GHS Halloween special 2023

Today's entry will be work in progress as normally a blog is written before publication date and as I won't be around until late Sunday today's entry won't be fully prepped until later on today.

This is the most spookiest time of the year where around this neighbourhood we decorate our gardens with all manner of ghoulish from lanterns made from Pumpkins and massive spiders webs ready for parties which is where I've been for the last few days.

An interesting take on decorations of which there were a good many around the venue in places you might not of noticed.

All having arrived by around 1pm BST on Saturday we had a homemade burger before starting on the treasure hunt finding well hidden candy cones - one was in in the bonfire! -  with the aid of clues.

After that we decided to make our lanterns ready to light in evening, that bit did prove more a challenge given the weather but everybody put a lot into it.

*Photographed in spookyography.

Some used templates to make cats' -how apt! - and they turned out well.

After painting the halloween gingerbread with icing it was time to light the bonfire and start the fireworks show.

Unfortunately it was raining hard so we had to stay in a gazebo to keep dry apart from two that went to an adjacent greenhouse.

The rain caused a few issues with a couple failing to stay lit but when you saw spectacular effects like this it kinda made up for it.

We had a diy buffet meal with everybody bringing or making something toward it which was delicious and then a quiz with a general knowledge and music sections with clues which was fun.

There was much talking around various things until around 2am BST when miraculously we lost an hour and I got to sleep facing the fire. 

Sunday morning we all emerged for losing that hour and had a smoked bacon sandwich before going to the pub for a meal where I had turkey roast, sticky toffee pudding with cream and a pint of orange as I don't do alcohol.

We mainly walked back before sorting upcoming meet ups together for next year before making my way to the train station to go home.

A splendid time was had by all and thanks to Miss Green, Andi  and everyone for a great time together.

You can't argue with a storm

It's been a wild and wooly week in the week before I'm away for a couple of days with very strong wind requiring bins to be rescued before the heavy rain landed causing some localized flooding here but major issues not so far.

For instance at my older brothers farmhouse on the North Shropshire/South-east Cheshire boundary a nearby river burst its banks across one of his fields and flooded the stable block where the horses and crazy pony live and they sandbagged the doorways.

Trainlines were affected too with the Transport for Wales service from Crewe to Mid Wales, the Crewe-Chester line  and Stafford via Rugeley on the Trent Valley to Walsall all off due to flooding.

This was central Stafford on Saturday by Riverside and in the Black Country one person travelling in Wombourne got stuck when the Ford flooded.

Apart from concerns to peoples welfare in the aftermath of the storm, one hopes the train network can be restored as although most of my route avoids the most affected areas it's possible a speed restriction may be in place between Stafford and Penkridge later on the week when I'm off.

New -old things and that

 Hello there.

It was apparently as I hadn't been born then 65 years last Friday that that iconic BBC tv children's show Blue Peter first began and so on friday's show they looked at past shows and presenters most of whom were known to me ever since I first watched it.

Henry the dog was as good as gold throughout the show as makes and challenges were performed before the cake was cut.

Monster Fun in all its ghoulish fun is being enjoyed here as is the Beano which is actually the oldest  British in production comic even though the life of a child has changed in many ways since the late 1930's and today apparently they don't "do" phone calls.

A few more records were cleaned across the week as some were not cleaned at the time and a clean groove is a prerequisite for clear crackle free sound from them as I played a few this weekend for the first time in ages. 

We don't normally mention the cd only Extra editions of the Now yearbook series only normally looking at the regular three lp version instead as for me handling and playing records is linked to the period but this is worth picking up as it has a great collection of glam rock, soul and pop which shows what a great year for music 1973 was.

Yes Singles and thoughts on the vinyl revival

There was a time when vinyl records were expected to be just a memory removed from shops as a new item with just few used ones traded more as mementos of the past in "Olde World" shops.

Equally many of us expected and went through the process of converting our record and tape collections to compact discs as I recall going on Friday afternoons with bags of records to part exchange for new cds or credits for any they held.

By the mid nineties I had just a few left usually where a title hadn't been issued on cd (some early Rolling Stones titles were not) or where I wanted mixes not issued on cd such as the stereo Beatles first four UK albums and the original stereo Help and Rubber Soul.

But in the main all new titles and back catalogue was now bought on the cd thus all my Yes progressive rock lps went for compact discs either regular ones or the audiophile issues on labels such as Mobile Fidelity and Audio Fidelity.

Things as you may of noticed are different today.

Your record shop has a lot of brand new records, not just old classic rock or soul but todays artists too because many have rediscovered over twenty years the vinyl record and buy them.

I haven't been immune from that virus having upgraded my record playing equipment and buying brand new discs and rebuying some favourites from the past, hearing more of the playing than I did back in the day.

That you see is where Yes Singles fits in, a single disc of single edits that capture them from 1969 to 1984 which is really where my interest in this prog rock band stopped as much as I did get Big Generator on vinyl in 1987.

The full track list is here and if you know this music, you can see why I'd want it.

1 Your Move (Single Version)

2 Starship Trooper: Life Seeker (Single Version)

3 Roundabout (Single Version)

4 America (Single Edit)

5 And You and I (Part One) [promo Radio Edit]

6 Soon (Single Edit)

7 Sound Chaser (Single Edit)

8 Wonderous Stories (Single Version)

9 Don't Kill the Whale (Single Version)

10 Into the Lens (Single Version)

11 Owner of a Lonely Heart (Single Version)

12 Leave It (Single Remix)

While some are not whole works - and with Yes some do run to over 20 minutes! - it reminds you of their achievements in their single forms that are otherwise stuck on many pieces of seven inch plastic so I got this on Friday, day of release.

It was cleaned before playing and it does sound great and just hearing Roundabout and Wonderous Stories on vinyl takes me back years.

Recommended  even if you may want Classic Yes for the full length versions of some tracks.

HK and the Millennium Now series revisited.

This may be a "wrapped up" edition but there's a few things going on such as the closure of Sanriotown.com and the associated email service some of us adored in the earlier part of this century where we could play games and talk about everything in the Hello Kitty world.

A few months back Now who gives many hundreds of compilations resumed a series originally undertaken in 1999 called the Millennium Series that covered 1980 through 1999 in two cd sets.

They decided logically to start at the year 2000 but strangely rather than having stand alone editions per year  decided to make each set a pair so we have have on the third and forth cds, 2001

I did buy a fair bit of music during this era but I never bought the Nows as much of the chart music they featured was Electronic Dance and HipHop which generally doesn't do much for me but as a reminder of what those hits were like and there are some I really did like it's a handy set.

On Friday the follow up emerged which pairs 2002 and 2003.

There is actually more on this set I do like although as before I tended to buy individual artist albums by people I liked such as Jamiroquai and Katie Melua so I can see this being played a fair bit.

One of the things I noticed in the early two thousands was the wide gap between sales between the most popular albums artists and what was in and promoted for the singles charts, wider than it was between 1971 and 1974.

It was the start of the TV talent show acts being pushed into the charts often by producers and labels owned by the tv production company