Hot thoughts

Well, it's been a warm one so I'm rather glad of having short skirts on this week as they really do help keep cool and avoid that sticky clammy feeling that's so so ikky.

We've not long before school breaks up which did help with Early Monday (UK Time) with England's World Cup match that put them through to the Quarter Finals facing Norway this weekend.

Some schools laid on either full or highlights coverage of the match and used it as a springboard for work in English and Art given much of the formal syllabus can't be touched with the imminent closure for Summer Hols. 

I did read some old comics while trying to stay cool and one cartoon strip I recall was Little Plum which was an attempt to make what today I'd call First Nations people specifically children look universal in a world where much we were fed, usually from American sources showed them as savages, justifying land confiscation and much ill treatment. 

It would be easy today to criticize the usage of language and the like and in more recent returns such things are put aright but at least you could feel more empathy with Little Plum and his chums than we had on Westerns.
 

Into August

So, it is Friday and a New Month during the summer vacations here so while it is cooler if a bit wet what's going on this week?

Well a Big Baby came to Scotland and played golf between various political meetings with the Prime Minister, the First Minister of Scotland and the leader of the European Union who kind of invited herself that went fairly well by Trump standards - no tantrums and swearing.

Perhaps he was on Cow-pol? 

The Lionesses roared winning the penalty shoot outs so a 1-1 draw was converted to 3-1 win over Spain at the final of the Women's Euro's defending their previous win, bagged a reception at 10 Downing Street, London and after an open top bus parade, held a party for all including the youngest girl fans.

Football has been refreshed with lots of new girls teams being established, more women watching games and a different feel to the game.

Thank you women for making it all happen and delivering the bestest posthumous spanking to the Football Association that said women and girls can't play football. They beeping can! And how!!!! 

This week saw the Beano comic mark its 87th birthday, still going strong.

The world has changed from when casual racial tropes and stereotypes might of been seen as appropriate, gender roles have changes for boys and girls as well those pesky grown ups and modern technology has altered lives including children.

All the evidence shows children do love a humour based comic but production cost and issues with getting magazines out to them in stores plus online marketing make it difficult.
 

Christmas preparations

Apart from the usual syncropost this will be last full post on here until after Christmas  where I've been a bit busy writing cards and having my hair trimmed and restyled. 

Preparations for Christmas week here usually involve the traditional 14 day Radio Times that I still find easier to navigate than on screen electronic program guides apart from forgetting what I saw on screen seconds later.

Some of us read comics rather than the Economist and this year's 68 page special is one we'll be opening up to dip in and out of in what has for decades been a christmas ritual for some of us with seasonally themed cartoon strips with characters we grew up with like Dennis, Minnie and Gnasher and newer ones.

That's what the edition just after christmas as it usually pauses a week before looked like in the early 1980's before we went to full colour, glossy paper and bigger sized edition and no doubt there will be after Boxing Day edition this year to tuck into which after all the news on tv I'll be glad of.

The return of the Three Bears

 A bit of a different entry than usual today.

The Three Bears was a long-running British comic strip which appeared in the British comics magazine The Beano.

It first featured in 1959's issue 881 and ran sporadically until 2011 through reprints and several artists.

Basically Ma and Pa Bear and their young son Teddy (later called Ted) were three anthropomorphic bears who lived in a setting loosely based on the American Wild West. They were lazy and gluttonous, and lived in a cave upon a hill. 

Most storylines revolved around their attempts to steal "grub" from the local storekeeper Hank (who often shoots at the Three Bears with his blunderbuss for trying to rob him). 

There was the occasional appearance by the local sheriff, and their rival bear Grizzly Gus (who had a son called Gus's Grizzly)

Oddly enough in this week's Beano they do feature in a story involving Dennis and Gnasher which rather took me by surprise but how many of todays readers really know all about them?

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.

Summer is here

Start of Summer proper here with a fair bit of sun although it was rather drizzly over Tuesday so it's time to read the Summer Specials and make the most of the season.

Well you might as well take off the layers and let the fresh air and sun in trading sweaters, long pants or skirts for something much much lighter.

In world of big cats wouldn't you rather be a kitten?

Music I associate with summer does include this offering by the Jazz-rock group Santana who at the time included some tremendously talented musicians that originally came out in 1970 and spawned the single Black Magic Woman of which I still have the Columbia 45.

This is the super audio cd version of what was in that infamous one step double 45 rpm record set sounding better than ever for a good deal less.

Now to read the final edition of this, ghoulies!

Christmas day edition 2021

On the ball or not this has been hastily put together by the blog team as a syncropost tm  as we are able to do a bit more than last and so we will have a few visitors today.

Christmas here is very much a repeat of how things were cos I haven't change any so a staple is annuals connected to comics so we have this years Beano Annual which my of caught up with the Spotty as Scotty renaming in the Bash Street Kids or not but will have the two new classmates in.

We don't have a Dandy no more outside of the Summer Special but we do have an all new annual to look forward to.

Recently there has been themed compilations of classic cartoon strips from the Dandy and Beano from the past and this years looks at stories featuring characters doing art and drawing within the comic.

 

 Although I am familiar with the aria's from it I hadn't a copy of the full Madama Butterfly opera by the Italian composer Puccini and in the christmas stocking is a new acclaimed recording and a disc of Woodwind music by Vivaldi.

 Spinning at 33 1/3rd, I had the limited edition Dusty Springfield Atlantic singles set from 1968 thru 1971 on ruby red vinyl that uses the original mono singles mixes.

Also I had the November 24 limited edition 2 lp mono set of the Best Of The Red Bird and Mercury Shangri La's  album with retro disc labels.

I also had some money I can take with me once we are clearer how the start of next year is likely to be.

Minnie the Mix and Leo Baxendale

On Thursday it was announced that Leo Baxendale, cartoonist at the Beano comic creator of Minnie The Minnie had died.

 
The Beano was something of institution, a handed down traditional rite of Britishers and for some from British families overseas too for its mixture of comics whose situations were truly only in your imaginations and some such as The Bash Street Kids and my heroine Minnie The Minx based upon our times at school and at home capturing just what it was our lives more more like as school children especially in the pre-internet era.

 
Minnie was very much the tomboy, not one for endless playing with toys and dolls but at the centre of all physical activities being very much the equal of any boy when it came to her strength, resourcefulness and daring-do being the Tam-o shantered and skirted equivalent of Dennis the Menace and just like him, running rings around Mom and Dad.

Here's a more recent strip, showing just how she plays pranks on girls the equal of what any boy would do.

Of course as in real life her pranks and at times outright naughtiness would catch up with her especially in pre 1990's editions as the authority figures in her life would discipline her.

This was something we'd all empathize with in an era would we'd get the same in our own lives and this interconnection between the lives we led and its portrayal in books, comics and other media was very strong which is why the death of the creator of big chunk of childhood leisure time is so keenly missed.
R.I.P Leo.

Childhood summer vacation memories

Writing about my vacation a fortnight ago reminded me of two things that I recall from my childhood.  One was the existence of Summer Specials, comics, puzzle books and colouring books that were meant to be on sale and enjoyed by us as children for three to four months that way typically brought while  vacationing.
The British ones you most looked forward to included the Summer Edition of the Beano not least for it was printed on glossy paper unlike the regular newsprint used back then and the Summer Dandy edition, both full of stories about our favourite characters.
The other was camping which we did at school and my folks sometimes did although our cousins vacations were nearly always camping ones.
Tying the two together is this bit of a Minnie The Minx, cartoon strip who was my comic heroine at the time.