New old -annuals

Things are a bit better this week although the oldish Windows machine's being a little erratic in its operations so I'm doing a bit a pre-planning like posting any images when it feels like co-operating and finishing things off on the reliable Chromebook.

This week I found an old school photograph which would of been when I was thirteen and a bit taken with just a hint of the then popular diffusion with a soft wide apertured background that's noticeable for the short bob girlish style hair and baby pink v neck sweater with tie which clearly showed how I saw thinks back then, uniform style but not rigidly stereotypical.

Back then the gender divide was of almost Berlin Wall proportions not least in school so you might make your own arrangements for getting "in" with things the other sex alone officially were supposed to do be them sports, games you play or comics you'd rather read although because most of my sports were disability sports at least they were co-ed unlike most.

Even if you were lucky to acquire the comics or figure you wanted, chances are many may of gone by now so I was pleased to get this compilation of classic girls  annuals of the 1970's - the sort of thing some of us read - with stories we remember presented as annual.

Although this came out in 2014, I'd been looking for a copy for ages when I found a store with a copy in and got it.

Given the heavy rain of late, it's just the thing to cheer me up.

A tribute to Bernard Cribbins 1928-2022

 On Thursday it was announced Bernard Cribbins died who was major part of our childhood.

Born in Oldham, Lancashire he got into acting at the age of fourteen, then like many was called up during WW2 in the parachute regiment before resuming.

I'm going to ignore the grown up acting he did and leap to one of several comedy records he recorded for EMI produced by the legend that was Sir George Martin whose UK Label Parlophone had dance band music and comedy before an infectious Liverpool foursome called Beatles kickstarted the British Invasion.

That gem, looking at the never ending work that started from one task was released in June in Canada under Paul White's reign who also put out the Beatles way before Dave Dexter did in the States.

In Britain, this was one of the staples of the children's requests show Junior Choice for many years.

Doctor Who is a BBC TV series that is a global sensation with a long history that was popular with children and he took part twice in it.

With the Daleks in 1964

With David Tennant.

The Wombles were superstars in the 1970's and returned in more recent years and he provided the all the voices for the 1973/5 series by Elisabeth Berrisford.

They were filmed by Filmfair in stop motion by Ivor Wood and Barry Leith who gave us many more favourite cartoons.

In Britain, he was a staple of that much missed BBC show Jackanory where across several days leading actors and actresses read stories with vocalization to children.

Here he is as one of the actors tackling J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit in 1976.

He tackled the whole of Jane Aiken's Mortimer's tales and actually he appeared more than a hundred times, the most appearances on that show ever.

There is something quite magical to just being sat listening to a story being read with no big visual effects as you create that world in your head and for many of us he was part of that.

None of us can forget that classic children's film The Railway Children from 1970 where he played Albert Perks, a modest station porter in the North of England filmed on the Keighley and Worth Valley preserved steam railway in Yorkshire.

It is out on Blu Ray and well worth seeing.

Bernard was everywhere and someone whose performances played a big part in our lives so we'll miss him as he reminds us of our lives not least our childhoods.

Summer Fun with The Beano

While I take a bit of a break with the weather being all over the place anyone looking at their calendars and diaries bought just before Christmas and fingers being crossed I do get to get away this year will sense Summer is almost upon us. 

Summer in times gone past meant we bought or were given things to help us as kids pass that time away and in the heyday of The Comic that tended to mean a deluxe full colour expanded edition with all new stories.

Well, it's that time of the year again and so the sole survivor on the street of the comics some of us were brought up with returns with its special edition.

It bills itself as a Summer Activity Special which gives us a clue as all modern comics have a social side not just a collection of new individual comic strips but incorporating fun things to do giver like stickers to stick anywhere you wish, joke pages, quizzes and competitions as part of the mix.

Like modern Beano Specials like the annual and past Summer editions, this runs with a seamless storyline, this year seeing everyone going on a school trip of a lifetime, with a creepy castle, missing jewels, a mysterious monster, all served with twist in the tale!

Unlike some years they haven't dispensed with the individual page strips for Rubi's Screwtop Science, Minnie the Minx, Dennis the Menace and naturally enough the Bash Street Kids whose coach they are all on although there are some common pages.

Nobody has got an older over the years although we are clearly in 2021 and not 1971 and the world the modern girl or boy inhabits for whom this is really aimed and perhaps some of us remain.

The end of the Catalogue

Things don't always stay the same even though you may of thought they'd never be a day they would but this week it was announced that it would.

The Argos catalogue ever since 1973 has been an institution tracking all that we thought was needed for the modern consumerist society with items coming and going over time but always there.

For a long time it was essential because it held the item numbers with seven digits such as 1**/0*** that we needed to write on a slip of paper we handed in at the store for your item to arrive after waiting for "Customer 430 to our collection desk" as the item would come down for us to collect.

Of course the modern world added computerized ordering from a online site to it but for a good number of us just doing things old school was quick and easy but as people cannot hang around in vast busy stores and many people seeing trying to use the high street with Covid restrictions as too much of a faff are just ordering online.

That has lead Argos to say the last one will go from stores buy January 2021.

 For many of us we dashed to get a copy and circle the stuff we wanted like a Strawberry Shortcake dolls and leave it for parents and relatives to find sharing thoughts with others a ritual that will end with the catalogue.

It's possible a Christmas offers leaflet may emerge although to be honest I find paper catalogues much easier to seach for things in than online ones such as Amazon's.

R.I.P Argos Catalogue

Summer Specials edition

This week as we're a little more able in England to get about and we're into the Summer that staple of childhoods not least when you were away on vacation comes around, the comic Summer Special.

For of us who have been around a bit, the Summer Special had a bigger print size, was printed on luxurious glossy and was often in full colour so it was the thing you bought first after arriving into the town you were spending that time as a child.

For me it was the Beano although I did get the Dandy too because that was the main weekly comic I had so you knew the characters and the sorts of things that might happen within them.

As has been the case with most recent editions, the Beano one is set in Beanotown, where all the characters from the individual comic strips live and this one takes one plot that involves all the main cartoon strips.

The plot this year revolves around the Ban by the Mayor of Beanotown, who is Walter the softies Dad on Pranking following an incident at the launch of Beano Bucks, the towns new currency and the attempt to overturn it by Beanotown's children.

This has been well put together so the plot runs seamlessly across each separate cartoon strip and a few joint panels.

The Summer Special is rooted in the current comic so while featuring such staples as Dennis The Menace, Minnie The Minx and Rodger The Dodger that many of us recall it also includes Bananaman and Rubi, JJ and Pie face which is about as PC as it gets with a female wheelchair user, and Afro-carribean character included.

The older series are as I think I have said before are more toned down and the Demon Whacker absent and the Bash Street Schools teacher doesn't even carry a cane never mind threaten to use it reflect the regular comic as it is in 2020!    

All in all I would say as much as I am a Beano traditionalist, this years Summer Special is really well put together with quizzes, games and stickers to keep the young and the young at heart happy this summer which is what matters.

By way of contrast this years Dandy Summer Special is aimed more at those who grew up on the regular comic that was discontinued in December 2012 with choice high quality reprints but with a few brand new strips of the old favourites to keep us amused.

 Continuing the fast forward to the past theme, I recent acquired this 2006 cd of the 1972 T. Rex The Slider album which was one those things together with the summer specials I remember quite well having the lp which featured the hit singles Metal Guru and Telegram Sam.

The Herbs

Last week wasn't the best in terms of weather with Storm Brendan battering away for  couple of days with added heavy rain so with this so far having the coldest weather this year due I do have a few things to do  should it be too icy for me to be on foot.

 The Herbs were an late nineteen-sixties cartoon put together by the same people as Paddington Bear and indeed was written  by Michael Bond himself that I always loved for the  stories of the animals named after herbs such as Parsley the Lion and Dill the Dog and Sir basil and Lady Rosemary.
It doesn't take much for me to start singing:

I'm a very friendly lion called Parsley,

with a tail for doing jobs of every kind,

but I mustn't treat it roughly or too harshly,

for it's such a useful thing to have behind.

 I picked up a couple of dvd's of the show that do play in the Blu Ray machine to watch with Gordon Rollin's narrating when it's too bad to be out.
It can live with my Paddington, Ivor The Engine, Clangers,80's  Dangermouse and Bagpuss discs.

Preparations for Xmas

In what will be the second post before Christmas Week, apart from nom'ing the advent calendar day by day counting down to the Twenty-fifth my mind has been looking back a little around what this time of year used to be like.

One thing I did include was apart from the usual Saturday shopping stuff like fresh fruit and  veg from the market stores as we bought food loose together with visiting the butcher and fishmonger, we tended to get things specifically for Christmas in.
Travelling with things featuring decoration on the back seat next to you as for much of that era, we didn't "clunk, click, every trip" and use seatbelts was common place as was having a Christmas tree situated between you and a sibling.
If we were good we might be taken to select the toys we wanted for Christmas having seen the catalogues at the local toy shop and department stores like Woolworth's with that years specials.

 Another thing is what happened yesterday when I saw Santa Claus going around thanks to the local Round Table, collecting for the needy and also you saw him in stores which kind of made me wonder how come he gets everywhere?
Usually they inquire as to how you been - did any of us say we've been bad? - what you were looking forward to before you got a present.
You also may get cards for the school christmas post which you'd write up.

Children's Magazines

Although the weather has been lousy for most of the week I do get out rather than living life behind a screen, interacting with people and that means at the very least I get to go to the general store and newsagent quite a bit.
I had been looking for a while at comics and magazines aimed for children are both displayed and also the kinds of content because in the time I've been on this planet things have changed, something prompted a little by last weeks post.

 This kind of display should be familiar to most Britishers, usually a few levels high with the children's magazines toward the bottom in a dedicated sub section, titles battle it out for supremacy especially as when here one or more is stack just above the other, limiting exposure of the cover.
One of the first things you'll notice is the cover mounted usually plastic gifts and because of the whole comic or magazine is then covered in plastic.
The first thing to say is those mounts make the display harder fit in the racks and this makes it harder to be seen by children who contrary to popular opinion aren't super tall.
The other is the return rates for most as they're sold on "sale or return" is quite high no less than 35% and often higher then them means the plastic gifts need to be recycled or otherwise disposed of as ultimately at children's homes they also do so it isn't really helping the environment.

 Often publishers have a different idea of the age range they are catering for and for example when I scanned through Nat Geographic Kids this Saturday, there wasn't anything that would really appeal to a child of nine or older - the last years of Junior School to thirteen plus as while animals featured it was more quiz and simple fact centred as if they expected that age group to pay for and read the 'adult' National Geographic magazine.
As with some other magazines around say Soccer there wasn't a lot that might stretch a child's reading ability and vocabulary in the that in the past adventure comics would promoting understanding of ideas and rules.
It just seems to me there doesn't appear to anything that filled the void left by the celebratory and Tv centred Look In of the nineteen-seventies and eighties where intelligent well written pieces around topics can be found mixed in with fun for those over eight but not wanting an adult publication.

Summer Special edition

After all that groan up election stuff on Thursday and the counting bit yesterday let's get back to more agreeable matters shall we?
As we head toward the end of May, we move from Spring into Summer which usually in this country tends to bring warmer weather and lots of Sun, indeed you might remember from last year we kind of over did it with temperatures in the high 20 degrees C range for a long period.
Summer in the UK is marked by the start of school holidays that usually start around the third week of July and run for typically 8 weeks which makes it a highlight of your childhood years and depending on age and in some cases districts marks such milestones as graduating to Juniors or moving on to Secondary schools at 11+ and college/uni at 16 and 18 respectively.
Something else generations of britishers also looked forward to was the publication of unique Summer Specials of their comics that came in full colour on better magazine quality paper with a binding.

They were and are almost like miniature annuals, which are a staple of childhood Christmas's  over here with special cartoon strips, games and things to do in them that you'd pick up before you went off on your summer holidays.
The company D C Thomson are a well known Scottish print media magnet printing magazines, comics and newspapers and two comic titles they are known for is The Beano and The Dandy.
Recently I got my copies of these two Summer Specials.
The Beano is a current comic, read by today's children as well as sizable number of adults who are continuing a enjoyable interest from childhood aimed at both girls and boys  whose cartoon strips have changed by the times with some old ones discontinued for new ones and some changes within the older ones to reflect more the society around today's children.
Thus it features such long established series as Dennis the Menace with his dog, Gnasher, Minnie the Minx, my heroine and the Bash Street Kids set in a working class junior school together with newer ones such as Rubi JJ and Pie Face that feature disabled children and people of colour in an attempt to be more 'inclusive' and all are drawn especially for this years summer special.
It has stickers, games and quizzes too clearly aimed at today's children.
The Dandy's is different because it is no longer published weekly and like the Annual is aimed more at those who remember reading the Dandy as I did as a kid and so has decided to make it a compilation with illustrations of some front covers, of some vintage comic strips featured in past summer annuals.
Reading that does bring back past memories and really childhood nostalgia is where this one is aimed.
Two annuals aimed at different markets all a great summer read.

The Put 'Em Rights

While my BFF was away in sunny Scotland, I was doing something rather different really apart from having a laugh on well known children's authors website.

There are some books written by Enid Blyton I'm familiar with because I read them when I was in first childhood either owning or borrowing usually from girls and others because she was most prolific author I am not .

The Put 'Em Rights comes under the latter although the subject matter is something I am very familiar with which is travelling preachers usually of a evangelical sort who come as the name suggests to galvanize people to action around social or moral issues of the day.
In this particular story it's the impact of travelling gypsy preacher  who inspires Sally, a Ministers daughter, to form a group of six children to do "good works" in their village of Under Ridge after a meeting on the village green.

In modern parlance they act as Social Activists, attempting to put situations right such as a dog being physically and emotional maltreated, a woman with a dirty house and equally dirty baby, a family facing eviction and anther facing lack.

What they discover in their eagerness is often situations are more complex than they originally thought and also less clear-cut such as the mother has a mental illness - depression - the family facing eviction are not only being evicted by the father of one of the boys but for theft which when they get further into it is a father taking the blame for what a severely mentally disabled boy has literally taken a shine to, oblivious to the notion it is theft being in human terms more like a magpie from that point of view.

What is more and I feel is one of more worthwhile aspects to this story is while they start of on the basis of changing other peoples attitudes to the right they soon learn their own are not necessarily any better with Sally being impatient and self righteous, Podge is well looked after but careless in looking after his possessions such as a bicycle  just assuming as they go messing or are stolen because he doesn't put them away safely his parent will just buy  him another, not appreciating the sacrifice they made in buying him them.
Amanda starts to realize she is really is very lazy and selfish being allowed to do nothing and get out of taking turns in helping.

Although Enid doesn't say this (and forgive my C.S. upbringing  and background for dropping a religious point in) what she's alerting the reader to is the notion that caring for everyone else's values and attitudes without looking at your own first is foolhardy.
We may be better off caring about other peoples but working on our own, transforming those we encounter by it even if we may not be perfect rather than coming over as somewhat pious, lecturing others.

The outcome of this book is unsatisfactory in one respect, and that is underneath much of the plot is class attitudes and prejudice. 

Bobby is 'working class' his mother unusually for 1946 has to work as his father is in prison and he feels very much ill at ease with the other five middle class children who haven't struggled as he has.

He starts off being friendly with them, almost an equal but Sally's socially superior attitude starting from how she tries to stop a mother from spreading gossip only goads this woman into revealing the awful truth of where Bobby's father is as his own mother has been hiding it feeling this whole thing has just been a matter of the children playing "goody-goody" to make them feel superior. He feels crushed and for all their mixing he can only ever be with 'his own' although they do make up and share ice creams.

In some respects I feel rather than resigning oneself to your lot, Bobby would of better served by having those children apologize for how he'd been treated and encouraged to give breaking out of his social class a second chance and from that be at the point he is able to take advantage of his own abilities rather than in effect limiting himself because of what had happened. 

Although the ending could of been better thought through, I did feel this was a novel well worth reading.

*There are some alterations in this 1992 version - some of the essential social commentary is diminished although later editions are more altered as sadly the case with most of this authors stories.

Card games from the past

While I am recovering here from an infection and generally speaking not really up to doing terribly much, I was thinking back to some of the card games I used to play when I was younger usually with relatives.

That was a more a test of recall with a set of playing rules

Misfits was about sorting out the right parts to complete each character and then their were games like snap!
There have been themed versions, one of my favourites of which is this one:

 The Beano was the go to comic at the time, for some it still is, and so playing a game of misfits that featured the likes of the Bash Street Kids, Minnie The Minx - a heroine of mine - Dennis The Menace and his dog Gnasher was bound to go down well.

One could also play Happy Families as in this Victorian version
They all helped pass the time while having fun.

Peter Fermin: A tribute

(Picture credits: Kent Press)
It was announced on Monday, Peter Fermin, artist, puppet maker and the creator of Bagpuss and Basil Brush who worked with the late Oliver Postgate of Small Films had died aged  89.
Peter believed passionately in the appeal, the soul of traditional animated films and their puppets  feeling they had soul that appeal more greatly than computer generated icons (CGI) to viewers being more relateable.
There are many series he had a hand in of one one I feel on balance is the one most of us hold the greater affection for and that is Bagpuss, "a saggy, old cloth cat, baggy, and a bit loose at the seams" for whom Emily the owner of a shop that repaired and sold old things so loved.
Her affection for him remains a most poignant moving thing for me and many others who have seen the original series from 1974 with it's sepia toned introduction.
It would be a mistake to ignore his involvement in other series Small Films made  and that are fondly remembered such as the railway series set in Wales, Ivor The Engine, which no doubt was popular with boys or the Viking adventures of the Saga of Noggin the Nog.

 One which I loved to pieces was The Clangers from the early nineteen-seventies but with new series too  set on a small planet inhabited by family of small creatures called Clangers who share their life with people like the Soup Dragon whose Blue String Pudding and Green Soup underground.

The Clangers communicate in Clanger, a language using whistling something to which much to the annoyance of ones parents and teachers many of us used too and the series had a narrator who would explain what was going on while allowing the characters to communicate directly to us in Clanger. 
It was a peaceful co-operative space world so many of us loved in the era where man's space exploration was at its peak, eagerly followed by schoolboys and girls and also featured a musical tree that played music and an Iron Chicken.
These cartoons, in part Peter's life work were and are core parts of our childhoods I cannot say to hear of his demise doesn't make me sad, it does but thanks to digital media they live on able to offer something that more glossy more, commercially savvy series lack.
R.I.P Peter.

Cardigans of the past

I'm not too good this week with bad hay fever thanks the pollen count has been very high here but as I'm slowly getting things together for being away next month, my mind was going backwards in timenot least with Mom talking about life when Gran was around.

Way back then it was rare outside of uniform stuff to be bought any knitwear because the one source of knit was Gran who had  big drawfull of knitting patterns she'd show you and the all important measuring tape which as regular as clockwork would come out.
Gran had a lot of the Sirdar ones and actually this pattern but in a wine colour wool was one she did make for me as I preferred cardigans although they'd be prefastened by Mom as I'm not good with buttons.

Hetty Feather's Christmas

Seeing the weekend was somewhat wet  here I decided this was a good day for reading a book and this is all about it.

Hetty Feather is thirteen years and a "Foundling" that's to a say a resident of the Foundling Hospital for children of 'fallen mothers' where children are divide by age range and by gender.
It is forbidden for a mother to have any kind of contact with her children so any kind of link however unofficial is highly prized even if for both it may be punished.
Hetty is with Shelia who snores like a pig at night and other girls of a similar age where through an unofficial link she receives a present from her Mom which she keeps safe overnight knowing that all she will have on Christmas day will be an orange from Matron and Christmas Duck dinner that contrasts will with what they'd normally have IF she behaves herself.
That morning she opens the present and find it is a small home made dolls house but then Shelia sees red quite possibly out of envy and in the the ensuing melee tugs at it breaking and ultimately ruining it for Hetty.
Hetty is devastated and very angry so goes to attack Shelia on the head leaving a broken cut that the commotion needless to say bring Matron Bottomley out and Hetty hits her.
Hetty apologizes which is accepted but finds herself being escorted upstairs to a dark cupboard with nowhere to sleep and just a chamber pot which she is to stay missing out on her christmas dinner or indeed any dinner.
Fortunately for Hetty, Miss Smith, a Governor of  the Foundlings gets to hear of Hetty's situation from another child and manages to get permission to take Hetty out for Christmas w here she consumes a much needed turkey sandwich before every at Miss Smiths including some children she is looking after have Christmas lunch and play.
Through the dialogue around the other children, we learn Miss Smith takes a more liberal approach to managing their children, certainly not locking them in cupboards and allows them to play and generally be children although if are really naughty, they will be punished.
The children take a big part in the Christmas games such as Charades where through mime the other teams have to guess what the topic is.
Although Hetty is meant to be returned in time for supper, between Miss Smith and Hetty they decide if they're going be in trouble for being out for long it may was well be longer so they set out in time for Hetty to go bed being prepared to tell a 'white lie' to explain why they are so late.
As it happens Matron it appears isn't much for sharing presents being the worse for consuming  all the Punch, being fast asleep.
 Hetty gets ready for bed for having the best ever Christmas present she could hope for without having to explain a thing.
What is more, in that time a remorseful Shelia has painstakingly repaired the home made dolls house, not perfectly , but good enough to be enjoyed that enables both of them to move on and be friends.
Shelia has clearly  learned what upset Hetty  more was she attacked a symbol of Hetty's mothers love even in enforced absence just because it was something she herself didn't have.
What I think is the strength of this installment of the Hetty Feather series, is how Jacqueline tells the story, explaining from Hetty and the children's viewpoint how Victorian society blamed their mothers for being born out of marriage and whilst clothing them, starved them of affection and the right to be children just been seen as objects to be trained to be of service to others.

On the loss of a dear Aunt

Today's entry was not the planned one but as one increasingly realizes not every eventuality lends itself to such an approach not least anything involving people.
We received a telephone call on Wednesday from Mom's brother in law saying my Aunt who had been unwell for a period moving into a care home about five miles away for about eight months following a fall, showed that she wasn't really safe to be 'at home'  even with some supervision, had died having contracted pneumonia on New Years Day.
That didn't particularly surprise me as I had seen over a two year period when I visited her, a marked deterioration in her condition an her moving from limited informal oversight from family and neighbours to more formal careworkers coming in and a 'careline' being put in although she always looked after her personal hygiene and ate well.
My Aunt was one of the central characters in my life because I often visited her at least once a week if I was 'home' myself as it was a home from home where given the many issues and incidents on my weirdo family history that would break out. I go spending hours with talking about things as she'd try to settle me down from the drama around my home life having left often with a book, some money and my plushies.
She lived with her parents because she needed a some support although she worked for a good number of years at automotive factory locally until taking retirement and so that unit was in my ways an alternate family for me that did accept what we know would see as a more child-like regressive side from my teens and older.
They also spend a lot of time talking to me about pasts, my families pasts, their pasts and how we ended up where we did encouraging me to talk more about what was was on my mind and why it was troubling me.
This was a link I kept up for a very long time so outside of my regular at least once weekly  visits I go with Mom around birthdays and Christmas, chatting along the way with her neighbours and indeed it did get to me this christmas past as it was a ritual I missed from the previous year.
The one thing I know is I'll miss her.

Hurrah for the circus

There are things you may have and do feel like revisiting such as books you had for an awful long time and today I'm writing about one.

 I think the first thing to said is this was written in 1939 when people did really look forward to seeing a circus with animals and the understanding of how captivity impacts their lives was less understood than today where it is rare to see such an old-fashioned circus because we are that more enlightened. 

This is the second of the three stories centred around Galliano's Circus looking circus life for children where it is Easter and they are all at Westsea although they are due to move on to Liverpool which I'd presume is some way off as it is probably Westsea is either around Somerset or Devon, areas popular for holidays in the UK.

The story is told through the eyes of Jimmy and Lotta circus children where much excitement is caused by the arrival of tigers to join the circus who are kept in a double locked cage.

Jimmy is very much in awe of the tigers and is determined to snuck into them and befriend them from what he sees as their ill treatment while being trained by Fric and his father which he does learning to control them by body language and words.

In some ways this is a high point of the book because in modern english he's being like a 'horse whisperer' gaining their trust and co-operation without the use of whips and shouting at them.

The friendship between Jimmy and Lotta is under threat of being torn about by Fric, the tiger keepers son and helping hand who is spiteful and not averse to telling lies  which given it is 1939 would be said to benefit from a smack.

Just as they are able to patch up their friendship, Jimmy's beloved dog, Lucky suddenly goes missing that leads to Lotta going out on a daring mission to rescue him who had been dyed after being sold for five pounds by Fric to a crooked, shady circus man called Mr. Cyrano to use. 

She does this by getting her curly hair cut, buying a shirt and pair of boy shorts and impersonates a  boy to confuse everyone so she's able to rescue Lucky.

As a reward Mr Galliano gets her a black pony that she calls Black Beauty after the Anna Sewell novel no doubt that she learns to ride and perform circus tricks with that are incorporated into their Liverpool show.

Just as everything seems to be going so well Lotta discovers Lal, her mother is ill in hospital in Europe where they've been performing with horses and dogs and The little girl's father, Laddo, may have to go away to another circus because he needs a partner in his act.

As is often the case in Enid Blyton's writing she leaves how this pans out until the next book but we are left pondering just what will happen to Lotta and if she might have to leave this circus and everybody including Jimmy for another.

It's very much a rip-roaring tale that I enjoyed re-reading from my original 1973 Deans hardback edition even if today much of the background to the plot simply would no longer be permitted. 

Fall 2017

It won't be that long before the clocks go back, the last weekend in this month if I remember it right and no matter where you are in the UK, something is happening all around you that's pretty magical.

Playtime for me involves time out of doors, no not sitting in the garden with the Chromebook, actually going a bit further and without the all pervasive internet, walking, throwing sticks in the woods and fields here.

It's the fall and the more your outside the more you'll see although for many years I loved observing it on the inter-urban commute to work through the bus windows, wherever I work if possible I'd go into parks and gardens not just for peace and quiet but to watch it all change.

Depending on the species, the rate of which the leaves change colour and even fall off varies which used to intrigue me as a child making my way to Church around harvest time where the pavements glistened in the low sun carpeted by leaves.

Sometimes things get a bit nutty and it isn't Zee Zee's fault although his relations have something to with it as around now, you'll see the squirrels about gathering nuts to bury them and below it appears they've arranged everything that naturally fell making a  beautiful natural collage 

It's great to be out, eyes peeled to everything happening in nature.

Classical sacd round up part two

It's almost the end of the month so I thought I'd post an update on my collection of classical music Super Audio cds which all can be played on regular cd players too.

 
One thing you have to recognize is because the format is so much capable of more natural sound doesn't mean you'll ditch any or all your existing recordings as there always two elements involved: the performance and the sound.

 
Ever since the days of the lp record that elusive balance of the two is what as collectors of recordings we've looking for and there exists from those early mono taped performances from the early nineteen-fifties to the turn of this decade many excellent performances that may not be on sacd and some where for technical reasons they may be little point in issuing them.

 
This said there are increasing numbers of  excellent recordings from the analogue tape era being freshly mastered and new recordings critically acclaimed so you may be able to 'upgrade' which is where we start.

For a good while I had been looking for a great fairly modern recording of Bartok's ground breaking Concerto For Orchestra which I remember well as a handed down Mercury mono lp record when I was in my early teens where I spied this.

 
It's reissue of the original Quadraphonic (surround sound) lps from the Deutsche Grammophon catalogue of the nineteen-seventies that only got issued in Japan but whose stereo mixes were issued in North America and Europe that were much admired.

 Arriving only toward the end of last week is a acclaimed recording of Schubert's String Quintet in C Major D 956 from 2011 by the much loved Tokyo String Quartet who have performed in North America and Europe.

Schubert's "The Trout" quintet has been a favourite of mine for a long while and recently I bought this excellent modern recording which will go with my regular cd sets of string quartets and symphonies by him.

This one can be filed under 'filling a hole' as in the years of building my classical music collection I hadn't gotten around to getting a complete set of Beethoven's String Quartets and this set of recordings from 2005 through 2008 is one of the best recorded.
I was able to get this 8 sacd set in stone mint condition used for half the regular price which made it quite bargain.

Mozart and I got back a long time, to the period I often borrowed pre-recorded tapes from the municipal library and most of my Mozart colection goes back to around 1991 on cd buying the many discs in the Mozart Masterpieces set.

 
Included in that was the debut recording of a then 14 year old Anne-Sophie Mutter with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra with its then larger than life conductor, Herbert von Karajan of the 3rd and 5th Violin Concertos to which I had added two slightly later recordings on EMI by her of numbers 1, 2 and 4.

 
This set recorded in 2011 by PentaTone records is widely regarded as one of the finest coming with the very best sound available and even features a dvd where you see Julia rehearsing.