75 years of the Beano

More warm this week as I sit typing up this weeks entry in bits and pieces no doubt.
For a good number of us, our sense of being young is in part at least connected with our actual childhoods and the routines we had back then and for me at least it was the arrival of comics which in the case of this British one came out on a Thursday.

That's right, the Beano which first came out in 1938 apparently although during World War II, it was reduced to fortnightly to save paper which was in short supply.
This is  special kind of a magazine with a softbook binding issued July 24th featuring a background capsule on all the main cartoon strips the comic run and the first strips of each that for me included such favourites as Minnie The Minx, Lord Snooty, Biffo the Bear, Dennis with Gnasher and the school series the Bash Street Kids that was close in some ways to my first school with its' Victorian building. Dennis has only been regularly on the front page from September 1974 taking over from Biffo.
Included in it is four glassy art prints which just adds to the enjoyment of this special issue although I often get the new regular copies and there is a celebratory featured  special issue of the regular comic that I hate to say really doesn't work as part of the appeal is the constant old style art and traditional storylines carefully made just slightly in tune with our times for younger audiences. 

One littles world

Yesterday I was reading  a post on Tumblr from unicorntreats where she was talking about being an adult girl and the differences between what she is looking for from this experience and that of those she has found so far. Although I did reply to her at Tumblr, I felt the topic deserves a bit more open discussion.
For her it's that she wishes to re-open a younger mind set, incorporating it into her daily life using it as a relaxation and creative outlet for while she doesn't deny that for a very small proportion of the time that 'need' to be little has sexual reasons, for 95% of the time it's not.
She poses the question "Am I the only one?"
My answer to this would be no, personally I don't think so as I'm very similar (predominately non-sexual) and as I understand things, for many of you share the same take (although we're all that bit different).
Unicorntreats also picked up on the prevalence of bdsm themes and 'daddy' fixations she's encountered so far which isn't her. I understand that completely as when I first became aware of being a little I just kept encountering the same on the net and this was before the likes of Facebook and frequent reblogging of images.
I feel in many ways it's unfortunate that such exploratory searches soon take you into hard-core bdsm territory such as dungeon or forced sex stuff, not that I am saying it's wrong for any individual if that's what they get off on. It's simply that it has very little in common with recapturing the spirit and innocence of being a child although when it comes to school based role play I can see how say smacking can come into it (and have no issues with that so long as it's consensual) and some folks spend a lot of money on recreating that whole experience!
Diapers can be a controversial thing but they're not obligatory although those who are more 'baby' do wear them more often than not and part of the appeal crosses over to some who are 'older' although like most of the big girls I don't wear them.
 It's important I feel to remember some may have to wear them for medical reasons too.
When it comes to 'Daddies' to me it's an obvious little girl dynamic - daddy as protector, daddy as super awesome provider, daddy as 'keeper of you being safe from you' so it's okay by me.
I think the problem can be that everything can become focused  on getting a daddy figure in a relationship especially one that respects your wishes and limits so either you miss out on time you could of enjoyed being a little or it all ends up revolving around him..
If you don't feel the need for a daddy figure that's fine and certainly most of you who have one have been happy to play with me who doesn't so i'm sure unicorntreats would be welcome to play with us. 
If you'd like to join us, unicorntreats, look at the Favourite Sites link at the top and follow the link to Girltalk.to registration as it is very clean, free from bdsm and forced stuff and critically the main site isn't viewable without being logged in so we have some privacy.
We'd be happy to have you I'm sure.

Jo visits the North!

Yesterday, I was out on a trip out as in a hundred odd miles out and also out as with my Pink Hello Kitty  t shirt, shorts and cute cat socks with bows and frilly tops with naturally my H K Tote and  Child's travel bag.   In my world I'm always out as me.

We were going some 312 Miles round trip from where I live to Whitby in North Yorkshire, England  which is a old Port and seaside resort although you have a long walk to get to the beach. Our route involved travelling along the M6, changing to the M62 Trans-Pennine motorway and then getting on the A64 in North Yorkshire a little South of York.The traffic was really bad travelling along the A64 just south of York along the Scarborough road for  miles. It took us Two hours twenty to travel through this four mile stretch! Travelling horseback would be quicker.
In consequence we only had a very limited length of time to do anything as the driver had used  up all ready five of his allowed 8 hours driving under UK law. 
The scenery along stretches of this route took us over Saddleworth Moors in Lancashire, a very hilly area with sheep farms even though it's near to the Towns of Oldham and Rochdale and also well into the North Yorks National Park where much purple Heather and horses was spotted. They were beautiful at this time of year.
Because we were really late arriving the first step had to be fix food fast as I was starting to space out -the perils of running short on spoons - so I called in at Trenchers fish and  chip restaurant on New Quay Road, Whitby for fried plaice, English chips and several drinks of tea with brown sugar while I took some tablets.
It won awards in 2011 and 12 and upon tasting my late lunch, it is not hard to see why for the fish caught on the day  by fishing line was most tasty and the chips had a good not greasy taste to them.
Time was running short as because of drive hours issue with the driver we needed to be back at bus for 17:00 hrs I only had the chance to look at a couple of charity stores briefly before getting something to eat as we wouldn't be stopping off on the return trip.

That's the Bridge that links the harbour to the old town where many of the shops are  to be found in small streets, some cobbled. As befits a Port, there were places selling fresh fish!

Whitby Harbour. As you can see it was  very sunny day with quite as number of boats moored.

I had to use the 105mm moderate telephoto of this camera to capture this and carefully crop it later. Thankfully the more megapixels your image has, the better the result even if you use only a small proportion of the original image.

Kerrera caught my attention  while moored with its bold colours and flags

Finally an overview of the harbour.
It was a interesting day out even though it had taken rather a lot out of me physically as I hadn't been in the North East of England ever. One just wishes to had the time to see more of Whitby.

Teen Beat V (iTuned Stones)

It's been a good year since I wrote the last numbered Teen Beat entry although there have been a few specials since then so while I melt in the sun here's the new entry.
There can be little denying the impact of England's Rolling Stones to contemporary rock music and over the decades their back catalogue has always been in print in one form or another although the catalogue is divided between that of their earliest work (1963 thru 1970) which is owned by Abkco Industries and (1971 to date) which they own and license periodically to different labels (Currently Polydor a division of the large Universal Music Group).
In 2002 that earlier catalogue was remastered and re-issued initially to super audio cd for Japan, the UK and North America, selected titles on vinyl lps and issued as downloads in late 2010 from the three big download sites.
Recently Apple have been attempting to improve the quality of their downloadable titles under the generic 'Mastered For iTunes" program where high "Studio" quality masters are custom mastered for Itunes to a specification and I wrote a short piece on it.
Last month, this early Rolling Stones catalogue was re-mastered for iTunes so I did some exploration of it having own records and tapes by them for a long time.
The first thing to say is this new collection follows the original UK studio album sequence and adds two short EP exclusive titles in the set however they have not included the two live recordings issued in the UK (The 'got LIVE if you want it' EPand 'Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out' discs) although they can be gotten separately.
The individual titles are available to buy separately coming with PDF booklets for front covers and original artwork but two unique compilations are added that can only bought either as part of the set or as stand alone titles from the sets own menu of titles.
These sets have the non lp singles, b sides and tracks only issued on US albums gathered together and they are called "No Stone Unturned" Volumes 1 and  2 which is based on the title of a very good UK lp compilation from the 70's.
The haven't issued in this set the UK Big Hits (High Tide and Green Grass) and Thru' The Past Darkly (Big Hits Vol:2) compilations although they also have been remastered for iTunes and can be bought separately.

I bought a number of titles, Self Titled, No.2 (both of which aren't on cd), 12x5 (An American album with 6 stereo tracks), Let It Bleed and No Stone Unturned Vol:1 to test the re-mastered sound.
I felt the sound was very close to that of a cd, offering an upgrade on the previous iTunes and Mp3 versions I've heard sounding better in the percussion and generally that bit smoother.
I felt No Stone Unturned made more sense being a collection of songs being in chronological order than the US Hot Rocks and Fazed Cookies two cd sets, lending itself to being used on a portable player for the person who wants to look beyond their albums although by design it misses out a few hits. Many have said it's a pity this title isn't available on cd and I would agree. It removes the need to have to own otherwise unnecessary and often messily compiled US titles such as "Flowers" and "December's Children".
In addition I picked up a few weeks later No Stone Unturned Vol:2 which has tracks like 19th Nervous Breakdown, My Girl, We Love You, Child Of The Moon and Jumping Jack Flash.
I also re-transferred to iTunes some of my own discs to compare self transferred  to those "Mastered For iTunes" where some tracks were shared and their was a small improvement in the bought ones when I listened closely and compared although obviously you'd be paying for a title that you may well have on your shelf although the quality was actually very good.
When one considers the sound many of us had from pre-recorded cassettes in the past, I feel users of download services such as iTunes are getting a very good deal as these titles are genuinely impressive played through a middle market set of hifi separates even if they may not hold the promise of either high resolution Downloads or lp re-issues.

Take three

Apart from being jolly warm at the minute I also feels hungry so no doubt that kind of inspiration comes into play with the first two skirts.

Munch! It's all about cupcakes that easily lends itself to motifs with so many varieties.

You can even add polka dots to the hem and it still works well as with this design found on Etsy

Finally and followers of my Tumblr also love Elegant Gothic Lolita  so here are three lovely examples of JSK with accessories.

Ten

Do not adjust your computer peoples for what we have here is almost a deadringer for me at ten with the right shaped face, hair and so on as I ought to remember 10 as by this point we'd moved to a school that was very much 20th century, with more land so we did stuff.

The uniform needless to say is wrong needing a red sweater and the socks were meant to be white  but it's so close my head has gone back in that year!  Stuff we did include basic gardening and plant growing which was nice considering we were in the countryside, we had some science kit and even a proper school library now.Naturally we played Rounders still.

Oh goody gumdrops, there's a book we read with a very important moral  plus a good heart and isn't Mary looking so pretty in that dress? It was always a favourite of mine by the Authoress Frances H. Burnett, who was born in England but moved to the United States of America at 16 years of age and recently I re-read it. I vividly recall at 10 our class reading Emil and the Detectives as our teacher would read it aloud and we'd follow him.

Of course in this era, there was another kind of reading we did and I'd bet $5CAD I had and read this annual back in the day as a number of you probably did as well.
Great things about ten included being able to watch and understand more complex movies, having a bit more personal freedom as well could playout by ourselves so long as we we back on time for supper, being able to play more board games (no Playstation or X box then) and the music of which I listened to included stuff by Queen, Mud, lots of Motown and Phillysoul, Slade and the Tartan Terrors (aka The Rollers) that we talked about at recess.