The Smartphone and the child

It's been a rough few days feeling really rather off with a viral infection that's left me with a temperature, achy head and crazy tummy but as it is both Monday and a Bank Holiday it's time to do something.

Usually I've little time for Polly Ticks and all her  friends but one thing that is being talked about as the groan ups are getting rather noisy about a General Election is mobile phone usage.

That's because there does seem to be some evidence that high levels of usage are having a very bad effect on children's mental health feeding into anxiety, increased use in bullying and scams.

You may of noticed children walking past your home from school peering down at their smartphones oblivious to all around them coming back to school even though their peers have been in class with them while you recall walking home, talking with your mates.

Seemingly some younger people just do not feel comfortable even making a traditional phone call even.

That's one reason there is talk not just about regulation when it comes to what children can see at the end of their phones but dealing with the ever decreasing age of children having a smartphone of their own.

Apparently a quarter of five to seven year olds have their own in the UK, children who still learning to read and comprehend fluently, their are children on social media platforms who are underage - and accounts have set up by parents shockingly with fake ages.

The risks from being seen at that age a few years older than they actually are are considerable.

This is leading to pressure working within the political parties to effectively ban usage for children under 14 and in school.

It isn't a great idea from a safeguarding point of view for adults to be contacting children in school, some children may have restricted access to a parent or ongoing issues in families might put them at risk.

Any urgent message about being picked up, having someone to oversee them on return can be handled by school.

Younger children often don't understand that games often require things to be bought which can soon mount up, far too many children are being bullied by threats, pictures into behaviours that either put them at risk or lead to them wanting to end their lives.

A world where the corner phone box may have gone and many of us recall using doesn't mean a child cannot be give a simple call and text mobile phone to use if needed but a pocket computer with the internet isn't needed for that purpose.

Learning to just enjoying playing and socializing face to face before they develop the abilities to really understand how to navigate the risks as a well as the pleasurable uses of the internet it seems to me is needed rather more.

Time for a reset methinks.

The Beano Summer Special 2024

 It's May and something starts every year around this time as we move through Whit Bank Holiday not so far away and then we build up to the school holidays which takes us your time away whither or not it's a caravan park, seaside guest house or foreign resort.

Something needs to help fill that time that doesn't have batteries that go flat, internet connections that cut out, is in your language and you can easily return to.

For many of it was the Summer Special of our favourite comics, Tammy, Dandy or for a good many of us The Beano that we got and took with us to deal things like wet afternoons.

In the past they were just special editions of your regular comic with new exclusive stories but with the Beano in recent years there has been more of an attempt to program a theme across the whole edition involving many of the other characters and more fun activities.

This years is et more around the notion of a set of Pranks in Beanotown often at the expense of the adult  authority figures like Teacher from the Bash Street Kids, the Mayor of Beanotown, Walter's Dad or attraction bosses.

Here Dennis is working on something (he's ceased to be "The Menace") and like society today is more multicultural but it's still recognizably a child's world we enter and today's child would recognize where many things are but just a smartphone away.

And that's really the point, we enter that world again, the signs may be different, the Public Telephone isn't on the street corner but it's the basically the same so we enjoy our time.

I'm enjoying it.

Turn It On Again -reduxe

 Returns with a twist might of been an expression for what had we'd of been publishing at the time comes back now.

Way back around the mid ninties there were a series of catch all compilations for projects that came from the rock group Genesis, such as Mike & The Mechanics and Phil Collins all of which were issued on cd, the dominant format of the time, cassette and the new fangled for those outside of Japan, Mini Disc.

A MiniDisc itself looks rather like this literally a miniature disc in a protective plastic caddy that you insert into your player or recorder and reads offering similar sound to cd (Mr. Hifi Bore would get into a rant all about the evils of data compression, I'd say I'd struggle to hear it on decent equipment) and pre-recorded ones came in plastic boxes with notes and the like.

Genesis had been going for a long time, the late 1960's as a progressive rock group but by 1998 it was felt a compilation of their songs from 1973 to 1997 was needed for the casual fans who don't want to plow just under two hours of The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway just to hear The Carpet Crawlers and those who liked the singles of the era where Phil Collins took on lead vocal duties such as Misunderstanding and Invisible Touch.

Given by the point I'd got a home recorder and portable player for on the bus listening to over three hundred discs by 1998 I bought that the rather clumsy Turn It On Again-The Hits straight on MiniDisc as that point Emi/Virgin were issuing titles over here.

The world turns in realms of music reproduction as the lp record, very much on life support by the mid nineties is now selling more than the cd, the MiniDisc lives in semi retirement despite calls to bring it back since Sony discontinued selling discs and equipment.

This on May 3rd this year we for the first time get that album on double lp on something that there's no shortage of equipment that works to play it on sounding pretty good with the singles edits and the odd remix that were made back in 1999 so I have now that edition to enjoy just for the hits as much as I have many of their albums on cd.

Updating The Nows - Now Yearbook 1974

Into May and the Now Yearbook return to the past gets back to those pages we favour on vinyl going back to a year that has some parallels, extreme economic and social disruption plus a general election (if you were around you might recall we had two) and while the grown ups were getting worried about the "State of the Nation" we were playing, reading our comics, playing our records and enjoying Vision On.

Getting back to this, we have a record with some 48 tracks, all but one a substantial hit almost the equivalent of four of those cheesy cover girl Top Of The Pops albums that had remakes of all the hits, pressed on three lumps of green vinyl but sadly lacking the informative booklet of the cd version

 

Record One opens with  ‘Killer Queen’ that was first Top 5 single for Queen, and followed by the classic ‘Jet’ by Paul McCartney & Wings the second second from his latest album, and the still breathtakingly original, and hugely influential ‘This Town Ain’t Big Enough For Both Of Us’ from Sparks. This is followed up by run of ‘glam rock" from Sweet and Roxy Music, and including #1s from Suzi Quatro, and the years’ biggest seller ‘Tiger Feet’ from Mud, before closing with Slade’s ‘Far Far Away’. 

Flipping over to side two we start with Elton John with ‘Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me’, before some of the years biggest Rock hits, including ‘You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet’, ‘Radar Love’, ‘Dance With The Devil’ and the Faces ‘Pool Hall Richard’ before concluding with ‘Mike Oldfield’s Single’ – the ‘theme’ from his iconic album ‘Tubular Bells’. 

Record Two's first side is packed with huge hits including 6 #1’s - with chart-toppers from David Essex, The Rubettes, Alvin Stardust and Paper Lace, plus a huge hit from Pilot the Scottish group that promised much and the first Top 3 single for the Bay City Rollers with ‘Shang-A-Lang’. 

To my delight 1974’s biggest selling singles act were The Wombles, and their debut ‘The Wombling Song’ is up next along with the #1 global smash ‘Kung Fu Fighting’ from Carl Douglas inspired by the cult films and sport, before ending with the Reggae-Pop #1 ‘Everything I Own’ from Ken Boothe. 

1974 was a landmark year for Soul music, and it included the first global ‘Disco’ smashes and fittingly this is given a side to itself kicking off with with Barry White’s #1 ‘You’re The First, The Last, My Everything’ before a run of iconic floor-fillers from The Hues Corporation, Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes, and a further #1 ‘Rock Your Baby’ from George McCrae. 

We conclude this side with four of the greatest Soul ballads of all-time from The Isley Brothers, Aretha Franklin, Diana Ross & Marvin Gaye and ‘You Make Me Feel Brand New’ from The Stylistics. 

Record Three kicks off with the title track from the year’s biggest selling album, ‘Band On The Run’ from Paul McCartney & Wings – followed by the iconic ‘Candle In The Wind’ from Elton John, ‘I Honestly Love You’ by Olivia Newton-John which was her first US #1, and the amazing ‘The Air That I Breathe’ from The Hollies, before a run of four songs: John Denver’s ‘Annie’s Song’, ‘She’ from Charles Aznavour’, ‘The Three Degrees with ‘When Will I See You Again’ and ‘Sad Sweet Dreamer’ from Sweet Sensation – all of which hit #1 in 1974. 

The final side of Record Three is an eclectic line-up of pure Pop heaven led by the number ones ‘Seasons In The Sun’ from Terry Jacks and ‘You Won’t Find Another Fool Like Me’ from The New Seekers that charted in December of 1973, and including Stephanie De Sykes, 10cc, and Lulu with ‘The Man Who Sold The World’, featuring David Bowie on backing vocals, before a second appearance from Sparks with ‘Amateur Hour’, plus Cockney Rebel’s ‘Mr Soft’, and Leo Sayer closing out this collection with his debut hit ‘The Show Must Go On’.

As you can see this is a very comprehensive selection of hits, many of which I certainly recall gathered up from the original recordings in the media we were brought up on.

Recommended.