Xxxholic

This enjoyable anime series is by the four-woman collective Clamp.

Watanuki has been haunted by dark spirits his entire life, a curse flowing through his bloodline preventing peace. When his incessant demons drag him to the ornate door of the Dimensional Witch Yuko, he meets a mystical woman of insight and luxury, quick to help those in a bind… For a fee! One might very well end up paying with their soul! 

To be free of his visions, Watanuki will work in her shop of dreams and wishes. There is always a price to pay…

Watanuki spends his after school hours running errands, cooking, and fussing. Doumeki, the girl he adores, and Doumeki, the boy he loathes, join him to form a mismatched trio. 

The aura of sensual power that surrounds this version of Yukois broken by her outrageous demands for food and saké, and the squeaks of the obnoxiously cute mascot Mokona.

Although the animation is often very cartoony, XXXHolic has the vaguely decadent look of a Symbolist painting. Eerie and off-beat, the series will delight Clamp's many fans.

Giving Nipper new teeth

Between Donald Tusk insulting UK politicians which could just be the kerosene to be poured on Brexit with a free match as if we didn't need any more animosity, some good news did emerge on Tuesday regarding one of stories late 2018.

 Canadian record retailer, Sunrise agreed to pay for 100 of HMV UK's stores with closures of 27 least profitable, planning to stock a higher amount of vinyl records which generally have a higher mark up than cds and less at risk from people streaming instead of buying which has been the case with dvd and blu-ray's as much as some such as myself do buy titles that wish to own.
Sunrise in 2017 bought out HMV Canada that was failing and has managed to turn the store group around although like the proposals here, a number were shut in what was a black period for music retail in that country with Sam The Record Man being shut a couple of years before with reduced sales and higher rent charges in places like downtown Toronto.
Great Britain is the second biggest player in popular music and a major one in English language arts in general home of course not just to the vast expanse of London Theatreland but to Pinewood, the UK's Hollywood often use by American owned film companies.
To that extent we absolutely need a shop front for our creative arts where artists can do signings, 'pop up' short performances and places where staff do know and share knowledge about music.
I am and strongly support independent music retailers as until the arrival of HMV in 1992 in this district we had a good number of our own such as the much missed Mike Lloyd Megastores in Stoke City centre, Newcastle under Lyme, Stafford and  Wolverhampton and their encouragement in exploring music set my passion off buying albums.
Most went when firstly supermarkets started selling top sellers off cheaply and then Amazon were selling back catalogue titles for less than they could manage but HMV survived until 2013 and after then  our two branches in Stoke and Wolverhampton still did good business until the recent administration and were where I bought new vinyl albums by bands I liked. 
The staff when I went in twice recently were very friendly, there is something about handling and looking through a rack that's just not the same as going on a web site so I hope this is successful.

Ziggy Stardust

A few weeks and forty odd years ago an album was issued that became in many respects bigger than the artists own profile dominating the popular music scene for 1972/3.
It's an album almost  every student of any generation feels they have to heard never mind own regardless of what format may be prevailent at the time and it was a major musical and social influence either on me at that time.
Ziggy Stardust is a character - a singer in a rock band - and through him we see his raise to fame and tellingly his burn out that mirrors all too sadly what actually happens in real life. Everybody wants a piece of his pie from the management team, record label  even ultimately, the fans themselves and the artist struggles to "Hang on to yourself" to quote the title of one of the songs featured.
If the Monkees were a made for TV fabrication of a rock group based upon the Beatles, here was in many ways a more credible fabrication for the modern era -  a complete fabrication from individuals persona onward.
If one goes down Heddon Street, London the buildings in the cover shot can be seen although the trash can and K West sign are long gone.
The first single off the album was Starman and I recall the first time I heard that on the radio well being aware from the billboards and older friends of this Bowie character. What got to me about was -and still is - is the sense of detachment, alienation even of the lead character in the lyrics and the unamerican style of singing.
I first had the album on RCA 8 track tape although my brother had the lp and have been through cassette and cd versions.
This album has been re-issued numerous times and unfortunately like most of David Bowie's back catalogue their is no such thing as a really good cd version although on the advice of a friend of mine, Keith H in Ohio, I got the original RCA cds from the mid 1980's which were more listenable than either the thin sounding EMI (US: Ryko) titles from 1990/91 with bonus tracks or Peter Mew's bloated and highly compressed versions from 1999 on EMI (US: Virgin).
In 1990 a boxed edition was issued by EMI with a  72 page booklet with the regular cd
recognizing it's iconic status and this June  two new editions came out.
The cd version is just a straight re-issue of the 11 track album in a card digpack cover which I can't say I really like as packaging preferring Mini Lp style i we're having paper based.
While there is a little compression on it compared to the 1984 RCA, the tonality is spot on and let's be honest here the analogue to digital conversion technology has come an awful lot in 28 years (I can hear the convertors' sound on many older cds) so for the first time ever there is a pretty acceptable in print cd even though I won't be tossing out the RCA.
Secondly and even better news is that there was a new lp lovingly mastered by Ray Staff who used to work at Porky's mastering that many of us feel surpasses the original UK orange RCA lp when it comes to sound quality and dead quiet surfaces. It comes with a audio dvd that will play on a computer or Blue-ray player capable of 96khz/24Bit resolution (most do) offering  both stereo and 5.1 surround sound mixes with bonus tracks which will sound smoother than the regular cd.
Recommended.

Out with the old!

I've always loved to watch movies ever since I was a little kid so when they started come out on video tape I jumped at the chance to watch them, surrounded by my teddies and dolls because it's a way of getting into that child-like frame of mind where I feel happy and  carefree, safe sipping a glass of milk. 
That's why as technology changes I just had to act starting first on my favourite cartoons such as the Pink Panther and various Disney titles since first starting to buy DVD's in 2002.
It was only those titles that went straight to first time DVD release, those cartoons plus a few classic TV and Music releases I bought leaving a legacy of titles I had to use my trusty S-VHS recorder for.
At long long last I have been replacing a good many of my VHS tapes of movies with DVD versions since updating my DVD player a short while back.

I replaced recently the following:
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
The Wiz
Flash Gordon
ET
Staying Alive
Two Of A Kind
Streets Of Fire
Top Gun
Labyrinth
Cocktail
Days Of Thunder


The improvement over the tapes is hard to describe but they are sharper with better colour rendition and contrast.