Ireland that apparently is set in stone in the Good Friday Agreement can be reconciled to the problem of placing a border between the Island of Great Britain and Northern Ireland that are politically a part of the United Kingdom.

This had been causing huge problems and gaps in the shelves in Northern Ireland's shops so  for instance some Christmas speciality foodstuffs from Marks and Spencers would not be available in Northern Ireland because of all the additional paperwork involved.

If I buy say a blank tape from Northern Ireland I have to have a customs declaration on the invoice to make legal to enter Great Britain where I am even though it's come from the United Kingdom which Northern Ireland is most certainly a part of. 

As I said at the time on here, that whole issue was massive and under appreciated at the time of the Referendum, not that there's any going back to that and really the question of how to make the paperwork that is necessary between the EU and the UK in general the least time consuming and simpler is really the big thing.

It may be true to say "You knew what to expect when you left" but does it do either party any real good to make things harder than they need to be when all our economies are suffering with both the pandemic and this energy crisis?