The last year and welcome to 2026!

Twenty-Twenty Five has its issues both politically and personally so we'll look a bit at each in today's post.

Politically what were the three main parties, Conservative and Unionist, Labour and Liberal Democrat just ceased to be really relevant, showing little support in opinion polls and more critically elections, it may be the more cynical mood that's about but "Ever felt cheated" seems to sum up popular disenchantment with them.

We've switched from various incarnations of Conservative government to Labour but little seems to change, massive promises are made whatever you personal views on the ideas might be but very little gets done and significantly few feel any the better for it which after all why people voted for change not least in 2024.

And it hasn't happened.

Sometimes it seems Courts seem to set the rules rather than elected members rather than the system being held to account by the agreed rules

Thus people are taking chances on two relative outsiders, the popularist rightward Reform Party that favours lower taxes, lower spending and tight immigration control especially of illegal migrants and the Green Party that is more "open door" on immigration, favours environmental actions and taxes to as they would see it incentivize action sit feels would help deal with climate change and is broadly more public spending minded with a goodly amount of inclusion and minority actions. 

I suspect a number of us are somewhere between the two camps - we know long term spending needs holding back but worry about those most vulnerable and the impact pressures on energy and rents have on people even on what otherwise might be see as reasonable incomes - we feel the immigration system is neither efficient, fair or taking into account not just the rights of would be applicants but what they have to offer in exchange for being allowed to settle and the impact it has in the massive housing waiting lists however sympathetic we may feel toward individual cases. 

 And there ARE hard cases that truly deserve a second chance elsewhere.

Personally the year did see a challenge having damaged my left wrist and the bones just above and below it in a fall which fortunately seems to have recovered although cold mornings like today you can just feel them as I do on the upper right arm that was fractured in my teens,

Living with "The Grump" Tm has its issues - the tendency to over dramatize anything although some may well be painful or otherwise a concern connected with the stubborn refusal to look at the wider picture first "I'll do what I ___ want" approach followed by the admission as we're less capable the day before of "I think I overdid it yesterday...".

You do need to take a step back and consider things before rushing headlong into action. 

That means YOU have things to do that you wouldn't of and then they say they don't want to pressure you but when now't else is taking any of that load, being realistic you are as much as that person you're happy to help as its needed.

Turning to music, I did enjoy this years BBC Proms season with its broad range of music, mainly classical, encouraging younger people to explore different forms of music.

Major new popular albums for me included The Life of a Showgirl by Taylor Swift plus a series of reissued by The Monkees and some limited vinyl restoration of titles from the 80's that originally I had on tape or cd.

Regarding classical, well we had a series of vinyl reissues, the DG The Original Source series that saw analogue recordings from the 70's remixed in real time from the multitrack tapes direct to vinyl bypassing using another stereo tape which previous issues didn't sound to good from.

The records turned out well with deeper bass and clearer mids sounding more modern.

Hyperion had started but with limited publicity a series of vinyl issues of highly regarded digital recordings from this century that never had a record release ever which were cheaper in more simple single sleeve packaging which sounded amazing.

The main thing was the rediscovery of Downloads, specifically 24 bit High Definition ones as a couple of cards and a player went M.I.A but I found where I had got them from so having got bigger replacement cards they were redownloaded.

But then HD files are big so you need a player that will take large capacity cards without slowing up or not showing when indexed. 

One TerraByte micro sd cards weren't a thing in the early 2010's, I mean 32gb cards were expensive enough.

This was one I bought, the equivalent of two Super Audio cds whose production has dropped to a trickle even from labels that were more committed to it such as Chandos so really in the future I can easily see more HD Downloads being bought and enjoyed played via that to the main amplifier or via the USB to coaxial connector of the Digital to Analogue convertor in the system that deals with DAB radio and regular cd.

Happy Twenty Twenty Six

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.