R.I.P. Pat

 Modern current affairs is often a very fractious affair with people arguing about multiple truths, thinking only they alone have "the answer" with name calling and outright lying but there are those on all side  who are above all of that.

Photo credits: Manchester City Council

I was sad to hear Pat Karney had died on Wednesday morning following a long battle with cancer being treated at Christies, Manchester.

Different politics to mine but he was a brilliant spokesperson for Manchester and excellent ward councillor for Harpurhay and Collysworth representing a community that has acute issues but great people that he did a lot for. 

Even until his last moments he was in bed with his paperwork, working on things when many others would of simply said, I'm too ill for this which showed his total determination to do what he could even in those circumstances.

Together with Richard Leese, faced with the damage to the Arndale Centre due to the murderous activities of the IRA, he decided to rebuild the centre of Manchester, make it the best it could be.

Pat was a massive supporter of the LGBTQ+ community, attending prides, leading Manchester's opposition to 1988's Section 28 of the Local Government Act which in practise prevented the acknowledgement and support children and young people needed when they "came out" or if they were struggling with finding a parent was gay or lesbian.

He always managed to find the right words when events needed them such as the Manchester Synagogue attacks, reassuring but clear in his condemnation with no if's or but's  

Class man who knew what representing people was all about and did it in spades

Resouled

In the week that saw Rubber Soul return to top the lp charts amazingly and reviewed on the other blog going back to the era where we first had the Beatles on cd, something else got bought then but as forward looking as we saw ourselves those were on cd.

Michelle Antoinette Wallen MBE was born  on 27 April 1969 but is better known professionally as Mica Paris is a British singer, presenter, and actress and as a fan of soul music it wasn't before I got to hear just what her voice had to offer.

Her debut album, So Good, was released in 1988, spawning the singles "My One Temptation" and "Where Is the Love" which like anything by a new artist then was bought on cd as I felt at the the time much of my vinyl would go and didn't wish to start new sub collections in it.

You might say in 2026 so much for that!

 She has since gone on to release seven further albums

Contribution came out in 1990 and again that was bought on cd although the original cd suffered from "cd rot" and ended up being replaced.

This album extended her soul and gospel influences to bring in hip-hop and house music and featured the track "Contribution" (No. 33), "South of the River" (No. 50) and "If I Love U 2 Nite", (No.43) written by Prince and recorded at his Paisley Park studios.

In the UK this was a long 65 minute 14 track album even on vinyl while North American versions  made do with just 11 tracks outside of special limited import versions of the lp and the cd in a "long box".

Phillysoul and especially the Philadelphia International Records label was a massive thing with me from the early 70's onwards but while I had this compilation on cd, that cd as good as it is saw light in lp form in 1973.

The record was issued here a year later in 1974 and so gain two most desirable tracks, I'll Always Love My Mama (Part 1) and (Win, Place or Show) She's A Winner, both UK singles hits that year making this version more complete in addition to the original 12.

I was able to get a copy locally quite cheaply in mint condition.

Unlike in 1988 when I felt vinyl was on its way out and even being prepared to jettison chunks of it for shiny cds we're selectively adding titles that we enjoyed back then in that format. 

Into October and mound of vinyl

 

After a wet few days I did get out and do a bit more film photography, finding more "muscle memory" came back after a shocking few days with migraine which helped as I find migraines often cause memory issues for a few days afterwards. 

It's also shaping up to be buys time with a number of records arriving which will be reviewed as time permits on the other blog not least the big Rubber Soul remixed deluxe box set that should be arriving as I type this - it did in minutes! -  and the much delayed Now Yearbook 1971 lp set.

I did buy on release the first two Bluetones albums on vinyl  but by 1999 armed with a MiniDisc recorder and player for on the bus only bought their third album Science And Nature on cd and that's how things stayed un til I recent bough this, the 2016 Demon records re-issue on translucent vinyl.

It contained the hit single Keep The Home Fires Burning

That for £24.99 delivered was much appreciated.

Philosophy behind the viewfinder

 Yesterday was quite a bright, warmish day so I went out for a short while armed with a old school film single lens reflex camera and a Cosina 20mm ultra wide angle lens photographing trees with a roll of ISO 100 colour print film.

Yes really in 2026 with digital everything coming out of our ears I left all of that behind.

That in a rambling kind of a way was really what I was getting at last week and there's some back issue of photo magazines I've been looking from some thirty and thirty five years ago I was looking at.

Doing that yesterday really brought very much into focus what some called and there was actually a book called Zen and the Art of Photography inspired by Pirsigs book on Motorcycle Maintenance which were were encourage to read in General Studies way back when I was in what Brits call "The Sixth Form".

Put basically Zen and the art of photography is the practice of combining the mindful, present-moment awareness of Zen Buddhism with the creative act of seeing and capturing images.

Core Principles

Shoshin (Beginner's Mind): Approaching every scene without preconceptions, expectations, or ego, just like a child seeing things for the first time.

The Empty Mind: Letting go of over-analytical thoughts about gear or settings so that intuition takes over.

Becoming One with the Subject: Dissolving the separation between the photographer (the archer), the camera (the bow), and the scene (the target).

Simplicity and Essence: Focusing on minimalism, natural light, and the raw spirit of a moment rather than a literal, crowded recording of reality.

Key Practices

The Decisive Moment: Waiting in stillness for the precise fraction of a second when action, light, and emotion align harmoniously.

Daily Seeing: Treating the camera—or a smartphone—as a visual journal to practice deep attention rather than just collecting snapshots.

Letting the Photo Take You: Allowing the subject to move you deeply, treating the shutter release as an act of gratitude toward life.

Much of that came flooding back to me cos sometimes we get so wrapped up in the technical side  even if as well exposed picture is a basic, we lose track of the actual image we're trying to capture or with some disciplines like still lifes, create.

When you are devoid of any automation the connection between you and the camera is total: It's your reflexes, your skills that determine the outcome.

And we learn from that.

Post 1,100 plus one

Well, we do make a bit of an anniversary this week given some twenty odd years and One Thousand and One Hundred posts ago we started this this blog following on and for a time duo-posting with a blog on the long gone Friends Reunited website.

It's pretty amazing that after all that time we still find things to talk about even if we start on some things but find they drift away cos either we've moved on or rather like MiniDiscs one minute they're the hottest thing around and no they're no longer a thing with no new machines and discs being made.

I've just portable recorder around for legacy discs I made at the time.

That grown up thing Politics as as messy as it ever was both domestically and especially internationally that is leading to shortages of oil pushing up prices while the impact of "Global Warming" has lead to rising food prices due to shortages and both fed into a unresolved refugee crisis.

Photography was also a thing in the early days of the blog as we wrestled with blogging which is an electronic publishing based thing and the world of analogue film images as while some photographers had at least embraced auto focus cameras if not digital cameras of some sort I didn't have digital camera until mid 2008 and then a fairly basic compact for the blog.

My photo set up remained very much as it had from the mid to late 1990's, film based, focused by hand with collection of quality fixed length lenses with anything likely to go to the blog a good week later being scanned to a cd at the processors with the 7 1/2 x 5 prints.

Technically extremely good but with that lag between taking that image and being able to use it on a blog or email to a friend.

While there's no need for it, often digital images never see light of day as prints on photographic paper printed on quality printers. 

Today most blog images come from a digital camera whose native resolution is beyond what most displays need, sometimes the Nikon D3500, other times the Sony compact with its built in zoom lens when the system camera might be too intrusive on the event.

I miss the "in the moment" feel of setting the camera by dedicated controls, the ease of focusing by hand and winding on of the traditional manual  focus film camera, engaged directly with "the decisive moment" in a way that you don't get especially with viewfinderless compacts.

In someways it feels full circle to be owning a new to me manual focus camera but I think separating out the needs of the blog from what I get what my emotional needs are of making permanent memories matters as much as blogging has created a twenty odd year history of things I did, the interests I had and the live as lived.

It's not one or the other I need, it's both.

Difficulties and the acceptance of difference

 Well Blogger seems to having issues this week with it's image uploading tool which appears to upload the image into image library associated with your account and the blog in question you were trying to post it on to but doesn't add the image from that to the published blog entry.

That makes the business of making a blog difficult as while you can and I have at times done whole text based entries, generally speaking an image or two does actually aid the whole post.

Until they get around to repairing the tool the only real workaround is adding it to the image store for the blog and then going to select an image from the blog and , having scrolled down to the last entry clicking in that to post.

One thing I did enjoy Wednesday evening was watching a Youtube video by a close friend of an associate of mine that I've spend time off and on some twelve years with for the fact they just introduced the topic as it applies to her life, just where people hold different views simply setting out her thoughts and getting on with it.

We're all going to have opinions on things from something less serious such as which goes first on a scone, the cream or the jam to matters around just how may present or in this rather momentous week in British foreign policy how you feel about things between Israel and the Palestinians and we've all a right to them.

We should be able to respect them even if we disagree with those opinions without saying "You're doing this all wrong" refusing to talk to each other.

When it comes to how you may live out  your life  as a person born of a different gender than you feel there really isn't a single universal true position. 

To any and all in that situation, be yourselves and good luck to you.

Reversing back...

It's been an odd week, as my BFF reminded me on Tuesday having the bank holiday can cause you to get the day's all wrong in your head apart from the rain as you see the resumption of schoolchildren making their way to school

Sometimes you feel more reflective and past incidents aside I do enjoy a slow steady session on a swing and that's when thoughts can go back.

I was watching a BBC Archives clip on you tube from the iconic Blue Peter program in 1967, so I don't recall personally seeing it although I'm very confident it would of been on our tv then showing a driving simulator that shows a route and has controls that related to your then common place manual transmission car that Val and John took part in challenges to see how well they did.

I did try when I was sixteen driving a modified automatic car which proved interesting in while I could  start it, operate the foot pedals the problem area I had was predicting anything coming into my lane and general hand to eye co-ordination was an issue showing some issue that would compromise my safety and that of other road users.

From that it became obvious that unlike some disabled people driving a modified car funded through payments for my mobility needs wasn't really an option.

Thus in some ways the notion of the A.I. controlled car as in a Taxi you can summon was you need to get from A to B  in a area of poor public transport has an appeal although the lack of human does mean you don't get the social interaction that can include say help folding/unfolding a wheelchair or getting shopping bags out.