Charred past

11 followers at Daytime Office Girl Crisis and only a tiny handful of you even know the history of this unique blog! It was underground for quite a period when I was avoiding places I felt rather uncomfortable at but now it's back out in the open.
If you clever people were wondering what this weeks title is referring to, unless you were on Mars, I'm talking about a major public scandal in the UK (that strange place that gave us English) that centres around the deceased disc jockey and tv presenter Sir Jimmy Saville who worked for a long time at a veritable UK institution, The BBC.
If you'd been in the UK for over 15 years, you'd of know of him presenting such shows as the pop music show Top of the Pops, radio shows like Saville's Time Travels, the Old record club, his past as a club MC in Leeds, Yorkshire and his charitable works and he did raise an awful lot for places like the  spinal injuries unit at Stoke Mandiville.
No one would dispute his achievements as an entertainer, indeed many of us us watched and listened to his shows.
There is no nice way to say this - and I wish I didn't have to - but he had another side a very hidden one from the public and it was he enjoyed having sex relations with children  15 or under something general morality aside, is against the law.
Some of these at least were clearly 'forced', they involved boys as well as girls, either on BBC property or in accommodation provided for his charitable work.
A good number were invited backstage from shows such as Jim'll fix it or Top of the Pops to his dressing room arguable with some knowledge from associates where they were abused; in others they were taken from Hospitals or Corrective Schools. It also has been said he attempted to interfere with some during the filmed dancing at Top of the Pops when he was on the show.
If this wasn't enough earlier this week I read a harrowing account of how even a niece at 13 and 15 of his was molested and abused.  I cried reading it.
I can't presume to speak for everyone that may be reading this blog, but there are a couple of things that come to mind of which the first is I feel a part of my past has been sullen not least for seeing people on a show and then finding out what happened later to them.
The other is why it was he was allowed unaccompanied access to minors to the point even of being given a key to one hospital that he kept with him. Thinking back as a 13 or 14 year old, at the time I'd loved to met my idols and gotten their autograph but you'd of expected someone to be over that person you were seeing not least for their own protection.
It also appears a number of people were aware of his 'interest' in minors but didn't act. Was this because he was viewed as too important to the BBC and various charities to tackle?

Media bais

Hi.
This week's post is a little different than the normal kind of post I make here but then that's not so untypical of me as I can be a bit random.
Anyways, this is the first post going out mainly for two circles at a social networking site one of which kindly offered  to have me, ironic really as I've said a few times the people who wanted me at that site seldom use it and I've ended up having interchanges with people I never encountered before around MLP, anime and what we call loosely gender politics among many things.
Media coverage is something that's always interested me right from high school where because of timetabling I missed taking Media Studies lessons although our Economics lecturer talked a lot about often in the context of social economics and associated poltical activity of the day.
Following on from a  post, I feel there are class based biases around what stories newspapers cover and the angle they portray them in.
For instance one well known UK newspaper  seldom reports events affecting Britain's black community outside of the context of immigration abuse or criminality and had for a period ignored major stories of crime against black people but suddenly shifted a gear in campaigning for justice in the Steven Laurence case.
That was very commendable but the presentation was more one of worthy of support as 'black young man and his family made good' -fellow 'middle class' solid types wronged rather than the injustices of the initial inquiry and how the racial biases of the investigating force hampered the search for justice.Injustice itself should be worth of reporting and campaigning against.
In the ongoing reporting of messing people too it's often the case those seen to be of that that stereotype 'worth solid middle class' who  were wronged often with reference to abilities rather than the many ordinary people, often young people who just seem to vanish and they become the focus of campaigns.
Since 9/11, if you were to read some newspapers the only reference to Muslims is in the context of terror plots or mistreatment of women and minors that sure should be reported and acted upon but ignores the lives of many peaceful followers of that religion and what they contribute to our society.
Do you think our media is biased?

Clutter

Sometimes I think I'm jinxed as it seems I have the return of a rotten cold, an everyday thing although not pleasant for most of you but something once I get on, I never really seem to shake off.
I'm not house moving, but in the last few weeks and probably continue on for a few more weeks, I'm de-cluttering the house and while I'm at it, rearranging things.
I haven't had a bad life even if lots of things didn't quite go to plan, but one common factor with many of them is they left me with heaps of paper files in either wallet document folders or huge lever arch files from many activities and courses I took that took over room after room!
I've finally gotten shut of the 1999 Roxy Music remasters - nasty harsh things -having got  that awfully nice sounding new box set plus a few other don't really need discs plus a massive hardback copy of Websters dictionary that was too heavy for me to turn the pages over.
As well, I'm thinning out a mountain of home made VHS video cassettes going back some twenty-five years that are taking up space and yet I haven't watched in several years so I figure I really do not need them.
Makes you wonder how much stuff we really need in our lives.

Love Me Do

Well in October 1962 before I was born, a group with a local and German port following issued a bluesy 45 following their first ever UK recording sesson at Abbey Road, London.
Nobody knew if this group would really take of or just remain one of several provincial groups just selling a few copies to fans.
This Group was of course, the Beatles and that single reached number 17 on the UK charts although it was to go top five in the States in 1964 in an era off unprecedented adoration.

Although it's been released several times before being only deleted briefly during the late 60's and very early 70's with a famous 20th anniversary issue in 1982 where it climbed to number 5 in the UK charts that I bought in high school, this week it comes out in a retro label design complete with company inner bag.
I've ordered a copy for my collection as I believe they *may* use the original singles version for this that was switched in early 1963 to the now familiar version featured on the Please Please Me album.

NEWSFLASH:
Somebody goofed big time.
http://wogew.blogspot.ca/2012/10/lov...ry-mix-up.html

Quote:

Word is that EMI have recalled all the stock of the 50th anniversary edition of the Love Me Do 7" vinyl single , because the version on the single is incorrect. Under strict instructions from Apple the stock is to be destroyed.
The single version as you probably know featured Ringo, and the album version featured Andy White with Ringo on the tambourine. The mistake is that they have supposedly put the album version on the new 7 inch.
At the moment EMI have no plans to replace it with the correct version.
This information came from one of the retailers who had already shipped their pre-orders, so there will be a number of lucky owners of this rarity when the post arrives tomorrow....
Coming soon is the much waited for stereo  vinyl issues of September 2009's album remasters. One hopes the three year and two months wait is worth it.

The great flooding of Northwich

We've had heavy rainfall this week causing considerable difficulties although where I am we've not flooded being just removed from the paths of the Rivers Dane and Weaver here in Cheshire.
Unfortunately in one of towns the organization I work for has offices, we suffered extensive problems with flooding, road closures and so on.
Northwich town centre.

As you can see not much moving there!
Hopefully it'll be over in a few days time although that'll be when the insurance claims and visits by loss adjusters will be set up.

Don't Go

Frankly I'm dogtired, unwell and you might be feeling like say, get your %^* in bed young lady and take a rest but I'm not cos I'm a bit stubborn at times even though I'm not related to a donkey!
But anyway I'll be good and not spend so long on this!!!
The early 80's for those of us around at the time were a pretty amazing period to live through musically and one of the big things was the synthesizer what could make pretty much any sound you cared to program it and it was possible to for the frist time to remove the traditional structure of the rock band or backing group completely.
This freed up the options and one very popular synthesizer group option was the Duo examples of which are Soft Cell, the Pet Shop Boys and Erasure but that latter group had someone who came from a group that was famous for 15 minutes - well okay two years - before splitting up and getting together again a few years back.
That group was called Yaz or Yazoo if you're a Brit who came from Basildon, Essex with Vince Clarke being a previous member of the highly successful Depeche Mode with Alison Moyet who came from the same school.
They had two hit albums Upstairs at Eric's named after a nightclub they went to and You and Me Both and a number of hit 45's Don't Go, Only You, Nobody's Diary, The Inside of Love and Situation (at least in North America).

Recently Music Club Deluxe issued this double album with those hit 45's most of the bands two albums and some hard to find 12" mixes which I got as a pre-order for a fiver as I don't have any Yaz on cd.
Alison had a successful jazz/blues solo career with Columbia records issuing a compilation in 1995 while Vince had a quite a time of chartoppers Erasure with hits like Sometimes, Stop! and the Abbesque EP all featured on their 1992 compilation Pop! which isn't available to download so you'll need to get the cd and rip it for your music player! (Groans)

Wall Street shuffle

"The online Miss with masters degree in punnery" is the tag line at my account at a certain social network which as those unfortunate enough to encounter me know is true enough so why would it surprise anyone that among many music acts I liked 10cc, a Manchester based on would be one?
Simply apart from their excellent musicianship each being multi-talented coming on as a budgie on supercharge Trill, the bands lyricists shared the same love of punnery as I do as well as sending whole genres of music with style.
Recently I got this Dutch 3 cd compilation:

This is a distillation over three cds and 51 tracks of the total output of the group from 1970 as Hotlegs through the peaks of tracks like 1975's Life's a Minestrone with epic punnery and great use of nonsense chanting of minestrone in syllables to their last album from 1983 plus for good measure some 80's gems by Godley and Creme such as Cry and Under Your Thumb that are in the same style.Tracks like I'm Mandy, Fly Me, Good Morning Judge, One Night in Paris (a mini opera of Parisienne fun set in Stockport of all places) are all desert island stuff for me. Did UK pop in the 70's get anymore intelligent without getting all po-faced?
Including tracks by Wax, the band formed by Graham Gouldman and Andrew Gold, might of appealed to completists but I feel regardless of merit, they would just jar next to the 10cc material and in any event are included on the Music Club Deluxe Andrew Gold double compilation issued a few years back that I'd recommended to Andrew Gold fans.
The mastering for those are concerned as much as I am about the trend in the last 15 years toward louder more bloated sounding cds is pretty good if not quite up to the dynamic contrasts of the original  mid 80's Mercury era 10cc albums issued in Europe or the original Greatest Hits cd issued in the 80's.
For the modest price this set cost's it's worth owning either on it's own or in conjuction with a collection of original studio albums.
1997's remasters done by Roger Wake which remain the only in print regular editions are frankly crap -a word I'd seldom use on this blog ever - lacking detail, distorted complete with obvious tape drag. People, don't waste your money on them as even the original artwork included in say the 80's cd of  How Dare You has gone AWL for the remastered edition replaced by an essay of sorts.