The Wind Rises

It's Halloween here today but apart from having a ghoulish time of it tonight I have a new anime to watch.

A little different than most because it is very much about Jiro a Japanese aeronautical designer who worked for Mitshibushi who was inspired by the Italian Caproni who because he'd been nearsighted from a young age wasn't able to become a pilot joins the company in 1927.
He goes on to become one of the world's most innovative and accomplished airplane designers and in that respect this anime by Hayao Miyazaki is a tribute to him.
A seconary interest in this anime, unexpected and much appreciated by me watching it is the romance between Jiro and Nahoko who is ill with tuberculosis marrying her. Some of the scenes showing his love for her during periods where she was very ill are really moving.
The anime, chronicles much of his life time, the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923, the Great Depression and the entrance of Japan into war in 1937.
The film also explores the growing friendship between him and his colleague Honja.
While some have criticized this anime for being ambivalent on what Jiro designed, warplanes that were a important part of Japan's war machinery, the overall message is one of how war only brings down countries and anti war opinions are voiced.
Overall I thought this was a really good anime, a fitting tribute not just to Jiro but also to the director.

Happy halloween folks!

Ghoulish togetherness or Fall LG Camp

If anyone wondered why I was a bit quiet last week when it comes to social media and so on  it was because I was at a LG meet aka "Camp" for several days where we can all be ourselves for a few days although we had some planned activities organized by fellow attendees.
For me  it was a bit different as I spent a few days either side of camp ending at the one at the kind school with the Head Girl and First Former in full uniform to whom I travelled down with.
No need to fall off of the chair but the first time ever I had my nails painted  for the entire duration with help from a n other which apart from curing my nail biting issues also helped me feel more feminine so thank you for talking me into it.
The first day was more a meet and greet as we arrived in the late afternoon sharing candy and eating food (most had Indian takeways but GHS did their own catering) and games.
On Friday thanks to Y.T and the Bear, we had oatcakes and bacon with breakfast, had a Halloween  themed Fish and chip meal  that was ordered plus collected by a couple of attendees plus a competition for the best Halloween outfit so I had a Death Kitty black and pink netted skirt with skull and cross bones on with black tights followed in the evening by a ghoulish disco.
Also most attendees made Pumpkin Lanterns carving out ghoulish faces with knives that were lit with "Tea lights" but as I'm not good with those things I made this instead!

I'd had this set for a bit and took it with me to make as you can make three things from it so I opted to make a Helicopter.
Friday and Saturdays middayish meal was a hand prepared super cold meat platter with pork pie and  salad  people helped themselves to.
On the Saturday thanks to two persons, we had home made Pancakes with breakfast which was a choice of cereal and toast.
The "Sticky One" held a monster class where she gave a presentation about Monsters and handed out a task for completion,namely to draw a monster and explain all about it.
I drew "Persianous Cateious" who was a cat monster I imagined at the age of 7 who had bright yellow eyes,  who'd growl and tear me apart from under the bed with fawn and red coloured fur. As I explained the cat died of natural causes but it kept me  awake at night during that period as it scared me.
We were visited for the day by three long term friends who sadly aren't able to come for the whole time but spend the day with us which was kinda fun and two bought delicious cupcakes which I was noted to have eaten with fork and napkin most delicately so not to get it all over my clothes and face.
Also, as it had been sunny, a swing had been temporarily erected in the grounds so I spent some time swinging back and forth on it without a care in the world.
In the afternoon, one member organized a treasure hunt based around the Addams Family stories centring on solving the mystery of Who Killed Mrs Death (The Cat) with clues positioned in the building to find and read which when I found it were read with my obvious accent!
The Green Team created a lovely chicken roast evening meal with a choice of deserts from scratch. 
The Sunday was more taken up with packing ones case, tidying up the place for the people we pay to use it and saying goodbyes. Those of us leaving late had a meal from the left overs before departing and our group went back via a well known Black Country castle to school enjoying a takeaway meal together before I left for the rail station the following day.
Thanks to the Organizers, the littles who bigged up to do stuff like cook, tidy up, run events and fetch food and the GHS people for making it possible for me to attend such a hugely enjoyable event.

The Middle side of Little: Frilled in skater skirt with side pleats, I actually enjoyed arriving at camp looking more little and can 'own' being a bit  more frilled than in the past which is something for me and thanks to all of you for helping me find the confidence  from within to step out my comfort zone and what is more, enjoy it.

Cold smiles!

Would it surprise you to find actually there's something I do really love?

I first encountered this when I was chronologically little usually in folded over cardboard containers from the frozen food cabinet in our nearest towns store looking for something to have with our Sunday main meal.
Called Neapolitan Icecream, it has the strawberry, vanilla and chocolate flavours all in one arranged so when you slice it, you get equal portions of each flavour and it went well with jelly!
Just marvellous!

Tumblring Adventures

Another week goes by and while rather busy here, I have a couple of things to mention of which the first is I'll be off this next week for a few days minus laptop so I won't to making any posts or in chat on Tuesday.
The other is oddly enough my random jottings littles centric Tumblr appears to be taking off when it comes to followers being in the mid 50's so thanks for all there who do follow it.

Meanwhile and not entirely unconnected with some of the above, this was something I just loved doing at school way back when be it solo skipping or playing skipping games to rhymes in threes or more taking turns.
Such fun!
There will be a post next week placed in the scheduler but unfortunately it doesn't send links out via Google Plus or place them on DD, Tumblr or IK so you'll have to tune in around the usual time directly to this blog to see it.

Frilled edition!

A good good while back we had the Frill Free Edition now here's it's opposite!
Not something I usually talk about  and certainly never something you'll see peeking out all seedily on this blog ever but actually some of us do a bit of the frilly albeit in a restrained way possibly cos we're exploring things.

In my case probably more I just feel like sometimes being more girlie some of the time at least and something that is relatively plain with fully elasticated legs for a snug fit appeals more than some designs and I feel happy in them.

Plus I got a couple of pairs of these white frilly ankle socks to go with them and these do go just above the ankle which I prefer looking a bit more balenced with the skirt lengths I usually wear.

Teenbeat XV - The Beatles in mono

The genius of this entry goes back three weeks ago to September 8th at least in the UK as  that was when a rather special set of vinyl lp records was issued in both individual and boxed set form with the box set featuring a big book with a history of the records , pictures of tape boxes and naturally enough, the artists themselves.
It is also a follow one to November 2012's Teenbeat special that was timed to do with the stereo vinyl re-issues and how that slotted into my collection started in my earlier life.

The first thing to say is in this set there are 11 albums, the first 9 UK titles, the American compiled but later adopted in the UK Magical Mystery Tour and the new Triple Mono Masters compilation.
I opted to buy them individually as with a bit of searching I could get the whole set for much less than I anticipated and it's not every day you can get a set of brand new mono albums made directly from the tapes, the way they did in the 60's with not one jolt of digital processing involved.

An indication of the attention to detail in this set is the label above being a copy of the one used on the very first copies of the Please Please Me album from March 1963, the other UK original albums through Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club band have period Yellow and Black labels with the White Album (aka "The Beatles") and the new Mono Masters triple having dark green Granny Smith Apple designs.

This one being American in origin has a replica Capitol colourband rim design as original Capitol lps did back then. Originally the songs from the film were issued in the UK on two 7 inch singles in a book and the stereo lp was eventually issued in November 1976 for that territory.
The sleeve construction owning a few originals is the same although the way the glossy lamination is achieved is different.
The White Album has individual issue numbers stamped on the front to each copy and top opening slots for each record, the four pictures and poster just like the originals did.
I have just one of them left to arrive but overall these sound at least as good as in number of instances better than my originals such as of the UK Revolver or early 80's extremely limited edition mono issues (the so-called '81's) like my copy of With The Beatles while I've never owned the White Album and Magical Mystery Tour in their mono  forms.
It seems using the tapes directly and altering the sound slightly per track while making the lacquers used to make the records has given them a transparency that has never been on any previous lps and in comparison with the Beatles in mono cd box set  is lacking from that.
While not  much processing  to the tone was done on the cd box set, it's obvious some tidying up like editing and click removing  was done digitally when you compare the actual records to the cds but it doesn't undermine the value of the cd set for those who prefer that media.
Why mono? Because for much of 60's the final mix was done first to mono, the one speaker systems most people had taking a lot of care with the impact and critically with the Beatles they were present during that process.
In the UK All the singles from Love Me Do to Get Back were only released in mono so the original mixes were the mono ones although from 1970's many compilation albums featured only stereo mixes done later.
In so far as original studio albums go the stereo mixes were done later usually by engineers in a half hour or so with no input from the Beatles so these mono mixes were more what they wanted their fans to hear and there are a good number of significant differences  between them with Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club band sounding more finished, nay arresting as a listening experience compared to the stereo.
It's important to note the first two UK albums were not recorded with any aim of making a stereo record so much as using two tracks to fine tune the balance between vocals and instruments later on which why in 'stereo' you have that odd backing in one speaker, vocals on the other effect.
The final album in this series, Mono Masters is a triple album that has those singles with flip sides and other tracks not originally  released in the UK on album form from the original single mix of Love Me Do to You Know My Name from the b side of the Let It Be via such singles as I Want To Hold Your Hand, I Feel Fine, Day Tripper, Hey Jude and the last UK mono single Get Back. It also has the entire Long Tall Sally EP plus dedicated mixes made a projected EP of songs from the Yellow Submarine that were never issued given a separate lp side meaning if you don't need the stereo versions, the Yellow Submarine album isn't really needed as there were only two other songs that are on it by the Beatles and they were issued on previous albums anyway.
Like most people who bought it, I feel compared to the 7 inch singles the sound is that much fuller for having more vinyl space to accommodate the full range of loud and soft passages and low notes in this unique compilation. It also is more convenient too than flipping 45's every two and half to three minutes with the 6 sides covering fairly well defined eras in the group.

The records:
Please Please Me
With The Beatles *
A Hard Day's Night
Beatles For Sale
Help!
Rubber Soul
Revolver
Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band
Magical Mystery Tour
The Beatles (better know as the "White Album"**
Mono Masters.
*= Known to Canadians as Beatlemania with the beatles, the first album we had!
** not issued in mono in Canada and the States, ever.

This set slots nicely into my collection replacing a number of copies whose sound I wasn't so happy with and enabled me to remove a couple of albums whose contents are now totally replicated in better sound, generally tidying matters up.