Summer outdoor pose

One advantage of sorts around this time of year is so much is out when you're in the countryside and it is so pleasant with the heat and sunshine falling upon you.

While hardly hiking attire she looks beautiful in that dress and the dog is just so cute which normally would be on a lead.
One thing you'll need to be on the watch for is biting insects that seem very prevalent this very hot year having had some recent issues with them as a person who has strong reactions to bites.
Some of you may recall a few years back I could easily of died from blood poisoning following a really bad bite that quickly took hold and required prompt medical treatment and even covering up doesn't mean you're guaranteed to be bite free either.
If you do camp, please be very careful with anything involving flames as much of grass and woodland areas are tinder dry and every easy to flare up in to hard to control fires.     

The Summer break

This week things will be a bit busier as I sort out things out for end of term here so I'm packing things away for that tradition of spending some time as a guest of a grown up sharing what I have learnt and not just the academic stuff but how I've grown more as a person able to take on personal responsibility .
That means cases to pack not just the stuff to be checked through, washed or replaced for next term but what I'm to wear because they have me in uniform so it's not like I get a break from that but as I benefit from routines maybe that's not a bad thing.
Finishing off a bit from last weeks entry, we had President Trump come visit our Country with the expected protests some of which like the parachute stunt were out of line as apart from anything else getting that close to any leader is often likely to lead to arrests or even being fired on.
He appears to have enjoyed his time and perhaps upon learning more about things first hand might be a little less inclined to shoot off on Twitter first on topics he doesn't actually know focusing more on what he needs from us rather than getting distracted with ill thought out comments.

Climbing a summit to fall

One thing you simply cannot get away from in this country is leaving the EU which we voted for in 2016, that god awful contracted word for it "Brexit" and everything that has happened since of which some indication was the "B" word has in a good many place been put on the do not discuss at the dinner party list because otherwise civil people get within inches of being at blows over it.
Yes for those fortunate not to live here, is just how things are and indeed I've had pot shots taken to me at a certain music forum from Anti-Brexiteers who read politics into anything in the mutually antagonistic atmosphere.
Friday saw the announcement of a meeting at the Prime Ministers country residence, Chequers, for the whole cabinet discuss progress to date on talks about leaving with the EU Commissioners and to put together some mutually agreed ideas  to the next meeting with them.
Let's say some of the language used was very colourful before it was agreed by all present as Cabinet policy that members whatever misgivings privately all are expect to endorse.
You may of thought this would leader to greater unity within the cabinet of late but it has lead to the resignations of the Brexit secretary himself and the Foreign Secretary plus vice leaders of the Conservative Party.
The problem is what has been suggested looks more like staying in much of the EU on different terms including having no say on measures that would continue to affect us afterward than anything that would imply independence such as being able to have your  own trade terms, tariffs, be able to pass measures independently regarding goods and services in the House of Parliament and being subject to the rulings of the European Council of Justice.
In theory we are told we could diverge from this but in accepting a common rule book legislators would be loathe to contradict the author of that book-the EU.
We know the EU rightly or from my own point of view wrongly sees the free movement of all goods and services as one indivisible entry and yet this Cabinet policy sees being able to persuade the EU to allow us to just choice goods.
This frankly is ridiculous given politics is at the core the art of the possible, what it is  two sides may give way on to reach an agreement and they see this as non-negotiable.
It seems as I said earlier in the year it would be impossible to avoid friction on the Island of Ireland between the Irish Republic and The UK and between both the Republic and Northern Ireland AND have economic and financial sovereignty which are one the main constituents of a independent sovereign state.
You cannot as far I can see it actually have a Brexit - a leaving of the EU law, rules and regulation - unless you are prepared for that which is what a good many of the leave side  accepted at the start because it was never about foreigners living here being more it about taking full control and responsibility of our destiny as one fully  independent state co-operating as an equal with others as needed and not being a part of Euro political state.
That is why here at the heart of that movement in the Midlands feelings are running very high on what is being proposed because to them it is nothing less than the rejection of what was voted for and to which opinion if anything is hardening on.

Reintroducing Angela Bofill and Bill Withers

From time to time I feature the odd bit about recordings I like or have recently bought  on here as they are what I relax to.
One female artist who made waves in the late 70's and 80's was Angela Bofill born to Cuban and Puerto Rican parents and educated in New York came to the attention of Dave Grusin, a well know writer of scores for films who'd set up a record label GRP.

 This resulted in a string of albums being issued until her retirement from the music industry in 2006 of which this release captures here first two which are in the then in vogue Soul/Jazz "Fusion" style that lays lush arrangements on to more jazz styled vocalization from 1978 and 1979 respectively that garnered a number of hit R&B charts singles.
People such as the Crusaders and Earth Wind & Fire  were amongst the artists I had a lot of respect for during this period which operate with a similar style so I was interested in revisiting these albums freshly mastered for Super Audio cd (also playable in regular cd) by the enterprising British company Dutton Vocalian this month.
An example of talent lies in her composition Children Of The World Unite where she not only wrote the song but produced the arrangement that equals that of many more famous female vocalists with rich instrumentation.
This two on one sacd in just stereo is a great find for fans of female jazz/soul music. 

 In 2016 the specialty label Mobile Fidelity the all time compilation Bill Withers' Greatest Hits which itself was partly expanded in the 1980's by CBS/Columbia  hence the awkward "Featuring..." tag line in the title.
Featuring the original recordings of Ain't No Sunshine, Just The Two of Us and Soul Shadows its a timeless short selection of some of the finest soul music of the seventies and in this remaster for Super audio cd (also playable in regular) he very much sounds as if he is in your room so well mastered this disc is over it's regular edition.
I didn't get around to buying this immediately upon release but was able to pick up a mint used copy to remedy that.
     

The return of The Hollies on vinyl

This week we're going back to a series of posts from 2011/2 while I'm recovering from this darn heat.
That series of post explored the sixties and early 70's output of The Hollies from a compact disc angle but one problem is a number of Hollies compact discs remain in grey sounding highly compressed issues from the late 1990's and to which using records is presently the only sure fire way to get past that fork in the road. 
 In 1967 as I remarked in an earlier post the group and specifically Graham Nash were moving in a more experimental direction that resulted in two albums and a Graham leaving the band.
They issued at the same time as Sgt Pepper, their own pop psychedelia album, Evolution with trippy original sleeve but this album hard to find in original stereo form was re-issued in 1972  as "The Hollies" which was kinda silly "Stop Right There!" would of worked better  with a new sleeve and liner notes.

Interestingly, it used the very same stampers to make it as the first issue of Evolution and so it was for a mere £2.99 and a clean I replaced a so-so mono re-issue with something that sounds better.

 By years end the "Oh wow" factor was raised considerably after the "King Midas in Reverse" 45 showing on this album that includes the U.S. single Dear Eloise but as much as some of this love this album it bombed saleswise at the time making it hard to find in its original mono and stereo forms.
Thankfully Parlophone released in September 2016 a twin mono and stereo remastered lp that sounds better than the EMI cd or critically the 2011 Spanish Guersson mono lp re-issue that used it as a source.
This apart from not having Dear Eloise with a chopped off intro sounds noticeably clearer with fine high frequency detail although it is not clear if used a digital source or not.
It is in any event much better sounding.

Cannibis legalization?

One topic that has been discussed recently is the use of Cannabis Oil in the treatment of epilepsy medically as presently this is illegal within the UK coming under  a blanket ban on all cannabis use that goes back several decades.
Into this it also has been suggested as the "war on drugs" has not been won legalizing cannabis for recreational use has been suggested by one senior Conservative  former minister.
To me, the two areas of debate are not identical because in the first instance, cannabis products for medical usage which is allowed in Canada and some European countries needs to produced in laboratory conditions where strengths and other agents in them have to be disclosed. In other words you need to know exactly what would be prescribed and that decision would be made by say a doctor or specialist rather than the patient themselves.
One problem with recreational use of cannabis is the user has no idea of the strength nor of any other products in with it because it is produced clandestinely and it is far from clear if legalized such production would stop given the illegal infrastructure exists right down to street level distribution.
That means even if one was to put in age checking, requirements to have contents clearly displayed and approved licensed sales sites, there would no guarantee consumer would use them.
The Home Office Minister, Sajid Javid, has permitted two high profile families with sick children to be able to import cannabis oil and have it in effect prescribed while conducting a review into the use of it that is expected to allow prescribing for others in a similar situation.
What  he has ruled out for now at least is a broader legalizing of cannabis for recreational use which to me seems reasonable given the complexities legalizing might entail and the strong arguments about medium to long term impact usage has on mental health not least memory function.
The bigger argument here is for medicinal use under prescription which is not unlike the use say of opiates in severe pain management where again what is grown in secure units has the potential when not for street heroin.  

Trumpomacy?

 (Pix credits:CNN)
While on Tuesday I was frankly much more interested in hearing what Mike Love and Bruce Johnston of the Beach Boys had to say about their collaboration with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the anchorman had to politely caution them they may need to switch at short notice to a news announcement.
The reason for this was after a on-off-on series of behind the scenes diplomatic activity President Trump of the United States of America and his opposite number Kim Jong-un of North Korea the two leaders met in Singapore, South-east Asia which was the first time a serving U.S. President has ever met his North Korean counterpart in over sixty years.
Being of the generation brought up in the "Cold War" we learned and lived with the history of the Korean War of 1950-53,Eisenhower's doctrine of the "Domino Effect" of how one country would fall to "Red China" the whole of the region would get into communist hands which was our moral mission to prevent leading to involvement in Indo-China and Vietnam specifically.
Whatever our reservations may be other how that panned out and the rapprochement with China in recent decades, that left the states of North and South Korea technically at war each backed by China and the U.S. respectively subject to periodic tensions and missile threats apart from leaving families split and gross human rights violations in the North.
Indeed the worrying back drop to this was the frankly childish even for seven year olds playground spat between these two grown men trading insults and threats of mass destruction that scared South Korea and other neighbouring states.
After all this both men (and I'd like to think they had "Grown up") agreed to look at denuclearization of whole Korean peninsula, working on economic reform and development, human rights and a end to hostilities.
While critics can rightly point out there's not much meat on the bones here and may question if giving up rather than suspending training exercises with South Korea temporarily, the preparedness to at least start the process of tidying up the Cold War mess in a way that respects the legitimate concerns of both Korea's and de-esculates tensions I feel has to be seen as a good thing.