A word for our Princesses....

Someone's been probably looking forward  to this entry, I wonder why?

A Tiara is based on a Crown being a simi-cirular band worn by females.
The type of Tiara  those of us who'd see ourselves as Little Princesses is derived from the Papal Tiara, a high Cap surrounded by three crowns that has a globe surrounded by a Cross signifying his authority during certain ceremonies.
Minus the globe, they are worn as a kind of adornment without indicating any specific rank by many women not least Royalty, a large collection being held by HRH Queen Elizabeth IInd of the UK and by many European Empresses, Princesses and Queens.
They general take the form of a circular or semi-circular band usually of precious metal  decorated with jewels being worn as a form of adornment.
In the case of old or rare Tiaras, a copy may be made for wearing while the original is carefully stored for security or insurance reasons.
In the twentieth century they were worn by relative commoners at Balls and during the 1920's the Flappers at their parties as well as being adopted for the crowning at beauty pageants.
Many little girls love wearing them at parties as the 'Princess', something I just love.

School girl tech

Every modern young lady I ever met had some interest in music  whither or not it was just about the look and fashion of the artists, just singing the songs and usually some way of playing our favourite music.
Obviously with changing times, what it is we have changes as some products come to the end of their lives and others replace them and so while I was infatuated at one time with reels of tape, also I was an early adopter of the Japanese craze of the MiniDisc although that technology has come to something of a dead end with the discontinuing of recorders.

I have had personal digital audio players using either downloaded albums or home made copies, not least the Sandisk Clip Zip of which there is a feature on this blog but they didn't quite match the best of my portable MiniDisc machines as modern players are designed more about maximizing running time between charges rather than fitting the best possible  sounding electronics and that still left the question of playing music on them through a regular stereo a bit messy.
Like why would you want to fire up a computer to just play something?
I had considered a number of ways around this over the last year and very recently I obtained what is proving to be the answer.

Enter the Fiio X3.
It's a digital audio player for sure but it is designed from the ground up to sound really good starting with using the same chip to convert the zeroes and ones of digital to analogue sound  as a £400 separate cd player and a very high quality headphone stage that cures at the outset the problem of not enough of and the failure to reproduce fully, the sound even from iTunes or better quality Mp3 albums.
Then there is the fact it also plays not only regular 16 bit lossless (Flac) downloads and home copied files equalling the full quality of a cd, it plays 24 bit better than cd ones too (192/24 being its limit) and it sounds on headphones better than many separates.
In the UK you can by cd and better than cd  quality downloads from Presto who do Classical music and 7Digital as well as the French Qobuz company for much else like Rock.
Compared with the ClipZip, the display has much better resolution, nearer a cellphones and isn't as restricted to the maximum number of pixels as that player is when it comes to artwork.
It has 8GB of internal memory but you can use upto 128GB micro sdhc cards too that might be pre-assembled by genre just like I did for the Clip Zip and its cards worked straight off the bat on it.
The kicker though is it for once has a proper line level output just like a cd player rather than relying on a crummy headphone stage with it's built in restrictions, so armed with lossless files it sounds equal to or actually better than a dedicated cd player.
Throw in the ability to play from a charger while charging and you too can be listening in really high quality to all those files while being portable enough to carry around with you.
Finally I have that not just can equal but now surpasses my MiniDiscs!

Inspection time

Kind of a continuation from the last batch of posts, it's not uncommon for schools to rules especially those that are about School Uniform and how it's to be worn.
As is the case even now, the length of ones skirt, or the skirt portion of ones pinafore is something that's taken seriously to avoid immodest displays shall we say and this cartoon shows one method of ensuring compliance.

I can remember well a college lecturer explaining how every so often her Mom would have her kneel on the ground to check her pinafore wasn't too short.
As the cartoon text illustrates growth spurts could lead to situations when some fitted them better than others.

Pinafore dress patterns

Hi, Hi peoples after a few days with a really bad migraine,I suppose you can say expect the unexpected cos I'm feeling very little at the minute with a few chunks of memory temporarily M.I.A. after that.
But anyway I felt like posting a little about dresses (gasp!).

 Most of these patterns are from the late 50's and the 60's and starting from the above while all are really nice, two stick out as potentially me rolled back to the age, the bottom left plaid one and especially the lower middle one in blue with the red ribbon.
I'm not really into 'fussy' designs that probably has something to do with finding dressing at times difficult by myself.

 From the second picture top right panel, that blue dress with the bow looks more the kind of thing I could worn at a party, Alice style as there's just about enough 'pouf' in the skirt to make a pleasant change from school dresses.

 This next set is from 1964 and I think it's the blue one with the detail on the bodice and again I like how the skirt hangs on it.

 Same era and it could be either although I suspect the blue check just edges in with a classic cut preferring an A line to a tube shape.

Fast forward to 1969, and it's the one on the left, bring out the white tights and the ribbon and I'd be in seventh heaven apart from feeling definitely little. And little I am!

And there with have it with aid of missing bits of memory to cut out any internal fighting, I, Joanne, do admit to being a girl who loves dresses.
Darn it the secret's out!
Is there gonna be  a cry of "Can you please sow my button back on please?" next.

New Year Changes

Okay we can move on over to the post I truly had in mind for this new year although there's a kind of connection between it and elements of the other.
I mentioned about over the last few months and on at least three posts a bit around presenting, my self image and how that goes together.
One issue happens to be around having multiple closets going back to the period Bob McMan was expected to be a completely separate identity with it's own unique look, a time it has to be said that felt so sad as if my emotional side had frozen over.
Over the years parts of it had changed mainly the more casual and anything more LB got converted to LG but formal tops had stayed their even though it was obvious 90% of the time I was picking out blouses and no matter where I went, that really was such a non issue.

It's true I'm not supergirl, and do have a few problem areas in my life like putting things off and generally being indecisive for which I am presently getting help with, however this year I've decided on one thing.
The last remaining bits of Bob McMan's tops are to be gone and they have left the building for good being replaced by blouses such as the one above that I can wear with skirts, pinafore dresses and trousers so for all intents and purposes I have just one closet covering all my needs which is simpler.
Anyway yesterday the mailman saw me sign for a parcel with my nails clearly painted and wasn't bothered at all.
I don't need anything else anymore.

Our Gender Identity is real...

The post I had planned to make, the first of the New Year  is sadly of necessity different in the light of Lehlah Alcorn's death, the circumstances that lead to her suicide (refusal of family to accept her transgendered identity seeing it as 'sinful', her forced participation in so-called 'corrective therapy' organized by the Church her parents belonged to removal from high school for home tuition to further isolate her) .
I do feel strongly her parents have a lot of responsibility for how feeling she was of a different gender to that she was assigned to at birth, was handled leading to being so distressed that face a life of this, in the end she took hers.
Some indication of the extent to which her parents refused to accept her as herself can be seen in their instance that in death her death wasn't her's being reported as that of a male, that any reference to her transgender feelings and status expunged as if they weren't and are not for real.
I truly feel that unless you've been in similar situations dealing with parents who flat out refuse to accept what medical science and human psychology tells you about gender, physical attributes or sexuality that apply to you, you cannot begin to understand  how not just wrong footed but cruel ones family can be.
My own feelings are that had the actions taken by her parents been those by a Board of Education and Mainstream counselling services, an investigation would be opened and charges may well be bought.
My mainly Libertarian view point usually balks at bringing the Law into family belief and practise, believing very much in the state only becoming involved to defend the rights of individuals from coercion, this tragic event does pose the question should "corrective therapy" be permitted at the State level given the general view of those in secular practise who believe it is emotionally damaging?